Retro Gamer 17

home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search

/ Retro Gamer 17 / Retro Gamer 17.iso / 2D Shooters / InstallSpheresOfChaos.exe / readme.txt < prev next >

Wrap

Text File | 2002-03-15 | 36KB | 971 lines

Spheres Of Chaos v2.06 A spectacular arcade game for Windows 95/98/2000/(and possibly XP) / RiscOS / Linux Spheres of Chaos is a hectic, fast-paced, and rather colourful arcade game in the old-school style. Fly a ship around, dodging amongst hordes of assorted strange objects that subdivide when you shoot them. Earn bonus ships for score, Collect tokens for extra-powers. Battle the big aliens and other wierd things that occasionally appear. Survive as the game gets ever faster and more manic. It has visually unusual special effects using thousands of pixels (up to 130,000) to create firework explosions, rockets and trails. And it's quite noisy too. It's Psychadelic Mayhem!. And if you like this demo, buy the full version.... More Aliens More Levels More Players More Big Bad Dudes More Strange Stuff Much More Chaos! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Contents -------- 1 System requirements 2 Installing 3 Running 4 How to play 5 Errors 6 Tech support 7 The menus 8 Extra keys 9 Tech stuff 10 Disclaimer 11 Distribution 12 Purchasing 13 Addresses 1 SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS --------------------- The Windows version 95/98/2000 needs: ------------------------------------- (Sorry, but because DirectX doesn't work on NT, neither does this game). About 12 Megs of free memory. That's just a guess though. DirectX. I have version 5, but any version should work. I don't ask it to do anything difficult. You can get DirectX from almost any game CD, magazine cover disk, or from Microsoft at http://www.microsoft.com A mouse. Keyboard & joystick optional. A graphics card capable of 640x480 256 colour video mode. A processor. I don't know the minimum speed to recommend. I'm told it worked on a P60. Probably not very well though. A sound card. (optional, but reccomended as it's a cachophonic game) All of the above must work properly! The RiscOS version needs: ------------------------- About 12 Megs memory. A 640x480 pixel video mode available. For the Risc-PC, there is a file 'modes' included in the game's directory, from which you can cut and paste a mode definition to your own mode definitions file. For earlier machines, I think there was a 640x480 256 colour mode. Try it and see if it works... 1M of Risc-PC Vram should be enough for three screens worth at this resolution, which allows the game to run more smoothly. Risc-OS 3.7 or later, (and probably earlier too, but you may need the CallASwi module). The game works much better if the screen memory is cacheable, which it isn't by default, on RiscOS 3.7 at least. To make the screen memory cacheable on my machine I use a small (3k) module called 'autovcache', with the command '*VCache_Control -screenswap'. This enables caching whenever game-type screen swapping is happening. Unfortunately, since I seem to have lost it's documentation, all I can tell you about autovcache for now is that it was created by Torsten Karworth. The Linux version needs: ------------------------ (I'm new to Linux, so this may be not quite right...) Aboput 12 Megs of memory. X. I'm running KDE under X, and the game works there. When I tried it from outside X it couldn't get to the screen at all. But even from inside X, I can't get direct access to the video memory, which makes the game slower than the windoze version. SDL. I'm not sure if SDL is self contained within the game, or if you have to also install it on your system yourself. 2 INSTALLING ------------ Windows95/98/2000 ----------------- If you can read this readme file, then you have already installed Spheres of Chaos. So there's not really much point in me telling you how here. A chicken and egg scenario... RiscOS: ------- Just Un-spark (or whatever) the archive somewhere. If you have SparkFS installed, you could probably even run it from the archive. Linux ----- I have no idea how to install stuff properly under linux... I'll probably do an 'rpm' distribution though. UNINSTALLING ------------ Windows 95/98/2000 ------------------ Use 'add/remove programs' This will delete everything except the game folder, the scores file, and the 'conf_1' configuration folder. You will have to delete these yourself. RiscOS ------ Just delete the directory !chaos Linux ----- Don't know yet, but it probably involves deleting stuff... 