Shareware Games Galore!/Shareware Games Galore!.iso/arcade/stndglss/sg.doc

Text File | 1992-03-31 | 17.6 KB | 268 lines

        Stained Glass, version 910116, now with (ooh, ahh) tertiary colors!

        Stained Glass is distributed using the classical shareware model.  As
usual, you are encouraged to make and give away (not sell) as many copies of
the game as you wish, provided that you include the files SG.BAS, SG.EXE,
SG.DOC, and KENTBEST.SAV.  You are furthermore encouraged to use whatever
archiving or compression program you like, as long as you include all of the
files named above.
        If you like Stained Glass and would like to lend your support to
high-quality, non-copy-protected, user-supported software (and documentation
with way too many hyphens and parentheses per sentence) we ask that you send
ten US dollars to:

        Brewster and Brewster
        2152 Santa Cruz Avenue
        Santa Clara, CA  95051

        Any questions?  Please feel free to call us at [phone], after
six o'clock p.m., Pacific time, or drop us a line via E-mail at CompuServe
account number 76516,3034.  While the money is VERY important to us -- it lets
us keep writing this stuff, after all -- we would love to hear from you whether
you are a registered user or not.

                      ***  Operating Instructions ***

        Stained Glass requires a PC or clone, 256k RAM, one floppy disk drive,
and DOS version 2.1 or later.  The use of a color monitor and adapter is
strongly suggested but not required -- Stained Glass is playable (but not as
much fun) in monochrome.
        To play from the floppy disk, put your DOS boot disk into the floppy
drive and turn on the computer.  After the A> prompt appears, replace the DOS
disk with the Stained Glass disk and enter SG.  If you have a hard drive, we
suggest that you make a separate subdirectory, C:\SG\>, for instance, and copy
over all the files on the disk.  Once there, enter SG just as you would when
running from the floppy drive.
        Okay.  Our title page should be up and running, with a bunch of
different colored rectangles jumping and flipping around the screen.  Press
the space bar to step through the demo.
        The object of the game should become clear at once:  clear the board
of all panes except one, using as few moves as possible. When you get tired
of the demo -- it is kind of boring, after a while -- press Esc to get on with
the show.
        At this point, those of you who never read the instructions can put
them away and learn the game from playing around.  It really IS that simple.
        The rest of you should now be looking at an entire boardful of colored
panes of glass.  Your score appears on the left, your options on the right,
and your instructions on the bottom.  BEFORE YOU DO ANYTHING ELSE, you should
take a look at examples of legal moves, by pressing E.
        When you make a move in Stained Glass, three spaces on the board are
affected.  The first space goes black, as you pick up the pane of glass that
was sitting there and pass it over the second space.  The second space has the
color of the first space SUBTRACTED from it -- if you jump red over orange,
for instance, yellow is left in the middle.  The third space has the color of
the first space ADDED to it -- if red lands on blue, the result is violet.
        The only screwy, nonintuitive thing about this set of rules is this:
ANY primary color -- red, blue, or yellow -- jumping over ANY OTHER primary
color leaves a blank space.  We had to include this rule or the game would be
impossible to play.
        A legal move in Stained Glass can have elements of four categories:
        The first and simplest is that of any color jumping over itself and
landing on a blank space.  The first pane disappears.  The second pane also
disappears, because any color minus itself leaves an empty space.  The third
pane -- the blank spot -- becomes the color of the first.
        The second move category is that of any color jumping over itself and
landing on itself.  The first pane, as always, disappears.  The second pane
also goes away -- as in rule one, any color minus itself leaves a blank space.
The third pane STAYS THE SAME.  Red plus red equals red.
        The third move element is that of a primary color jumping over a
secondary color.  The primary color is subtracted from the secondary color,
leaving the result in the middle space.   If you jump a blue pane over a green
pane, the result is a yellow pane left in the middle.  To be a legal move, the
second pane must contain the color of the first -- you cannot, for instance,
jump a yellow pane over a violet pane, because violet contains no yellow.
        The fourth move element is the combination of two colors at the
destination space.  You learned this stuff in kindergarten -- blue and yellow
makes green, red and blue makes violet, and yellow and red makes orange.
        When you combine all three colors at the destination space, you get
a tertiary pane, a white one.  You can do this by either jumping a secondary
over itself and landing on the correct primary OR by jumping a primary onto
the correct secondary.  Don't worry about which colors can legally land on
other colors; the game will show you all legal moves when you pick a pane.
        When you jump a primary or secondary color over a tertiary pane, you
subtract the jumping color, leaving behind a clashing pane.  Red over white
leaves green, yellow over white leaves violet, and blue over white leaves
orange.
        The only way you can jump a white pane is over another white pane,
landing on 1) still another white pane or 2) a blank space.

