Prey - An Alien Encounter (Winuae)

Talkie · 22 January 2008, 02:37

Hello,

I'm Talkie. I'm a total newbie.

Now here is a game I'm playing and that is fantastic
and that is called "Prey - An Alien Encounter" and it
has once been reviewed as being the worst game ever.

Very far from the truth (though another CDTV-CD32 game
could be candidate for worst game ever), this game is actually
one of the first that used a full 3D environment (including scaling
as you advance, and somewhat of texture (the doors and the shades
of the light on the wall).

I mean, it was released at about the same time as Wolfenstein 3D and
Ultima Underworld, after all. Yes it could have been way much more and
doesn't compare at all with those two, but the ambiance and claustrophobia is there. Sort of a pre "The Journeyman Project" exercise. For me this is almost more like a simple 3D puzzle game: just remember your path and try not to forget to save people. It's very ok for 1992.

Ok, where was I. I did this critique because I've read so much
bad ones, but the fact is I never finished the darn game.

I can never pass the first alien that I fight somehow.

I am using cd32 emulation with cd32 iso of the game.
So my asking is about either Winuae emulation or the game interface itself.

I want to know if it is possible to save state within the game. I do not understand clearly how it works. At some points, when the game restarted, I got to see some sort of computer, and the game came back directly to the alien fight that I previously lost. In most case the game restarts from zero. How is that selection controlled within the game?? Is there any saving possible within the game ??

At some other point, the game was all in german (the speech), so I do not understand how I triggered the game to play in german. Where are these options ?

The Winuae save states don't work. When I load one, the game freezes as soon as I press to open a door or look at the map, as if the emulator forgets to go back to the cd and follow the story.

Or bluntly: why do I suck so much at alien fighting ?
After my three shots, the alien never goes down.
Do I have to dudge until the gun is full of energy again?
Because I'm pressing as soon as I see some yellow.

------------------------------------------------------------

Configurations:

I played around with that a bit. Now I'm getting
good sound without glitches (I had to had 1 Mb slow ram
to the 8 MB fast, somehow), but the resolution
seems worst than the first time I played. It's as
if the emulator thinks I don't have enough memory
so it put backs the graphics to a lower, more pixellated
resolution. What are the magic buttons within Winuae
to ensure you get maximum graphic quality??

The animation intro is always glitchy, graphically.

Apart from that my main problem is save state.
I know it's dumb to use sasve in a game that's
supposed to last 60 minutes, but I need to
try out the alien fight without having to
re-start the whole gathering of the crew.

Any expert ?

Thanks,

Talkie

Talkie · 23 January 2008, 17:32

"let's stay calm, other people need your help down there...."

Hmmm. So I guess no one played that game at this point?

I'm still stuck, but I discovered that there is different
sort of save states in Winuae, and so finally saved a RAM
dump, but that just sort of have the effect of a reset.

I also played with game port and input configurations.

Basically, if I'm able to move in all directions, and get
to see the map and the current score, then I have
all the buttons I need to play this, but it's like
the Ducking never functions when I meet the alien.
How do you know for sure that you have ducked
the alien ?? I keep pressing down arrow or left button
to no effect. Do I have to press 2 buttons at once ?
Repeat pressing the same button fast ??
I wonder if I should use left and right arrows as it
sounds more logical to duck that way.

Pressing fire is another nightmare. I can't seem
to figure out how it works. Do I have to wait
til the gun is full again to press fire? I think
I've shot 3 times and the alien was still up.

I'm figuring that if I can just succeed getting
rid of the alien than I won't need any saving
(it's just annoying to have to restart everything
because you lost a 30 seconds fight).

By the way, I've managed to trigger the
french version, lol. What's next? Polish ?
I have no idea how I triggered language shift.

Sometimes I see a computer and it gets to
an alien fight. I thought this was a save
state, but I think that is what they call
the "demo", a practice of a fight with an
alien.

I never had so much problem with a simple shooting
since the original Wing Commander.

Cheers,

Talkie

lilalurl · 23 January 2008, 20:34

Can't help you with the game but unless there have been some changes I don't know of (don't use the betas), the save state function doesn't work when playing a game from HD or CD.

