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Can you reach Astariel?

v 3.1.3 - September 15 2006

Astariel is a fun retro arcade game requiring quick decisions and even faster reflexes.

Blast your way through hordes of colourful and frenetic alien attack waves in a battle to reach your home world Astariel.
Astariel features a beautiful 3d lighting and an exciting 2-player mode using Mouse-Party™ technology.

An easy-to-play quest for world high score glory that should appeal to a wide audience, Astariel features
40 powerup crates to collect, 5 planets to visit and 150 waves of colourful alien formations to conquer.

System Requirements

P1.5 Ghz CPU
512 MB RAM
32 MB VIDEO CARD
DIRECT X 7.0 or higher
25Mb of disk space

On a Windows PC

Win XP (or higher) is required for Mouse-Party™ 2 player mode.
Controls

F1 - shuffle music
F2 - frame rate
F3 - display music track name
F4 - Two player mode
F5 - Toggle player readout

Use the mouse [or arrow keys] to control the ship.
Left mouse: Fire [alternate key is left control]
Right mouse: Shield [alternate key is left shift]
Other mouse button: Regenerate [alternate key is Z]

2-player Mouse-Party™ mode requires Windows XP (or higher) and a second mouse plugged into the computer.

A USB mouse can be plugged in whilst the game is running.
To use a PS-2 mouse, you must first turn off your computer before plugging it in.
If you are unsure which type you have, play it safe and install whilst the computer is off.

Advanced users: default key mappings can be changed via the Options»Input menu.

You can also edit the config.txt file to:
a) switch off joystick detection (1=on and 0=off) and
b) change the joystick movement speed.(accepted range is 1 to 15)
c) change the analogue joystick dead-zone (accepted range is 0..95)

For analogue joysticks, speed should be around 11 ;
for digital joysticks, try around 7.

Status [top]

Astariel is Shareware.

You can purchase the full version from www.gibbongames.com.

Music [top]

You can play music from your own mp3 collection within Astariel.

1 .Choose Options»Music»Select and then navigate to your music folder.

2. Press the "tick" symbol (it will glow green when valid music files are present).

Your music should then begin to play in random order.

Astariel Uses [top]

FMOD Sound System, copyright © Firelight Technologies Pty, Ltd., 1994-2005. sound library
Inno Setup installer
OGG Vorbis audio compression
Direct X 7 graphics and input libraries
Trinity encryption library by Andrew Wright
Bitmap Font Generator by Andreas Jönsson
Mouse-Party™, which is a Trade Mark of Reflexive® Entertainment, Inc.

Troubleshooting [top]

If you are having trouble running Astariel, or Astariel seems to be behaving incorrectly, I suggest you try the following:

1. Make sure you have the latest game version installed.
2. Make sure you have the latest video drivers for your 3d video card
3. Astariel requires Direct X 7 or higher to play. Chances are you already have it.
4. Make sure you have the latest sound drivers for your sound card.
5. If the game is running slowly or stuttering, decrease the detail levels via the Options»Display»Detail slider.
6. If the game is still slow, you can try decreasing the screen resolution via Options»Display»Resolution
7. As a last resort, uninstall the game and delete the containing game folder and all its contents. Then reinstall.

If you are still having problems, please send the error_log.html file to david@gibbongames.com, together with a clear description of the problem
and the system you are running the game on.

Astariel Powerups [top]

Single laser weapon powerup. You can increase the number of bullets fired (and thus fire rate) by collecting weapons of the same type as that currently used. Each time you do this, you also increase that weapon's damage.

Dual laser weapon powerup. Exhibits a weird flocking flight path when spawned in large numbers.

Triple laser weapon powerup. A favourite weapon for early in the game.

Fire ball weapon powerup. A decent mid-strength weapon.

Power Laser weapon powerup. Each power laser bullet is actually a cluster of 5 individual bullets. An excellent weapon at full power.

Heat seeking missiles. Heat seekers track down the nearest alien target. Invaluable later in the game when you accidentally pick up single lasers....

The Medipak. Heals your ship. If you are already at maximum life when you collect this powerup, one bonus life point is added to your maximum life. Watch out for medipak asteroids, which may contain a large number of medipaks.

The Slow Down powerup slows aliens to a crawl, making them easy pickings.

The Speed Up powerup does the opposite. Avoid where possible... and yes, I know these two are backwards!

