Copyright: CyPet v2.0 (Beta Release 1) Help File   Tuesday, December 23, 1997 17:19:29


Contents
CyPet 2 (Beta Release 1)

Contents

Introduction to CyPet

CyPet Tutorial - how to care for your first pet

Options

Other Features

Version History

CyPet's Website

Mailing List

Technical Information

Distribution Information

Known Issues

Bug Reports and Suggestions

What to do if you have a question

The making of CyPet

Expected Release Dates for CyPet 2

CyPet v2.0 Copyright © 1997-1998 Axe Software. Programmed by Alex Warren. Music by Martyn Townsend.


Introduction

Welcome to CyPet 2, the virtual pet for Windows 95!

To see what's changed since CyPet 1, see the Version History

This version of CyPet 2 is Beta Release 1, so it may contain bugs. If so, please report them and I will attempt to fix them as soon as possible. Please also contact me if you have any suggestions for things I could do to improve CyPet. I would also very much appreciate any reports of typos and mistakes in this help file, and I would also like to know if anything in this help file is not clear enough or out-of-date (i.e. it contains references to things relevant only in CyPet 1). Details for bug reports and suggestions can be found at the Bugs Reports and Suggestions page. Thank you very much in advance!


Tutorial

Creating a pet

The screen

Feeding your pet

Playing with your pet

Keeping your pet healthy

Disciplining your pet

Viewing your pet's statistics

Cleaning your pet

Death

Saving your pet


Other Features

Boss mode

Status View Mode

Pause


Options

Clicking Pet|Options or clicking the spanner button will bring up the Options screen. From here you can customize the behaviour of the CyPet program.

You may want to change the speed of the game to your taste, so move the slider in the "Speed" box to change the speed (in seconds) between updates. The lower the number, the faster your pet will age and the faster it will become more hungry, more bored, etc. Alternatively, if you want a really fast game, click "Turbo".

To automatically load a file when CyPet starts, check the "Startup with pet" box. Then click one of the options - either to load the same file every time CyPet starts, open up the last file used (i.e. the pet that you last had on the CyPet screen the last time you played it), prompt for a pet every time CyPet starts up, or start up with a new pet. If you check the "Load pet" option you can either:

- Type in a filename in the box

- Click Browse to search for the pet you want

- Click Use Current File to use the pet that is currently loaded.

You can also choose what happens when CyPet exits and when you open a pet/start a new one. You can choose that the program either:

- prompts you to save (Yes, No, or Cancel)

- saves automatically,

- or, just exits/starts the new pet, with no saving or prompt.

You can choose to have various windows opened when you open a pet - the Stats window and the Discipline window can come up automatically if you check the relevant boxes.

You can also specify how warnings are to be given - you can have any combination of:

- A pop-up message (every 20 updates, eg. if speed is set to 1 you will get a message every 20 seconds, if set to 20 you get one every 20x20=400 seconds)

- A warning in the status bar

- A bold label in the stats screen

You can set how much time to wait after the boss key has been pressed - see the Boss Mode section.

You can turn off the toolbar - a bit useless but there if you want it.

You can also change the sound behaviour. You can turn off sounds altogether by unchecking "Play Sounds", or you can just turn off the random sounds (eg. "Oy!", "Hello") but keep the music and the event sounds (eg belching when you feed the pet, "Owch!" when you inject it), by entering a value of 0 for the random sounds box. Entering any other value here changes how frequent the sounds are.

"Suspend sounds in Status View Mode" will turn off random sounds only when the Status View mode is currently running.


Version History

01/08/97: CyPet v1.0 Beta 1

14/08/97: CyPet v1.0 Beta 2

21/09/97: CyPet v1.0 - final version

20/12/97: CyPet v2.0 (Beta Release 1)

- CyPet checks for existence of GIF, MIDI and WAV files when it loads, and terminates if any are not present.

- New Pet dialog's border is now fixed, was resizable (woops!)

- New Pet dialog and the Options dialog have been restructured

- Stats & Discipline dialogs no longer come up in Taskbar

- New option (albeit rather pointless) to hide the toolbar

- New Boss key (F12), new option to set how long until CyPet returns.

- New multimedia sound effects

- New Status View mode

- New Turbo speed setting

- New games

- New strength rating for pet

- New look interface:

- New look graphics

- New look fonts

- New look splash screen

- New look about box

- +++ more

- New support for multiple types of pet

- +++ more


CyPet's Website

The CyPet website is at:

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~dewarr/cypet.htm

From here you can download the latest version of CyPet, and get more information.


