Energy
System: The corner stone to all energy components without this the other energy
components are useless. This component however doesn't do anything by itself.
It has two properties, storage capacity and recharge rate.
Dreamstars is a space fighting game similar to games like Subspace and Star Control. In this game you will be able to build your ship from a list of components then you will be faced with various enemies. After each level you will get a new list components many of which will be more advanced thus allowing you to improve your ship over the course of the game.
In some parts of Dreamstars there will be help text on the bottom of the screen to help guide you.
At any point in the game, if you are using Microsoft Windows 95+, you can press alt-tab or alt-escape and the game should minimize. Clicking on the game in you applications bar should allow it to be restored without any problems.
The main menu has a number of items. To move between items use the up and down arrow keys. To select an item use the Enter or Space key.
The items in order are -
Your ship needs to be built from a number of components. Each component has a size and a mass. You only have 1000 units of size available so you are limited in the number of components you can add. Increasing your ships mass too much will make it slower and less maneuverable. You will need an Engine to give thrust and Jets to allow turning. While not vital Subspace Sails increase your ships maximum speed beyond 50 pixels/sec.
Adding an energy generator will allow you to add energy based components. The most important of which is a laser weapon. To customize the key used to fire a specific weapon simply select the weapon in your ship list and press the desired fire key. These weapons will allow you to destroy your enemies and get to the next level. Add a shield to help protect your ship from damage.
Lastly there is armour. This component is added to the outside of your ship and as such has no size. It does however have mass and each additional component added adds more mass than the one before it. There is a limit of ten armour components.
The ship designer is made up of five view panes.
The first one on your left is titled "Your Ship". This gives an overview of you ship and it's statistics as follows -
The central pane at the bottom titled "New Components" displays a list of components that are available to be added to your ship. The pane above it shows a description of the component that is highlighted or was last highlighted in this list. The title of the top pane will reflect the component's details that it displays.
The bottom pane at the right of the screen titled "Ship Components" is a list of components that have been added to your ship. At the beginning of the game this will be empty, as you haven't added any components to your ship. The pane above it is a component detail pane similar to the one in the middle except this one will only display components that have been highlighted in your ship components list.
These two details panes give you the ability to examine old and new components and compare them against each other.
To add components to your ship simply highlight the component you wish to add in the new components pane and press enter or space. To remove a component from you ship highlight the component in your ship component list and press enter or space. To move up and down a list use the up and down arrows and to move between panes press the left or right arrow.
Components with a + in front of their name can be stacked.
All components have three basic properties: size, mass, tec level. The Size of a component is used to restrict the number of components that can be added to your ship. The mass of a component will be added to your ships mass when the component is added to your ship. The tec level of a component is a basic indication of how good that component is; however higher tec items are not always better.
Engine: This component give your ship the ability to accelerate the higher the thrust property of the engine the greater the acceleration it gives.
Jets: These will allow your ship to turn. They can be stacked to give more turning power.
Subspace Sails: These increase the maximum speed your ship can move at. They are also the only component that isn't affected by your ships mass.
Energy
System: The corner stone to all energy components without this the other energy
components are useless. This component however doesn't do anything by itself.
It has two properties, storage capacity and recharge rate.
Laser: These components allow you to fire at and hopefully destroy your enemies.
These are the most complicated components and have the following properties:
Pattern -- There are three types of lasers: Parallel, Spread and radiating.
Parallel lasers can be split with up to 5 separate bullets but will always fire
in a straight line in the direction your ship is pointing. Spread lasers can
be split with up to 7 separate bullets with each bullet splitting at an angle
from those beside it. Radiating weapons have between 4 and 36 bullets that will
travel outwards from your ship in all directions such that the angle between
each bullet is equal all the way around your ship.
Delay
-- The number of milliseconds that you will be unable to fire after this weapon
is used.
Energy Use -- is the amount of energy this weapon uses up on firing. Be careful
with weapons that have high energy use and low delay as firing them will use
up your energy reserves very quickly.
Containment -- The number of milliseconds the bullet fired will last. This property
has a maximum of 4000 (4 seconds).
Damage -- The amount of damage the weapon causes on impact. Note that because
shields have a limit on the amount of damage they can absorb high damage weapons
will effectively have the ability to penetrate enemy shields.
Speed -- The number of
pixels/second the bullet travels. This property has a limit of 300. Note speed
of a weapon is added to the speed of the ship firing this weapon so a bullets
fired while moving towards an enemy when firing will be much harder to dodge
than bullets fired when moving away.
Shots --The number of separates bullets fired at once.
Fire Key -- The key used to fire your weapon. To specify the fire key of a weapon
first select it in the ship components list then press the key you wish to use
to fire it. You may only choose an alphanumeric key for this purpose. Be careful
not to select the same key for two weapons.
Shield: The shield component will help protect your ship from damage but only if you have enough energy for it to be effective thus it's ability to defend you is highly dependent on the power of your energy generator. It has two components: Strength and Conversion Rate. Strength is the strength of your shields, what this means is that you shields will absorb up to much damage from an attack assuming you have sufficient energy. Conversion Rate is the ratio of damage to energy that your shield uses such that each point of damage will reduce your energy by 1 * this percentage.
To play the game control
you ships movement with the arrow keys. The up will accelerate your ship forward
while the down key pushes you backwards. The side arrows turn your ship around.
If you have a laser and energy generator installed you can use your ships fire
key to fire your lasers. The default fire keys are D, F, S, A and G.
On each level there will be a constant stream of asteroids. While destroying asteroids doesn't add to your points and is not required to get through a level it is often a good way of testing out new weapons and it removes them as obstacles to movement.
There are two types of enemies you will encounter in Dreamstars. The first is a seeker mine. The seeker mine will move randomly around the screen until it gets close enough to your ship. Once this happens it will lock onto your energy signature and follow you attempting to collide with you and unload its' deadly cargo. Be careful no to avoid such a collision as it is highly likely to cripple or destroy your ship. The bigger mines while slower do much more damage than the smaller ones.
The second enemy is by far the most dangerous. This enemy consists of a laser drone these are fully equipped with energy systems, lasers and shields and will move randomly around the map shooting at you until killed. They are also smart enough to attempt to avoid you if you charge at them and will unload all there firepower if you get to close.
The aim of the game is to destroy all the enemies on each level so you can reach the next level. Between each level you will be given the opportunity to redesign your ship.
There are indicators at the top of the screen that allow you to keep track of your ships energy and hull (top left) as well as how much time is left for the level and your current score (top right).
Though the actual game play is not customizable I included the graphics and sound files for the game as separate files. All sound files can be replaced and taking a look at the sprite.ini file will give insight into my graphics engine and explain how all the sprites in the game can be modified. However do be careful to maintain the sprite sizes as the objects sizes in game are fixed so if for instance you made the player ship really big then other object would be able to pass through the edge of the sprite without colliding with it. All sprites can be animated though only the ship sprite has support for angles.
If you do create some really nice sprites or sounds I would be happy to add them to my web page for other players to download.
Dreamstarts is a freeware game that was created and designed by Jai Shaw.
Version : 1.06
Contact Email: Jai_overseas@hotmail.com
Webpage: users.interact.net.au/~pjgs/ds
This game was created to showcase my talents as a game designer/programmer not as an artist or sound technician grin.
The next game I create will be shareware so if you like this one then please visit my web page and keep up to date with future developments. Also if you find any bugs or have any questions or comments feel free to email them to the address above.
I dedicate this game to my most loved family and also add a special thanks to my friend Sheldon for being the there to bounce ideas off.
May there be well-being on earth -- Jai Shaw