The Autofire module. Collecting this allows you to automatically fire at the maximum current rate, just by holding the fire button down. This has the added bonus of energising your charge weapon as well.

Smart Bomb. A very handy powerup that obliterates all onscreen aliens. Make sure you are ready to grab the resultant cash!

This is the much sought after Invulnerability powerup. Collect one of these and, for a limited time, nothing can harm you. Differs from the player shield in that it also allows you to fire and shoot missiles normally. Collect one of these and go asteroid busting!

Points crate. Collect these for... guess what?.. extra points.

The Ammunition powerup. Ammunition is probably the most important stat in the game, since it powers both your weapons and your shields. Collecting one of these increases your max ammunition store. Needless to say, collect and buy as many as possible!

This is the Extra Life powerup. Collect one of these and your maximum life limit is increased, depending on your difficulty level. Don't confuse this with the replay powerup. When you die, this powerup will not invoke a resurrection. It merely, as the name implies, gives you extra life points to play with.

This is the Prophecy - one of the most valuable powerups in the game. For 45 seconds an autofire module is granted and fire rate is increased to the maximum possible amount. Bullet damage is, however, unaffected. A glimpse into your future...

The Damage Multiplier increases the damage done by your weapons. Collect one, and your weapon does x2 damage. Note that damage multipliers "stack", meaning you can achieve massive damage bonuses according to the number you have collected. Even though the number of damage multipliers seems to be capped in the display readout at 9, in reality the maximum is uncapped.

The Score Multiplier works in much the same way as the damage multiplier above. Collect one of these and every score bonus is double what it normally is. Again, score multipliers stack, but the score multiplier is capped at x5.

The Warp powerup accelerates your journey to the next planet. Can be invaluable in shortening the distance to the next shop, as well as a great source of bonus points. Watch out though, when warping in an asteroid field!

This is the rarest and most sought after powerup in the game - the Replay powerup. A replay powerup gives you a second chance upon death, restoring you to full life and ammunition without any score penalty. There is no time limit on this powerup. Once you find one, it is yours until death do you part...

Hmmm..... Looks nasty..... What could it be?

Have you seen this weapon yet? You won't find it in EASY mode...

The lethal Arc Laser powerup. One of the most popular weapons in the game.

Alien Technology. Probably the most important powerup in the game. Collecting these technology crates enables your onboard computer to decode alien technology secrets, to be installed as upgraded weaponry on your ship.

Mystery crate. What's inside?

Solar Eclipse. The upside here is that each eclipse collected acts as a score multiplier. The downside is that the lights go out...

Eject Credits. A malicious power-down. Jettisons your hard-earned cash back out into space.

Beware: this is the Sapper power-down. Whilst active, every point you earn is actually deducted from your score. Can be extremely damaging to your score if combined with one or more score multipliers. Power-downs are seen with a green bubble around them for easier identification. Avoid them where possible!

Reverse. Another power-down. Causes your controls to reverse for a short period. Very disorienting!

Slow bullets. Causes all your bullets to travel much more slowly.

Rumour has it that there are other powerups out there...

Oddity's Play Guide [top]

Thanks to Brandon Sakach for compiling this guide.

All the lights and explosions and power-ups of Astariel can be awfully disorienting.
In fact, you'll probably spend a few plays just learning the basic mechanics of the game and what all the crates do.

Hopefully, this will help shed some light on the workings of the game.
I'm not going to spoil everything by telling all I know -- part of the fun lies in discovering what Astariel has in store for you.
There are plenty of ways to approach the game; you'll likely develop your own strategies for picking up power-ups and weapons,
and they may very well be better than mine.

GAME STRUCTURE

Like many other space shooters, the aliens of Astariel come in waves, beginning at Wave 0.
At the start of a wave, aliens come onto the playfield in formation, and the wave lasts until either they leave or you blast them all.

A "zone" is a group of ten waves. Waves 0 through 9 are one zone, 10 through 19 are another, and so forth.
In the last wave of each zone (9, 19, and so forth) you'll fight one or more bosses, which will take many,
many hits before exploding in a shower of light and crates.

(However, like normal aliens, it will also leave if you take too long, as indicated by a timer that will appear in the center of the screen.)
After every zone, you'll receive scores in five categories:

Shots - Your accuracy.
Aliens - The percentage of destroyed aliens.
Crates - The percentage of crates recovered.
Asteroids - The percentage of asteroids destroyed.
Time - Based on how quickly you finished the zone.