For your configuration problem, since you use CD32 emulation, make sure you map all the CD32 buttons (those beginning with joy1/2 CD32) to some keys of your keyboard (placed closely and conveniently) to try their functions.

Toni Wilen · 23 January 2008, 21:36

CD32 and harddrive statefile support has been implemented long time ago already but it isn't perfect.

(but I don't really care about Amiga doom/wolfenstein clones)

StevenJGore · 23 January 2008, 21:58

Quote:

this game is actually
one of the first that used a full 3D environment

It's not a full 3D environment. In fact, it's not 3D at all. As far as I know, and I'm happy to be corrected on this if I'm wrong, it spools pre-rendered 'movement' animations off the CD. The animations are compressed and in black and white, but each area is given a different coloured hue to make things look a bit more varied. A real give away to this is that each level all looks the same. Plus, you can only move in pre-determined directions: forward 1 block, back 1 block, turn left 90 degrees, turn right 90 degrees.

Quote:

(but I don't really care about Amiga doom/wolfenstein clones)

...which is strange considering that WinUAE handles such games extremely well! AB3D, AB3DII-TKG, Genetic Species, Nemac, Breathless, all work brilliantly.

Steve.

Talkie · 23 January 2008, 22:59

Steven:
>>>>It's not a full 3D environment. In fact, it's not 3D at all.

Ha darn, I've been fooled ! ;-) But it does look very 3D, it's an interesting
illusion.

>>>>>A real give away to this is that each level all looks the same.

Hmmm, well, the medic, office and crew quarters look different to me
(only ones I did until now). Yes, the walls are blank, but the wall borders
and lightning is different (not the colors, I really mean the lightning).

>>>>>Plus, you can only move in pre-determined directions

I thought the automatic repetitive movement was due to graphic limitations, but not that they were splices of animations. Strange.

Still, for 1992, having the headphone guy speak to you all the way through, to me it's like the beginning of future 3d environment action-adventures. For the use of sound alone as "first-person guiding" I feel
it's not entirely the thrash that it been described in reviews. Repetitive
and primitive, yes, but nonetheless intriguing.

So, everybody have been able to duck and kill the alien but me ?

Cheers,

Talkie

Toni Wilen · 24 January 2008, 13:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by StevenJGore

...which is strange considering that WinUAE handles such games extremely well! AB3D, AB3DII-TKG, Genetic Species, Nemac, Breathless, all work brilliantly.

Brillant pixel soup

I'll prefer native 3D-accelerated PC 'doom-clones' if I want to play those kinds of games. There is nothing retro in Amiga doom clones. ( IMHO and so on of course)

Talkie · 24 January 2008, 16:52

I guess Wolfenstein3D or Doom were the wrong examples. Prey is more akin to sci-fi first-person adventure games like The Journeyman Project or
Myst. It's also before the 7th Guest.

I'm updating this thread so that people one day can find a proper trouble page about it.

I found out that you can select up to 8 languages for this ! All talkie !
You have to click pause and trigger either the middle mouse
button (in default port mode) and select a number from 1 to 8.
Espanol ? Dutch ? Svensk ? No problemo.

Then I found out that playing with the right and left arrows trigger some
kind of ducking. The game demo doesn't mention this, but it does mention that playing with the up and down arrows can trigger a fight, which I don't see happening. Then in the control page they say: down or blue button for duck, red button for fire. No mention of fight controls. Go figure.

There is a minimalist walkthrough here:

http://www.lemonamiga.com/games/docs_print.php?id=1284

But the coolest news is I've downloaded the new Winuae (mine was over 2 years old), and, after a couple hellish hours at trying to transfer and reset my configurations in order that they work, I realize that the save states do function in the new winuae!! The thing upload to wherever I want, no freeze. There is a letdown: the sound becomes out-of-syncish.
So unless there is a solution, I will use it at the latest possible.

But the gameplay is even more smooth in the new Winuae (1.4.5).
For this game, you have to lower the slow memory to 512k otherwise the sound is quite glitchy.

