------   SNACKMAN DOCUMENTATION FILE    ------

SnackMan V1.00 is (C) Copyright ©1992 Stig A. Olsen.

SnackMan can only be distributed according to the rules specified in
this document. Please read this file before playing the game.

In addition to this document, there are some information in the game itself.

Contents of this file:

	 1. What is SnackMan?
	 2. Gameplay
	 3. Some miscellaneous comments
	 4. Technical notes
	 5. Known bugs
	 6. Compatibility
	 7. Copying and spreading this game
	 8. Credits
	 9. Addresses
     	10. Final note


1. WHAT IS SNACKMAN?

SnackMan is a game based on PacMan, the once so popular arcade game. It's
not a direct port, SnackMan is a relatively simple game, as it is my
first attempt to write one.


2. GAMEPLAY

Playing SnackMan is easy. Just try to eat all the small yellow dots
(cheese) without getting caught by the ghosts. If you eat one of the vitamin
pills, the larger yellow dots, you get an energy boost that lasts for a few
seconds. This gives you a speedup and the ability to eat the ghosts. You will
notice that the ghosts' colour will change from red and green to blue. When
the energy boost is close to running out the colours will flash.

Points are given according to the following table:
	1 cheese eaten  =    10 points
	1 vitamin pill  =   100 points 
	1 ghost	        =   500 points
	Level completed = 1 000 points

You get 3 lives to start with, and no extra lifes
is given at all.

Left mousebutton exits game at any time!

3. SOME MISCELLANEOUS COMMENTS

The game has no fruits as there is in the real pacman, and it has no "home"
for the ghosts. The fruits I could have implemented relatively easy, but
I didn't do it because I was getting a bit fed up with the whole project
(my monitor broke down, coding on a TV-set is pure hell!).

The game also has no way to make you get extra lifes. Another weak point
in this game is that it's difficulty is not getting updated in a very smart
way. Some may think that the game is too easy, at least in the first levels.
After some playtesting I did not bother to do anything about it. 
The ghosts move completely randomly, they have no sense whatsoever about
where the player is. The highscore is currently not saved to disk. Most
people like to have their PD software writeprotected anyway. :-)	

If you would like to add some of these (or other) features to the game,
the source has also been released. It's available as a separate archive
and the terms are listed in the document file for that archive.


4. (Not so) TECHNICAL NOTES

The game is written in 100% assembler, using the MasterSekaV1.75 assembler.
Other tools involved
was: 	
	Kefrens IFF->RAW converter
	Action Replay Cartridge III
	Deluxe Paint 
	Protracker1.3 with replayroutine

Protracker and the replayroutine was written by Lars Hamre of Amiga 
Freelancers.

All the movable objects are sprites, the rest is bitmap graphics. A standard 
5 bitplane screen is used, 1 bitplane is used for the cheese and vitamin 
pills, 3 for the board itself, and the last for the information screen where
you get the different messages/end of game stuff etc.

Source code: 		 85 Kb
Executeable unpacked:	140 Kb + music module (240Kb)

For more information contact me or check out the freely distributable source.


5. KNOWN BUGS

The collision detection is not perfect. The way this is implemented in
hardware, I had to mask off two of the sprites every second frame, so 
that in effect the collision detection only runs every second frame, and 
not each frame as rest of the game.

A bug might occur now and then in detecting a "crash" with the ghosts 
(the odd ones), if anyone has a perfect way of doing collision detection
with multiple (8) sprites without any drastic code, let me know and I'll
provide an update. I have not experienced this bug very often, and I don't
think you will either, due to a bit of not-so-good-but-it-works coding
(my next game will be without sprites at all)! Interested people can
also take a look at the source.


6. COMPATIBILITY

This game was developed on a 512K CHIP+512K FAST (1Meg) PAL Amiga500 with
2 drives and Kickstart1.2. It should work on most PAL systems. If your NTSC
Amiga does not have the ability to run PAL resolutions, - too bad! Not too
many americans make PAL specific software either...
It has been tested on a A3000 under 2.04,  so it should work on most
systems.

I make no gurantees that this game will work under any configuration, but if 
it crashes on your machine and you think you know why, let me know and I'll
try to fix it. 

The game only uses a few calls to the operating system to switch off 
multitasking/interrupts and locate the system copper list, so Kickstart 
compatibility shouldn't be a problem.

PLEASE NOTE:

This game completely takes over the machine, it is NOT meant to run in a
multitasking environment! 


7. COPYING AND SPREADING THIS GAME

The game can be copied freely as long as the following terms are satisfied:

1. You may not make any changes in the game itself.
2. You may only copy both this documentation file
   and the executable together.
3. You may not use any part of this in your own work,
   without permission from me.

Please note that the source to this game is supplied separatly and may
be distributed only under the terms written in the doc-file of that
archive. The reason why I did not include it with the executable is
that a lot of people (most) will not be interested at all in it, and
the binaries take up a lot of space.

If you get your hands on this game I would very much like to know it. This 
can be done in two ways:

- If you are connected to the internet network, just send a mail to:
	stigo@ifi.uio.no
	
(BTW, I drop by at the #amiga channel on IRC and is know there as "Xtazy")

- Or send a postcard (or anything) to this address:
	Stig A. Olsen
	4A311 KRINGSJAA
	Sognsvn.218
	N-0864  OSLO
	NORWAY
Just write a little message so I understand what it's about, for instance 
"Hi, I got your game. I think you should stick to playing games instead of
making them."

Why do I want this? Just want to know how far and how much a relatively
standard PD-hack gets spread...

4. All Public Domain Libraries MUST let me know that this game is included
   in their library to be allowed to distribute it. Other than that
   you can charge whatever you want for it and duplicate it as much as you
   want according to the other rules specified here. I trust you to not
   cheat your customers!

8. CREDITS

   Coding, Design:	Stig A. Olsen
   Graphics:		Stig A. Olsen
   Music:		Stian W. Arnesen
   Replayroutine:	Lars Hamre/Amiga Freelancers

Very special thanks to Stian W. Arnesen for the great music, which is
quite nice listening to without playing the game also. The module should
be quite easy to rip for you music-freaks out there, and it is also
included in the source code archive.

		
9. ADDRESSES

   Internet address:    stigo@ifi.uio.no

   Mail address 1:	Stig A. Olsen
(autum/winter/spring)	4A311  KRINGSJAA
			Sognsvn. 218
			N-0864  OSLO
			NORWAY

   Mail address 2:	Stig A. Olsen
     (summer)		Markavegen 19
			N-2300  HAMAR
			NORWAY

Any comments, questions, suggestions or whatever should be made to one of 
the addresses above.

10. HAVE FUN!
	:-)
----  End of document ----