Amiga Computing 68/ac068b.adf/ArmyMiner/ArmyMiner.doc/ArmyMiner.doc

Text File | 1993-10-16 | 12KB | 304 lines

                                 ARMYMINER v1.4

                                  July 26 1993


Preface
~~~~~~~

     This program is freeware, binary only. You are free to use it as
long as you leave my copyright notice intact. You can distribute this program
as long as you don't ask any more money for it than a nominal fee for copying,
and if you keep this document with it. If you want to include this program in
a commercial package you need my written permission.

             "Copyright 1993 Alain Laferriere, All rights reserved"

     If you have suggestions or remarks about this program, or if you find
any bugs, please let me know.

     You can reach me at the following address:

                             Alain Laferriere
                             5190 Drolet #1
                             Montreal, Quebec, H2T 2H2
                             Canada

                             Telephone: [phone]

     If you have access to Internet, you'll be able to reach me at the
following address:

                      E-mail: [e-mail]

     Since this address may close in a few months, you can then try to reach
me at this one:

                      E-mail: [e-mail]

     Please try to use the first address, the second one is at job and I don't
want to mix personnal software developpment with my job.

             I read my mail everyday so you can expect a fast answer.


Contents
~~~~~~~~

1. Introduction

2. Usage

3. Bugs and history

4. Future projects

5. Special thanks


1. Introduction
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Of all the Amiga versions of Minesweeper or X-Mines I've seen so far, none
was complete enough to satisfy me. I felt that a program that would integrate
all of the good features I've seen in different programs was needed. Also,
the program architecture itself was offering a really interesting challenge so
I decided to write my own.

  Armyminer works under 1.3 and 2.0, either on PAL or NTSC. It requires
no external libraries whatsoever.

  Armyminer was developped on Amiga 3000UX, with Manx Aztec C v5.2a, CED and
Enforcer.


