[lighttechinteractive] Re: An Idiot's Guide To Treasure Mania.
- From: "Louise Keel" <louise.keel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lighttechinteractive@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 16 Aug 2009 18:20:44 +0100
Not mine. The bugs I mention are minor annoyances, no more. By the way, in my
idiot's guide, it seems I'm the idiot! I say you use control page up or down to
use a turbo! um, no! duh! it's control up or down arrow! I hardly ever remember
I've got turbos, so I forgot the key strokes. What a ninny, I'm so sorry!
Best
Lulu.
Now faith, hope, love abide, these three. But the greatest of these is love.
----- Original Message -----
From: Yakir Arbib
To: lighttechinteractive@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Monday, August 17, 2009 11:02 AM
Subject: [lighttechinteractive] Re: An Idiot's Guide To Treasure Mania.
Hi all,
since the game was released long ago(2 years or more if I'm not mistaking),
and by the time of the release everything did seme to go smoothly other than
some bugs that I fixed, and the windos vista/ running the game problem that we
gave directions to solve, everything semed to be quite bug free. I
understand that some bugs have come up, like a runtime5 here or there, or
some other variations from the family. well you see, a program, specially made
by a small team, and in our case, a very, very small team:) will always have
issues on some computers, which we might have avoided if we had a large team of
testers that would have tryed the game on lots and lots of diferent machines.
for exampel, I've never experienced the bug lulu tells us about in which if
your chain is entangled and you go in the water to fix it, it gets completely
stuck and you are not able to move to any direction. and certainly I didn't
experience the problem of a runtime error while viewing the local scores on my
computer.
I've had a terible harddrive crash back in Israel 3 months ago, but thanks
goodness I did have all Lighttech Interactive materials backed up, although my
programs for coding and sound designing were lossed, so for now I moved to
Boston with a new computer, but I didn't get the chance of reaquiring the tules
that are needed to sort this up.
are there any very nasty bugs in particular that you feel hinder a lot your
gaming experience?
Best regards to all
PS. Lulu, I read on your journal that you're thinking of doing a review for
TM, but are not sure about the equipment needed/ if what you have is good
quality enough? well, the quality of the sound doesn't depend on the microphone
you have, because it only affects your recorded voice. whilst you use the
computer internaly to record the sounds of the game so that your soundcard
handels all the complex stuf,
all you'd need is a cheap microphone, a free software for recording, and
instructions of how to set some options in volume control before you start
recording. just let me know off list and I'll be glad to hellp you if you still
feel like it:)
Take care,
Yakir
----- Original Message -----
From: Louise Keel
To: lighttechinteractive@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Sunday, August 16, 2009 2:15 PM
Subject: [lighttechinteractive] Re: An Idiot's Guide To Treasure Mania.
Well, I'm just a player, like you, but the person who needs to know about
bugs also reads this list. Actually there are a few bugs in the game, the run
time error is one of them, this happens to me if I die twice. ssay, for
example, I pick up a bomb and get struck by lightning at the same time. There
is also the blocked all ways bug, which I wrote about in the guide, this is
where you dive in to untangle your chain and find it's blocked every way. no
fix for either of these first two than I know of. But Yakir did give me a fix
for the unreachable chest bug. This is where you can hear the chest. It's
usually tucked right under the right hand cliff, and you just can't reach it,
however slowly you nudge the boat up to it. What you do here is save the game,
reload it, and there's six brand new chests, all ready for you. There's also a
lot of new fish to catch which, for me, cos I like catching fish, is an added
bonus.
Bugs notwithstanding, this is still my favourite game, and someone spent a
lot of time and work on it, so thanks, guys. Big smiles.
Lulu.
Now faith, hope, love abide, these three. But the greatest of these is love.
----- Original Message -----
From: Zachary Blunt
To: lighttechinteractive@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Sunday, August 16, 2009 5:39 PM
Subject: [lighttechinteractive] Re: An Idiot's Guide To Treasure Mania.
Hi Lulu, I am reporting a bug in the game. When I first played tresure
mania 1, the game would say runtime error 5, or something like that. Just also
want to say that's a good guide. Great work!
From Zac.