3 RUNNING THE GAME ------------------- Windows 95/98/2000 ------------------ Use the start menu - click on the 'Spheres of Chaos' entry in 'programs \ Spheres of Chaos' or Open the folder c:\Program Files\Spheres of Chaos. Double click on 'Chaos.exe'. RiscOS ------ Double click on the !Chaos icon Linux ----- Type 'Chaos' at a bash prompt, from within X. I suggest setting X's screen mode to 640x480 256 colour before running the game, because otherwise you will get a silly little game window, and not fullscreen. If X is not running in a 256 colour mode, SDL will also have to convert bit depths when copying your game's screen to the actual video memory, which will slow things down somewhat. SDL doesn't seem able to get a proper fullscreen video mode. 4 HOW TO PLAY ------------- To start a game, click on 'start game', or press the spacebar. Fly your ship around the screen, shoot things, and try not to crash into them. To aim your ship, move the mouse left and right. To fire, press the left mouse button. To move, press the right mouse button. To stop again, press the 'brakes' key (left alt), or turn around and use the right mouse button again. To do an emergency hyperspace jump, press the left ctrl key, or move the mouse up suddenly. If your mouse has a middle button, this may be 'brakes', but it may also change the ship turn speed as a side effect. Shoot things to score points. Every 10,000 points you get an extra ship. At a score of 100,000 points this changes to every 15,000. And at 500,000 it changes to every 20,000. Bump into the triangles to collect them. Your ship will temporarily get extra powers, depending on the colour of the triangle. All the different types of extra power last the same time. If you collect one you already have it adds to the time left. Some types of extra powers come in pairs, such as bounce and zap shield. If you collect one type whilst you already have the other of the pair, you get the new type, with the time remaining for the old one added on. Some types will combine together, such as fast shots and spread fire, giving fast spread fire. My favourite is score multiplier followed by smartbomb. Shooting a triangle changes its colour randomly up or down two colours. Shooting and destroying a triangle up 'collects' it, but it will only last half as long. 5 ERRORS -------- You may (or possibly not) see an error message, If there was an attempt to show an error, the message will be in a file 'error.txt' (or just 'error'), which you will find in the same folder as the game. Here are some of them. "Chaos ran out of memory" Not enough memory. Unlikely to actually happen. "Failed to open display" A 640 x 480 256 colour screen mode is not available. On a Risc-PC, you may need to copy a mode definition from the 'modes' file within the game into your own mode definitions file. On Windows, your graphics card or DirectX doesn't support the required screen resolution. "DirectDraw initialisation failed for x= y= bpp=. This program requires DirectX" Either caused by the same problem as the error above, or you don't have DirectX installed on your system. Install DirectX. "Failed to re-init DirectDraw" You Alt-tabbed out of the game, and it can't get the screen back again. Don't Alt-tab. "Registration error" Registering the game went wrong. "DInput_Init failed" "DI_Init_Mouse failed" "DI_Init_Keyboard failed" "DI_Read_Mouse failed" "DI_Read_Keyboard failed" "dinput.dll (or similar name) required file missing" Direct Input is broken. Try rebooting your machine first, try re-installing DirectX. There are other error messages. Some are internal and my fault, but should not happen. Others may happen if your PC goes funny. Try rebooting. Windows only: If you see no error message, the game may have tried to display a message, or it may have just crashed. Try pressing return, or Ctrl-Alt-Del, or anything else you find works. The display always gets messed up if DirectDraw was in use during a crash. You may have to reset. The game leaves no files open, so you shouldn't have to use scandisk. I have found out how to trap errors better now (on windoze), so you should usually see an error box. Windoze's black on black error messages! (In 'hitch hikers guide to the galaxy by Douglas Adams, there was a black space ship, with black control buttons, labled in black, which lit up in black when you pressed them. It was supposed to be a joke... ) RiscOS only: I'm setting the VDU drivers to write to the screen currently displayed, so you should always see some sort of message, even if my error handling goes duff. If you get a half-drawn error box, accompanied by a buzzing noise, it means a crash error has happened, RiscOS has paged out the applications memory, but all the claimed IRQ-type vectors like the sound & vsync are still pointing at it. So every 50th of a second or so the machine re-crashes when one of these vectors tries to call code that isn't there anymore. You will have to press the reset button. 