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Pinball Construction Set Docs

I've retained the original formatting so you may have to adjust it to get the file to display and/or print correctly. Noisy phone lines caused the occasional glitch or truncated file. I replaced some, but not all, instances of line noise with "[ERROR]" where applicable.

:    ****************************    :
:    * PINBALL CONSTRUCTION SET *    :
:    *      BY  BILL BUDGE      *    :
:    ****************************    :
Pcs gives you complete control over 
the game of pinball. You can quickly
and easily move parts around, change
the scores and the sounds for all
targets, create bonuses to shoot for,
decide how heavy to make the ball and
how fast and lively to make the game,
even reshape and repaint the board and
the parts.  There are 5 complete,ready
to play Demo games on your Pcs disk.
Each is a great place to start playing
PLUS a great place to look for ideas
about how to build good pinball games
of your own.  You build games by using
a jostick-controlled hand. You use it
to drag parts from the PARTS BOX on 
to the board and to POINT TO and TURN
on other powers at your Pcs command
 
 
 HOW TO LOAD PCS: LOAD 'EA' ,8,1
 
 
   When you first load Pcs you should
see an empty pinball macine and lots
of parts to the right of it.  You 
also see a hand at the top left of
the screen. With the joystick in port
1 you can easily move it around.
Before we get into anything lets get
the names of the parts to the right:
 
ROW   NAME
 1    FLIPPERS: BIG AND LITTLE
 1    BALL
 1    HAND
 2    POLYGONS: SQUARE, LINES
 2    ARROW
 2    SCISSORS
 3    BUMPERS: CIRCLES, FLAT, DIAGNOLS
 3    HAMMER
 3    PAINTBRUSH
 4    SLINGSHOTS
 4    KICKERS: UP/DOWN, LEFT/RIGHT
 4    LAUNCHER
 4    COLORS
 5    DROP TARGETS: UP/DOWN,LEFT/RIGHT
 5    BALL HOPPER (LOOKS LIKE A 'U')
 5    BALL HOPPER (EMPTY CIRCLE)
 5    SPINNER (ABOVE MAGNET)
 5    MAGNET
 5    PLAY (BALL & FLIPPER)
 5    MAGNIFIER
 6    LANES (FIRST THREE)
 6    GATES
 6    WORLD (BELOW MAGNET)
 6    AND-GATE (BELOW WORLD)
 7    ROLLOVERS (FIRST THREE BALLS)
 7    KNIFE EDGES (NEXT SIX)
 7    DISK
 
 
Parts Box Inventory:
 
Flipper - To put and keep the ball in
          play.
Ball    - Only indespensible part in
          game
Polygons- Used to make shapes with
          elasticity (bounce) instead
          of kick.
Bumpers - They 'kick' the ball away,
          regardless of where they're
          hit.
Slngshot- Kick ball away on long side
Kickers - Kick ball away on ends
Launcher- Puts ball in play by moving
          joystick up or down.
drop tgt- When all four lights are hit
          they turn off then turn back
          on, (good for AND gate)
ball    - Viciuosly vanishes ball from
  eater - the play area. Next player..
spinner - Spins merrily when ball 
          rolls over it.
magnet  - Grabs at ball, puts twist 
          into it.
lanes   - See Demo 2
gates   - Lets ball go through one way
roll    - great for wiring with AND
  over  - Gate.
Knife   - Tallies score when ball 
 edge   - bounces off it.
 
 
ICON COMMANDS
 
Hand    - drags parts onto and around
          the board, activates other
          Icons.
Arrow   - to create and change solid
Scissors- shapes made with polygons
Hammer  - and sides.
Paint
brush
& colors- changes color of border and
          polygons
Play    - can play one ball during
          construction.
Mgnifier- To paint details..
          To me the most awesume
          option.
AND gate- Set and change scores
Disk    - load and save games
 
 
BUILDING GAMES
**************
To build games in Pcs, you drag pieces
from the 'Parts Box'.  Take your hand
and touch the side of any part, it 
can now be moved around, you must hold
the fire button down to drag a piece
around.  Letting go of the firing 
button releases the part from your
power.
 
At this point I am going to have to
explain a couple of things....
 
  1. You need atleast 1 ball on the
     board if you want to play a game.
  2. You need atleast 1 flipper on
     the board, orthe player will just
     watch.
  3. The ball needs some way of 
     escaping the from the board or
     the game will never end.  This
     can also be accomplished by 
     putting some 'ball eaters'.
 
When you go to Play mode you can go
back to construct by pressing F1.
Play mode (ball & flipper) is very
helpful when debugging a machine.
 
Color
*****
The PAINTBRUSH icon makes changing
the colors of the board or polygons
easy.  You just take your hand and
put it over the paintbrush and press
fire. the hand now becomes a paint-
brush. Move the brush over on of the
colors and press fire.  Now take the
the brush and put it over the side of
the machine, instantly the side 
changes.  The paintbrush is good for
changing the colors of parts to , but
if you want detailed HIGH-RES colors,
you need the power of the:
              MAGNIFIER!!!!!!!
 