        Whew!  Got all that?
        The last four move elements can combine to provide complex results; if
you jump a red pane over an orange pane to land on a blue pane, the red pane
disappears, the orange pane turns yellow (orange minus red) and the blue pane
turns violet (blue plus red).
        After the game shows you a bunch of examples, the original randomized
screen will reappear.
        You are now ready to go.  To move, use the arrow keys to put the
cursor -- the solid white square -- on the pane you would like to move.  If
you can't move that pane, Stained Glass will make our patented "Thock!" error
noise and tell you that the pane has no legal moves.  Press any key to clear
the error message and continue.
        If you've chosen the wrong pane but haven't moved it yet, press Esc
to pick a different one.
        After you have chosen a piece that can move, Stained Glass will high-
light the chosen piece and cause all of the legal destination squares to flash.
To position the cursor over one of the possible moves, press the appropriate
arrow key.  You will notice that the cursor now moves in two-square increments;
we did this to minimize the number of keystrokes needed per move.  You will
also notice that the "help" options go away while you are picking your
destination; don't worry -- they will be right back after you complete your
move.  If you try to select a non-flashing pane, Stained Glass will just sit
there.  Again, if you want to move another pane, press Esc to abort the move.
        If you find you've made a mistake after your move is complete, press B
to back up one move.  Stained Glass keeps track of all your moves -- if you
wish, you can back up all the way to the beginning of the game.  You can even
back up past the point where you loaded a saved game.
        If you REALLY screw up, press R to rewind to the start of the same
game.  Stained Glass will rewind your original game to its starting point and
set both the move and backup counters to zero.
        If you are called to bed, work, or dinner and would like to save your
marriage, job, or game before turning off the computer, press S.  The Save
Game message will come up and ask you for a name (8 character maximum) for
your game.  The default name is MYGAME until you enter a different one; once
you start entering names during a game session, the last name you enter will be
the default that comes up next time you load or save a game.  If you try to
save a game under a name that already exists, Stained Glass will warn you and
ask whether you really want to do it.
        The default information above also goes for the Load option; to load
a previously saved game, press L and enter the name of the game.
        Stained Glass handles three types of disk I/O errors -- it was getting
way too big for anything more complicated. Handled errors are the Door Open
error (also triggered by a write-protected floppy), the Disk Full error, and
the Oh My God error, where your disk is too trashed to read or write.  Needless
to say, if you get any of these on your hard drive it is probably time to stop
playing games.  I/O errors should be the only time you ever hear the annoying
system beep -- if you ever get a cryptic "Error XX in program ZZ" message, we'd
like to hear about it.
        If you are playing this game where you will get fired, yelled at, or
beaten with rubber hoses if caught, remember the panic button.  When your boss,
teacher, or big brother goes by, press P to instantly zap out to Penix, our own
shallow mockery of DOS.  To return to Stained Glass from Penix, enter SG.  All
other commands, except for DIR and <Enter> alone, will result in the ever-
popular "Bad command or file name" message.
        The game ends when you run out of legal moves.  If you only have one
pane left on the board at this point, you win!  Congratulations.  You can save
your game here if you want.  Stained Glass will then start over.
        If, on the other hand, you have more than one tile left when you run
out of legal moves, Stained Glass will print a polite message informing you
that you are stuck.  From there, you can load a saved game, back up, rewind to
the beginning, start a new game, or quit.
        If you have more than one tile left, can't see any legal moves, and the
"Stuck" message isn't on the screen, press H for a hint.  Stained Glass will
run through all of your remaining moves, starting at the upper left corner and
going through each row, showing a different one each time you press H.  Press
any other key to return to the game.

                            *** Strategy ***

        You will find that you can remove one, two, three, four, or six panes
with a single jump.  A primary color jumping to an empty space removes
a single pane.  A primary color jumping to itself removes two panes.  A
secondary color jumping to a blank space also removes two panes.  A
secondary color jumping over itself to itself removes four panes. Finally,
jumping three tertiaries in a row removes six panes.  Obviously, the more times
you jump three tertiaries, the fewer moves you will have to make.  Be careful,
though -- it is quite easy to get stuck.  We suggest that you follow the
following basic strategy the first few times you play:
        First, remove all secondary colors from the four corners of the board.
To do this, you should jump diagonally from the corner inwards into the board;
jumping up, down, or sideways onto the edges leaves you with another problem,
getting that secondary pane off of the edge.  Save your game when you get to
this point, in case you get stuck later.
        Second -- you saw this coming, right? -- get all the secondary colors
away from the edges.  Try to jump them inwards over themselves whenever
possible; as we said above, this will reduce your eventual move count.  If
you have to, however, jump them with primaries.  If you see an easy way to
line up three tertiaries, do it and then get rid of the remaining one.
Continue to eliminate secondary colors and work inwards toward the center of
the board.  Save your game again.
        Third, when you are down to just a few primary colors in the center,
try to find the most efficient way to work your way down to one.  Remember that
you can recombine your primaries into secondaries and tertiaries and take off
up to six in one swoop.  (Look out when you are taking off that last white
pane, however -- the color left after you jump it will clash with the color
you jumped it with, orphaning them both.)  Be careful of diagonal jumps that
leave a pane hanging way out in empty space.  Also be careful that you don't
wind up with several vertical rows that cannot be rejoined.
        When you get down to a single pane, be SURE to save your game -- you'll
want to come back and look at it later.  And DON'T save it under "MYGAME"; you
will eventually muck up, overwrite it, and feel like slitting your wrists.
Believe us; we speak from hard, cold, three-a.m. I-don't-believe-you-finally-
did-it experience.
        As of this writing, nobody has broken 67 moves on a randomly generated
screen.  The theoretical upper limit is, of course, 107 moves -- someone with
bigger mathematical ambitions than ours will have to figure out what the lower
limit is -- somebody better page Doctor Matrix...
        The record of 67 was set by the author; we include the game on this
disk as "KENTBEST".  If you beat this score, please SAVE YOUR GAME and send
it to us for inclusion on the next release!

