═══ 1. Overview ═══ You control the small blue spaceship in the center of the screen. Your mission is to destroy all the Bad Guys and asteroids in each sector by blasting them to pieces with your cannon. There's a twist, however: asteroids don't simply disappear, they crumble. When an asteroid is destroyed, it breaks into two smaller asteroids (unless it's too small, in which case it's completely destroyed) which must also be destroyed, and so on. Yes, it's a completely unoriginal idea, but it's a classic. ═══ 2. Playing the game ═══ Use the rotation and thrust Keys to fly your ship around the sector. When you come across an asteroid, blast it with your cannon! You must destroy every asteroid in each sector, so be thorough. Avoid colliding with the asteroids, because they'll destroy your ship unless you use your shield to protect yourself. In the Enhanced game, you'll be confronted with a host of Bad Guys who will do their best to thwart your valiant attempt to save the universe. Destroy them, and make the universe safe for bipeds once more! Your ship remains in the center of the window at all times. The green lines indicate your velocity, and give a rough idea of where you are in the sector. Space is curved, so when you fly in one direction long enough you end up where you started. It is impossible to fly out of the current sector, so every asteroid you see must be DESTROYED in a hail of devastating cannon fire like the worthless slag it is! The bright green box at the top of the window is your radar. It displays the position of each object in the sector as a colored blip. The dark green box in the center of the radar shows which objects are currently visible: if it's in this box, you can see it. The light blue blip at the center of the radar is your ship. Your score is displayed in the upper-left corner of the window. The number of lives you have left is displayed in the upper-right corner. ═══ 3. Hints and tips ═══ Don't shoot all the big asteroids first. Choose one and completely destroy it. Then choose another, and so on. This way you don't have to contend with a billion tiny asteroids later on. Your cannon shells impart momentum to whatever they strike. (To all you physicists: your ship is equipped with a system that automatically compensates for your cannons' recoil, preventing it from changing your ship's velocity. I also realize that sound requires a propagation medium, but IT'S A GAME!) Shooting an asteroid repeatedly from the same side will send the fragments zooming off at high speed, destined to wrap around the playfield and hit you from behind. You'll have deserved it. Likewise, your spaceship imparts momentum to whatever it strikes. Running into a small asteroid at high speed will not only send you careening out of control (or you'll die, depending on whether your shield is up), but it will send two tiny Death Angel asteroids flying about the sector at very high speed, and they'll almost certainly hit you when you least expect it. Keep in mind that you're in space and there's no drag to slow you down (except asteroids and Bad Guys, and that tends to be a bit terminal, see above), so you'll end up drifting. Your radar and shield are your most powerful weapons. Learn how to use them well. Shields are especially useful for bashing Bad Guys. The best way to deal with Tetras is to exterminate them at the beginning of each sector. If you don't they'll breed and quickly fill the sector with their offspring, probably slowing your computer to a crawl in the process. The fastest way to kill a Bulb is to catch it in your shield and zap it. Make sure you're pressing the shield key at the start each level. This will keep you from being killed right away: there's time enough for that later. Don't go too fast. You'll run into something. Be sure to look both ways before crossing the street. Register this game. ═══ 4. Scoring ═══ The scoring system goes something like this: 25 points for each Large asteroid. 50 points for each Medium asteroid. 100 points for each Small asteroid. 200 points for each Tiny asteroid. 150 points for each Tetra. 250 points for each Bulb. 300 points for each Snipe. 500 points for getting killed (sort of a consolation prize) You get an additional ship every 20000 points. ═══ 5. Default Keys ═══ These are only the default keys. See the Options dialog help for details. NOTE: all navigational keys are on the numeric keypad. Key Purpose '4': Rotate counterclockwise. '6': Rotate clockwise. '5': Thrust. '2': Decelerate. '/': Fire cannon. '.': Activate Shield. 'F1': Help. 'F2': Start a new game. 'F3': Pause the current game. 'F4': Bring up the Options Menu. 'F5': Toggle between Full Screen and Windowed views. 'F6': Toggle sound on/off. 'F7': Increase game detail. 'F8': Decrease game detail. 