SPIN.EXE
Copyright 1995-1997 Ground Up Software
SPIN is freeware!
05/05/96
SPIN Version 1.33 Beta
Featuring VAT Version 1.16
and GUG version 0.70 beta
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What is SPIN?
SPIN is a single player shoot-em-up game. Your mission is to protect
the freighters from the pirates, to clear the freighter lanes of
the pirates, and to arrest as many pirates as possible.
Freeware:
SPIN is freeware!!! You may distribute it freely as long as all
the original files are included. You may NOT distribute it if
you make any changes to any of the files.
You do not have permission to sell SPIN for profit. However, we
do grant permission for SPIN to be bundled with Public Domain software
collections.
Running SPIN:
CD to the directory with SPIN.EXE
Type SPIN to start the game
SPIN supports a few command line options:
/sound disable sound
/music no music / Audio effects only
/quick for slower PC's
/joystick enable joystick control
/rate nnnnn sample rate (5000 to 44000, 11000 = default)
IE: /rate 22000 /joystick
/rate refers to the mixing rate for the music and sound effect.
If you set it too high for your computer SPIN will run slowly
and may even crash.
Suggested rates:
386's /rate 5000 to /rate 9000 or even /sound
486SX33 /rate 11000 (this is the default)
486DX2-66 /rate 16000
486DX2-100 /rate 22000
Pentium's /rate 33000 to /rate 44000
SPIN will load up to 30 MOD/S3M music files for background music.
These can be any MOD's you like. Copy your favorite MOD's and S3M's
to your SPIN directory. Remember that <F1> changes to the next song.
Playing SPIN:
Upon starting SPIN, you will be presented with a series of
title and information screens. Pressing the spacebar will take you
past each one of the screens and into the game.
Pay attention to the information screen that shows you each of the
items you will encounter in the SPIN universe. You will see
a picture of the item and a brief description of the item.
Also pay attention to the Control screen. It will identify the
keys used to play SPIN.
[SPACE] Fire Weapon
[ALT] Fire Weapon Backwards - Only on Advanced Weapons
<-- and --> Spin Left or Right
<W> Toggle WARP drive On or Off
^ and v Accelerate / Decelerate
Other Keys
[+][-] Set the music volume
[F1] Change to the next song
[F10] Clear stuck keys
[ESC] Quit playing SPIN
Items found in the SPIN universe can be collected by touching them
with your ship.
SCANNERS:
Long Range Scanner:
You are in the center (The purple crosshair). Objects appear
as colored dots in the scanners. Pirates are RED and they blink!
To fly towards an object point the nose of the ship in the
general direction of the object from the crosshair. Use the
<W>arp drive to quickly move towards the object.
When a freighter is being attacked by a pirate you will see a
little blue crosshair at the location of the freighter.
Short Range Scanner:
Again you are in the center. Watch for the object you are closing
on to appear in the short range scanner. Once it does press <W>arp
again to shut down the WARP drive. Steer the ship towards the item.
Fly over the item to collect and/or activate it.
BAR Indicators:
Energy Indicator:
Along the LEFT edge of the screen is the energy indicator.
Your ship can initially store 2000 energy units, indicated
by the WHITE bar. The colored bar on top of the WHITE bar
indicates the energy remaining. When it turns ORANGE or RED
your energy reserve is critical!!!
By adding addition storage tanks you can increase you capacity
to 6000 units. Look for objects in the SPIN universe that add
storage capacity.
There is also an alpha-numeric indicator of your energy status.
Speed Indicator:
Next to the energy indicator is a speed indicator. It shows your
speed from 0.0 to 9.9. It turns blue when you are in warp.
There is also an alpha-numeric indicator of your speed.
Other Indicators:
Weapon Indicator:
You will see an alpha-numeric indicator of your current weapon
type and the shots remaining on it.
Shield Indicator:
When you first start you have no shield, the indicator will
show an OFF status. Collect shield objects to increase your
shield's effectiveness. Higher values are better here!
Now go at it!!! Type SPIN and enjoy our little demo!!!!
-Neil
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What the critics are saying:
SPIN is awesome!!!! - Jerry
20 minutes into the future.... - MaxH
You guys at Ground Up are gods! - Brian
Blittin is overrated!..... - Eric
SPIN even runs on my slow 386! - Paul
Awesome, simply awesome..... - Andre
That's cool.............. - Bo
Ahhhh, Ahhhhh, Ahhhhhhhhh - Beavis
Like, cool...... What is it? - Butt-head
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Sound Problems?
SPIN expects to find a Sound Blaster compatible sound card. It will
not play music and sound effects on non-SB compatible cards.
If you do not have a SB compatable card run SPIN with the -s option.
I.E. spin -s
If you have a SB compatible card and you get no sound or music then
SPIN may not be detecting you card. You can assist SPIN in finding
you card by adding a BLASTER string to the environment.
For 8-bit cards try:
SET BLASTER=A220 I7 D1 H5 P330 T6
For my SB16 card I use:
SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5 P330 T6
Type in the SET command then run SPIN. If this fixes the problem
you may want to add the SET commmand to you AUTOEXEC.BAT
If your card is at a non-standard address/interrupt you will need
to change Annn or In to the correct settings.
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Why SPIN?
SPIN was written to demonstrate the capabilities of VAT and GUG.
What is VAT?
VAT is Varmint's Audio Tools, a Sound Blaster library for playing
music and sound effects in the background. VAT supports MOD, S3M,
MID, and WAV files, as well as FM, MPU, and Mixer control.
For more info:
info@groundup.com
http://www.groundup.com/vat.html
ftp://ftp.groundup.com/
What is GUG?
GUG is Ground Up Graphics. A library for mode 13x (320x200x256)
graphics. It is designed for Watcom 10.x 32-bit. It supports
compiled sprites, keyboard handling, joysticks and fixed point
math.
For more info:
info@groundup.com
http://www.groundup.com/gug.html
ftp://ftp.groundup.com/
Both VAT and GUG have been tested against the CauseWay and
DOS4GW extenders.
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