Target Acquired
Peace has reigned in the Galactic Federation for almost a century.
However, the idyllic lives of two species were completely disrupted
when the human ambassador was assassinated by the Entomorphs. The
only possible solution is a one-on-one trial by combat between one
human and one Entomorph.
Congratulations. You've been selected to represent humanity. Your
superiors have provided you with the latest in starfighter
technology: the X-1723E StarBlazer. It is the most maneuverable and
best armed one-man craft in the Ten Thousand Worlds.
You'll need all the help you can get, because the Entomorphs are hive
minds, and they've sent an entire hive mind out after you...
The enemy fleet awaits. The honor of humanity flies with you!
- Controls
Arrow keys: Move
Space: Blast
Enter: Blast
Right bracket (]): Blast
ESC: Quit
- Targets
Sweepers: 150 pts. Kamikazes: 250 pts. Battleships: 1,500 pts. Hive-core ships: 5,000 pts. Local nerve nodes: Destroy everything on the screen and yield
double point values.
Extra life every 10,000 pts.
Main Menu:
- Engage the Entomorphs / Commence Grand Tour Plays a game of TARGET ACQUIRED. If the `Grand Tour' setting is on, then you will be invincible throughout the game, but you have no chance of getting on the high score table either.
- Momentum: On/Off If you choose to have momentum on, the arrow keys will accelerate your ship instead of moving it. You will have a slightly higher top speed with momentum on. Also, all shots from all craft will move left and right as the ship was when the shot was fired. When momentum is off, all shots shoot straight and the ship always moves at just under the maximum possible speed.
- Display Credits Gives the credits.
- See Best Acquirers This displays the high-score table.
- Read briefing Gives you the background for the game.
- Quit Ends the game.
Command line options:
The Windows version of TARGET ACQUIRED defaults to full-screen mode. All other versions will default to windowed unless FULLSCREEN_DEFAULT has been defined. To override this at runtime, use the --fullscreen (or -f) option to force fullscreen, or the --window (or -w) option to force windowed mode.
Background on the TARGET ACQUIRED project:
The original TARGET ACQUIRED project was done in 1995 by a bunch of high schoolers who wanted to build a space shooter from the ground up. We actually managed to do it, and it ran blazingly fast on a 386/40, in a reasonably portable VGA mode. It also only required about 256 kB of memory to run.
These days are long gone.
I stumbled across the old code I wrote, five years later. It didn't compile anymore, to say nothing of running on any modern machine. So it just stayed there, taking up space.
The version of TARGET ACQUIRED you now have is the result of me learning to use the SDL libraries (http://www.libsdl.org). The graphics and input interfaces have been changed to use these libraries instead, so now it runs on all machines. It also requires about 16MB of RAM to run comfortably, but that's a small enough price to pay.
SO GO BLAST THINGS ALREADY.
-- Michael C. Martin
31 August 2002