----- Original Message -----
From: Louise Keel
To: lighttechinteractive@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Saturday, August 15, 2009 11:46 AM
Subject: [lighttechinteractive] An Idiot's Guide To Treasure Mania.
Hello Again.
As you will all know by now, I am an enormous fan of the game Treasure
Mania 1. A lot of my circle of friends feel the same, but there are also a
surprising number who tell me they can't get the hang of it. They find the
sounds confusing, don't know what the buzzing is, can't understand how to do
things. The other day, on Twitter, one of my friends asked if I would write an
idiot's guide to Treasure Mania, so I wrote what you are about to read, and am
enclosing it here, in the hope that it might be of use to someone. As I say at
the end, this is in no way meant to replace the excellent manual which comes
with the game. If it helps one person to get more out of this truly excellent
game, that's good enough for me.
Best Regards.
Lulu Keel.
Now faith, hope, love abide, these three. but the greatest of these is
love.
An idiot's guide to treasure mania.
Treasure Mania 1, from Lighttech Interactive, is one of the most
audially rich free games there is, certainly the most audially interesting and
varied I have ever played. It's also quite relaxing to play, as it can go on
for a long time. I have noticed that some people find the Readme a little
confusing, so I have written the notes below, from my own experience of hours
of happy gaming, in the hope of helping someone to get as much pleasure as I
do. I do hope it helps you.
So, here you are in your boat. First thing I'd advise you to do is to
turn off the background music, which will not only make everything much easier
to hear what you're doing, but, although it's pretty, if you have a long game,
I promise, after a while, it will get on your nerves! for this you press F1.
Please note, to turn it on again, you press F4. If you want to simply turn it
down press f2, and to raise the volume, press F3. But, let's assume you've
turned it off. Now, if you're new to the game, just listen for a while to the
background sounds. If you hear a sort of high squealing, those are birds, and
they won't hurt you. the sort of snoring scary sound you might hear is a shark.
the only times you have to worry about him are if you're trying to catch a fish
and you catch him by mistake, in which case you're his supper and make a
horrible crunch, or if you're in the water, trying to untangle a snarled line,
in which case you get out if you hear him, or he'll eat you. Otherwise he's
sinister, but harmless.
Now, you might hear a fish swimming around. Some of the fish you can
catch, and some you can't. Before we even start moving let me tell you about
them. the fish you can catch are bubbly fish, very distinctive. Fluttery fish,
they make a noise like they flutter their tales., and splashy fish, they swim
along making a small splashing sound. there are two dolphins, one sounds huge,
you obviously can't catch that, there's a smaller dolphin, can't catch that,
and another fish that sounds like a water machine. It really does, it sounds
like its fins are turning a water wheel. Sounds like it might be catchable, but
it's not, it'sjust a darn nuisance, cos when it's around, you can't hear a
blame thing.
You can also hear creaking and rattling sounds, and maybe a kind of
bell like ring. These are the chests. So let's get hunting. press enter to
start your boat. this wil also stop the motor, which can sometimes be useful,
if you have a chest tucked under a cliff somewhere, and want to hear its
general location before risking your boat, just stopping and listening is
useful.
Moving about and hunting.
So, you are starting in the middle of this gulf, and you use your left
and right arrow keys to move. you have a big cliff on your left, the waves
break noisily against it, easy to hear when you get close, and a lower cliff,
not so easy to hear, on your right. and in between are six chests full of the
yellow stuff! To help you find the gold you have a metal detector. turn this on
by pressing R. Now the best way to get good results is to be methodical, so
decide which way you're going to search first, and go that way till you get
near the cliff, then head back the other way. You can hold down the arrows to
move, but just exercise caution when getting near the cliff walls, or you'll
crash, sink your ship and lose one of your five lives. Once you've found six
chests, you'll hear a music sound, a wind, and six thuds, which means six more
chests are waiting to be found. The bell like rings are special chests. These
can be good, bad, or indifferent. The good ones have extra lives, bonus points,
or turbos in them. A turbo will lower your line, or raise it, quickly, which is
useful if there's an annoying fish around, or a storm. To do this, press right
control plus page up or down. if you're raising a chest, you will need to up
arrow to empty it. the indifferent chests, well they aren't really
indifferent, they take points from you, but I'd rather have that than what I
call the bad ones. These contain bombs. when you hook one of these little
suckers, and raise it to the surface, you hear a ticking, then a bang. and
that's it. another life lost, and there's nothing you can do, I'm afraind!
