HI! Welcome to MEGABALL! I finally changed the name from BALL to something at least a little better. Well, the last version (which was called BALL) (I think I just said that) was released as public domain. But, THIS version (MegaBall) is shareware. So, if you send me a small fee (the amount is given in the scrolltext on the main screen), I will send you a very powerful, easy-to-handle board editor so you can create your own boards and play them. Also I will include with the board editor some boards I made that I consider to be better than the boards that come with the game itself. And I will of course inform users of any new versions if/when they come out. I do request that people do not spread the board editor. But, you CAN spread the game itself, so SPREAD IT ALL AROUND, OK?! Wait! I haven't even told you what it is yet! It's a clone of Arkanoid, sort of. BUT, before you start groaning and moaning about how many cheap-o clones of Arkanoid there are out there already, let me tell you that this is NOT a cheap-o version. Why? Er... Um... Well, YOU play it, and YOU'LL find out for yourself! >>>> NOT YET!!!! <<<< Before you play this, you MUST know these keys!: SHIFT-Q : Eventually, you will have a game that gets off to a bad start and you want to abort. So be sure to remember about the SHIFT-Q key which aborts your game. In two-player mode, it only aborts the current player's game. DEL : This key kills the current life WITHOUT killing all the remaining lives like SHIFT-Q. Why you would need this is beyond me, because I think I've fixed that nasty bug where the ball gets trapped in a loop (YAY!). If you think your ball is looping, press a mouse button, and let it go through the loop once or twice. If it's really a loop it should break out... (**** NEW FEATURE ****) P or ESC: Pressing either P or the ESC key puts you in PAUSE MODE! This is very useful!! Press a mouse button to leave PAUSE MODE. The CHEAT KEYS: I'm not telling you!! >> BEFORE THE GAME: << At the Main Title Screen, you may press: A mouse button to play a ONE-player game The number 2 key to play a TWO-player game SHIFT-Q to exit the program. The C key to continue previous game. (**** NEW FEATURE ****) >> HOW TO PLAY THE GAME: << OK. You all know how to play an Arkanoid clone, right? I don't have to explain that you have a paddle and a ball and you must bounce the ball into some blocks to score points, right? And I certainly don't need to mention that if you let the ball miss the paddle and drop off the screen you will die, right? And I also don't need to explain about how little bonuses can drift down from the blocks and if they touch your paddle they can do anything from giving you free lives to blowing you up, depending on the little pictures on the bonuses as they are drifting down, right? Good. I was afraid I'd have to put a lengthy explanation here! >> MOUSE CONTROLS DURING THE GAME: << Let's do this C= style!: If you move the mouse left, your paddle moves left! If you move the mouse right, your paddle moves right!! For pin-out diagrams of the mouse port, check the Technical Reference Section!! Long live C= Instruction Manuals!! By the way, sometimes the ball "sticks" to your paddle. A small blue force-field appears to hold the ball in place. You can press a mouse button to release it. Also, if you get Lasers (one of the bonuses), you use the mouse button to fire them. You may have Lasers and Catch at the same time, and in this case, the same press of the mouse button can both fire the lasers and release the ball. Both the left and right mouse buttons have the same effect. - - O O >> SOUND: << ) \_/ Awesome! Crank it up!! :-) >> MUSIC << (**** NEW FEATURE ****) There are now FIVE NoiseTracker music modules in the game. (There used to be none.) But, because of the music player I got (copyright info in the scroll with the rest) all of the songs must load into CHIP RAM. How lame. How REALLY lame. I'd really love to fix this. But I'm a little foggy on the details of how to buffer FAST RAM into CHIP RAM for instrument playing. So, if you have an older Agnus, you probably won't be able to get all the songs. But, if you have one Meg of CHIP, you should be able to get just about all, and if you have any FAST in addition to the Meg of CHIP you should get all 5 no problem. The game will tell you how many it was able to load. ALSO: If you catch the little bonus with the notes on it, music will start to play during the game. This cuts off sound effects, which makes it a little bit harder, which means you get one extra point per block hit while the music is on. So it's good to have the music on when possible! >> GURU ALERT: << I really think I fixed this. But still report any bugs you find... >> ADDICTION ALERT: << (**** NEW FEATURE ****) (Not really...) I didn't put this in the docs for BALL because I thought it was too egotistical. But a few users have sent me mail saying that the next version should definately have a warning. So here it is: WARNING: You might get addicted to this game. There. Short, simple, and to the point. Don't say I didn't warn you... Various methods of communicating with me: With BITNET/InterNet: ELM4@LEHIGH.BITNET or ELM4@NS.CC.LEHIGH.EDU By US mail: Ed Mackey Ed Mackey P.O. Box 475 <-OR-> Box 123 Lehigh University Wayne, PA 19087 Bethlehem, PA 18015 (Only send mail to the Lehigh address while school is in session! I am class of '93) >> MOST IMPORTANT INSTRUCTION IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD: << Have fun! --Ed.