Fresh Fish 4/FreshFish_May-June1994.bin/bbs/amigalib/d985/lines.lha/Lines/Lines.doc

Text File | 1994-04-05 | 11.7 KB | 319 lines

Lines 2.4 Documentation
***********************

Copyrights and fees
*******************

   LINES is completely done by Mika Kortelainen and is copyrighted
1992-1994.  LINES is SHAREWARE, suggested fee is $5 or 20-30 Finnish
marks (FIM). Please, send only cash because cashing foreign cheques is
more expensive than the suggested fee. Because this archive contains
the full, un-restricted version of the game, do not wait any return
mail from me. But, by indicating your interest, you will get me to
continue to develop LINES further (and release new versions).

   LINES uses several additional shared-libraries, which are
copyrighted as follows:

              medplayer.library is (C) Teijo Kinnunen.

              powerpacker.library is (C) Nico François.

   Amiga, Workbench and AmigaGuide are registered trademarks of
Commodore-Amiga, Inc.

   Other trademarks are the property of their owners.

Disclaimer
**********

   The author will not take any responsibility about caused harm or
ruined mental health LINES may bring about. You use LINES at your own
risk.

Distribution
************

   LINES may not be distributed commercially without author's written
permission.  LINES may be distributed freely as long as no essential
parts of the original archive are removed and no more than a nominal
copying fee is required. LINES may be included in disk collections such
as Fred Fish's one and in CD-ROM collections, too.

   The original archive consists of the following files:

Lines
     This is the game itself (PAL version).

LinesNTSC
     This is the NTSC version of the game.

Lines.info and LinesNTSC.info
     These are the corresponding icons for easy startup from Workbench.

Lines.doc and Lines.doc.info
     This file as an ANSI text file.

Lines.dvi and Lines.dvi.info
     This file as a DVI-file.

Lines.guide and Lines.guide.info
     This file as an AmigaGuide file.

Lines34.guide and Lines34.guide.info
     This file as an AmigaGuide (version 34) file.

libs/medplayer.library
libs/powerpacker.library
     The additional shared-libraries.

   The NTSC version has some distortions in logos and such, but the
actual playing board should be fine (I hope).

Requirements and installation
*****************************

   An Amiga computer (anything from 500 to 4000), TV or monitor, and a
mouse are required to play LINES successfully. LINES uses
medplayer.library to play MED modules. Powerpacker.library is
needed if you intend to use packed modules. Most of you will already
have these libraries in LIBS: (at least owners of harddrives) but
they are included in the archive and can be copied if needed. Besides,
printer.device is needed if you want to get hardcopies of your games
(and also, you should have set the printer preferences using system
software). LINES is tested on my A3000 (with OS1.3 and OS2.04), and it
works on OS3.x, too. Tested also an Amiga 2000 (OS1.3, 512kB fast,
512kB chip). I don't know about OS1.2 (does it differ significantly
from 1.3?), but give it a try! NOTE: if you want to save or load a
game, you must be using Kickstart 2.04 or newer (uses ASL-library V37+).

   Memory requirements: the program itself doesn't need much (some Chip
memory for the mouse pointer and graphics and other memory--which can
also be Chip memory--for the actual code), about a total of 150
kilobytes. The final memory usage depends on you: whether you want to
listen to the music or not!

   LINES can be installed on harddrive and does not need any additional
setting up--just copy the files (especially Lines and Lines.info or
NTSC equivalents) to the destination. LINES will use the same directory
when reading or writing settings and hiscores (it locks the directory
at startup; if the lock fails, then S: is tried as an alternative).

First steps
***********

   LINES can be started from CLI or Workbench. From CLI, you can give
it as an argument the name of the MED module you want to use. If it
appears to be packed with PowerPacker, it is unpacked to your Ram Disk
and loaded from there. From Workbench, you have two ways to select the
music: the first is to give it as a tooltype SONG (i.e. set tooltype
`SONG=device:path/modulename' using Info or Information from the
Workbench menus), the second is to click first on the icon of the
module and then, pressing Shift, to start LINES double-clicking on its
icon.

   The original archive doesn't include any musics, because I'm not so
good to compose (it is allowed to distribute the archive with some MED
modules provided that they are public domain or freely distributable).

   LINES is completely played with the mouse, so there is no need for a
joystick.

   At startup, LINES tries to read its settings and hiscore files (named
Lines.Settings and Lines.TopLiners). If settings are not found,
then the default ones are used. If environment variable USER exists,
its contents are used as a default name, otherwise a hardcoded name is
set (it can be changed from the program, of course).

   After loading you will see the game screen and logo at the centre.
Click on MORE gadget. You will see an info page which shortly tells
you the rules and the idea of LINES. Click on OKAY gadget to continue.

   Now you are ready to play but let's first study all the menus.

