═══ 1. Instructions ═══ DustyDOTs v1.0 BETA US-Mail to. Daniel W Phillips. 207 Connoquenessing Ave G-13. Ellwood City, PA 16117. or E-Mail to. dwphil@fyi.net. Instructions The object of the game is to connect the DOTs to form as many boxes as possible without letting your opponent capture any boxes. Connect DOTs by placing the mouse pointer to the right or bottom area where the line is wanted, then press the left mouse button. Once a line is positioned it cannot be changed. The player who completes a box captures that box. The computer will then search for additional captures for you. Any other possible captures anywhere on the board will be made for you. Each box counts for one point. When all captures are made for a turn, the score is updated, and the current player must draw one more line. A tone will sound when an illegal move is attempted and as each captured box is filled. Play will continue with alternating turns until the board is full. ═══ 2. Game Features (BETA VERSION) ═══ Some of the features in this first shareware release include... DustyDOTs v1.0 allows nine games to be saved and restored. This game can be played with two people or one person against the computer. The Computer Player plays against you with one of four levels of difficulty, your choice. (This level is a measure of how thoroughly the computer searches for its best move.) You can elect to start new games with starter lines drawn on the game board, from 13 to 144 lines can be requested. The players have their choice of color and the last move is highlighted with the players color until the next move is made. ═══ 3. Setting Options ═══ To enjoy the game even more, you can specify the number of game start up lines, whether the computer is a player and the computer difficulty level. Player colors can be changed during each players turn. Any changes made to game values will be valid for the current session only, unless you select the SAVE CONFIG button. At any time during game play you can select SAVE CONFIG from the SetUp area and DustyDOTs will put these values into a configuration file for you. This DOT.CFG file will be read into the game on startup if it is available, and your selections will be made active. (You'll still need to press the OK button on the line preference box at startup.) To reset DustyDOTs to default values, delete the 'DOT.CFG' file from your computer. subchapters: Defaults next chapter: Atta Boy ═══ 3.1. Defaults ═══ The DustyDOTs game opens with no configuration file built. The default values have the Computer Generated Lines option NOT selected in the opening screen and the line number scroll bar is inactive. For computer play, the difficulty level is set to four, this is the easiest level to beat the computer. Game colors are set to have RED for the Left Player and GREEN for the Right Player. The Computer Player always uses the Left Player colors. ═══ 4. Atta Boy ═══ Planned enhancements include a switch to turn on/off the Line Preference box from SetUp, keyboard control to make two person games easier to play, a countdown and/or elapse timer, and play with a remote player via modem. I also plan to rewrite some routines in C to make the computer player faster. If you find DustyDOTs an enjoyable pastime, I would gladly accept a token gift ($5.00 suggested). Later versions will depend on the number of positive responses I receive. US-mail or E-mail. Send any comments (your thoughts on DustyDOTs?), money, to address shown. ═══ 5. Legal Notes ═══ DustyDOTs code and all screen layouts are protected under Copyright Daniel W Phillips 1982,1996. This version of DustyDOTs was produced with CA-Realizer 2.0d. Licensed run time library files are copied to the RLZRUN20 directory of your computer when DustyDOTs is installed. Not responsible for any damage to equipment or loss of data, whether as a direct or indirect result of using this program. ═══ 6. Address ═══ Copyright 1982,1996 Daniel W Phillips. All Rights Reserved. This is a BETA version, no known problems exist. Please notify me of any problem found with DustyDOTs. US-Mail address. Daniel W Phillips. 207 Connoquenessing Ave G-13. Ellwood City, PA 16117. or E-Mail to. dwphil@fyi.net.