Category : A Collection of Games for DOS and Windows
Archive   : !CATCH.ZIP
Filename : CATCH.DOC

 
Output of file : CATCH.DOC contained in archive : !CATCH.ZIP
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C A T C H
If You Can!

(C) Copyright 1992 Colin Buckley
All Rights Reserved

Mailing Address:

Catch, If You Can
c/o Colin Buckley
151 Roxanne Cresent
Scarborough, ON
Canada M1V 4G7
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Introduction
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Catch, If You Can! is a simple but, action packed and addictive game that
everyone will enjoy! Your purpose is to catch baseballs hit by the batting
coach. You start at Spring Training and can work your way up to the Major
Leagues, although no one has ever made it that far!

Catch is shareware, allowing you to try before you buy, with a

very low registration price. Source code may be purchased as an option.

Catch's only requirement is VGA.

Catch supports the Sound Blaster through a Creative Lab driver.


Setting Up Catch
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The first time you play Catch, it will display the Set Up screen.
However, you may bring up the Set Up screen anytime by using "CATCH /S".

If you have a Sound Blaster, alter your Sound Selection, and select
the address and IRQ used by your Sound Blaster. Sound Blaster support
is provided by an internal CT-VOICE.DRV, I have used the most recent
version I could find. I myself own the original Sound Blaster. If
your sound card claims compatibilty with a Sound Blaster, then I don't
see why it shouldn't work. Sound Blaster mode requires more memory
due to numerous samples.

Now select your Input method. Even if you plan on using the default
selection of Keyboard, select the keyboard option since you'll have to define
your keys.

NOTE: Please note some keys are used by the game, see "Playing Catch" later
in the documentation for a list of these keys. You will not be able
to use these keys as intended if you select them as input keys.

Now select the difficultly level you wish to play Catch with:

Easy requires you to catch 50% of all balls hit.
Medium requires you to catch 70% of all balls hit.
Hard requires you to catch 90% of all balls hit.
God requires you to catch all balls hit.

I suggest you select Easy for now, until you are familiar with the
game and can control the catcher effectively.

Now your ready to play the game. Your Set Up will be save
automatically.


Playing Catch
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Catch requires 265 000 bytes of memory for regular operation, and
an additional 25 000 bytes for Sound.

The game will display the title, credits, and high scores in a cycle.
You may press ESC at any time during this cycle to exit back to the operating
system. Press your Button A key to interrupt this cycle and play the game.

You'll be presented with a display of the stadium's JumbleTron, with
the Wave Title, the Wave Number, and a Get Ready prompt. After a few
seconds, the stadium will appear.

You control the catcher (#8) at the bottom of the screen. Your purpose
is to catch the balls hit by the batting coach standing on home plate. During
the wave, the following keys are in effect: (providing you did not select
these if you're using Keyboard Input.)

P - Pauses/UnPauses the Game
S - Toggles Sound On/Off (Only during Game itself)
ESC - Returns you to the Intro cycle.
Double ESC - Exits to your operating system

The catcher can perform the follow moves as selected by your input
device:

Up - Catcher stands with glove above head in catching position
Left - Catcher runs left with glove at side in catching position
Right - Catcher runs right with glove at side in catching position
Up+Left - Catcher runs left with glove above head in catching position
Up+Right - Catcher runs right with glove above head in catching position
Down+Left - Catcher stands with glove at left side in catching position
Down+Right - Catcher stands with glove at right side in catching position

With Button A pressed once:

Left - Catcher dives left with glove in front in catching position
Right - Catcher dives right with glove in front in catching position

With Button B pressed held:

Catcher runs faster than the speed of sound, but even that isn't enough.

The Wave is over after the batting coach has hit all the balls. The
JumbleTron is shown again with your status for that Wave. If you
have failed to catch the percentage required by the difficulty level
you selected during Set Up, your Average will be shown in red and the game
will be over. If you have made the high score list, you'll be
asked to enter your name.

Wave difficulty increases every 5 waves. The Wave Title with change
every 10. There are 49 waves in total, no one has finished at any level
except Easy, without cheating.

The following is a list of how many balls are active and how many will
be hit by the batter per wave:

Wave Active Balls Number of Balls Hit

1..9 1 10
10..19 2 15
20..29 3 20
30..39 4 25
40..49 5 30

The excitement comes when past Wave 30, when the it's impossible
in most cases to get perfect (or advance to the next wave!). You'll
be diving every where, franticly trying to catch the balls and make it to the
Show. If by luck you make it to the show, you'll start all over again
at the next difficultly level.


