Acorn RISC PD-CD 1

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Text File | 1992-12-02 | 15.4 KB | 464 lines

+================================+ | | | ## ## ## ## ## ###### | | ### ### ## ### ## ## | | #### #### ## ####### #### | | ## ### ## ## ## ### ## | | ## # ## ## ## ## ###### | | | | ## ## ## ## ## ## ###### | | ## ## ## ## ### ## ## | | ####### ## ## ####### ## | | ## ## ## ## ## ### ## | | ## ## ##### ## ## ## | | | | - - H E L P F I L E - - | +================================+ -=> Contents <=- Introduction What Is Mine Hunt? The Mine Hunt window How to play Mine Hunt Keeping score What happens when I win? Choosing a level Tips for playing Mine Hunt The menus etc. Working from floppy +--------------+ | Introduction | +--------------+ Author: Paul LeBeau (c) 1992. This game is released into the public domain. The author retains copyright. All the normal PD conventions and restrictions apply. No charging other than media and distribution costs etc. Please contact author if in doubt. I hope you enjoy this game. If you do and wish to thank me, then please send a donation to your favourite charity (childrens charities are my favourite) or send it to me and I will make the donation for you. If however, you are the sort of person who can never seem to get round to organising that sort of thing, then remember and be a lttle extra generous next time you are asked for a donation. Thanks. If you wish to contact me, then I can be reached via the following... Paul LeBeau c/o 4Mation 14 Castle Park Road Barnstaple Devon EX32 8PA Tel: +44 271 25353 Fax: +44 271 22974 Or email me at: plebeau@cix.compulink.co.uk This game is fully RISC OS 3 savvy (supports desktop save, iconization, menu help etc). Special g'day-mates to all arcophiles in Kiwiland and Oz. Regards also to the person or persons who wrote the original of this game. Dedicated to Judith Matson who gave me the idea to do the conversion. Be excellent to one another. Paul +--------------------+ | What is Mine Hunt? | +--------------------+ Mine Hunt is a game of luck and lateral thinking. It is based on a game which comes free with version 3.1 of a popular PC operating system. To load the game, double-click on the !MineHunt application. An icon in the form of a mine will appear on the iconbar. If you click on this icon, the game board will appear. You are now ready to start the game. At the start of the game, you are presented with a rectangular grid of squares. Hidden in the grid is a specified number of mines. The object of the game is to locate all the mines as quickly as possible. To achieve this, you mark all the squares where you think there are mines and uncover all the other squares. If you manage this, then you have won; but if you uncover a mine, you lose! The score is just the number of seconds you have taken to complete the game. So the faster you complete the game, the better your score. The timer starts when you uncover the first square. +----------------------+ | The Mine Hunt window | +----------------------+ The diagram below shows the layout of the Mine Hunt game window. Mine/flag counter +--- Alive/dead/won indicator | | (You can also click on here to start a new game) v v +----------------------------------+ | +------+ +-----+ +-----+ | | | 1 0 | | Man | | 0 | | <-- Time elapsed so far (the score) | +------+ +-----+ +-----+ | | | | +------------------------------+ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | (main game grid) | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | +------------------------------+ | +----------------------------------+ Changing the colours of the counter numerals (new to version 1.06) ------------------------------------------------------------------ Clicking on the mine/flag counter or the timer boxes will cause the colours of the numerals to change. This allows the numbers to be more visible in other modes or monitors. For example, the normal green numerals are not very visible on the grey-scale screen on the A4 portable. The colours cycle from: green -> light grey -> blue -> orange. +-----------------------+ | How to play Mine Hunt | +-----------------------+ At the start of the game, you have no idea where the mines are, so the first few squares you uncover will have to be quesses. One strategy is to uncover the corner squares first. * To 'uncover' a square, point at it and click SELECT. If the square you have uncovered contains a mine, the the game is over. Mine Hunt will then show you the locations of all the mines. The mine with a red background is the one you just uncovered, and the mines with green backgrounds are the mines you correctly marked. All the other mines are the ones you hadn't found yet. * To start a new game, select 'New game' from the main menu, or click on the 'man' at the top of the board. If the square you uncovered did not contain a mine, then Mine Hunt will display in that square a number which indicates how many of the adjacent squares contain mines. So, if you turn over a corner square and it shows the number '1', then you know that one of the surrounding three squares contains a mine. If you turn over a square near the centre of the board and it shows the number '3' then you know that three of the surrounding eight squares contain mines. If the square is blank, then none of the surrounding squares contain mines. If this occurs, Mine Hunt will help you by uncovering all the surrounding squares for you. If any of those are blank, then all their nighbours will be uncovered etc (giving a 'cascading' effect). Hopefully, after a few guesses to start with, you will have enough information to start deducing where the mines are. Marking squares which contain mines ----------------------------------- If you are pretty sure that an uncovered square contains a mine, then you should mark that square. * To mark a square you think contains a mine, click ADJUST over the square. The square will then be marked with a little red flag. Each time you mark a square, the mine/flag counter in the top left of the window reduces by one. Note: this happens even if you incorrectly mark a square which doesn't actually contain a mine. For 'safety' purposes, squares marked with a flag cannot be uncovered. This is to protect against accidentally uncovering marked mines. It is possible, however, to turn off the flag so you can uncover the square (see later for how to do this). Keep going in this manner until you have marked all the mines and uncovered all the other squares. Once this happens you have won. The 'question-mark' facility ---------------------------- You can mark an uncovered square with a question mark if you want. You might want to use this to mark squares you think might contain mines etc., while you are in the midst of the deducing process. * To mark a square as a question mark, point at it and click ADJUST twice. Later, you can change the question mark to a flag, or uncover it. Note: squares with question marks are not 'protected' and can still be uncovered by clicking with SELECT. Clearing flags and question marks --------------------------------- * To clear a flag from a square, point at it and click ADJUST twice. When you remove a flag, the mine/flag counter increases by one as expected. * To clear a question mark from a square, point at it and click ADJUST once. Ie. clicking with ADJUST cycles through the sequence: +--> clear --> flag --> question mark --+ | | +---------------------------------------------+ The question mark on/off facility (new to version 1.06) ------------------------------------------------------- If question marks are turned off (ie there is no tick next to the 'Question marks' entry in the game menu), then clicking ADJUST on a flag will clear the flag from the square. To turn question marks back on, click on the 'Question marks' in the game menu. The 'clear-around' facility --------------------------- To save time, Mine Hunt as a special feature where if a numbered uncovered square has the correct number of neighbouring squares marked as mines, you can quickly uncover the other neighbours. * To 'clear-around' a square, point at it and click SELECT whilst holding down the SHIFT key. Note: this only works if the correct number of neighbouring squares have been marked. Ie if the square you are clearing around has the number '3' in it, then it must have three and only three neighbouring flags. Clearing around has exactly the same effect as if you had clicked on all the other uncovered neighbours individually. If any of the neighbours are incorrectly marked, then clearing around will cause you to uncover a mine and the game will be over! So be careful! +---------------+ | Keeping score | +---------------+ Mine Hunt scoring is simple. The timer in the top right corner of the window shows your playing time. It starts when you uncover or mark your first square. The faster you find all the mines, the better your score. To see a list of the five best scores for each level, open the main menu and select: High scores -> Show +--------------------------+ | What happens when I win? | +--------------------------+ If you have achieved one of the five best scores for that level then you will be asked to enter your name for the high score table. Just type your name and press RETURN. The highscore table will then be popped up showing your glorious achievement. +------------------+ | Choosing a level | +------------------+ There are five predefined levels to play at, plus a Custom level facility. The Custom level feature is described later. The five normal levels are summarised below. Name Size of board No. of mines ------------- -------------- ------------- Beginner 8 by 8 10 Better 16 by 8 20 Intermediate 16 by 16 40 Good 24 by 16 60 Expert 30 by 16 99 +----------------------------+ | Tips for playing Mine Hunt | +----------------------------+ If an uncovered square is labelled '1', and there is only one covered neighbouring square, then that covered square must be a mine. The same applies if the square is labelled '3' and there are only three neighbours which are covered or marked as mines. Any covered squares must be mines. If an uncovered square already has the correct number of neighbouring mines marked, then uncover all the other neighbours. You can do this manually or use the 'clear around' facility. If at all possible, don't guess (unless you've got a four leave clover and a rabbit's foot). If you can't figure out what to uncover or mark, then try approaching the area from a different direction. Sometimes, however, you get in a position where you have no other choice but to guess. All I can say is "good luck". Sorry! +----------------+ | The menus etc. | +----------------+ The iconbar menu ---------------- Pretty much self-explanatory apart from 'Save choices'. If you click on 'Save choices' the Mine Hunt will save the following settings: - Currently selected level - Whether sound is on or not - The currently set sound level (loud or quiet) and reinstate them as defaults when you next load the game. The game window menu -------------------- New game - Starts a new game. Level - Choose a level to play from this submenu. Note 1: If any of the levels are too large for the current screen mode to display then their menu entries will be greyed out. Note 2: You cannot select the Custom level from the level submenu, you need to go into the dialogue box and click on OK. Question marks - Turns on or off whether question marks are available. Sound - Click on this entry to toggle whether sound is on or not. You can also choose the sound level from the submenu. High scores -> Show - Opens the high score window -> Reset - Clears the high score table of all the current high scores. Useful if you have received a copy of this game from someone else and you want to clear their scores out of the table. But be careful, selecting this will probably result in you losing your hard fought for high scores forever. Setting up a Custom level ------------------------- You can set up a custom level by going into the 'Level->Custom->' dialogue box. You can set the width and height and number of mines by clicking on the arrows. The maximum size of the game area is 64 by 64, but Mine Hunt will not let you go any bigger than the current screen mode will allow. If you click on the 'Auto mines' button, Mine Hunt will choose a suitable number of mines for you. The number of mines Mine Hunt chooses for you depends on the size of the game area you have set. Once you are happy, click on the OK button. +---------------------+ | Working from floppy | +---------------------+ If you are playing Mine Hunt from a floppy, then it is worth noting the following. Mine Hunt will normally save the high score table each time someone achieves a high score and enters their name. This is so that Mine Hunt can keep an up-to-the-minute copy of the high score table. This works fine if you are running Mine Hunt from a hard disk or keep the floppy you are running it from in the drive. If however, you have removed the floppy when Mine Hunt goes to save the high score table then you will be prompted to enter the disk. If you choose to do so, then thats fine. If, however, you choose 'Cancel' when prompted to enter the disk, then Mine Hunt will forget about saving the high scores from then on. But if you quit the game, you will be prompted once again and you will have the chance to save the high scores then. If you don't do it then, you will lose all the highscores you had achieved during that session. +---------------------+ | Version information | +---------------------+ Version 1.04 - First 'official' release. Version 1.06 - Added question mark on/off facility. Added LED colour change facility. -------------------------------------- If this has scrolled past too quickly, then load this !Help file into !Edit. --------------------------------------