So next I'm savesetting right before I meet the alien and see if I can beat it. I might just be a really bad player.

Cheers,

Talkie

Talkie · 25 January 2008, 08:42

Well, errr, "Yahoo", I've managed to play this until near the ending.

Thanks to the save states, I've manage to go through by simply
not entering the rooms where they are "aliens" (see PS).

Thing is, it seems the aliens are spread randomly at the beginning
of each game, but once you start, they remain in place, so they
are easy to avoid by using the save states. I do not know
yet if killing them is a requirement to succeed the game.
Rescuing (more like beam-target) all the staff is the main
goal of this very simple plot.

It took me about 30 minutes to get to the final elevator,
so I presume that adding to it the actual fighting with aliens
gives the game about a 40 minutes length. Very short,
but those were the days. Even an instant classic like
Defender Of The Crown was short.

Now I'm at a final elevator, and have met an "alien"
which I must fight to go through. I'll try micro save
states and see if I can manage. The thing is that the
controls never respond when I want them. I'm either
a very bad player or the controls are pretty screwed.
I have no idea when to press exactly what to avoid
a punch. It seems the point is to avoid punches until
your gun is full again and you can fire properly.

Once you use a save state, the sound is late on actions.
I tried Sync options with sound, but that haven't done much.
The best yet was to look a fetching map for 2 minutes, than
after that, the sound get on sync for a while. But even
without sync, everything else functions normaly.

I'm presuming that the ending is very close.

I'm writting this for future lunatics like me who
might have the same questions, but hopefully
if they just update their Winuae that can
resolves a lot of things.

Cheers,

Talkie

PS: SPOILERS AHEAD??? It's very obvious obvious that these
"aliens" are in fact radio-activated staff members, but I might
be wrong too. I will laugh if they are "real" aliens.

Talkie · 25 January 2008, 10:15

SOLVED !! ...Sort of...(lol)

By using micro-states and fooling around
(saving when I evitate the succinct punches),
I succeeded killing the final "alien".

Guess what, there is no explanation at all
as to what happened. So I'll presume those
were "real" aliens. Am I allowed
to laugh, now ?

Luv the clapping at the hands, err, end. (lol)

Allright, let's move on.

Cheers,

Talkie

PS: I would put this in a puzzle category, as the only
challenge is in remembering what doors you've opened
and what crew you've saved, in a limited amount of time.
I'm sure if the fighting controls were more responsive,
that would add a fair element of action in the game.
A primitive form of survival-horror.

Thanks Toni for Winuae !!!!

22 January 2008, 02:37	#1
Talkie Registered User Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: Canada Posts: 49	Prey - An Alien Encounter (Winuae) Hello, I'm Talkie. I'm a total newbie. Now here is a game I'm playing and that is fantastic and that is called "Prey - An Alien Encounter" and it has once been reviewed as being the worst game ever. Very far from the truth (though another CDTV-CD32 game could be candidate for worst game ever), this game is actually one of the first that used a full 3D environment (including scaling as you advance, and somewhat of texture (the doors and the shades of the light on the wall). I mean, it was released at about the same time as Wolfenstein 3D and Ultima Underworld, after all. Yes it could have been way much more and doesn't compare at all with those two, but the ambiance and claustrophobia is there. Sort of a pre "The Journeyman Project" exercise. For me this is almost more like a simple 3D puzzle game: just remember your path and try not to forget to save people. It's very ok for 1992. Ok, where was I. I did this critique because I've read so much bad ones, but the fact is I never finished the darn game. I can never pass the first alien that I fight somehow. I am using cd32 emulation with cd32 iso of the game. So my asking is about either Winuae emulation or the game interface itself. I want to know if it is possible to save state within the game. I do not understand clearly how it works. At some points, when the game restarted, I got to see some sort of computer, and the game came back directly to the alien fight that I previously lost. In most case the game restarts from zero. How is that selection controlled within the game?? Is there any saving possible within the game ?? At some other point, the game was all in german (the speech), so I do not understand how I triggered the game to play in german. Where are these options ? The Winuae save states don't work. When I load one, the game freezes as soon as I press to open a door or look at the map, as if the emulator forgets to go back to the cd and follow the story. Or bluntly: why do I suck so much at alien fighting ? After my three shots, the alien never goes down. Do I have to dudge until the gun is full of energy again? Because I'm pressing as soon as I see some yellow. ------------------------------------------------------------ Configurations: I played around with that a bit. Now I'm getting good sound without glitches (I had to had 1 Mb slow ram to the 8 MB fast, somehow), but the resolution seems worst than the first time I played. It's as if the emulator thinks I don't have enough memory so it put backs the graphics to a lower, more pixellated resolution. What are the magic buttons within Winuae to ensure you get maximum graphic quality?? The animation intro is always glitchy, graphically. Apart from that my main problem is save state. I know it's dumb to use sasve in a game that's supposed to last 60 minutes, but I need to try out the alien fight without having to re-start the whole gathering of the crew. Any expert ? Thanks, Talkie Last edited by Talkie; 22 January 2008 at 02:41. Reason: typos

