@database BattleShips.guide @$VER: BattleShips Guide v1.8 (1-9-96) @node MAIN "Battle Ships v1.0" #### ### ##### ##### # ##### ___ # # # # # # # # | #### ##### # # # ### | # # # # # # # # ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ #### # # # # ##### ##### DARK FUTURE 1996 #### # # ##### #### #### [ ]_ // # # # # # # # _ [ ] <^// _ ### ##### # #### ### \ / # # # # # # ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ #### # # ##### # #### @{"Basic Gameplay " link "1"} @{"Installation " link "5"} @{"The Menus " link "6"} @{"Editing SFX " link "2"} @{"About Battleships " link "3"} @{"About Me! " link "4"} @{"Help needed! " link "7"} @endnode @node 1 "How to Play" "Do you remember drawing a ten-by-ten grid on a scrap of paper?" "Do you then remember putting lots of B's, C's, D's and S's on it?" "Finally do you remember shouting "H5" and and your mate saying "miss!"" You do? Well that's what this game is, it's Battleships without the paper. For those of you who have not played this wonder of a game before and for those of you that played it a long time ago, here are the rules. 1. Get a mate to play against. (For those of you having difficulty here, try this: Leave your computer, turn it off, go out and meet people!) 2. Decide who will be player 1 and the other person will be player 2. 3. @{"Setup the boards" link "1.1"} 4. If your window is highlighted it is your go! 5. @{"FIRE!" link "1.2"} 6. Go back to step 4, until somebody wins! 7. Go away and probably never play this game again. @endnode @node 1.1 "Setup" You will be faced with a ten-by-ten grid and a small "sonar" window. The sonar will prompt you as to what you are doing, or should be doing anyway. On the main grid you will have to place 10 ships of varing number and sizes. DO NOT let your opponent see where you place your ships. There are four types of ship as follows: The Battleship - This is the main ship of your small fleet, it is four squares in size and represented by the letter "B" The Cruiser - You have two of these ships measuring three squares in size, they are hard to hide. Represented by "C" The Destroyer - Three small Destroyers are at your disposal, only two squares in size they are hard to find. The letter "D" is used by these ships. The Submarine - Called the Sub for short these are the smallest and so hardest to find, you have four available to you and they take just one square on the grid. Letter "S" The ships may be placed across in either direction, up or down. To place a ship you should click on the square of it's first letter, and then the square of it's last, the size of the ship is given on sonar. The ships must NOT touch one another (Keep this in mind when firing!). @endnode @node 1.2 "Firing" The aim of the game, if you did not already know, is to blast your opponents fleet out of the water. You and your opponent take it in turns to select a square on your grid where you think a ship is and click on it. If you hit a ship the corrosponding letter will appear and you will be able to fire again. However, should you miss an X will appear on the grid to represent this and play passes to your opponent. You will notice that when you fire samples are played, if you wish to edit them in any way, or add new ones, click @{"HERE" link "2"} @endnode @node 5 "Installation" Installing this game is easy, simply double-click on the "BattleShips-Install" icon to run the installation program (you must have a copy of installer in your "C:" drawer to do this), if you wish to install the program manually then follow these simple steps 1- Make a new drawer to put the game into (call it something like BShips) 2- Copy "BattleShips" and "BShips.guide" into the new drawer 3- Either a: Make a drawer called "SFX" inside your new drawer then copy all the samples that you want from df0:SFX to your new SFX drawer (Remember to make sure the suffixes are continous integers.) b: Copy the SFX drawer into your new drawer @endnode @node 6 "The Menus" Not much to get excited about, only two options at the moment and one of them is @{"quit!" link "6.1"} Oh! The other is @{"SFX" link "6.2"} @endnode @node 6.1 "Quit" This option can be used at any time during the game to (drumroll please) "QUIT" Wow! there's a surprise. Yes, selecting this option will dump you back to where you were before you started playing. @endnode @node 6.2 "SFX" If this option is enabled then you