6 TECHNICAL SUPPORT ------------------- If you can't get the game to work properly, visit my web page at http://www.chaotica.u-net.com to see if there is a newer version, or any help for common problems. If that doesn't help, email me at iain@chaotica.u-net.com, and attach or cut-and-paste the error.txt to it. I will try to assist, but PC's can be very peculiar. They all behave differently and very stupidly sometimes, and as a programmer I can be completely baffled. I may need you to run alternative problem detecting versions of the game on your machine, that writes lots of 'I got this far' messages to a file to mark how far it gets before it falls over. All versions of the game now have the same name, so that it can be permanently linked from places such as www.download.com without having to update the link with every new version. You will have to look at the date of the file to identify it. Win95 versions are called chaosw.zip 7 THE MENUS ----------- The items on the main screen lead to submenus. Click on one to go there. The left button jumps to submenus or increases values, the right button decreases values. Most of the menus have a 'reset' button, which resets that menu. Controls Menu ---------------- Change the amount of players by clicking on the number. You will not be able to set the number of players to one if you have chosen a multiplayer type game on the variations menu. For each player you can change: The colour of the ship by clicking on it. The control method by clicking on the word Mouse/Joystick/Keyboard The rotation speed of the ship by clicking on Speed. The keyboard controls. To change a key, point at one of the keys for a ship. When it has a box around it, press the key you want to use on the keyboard. From left to right they represent: Turn anti-clockwise, Turn clockwise, Fire, Thrust, Hyperspace, Brakes. The mouse is the best control method. Moving the mouse left and right rotates the ship. Move the mouse up quickly to Hyperspace. Backwards has no effect. The buttons from the left represent Fire and Thrust. Joystick. (Sorry, Joystick doesn't work on the RiscOS version yet...) Left and right rotates the ship. The Fire button fires. The other button is thrust. Only 2 buttons currently supported. Up is Brakes, Down is Hyperspace. You can change which joystick movement does which action. Point at one of the keys so it has a box around it, the same way keys are set. Then press a joystick button or move it up, down, left, or right. If you control several ships using only the mouse, they will all point in the same diretion. Difficulty Menu ---------------- Overall difficulty: resets all the settings on this screen. Game Speed: Controls the overall speed of the game, apart from your ship. 5 is normal, 1 is half the normal speed and 9 is double the normal speed. Chance of collectable: percentage chance of a collectable extra power being created when you blow something up. Amounts ------- These settings control the amounts of things. 'Common aliens' are all the things that appear at the start of a level. This setting controls all of the different types at once, and the 'set each type individually' submenu allows you to set different amounts for different types of thing. So you can turn off things you don't like very much. You can't turn all of them off at the same time, or there's be nothing to shoot at. The settings are: None none of this type ever. Less half the normal amount. Normal the normal amount. Extra double the normal amount. Hordes three times the normal amount. For Bugs, Black Holes, end-of-level things, and occasionals the value controls the frequency of occurrence rather than the initial amount. Variations Menu --------------- This menu allows you to customise the game. Objects, ships and bullets can be set to bounce off the sides of the screen. You can also have gravity, and adjust ship and bullet interactions. Ships can either not interact, bounce off each other, or blow up when they collide. Bullets hitting ships can do nothing, give the ship a push, or destroy it. The game type can also be varied: Normal means no ship or shot interactions. The game is over when all players are dead. Team means there is only one score and spare ships pool for all of the players. The game is over when all the ships are destroyed and there are none spare. If there are no spare ships then the player has to wait until the others earn another spare before reappearing. Enemies means try to destroy each other. The game ends when there is only one player left, who is the winner. Duel means ships only with no objects to shoot. The game ends in the same way as in 'Enemies'. When two remaining players with no spare ships crash into each other they are both replaced and the game continues. Race players race against each other to a predefined target score. Two new options: Scroll view. Instead of your ship moving around the