monsters, explosions, and senseless
destruction.
You've seen the movies, you know what to do.
Version 1.2 (5/17/96)
(thanks to Johan Hagman - Johan.Hagman@mailbox.swipnet.se - for his help with porting battalion to Solaris)
battalion is a giant monster game where you are a giant monster fighting to survive against the military while causing as much destruction as you can.
battalion is Copyright (c) 1994-1997 by Andrew Johnson - All Rights Reserved
battalion is provided free of charge. There is no registration fee.
Permission to copy and distribute battalion in its entirety, for non- commercial purposes, is hereby granted without fee provided this copyright notice appears in all copies.
If you redistribute battalion then the ENTIRE contents of this distribution must be distributed.
Note that distributing battalion in with any product is considered to be a 'commercial purpose.'
This software may be modified for your own purposes, but modified versions may not be distributed without prior consent of the author.
This software is provided 'as-is' without any express or implied warrenty. In no event shall the author be held liable for any damages arising from the use or misuse of this software.
Should you want to do something with this software that is prohibited by the above copyright, please contact the author (email please) as he is very likely willing to sell out for the almighty dollar.
This distribution includes a version of battalion compiled with the Mesa 3-D graphics library which is (c) Brian Paul.
The script "battalion" starts the game. Press space to select your monster with keys 6 to 9 (Googelon, Techs, the Vapour or Flutter), then press 1 to enter monster's view. Move using the mouse or arrow keys, shoot with the left button or Ctrl and press Esc to exit. The a and z keys tilt the monster's head. The s key toggles sound effects and g toggles pointer grab, useful to keep the pointer inside the window. In demo mode (before and after a game), press h to view the on-screen help and H to see the high scores.
-a(lone) Fight alone. -b(ackdrop) Hide the overlays. -d(etail) n Set graphics level-of-detail to 0,1,2. The Mesa version defaults to 0 (low) and OpenGL version to 2 (high). The d key changes the detail level while the game is running. -m(usic) Initially turn on the background music. -s(ound) Initially turn on sound effects. -lscores¹ Use local high scores file (in /var/tmp), even if startup script has been set up to access a global high score file. -mesa¹ If OpenGL² is installed, use this option to tell the startup script to run the Mesa instead of OpenGL binary. -help Shows game version and a list of command line options.
Space Selects your monster (keys 6,7,8,9). h Displays the on-screen help. H Displays the high scores.
Mouse/arrows Moves the monster. Left button/Ctrl Shoot! 1, 2, 3 Selects monster view / overview / army view. Use the i,j,k,l keys to rotate the battlefield in overview mode. a, z Tilts monster's head. d Steps through detail levels 0, 1, 2. g Toggles pointer grabbing, which locks the mouse pointer into the battalion window. Gives you better control if you move using the mouse. m Toggles background music. p Pauses the game. s Toggles sound. ESC Exit.
The volume is initialized to a low level by audioplay, called from the startup script. Change the level/comment out as appropriate.
BATTALIONSCOREDIR Defines directory for high score file (default /var/tmp). This variable is already defined in the startup script, but the line is commented out. BATTALIONSCOREUNIQUE Setting this variable limits the number of high score entries per user to one (only the top entry). To enable this behavior, uncomment the line in the startup script that defines this variable. ---- ¹) The -lscores and -mesa options are handled by the startup script. ²) The Sun OpenGL 1.0 runtime packages must be installed in order to use the battalion.opengl binary. OpenGL 1.0 supports only the Creator 3D framebuffer.
The main resource for information on the game, FAQ list, and the latest downloadable versions is the battalion Home Page
3rd Indizone Contest Home Page
Japanese Monster Movie Jump Page
ajohnson@eecs.uic.edu
http://www.eecs.uic.edu/~ajohnson
Andrew Johnson
Electronic Visualization Laboratory (M/C 154)
University of Illinois at Chicago
851 South Morgan St. Room 1120 SEO
Chicago, IL 60607