Jump to content
IGNORED

Just for fun - Hawkquest


Recommended Posts

Hawkquest

This is NOT part of the regular High Score Club Season as it's a PAL only game, but it needs to be played! NTSC users fire up the emulator and set the video settings to PAL.

Downloads

Fandal ATRs

Atarimania Info ATRs

hawkquest.png

I would be interested to have seen how players reacted towards playing Hawkquest thoroughly - for obvious reasons... I put together the level designs for it's secondary games - and hoped that there was enough variety there - to keep the game interesting enough - but also a bit frustrating too - as a few were rather devious? to find where things were.

 

Seeing though it's a PAL only game - this may not be a popular choice to play here?

 

Harvey

Hi Harvey,

nice to hear from you, Hawkquest looks a really nice game, not one I know well. If you checkout the "H poll" I did want to play this but not supporting NTSC (as far as I can tell) was the problem so here we have a thread for some scores and comments (brace yourself!) Is there any documentation / instructions / can you remember which Page 6 magazine had the review and I'll post a link?

Thanks

Jason

Link to comment
Share on other sites

More than enough info/etc can be found here:

 

http://hawkquest.tripod.com

 

I'll suggest avoiding going to the 'solutions' pages - so that you can experience the secondary games yourself, without any help.

And don't use the versions with unlimited lives and/or invincibility - unless you have a special category using those versions.

 

To make it user-friendly you'll find a no-disk swap version - that is ideal for emulator use. (Guess you could use this with PAL hardware if you have 4 disk drives? and can port it back to floppy? Don't know if that'll work straight away or not?). This site was set up years ago - so I hope the files are all there, and working still, etc etc.

 

I do think you need to make full use of hidden targets in the main game (to stand a chance of reaching all of the secondary games) - so I have given some locations for them, on two planets only. Some are not that hard to find, if you look carefully enough.

 

Note: - That Level 1 secondary games are different to those in Level 2. The main game - planets as such remains the same - but in Level 2 they will be much harder to reach the end of... (so you really need to take full advantage of any hidden goodies you find - they will always be in the same location).

It did take around 3 years to fully develop this game project - we had no idea when it would be finished, once we started on it. It was more or less fully conceived right from the start. The only change I can recall being made - was that the helicopter was suppose to exit the space shuttle craft - as the intro to the main game - but of course it had to be removed because we needed as much free memory as possible. It ended up being used in the end-of-game animation.

 

I did draw out maps for all the secondary games back in the day - and I did ask someone to scan them for me, to pdf format, but have not received those files. They have gone on to a place where I have sent my Laser Hawk and Hawkquest documentation, etc etc to be archived for posterity to the New Zealand Film Archives. Hopefully those maps (and other such docs) have arrived there...?

There were very few home computer games produced in New Zealand back in the mid to late 80s' - Dinky Kong was completed for the Vic-20, before Laser Hawk was completed.

 

Harvey

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Now I was going to read up before playing Hawkquest but I thought I'd just have a go...

130XE PAL / 1050 CTR TV...

Firstly what a nice looking game :thumbsup: good controls too :thumbsup:

Vertical scroller with you shooting various nasties and bomb ground targets by pulling back when firing. YES IT IS TOO HARD :-o I suspect most people will find this and be put off after a couple of goes! After working out the star map let you load and save and bring up info, I plumped for the nearest planet 'Xavier' (two clicks of the button) ignoring that it was a 'level 3' entity...

 

I had a bunch of goes: 18,250 20,080 11,130 23,300 24,300 13,750 20,150 27,100 25,080 19.670 so you can see I didn't improve much and then went back to explore the other planets - each having it's own impressive graphics and baddies. On the Level 1 planet 'Mycea' I did get a lock up but it was ok after resetting. 40,580 was the best I managed. Ancoona Level 2 20,400, Cytron Level 4 14,640 Sorea Level 5 21,450. Playing Hawkquest you will get totally annihilated but to be fair I was not on the best joystick for this type of game and I was not using autofire, for now anyway ;)

 

Space is pause. Minor niggle is the high score table will save (not on my write protected copy mind, times out ok - hit start to return to the menu to avoid save) but only the last go you had when you exit a planet - however it does show the best go you had below the table! If you somehow think I'm losing it and find the game too easy then you can select game difficulty 'Level 2' :-o

 

Be sure to give Hawkquest a play and take a look at each of the 5 planets, even if you NTSC guys have to switch over to the dark side (PAL in emulator video settings); I will now read all the info before my next mission as I'm intreagued about the save feature and other parts to the game mentioned above :grin:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

After reading the manual I played Level 1 planet Mycea again, I concentrated on looking for the power-ups but never seemed to get a shield - the something to collect noise is the same as the noise for collecting (by bombing) things so you can't really keep an eye ear on this and there's little time to glance at the status bar :-o

 

Hawkquest is really hard but I did get to the end of level force-field (indicated by distance counter) by trying hard to bomb more and trying much harder to survive more; but for some reason I decided not to bomb it and was asked to start again! Finally I did manage to blow this up but then promptly crashed before I could bask in my glory :dunce: so next session I'm hoping to see the 2nd part of the game (each level has 2 parts) :)

post-19705-0-09392100-1400862525_thumb.jpgpost-19705-0-58434300-1400862523_thumb.jpg

 

Harvey - Do you remember if you guys did much play testing, did you conciously make the game hard as it had a limied number of levels and wanted it to offer a lasting challenge? How far did you both get playing the game?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hawkquest Session #3

Destroyed Mycea's (the Level 1 planet) Generator grid and survived to the 2nd stage of the game! Here you have 15 guys who can roam around shooting, a bit like Dandy meets Berzerk in the land of Boulderdash, ok just a bit!!!