24 January 2008, 16:52	#8
Talkie Registered User Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: Canada Posts: 49	I guess Wolfenstein3D or Doom were the wrong examples. Prey is more akin to sci-fi first-person adventure games like The Journeyman Project or Myst. It's also before the 7th Guest. I'm updating this thread so that people one day can find a proper trouble page about it. I found out that you can select up to 8 languages for this ! All talkie ! You have to click pause and trigger either the middle mouse button (in default port mode) and select a number from 1 to 8. Espanol ? Dutch ? Svensk ? No problemo. Then I found out that playing with the right and left arrows trigger some kind of ducking. The game demo doesn't mention this, but it does mention that playing with the up and down arrows can trigger a fight, which I don't see happening. Then in the control page they say: down or blue button for duck, red button for fire. No mention of fight controls. Go figure. There is a minimalist walkthrough here: http://www.lemonamiga.com/games/docs_print.php?id=1284 But the coolest news is I've downloaded the new Winuae (mine was over 2 years old), and, after a couple hellish hours at trying to transfer and reset my configurations in order that they work, I realize that the save states do function in the new winuae!! The thing upload to wherever I want, no freeze. There is a letdown: the sound becomes out-of-syncish. So unless there is a solution, I will use it at the latest possible. But the gameplay is even more smooth in the new Winuae (1.4.5). For this game, you have to lower the slow memory to 512k otherwise the sound is quite glitchy. So next I'm savesetting right before I meet the alien and see if I can beat it. I might just be a really bad player. Cheers, Talkie Last edited by Talkie; 25 January 2008 at 04:08. Reason: changed or for and

25 January 2008, 10:15	#10
Talkie Registered User Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: Canada Posts: 49	SOLVED !! ...Sort of...(lol) By using micro-states and fooling around (saving when I evitate the succinct punches), I succeeded killing the final "alien". Guess what, there is no explanation at all as to what happened. So I'll presume those were "real" aliens. Am I allowed to laugh, now ? Luv the clapping at the hands, err, end. (lol) Allright, let's move on. Cheers, Talkie PS: I would put this in a puzzle category, as the only challenge is in remembering what doors you've opened and what crew you've saved, in a limited amount of time. I'm sure if the fighting controls were more responsive, that would add a fair element of action in the game. A primitive form of survival-horror. Thanks Toni for Winuae !!!! Last edited by Talkie; 25 January 2008 at 10:27. Reason: typo

