
                         'The Lost Planet' Demo v0.9
                               By Nick Hudson
                          (nick@progsoc.uts.edu.au)
                        (www.progsoc.uts.edu.au/~nick)
                        ============================== 

Finally, at last, a semi-decent working version of The Lost Planet, now
featuring limited interactivity, a more substantial plot, and a few hints at
what is to come.

Things you should know
======================

The title states that this is 'The Lost Planet' Demo v0.9. This is v0.9 of a
demo game. It isn't v0.9 of the full game, which makes it a demo. The final
game will be up to six, yes, SIX, times as big. The final demo isn't much
bigger. Probably one and a half times as big. It'll consist more of cosmetic
and interaction features.


The Story
=========

Actually, I won't spoil it. Watch the Intro. I put a bit of time into it.

The Story behind The Story
==========================

The Lost Planet has actually been kicking away inside my head for some time.
Upon writing this, I decided to see how long ago. I was surprised to see that
two of the ships which I use in the introduction were first drawn by me on
the 1st of September, 1996, using some art program.

I'm not 100% sure as to whether I was going to make The Lost Planet as a
novel, or as a game. I know it didn't have anything to do with AGI in its
early stages, it was a series of plot sequences, of which, I've currently
planned through 5 of them. There are about 20 of them in total.

The first flashing of The Lost Planet being a game occurred, well, I'm not
sure, but it was going to be a text-based adventure game with a dungeon-hack
style view. I actually had a really simple intro which flicked through text
screens, and ascii art. In fact, although the names of the majority of things
are the same, like, The Dossel Alliance, and the Tarsions, one main thing
isn't. The Lost Planet started out as The Lost Star.

At that stage though, I hadn't worked out as much of the plot, and I'm not
really certain as to when I first decided on going with 'The Lost Planet' as
a title, apart from it being before 13th of February, 1998.

The Lost Planet really started to make progress after I had written the
solution for the demo. There have only been a few slight modification to this
solution, which I wrote before doing any AGI work.

The last thing to really kick The Lost Planet off, apart from the end of our
autumn semester at uni, was the script. The script gave me more ideas for
the game plot, and helped in finalising names of different things.

One thing though, please don't adapt my storyline to your own games, as I
intend to use it, although much more complex, when I start programming with
my own engine.

OK, But does it work?
=====================
The Lost Planet is 100% solvable. I've tested it many times, and while you
can't always solve it in this version, ie, if you do something wrong, in the
full demo (and full game), the game will always be solvable. Unless, of
course, you die, which would be a shame.

Actually, I'm pretty proud of what I've accomplished here. The worst thing
about it was periodic INVALID PICTURE CODE when trying to draw up the
backgrounds, but it was more frustrating than anything else. I had one error
which was killing me for ages, but that's solved now.

Feel free to email with any ideas of things I should fix up, or any offers of
help. I must remind you that so far, although I've given credit to a
development team, we haven't actually worked together on it, and what you will
see is actually what I've done.

Information on Creative Stuff
=============================
The plot was developed by me, as was the theme, which you may recognise as an
adaptation of my original theme. The graphics... me. Other stuff is here and
there.. The logic is mostly by me. If you do look at it, you may notice some
weird stuff going on with LOGIC.96. If you're interested in finding out what
I'm doing (and why), just email me. I have no formal experience in anything
other than programming, although I like making up music, which only usually
goes for a few seconds, because I can't get it free-flowing. I also draw a
lot, and write a lot. 

Last, but not least
===================

The Lost Planet is a game, and its meant to be enjoyed. If you can, try to
refrain from cheating to win. There aren't any special cutsequences for
finishing this, so don't bother. Plus if you cheat, it'll spoil the future
versions, both Demo and Final Game. If you don't like it, email me, telling
me how I can improve it. If you do like it, all the more reason to email me,
I really want feedback, and if its positive, I'm all for it. If I can help
anyone at all with anything regarding 'The Lost Planet', or AGI in general,
again, just email.

That's about it,

I hope you enjoy it.

- Nick Hudson
