Each file is in a compressed format (LHARC). Un-compress each to a SEPARATE disk. They will not run properly if you don't! Example: LHARC E CAPITAL B: ****************************************************************** WIZARD games 4 Hoselaw,Kelso,TD5 8BP,Scotland ****************************************************************** SHAREWARE Summer 1991 releases ============================== At last, a mere two years after it was started, GOAL, our game of international soccer management is finished, bringing our shareware releases up to seven, plus a freeware compendium of smaller games. In addition we have complete rewrites of both THE SOCCER GAME and GRAND PRIX (the ascii help files for these games: SOCCER.HLP, and GP.HLP give detailed information on all the improvements made in these new versions). Our other games have had only minor changes since last Autumn: mainly bug fixes to cope with incompatibilities in certain so-called PC compatibles. We now use only shareware for distribution of our software, and we are committed to raising the standard of leisure software available through shareware and the public domain, worldwide. Our releases are now: 1) GOAL - international soccer management: our latest release, and we believe our best game to date, from the amazingly talented New Era Software. This is the first of our games to be MDA/Hercules compatible, amd it should work on absolutely any PC compatible. 2) THE SOCCER GAME - league football team management: our first release, and biggest seller to date. Now on version 2: a complete rewrite with a great many enhancements over the original. Another superb game from New Era. 3) GRAND PRIX - formula 1 car racing team management: the Hole in the Wall team do for formula 1 fans, what New Era do for football fans! This game is also now on version 2: again a complete rewrite incorporating many features requested by customers since the original GRAND PRIX became available. 4) GREYHOUND - dog racing and kennel management. This is a very well presented, slick and addictive offering from Dogware. 5) ROCKSTAR - the crazy world of sex,drugs and rock 'n roll.A Wizard original. There's nothing else remotely like this. 6) CAPITALIST - a business management game, with a variety of gambling games included. 7) INSANITY - this unique, bizarre, and highly original maze based adventure/action game with its many puzzles and challenges is starting to generate a lot of very positive feedback. 8) THE WIZARD COMPENDIUM - a freeware sampler of our game-writing, containing 5 games not available elsewhere. All our games are started up by the RUN.EXE program. Be careful that SHARE files do not get mixed up, as these are different for each game: keep the games in separate directories, or they won't work! The WIZARD files supplied with previous versions of the games are no longer required. A detailed descriptions of each game is given in the WIZARD GAMES catalogue, included in the RUN.EXE program. ****************************************************************** What is WIZARD GAMES anyway? ****************************************************************** Wizard Games is a collective of enthusiastic (ie addicted) computer game writers (the term 'programmers' we consider inadequate to describe what we do - we don't want to be confused with the poor creatures who write a few lines of COBOL a day within a large data processing department, and are more interested in their pay cheque than in the quality of what they are writing). Our membership varies, currently numbering four writers and several supporting game testers, technical advisors and general helping hands. Our eccentricities are many. We are a pretty reclusive bunch, trying to keep a low profile, so that we get peace to program and get on with our lives. The various names we write and have written under (New Era Software, Back Street Software, Hole in the Wall, Dogware, Wizard etc) reflect different authors and partnerships within Wizard Games, and are basically pennames to maintain our personal anonymity. We believe that our games are each in their own way unique, highly challenging and disturbingly addictive (and sorry but we cannot help you with marital problems and the like caused by loading up GOAL or whatever and being subsequently unable to tear yourself away..). Most of our games (GOAL, THE SOCCER GAME, GRAND PRIX, GREYHOUND, CAPITALIST) are management simulations, treated in a light hearted but in-depth fashion, and we have certainly never seen any competing game which comes anywhere near them for depth of detail. THE SOCCER GAME, for instance, was written as a direct result of frustration at the poor quality of all existing football management games, and begins where the others (Football Manager, Football Director and the like) left off: we have a stack of letters from satisfied customers testifying to our success in making the competition look like no competition at all (and disgracefully overpriced to boot). ROCKSTAR is a fairly seedy and very original role-playing game (be warned,broad minded adults only for this one..). INSANITY is very different from our other games, being a maze based adventure filled with puzzles, riddles and challenges designed to drive you up the wall, and this is perhaps the only one of our major games suitable for all the family. Any of these games may take you several hours to play, and you are unlikely to be able to resist having another go... you have been warned! We write whatever takes our fancy, with games simply providing our bread and butter (and draining off our creative juices). We will turn our hands to anything in our constant search for new computing challenges, and if you are at all impressed by what you have seen so far then 'you ain't seen nothin' yet!'