Precision Software Applications Silver Collection 1

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Text File | 1990-10-15 | 14KB | 278 lines

| | | | | | | | | | ██ ██ | █ █ | █ █ | ██ | █ █ | █ █ | ██ ██ LEONG | Version 1.1 | | ██ ██████ | ██ █ ██ A Shareware | ██ █ ██ Game of Strategy and Perseverance | ██ █ ██ | ██ █ ██ | ██ █ ██ User's Guide | █████ ██ | | | ███ ████ | █ █ █ | █ █ █ | █ █ █ | █ █ █ | █ █ █ | ██████████ | | I n t e r n a t i o n a l | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | BSX's No-License Nonsense Statement! This product (C) 1990 BSX International This software is provided "as is" with no guarantees of any kind. You, the user, are permitted and encouraged to distribute it and use it, but under the following conditions: 1) You absolutely, positively may not sell this program without the permission of BSX International. 2) Under no circumstances should you distribute versions of this pro- duct which have been altered in any way without the permission of BSX International. You may add files, but may not changed or delete any of the originals. 3) Under no circumstances should you remove the copyright notices from the code or from the documentation which is provided with it. 4) This is a shareware product. You may use it for free for a short period. After that you must either register or stop using it. You may still distribute it, however. If you find this program to be a blast, you ought to send along a $5.00 registration fee PAYABLE TO ROBERT ROBERDS to: BSX International 806 Park Ridge Rd. Apt. A8 Durham, NC 27713 IMPORTANT: Make checks payable to Robert Roberds. Thanx! Pre-Documentation "Don't Panic" Reassurance Look, it's real easy. These dox are nice, and you oughtta skim them. But we gotta tell you: It's a true gut to use LEONG. LEONG: THE BSX BOARDGAME EXTRAVAGANZA-O-RAMA 0. Facts and Stats This system contains the following files: LEONG.EXE -The executable program. LEONG.DAT -A data file. LEONG.DOC -This documentation file. BSXCAT.DOC -The BSX International catalog. ORDER.DOC -BSX Order form. System requirements: IBM PC,XT,AT,PS/2 or compatible. 256K RAM at the very least. EGA or VGA card with 256K of memory. Microsoft Mouse or compatible. I. Masters Of The Game LEONG is an ancient Korean game of skill, dating back to the early fifth century BC. Even today, the streets of Seoul and of Pyongyang alike are jammed with LEONG-playing fanatics well into the wee hours. OK, so the above is doo-doo. We made up the game ourselves, and the only connection between it and Korea is that the author kinda likes kimchi. He also watched a lot of the Olympics a couple years back, and laughs at the thought of future Soviet basketball teams without any Lithuanians. THAT'LL be a sight! II. Using LEONG To run LEONG, just put LEONG.EXE and LEONG.DAT into a directory. Now you can run LEONG from that directory any time. And, if that directory is in yer path, you can run LEONG from anywhere, anytime. Now, just type: leong at the DOS prompt. You'll see the opening screen and cruise on to an all- nighter of Leongian madness. Here's the deal: LEONG is played on a square board, with 25 grid squares on a side. You start off with 50 pieces in the bottom two rows. In the middle of the top row is the goal, five squares wide. The point is to get one of yer pieces into the goal. "That's *easy*!" you holler, much like Sir Robin in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail". Well, don't get cocky, bunky. For there are hidden pitfalls in the board, and if you move a piece into a pitfall square, then that piece is outtahere, gonzo, sent to Davey Jones' Locker. Only a somber X remains to commemorate its sad fate. You win if you get to the goal. You LOSE if you have no more moveable pieces. "Criminy!" you exclaim. But there's more. The Rules of Movement: No, these have nothing to do with recommended dosages of Milk of Magnesia. Rather, they pertain to the manner in which a piece can be moved about the board. It's simple: A piece can be moved to any adjacent square, so long as that square is itself adjacent to another piece. To execute a move, click the left mouse button on the piece to select it (it will be outlined in white). Then click on the square you with to move it to. It's that simple. If you select a piece and change yer mind about it, just click the right mouse button to unselect it. If yer tiny little brain has trouble organizing these simple rules, there is online help. "Jeez," you interject, in that annoying way that only you seem capable of. "Where's the challenge in that?" Well, shut yer yap and I'll tellya. The very REAL problem is that there are many, many different pitfall lay- outs, so it IS NOT the same every time you play. Therefore, SKILL is called for, not just memorization. If there were only one pitfall pattern then it wouldn't be much of a game, would it? Anyhoo, we GAR-OWN-TEE that every pitfall pattern is winnable, albeit excruciatingly difficult. One nifty option is the silent playing mode. This lets you play without any of the cute music playing on startup and after winning or losing. So you can play without bosses/and or parents and/or your roommate(s) kicking yer hiney. To run LEONG in silent mode, just use the parameter -s (or -S) on the command line, as in C>leong -s. Silent mode is also accessible from the playing screen. But this comes AFTER the initial startup tune. So if you don't even want that, use -s. This brings us to the Boss option. Say you got a real dull, pointless job, kind of like mine, and you decide to kill some time with a nice game of LEONG. But yer neo-facist employer would not take a shine to that if he was to catch you at it. Yer boss, the Master of the Universe with his heroic Yale chin, would toss you in the shredder if he caught you goofing on this GAME instead of making him money. (An aside: I'm using the male pronoun for simplicity. I know there are plenty of horrible *female* bosses, too.) What to do? Well, just hit the Boss button on the playing screen, and -POW!