The Magnifier is used to make detailed
colors by taking your paintbrush
inside of the parts!!!!!!!
This is accomplished by putting your
brush (or hand,hammer,arrow,or 
scissor) over the magnifier icon.
The parts box is then replaced by a
a large box and small square appaers
the top left.  The box is a 
magnification of the square 7 times.
This is hard to explain... take the
brush and put it over the square.
Next move the square to the letters
under the Big Box at the right.
This will show you what I mean, the
characters have been enlarged from the
square to the Box.  you can use this
to enlarge anything so you can paint
in detail.  The magnifier is good for
drawing your own insignia.
If you wondered how they put the name
of the machine at the top right , move
the square over there.  MASSIVE!!!!!!!
*******************
Creating New shapes
*******************
    The ARROW,SCISSORS,AND HAMMER 
icons let you start with ready made
polygons from the parts box to create
shapes.
    To create a shape you need to put
a square polygon onto the board (the
square polygon is the one with four
corners).  Then take the paintbrush
and paint the polygon (paint it by
putting the brush over the polygon and
pressing fire).  Now you can create.
Take the brush and switch into the
ARROW.  Move the arrow over to a
corner of the polygon and press the
fire button. Start moving the joystick
around with the fire button down.
When you let go the button you will 
have made a new shape. If you noticed
when the arrow is activated all 
'polygon' types of parts get corners.
This also holds true for the hammer
and scissors.
    The hammer is used to make more
corners on a shape, this is useful
for making shapes of more sides than
four.  The scissors is just the 
opposite of the hammer, it erases 
corners.  Take a polygon out and paint
it.  Then take  the scissors and chop
off a corner, now you have a triangle.
Remember an object needs atleast 3
corners.
    Another thing to remember is that
the square is just 1 polygon, there
are smaller ones (lines).
 
*************************************
Setting Gravity,Bounce,Kick and Speed
*************************************
 
The World Icon (under Magnifier) lets
you set:
Gravity  - How heavy is the Ball?
Speed    - How fast is the ball?
Kick     - How strong are the bumpers?
Elasticity (bounce) - How bouncy are
           the sides? 
 
To change these you just move the hand
to the marker and press the fire 
button to put move the line. The best
way to learn this command is to 
experiment, find out which ones you
want.
************
The AND Gate
************
The AND Gate lets you decide on the
score and sound for each target,bumper
etc..., and it even lets you wire 
parts together to form bonuses!
To get to know this command (it ranks
as one of the more useful commands)
load DEMO1 and go to this option.
After its loaded go to the first AND
symbol at the top and see the wiring.
The wiring diagram shown means that
'each time the ball goes over both
of the bottom roll-over targets you
get a BONUS of 1O,OOO points'.
Why a bonus?  Thats all an and gate
will add to. When you play the game
you always see 'BONUS X 1' , this is
how much the bonus is multyplied by.
To make this change wire up a target
or a couple of targets and make the
bonus the word BONUS instead of a 
score. Now each time this gate is
activated the BONUSX will rise one.
That means if the bonus score is 1000
and the BONUSX is 2 , you get a bonus
of 2000 points when your turn is over!
The BONUSX always goes back to one 
after every turn and during a turn it
will never exceed 5.
For some interesting ideas on AND gate
look at DEMO4
 
************************
SHOWING OFF YOUR WORK...
************************
 
The Disk Icon (lower right) lets you
load,save,format, and MAKE games..
What is Make Game?
Make Game allows you to make your
pinball machine run on it's own 
without PCS.  This means you can give
a copy of to a friend!!
Load and Save do what they mean except
you need PCS too run it.  Whats the
difference between SAVE and MAKE.
You can change a SAVEd game, you can
only play a MAKE game.
Format formats a disk.
 
**********
Reference:
**********
 
F1 - returns to Construction Screen.
F4 - Changes color modes from Hi-Res
     to Multi-Color.
F3 - Selects different colors in 
     Multi-color.
F5 - Selects number of players in Play
     mode.
F7 - Start game in Play mode.
 

Intro
Ailanthus Tree: Login | Users | Commands | Messages | Chat | Hang
Magpie BBS: Messages | Users | Commands
Misc BBSes: Aerogram | Bonsai Tree | Mofo | NYCENET | Riverdale | Misc Messages
ASCII Art: Nude | Jane | Femme | Spock | Kirk | Nixon
Game Docs: Archon II | Breakdance | Bruce Lee | Cutthroats | Dallas Quest | Deadline | Flight Sim 2
Hitchhikers Guide | Incredible Hulk | Infidel | Kennedy Approach | Mask of the Sun | M.U.L.E.
Pastfinder | Pinball Construction Set | Raid on Bungeling Bay | Raid over Moscow | Rescue on Fractalus
Seven Cities of Gold | Sonar Search | Spy vs Spy | Whistler's Brother
Util Docs: Blitz Compiler | Designer's Pencil | Easy Script | Kwik-Write | Micromon
Movie Maker | Paperclip | Perspectives | Wordpro 3 Plus/64 | Wolfenstein
Philes: 1541 Alignment | 976 Numbers | Mainframes | Sysops' Bible
Drugs | Knock-Out Drops | Lock Picking | Radar Jamming | Thermite


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Copyright © 2024 by Kim Moser (email)
Last modified: Fri 02 February 2007 13:23:35