═══ 1. Overview ═══ You control the small blue spaceship in the center of the screen. Your mission is to destroy all the 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. ═══ 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. 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 asteroid in the sector as a green blip, the brightness of which indicates the asteroid's size. The dark green box in the center of the radar shows which asteroids 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. 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 nothing to slow you down (except asteroids, 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. Don't go too fast. You'll run into something. Be sure to look both ways before crossing the street. ═══ 4. Scoring ═══ The scoring system goes something like this: 25 points for each Large asteroid destroyed. 50 points for each Medium asteroid destroyed. 100 points for each Small asteroid destroyed. 200 points for each Tiny asteroid destroyed. 0 points for any asteroid destroyed in a collision. 5000 points for getting killed (sort of a consolation prize) You get an additional ship every 25000 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. ═══ 6. Options dialog ═══ This is where you customize Roids. There are a number of options: Detail These controls set the detail level of Roids. You can set individual effects, such as whether or not the asteroids rotate, or use the Maximum Detail and Minimum Detail buttons to activate/deactivate all the effects. If you have a slow computer and want to speed up game play, try turning off some of the effects, starting with Impact Particles. Speed This slider controls the speed of the game. Use it to speed the game up or slow it down, according to your skill. It's pretty simple. Skill These controls let 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. 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). Register Use the Register dialog to register Roids. Defaults This button recalls the default window position, detail, speed, skill, and keys, 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 detail, speed, skill, and keys settings to disk. They will be loaded automatically next time you play Roids. ═══ 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. 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, keep trying for a couple of hours, then contact me. ═══ 8. 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 I bought Borland C++ for OS/2 and thought that porting Roids to OS/2 would be a good exercise. I was right. 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. ═══ 9. 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. ═══ 10. Bug Reports / Contacting the author ═══ I'd appreciate any feedback you might have regarding Hungry Man Productions or 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. Snail-mail: Leonard Guy 3415 Bangor Pl. San Diego, CA 92106 ═══ 11. How to register Roids ═══ Send a your name and address along with a check for $6 (U.S.) made out to Leonard Guy to: Leonard Guy 3415 Bangor Pl. San Diego, CA 92106 In return you'll receive: o A User ID number, with which you can personalize Roids and disable the opening dialog box. o Notification of new Hungry Man releases. o A thank you note. o A clear conscience. o Assurance that Hungry Man Productions will be able to continue writing games. ═══ 12. Disclaimer ═══ 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.