 

I figured a few things out but wasted most lives before I (possibly) realised I needed to shoot a white bit on the outside walls to allow me to then destroy some boulders to access further into the complex. I didn't collect anything but Keys T P B E use the items.

post-19705-0-10175500-1401213858_thumb.jpgpost-19705-0-35126700-1401213859_thumb.jpgpost-19705-0-65254200-1401213860_thumb.jpgpost-19705-0-75886800-1401213856_thumb.jpg

I also had another go on the Level 2 planet but didn't quite reach the force field...

 

Very Interesting game :thumbsup:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Sorry for the delay in replying here - as I've only revisited this page now... Thanks for giving it a good go - and for your comments, etc.

 

Of course we extensively played this, back in the day, as we were working to our own deadline - but no doubt getting tired of it, as well...

We can only vouch for the original copy - that we encountered no noticeable problems/crashing/etc - I (as Andrew is no longer with us) can't vouch for the copy you have - which may not be identical to the original as such...

 

For those who can't get to the secondary game at all - we did provide a way to sample one or two? My memory is hazy - but I think if you booted off the 2nd disk or side 2 of Disk 1 - you can load some default saves which'll take you there. I think this bypassed the overall game interface/etc. If you are fortunate - maybe you'll find some game saves there (made by someone else) which will do that for you - start in the secondary game?

 

Of course the game is hard - if you played Laser Hawk - you'd expect that. Also because this was Xevious inspired - and if you know how hard that game is ---- then expect something similar here.

It is by getting to know the game well - that you'd eventually make it to the end of it, and gain access to the secondary game.

And if you need some help - I provided that at the game's official website at http://hawkquest.tripod.com

I hope all it's pages/etc are intact - as this was set up some years ago.

 

I would be surprised if this is not rated as one of the (if not best?) vertical scroller shooter for the Atari 800 series computers. Once you've visited all of the secondary games - you might agree? Level 2 - is of course much much harder - so getting to any of it's secondary games is a real challenge - but that is why there are game saves available for you to make - so that you can use your game save - to revisit the secondary game again and again, without having to replay the main game again, to get there.

It is vitally important to have as many extra helicopters remaining, so that in the secondary you have as many men as possible to start off with. That is why it is so important to find and use as many of the extras you find in the main game - most of are hidden/invisible as such, though some are visible on certain planets/etc.

 

I did not confer with Andrew with the playtesting - he did what he could with the scrolling attack waves, while I put together all of the level maps as such. We did not go through extensive playtesting - so there'll be some rough edges present for sure - such as being shot at, by something close to you.

But for the most part - it should be better than the other shooters out there.

 

I have been reusing the graphics in Hawkquest - for AtariBLAST! Mainly because I did not wish to start from scratch again - with totally new graphics. But also doing it this way - can show the difference between then and now? You should be able to sense the differences? Though I do feel Paul has been able to add a new level of complexity - via programming techniques/etc to this game format (vertical scroller shooter). Also AB! was not planned in detail right from the start - but developed/changed in it's own haphazard way - which has proved beneficial (and not detrimental) to it's development. There is not expected to be/have any ground car present, nor likely to be any ground based guns too. AB! was not expected to be a huge extensive project which it has become. And 5200 gamers should be especially grateful - because they were not even considered at it's very start.

 

I did dutifully copy out the secondary game maps - so that one day it could be available for anyone wanting to see them? But I don't have them with me any longer - as I passed them onto an archiving resource (which I hope they arrived there?) - they were to be scanned en route - via someone who said he'll do that for me. Along with other such material...

But seeing them, would take the surprise element away - as I did try being somewhat devilish in design in hiding stuff - as it is the same scavenger hunt being done in all these secondary games - except that for some levels - things are different. I just hope players will enjoy the differences when they encounter them?

 

To experience something truly different from all the rest - I hope NTSC users will bite the bullet and accept the challenge - by using Altirra (if they don't have the PAL hardware) - since I don't have my old Atari hardware anymore... I think it's more than equal to the original hardware, and that really you can't tell the difference - can you? Except that now, you can enjoy playing it on a larger screen (40" or larger) TV - and it doesn't look too clunky? does it? Unlike 2600 graphics.

 

Harvey

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 years later...

Hawkquest has been converted to run in NTSC - but with using the Atarimax 8mbit cart in mind for this. See the atarimax forum or elsewhere in Atariage for the file conversion.

 

It runs best off the atarimax cart anyway - no disk swaps anymore ... but you can't boot from Disk 1 side 2? (or was it Disk 2 side 1?) - in which you could directly boot into the secondary game, via sample game saves - for those who did not want to go through the main game.

 

Harvey

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...