Scoring
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Scoring is as follows:

Standing Catch - 1 000 Points
Running Catch - 2 500 Points
Diving Catch - 25 000 Points

Bonuses:

Catch - 500 Points
Make any catch and recieve 500 points.
Example: Catch 5 balls any way and you'll receive 2 500 points added to
your bonus score.

Consecutive Catch - 5 000 Points
Make consecutive catches of any type and recieve 5 000 points for each.
Example: Catch 5 balls consecutively any way and you'll receive
25 000 points added to your bonus score.

Perfect Wave - 100 000 Points
Catch all Balls Hit during Wave and recieve 100 000 points added to your
bonus score.
Example: Catch all balls and the coach offers words of encouragement,
oh, and a 100 000 bonus.


Shareware
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Catch is copyrighted software, however you are encouraged to copy
and freely distribute the Shareware version as long as all files are included.
Shareware allows you to "try it before you buy it".

Why register? Registration will ensure future games will be released
and with the same high quality. You are also supporting the entire Shareware
concept, without which, many excellent programs would not be available.
Registered copies come directly from me. I do not receive a penny when you
receive a disk with Catch from a Shareware Library, or download it from a
commercial information service, such as CompuServe, or from a BBS. In
most cases, it cost us money to distribute it.

Upon registering you will receive a registered copy and with your name
proudly displayed, all Shareware notices removed, methods of cheating,
and a "how this game was made" text file detailing every step and product
used. You will also be notified when new products are available if you
desire.

If for some reason you don't want to register Catch, but still
enjoyed playing it, then please upload it to a couple of boards in your
area.

Read "ORDER.DOC" for price and other registration information.

Source Code (Game Programming)
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Alot of people are interested in writing games, but not much information
is available on the subject. There are two conferences/newsgroups I follow on
the subject. Game Design on RIME and Rec.Games.Programmer on Usenet.
Rec.Games.Programmer is definately the place to be on the subject, and mainly
PC domminated. I can be reached in both for whatever reason.

This game was programmed in Turbo Pascal v6. C is not required
to write a game, although "they" will tell you otherwise.

I have decided to sell source code as a marketing angle at a reasonably
cheap price. Unfortunately, some of the code has been purchased by me
and can not be distributed. The code you will get will not compile
into Catch. However, I will include other PD/Shareware code equivilent
to what is missing.

There is minimal comments throughout the source, however, Turbo
Pascal is english oriented and VERY easy to understand.

What you will get and may use, but not distribute, written by me:

o The actual Catch Source code.
o A Unit to play .VOCs over a Sound Blaster using embedded CT-VOICE.DRV.
o A very fast VGA unit, written entirely in BASM (Built-In Assembler)

What you will not get:

o Text Display Unit (used to display Shareware Info and Set Up)
o Resource File Unit (used to store/extract all files in one .RES)
o Input Driver Unit (includes keyboard & joystick drivers)
o Memory Unit

PD/Shareware equivilent replacement code

o Text Display Unit
o Joystick Unit
o Keyboard Unit

What's still missing:

o Memory Unit (Replace all memory calls with TP's equivilent)
o Resource Unit (Read/write individual files)

Source code costs $20, in addition to registering the game. Read
"ORDER.DOC" for more details.


Disclaimer
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Catch is provided AS IS without any warranty what-so-ever. I have
placed our best effort into testing Catch, however, I do NOT promise Catch to
be bug free. I shall NOT be liable in any event for incidental or
consequential damages in connection with, or arising out of, performance, or
use of Catch. Use at YOUR own risk.

Catch has been played extensively on the following machines...

286-12Mhz with VGA
386DX-40Mhz with VGA & Sound Blaster
486DX-33Mhz with VGA

...with no side-effects.


Legalities
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Sound Blaster is a registered trademark of Creative Labs, Inc.
Turbo Pascal is a registered trademark of Borland International.

Other brand and product names listed are trademarks or registered
trademarks of their repsective holders.

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  3 Responses to “Category : A Collection of Games for DOS and Windows
Archive   : !CATCH.ZIP
Filename : CATCH.DOC

  1. Very nice! Thank you for this wonderful archive. I wonder why I found it only now. Long live the BBS file archives!

  2. This is so awesome! 😀 I’d be cool if you could download an entire archive of this at once, though.

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