------ 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 ----