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- Sokoball: A Game Of Forethought And Strategic Design
- Copyright (C) 1993 by Jim Radcliffe
- All Rights Reserved
-
-
- Hardware Requirements:
-
- 286 or better with VGA monitor, a keyboard would be nice too
-
-
- What is Sokoball?
-
- Sokoball is my version of the Sokoban puzzles you may have seen in the past.
- Sokoban is Japanese for "warehouse man". In Sokoban puzzles you must generally
- push a number of boxes around the screen to a designated position. The key
- word here is push. In Sokoban puzzles that is the only way you can move any
- box. You must push it to its' destination. Sokoball abides by this rule as
- well (in most cases).
-
-
- What's the object of the Sokoball game?
-
- Clear all of the boxes from the board by pushing them down the exit shafts.
- You are not under the gun of a clock or any number of moves. You simply must
- clear all boxes from the board to "beat" or solve the puzzle. I like the word
- beat.
-
-
- What are the differences between Sokoball and Sokoban?
-
- All of the Sokoban games that I have seen have offered a number of puzzles or
- levels that you had complete in succession. In addition, they all required
- you to simply get the boxes to a designated area with the only hazards being
- moving your boxes into a corner or creating a pile of boxes which you could not
- move. In Sokoban you can only push one box at a time and you can only push the
- boxes across a totally empty floor tile. Sokoball follows this tradition.
-
-
- Now the neat stuff....
-
- I wanted to add some additional hazards and obstacles to overcome in Sokoball,
- such as one way streets, pop-up barriers and floor plans that change when you
- cross certain floor tiles. I didn't want to force anyone to complete a series
- of puzzles in a specific order. In Sokoball you can play any puzzle you wish
- at any time. If a certain Sokoball puzzle has you stumped, give it a rest and
- come back to it later. In the meantime, how about solving that puzzle your
- co-worker created and bet you 10 bucks you couldn't solve. That's right, with
- Sokoball you can create your own puzzles...it comes with an Editor so you can
- edit and create your own diabolical puzzles for those know-it-alls you work
- with to solve.
-
-
- How do you move?
-
- All movements on the game board are by using the cursor control keys.
- Sokoball is not mouse aware and there are no plans to bring rodents into
- the game.
-
-
- Game Tips
-
- In Sokoball you will have to think about future moves all of the time, unless
- you create some really dumb puzzles! You will generally have to move boxes in
- a certain order. You will often have to activate one or more of the slider
- tiles to make a box accessable but be careful, do it to late or to soon and
- you are stuck.
-
- Never push a box in a corner unless you have a way to get it out again.
- Boxes can only be pushed on totally plain tiles and only one box can be pushed
- at a time.
-
-
-
- Sokoball ShareWare or Sokoball Commercial...which to choose?
-
- Sokoball is being released as ShareWare. This means that you may freely copy
- and distribute it for non-commercial purposes. You may copy it for your
- friends, you may upload it to bulletin boards, you can even send $10 to me if
- you like Sokoball and want the non ShareWare version. Huh?
-
- That's right, there is a commercial version of Sokoball. While the ShareWare
- version will allow you to create original Sokoban type puzzles it will not let
- you have access to all the neat features I have added to the Editor.
-
- If you send your $10 registration fee you'll get all the new gizmos for the
- Sokoball Editor plus the ability to make your Sokoball puzzles un-editable
- by others. I'll send you the latest non-ShareWare version of Sokoball on your
- choice of diskettes, a manual and any new puzzles that have been contributed.
-
- To Register and receive the Non-ShareWare version of Sokoball......
-
- Send $10 (check or money order) and your preference in disk size to:
-
- Jim Radcliffe
- P.O. Box 823
- Coppell, TX 75019
-
- It's my hope that many of you will create some really neat Sokoball puzzle
- boards and upload them to CompuServe, America OnLine, Etc. I enjoy solving
- these things but I don't like solving the ones I created. Come on, hit me
- with your best shot. This is why I designed Sokoball so you could work on
- any puzzle you choose instead of having to go through levels. But PLEASE,
- don't upload any puzzle that can't be solved. Many of the Sokoball puzzles
- appear to be impossible to solve at first glance.
-
- Whether you register or not I hope you enjoy Sokoball. I enjoyed writing it.
- Sokoball was written in QuickBasic 4.5. I used the game development to learn
- more about graphics in the basic language for another project I was working on.
- Enjoy.
-
- CompuServe Email to: Jim Radcliffe 72307,3077