screen, your ship stays near the centre of the screen, and everything moves around it instead. Never get lost at the edge of the screen again. Auto Difficulty. Each level you start is equal to the number of spare ships you have. So if you do well and get a lot of spare ships, the game gets more difficult. If you do badly, the game gets easier again. The game goes on forever in this mode, so you don't get a highscore. Sound Menu ---------- Turn souns on/off, change the maximum number of sounds playing at once, and adjust the volume. The max volume is 100. This distorts quite nicely when things hyperspace in, but you need to set your desktop volume control to the right level (about 25% on my machine). If it's too loud, everything distorts. The volume can also be controled by keys: F5 for volume up, F6 for volume down. If sound fails to start, this menu will say so and sound will be turned off. This may happen if another sound-using program is running at the same time. Clicking on 'view samples' will open a menu from which you can play the sounds and view their waveforms. Click on a number to play a sound effect. They are (untidyly) arranged in rows of 10. There are not actually as many samples as there are sound effects, because some of the samples are used several times. The sound effects are played from random notes over a two and a bit octave range, the same way they are played in the game. They are not tuned properly. The 'save all samples' button saves all the samples as 'raw' files (not as wavs - I've not finished that bit yet). The samples are all 8 bit, and I've just found a machine that fails to play 8 bit samples. (without displaying an error) So I did a hacked 16 bit version. Same samples, but shifted up 8 bits. The 'output' button switches between 8 and 16 bit output, but 16 bit is not better. Use 8 bit if it works. You have to exit from the game, and then run it again, to actually change between 8 and 16 bits. 'Always noisy' controls whether sound plays even when you are not playing a game. 'Flip Stereo' swaps over left and right channels, in case your sound wiring is backwards. Some other audio applications can play at the same time as Spheres of Chaos, which is a slightly cheating way to have music in the game. Windows media player works this way, but it will reduce the number of graphical effects 'sparks' because it eats processor time. On my computer it stutters though. Use Alt-Tab to switch out of the game so you can adjust it's volume. Nullsoft's Winamp can also be used, but you have to set it up to output it's sound through DirectX, or else the game can't get a sound output. You have to park winamp on the iconbar or it will 'pop up' on the desktop, and automatically close the game's display. Vision Menu ----------- Controls the visual appearence of things. Background type: The first two types are simple. None: the screen is not cleared between game cycles, so everything leaves permanent trails. Plain: flat, background is all one colour. Then there are several 'psychadelic' background types, arranged in groups of three. Fast decaying types: brightness decays by 1 level per game cycle. Medium decaying types: 4 times slower than 'fast'. Very slow decaying types: 4 times slower than 'medium'. The first group decay to the current flat background colour. If you use a coloured background with the decay effects, you get a nice psychadelic effect, although with fast decay it can pulsate unpleasantly sometimes. The second group decay to the current background colour, but as the brighness decays, the colour is also changed to the 'next colour up' in the rainbow sequence. The third group decay not to the current background colour, but to the dimmest brightness of the particular colour each screen pixel is. i.e. the rainbow sequence with 18 colours in it has 8 brightnesses per colour. The decay ends up at the dimmest of these for each colour. And the fourth group does the same as the third, but with colour cycling. This is my favourite. And it's the one the game switches to when you are not playing it, and leave it for a minute or so. (Screen saver mode) There are another two background types, 'fluid' and 'smooth'. These do not work properly in scroll-view mode. (they are supposed to work, but they don't...) Set background colour: Click to set the colour that the game starts with on level 1. If you have a decay-to-black background it will 'cycle' using this colour. Sequences: The next line sets how the background colour changes with each level, either fixed, changing by 1 colour each level, or is random each level. Single flashes: Enables background colour pulsing once each time a power-up is collected or your ship explodes, and will cycle when an extra ship is earned. Strobe flashes: The background will strobe when black holes get shot. This option is off by default, and comes with an -EPPILEPSY WARNING- because it causes extreme screen flashing, (which I like) Flashes can cause the sceen to pulsate sometimes when used with a decaying background. Colour variation: Objects of the same type can have different colours. Colour cycling: Objects can gradually change colour. Sprite stippling: Objects are drawn with mixed colours of pixels, to increase the apparent number of colours available. 