Strategy Companion/Strategy Companion CD.iso/mines10f/mines.man

Text File | 1995-02-13 | 18KB | 401 lines

MINES(6)                 M.I.N.E.S. 1.0f Manual                 MINES(6)


* NAME
     mines - Miinantallauspeli 1.0 Minefield Stomping Game

     This game used to be called "Minerva", but since then I've found
     out that the name was already in use in Shareware game business.
     Now this is called M.I.N.E.S. which can be deciphered as something
     like Military Intelligence's New Endurance Simulator or perhaps
     Much Ingenious, Nice and Entertaining Stuff. The final meaning is
     still under construction and bound to change.

        Change is not made without inconvenience,
        even from worse to better.
                Richard Hooker (1554 - 1600)

* SYNOPSIS
     mines [ -flmq ]

     -f    no files
     -l    left-handed mouse (swap buttons)
     -m    no mouse reset (keep it slow)
     -q    quiet

* INDEX

- description
- story
- mouse clicking
- superclick
- keyboard playing
- keyboard, menus and dialogs
- new game
- changing settings
- end of game
- color editor
- hint
- pause
- hazards
- how to make a new high score
- in case of trouble
- why beta? this is the best I've seen...
- to do
- bugs
- availability
- author

* DESCRIPTION

This is the best mines game ever. Really! It's a DOS program, needs 286
processor, standard VGA with 256k video RAM and about 280k free memory.
Whether you have a mouse or not, you will see the same cursor and have
(almost) the same keyboard support all the time. There are too many
features to describe, you'll just have to look around and experiment. Of
course most of them you won't even notice, since they work so smooth..

This is an update to the minerva 1.0e and has all the new features
enabled that I've managed to create since the last public release..
Well, not really:

Pc speaker VOC support is disabled, since it's too connected to the
Sound Blaster support and not finished. I'm also trying to add a
continous background music (MOD) support. The two other game styles (hex
and triangle-12) have been disabled just in case my agent would manage
to convince some company to distribute mines as a shareware product.
They were not happy with this and "want more"... like what "#%&@#$&  ??
BTW they are not only disabled, but some critical code was removed, too.

This is a postcardware product, i.e. please send me a postcard, if you
like it. And remember, if I don't hear from users out there, there's no
point making updates, not to mention letting you to know about them.

* STORY

You are a United Nations civil servant, who has been sent to Bosnia
after the war. Your mission is to help to clear the countryside of
countless forgotten land mines. Since the UN has unfortunately a severe
budget deficit all You were given was a pair of old boots and
instructions to "do it in the old-fashioned way". So You plug Your
fingers into Your ears, close eyes and bravely step forward. If You find
a mine, You'll get the minimum pension, otherwise You can still walk. So
good luck, keep walking and before starting wait till I get far enough
away..

NOTE: The object of the game is to step into all safe squares, you do
not have to mark mines.

* MOUSE CLICKING

The game is played with the mouse (or keyboard) by moving the mouse
cursor on some square on minefield and then pressing left or right mouse
button. With the right-handed mouse the step button is the left mouse
button and the mark button is the right mouse button. Pressing and
releasing a mouse button is called clicking. Clicking a step button is
called stepping and clicking mark button is called marking.

When you step on an unopened square (see "Icons" in Help menu) and there
is a mine, game ends (you die). If there's not a mine, the square will
be revealed and if there are no mines in the 8 neighbouring squares,
those will be revealed etc. recursively. If in one or more neighbouring
square there are mines, a number will be written on the revealed square
telling how many mines there are close by. The color of the number will
also identify the value and help you to play faster.

When you mark an unopened square, the square will be marked and you can
no longer step on it. If you mark a marked square, the mark is removed
(one flag option) or another mark is placed on it (2 flag option). You
can step on the second flag; it's there just to remind you this square
might be an unsafe place. If you mark a square with the second flag, the
square will get unmarked.