Menus
*****

   Click on the right mouse button and move pointer to window title to
see the menus. There are three main menus named Project, Edit and
Settings. In the Project menu you will find items New Game, Top
Liners, Load board, Save board, Print, About and Quit, in
the Edit menu items Help and Undo and in the Settings menu items
Setup and Music. Almost every item can be used by pressing
Right-Amiga-key and the first letter together (e.g. About by pressing
Right-Amiga+'A'). The only exception is item Help, its abbreviation is
the HELP-key.

New Game
     Starts a new game.

Top Liners
     Shows the list of the 10 best players.

Load board
     Loads a previously saved board and the game is continued with it.
     Requires Kickstart 2.04+. NOTE: if there's an error (e.g. not a
     Lines board), you still lose your current game and a new one is
     started.

Save board
     Saves the current situation in a file. Requires Kickstart 2.04+.
     One board takes 2060 bytes of disk space.

Print
     Prints the screen to paper using your current Preferences
     settings. During printing the screen colours are changed to white
     and black. You can cancel printing with ESC-key at any time.

About
     Shows the starting logo and info.

Quit
     Quits the game (if TopLiners file has been changed, it is saved).

Help
     Shows a point belonging to a line (normally, it's at the either
     end of that line).

Undo
     Undoes the last selection (see below for more info).

Setup
     is used to affect LINES' colours. Click on the desired colour
     gadget and use sliders to change the colour. You can also set a
     default name which is automatically placed on Top Liners list.
     Click on SAVE to save your settings, DEFAULT to choose
     original (doesn't restore the name) or USE to use changes without
     saving.

Music
     Stops and continues the music (if music was loaded). It is
     disabled if there is no music.

   On the right-hand side of the screen there is a table from where you
can see your amount of Lines, Extras, and the Best result.

   For quicker use, UNDO, NEW GAME, and MUSIC can be chosen from
gadgets below the score table, the functions are the same their menu
equivalents have.

The rules
*********

   And now to the main thing - the idea and rules of LINES.

   The idea is simple: draw as many lines as you can!

   Of course, there have to be several rules:

RULE ONE:
     Only eight directions (horizontal, vertical, and diagonal) are
     allowed.

RULE TWO:
     A line is exactly five points long.

RULE THREE:
     To draw a line, there must exist at least four old points which
     are not used in that direction. The fifth point may be either at
     the either end of the line or somewhere between the older points.
     Of course, it is allowed to draw a line through five old, unused
     points.

RULE THREE, supplement:
     If the line is drawn without drawing any new point, you will get a
     bonus point, called Extras (and a normal point, of course).
     Later you can set that Extras point in any position you want and
     perhaps play a little longer.

The playing
***********

   And how to play? No problem, just click on the point from where you
want to start your line (if it is not valid, the screen will flash).
Move mouse to the direction you want to draw the line (if it is a
possible direction a blue line is shown). By moving mouse around, you
can see all the possible lines from that point. When you have made your
selection, click again and you have got a line as well as one point.

   After setting the starting point, you can cancel the selection by
pressing UNDO (you can notice this easily: the gadget is normally
disabled and comes enabled only when it can be used. The same is done
to the menu item).

   To use an Extras, click twice on the same place and the point is
plotted. If the position is illegal, screen will flash after the first
click (because the program cannot know whether you are really going to
use an Extras or just clicking on a wrong position), but after the
second click the Extras is set. You can't undo any Extras!

In conclusion
*************

   After a few games you will learn the play tactics and get better
results, and you have a new obsession...

                              LINES!

Brief history
*************

   The development of LINES started about two years ago and got
finished in few months. It was my first Amiga program, and mainly done
to learn C language (I had just got my registered DICE). As time
passed, some bugs arose and were fixed. Until now,  LINES has been just
for my private use. During the winter vacation I had time to `polish'
the game (although software is never final...) and decided to release
it to the public (version 2.2).

   Version 2.3 was the second release (bug-fix which didn't fix the bug
:-)

   Version 2.4 is the third release (bug-fix release, also added
LOAD/SAVE options).

The author
**********

   Send fees, suggestions and bug reports (none known :-) to the
following address:

             Mika Kortelainen
             Petäjätie 13
             FIN-35100 Orivesi as.

   I can also be reached through email at the following address:

             [e-mail]

The future
**********

   Some enhancements I have in my mind:

  1. various different boards (suggested by Jimmy Ljungberg). This will
     most likely be the next enhancement I make.

  2. better UNDO (at least one whole line). Suggested by Lasse Haataja.

  3. the game in a Workbench window

  4. super bitmap window (i.e. scrollable game board)

  5. use of Screen database, so that users of various graphics boards
     could get some benefit

  6. time game (a certain time period in which a line is to be drawn;
     otherwise, one line (or point) is subtracted)

   At the moment I'm quite busy with my studies, so there will not
likely be any major updates before the summer.

Fixes
*****

  1. Border checking still refused to work. Now it should _really_
     work. Reported by Jimmy Ljungberg.