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23 January 2008, 17:32	#2
Talkie Registered User Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: Canada Posts: 49	"let's stay calm, other people need your help down there...." Hmmm. So I guess no one played that game at this point? I'm still stuck, but I discovered that there is different sort of save states in Winuae, and so finally saved a RAM dump, but that just sort of have the effect of a reset. I also played with game port and input configurations. Basically, if I'm able to move in all directions, and get to see the map and the current score, then I have all the buttons I need to play this, but it's like the Ducking never functions when I meet the alien. How do you know for sure that you have ducked the alien ?? I keep pressing down arrow or left button to no effect. Do I have to press 2 buttons at once ? Repeat pressing the same button fast ?? I wonder if I should use left and right arrows as it sounds more logical to duck that way. Pressing fire is another nightmare. I can't seem to figure out how it works. Do I have to wait til the gun is full again to press fire? I think I've shot 3 times and the alien was still up. I'm figuring that if I can just succeed getting rid of the alien than I won't need any saving (it's just annoying to have to restart everything because you lost a 30 seconds fight). By the way, I've managed to trigger the french version, lol. What's next? Polish ? I have no idea how I triggered language shift. Sometimes I see a computer and it gets to an alien fight. I thought this was a save state, but I think that is what they call the "demo", a practice of a fight with an alien. I never had so much problem with a simple shooting since the original Wing Commander. Cheers, Talkie

23 January 2008, 20:34	#3
lilalurl Global Moderator Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: France Posts: 3,289	Can't help you with the game but unless there have been some changes I don't know of (don't use the betas), the save state function doesn't work when playing a game from HD or CD. For your configuration problem, since you use CD32 emulation, make sure you map all the CD32 buttons (those beginning with joy1/2 CD32) to some keys of your keyboard (placed closely and conveniently) to try their functions.

23 January 2008, 21:36	#4
Toni Wilen WinUAE developer Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Hämeenlinna/Finland Age: 49 Posts: 26,502	CD32 and harddrive statefile support has been implemented long time ago already but it isn't perfect. (but I don't really care about Amiga doom/wolfenstein clones)

23 January 2008, 22:59	#6
Talkie Registered User Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: Canada Posts: 49	Steven: >>>>It's not a full 3D environment. In fact, it's not 3D at all. Ha darn, I've been fooled ! ;-) But it does look very 3D, it's an interesting illusion. >>>>>A real give away to this is that each level all looks the same. Hmmm, well, the medic, office and crew quarters look different to me (only ones I did until now). Yes, the walls are blank, but the wall borders and lightning is different (not the colors, I really mean the lightning). >>>>>Plus, you can only move in pre-determined directions I thought the automatic repetitive movement was due to graphic limitations, but not that they were splices of animations. Strange. Still, for 1992, having the headphone guy speak to you all the way through, to me it's like the beginning of future 3d environment action-adventures. For the use of sound alone as "first-person guiding" I feel it's not entirely the thrash that it been described in reviews. Repetitive and primitive, yes, but nonetheless intriguing. So, everybody have been able to duck and kill the alien but me ? Cheers, Talkie

25 January 2008, 08:42	#9
Talkie Registered User Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: Canada Posts: 49	Well, errr, "Yahoo", I've managed to play this until near the ending. Thanks to the save states, I've manage to go through by simply not entering the rooms where they are "aliens" (see PS). Thing is, it seems the aliens are spread randomly at the beginning of each game, but once you start, they remain in place, so they are easy to avoid by using the save states. I do not know yet if killing them is a requirement to succeed the game. Rescuing (more like beam-target) all the staff is the main goal of this very simple plot. It took me about 30 minutes to get to the final elevator, so I presume that adding to it the actual fighting with aliens gives the game about a 40 minutes length. Very short, but those were the days. Even an instant classic like Defender Of The Crown was short. Now I'm at a final elevator, and have met an "alien" which I must fight to go through. I'll try micro save states and see if I can manage. The thing is that the controls never respond when I want them. I'm either a very bad player or the controls are pretty screwed. I have no idea when to press exactly what to avoid a punch. It seems the point is to avoid punches until your gun is full again and you can fire properly. Once you use a save state, the sound is late on actions. I tried Sync options with sound, but that haven't done much. The best yet was to look a fetching map for 2 minutes, than after that, the sound get on sync for a while. But even without sync, everything else functions normaly. I'm presuming that the ending is very close. I'm writting this for future lunatics like me who might have the same questions, but hopefully if they just update their Winuae that can resolves a lot of things. Cheers, Talkie PS: SPOILERS AHEAD??? It's very obvious obvious that these "aliens" are in fact radio-activated staff members, but I might be wrong too. I will laugh if they are "real" aliens.

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