'F10': Quit. ═══ 6. Options dialog ═══ This is where you customize Roids. There are a number of options: Detail This slider sets the detail level of Roids. If you have a slow computer and want to speed up game play, try decreasing the detail until you get satisfactory performance. The game won't be as pretty, but at least it'll be playable. I've had at least one user who complained that Roids was unbearably slow on his '486-66DX2, only to find that the Speed slider was set at "Slow". You might want to check the setting of the Speed slider lest you feel as stupid as he did. Skill This slider lets you specify which sector you start at. The higher the skill level, the higher (and more difficult) the sector. Useful if you're getting bored (or creamed) by the early sectors. Big Dots If you're having trouble seeing radar blips or explosions, try making them bigger by turning Big Dots on. Big Dots are a Big Drain on your computer, so unless you have a Pentium you should only turn them on in the radar. Speed This slider controls the speed of the game. Use it to speed the game up or slow it down, according to your skill or state of mind. It's pretty simple. Just remember that this means game speed, not the speed of your computer. Game Type This is where you select which game you want to play. Select Classic game if you want to play with just asteroids, or Enhanced Game if you want to play with cool Bad Guys Register Use the Register dialog to register Roids. Sound This check box obviously lets you turn sound on and off. The only tricky thing about it is that it might be "greyed out", in which case you should check out Sound Troubleshooting. which will try to kill you. Hey, it's a tough universe out there. Change Keys This button brings up a window which allows you to change the keys you use to control your ship. Press the key you want to use for each action, following the prompts in the window. If you make a mistake, simply change the keys again. If you try to use a key twice, the second keypress will be ignored. Use another key. Also, be careful about which keys you use: OS/2 reserves some keys (such as Alt), and using these keys as controls will lead to unpredictable results (I.E. Really Weird Stuff That The Programmer Doesn't Want To Deal With). Defaults This button recalls the default window position and options, and resets the high scores list. Use this button with caution, because it automatically saves these changes to disk, and there's no way to undo them. You'll lose your incredible new high score, and nobody will believe you. Save This button saves the current options settings to disk. They will be loaded automatically next time you play Roids. If this button is "greyed out", it means that you are running Roids from a write protected disk (like a CD-ROM) so you can't save your settings. ═══ 7. Register dialog ═══ NOTE: To use this dialog, you need to have registered Roids and received your User ID. (See How to Register). Enter your name and your User ID, exactly as they appear on your Registration Confirmation Letter / E-Mail. Then click OK. You should see a "Thank you for registering Roids!" dialog. If you don't, be sure your name and User ID are entered correctly and try again. If you still have trouble, contact me. ═══ 8. Sound Troubleshooting ═══ First of all, sloppy MMPM drivers are the single most common cause of problems with Roids. Symptoms of sloppy drivers include:  HORRIBLE performance.  Roids quits for no apparent reason.  The game just sits there for a while, and the resumes.  OS/2 crashes. If you're having trouble with Roids and MMPM, try turning off the sound effects. This will at least let you play the game until you can get your hands on some newer sound card drivers from the manufacturer. If you're using a Sound Blaster card, there are some new drivers out which are fantastic. They're available on CompuServe and the Creative Labs BBS. If you get the "MMPM not cooperating" dialog or don't hear any sound during the game and you're sure it's not your sound card driver's fault, your problem could be any one (or more) of the following: Sound isn't turned on Make sure the Sound checkbox in the Options dialog is checked. MMPM isn't installed on your computer The Multimedia Presentation Manager/2 must be installed for sound effects to work. If you don't have it installed, you won't get any sounds. You don't have a compatible sound card If you want to hear sound effects, Roids requires a sound card capable of playing 11kHz 8-bit mono .WAV files. If you are unsure about your sound card's ability to do this, consult the manuals that came with your card or ask the manufacturer. Don't ask me, I probably don't know. Roids can't find it's .WAV files Roids requires that all .WAV files it uses (see README.TXT for a list) be in it's working directory. Check Roids' settings to make sure that they're there. You don't have enough RAM This is unlikely, but is possible if you have less than 8 MB of RAM. Roids wants to hog a LOT of memory to store all of it's cool sound effects. If it doesn't find enough, it will croak. Roids SHOULD work with only 4MB (I think) but I make no guarantees. You've forgotten something Make sure your volume is turned up, everything's