After earning your bonus points, your life and ammo will be refilled before you start the next zone.

However, your ship is also on a journey while all this fighting is taking place:

You will pass by four planets before reaching your final destination, Astariel.
Your progress toward the next planet is marked at the top of the screen by the location of the small rectangle,
which will move slowly to the right as the game goes on.
(Destroying waves quickly will speed up your ship, while boss battles will temporarily stop it.)

When it makes it all the way, you'll stop at the planet, receive a "Journey Bonus"
(destroying more aliens along the way seems to increase it--sitting idly without shooting will not)
and visit the shop, where you can purchase power-ups using the spherical credits you found along the way.

When you leave, the marker returns to the left and you travel onward to the next planet.
Upon reaching Astariel, you receive a sizable bonus and end the game.

YOUR SHIP

Your ship begins with some life and ammo (100 and 300, respectively, on Easy),
a single laser, shields, and regeneration capability. Normally, your ship will regenerate life and ammo slowly,
but pressing Z or the third mouse button will shift regeneration to life or ammo, causing one to refill noticeably quicker while ignoring the other.
Learn to use regeneration effectively to keep your life and ammo high.

Holding Shift, or pressing the right mouse button, will activate your shields, which drains some of your ammo to render you impervious to attack.
(The rate of ammo draining varies by difficulty.) Of course, the shield will also block your own weapons.

Use shields wisely! Whenever you have to dash across the screen to nab a faraway crate, use your shields
so you don't run yourself into any asteroids en route. Shields are also a great help in later waves,
when more and more projectiles and asteroids are coming at you.

Your weapon can be changed by collecting a different weapon crate; collecting an identical weapon crate will
permanently level up the weapon, increasing its damage, ammo capacity, and rate of fire.
(Once levelled, the weapon stays at that level, even if you switch back to it later.)

ASTEROIDS

Yes, these merit their own special heading. Unfortunately, running into even a small asteroid unprotected can
cost over 50 life, which is cause for alarm even near Astariel. Fortunately, a few asteroids are greatly beneficial.

Keep an eye out for:

Medipak asteroids: Coloured white with a red cross, these spew out a goodly number of medical packs when destroyed.
Ramming these with your shields will let you nab all the packs inside, giving you plenty of points
and--more importantly--increasing your maximum life by a small amount. But beware! Each medipak asteroid contains 1 sapper powerdown.

Credit asteroids: Made of shiny gold, these will give a sizable amount of credits when destroyed. Ram them to reap the rewards.
But beware! Each credit asteroid contains 1 eject credits powerdown.

Weapon asteroids: The purple tint on these rocks can be hard to notice, but these will give lots of weapon crates
(more often than not with several of the more potent selections) when destroyed.

Because of the new asteroid powerdowns, it is best to stay back and blast the asteroid open, then pick and choose among the crates for
plenty of level-ups. (Holding Shift while you're focusing on those crates might be a good idea too.)

POWERUPS

Learn to identify the various crates, especially the power-downs (these all have a green bubble around them).

Stay back a bit when destroying aliens--after all, you don't know what they hold.
Try to destroy enemies -especially bosses- so that their crates don't go flying uselessly off screen.

David's already got some notes above (along with pictures) on the powerups, so make sure to take a look at these.
In addition, here are a few more notes:

Alien Artefact: Bosses will often drop at least one of these--be sure to nab it!

Alien Technology: The number of technologies you need to collect to upgrade to the next weapon is displayed
directly above the technology symbol, just to the left of your ammo readout.

Prophecy: In addition to fast fire rate and Autofire Module mentioned on the site, you'll also get infinite ammo
and 25,000 points. As if you needed any more reason to pick this up...

Replay: You can now have more than one of these at a time. Picking up a extra one also gives a very nice bonus...

Score Sapper: While active (as long as your score is displayed in purple) this will deduct every point you earn,
including end-of-zone bonuses, the journey bonus, and quite possibly the end-of-game bonus.
If you mistakenly collect one of these, keep your shields and avoid everything on the playfield until your score isn't purple!

Reverse: In this case, two wrongs do make a right -collecting a Reverse Controls crate
while your controls are reversed will return them to normal.

Eject Credits: You'll keep ejecting credits until you lose them all - or 5 seconds elapses.
You can minimise your loss by recovering the credits ejected.

A final note: collecting multiples of certain crates in a row will increase their value...

That's all, folks. See you on the high score table!