Mailing List

If you would like to be emailed when new versions of CyPet are available, please email mailinglist@dewarr.globalnet.co.uk with subject Join Mailing List. You will recieve emails the moment new software, including beta versions, are released, and will also recieve news about forthcoming software.

An alternative way to join the mailing list is to fill out the form at http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~dewarr/contact.htm


Technical Information

The technical information for CyPet is in the file CPTECH.TXT. It contains information on the .CYP file format, registry information, the cheat, editing the graphics and making your own animals.


Distribution Information

CyPet is FREEWARE so PLEASE distribute it! However, the following rules apply:

CHARGING FOR DISTRIBUTION

You may NOT sell CyPet or charge for distributing it, apart from a small disk copying fee - NO MORE THAN £2 (UK) or $3 (US) if CyPet is being distributed alone (ie just CyPet on the disk). If it is being distributed as part of a larger collection, more may be charged so long as there is no extra charge for CyPet. If you wish to charge more than the prices above, please contact me for permission.

WIDE-SCALE DISTRIBUTION

You may distribute CyPet on the internet or on a cover disk/CD, etc. If it is being distributed regularly (eg on the internet where it may be repeatedly downloaded over a number of months, or if it is regularly included on a cover CD, etc.) then please join the mailing list so you can be kept updated with the latest versions of CyPet. Please specify in the body of the message that you plan to distribute CyPet and how you are distributing it.

YOU MUST INCLUDE ALL NECESSARY FILES

You must include the full, original version of the installation program, with all files.

If you are distributing on the internet I would much prefer it if you just included a link to the full install program at the CyPet website, rather than upload the installation program to your site yourself. Either include a link to the page at http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~dewarr/cypet.htm or a link to the full installation ZIP file (see the CyPet webpage for the address of this link)


Known Issues

- If ASYCFILT.DLL is not on your hard disk an error 50003 is generated. All other missing files cause an error that tells you that the particular file is missing.


Bug Reports and Suggestions

If you find a bug in CyPet, please email cypetbugs@dewarr.globalnet.co.uk, or if you have a suggestion for improving CyPet, please email suggest@dewarr.globalnet.co.uk.


What to do if you have a question

If you are not sure how to do something in CyPet or you have any questions regarding CyPet or Axe Software, please email axesoftware@dewarr.globalnet.co.uk.

If you need assistance setting up or running CyPet, please email techsupport@dewarr.globalnet.co.uk


Creating a pet

Start a new pet by clicking the New button, or selecting New CyPet from the Pet menu. You will be prompted for a name for your pet, and be asked for the difficulty settings. These are:

- Beginner: Health and behaviour values start at 8, strong pet.

- Intermediate: Health and behaviour values start at 5, averagely strong pet.

- Expert: Health and behaviour values start at 2, weaker pet.

- Random: Random health, behaviour and strength values.

- Custom: You can choose the initial health, behaviour and strength values by dragging the sliders.

The strength rating affects the pet's tolerance to exercise. A weaker pet will need less exercise, and over-exercising it could cause it to become overweight. A stronger pet will lose weight more slowly, but will need more exercise.

Enter a name and choose the type of animal you want, then choose a difficulty setting and click OK. You will then be presented with the CyPet screen. The name of the pet will be in the title bar.


The screen

Going anticlockwise from the top left there is:

- New, Open, Save and Options buttons: These do exactly the same as the New, Open, Save and Options found in the Pet Menu.

- Food button: Click this to feed your pet.

- Play: Clicking here will start a game of peek-a-boo with your yellow blob.

- Inject: Injects your pet to increase its health.

- Discipline: If your pet refuses to eat it's lovely green blobs, give it some discipline to get it to eat up.

- Stats: This is a very useful screen that tells you how hungry your pet is, how heavy it is, its age, and more.

- Clean: Cleaning your pet will remove the horrible dirty things it leaves in its cage. This will keep it healthy.


Feeding your pet

You need to feed your pet or it will die. However, it won't always want to eat. Whether it wants to eat will depend on how hungry it is, and also on how well-behaved and disciplined it is. There is also a small random factor that will affect how much it wants to eat.

Feeding your pet has other beneficial effects apart from stopping it starving to death. It will also make your pet less bored, and will also make it a bit happier. However, how much happier it gets will depend on how much discipline you've given it - it will be pretty upset if you've been too strict, so feeding your pet may cause it to commit suicide after a while.

There is a chance that your pet will die from a heart attack if it gets too overweight, so don't over-feed it!


Keeping your pet healthy

If your pet is low on health, give it a jab. Don't expect it to be too happy about it, though.