'Half' means there are two stages of stippling. The first stage just uses one colour as normal, and the second stage mixes in pixels of the 'next colour up' in a chequerboard manner, to create a fake colour half way between the two colours 'Full' means there four stages of mixing, giving three extra fake colours. This can make things look more 'dotty', but makes colour cycling smoother. Starfield: A twinkly backdrop, mainly intended to help you see your ship's motion when you are using scrolling view. Draw to buffer / directly to video memory. Controls whether drawing is done directly to the video memory, or if drawing is done to a memory buffer, and then copied to video memory. This setting is mainly for use on other platforms, so it's best left at the default setting. Info Menu --------- My email and web address. (And also where the cheat mode is!) The 'speed test' submenu has some technical info: The number of 50ths of a second that the last game cycle took, and the average of this. The current number of 'sparks' being processed. This value is automatically adjusted to try and keep the game running within one 50th of a second per game cycle. The higher this value the better. The current number of sparks free for use in the next explosion. And the current number of game objects. Things Menu ----------- Shows all the game objects and their scores. It needs tidying up... Highscores Menu --------------- The top 99. My highscore is around 7000000 or so. The highscore file is saved when a name is entered. Delete the file 'scores' to reset them. Next to the score is a letter indicating the type of game: n = normal multiplayer, each player has a score. t = team, score achivewd by the team. e = enemies, each player has a score. + = single player game, with something (e.g. speed) adjusted from it's default No symbol = single player, all settings at default. 8 EXTRA KEYS ------------ F1 - Pause / UnPause. F2 - Single step when paused. F3 - Toggles scroll view on and off. F4 - Toggles a display of 50ths-of-a-second's pre gameloop, and current sparks. Current sparks is a good indicator of machine speed. F5 - Sound volume down. F6 - Sound volume up. F7 - Change background type up 1. Left-Shift + F7 - Change background type down 1. F8 - Change background colour up 1. Left-Shift + F7 - Change background colour down 1. F12 - Hide scores during game, for taking screenshots. Esc - Escape. If playing, it ends the current game. If not playing, it quits the program. It needs to be double-pressed (hammered!) to quit. This avoids extreme swearing when accidentaly escaping during a 1,000,000 point game. Space - Start game from main menu. Alt-Tab - (Alt held down and Tab pressed whilst alt still down) Minimise, (Windows only). Pauses the game and switches the display back to your desktop. To restart, click 'Spheres of Chaos' on the taskbar, or do Alt-Tab again. Print - Save screenshot. Screens will be saved as .bmp's, named screen00.bmp, screen01.bmp, etc. They are saved in subfolder called 'screens'. Each time you run Spheres of Chaos the counter starts at 00 again, so move or rename any screens you want to keep, else they may get overwritten. 9 TECHNICAL STUFF ----------------- The game is written in C. The Windows version was compiled using Visual C++. It uses a code library from the book 'Windows game programming for dummies' by Andre LaMothe to do most windows-specific and DirectX stuff. The Risc-OS version was compiled with Acorn's C The game does not need an external library to be able find and write to the screen. Risc-OS has none of the surface locking stuff you have to wade through on other platforms. The Linux version took three days, from never having used linux before, to get running. And that included installing linux, finding and installing a free development system (Kdevelop), and another cross-platform get-at-the-screen library (SDL). It was compiled using GCC, which came as part of linux. (it took a bit longer to make it The sprites where originally generated using a BBC Basic program on an Acorn machine. The sprites are now generated by the program at run time. This makes the distribution zip smaller, and makes it easier for me to meddle with the shapes. In fact this game originated on an Acorn Archimedes. The 1992 version ran in a 320*256 pixel screen, in 256 colours (approx