* SUPERCLICK

You can do a SuperClick by stepping on an already opened square. If
SuperClick is set to "None", nothing will happen (it was your choice).

However if SuperClick is "Step only", things get interesting: if the
value on the stepped square equals the number of nearby squares marked
with a red flag, all the other squares will be stepped on. Otherwise
you'll hear a nasty LoseBeep sound effect and can watch how those
unmarked squares get pressed and released. The "Step only" choice was
created for all ex-MS Minesweeper users to make Minerva feel more
familiar.

SuperClick choice "Mark & Step" behaves just like "Step only", except
if the value on stepped square equals the number of nearby unopened (not
stepped or with a blue/red flag) squares, all those squares will be
marked with a red flag. Now you could solve the whole field just by
stepping around (stomping) with SuperClick, but I have to warn you that
it's not too fast. It's safe, but usually you'd have to step into every
square.

* KEYBOARD PLAYING

There's some keyboard support, too. When I started this I was full-time
Macintosh user and really didn't know that one should be able to use
menus from keyboard.. Well, I'm working on it and now it's almost done.

On the minefield you can step with Return, Enter, Spacebar and Insert
keys. Marking happens with Delete, Plus, Minus, Star and Slash keys. The
weird marking keys assignments enable playing with only one hand.

The cursor is moved with the arrow keys, one square in the direction of
the arrow, except the cursor won't leave the minefield. This is done by
pressing Shift at the same time as arrow key. You can jump to the
corners of the minefield with Home (upper left), PageUp (upper right),
End (lower left) and PageDown (lower right). If you hold down Shift you
jump to corners of the screen, not just the minefield. The order of the
last four keys can be understood from the layout of usual keyboard (note
Insert and Delete).

        Insert        Home        PageUp
        Delete        End        PageDown

                UpArrow
        LeftArrow    DownArrow    RightArrow

You can lock the mouse step button down by pressing Control-LeftArrow.
To lock the mark button press Control-RightArrow. They are released
either by repeating the lock procedure or by pressing and releasing the
equivalent mouse buttons, either with mouse or keyboard.

Pressing function key F1 will show some more keyboard short cuts.

* KEYBOARD, MENUS AND DIALOGS

You can select a menu with Alt + Highlighted Character combinations. The
currently selected menu item is presented in a different way than all
the rest items, you should have no trouble identifying it. In menus you
can use arrowkeys to move around and press Enter to select something or
type the highlighted character of a menu item.

In dialogs you can type the highlighted character of the title of any
Radiobutton group and its selection will rotate forward. Using shift
will rotate it backwards..

* NEW GAME

When you start Minerva you will see a minefield with the upper left
corner cleared as a safe starting place and a new game is automatically
started. A new game can also be started by selecting "New Game" in Game
menu (really:), pressing n or N key (while not in menu or dialog),
stepping on statusbar above menubar (in middle area) or, if there's a
blownup minefield, stepping on it. A new game is also started by
changing current size/level setting in one of the several available
ways.. Or selecting something under Hazards-menu. That should be all.

* CHANGING SETTINGS

Most game settings can be found in the "Settings" menu's submenus,
except Hazards and Game Style in the Game menu. The Options item will
present a dialog for all possible settings except Hazards, including
several that are nowhere else available.

Size can be changed by selecting from the menu or by pressing
appropriate key s)mall m)edium l)arge (while not in menu or dialog. In
HighScore dialog will change the presented size/level board as by
pressing radiobuttons). Size can also be changed with the mouse on the
statusbar cell, where current size is presented. Stepping will rotate
forwards, marking backwards. Difficulty level is handled the same way,
in the corresponding cell of the statusbar.

All used settings are saved in a file MINES.DEF, if writing files was
enabled, and automatically restored at the next startup. Some settings
can be overridden by command line options (type "mines -?").

