Hello and thank you for trying Aggie’s World Volume 1!
Aggie’s World is a collection of three illustrated children’s stories: "The Kite," "The Wish," and "Aggie vs. the Gremlin." Each story is in verse form (that's a fancy way of saying that they're all poems). The stories are in PDF format; you can view them using a program such as Adobe Acrobat 2.0 or later. The Acrobat reader is free; you can download it from www.adobe.com if it’s not already on your computer.
But hey, would Bicycle Comics stop there? No! Because Artie's such a nice guy (and also because he's hoping to entice as many people as possible to pay the shareware fee), Aggie's World also includes two games: "Kite World 2" and "The Messy Room." These games follow the plot of "The Kite" and "Aggie vs. the Gremlin," respectively, and you'll probably enjoy playing them a lot more if you've read the stories first. The games are written in the Cocoa language, developed by Apple Computer. No additional software is required for these games.
Aggie’s World is shareware. Please read the stories and play the games all you like; they are fully functional. Feel free to distribute Aggie’s World to your friends, but make sure you give them the entire Aggie’s World folder, not individual documents or games. If you like Aggie’s World and you use it for more than 14 days, please pay the shareware fee of five U.S. dollars. If you don’t pay the shareware fee, please do not continue to use Aggie’s World. Don’t worry, Artie won't take it personally if you decide you don't want to keep Aggie's World...(sniff!)
Rules for the games:
1. Kite World 2
Help Aggie fly his kite without letting him get swept away by the wind. White clouds will nudge his kite upwards. Dark clouds will carry Aggie away, though, so when a dark cloud comes close, you can reel in the kite a little by pressing the "down arrow" on your keyboard. If you pull your kite too low, it will not be able to get enough wind and you will have to start over (select “Start Over” from the File menu). If you can get your kite high enough that the white cloud at the top of the screen passes by it, a flower will appear by magic!
Please note that you can’t make your kite go up by pressing the “up arrow” key. Have you ever tried to push on a piece of string?
2. The Messy Room.
Help Aggie clean his room and overcome the Gremlin's best efforts to make a mess. Use the arrow keys to move Aggie around. Pick up toys and clothes by walking up to them. Once you've picked up an item, put it in the proper place by walking up to the toy chest or the drawers and pressing the space bar. You can also press the space bar at any time to drop whatever you are carrying. You can only carry one item at a time, and knowing when to pick up a particular item will help you to win more easily. You cannot walk on an item, so watch your step! If the gremlin makes a big mess before you can clean your room, you will have to start over.
In July of 1998, the Autoplayer that allows these games to function may expire (or it may not, Apple isn’t yet sure). In that event, Bicycle will contact all registered users with information on how to rectify the situation.
System requirements for Aggie’s World 1.0:
68030 processor or better
System 7.1 or later
3.5 MB of free RAM (5MB recommended; Virtual Memory can be used)
Monitor capable of displaying 256 colors.
A little more info on paying the shareware fee:
Please make sure you pay in U.S. funds. Artie would prefer checks or money orders, but if you have to, you can send him cash or even postage stamps. If you send cash, wrap the money in paper so that it doesn’t look too obvious inside the envelope. Please make checks or money orders payable to Bicycle Comics.
When you send in your payment, you might want to include your name and address. Don’t worry; Bicycle Comics promises not to send you junk mail or anything, but unless Artie knows who you are, he can’t inform you of updates or revisions. Everybody who includes a name and address with payment gets a postcard from Bicycle Comics; it's both a receipt and a thank-you note.
The address is:
Bicycle Comics
c/o Artie Moffa
AC# 1656 Campus Center
Amherst College
Amherst, MA 01002-5000
You can also address all correspondence, complaints, compliments, criticisms, other c-words, etc., to the same address. Artie’s E-mail is afmoffa@amherst.edu, and you can contact him that way as well. He’ll try to respond to as many people as possible.