2. Usage
~~~~~~~~

  Armyminer can be started from the cli or by clicking its icon in the
WorkBench environment. If first verifies if the stack is sufficient to
handle worst case recursivity. If it's not the case then the following
message is diplayed on screen (if run from CLI):

    Stack size is 12000 bytes
    Stack must be at least 30000 bytes to run Armyminer

  When you start Armyminer from the cli, you can specify an initial seed
value for the pseudo-random number generator. For example:

    Armyminer 25643

  That feature is really interesting for people who want to compete on the
same boards, by setting the same seed value. Note however that when the
"safe start" switch is enabled, the first clicked square will determine
the board's initial configuation. So, if you want to compete with a friend
you have to either turn that switch off (in which case the board's
configuration will always be the same no matter which square is first
clicked) or to both click on the same square to start the game.
If no seed value is specified, the program calculates a new seed
by using the current system's time.

  Armyminer possess 4 different game settings:

    BEGINNER MODE : 8 by 8 board, 15% (9) bombs

    ADVANCED MODE : 30 by 16 board, 21% (100) bombs

    EXPERT MODE   : 30 by 25 board, 24% (180) bombs

    CUSTOM MODE   : You select the board width, height and bomb percentage

  Armyminer starts in ADVANCED mode. These board settings are similar to
the ones in the X-Window's XMines. You can start playing the game by
clicking on any square, or choose a different setting by either selecting
it in the menus (or by using the keyboard alternates) or by clicking on the
corresponding gadget on screen.

  As you will notice, there is a PAUSE option which temporarily hides the
board and pauses the timer. It's a very interesting feature as it lets you
answer the phone (or eat a pizza slice) in the middle of a game, by example.
That PAUSE options is only available when there is a game in progress. When
it's not the case, the gadget is ghosted. When you select the "About" item
when a game is in process, the timer is also paused so you can continue
the game without loosing time. The PAUSE option can be activated by clicking
on the PAUSE gadget, or by pressing the 'p' key on the keyboard.

  The UNDO option can be used when the user exploses by either directly
clicking on a bomb or by cleaning the neighbours of an uncovered square when
the bomb marks on its neighbours are incorrect. Each time you use the UNDO,
you will get a 10 seconds penalty to the time counter. This is only to avoid
people entering high-scores by finishing a game in UNDO.

  When the game window in inactivated, the counter temporarily pauses and
restarts when the game is reactivated.

  Like in other minesweeper-type games available, you use the mouse in the
following way:

  - Use left mouse button to click (push down) a square in the board
  - Use right mouse button to toggle the state of a covered square
  - Use right or left mouse button on an uncovered square to clean its
    neighbours (when the number of marked squares in its neighbourhood is
    the same as the number written on the uncovered square itself).

  In the OPTIONS menu, you'll find the following items:

  - Use question marks. Lets the user cycle the state of a covered square
    (by clicking the right mouse button when the mouse pointer is over the
    square) from unmarked, to marked (check mark symbol), to a question
    mark ("?") to unmarked. When inactive, the square state is toggled from
    unmarked to marked to unmarked. This option was available on the
    IBM-compatible Minesweeper so I decided it would be nice to have it
    here.

  - Safe start. Assures you that the first square you'll click when starting
    a new game will have no bombs in its immediate neighbours. That way, you
    are sure to clean a part of the board. When inactive, you have absolutely
    no garantee to start a game safely and it's possible to explode on the
    first click.

  - Auto mark. By clicking the left or right mouse button when the mouse pointer
    is over an uncovered square, forces all its neighbours to be marked as bombs
    when they are in equal number as the number written on the uncovered square
    itself. That option makes the game a lot more easy.

  - Safe click. Forces the board squares to be treated as normal Amiga gadgets.
    That means if you push a square and keep the left mouse button pressed,
    then move the mouse, the square will return to its covered state. When this
    option in turned off, moving the mouse will have no effect and the square
    will be pushed anyway. The IBM-compatible Minesweeper reacts as having the
    safe click option ON. Some players (like me) prefer to turn it off because
    when you click squares rapidly (i.e. moving the mouse at the same time),
    the gadget-like behavior will ignore some of the clicked squares and put
    them back to their original covered state.

  - Sound effects. There is sound effects for pushing, popping, marking and
    exploding a square, also there is a "good work son" played when your score
    is good enough to enter the high-score table. You can turn them ON or OFF
    with that option.

  The default settings of these options for each mode are:

      Mode     Use question marks    Safe start    Auto mark    Safe Click
      ----     ------------------    ----------    ---------    ----------

    BEGINNER         ACTIVE            ACTIVE        ACTIVE       ACTIVE
    ADVANCED        INACTIVE           ACTIVE       INACTIVE     INACTIVE
     EXPERT         INACTIVE           ACTIVE       INACTIVE     INACTIVE
     CUSTOM         INACTIVE           ACTIVE        ACTIVE      INACTIVE

  There are 4 high-scores tables (BEGINNER, ADVANCED, EXPERT, CUSTOM). The first
three of those are ordered by timer values since the board dimensions remain
the same in each. The custom high-score table entries are ordered in a
different way. The "score" is calculated in regard to the board dimensions, the
bomb percentage and the timer value.

  The SCORES menu possess the following items:

  - SHOW : Displays any of the high-scores table

  - CLEAR : Resets all the entries of any of the high-scores table


3. Bugs and history
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

v1.4:
----

  Modifications since v1.3 are:

  - Correction of a few bugs that were inserted in the version 1.3 release
    (I'm really sorry, this release was done much too fast and the testing
    part of the release was not sufficient). The most important problem was
    the UNDO button in conjunction with the use of question marks.

  - Custom fonts won't cause a problem anymore in the CUSTOM board settings.

  - PAUSE button is now available after an UNDO.

v1.3:
----

  Modifications since v1.2 are:

  - Addition of the UNDO option.

  - The displayed values when moving the CUSTOM requester sliders were not
    properly updated are that has now been fixed.

  - When you opened the CUSTOM requester while a game was in progress, the
    timer kept on incrementing. This has also been fixed.

  - Initial board display speed and other board refreshes have been greatly
    improved.

  - The default dimensions for the EXPERT board have been changed from
    25 by 25 to 30 by 25 (maximal size) which offers an even greater
    challenge.

v1.2:
----

  Modifications since v1.1 are:

  - ArmyMiner is now uncompressed. Many persons prefered speed of execution
    when starting the game over the disk space it occupies.

  - Correction of a bug that happened with system fonts different than
    "topaz 8".

  - You can now pause the game by pressing the 'p' key on the keyboard. You
    unpause the game as usual, by clicking in the pause window.

v1.1:
----

  Modifications since v1.0 are:

  - ArmyMiner v1.0 did not work on the Amiga 4000 due to the fact that the
    executable was compressed with the "TNM CRUNCHER v1.1" which crashes on
    that machine. ArmyMiner v1.1 is compressed with PowerPacker which is said
    to work perfectly on all Amigas.

v1.0:
----

  The only problem that remains is the string gadget behavior (when a user
enters his name in the high-score table). Under 2.0, the gadget is
autoactivated but under 1.3, the user must first click in it.

  Since I developped that program with Enforcer v37.25, there are no bad
memory access problems for sure!


4. Future projects
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  This is my first official release of a program in the Amiga community.
However, I wrote lots of other programs (tools, disk utilities, etc) for
myself and friends and I am getting very comfortable with the Amiga computer.

  Even if I have a very fascinating full time job right now, I'm still
interested in working on part time projects. I'm not sure what I'll do next,
but I would be interested in working on a commercial shoot-em up game or
anything that has to do with computer graphics (that's my field!).

  I know that lots of european magazines put public domain and freeware
software on their cover disks. If my program happens to appear on such a
disk, I'll be very thankful to receive a copy of the magazine and to hear
from anybody who likes my program and wants to discuss about it.


5. Special thanks
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Special thanks goes to my good friend Daniel Beaudry, who made the
"About" menu's picture and other graphics. Also thanks to Pierre Rioux
who did a wonderful job at sending bug reports and suggestions.
Philippe Hebrais, Lucie Jolicoeur, Eric Prevot and Jocelyn Cloutier
also played many games and gave me very good suggestions that were
later included.