Ducks
From Hungrysoftware
Ducks is a puzzle computer game in which you have to lead ducks safely to rockets. Upon the first complete release it received several favorable reviews from many gaming sites. Originally, the game was released as shareware pricing at USD$25 or UK£15. At that time, users could play levels 1 to 20 from the main game. However, due to the advents of improvements of the Windows operating system, the game went completely free in late 2006.
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Origins
The game was conceived back in September 1998 as a small beta version featuring 10 levels and a rough scheme of the engine. It was not until late 1999 version 0.4 was released which featured a complete engine with multiple additions and bug fixes. Version 1.0 followed in early 2000 and version 1.21 surfaced on late 2000.
Gameplay
The gameplay bears some similarities to the computer game Lemmings in which its premise involves leading small rodents which walk by themselves mindlessly to safety by teaching the rodents specialised skills. In Ducks, however, the premise varies as the wildfowl does not walk on its own but rather than following a green leader duck or by means of followable objects (explained later). Also, unlike Lemmings, the tools have unlimited stock.
The game levels are divided into episodes, each one with a further increasing difficulty. A score system is present during gameplay which varies according to which action is performed (e.g: saving ducks, flicking switches, dropping aliens off the screen). The maximum score possible of being reached is 65535 due to it being an integer value of 16-bit handling. A par time is also present on every level which after time expiration the level does not end abruptly, meaning the user can continue trying to complete the level, even after time expiration (although no time bonus is rewarded). The user, when found not being able to complete the level due to not having enough ducks, lost accidentally a rocket, have nothing left for orange ducks to follow, can abort the level with the 'Esc' key, although it costs a life.
An interesting aspect of Ducks (for this type of game) is the abundancy of secret levels. Every one of them is reached upon contact of the green leader duck with a secret doorway (which is invisible at first glance). These levels are generally numbered between 200-255 and after completion of the level (either by completing the level normally or failing because all ducks died) it returns the user to the level from where the secret was accessed. Unlike normal levels, time expiration leads to the automatic abortion of the attempt (it has the same effect as pressing the 'Esc' key).
After the completion of a level, a bonus screen appears rewarding the user with three bonus factors, time, survivors and lives. Time bonus range from 0-135 depending on how much time is left, survivors and lives numbers are multiplied by 10 and then added to the total bonus score. An extra life is earned in multiples of 5000.
Tools
There are thirteen available tools which the user can use to aid the ducks in reaching the rockets. A level can have up to eight tools selectable, although no level exists with such amount of tools. It is not required to at least have one tool available. Tools prefixed with an asterisk * are only available on secret levels. You can only use one tool at a time, and in the case of seagulls and saucers, you cannot deploy either if one currently exists in the level. There are infinite amounts of each tool.
 | Bomb | Drops a falling bomb so it blows up a bit of terrain on contact. Solid terrain is unaffected. |
 | Balloon | Indentical to a bomb, except it slowly drifts upwards. |
 | Horizontal bridge | Drops a bridge which spreads horizontally on contact with the floor. |
 | Diagonal bridge | Drops a bridge which spreads at 45º on contact with the floor. Usually this is only useful when dropped on corners. |
 | Brick | Drops a brick so the user can build up a way to overcome holes if no bridges are available. |
 | Stop sign | Acts like a small wall, prevent ducks and other objects from wandering into places you don't want them to, such as holes or other dangerous objects. |
 | Flying saucer | Deploys a saucer which ducks will follow instead of the leader. They have a slow fall rate. When blown up by the detonator, it destroys part of the surrounding terrain. |
 | Seagull | Similar to a saucer, except that it flies horizontally. It can move up slopes, but it cannot fly downwards. If it flies off of the top of the screen it is removed. Detonating it will cause it to fall until it hits the floor, where it dies messily. |
 | Detonator | Used exclusively on flying saucers and seagulls, blows up one of the two instances in different animated ways. |
 | Pick new leader | Allows any duck to be selected as the leader. By clicking another duck, the current leader is changed, as you can only ever have 1 leader duck. By clicking on no duck, the leader is removed. |
 | Teleport current leader | Teleports the current leader to where the mouse is, provided it is in empty space. |
 | BDG9000* | Use this weapon to destroy aliens by clicking on them. More points are awarded if more ducks remain on the level. |
 | Extra spinning duck* | Respawns an additional duck for use with the paddle. |
Objects
TODO...
Customisation
Customising the look and sound of Ducks can be done by loading additional data files when running the Ducks game. These expansion packs can add new graphics, text, sounds and levels... even entirely new objects and tools. Expansion packs can be created using the Ducks Editor Suite. There have been several official expansion packs (see below) and many, many more third party expansion packs (see even further below).
Official expansion packs
Due to Ducks being fairly customisable, several official expansion packs were produced for the game. The first and smallest of these is Xmas Ducks 2000; the following, much larger expansion packs are World Wide Webbed and Beak To The Future.
Third party expansion packs
TODO...
Current compatibility
The game was originally written for DOS, back in 1998. However recent Windows versions are unable to run the game properly with sound, mainly because DOS-based version of Windows had full control over SoundBlaster duties, which is not true under NT-kernel operating system (e.g. Windows XP).
However, users have been experimenting with DosBox, a program which is capable of emulating DOS games under a NT-kernel Windows environment, with sound support as well. But tests for Ducks have showed a very slow performance, with sounds sometimes played at either double speed or not at all, though emulation results vary from PC to PC.