Playing with your pet

Playing with your pet will make it happier and less bored, and it will also give it much-needed exercise. Beware though: Don't play with it too much, or you will make it lose so much weight it will die. Playing kills! However, you can alter your pets tolerance to playing by adjusting its strength rating when you start a new pet. A stronger pet will be able to be played with more, but will need more playing with to give it an appropriate amount of exercise, whereas a weaker pet will need less exercise.

When you click on the Play button you will be presented with the "Choose game" dialog. Select a game to play with your pet.

Peek-a-boo: Click either the left or right button, and the pet will peek from one side of the screen. If you got the correct side, it will become happier, less bored and less heavy. If you got the wrong side, it will still be less bored and less heavy, but not any happier.

NB: It's worth keeping an eye on the Stats as you play (just click Stats to bring up the Stats screen - it can remain on the screen while you do other things) so you don't accidentally kill you pet while playing with it - keep an eye on the Weight value.


Disciplining your pet

If your pet won't eat its food and it's hungry, you can be pretty sure the behaviour of the pet is not good. Click discipline and move the slider to change how strict you are with the pet. However, the more discipline you give your pet, the less happy it will be. If you leave the discipline value high even when you are not feeding it, the pet's happiness will go down but the behaviour value will go up.

NB: the behaviour value fluctuates randomly, however much discipline you give it. More discipline will make it go up eventually, though.


Viewing your pet's statistics

On the Stats dialog you can keep and eye on how hungry your pet is, how heavy it is, how happy it is, how bored, how dirty, how old and how well behaved it is. You will see the current values in graphical bars.

To change the name of your pet, click "Change Name..." and enter a new name.


Cleaning your pet

Clean your pet to bring the Dirtiness value down to zero. However, your pet's happiness will also go down. The dirtiness value has an effect on health, so you need to balance how often you clean it so that it doesn't get too unhappy, but doesn't become unhealthy.


Death

Your CyPet can die for a number of reasons. These are:

- Poor health (health at minimum)

- Underweight (weight drops too much under (age+1)*10)

- Overweight (weight goes too much over (age+1)*10)

- Hunger (hunger at maximum)

- Suicide (happiness at minimum or boredom at maximum)


Saving your pet

Click Pet|Save As..., Pet|Save or the Save button. If the pet has not already been saved you will prompted for a filename.

See below for details on automatically saving your pet when you exit CyPet.


Boss Mode

Hit the F12 key and CyPet will vanish from your screen and Windows taskbar. It will come back after the amount of time specified in the Options dialog.


Status View Mode

If you want to run CyPet while working on other things, such as typing a letter, you can click the Status View button to turn the CyPet window into a small one that remains in view at all times. It is of a convenient size to fit in any windows title bar, so you can keep a check on your pet whatever you're doing. You can move the window around by dragging it.

There are two buttons - the first one returns the view to normal, and the second toggles the stats dialog.


Pause

To pause the game, click Pet|Pause or click on the "Stop" button on the main CyPet window. This will pause the game of CyPet and disable most buttons until you un-pause the game. Pause is included so, for example, if you are running at Turbo speed and you need the doorbell rings, your pet doesn't die in your absence.


Release Dates

This version (Beta Release 1) was released on 1st January 1998. The expected release date for Beta 2 is mid-Febraury, and the final version should be released in April.


The making of CyPet

CyPet started as my first game using Visual Basic 5 Pro and so really it was just a learning exercise. I released the first Beta version of CyPet 1 only a week after I'd started making it, and eventually released Beta 2 after about six weeks, and because I made it so quickly, it wasn't that good. It was tested by Steve Lowder's PlayTesters (www.playtesters.com) and recieved an almost universal thumbs-down.

So, in a desparate bid to make something a bit better, I started making CyPet 2. The PlayTesters' evaluation showed me that CyPet 1 failed due to a number of things: primarily because it was no fun at all, and also partly due to the fact that the whole thing was a load of crap, with rubbish graphics and no sound, and not user-friendly at all. So I have tried to make CyPet 2 everything that CyPet 1 wasn't - i.e. fun, good-looking and good-sounding. So far, it looks a lot better and there are wonderful sound effects and also some rather nice tunes (cheers Martyn!). Also, there is an installation program which should mean that this time around most people will actually be able to play it! Still to come though are the multiple pets (I just need to draw them and make some sounds - support is already built-in) and multiple games (these have started to be implemented with the addition of the play selection dialog). These will hopefully be in place for Beta 2, and after that will come the final version.

If you have any comments, bug reports or suggestions, please email dewarr@globalnet.co.uk. Thanks in advance.

Have fun now... oh, and have a happy new year as well.