- up comes a fake DOS screen. Yer boss walks by, none the wiser. You may type "exit" or "leong" at the bogus DOS prompt to return to yer game. Cool, huh? This is a convincing Boss screen, not a lame EGA "C>" like in F19 Stealth Fighter. Also, should a dire emergency arise and you need the computer RIGHT NOW w/o going thru the game to get to DOS, you can type "abort" at the fake prompt and you'll be sent right to the operating system. Of course, yer game of LEONG will be history. It has been brought to my attention that only bosses play games at work. So be it. Then you bosses may think of the BOSS option as an EMPLOYEE option. The song remains the same. Strategy notes: You have several options on how to go about it. Some employ the Ayatollah Khomeini Memorial Frontal Assault Tactic, wherein a bodaciously huge amount of pieces are moved forward in a line. This can be effective, SOMETIMES, but it usually isn't and, at any rate, it is extremely wasteful of pieces. No, it's better to send out little parties of 2-4 guys at a time. Let them find a path that seems viable. If they get nuked, you can send out more pieces who have the advantage of having learned from the dead ones' mistakes. Isn't war fun? Keep at it, don't give up, and keep a stiff upper lip. Or whatever. Now, as a public service, we have the LEONG "I wanna kill Bob Roberds" HELP LINE at (919) 493-4875. If yer ever playing LEONG and you just can't seem to win, if nothing goes yer way and the breaks are beating the boys, then by all means call and we'll fill you in on how to cheat, making all the pitfalls visible at once. It is recommended that you deal with yer frustation in this manner, instead of taking a high-powered rifle down to the Kentucky Fried Chicken. Alternately, you can contact us on Prodigy at JBVC54A. Drop us a lyne! III. Technical Info LEONG was written over a weekend of serious beer-drinking and hard- core Chinese food-eating. It was done in Turbo Pascal 5.5 on an IBM PC with an Intel Inboard 386, an Atasi 40Mb hard drive that was falling apart, a Paradise VGA card, and a Microsoft bus mouse. The mouse routines used were those in the Public Domain TP4 unit known as EGAMOUSE, by Eduardo Martins. This is a fine, simple-to-use unit that comes with source, allowing for easy modification. The unbelievably buggy background music routines were adapted and de- bugged from a REAL old TP3 include file dating from the Pleistocene (1985). IV. Acknowledgements Thanks to all who've sent registrations to BSX International and its predecessor, Bigsoft Industries! V. Version Info Version 1.1 released 14 Oct. 90. Mousebug removed. Version 1.0 released 10 Apr. 89. Initial release. VI. What Shareware Is Shareware is a software distribution scheme wherein the user tries the program, then registers it if the product is found to be useful or enjoyable. Thus, users get cheap software which they have evaluated before buying, and authors get recompense for their efforts without the expense and hassle of advertising for a commercial release. The flaw in the shareware idea is obvious: Pinheads out there may use shareware programs without registering. These people rip off hard-working authors, and stultify the otherwise rich shareware environment. THIS IS MAJOR UNCOOL. Shareware authors have come up with a few ideas for dealing with the lack-of-registrants problem. One is to cripple the software, so that only registered users can take full advantage of the product. This is real, real stupid, for all it does is tee off EVERYONE, IMMEDIATELY, the second they try it. They ain't gonna register a program that makes them mad. Another is to instill odious "Don't forget to register!" mess- ages in the program, interrupting the user at inopportune times. This is also counterproductive, for the users get mad, blow the program off, and don't send the author Jack Diddley. No, 'tis nobler in the mind for an author to offer SERVICES to the registered users, not to simply promise to stop torturing them. That's why we at BSX International offer all our products completely crippleless and full-featured. What registration gets you is: A quartely BSX International catalog, and 1/2 price discounts on upgrades from the moment of registration until the minute you DIE! Included in this file are BSXCAT.DOC, the latest BSX International catalog, and ORDER.DOC, the form that makes it true easy to register or purchase BSX products. Look them over, then fill out ORDER.DOC, drop in your cash/check/MO and keep shareware alive. Have fun! ----- Bob "The Ayatollah of Rock 'n' Rollah" Roberds BSX International Durham, North Carolina October 1990 Worf: "But is it alive?" Computer: "Probability positive." Worf: "I wasn't talking to you!" PS: Quit whining and just wear yer (expletive deleted)ing seatbelt. Mars First! Oppose the anti-spacers! Kentucky Fried Chicken is a registered trademark of Pepsico, Inc. PPS: Rinzai, when I want yer opinion, it'll be a cold day in hell.