turned on, etc. I always spend hours trying to figure out WHY my stupid printer isn't working right, only to find out (an hour later) that the cable's loose. It happens more often than you'd think. Some other program is hogging MMPM Also make sure that no other programs are using MMPM. Some programs are greedy and rude and don't like to share MMPM with other programs. Make sure Roids gets MMPM all to itself. Something Else All I can offer are general suggestions. Try using MMPM's .WAV player to play some of Roids' .WAV files (make sure Roids isn't running). If this works, the problem is with either Roids or your sound card driver. Otherwise, there's a problem with MMPM. ═══ 9. History of the game ═══ Roids started out in late 1991 as a way for me to show my AP Computer Science classmates that although they may get 1560s on the SAT, they couldn't program their way out of a paper bag. It was written on an XT using Turbo Pascal 4.0, and was never distributed. In early October 1993 I bought Borland C++ for OS/2 and thought that porting Roids to OS/2 would be a good exercise. I was right. Roids 1.0 was released in December 1993. Roids 2.0 was released in January 1994. Changes include a resizable playfield, full-screen mode, and the addition of numerous Bad Guys and bugs. Roids 2.1 beta cashes in (yeah, right) on the Multimedia fad with cool sound effects in May (?) 1994. Hopefully there are fewer bugs now. Roids 2.2 adds a few more options, and is optimized for integer math. More bugs are eliminated, and it runs a bit faster. Roids 2.3 fixes the bugs in Roids 2.2. Please excuse any rough edges: this is my first OS/2 programming effort. Roids was written in a 1024x768 environment, and was designed for that resolution. It may look a little strange or messy in other resolutions. ═══ 10. About Hungry Man Productions ═══ Hungry Man Productions is a (very) small San Diego - based organization of artists, musicians, and computer programmers dedicated to producing quality OS/2 games and clean aquariums. ═══ 11. Bug Reports / Contacting the author ═══ I'd appreciate any feedback you might have regarding Roids, and I'm especially interested in any bugs you might encounter. Contact me via: CompuServe E-mail: 73544,1154 Internet E-mail: 73544.1154@compuserve.com Requests for tech support will be looked upon with much more benevolence if you have REGISTERED Roids, although I realize that if you can't play the game you're not going to register it. So E-Mail me. ═══ 12. How to register Roids ═══ Send your name and street address (for faster response, also send your complete E-mail address) along with a check for $10 (U.S.) made out to Leonard Guy to: Leonard Guy 3415 Bangor Pl. San Diego, CA 92106-2409 USA In return you'll receive:  A User ID number, with which you can personalize Roids and disable the opening dialog box. This ID will also work on all future versions of Roids, so all upgrades are "free".  Notification of new Hungry Man releases (Only if you include your E-Mail address).  A thank you note.  A clear conscience.  Assurance that Hungry Man Productions will be able to continue writing games. If you live outside the United States, the best way to register is to send a money order (in U.S. funds) or equivalent. It really doesn't matter, as long as it can be converted to U.S. dollars. The Postal Service frowns on sending cash through the mail, but I won't tell . . . ═══ 13. Boring Legal Stuff ═══ Leonard Guy assumes no responsibility for the correctness or applicability of this software. Under no circumstances will Leonard Guy or Hungry Man Productions be held responsible for damage caused by use of this software. This includes broken keyboards. All product names mentioned in this document are used for identification purposes only, and are trademarks of their respective companies. ═══ 14. Bad Guys ═══ The dastardly villains: Tetra These yellow triangles fly through space, breeding like flies. They slowly grow larger until they divide into four baby Tetras, which grow and breed just like their parents. A very good example of exponential growth, an unchecked Tetra population will slow your screaming Pentium system down to a crawl. So do what any good power user would: Optimize! Bulb These extremely tenacious and tough blue octagons/circles scour space looking for energy. They'll sense your ship, chase you down, and envelop you. They do no physical damage, but your ship's motor and shield are rendered inoperable while you're enveloped. The only ways to dislodge a Bulb is by A) dying or B) blasting your way out with your cannon. I recommend the latter. Snipe A Snipe is a nasty little bugger. These unpredictable red squares flit through space firing pot shots at passerbys for no apparent reason. When alarmed (or shot) they'll fire a barrage from their cannons, intended to destroy their assailant. It usually works. Snipes are extremely trigger-happy and have been known to shoot at each other, setting up a crossfire usually seen only in L.A.