Illuminations is the first program I have written for the Psion 3a. I have various other projects so it should not be the last. As it is a first attempt forgive any bugs you may find and report them with a smile.
The program is shareware. This means that you can try it out first. If you don't like it, just delete it. If you do, you must register. This involves sending a cheque for
5 to M.Phillips, 98 Alderney St., London SW1V 4EZ. If you send or e-mail address a floppy with registration I will return it with the source code. Please support shareware as it is an incentive to make programs worthy of distribution. There are no nag screens, as this is a game of speed, I trust to your conscience.
Object Of The Game
Your objective is to create a grey ring in the grid of 3x3 squares on the left of the screen. You must turn the outer squares grey whilst leaving the inner one white. You do this by inverting groups of the square. These groups are a minimum of 3 squares, so they often must be used it conjunction to achieve the affect. To make things harder it is against the clock.
Play
Press Psion-s to start a game.
Pressing escape (Esc) during a game will abort it.
Use the arrow keys (with or without shift) to invert small groups. The effect they have is shown on the right of the screen. Use the space bar to flip all the squares.
The level if difficulty can be set with Psion-l. This allows you to set the level and mode of play (1 is the easiest, 9 the hardest). In addition there is a "Custom" option which allows you to set your own time.
If you find things too easy, or are just randomly pressing keys then change the game mode. In Normal and Hard modes each time you flip you lose time, hence restricting the number of flips (to a maximum of 30 in normal and 15 in Hard). Try it first on a low level to give you time to think. The amount of time lost per press varies with the level.
Quitting
Press Psion-x at any time to quit.
Dialogs
Use Psion-n to set the sound on/off. The sound is minimal and may sound familiar. This is to keep the program size down, especially as it it not really needed for this type of game.
The win and lose dialogs have buttons mainly for aesthetic value. Leave them by pressing Esc or "o" for the lose or "!" for the win.