* END OF GAME

If you die, all squares will be revealed and the d*mned mine that blew
you up is highlighted, also all incorrect marks will be crossed. If you
solved the field, but weren't fast enough, the field is also revealed.
If you made it fast enough, a dialog will popup telling you your
position in the Top 10 and requesting your name. The default name is
Jouni Miettunen (Yours Truly) or last typed name and you can accept it
either by pressing Return key or clicking step button. Then you get the
High Score dialog (see "Info" menu or press F7).

In the High Score dialog your new entry is highlighted. If there were
others with same time, you will be above them. At the left side there
are 2 radiobutton field with which you can check the other results (3
field sizes * 4 difficulty levels == 12 high score boards). With the
Reset button you can reset all entries in the current board. Score is
saved in unencrypted MINES.HOF file. Pressing OK button or Return/
Enter/ESC/Insert/spacebar key will exit dialog (there are more :).

* COLOR EDITOR

This is the latest enchangement and not final, even though I've seen
worse ones. It works, but since I didn't have enough time to optimize
it, it's kind of slow to detect mouse clicking, not to mention the only
partionally functional sliders (thumb). Just press mouse button slowly.
And remember: when you erase "MINES.PAL" file, you'll get the default
system colors! And believe me, you want them pretty soon :)

In this version you can select a color to edit, change it's RGB values
either by clicking on the black square to the right of the slider and
writing in a new value, clicking arrow boxes (+/- 1), the scrollbar area
(+/- 10) or by grabbing the thumb and moving it, if you can find it. At
the top are samples of all icons, menus and buttons to show the effect
of the new color.

Default button will restore all colors as they were at startup, Cancel
button cancels all changes since entering the Color Editor and OK button
will keep the new colors and write them into MINES.PAL file. Pressing
Default button with mark button pressed will scale all colors to gray:

    Gray Scale = (.30 * Red) + (.59 * Green) + (.11 * Blue)

Pressing Calcel button with mark button already pressed will reset all
colors to default vga palette.

MINES.PAL format is simple and you could write it with any editor: each
line has 3 values (0-63) so that 1st is Red, 2nd is Green and 3rd Blue.
First line defined color 1, second line color 2 etc.. Order of colors is
the "normal" 16 computer colors: black, blue, green, cyan, red, magenta,
brown, lightgray, darkgray, lightblue, lightgreen, lightcyan, lightred,
lightmagenta, yellow, white.

* HINT

When you get into a tough spot, usually at the end, you can ask for a
hint. Then Number_of_Squares/10 seconds is added to used time and for
same Number_of_Squares/10 seconds a safe square is randomly selected and
tested and after that one square at a time in order from the bottom
right corner one row at a time until a safe square is found. There's a
100 millisecond delay between cursor movements to show you that cursor
really moving and to raise the cost of asking for help. However now you
can actually solve those Impossible fields. Finally :)

* PAUSE

Due to memory handling problems (allocating >64k memory) I desided to
restore the screen by redrawing it. Should work now. Somebody please
keep reminding me to enable menubar usage while in Pause..

* HAZARDS

So you think you've seen it all, that you can solve any minefield setup
with one hand tied and both eyes closed. Well think again, I added some
hazards to the game!

- boulders: Some meteorites have dropped on minefield. The good point is
that you can safely step on them, the bad point is that since they are
very magnetic the SuperClick doesn't work on them. Some SuperClick..

- detector: You have the very latest high-tech mine detector there is in
the world. That's what they told you.. The one you have operates only
occasionally, fortunately it still does give correct values.

- teleport: There must be some radioactive stuff around, since lately
you've been teleporting to random places every now and then.

- jumping mines: Unlike the real jumping mines, these don't wait for you
to step on them and then jump up to blow your ... waterline away. These
wait for a while and if you don't come around they'll go looking for
you. Note: this could be extremely slow operation and so it's enabled
only if at least 5 safe squares are available.