.The potential of computers for entertainment is enormous, and hardly tapped by the 'software industry', who stick conservatively to tried and tested formulas. We aim to blow their cosy world apart: it is time for genuine artistic flair, craftsmanship and innovation to triumph over hype,packaging and gross commercialism. We program for the love of it - striving to break new boundaries with our coding: we use our own editors and utility programs (some of which may be released to the general public one day...), to enhance our basic workhorse which is Borland Turbo Pascal (aided and abetted by some very fast machine code). We are developing our own fourth generation games-creation language and programming environment (known to us as 'Z'), and much of GOAL and the new version 2 of GRAND PRIX were written in it. When Z is complete, Turbo Pascal will be consigned to the dustbin ,or maybe given the decent burial due to an old friend. We have decided (after various mishaps and burnt fingers) to keep control of our own distribution, and to sell our games exclusively via shareware: ie no advertising in the commercial rags, and no dealings with the shark-infested commercial software houses. We now sell registered copies of our games to enthusiastic shareware supporters from all corners of the planet, and we greatly appreciate the wealth of praise and constructive criticism we receive. We applaud the rise of shareware, and particularly the efforts of those dedicated shareware distributors who weed out the gems from the chaff, and promote this radical, ecological and sensible alternative to traditional marketing methods. The only way to get hold of a genuine registered copy of one of our games now is to send your money to us at 4 Hoselaw, Kelso. This is the only way we receive any payment for our efforts, and thus the only way we can afford to maintain our computers, keep our landlords at bay, and support our local public houses (oh and occasionally buy some food..). We write only on and for IBM PCs and compatibles, causing some frustration to Atari and Amiga owners who are used to having things their own way, and have difficulty believing that there can be worthwhile games for the PC which they cannot obtain versions of! This is largely an accident of fate, as we all independantly started off owning PC compatibles, and now we are sticking with what we know for several reasons: PCs are by far the most widely used computers in the world; there is a lamentable lack of good leisure software for these machines (a problem we are addressing in our own small way); and there is a far better range of language and program development software for these machines than for any other. We don't bother with graphics (not yet anyway), although those unfamiliar with the inner workings of the PC might well think otherwise when lost in the highly visual world of our INSANITY game. Our reasoning is that CGA graphics are so limited that they are not worth the effort, and the myriad of different enhanced graphic cards found on PC compatibles is such that worthwhile PC graphics are inordinately time-consuming and expensive to create (we would have to have a variety of machines far larger than our bank accounts allow).But come on all you shareware supporters, if you do your bit then we will enter the world of high resolution graphics in due course. Meanwhile we are sticking with the CGA standard, using text mode only, as this allows us to quickly write fast-working compact games that work on the vast majority of modern PCs. Wizard Games is a very different animal from the commercial software houses that seem to dominate production of computer games these days. All they seem interested in is the latest megabuck licensing agreement they have been able to land, and the quantity of product they can shift in the Christmas market. We raise our collective fingers at this sordid attitude, and hark back to the early days of personal computing when all the best games were written by fanatical kids in their bedrooms for the sheer fun of it (remember MANIC MINER?). We regard ourselves as artists and definitely not as businessmen. That is why you cannot contact us by telephone (we want to be left in peace!), and that is why we can take risks and continually break new ground: we have nothing to lose except our eyesight and sanity! We hope that you find our games entertaining, and if you have never played any of them, even if you 'never play computer games' we urge you to give them a TRIAL.. and that is what the shareware concept is all about: try before you buy. So, welcome to the world of Wizard Games! ****************************************************************** WIZARD games 4 Hoselaw,Kelso,TD5 8BP,Scotland ******************************************************************