will be able to sample the delights that are the sound effects to this game, if you don't like them either turn this menu item OFF or @{"change the effects." link "2"} @endnode @node 2 "Editing SFX" If you look in the SFX drawer for BattleShips you will find three types of sound effect. fire.x - Firing sounds. mis.x - Sounds for when you miss. exp.x _ Explosion noises for hits. For safety reasons there should always be the following files in the SFX drawer fire.1 fire.2 mis.1 mis.2 exp.1 exp.2 The program selects samples randomly from those available in the SFX drawer. If you wish to add your own samples they must be 8SVX IFF and can be up to a maximum of 128K in length. If you wish to add a sampled sound, name the sample as either "fire.x", "mis.x" or "exp.x" depending on the type of sample it is to be used as. The x should be replaced with the next integer number on from the existing files. For example, if you had a file called "Bang.8SVX" and you wanted it to be used as an explosion noise you would first look into the SFX drawer. If this is the first sample you have added the drawer will contain the files listed above (erm, added more samples since I wrote this bit and I only just spotted it, sorry you'll just have to assume you only have 2 explosion samples) as you want to save an explosion noise you look for the "exp.x" files, here there are two "exp.1" and "exp.2". All you need do to add your sample is to rename it as "exp.3" and copy it into the SFX drawer. The "SortSFX" program included will rearrange your SFX drawer if it gets in a mess. If,for example, you had "mis.1","mis.3" and "mis.5" the program would rename these as "mis.1", "mis.2" and "mis.3". The program is slower than simply renaming files manually but is a lot easier. @endnode @node 3 "About BattleShips" This is my computerised version of the old BattleShips game played on paper. It is the first game that I have ever got around to finishing and the only reason that I wrote it was to mess around with Blitz Basic 2.1 that I have just bought. This is the first version and a lot of work is needed to improve it, wether I will actually bother or not is another matter. My address is available if you click @{"HERE!" link "4"} Known Bugs: -Sometime the first sample to be played in a new game will appear corrupt but it will clear itself up and work fine after that. To do -Serial link. I was hoping to have that done already but when I tested it with my friends machine strange errors occured and as I have only one Amiga (at the moment) so I can't find an easy way to get at them. @endnode @node 4 "About me" My name is Geoff Gibbs and I have a sanity problem. You can write to me at the following address for updates, source code, idle chat, etc... Geoff Gibbs 27 Langley Close Headington Oxford England OX3 7DB I have just got an E-mail address thanx to Oxford Brookes University so you can get me there too. 96152111@brookes.ac.uk Big thanx go to Peter xtell for designing & drawing the icons. Now I would just like to say hello to some people I know, some people I don't know and some people that I just made up! Hello to: Peter xtell Andrew Hearn (Where are you?) Elvis James Elton Ivor Bigdick Zig & Zag My cousin Mark William Mankelow Daniel Carraher The Milkman Flossie My Older Sister NOT My Younger Sister Me mum Me dad All me relatives All Amiga Users The Amiga Format Team Team 17 Acid Software Terry Brooks P.S. Even if I don't know you "Hello". @endnode @node 7 "HELP!" This is a quick plea for help. I am currently writing a new adventure-type game in Blitz2 for the Amiga, you see the thing is that I need pictures of people to use as characters in this game. If you have a digitized photo showing just your face (like a passport photo) that you can E-Mail to me I would be X-tremely grateful (@{"Click here for E-Mail address" link "4"})! If this game's is ever finished and I use your picture you will be mentioned in the credits. The format I need is: IFF 16 colour Greyscale 100x50 HiRes The subject of the E-Mail should be "Photo" Please ensure the file has a name that is compatible with MS-DOS as I am afraid that I can only use E-Mail on the PC's at Uni, something like MYPIC.IFF would be perfect. Remember to include your name in the main E-Mail message otherwise I will not be able to mention you in the credits. Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thanx. @endnode