half the size, or quarter the area of this version). It ran at 50 frames per second, on an 8 Mhz ARM processor. (that's EIGHT MHz, not Eighty). Do you think an Eight MHz Pentium could do that ? If you don't believe me, ask an Acorn User :-) The game did have less sparkly special effects pixels though. Some sounds are synthesized using C functions. Again this saves space, and is much easier than meddling with synthesizers and samplers. Some of the behaviour of the game is 'emergent' and not actually programmed. Such as the way some things stick the black holes together, but speed up other things like the spheres. And the way the black holes dance and swirl. Trippy :-) The game can draw up to 96,000 individually moving pixels for explosions and effects. The amount varies to try and keep the game speed at 50 frames per second. CHEAT MODE ---------- It's on the 'info' screen somewhere, and you need to be able to spell 'cheat'. Cheating makes the game less fun though. An alternate way to cheat is to put it in 8 player mode, and use the mouse to control all 8 ships. 10 DISCLAIMER ------------- You use this program entirely at your own risk. If something bad happens whilst you are using it, such as damage to other data or software, or damage to hardware, or anything else bad at all, I cannot be held responsible. You are freely chosing to run the software, I'm not making you run it. or more formally: This software is provided AS IS without warranty of any kind, either expressed or implied, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. The entire risk as to the quality and performance of the product is with you. Should the product prove defective, you assume the cost of all necessary servicing, repair or correction. In no event will Iain McLeod, or any other party who may have distributed the product as permitted, be liable to you for damages, including any general, special, incidental or consequential damages arising out of the use or inability to use the product (including but not limited to loss of data or data being rendered inaccurate or losses sustained by you or third parties or a failure of the product to operate with any other programs), even if such holder or other party has been advised of the possibility of such damages. 11 DISTRIBUTION ---------------- This version is being distributed as a playable demo. You may make copies of, and redistribute, the zip file ('chaosw.zip' for windows, 'chaosa.zip' for Risc-OS, or 'chaosl.zip' for Linux). You may also distribute the files within the zip file in other forms, as long as you include ALL of the files within the zip, and without any modification being made to them. Damaged distributions result in people emailing me saying 'it doesn't work....' (and I'm tempted to make the game refuse to run if this help file is missing!) If you redistribute this game in large numbers, such as by web site, ftp, bbs, CD, or any other means of mass distribution, you must tell me. This is not optional!, you must tell me. I have already had one company publish this game and not tell me, or even send me a complementary CD. This is just plain rude. The same CD also has the original arcade roms from Asteroids on it, amongst other things, which is just plain illegal, and I wonder what would happen to them should a little birdie tell hasb*ro.... This allows me to keep track of where the game is, and who to send updates to. If you publish on tangible media, such as CD, please send me a copy for my collection. You may not distribute registration keys in any way whatsoever! 12 PURCHASING ------------- If you like the demo, please buy the full version... When you buy Spheres of Chaos you get a registration key which has to be typed into the demo version, which then becomes the full game. This key will also be valid for any future updates. There are two payment methods available: Method 1. Online, $8 US dollars, Credit Cards and US Cheques. -------------------------------------------------------------------- This method uses the services of an online registration key selling company. You may use your credit card online via the secure web site, send your credit card details via fax, or send by post a cheque in US dollars. For all these payment methods, start at my website: http://www.chaotica.u-net.com and choose the appropriate link. Your registration code will be emailed back to you. Please use an email address you know works!. You would be suprised at how many people order using an email address they know doesn't work properly, and then ask me where their key has got to... Non-US credit-card customers will pay a price dependent on the exchange rate at the time. Method 2. Directly from me, ú5 UK pounds / $8 US dollars, UK Cheques or Cash. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This method is directly from me. Send me a cheque in UK pounds, a postal order, or anything else payable into a normal UK bank account. Make it payable to 'Iain McLeod' please. Or send me paper cash in any currency. (A chance to get rid of that left-over holiday money). I like nice crispy tenners... Wrap the notes in paper so they can't be seen through the envelope. Don't send coins, they will escape. Only send a few notes, or the contents of the envelope might be obvious. I will send you a registration key, by post or email. If you need a postal reply, a self addressed envelope would be appreciated. My postal address is at the bottom of this file. YOUR REGISTRATION KEY --------------------- You may use each registration key as a single user licence and a non-commercial use site licence, at the same time. This means: The key purchaser may register the game on any machine they use, such as all those at home and their machine(s) at work. The key purchaser may also register the game on all the machines on one non-commercial-use site that they are associated with, such as at work. This is what would probably happen anyway :-) No point in having lots of different methods of purchasing registration. What isn't allowed is for all the other people at the site to use your key to register the game at their homes, even if they have a registered copy on their machine at work. That would be naughty. A non-commercial-use site is one where the game is contributing no value to customers of the site, i.e. it's just being played at lunchtime by employees. A Commercial-use site would be something such as a hotel, where the game is available for use by guests on the hotels machines. Not a vary good description, but you probably get the idea. For commercial site use, ask me for a quote. It's only fair for me to charge a reasonable bit more, and you're probably richer than me anyway :) You can't actually enter the registration code into the Risc-OS version yet, but since I've not made it crippleware (yet) this doesn't really matter. UNREGISTERING ------------- Run the program Unregister.exe in the folder 'Spheres of Chaos', or run the start menu link 'Unregister Spheres of Chaos'. This will delete most of the game files, and remove the registration key from the registry. You can't use window's own 'add/remove programs', because I don't install the game in the normal 'windows' way. It's not necesarry, it's only a game, and doesn't need to clutter the registry up. When you have uninstalled it, you then need to delete the folder 'Spheres of Chaos', and anything left behind in it. Alternately, you can just delete the folder 'Spheres of Chaos'. This removes all the game files. There are no other files scattered about your hard disk. The game will actually stay registered though. If you re-install the game on the same machine it will be registered. This is because the registration key is stored in windows's registry. To actually un-register the game, you need to delete the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/chaotica/spheres from the registry, using regedit. I don't recommend meddling with the registry if you don't know what you are doing though, you can seriously mess up windows. If you do something drastic to your system, such as upgrade/reinstall windows, you will probably have to re-enter your registration key. KEEP A BACKUP ! --------------- Backing up the zip file is up to you, it can always be downloaded again if you loose it. Backing up the registration key you have paid for is very sensible. Keep the e-mail with the key, and also write the key down ON PAPER !. Paper cannot be accidentally formatted, virused, or otherwise electronically zapped. If you do completely lose the key, I will re-supply it, but I will need the info you supplied when you bought the key, (but not your credit card number, I don't get to see that). DON'T ask the on-line ordering company if you bought your key online. My email is: iain@chaotica.u-net.com. FUTURE VERSIONS --------------- There may be (even more) improved versions of this game available in the future. (I can't stop meddling with it). Check my web site. PIRACY AND STUFF ---------------- This game is my income, please don't nick it. It's not very expensive anyway... Should you be considering using a naughty illegal registration key you downloaded from some warez site, then don't be suprised if the game behaves oddly. CREDITS ------- Stefan Bⁿttner, for the chaos logo. ADDRESSES --------- Web: http://www.chaotica.u-net.com Email: iain@chaotica.u-net.com ICQ: 32952155 Postal: (for sending cheques to) Iain McLeod 50 Teal Grove Oakwood Warrington Cheshire WA3 6PA United Kingdom Please check my website if you can before you use this address, I may well have moved. (I intend to do so soon). ⌐ 1992/2002 Iain Mcleod