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Foreword

This manual to Trooperz covers all the game. To use Trooperz you must know how to use your TI-89 (turn it on, use keyboard properly, run a program) and you MUST run the install program to get the plug-ins and shortcut program installed.

You can run Trooperz by pressing [diamond][1] from the HOME screen.

The Splash Screen

Trooperz displays a splash screen when it is launched. The three buttons let you access to the info window, to the open popup menu or to the new game windows. Use the arrows to select the button you want to press.

Press ESC to quit Trooperz, and APPS to view the legal notice.

The Open Menu Popup

When asked to open a saved game, Trooperz will scan for saved data and will show a popup menu with 9 choices that will contain saved game #1 to #9. If the slot says it is -Empty- then no game is saved in it. This system should make you think of memory cards on game consoles. To open a saved game, select it and press ENTER.

To return to the splash screen, press ESC.

Creating a New Game

Asking for starting a new game will open three windows: the first one is the options window, the last two are the squad composition windows where each player selects the units he wants for his squad.

The Options Window

The parameters you must set are:

Battlefield is the background for your game, being made of elements like trees or rocks that can or cannot be walked over by units. There should be nine battlefields available.
Attack ratio is the number of attacks a single unit will try in one turn, on its target. Choose between low (2 attacks), med (4 attacks) and high (6 attacks).

The higher the attack ratio is, the shorter the game lasts: units die faster.

Creating your Fighting Squads

The two squad creation windows are identical: they ask for a name and for the 4 profiles you want to assign to units #1 to #4. Four random profiles will be selected: navigate through the dropdown menus to discover the different profiles Trooperz offers you. Make your choice, and press ENTER.

You choose the same profile for two or more units.

The Main Screen

From now on the squads are made and the main Trooperz screen is displayed. The trooperz from player 1 are in the upper-left corner, player 2's are in the down-right corner. This is always the same when the game begins. You can see three different parts to the screen:

The Custom Bar is filled with five commands; these commands will change during the game.
The GRAPH screen shows all the (alive) units and a blinking cursor.
The battlefield is displayed too.
The target info bar, at the very bottom, shows some info; this bar will also change during the game.
Basically, your aim is to destroy the enemy. For this you must:
  1. Select a unit from your squad.
  2. Move it near an enemy unit.
  3. Attack and kill this enemy unit.
This may take more than one turn; it certainly does at the very beginning of the game because the two squads are far enough to be safe from each other's fire (otherwise the game would not have much sense). Anyway, in one turn, you can EITHER move a unit OR attack an enemy unit, NOT both. To give any of these two commands, you first select a unit.

Selecting Units

To move the cursor over a unit, use the LEFT and RIGHT arrows. To select the unit, press ENTER.

You can press [1],[2],[3] or [4] to draw the cursor onto (alive) unit #1 to #4.
That's not all you can do during the selection phase. the Custom Bar also tells you the following actions are possible:

[F1] Help: shows a little help window.
[F2] Info: shows all available info on the unit the cursor is over.

The target info bar down the screen already tells you the unit's health, ID and class.

[F3] Extras: opens the Extras menu.
[F4] Save: opens the save Popup menu.
[F5] Quit: immediately quits Trooperz.

If you feel bored with life, press ESC to quit.

The Extras Menu

This menu is the greatest change from one version of Trooperz to another. It contains most advanced functions of the game. It also calls to some plug-ins, the most famous one being the MemFree plug-in which really is a good thing to have on your calculator. The Extras in Trooperz 2.1 are the following:

[1] Player scores: shows the players' scores. Scores are the sum of your four units' health. You do not necessarily start with the same score. A score of zero is a defeat...
[2] Skip turn: lets you stay inactive for this turn by passing directly to the enemy turn, not asking for more action from you. Not really a wise decision to skip turn, but just in case you need it it's there.
[3] Send message: lets you send a message to the enemy; the message shows up at the beginning of his turn.
[4] Squad overview: shows the info windows for each of your units. Press ESC to stop at any moment.
[5] Enemy overview: shows the info windows for each of the enemy units. Press ESC to stop at any moment.
[6] Call MemFree: calls the MemFree plug-in if available. This plugin shows the percentages of free RAM and ROM available when it was launched, which are more talkative than the number of bytes, which is the - obscure because sometimes wrong - data delivered by the MEM window.
[7] Call Debugger: calls the Debugger plug-in if available. This plug-in is useless (except for me when debugging, obviously :).
[8] Save and Quit: asks for saving the current game and quits.

The Save Menu

This Save menu works like the Open Popup menu. You first have to choose the slot in which the game will be saved. Trooperz will react two ways:

If the slot is empty, you will be asked to give a name to the saved game (a defult one is entered for you).
If the slot is already holding a saved game, you will also be asked to give a name to the saved game, but the default name to it will be the name of the game you are writing over.

This system lets you save games quickly without typing the game name each time.

Assigning Tasks

In the second part of your turn, you assign a task to the unit you have selected. Your unit can EITHER move OR attack. Move the cursor around using the four arrows to see what happens:

When the cursor points to a free sector not too far for your unit to move over (depending on the unit's MOVE), it changes to an arrow and the target info bar shows: SECTOR IN REACH.
When the cursor points to a unit not too far for your unit to attack (depending on the unit's RANGE), it changes to a black square and the target info bar shows: TARGET IN REACH.
When the cursor points to a unit which is out of RANGE, or to a free sector which is out of REACH, or finally to a background element you cannot walk over, it changes to a forbidden sign and the target info bar shows: FORBIDDEN ZONE.
Select a free zone to move your unit, or assign it a target to attack. Then press ENTER to move it or to watch the fight. You should know the Custom has changed at this point, allowing you to perform extra tricks before pressing ENTER:
[F1] Help: shows a little help window.
[F2] Info: shows all available info on the thing you are pointing at: a simple sentence if it's just a sector, an error window if the zone is forbidden, and an info window if pointing at a unit.
[F3] Extras: opens the Extras menu.
[F4] Pointback: brings back the cursor on the unit you have selected.
[F5] Cancel: brings you back to selection phase so you can select another unit instead of the actual one.

You can press [1],[2],[3] or [4] to draw the cursor onto enemy unit #1 to #4.

The Unit Movements

The unit will simply jump to the new position, no more.
It is then your opponent's turn.

The Unit Fights

Your unit will attempt two, four or six hits (depending on the attack ratio). Each time the target is hit, it will blink. Down the screen, the target info bar will indicate the TARGET HEALTH, so you can watch it decrease if the attempt to hit is a success. Finally, you may kill the target, in which case a 'skull' animation will tell you so.
It is then your opponent's turn.

Final

When all units from a squad are dead, the game ends on the FINISH window that shows scores and turns played. Trooperz then quits.