Political Invaders

(c) 2006 Scott M Baker / SB-Software, http://www.sb-software.com/politicalinvaders/

Intro

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to plaster as many politicians and their henchmen with pies as you can. The politicians, who don't really like getting blasted in the face with a pie, will drop bombs on you. The bombs will do you great bodily harm, so you would be wise to avoid them. The game plays similarly to "Space Invaders", but with some fun and unique twists.

Disclaimer

This game is designed with political satire in mind, and hence we tend to make fun of the political figures contained within, calling them silly names and such. We have attempted to be fair and balanced, and pick on the left and the right equally. Please don't take offense if we make fun of your particular political heroes. We do not endorse one political figure, candidate, or party over any other. We encourage you to make those choices for yourself.

Overview, Requirements, and Installation

Overview:

Political Invaders is a invader style arcade game... It plays kind of like space invaders, with a little bit of galaga or galazian mixed in. Use the arrow keys to guide your little ship back and forth, and use the <ctrl> key to fling a pie at the politician. Alternatively, you can reconfigure the input controls to use mouse or joystick. 

Requirements:

This game requires Windows XP and Microsoft DirectX version 9.0 or greater.

This game requires a decent video card with 3D acceleration.

Installation:

The automated setup program will install Political Invaders to your hard drive, and place an  icon on your desktop. Click the icon, start the game. It's as simple as that.

Getting Started

Launching the game:

The game is launched, unsurprisingly, by clicking the desktop icon labeled "Political Invaders" on your desktop. This will bring up a dialog box where you can configure game options, graphics settings, difficulty, etc.

If you want to jump right into things, then go ahead and click the <Play> button.

If, on the other hand, you want to study the full range of exciting configuration options available to you first, then continue reading...

Accessing the options menu:

The options menu is accessed by clicking the <Options> button on the main window (no surprise there....) When you do that, the splash screen of the game will be replaced with an options tab control. You can click a tab to select the options on that tab.

Windowed vs Full Screen:

You can choose to play the game in a window, or on your full screen. Personally, I recommend full screen mode (who ever went to an arcade and played a game with windows and dialog boxes in it...)

Windowed mode is useful if you still  want part of your windows desktop visible. For example, if you're waiting for an important email message or some such nonsense.

Difficulty:

The difficulty levels range from a complete and total wimp level, to unreasonably difficult. Adjusting the difficulty level will make asteroids harder to destroy, and your ship easier to destroy.

Acceleration Effect:

The acceleration effect controls how responsive your outpost defense fighter is. Traditionally, Space Invaders is played with very little acceleration effect, so we suggest turning the slider all the way to the left. But, if you'd like a bit of a challenge, crank up the acceleration effect and you'll find your little ship more difficult to control.

Game play Options:

Space Invader Barricades. This will add four barricades to your screen that will repel the incoming bombs, and at the same time interfere with your outgoing missiles. The barricades are similar to those used in space invaders.

Playing the Game

When you start the game, your first choice will be to choose a party †. This will be your party, and will determine what kind of enemies you will face.

The game is played using the keyboard, joystick, or mouse. To select an input device, use the "options" button on the main window, and select the "controls" page.

Keyboard commands:

Left-Arrow Rotate your ship left  
Right-Arrow Rotate your ship right
Ctrl Fire a pie (you have an unlimited* supply of them, so you have safely hold down the ctrl key if you wish)
Alt Fire a special weapon, such as Starburst pie
ESC Pause (or quit) the game
Shift Engage shield, if you have shield power available (you must collect power-ups)

Joystick:

[Note: By default, keyboard support is selected. To use your joystick, use the options button on the main menu and select the controls page]

Joystick support is self-intuitive. Pressing left or right moves your ship to the left or the right. Moving the joystick up or down has no effect. Weapon, Starburst, and Shield are controlled by joystick buttons 1, 2, and 3. You can also use the keyboard to fire the weapons and activate the shields.

Mouse:

[Note: By default, keyboard support is selected. To use your mouse, use the options button on the main menu and select the controls page]

Using the mouse is a very efficient way to control your ship, and with practice can be even better than using a joystick. Moving the mouse left or right will move your ship in that direction. The mouse's left button fires your primary weapon, and the right button will fire alternate weapons, such as the starburst missile. The middle button (if your mouse is so equipped) will activate shields.

You can also fire your weapon, starburst, or shield with the keyboard.

Invaders:

There are 100 waves of invaders that will attack you. Each wave is different than the last, and new enemies are added throughout the game. Different enemies move in different ways -- some are slow and march left to right, while others may zigzag unpredictably.

Hull Plating:

Your ship is equipped with a limited amount of hull plating. If an invader's bomb hits you, then your hull plating will be reduced by exactly one (this is due to highly predictable quantum effects). When you run out of hull plating, your ship is extremely vulnerable, and any hit will destroy it. That would be bad.

Power-ups:

Sometimes when you blow away an asteroid, it will leave a "power up" behind. Power-ups are equipment, materials, and treasure that were hidden by space pirates inside of the asteroid. Chase down the powerup with your ship and you will get a bonus. Here are some power-ups:

Hull Plating Adds to the existing hull plating rating of your ship.
Starburst Adds to your available starburst pie inventory. A starburst fires all kinds of pies all over the place.
Extra Pie Launcher This will add an extra pie factory to your ship, allowing you to fire two pies at once. It will last a while, and then eventually burn out, leaving you with just one pie factory. If you already have two pie factories, and you pick up this power-up, then you will be able to fire three pies at once.
Extra Ship Add another ship to your inventory. Useful. Very useful.
Shield Picking up a shield powerup will increase your shield reserve. Shields are activated by using the Shift key

 UFOs

There are a variety of UFOs that will show up periodically and harass you:

  Donkies and Elephants These beloved mascots of the politicians appear at the top of your screen and trot back and forth. They seem to be utterly useless, implying that they likely serve some kind of religious function.

Footnotes:

* You might ask yourself how we managed to fit an infinite number of pies in such a small spacecraft. The answer is simple -- your ship is equipped with a pie generation factory that creates the pies automatically. The factory is powered by a special radioactive isotope, banananium-232 which will power the pie generator for a very long time. [Warning: Banananium-232 is a substance known to the state of California to cause cancer in laboratory animals. It's perfectly safe in any other state though]

† You may choose either the republican or democrat party. Although the parties are virtually identical, there is great hatred between them, and hence the need to fling pies at your enemies. If you have no political affiliation, then the selection boils down to picking the party that you think has the hotter chicks.

Revision History

Contacting the Author:

website: http://www.sb-software.com/politicalinvaders/

email: smbaker@sb-software.com