Ray Hound Version 1.01 Copyright August 2007 Phillip Graves Contents 00- FAQ History 01- Basic Game Information 02- Game Options 03- Gameplay 04- Advanced Controls 05- Unlocking Levels 06- Comments 07- Hall of Records 08- Parting 00- FAQ History According to the GameFAQs "Contribution Documentation" there is a most common way to version a document. I am going to follow it on this document, despite wanting to use my own system instead. 1.01. Updated mainly for suggestions on BGM, but there were other fixes too. 1.00. First submission to GameFAQs. Besides version number info is the same as final save of 0.01. Go figure. 0.01. Basic Setup. Technically this is accurate. :S 01- Basic Game Information The official main page for Ray Hound is http://www18.big.or.jp/~hikoza/Prod/ Just look for the link to the download there, as most everything else is in Japanese. When I got it, it was a big pink Download Now! button. If you have another spare moment though, I also suggest trying out his other fairly recent game called "Warning Forever" if you have a chance. It blew me away the first time I played it, but just to warn you it relies on a bit more tactics than the normal overhead shooter requires. Ray Hound is an overhead shooter game with a distinct twist. You have no main weapons! Instead you have to essentially turn your enemy's fire against itself before time runs out. The setting of the game, I'm guessing, is somewhere ultramodern. Currently, in v0.91, it has a simple leveling system with a personal high score list. You won't find any trace of a story, ultrapretty graphics/animation, or even background music. The good news is that the gameplay is rich and fun enough for hours of gaming goodness! 02- Game Options There are a few basic options to change here. You cannot change the screen resolution, but there are several other things to make your experience better. You can access the game options at any point in game by hitting [ESC] or using right click if you have that enabled. You can also toggle fullscreen anywhere with [ALT]+[Enter], just like in many other games. Screen Mode It runs at 640x480. If this is hard to see at higher desktop resolutions, you might want to go fullscreen. BGM Volume There is no music right now, however this is a give and take. It's suggested that you use streaming music for this type of game anyways since it's an open ended game. Good servers for this are Winamp's Shoutcast or Icecast. Google them! SE Volume Sound Effects. Adjust this if you need to lower the volume in game for some reason, such as distortion problems. I personally use the volume knob on my speakers. Boost Adjust This is basically mouse sensitivity. I use 200 and may increase it more as I get better at the game. Replay Save The game saves your best game at each level in a rec file to the rec folder in your main Ray Hound folder. You can enable or disable it here. R-button Pause Your right mouse button can pause the game. I leave it on since the button has no other function besides that. BG Effect This toggles the background texture. Turn it off if you're system has any problems on framerate for some reason because of this. Game Effect This toggles a few special effects like your bubbles shaking and the shot trails. Like with BG Effect, if any problems you might be having can be fixed by toggling this, you should. 03- Gameplay When you first start the game, you're thrown into a circular area that you're not allowed to go out of. This is something that doesn't ever change through the whole game. Your basic ship, enemy, and projectiles don't change either. A brief note about the enemies. If there are any turrets off the screen, a growing red arrow displays their direction. The bigger the cluster, the bigger the arrow. The first thing you need to learn is how to move. You move yourself around with your mouse. You can go in any direction. Just watch out for the pink laser beams! A good thing to note is if you're within a ship's length of any turret, it won't fire at you. Unfortunately, any turrets that are temporarily bound to it don't follow the same rules, so be careful using this technique! Your primary move is used with left click. It has two functions. I will cover the first function in this section. The other, more advanced move will be covered in the next one (it is a little important to know the other move since it's the only upgrade for your ship in the game!) When you left click at any point in the game, a pale blue bubble surrounds your ship. If any pink lasers are in this area, they change to blue lasers and can destroy any turret in their path. Now, if you actually left click and hold, the blue lasers you create start to orbit around your ship! This gives you a lot of control over them, and with a little skill you'll learn how long you need to hold them for optimal directional control. Your secondary move is used by flicking the mouse very quickly. Unfortunately I haven't noticed any increase in ease by lowering the boost adjust option. With this skill, you also have two functions. The second will also be covered in the next section as it sets up the other advanced move. The basic use for this technique is to ram into the pink lasers. You read that right, you actually ram into the pink lasers! If done properly, they change to blue just like if you had trapped them with your bubble. You can send these rammed laser beams in any direction, not just back at the turret that shot it in the first place. I like this technique as sometimes the bigger groups of turrets send much to big of a laser group to grab them all with just the bubble. 04- Advanced Controls Everything in the gameplay section is enough to play the game and have fun. The good thing is when you're ready to gain more control, you have two more moves ready for you to master! They can compliment each other very nicely. The first advanced technique you need to really master the ramming move. If you ram into a turret, it can break away from other attached turrets. Go ahead and try it a few times. I've gotten up to four at a time! A good thing to note about this technique is it lets you control how the turrets are grouped and their placement. A trick to give you more power is to ram into a turret into a pink laser. Chances are you'll destroy the turret in the process. This can save precious seconds later on in the game. The second advanced technique is available only after you successfully ram a turret. If you notice, a few seconds after a turret it rammed, it gets a red border comprised of letters. It actually says "CAPTURABLE" if you can read it. What you do at this point is left click and you gain your only upgrade, a turret shield! Since this move is very particular and relies on another advanced technique to activate, you're going to have a hard time finding use for it in game. Practice it though, as you never know when it may come in handy. 05- Unlocking Levels After every 10 levels in the game, you access a new main menu option to start at that level. Combine this with replays of every level you reach, and you now have plenty of replayability potential to jump in every few days or so and get further than you ever have before! 06- Comments If you have any additional info that could help make this guide better, email me at phil dot andy dot graves at gmail dot com. I will credit you in this section! I will also take on updating high scores if you reach level 30 or higher. The person that goes the furthest in the game and sends me proof via a rec file will get a special seat at the top. ProfessorPap, a good web buddy, suggested using SomaFM as your BGM. Lacking a BGM can be horrible for standalone games, but I don't know why more web oriented games don't include a streaming music system. SomaFM is on Shoutcast. 07- Hall of Records The game includes an in game high score list, but to be put here I need your rec file! That goes for the highest level and reached 30+ as well. Highest Level Ybom, Level 14. Congrats! Highest Score Ybom, 1906100. Way to go! Has Reached Level 30+ N/A 08- Parting It was fun making this! I have no one to thank currently except Hikoza for making some of the most innovative shooters I've ever seen. Good luck for those of you for actually take a few minutes to download and try this awesome game. Have fun!