NOTE: hazards aren't really finished yet, e.g. how should they effect
the score? To keep record of each possible combination of hazard - level
- size would require too much space and time. Any compressing ideas?

* HOW TO MAKE A NEW HIGH SCORE

You want to get a new high score, but don't want to reset old records..
Well, try this:

- turn Sound off, there's 18 millisecond delay in every Beep (sounds a
lot like cheating, maybe I should add delay in any case :)

- use SuperClick with both autostep and -mark, but avoid using automark.
Automarking seems IMHO only to slow down, since you usually can automark
only one square at a time and even then have to look for the one right
square to do that. Of course if you can automark several squares, do it.

- don't waste time marking squares. In this game the object is only to
locate all safe places and you DO NOT HAVE TO mark mines. However to use
autostep you still better mark some squares, but use Mark button.

- don't rush, look what you're doing and (try to) plan ahead.
- rest your arm on table etc. stable support
- using Rocks hazard might help
- be very very very lucky.

When I was lucky, I cleared small-easy field in 12 seconds; usual good
time is around 20-25 seconds. No Hazards were enabled.

* IN CASE OF TROUBLE

- Mouse: If you have trouble with the default mouse sensitivity settings
eg. the cursor rushes from one side to another with the slightest touch
to mouse, use command line option -m to get the default sensitivity.

- Files: If you have trouble with files eg. M.I.N.E.S. claims it can't
create any files, use command line option -f to prevent all writing on
disk. If you want those files, unlock the M.I.N.E.S. disk or get HD
diskette. There is a Critical Error Handler to take care of those nasty
Abort,Fail,Retry errors, but a user notification dialog is missing..

* WHY BETA? THIS IS THE BEST I'VE SEEN...

Well, I can still make it a lot better, if only I had the time.. Besides
when I call this as a beta I don't have to write any real manual.

The keyboard-only cursor behaves a bit weird: I really just wrote a
Mouse Handler, plugged it in and crossed my fingers. The most outrageous
incompatibilites are fixed, but to make it work just right all the time,
I'll have to rewrite all the Dialog and Controls code..

Sound support is coming: I have several sound libraries to use, but no
sounds.. This also requires some heavy rewriting.

.."Want more".. Well, I do have some ideas to increase playability.
After doing Hex-6 and Triangle-12 fields I concentrated into GUI and
wrote another game: DRoboWHOids 1.1 - a unix robots(6) clone for dos.
Might as well do some game related things after sound stuff, but it
probably takes too much time.

* TO DO

I should do a real manual, fix Color Editor, make Score and CE dialogs
full-screen, add a small Notification dialog, add continuous background
music, find explosion sounds, use swapping in shell escape to max free
memory.. and invent lots of new and exciting stuff to make this at least
a little bit interesting game <sigh>. Should also go throung hundreds of
bitmap Mac fonts to replace the current stroked BGI fonts..

All suggestions most welcome. But since I do this for free and to learn
something (not sure what), no promises. See warranty for more.

* BUGS

There are no known bugs, but a few documented controversial features.
I'd like to stress that none of those is fatal or causes any damage to
equipment whatsoever. Well, as far as I know, see warranty for more.

* AVAILABILITY

ftp.funet.fi:/pb/msdos/games/puzzle/mines10f.zip
garbo.uwasa.fi:/pc/educgames/mines10f.zip

In USA you could check ftp.uwp.edu and wuarchive.wustl.edu
See vendor.txt for Official Distribution Policy.

* AUTHOR

This game is Postcardware. If you want to be notified about updates, get
your name into Credits dialog and tell me how it *really* should work,
please send an exotic picture postcard (don't forget email address) to:

M.I.N.E.S. 1.0f Beta
c/o Mr. Jouni Miettunen
Rautatienkatu 20 A 10
FIN-90100 OULU
FINLAND - EUROPE


Jouni Miettunen * [e-mail] * Oulu * Finland * Europe * 1994