When you're centred over a chest, your detector will buzz rhythmically.
press your down arrow repeatedly to lower your grappling hook and chain. When
it's caught the chest you'll hear it thunk on the lid, and the buzzing will
stop. then just tap your up arrow to pull the chest up, and don't stop tapping
till you hear the coins pouring on to the deck! Then go look for the next chest!
Catching Fish.
Catching fish takes practice. It says in the manual that you wait until
they're centred under the boat, then press space to lower the net, this is ok
as far as it goes, but because the sound is in 3 D, and most of us play on
Stereo headphones, it messes things up some. When you hear fish that are
catchable, move to where they are, and keep casting the net as you drive over
them. After all this time I've come to know where in my sound field they need
to be for them to be caught. Just be careful old shark's not around. Those fish
are so infuriating, you might want to catch it so so much, you don't hear the
nasty snoring beast slinking up behind you, but you find out the hard way when
he eats your net and pulls you into the water! The fish are worth fifteen
points, and are a lot of fun to catch, so just keep trying is all I can advise,
the lovely flap and slap when you catch that annoying little bubbly beast is
worth it!
Hazards.
There are quite a few of these. First, be careful not to lower your
line around fish if you can, or they could get snarled in it. if they do,
you'll need to dive in and unsnarl it. if you need to do this, use page down to
jump in the water, to unsnarl a hook is hard to explain. you need to use the
arrow keys to move the chain it usually needs to move up and right to get free.
you hear a definite bang! if it's blocked. a sort of snick it it's coming, and
a definite click! if it's freed. There is a bug in the game, whereby sometimes
however you move the arrows, the chain is blocked, and you have to quit and
start again. I've reported it.
At level 5 the locals decide they don't like you stealing their
treasure and start shooting. When you hear an arrow whooshing towards you,
press the left control key to duck until its past. Personally, with everything
else I'm trying to concentrate on, if I do that I'm laible to get my head shot
off, so at level five, I just hold down the control key from then till the end
of the game, with my left hand. Annoying, but there it is. You can check your
level by pressing the tab key. The level up sound is a kind of upscale two
notes, played on vibes.
If you play on the hardest level, when the weather is calm you are
laible to get set on by poisonous bees. To be honest, I've never even tried
this, because I'm scared of bees, but the manual says you must move away from
them till they lose interest, or dive in the water till they leave.
Lastly, there's the storms. These can come up at any time. They involve
loud wind, which blows you about, if you're near a cliff you could get crashed
into it, and of course, it's hard to hear. Thunder and lightning, which, if it
hits your galant ship, will kill you dead! And heavy seas which are loud and
will help the wind smash you into the cliffs. Now the manual says that if you
hear thunder in one direction, go in the other, but this never works for me, as
the thunder then invariably comes from the other. If you get hit, you'll here a
kind of breaking glass sort of sound, there'll be a pause, and your boat
restarts, that is if you've got any lives left. It's worth noting that if you
lose a life in any way except getting eaten by a shark, your boat restarts in
the middle of the gulf again, not in the place where you lost it. This is
annoying, as it messes up your method, you don't know where you've looked and
where you haven't. It's especially challenging during storms. All I do is keep
on hunting as best I can, and see how bad it gets. A really bad storm will
always get me in the end, no matter how hard I try.
Special key strokes.
enter: stop start boat.
F 1 turn off background music.
F2 lower music volume.
F3 raise music volume.
F4 Restore music.
R: turn on and off metal detector.
Space bar: cast net.
Left and right arrows: move.
Up and down arrows: raise and lower hook and chain.
Left control: duck.
Right control plus Pg up/Down: raise/lower line with turbo.
C check number of chests taken.
L: number of lives left?
P: Pause.
S: score.
T: Number of Turbos?
Tab key: level?
Page down: dive in water.
Page up: come out of water.
Escape: quit game.
Wayver.
This guide is meant, in no way, to replace the manual which comes with
the game, which will tell you more than I can about some aspects, including
scoring, etc. You should read the manual of any game before attempting to play
for the first time.
Lulu Keel
August 13 2009
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