Beta Testers [top]

Thanks to the following for helping me test Astariel

Andrew Wright
Mike Warren
Nigel Barrett
Guy Milbrath
Petr Snobelt
Nathaniel Stampe
Mel Tennant
Scott Cobb

Change Log [top]

v3.1.3 15 Sep 2006

- Fixed a couple of small bugs in storm mode, including incorrect technology display.
- Planets in storm mode slightly further away.
- Analogue joystick deadzone added, edit config.txt to change.

v3.1.2 7 Sep 2006

- Game made slightly easier, by forcing single and dual lasers to spawn more frequently.

v3.1.1 23 Aug 2006

- Specular lighting bug fixed
- Shop exit a little more brief
- Player life readout direction changed

v3.1 13 Aug 2006

- Intro cloud effect enhanced
- Blue points powerup colour changed slightly
- Ammo display bug when 0 fixed
- Player life/ammo readout option via F5 key
- Charge weapon timer now affected by weapon strength
- Zen mode now the default
- 800x600x32 the default resolution
- Game detects if fps <40 and automatically decreases particles if necessary
- Default sfx volume increased to maximum
- Shop items re priced and changed slightly
- Five shot damage increased by a third
- Astariel boss introduced
- Charge timer display changed
- Storm mode introduced
- Min alien bullets onscreen now enforced
- Changed one or two gfx slightly
- Can no longer collect shop powerups outside the shop
- Changed the positioning of dual laser when invulnerable
- Dropped the min memory check to 1 Mb free RAM
- Planets slightly further away in Normal Mode
- Added analogue joystick support
- Added easier key configuration
- You can now switch joystick detection on/off and joystick speed (1..15) via the config.txt file

v3.0 beta 30 June 2006

- Meteor and Arc Laser graphics improved
- Boss missile makes a stronger visual/aural impression on impact
- Some of the final waves tweaked
- Astariel further away in HERO mode
- Demo version now has its own hiscore table set
- Bonus points (in green) awarded for collecting power downs.
- Boss explosion graphic changed
- Eclipse only gives score multiplier
- Alien life and speed ramped consistently to end of game
- Boss life increased
- Seeker powerup added!
- Damage multipliers more expensive and more rare
- Replay display changed to a number prefixing life remaining

v3.0 beta 18 June 2006

- Keyboard control reactivated. You can player 2 player using keyboard and mouse
- You can edit default game keys via config.txt
- Smart Bombs and player deaths no longer kill bosses
- All timed powerups now have graphical time-left display
- Powerup crates wrap to other side of screen
- Hero mode difficulty tweaked
- Font changed
- Shop stock modified on some planets
- Single and Dual laser powerups no longer spawn after a certain point in the game
- Shop skipped if cashless

v3.0 beta 3 June 2006

- Control is now mouse only and extremely responsive at all times
- Speed and Slow powerups now act upon aliens not player.
- Rewrote the graphics engine. Particles now use one very large vertex buffer
- You can now collect and store multiple replays
- Cloud effect added to intro and shop sequence
- All new textures for powerups
- All sound fx OGG'd
- Title music changed slightly
- On screen GUI menu added
- All new alien attack waves
- Bosses have an extra missile attack
- MouseParty™ dual mouse play added
- Shop prices changed
- Default Life changed in easy mode
- Alien fire rate tweaked
- New online hiscore table and site shift to www.gibbongames.com
- Game timing tweaked - max fps now 100
- Virtually every particle effect in the game tweaked
- 3 new powerups added - all are points generators
- New font added
- Input now Direct X 7 again
- Alien size larger by default when spectrum inactive
- Plus many more little touches I have no doubt forgotten about...

v 2.x skipped to avoid confusion with Astariel II: Akasa

v1.9 Feb 25 2006

- Score and damage multiplier duration bug fixed
- Score and damage multiplier duration is frozen during warps
- Player timers frozen during shop and stats
- Player default and min speed increased
- Some shop prices changed
- Boss death blast damage reduced to approx 60 life points (was around 110!)
- New secret bonus added
- Five shot damage halved again - it was far too powerful
- Damage multiplier now lasts only 60 seconds
- Eclipse ALWAYS resets your score multiplier time back to 60
- Alert status affects warp speed a touch more
- Much harder on game wrap, i.e. alien life x4, wave duration x2, aggression x3, quantity x2
- Same distance to planets in all difficulty modes
- Exports version number to online hiscore table
- Asteroids slightly easier to hit with bullets (fudged in favour of the player)

v1.81 Feb 6 2006

- Five shot enhanced - first pickup also invokes a prophecy
- Five shot damage doubled
- Some weapons gain extra bullets more quickly

v1.8 Jan 23 2006

- Fixed an end-game bug in Hero mode
- 2x replays now worth 100,000
- Meteor laser graphic changed and easier to achieve, but does not regenerate. Degrades to Arc laser.
- Arc laser graphic changed. Arc laser slightly less potent
- Five shot more potent and graphic changed
- Fixed a countdown message display bug
- Eject credits now lasts only 5 seconds (max of 1000 credits lost)
- Purple point crates slightly more common in normal and hero mode
- Settings file encrypted. Unfortunately this requires all hiscores to be wiped. Sorry, I'm trying
to keep these wipes to an absolute minimum. But don't worry - this new version will be much higher
scoring anyway.
- Player movement no longer sluggish at low fps.
- Player spins faster according to speedups collected
- Credits collected displayed above score.
- 100 points per credit left awarded on completing game
- Secret Bonus bug fixed - bonus was capped at 10,000 by mistake!
- New secret bonus added
- Warp's score increase doubled
- Alert status has less impact upon warp speed
- Interplanetary journeys will now take a touch longer
- All alerts now gives much higher score reward
- Bullet accuracy calculation made fairer on the player
- Consecutive crate count no longer affected by shop
- Score and damage multiplier count display now correct

v1.71 Dec 31 2005

- Realised that Normal and Advanced modes were far too tough! Toned them down a bit.
- Changed the name of Advanced mode to Hero mode.

v1.7 Dec 26 2005

- Enabled 2 player mode without needing a joystick (finally!)
- Fixed mouse sensitivity scrolling too fast in Options menu bug
- Added 10 more attack waves to the game
- Fine tuned spectrum output vs alien size

v1.6 Dec 3 2005

- Added online hiscore table
- Encrypted the level file to make hiscore cheating more difficult
- Added mouse support and made the mouse the default game controller

v1.5 6 Aug 2005

-Display now indicates current weapon and weapon strength
-Changed powerup crate model to a bevelled crate, for that little bit extra reflection
-Power downs now glow green so you can easily spot the bad guys
-Incendiary laser bomb fx changed, hopefully improved!
-Adjusted life down in Normal and Advanced
-Normal and Advanced now have slightly less crates spawned
-Adjusted a few of the star bitmaps as they looked square under the new bright colour space
-Changed the mystery crate texture to a '?', which surprisingly makes me more willing to collect it.
-Player to player collisions no longer cost life/points if a shield is active.
-Toned down space colour as it was a bit over the top
-Charge laser does less damage in Normal and Advanced
-Aliens have double life in Advanced
-Fixed a music text display bug for foreign character sets
-Extra life powerup now gives less life

v1.4 23 July 2005

-I decided the game had too much black in it. Optional space colour now sweeps through randomly chosen spectrum
-Game now runs without a soundcard or onboard sound (increasing the chances it can be run at work!) BTW Astariel doesn't touch the registry...
-Some gfx cards didn't like solid debris, so debris is now an alpha blended white. I think I prefer it...
-Elongated the debris and stars on warp a la Warblade. Great idea Edgar!
-Decreased the number of debris in Extreme Display Mode

v1.3 14 July 2005

[the game was too easy!]

-Increased the distance to the planets in NORMAL mode
-Increased almost all difficulty modifiers in ADVANCED mode
-Bosses now spawn much more children, and child shape has been changed.
-Fog removed from game entirely, as it wasn't helping anything
-Freakout now cut short if you are zooming into a shop

v1.2 10 July 2005

[wipes old hiscore table - sorry]

-Added a "has reached Astariel" star to the hiscore table
-Changed the reverse graphic
-Decreased mine damage
-Game never wraps on reaching Astariel
-Extra life in NORMAL/ADVANCED modes
-Added Joystick Sensitivity to Options menu (1000 = most sensitive/responsive, 0 = least)
-Fixed wave miscount past 109
-Changed powerup explosion flash from green to orange

v1.1 9 July 2005

-Player can now quit game anytime.
-Turned off in-game fog entirely. Fog now only present in intro.

v1.0 1 July 2005 Initial release

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| Astariel is Copyright © Gibbon Games 2006 |