    *** Our users speak out: commonly asked questions about Stained Glass ***

        Q: Arrgh!  I can't get that stupid orange pane out of the corner!  How
do I do it without lousing up the whole game? -- B. R., Boston
        A: Dealing with secondary or tertiary colors in the corners of the
board is hard because you can't jump over them.  You have to somehow get a
tertiary pane or a pane of the same color over there next to the corner and
jump from the corner inward, either by combining two primaries or jumping a
secondary onto the right spot.  When you get there, try to jump from the
corner diagonally towards the center of the board and not out onto the edge.
        Q: Why does it say there are 108 panes left when anybody can see that
there are 6 rows of 12, or 72? -- T. C., Taipei
        A: Secondary colors (green, orange, and violet) are really two panes,
one on top of the other.  There are 36 panes in primary colors plus 72 panes
that are stacked on top of each other, for a grand total of 108.
        Q: Why does it say that I removed 6 panes with my last move -- that's
not possible, is it? -- A. A. B., Mountain View
        A: Yes, it's possible.  No, this is not a dumb question.  Once again,
secondary colors are really two panes stacked on top of each other -- when you
jump an orange over another orange to land on a third orange, you remove two
orange panes, which are each made up of one red and one yellow, for a total of
four.  Tertiary colors are stacks of three panes; jumping three in a row
removes six.
        Q: Why isn't there a separate, spiffier version of Stained Glass for
EGA, VGA, and MCGA adapters? -- J. B., Poughkeepsie
        A: We chose to get the game out in a form that everybody with 256k
and an adapter that can display the IBM extended character set could
immediately run and enjoy.  We don't know about you, but we are PLENTY TIRED
of being teased by games that can only be "truly enjoyed" on a 386 with a
mouse, SoundBlaster, 80-meg hard drive, and a VGA monitor -- and come in a box
with an airbrushed Amiga screen print on the front cover.  Okay, end of
tirade...
        Q: What if I can beat your 67-move score?  Do I win a prize?  How about
a week in the Bahamas? -- B. R., Pinsk
        A: Hah!  Who do you think we are, Activision?  Get serious.  We will,
however, include your game as the all time greatest on our next release.  Just
think:  finally, you have a chance -- maybe the only one you'll ever get -- to
BE THE BEST IN THE WORLD at something!  Isn't that enough?
        Q: I saw a commercial game called Tesserae at MacWorld that looked
suspiciously like Stained Glass -- it is? -- C. B., Santa Clara
        A: Yup.  Our blood brother Nick Schlott -- the hardest-working Mac
programmer in the civilized universe -- originally converted it over for his
own use, released it as shareware with our blessing, and then busted his tiny
little hump spiffing it up for commercial release.  The Mac version is VERY
impressive -- there are nine different boards, three levels of difficulty,
and the panes jump out at you and flip end-over-end around the board! If you
or a friend has a Macintosh of any description, check with your dealer or
contact In-Line Design at [phone].  (This is how classy these guys
are:  not only did they refrain from bitching about Stained Glass already
having been released as shareware, they sent FREE copies of the commercial
release to all of Nick's registered users!  Outstanding!  [Sorry, non-
registered users -- this deal is long dead...])
        Q: Why are you GIVING AWAY source code???  That's _CRAZY_ -- you
should be getting at least a hundred bucks for it! -- D. G., via CompuServe
        A: First, of course, we hope to snow a few more people than normal
into sending us their money.  (One more time -- WE ARE DOING THIS FOR THE
MONEY.  We love meeting new people and hearing compliments, but WE CANNOT
CONTINUE DOING THIS IF NOBODY SENDS US ANY MONEY!)  Second, we are not
convinced that ANY computer game -- be it Populous or Wing Commander or
SimEarth -- is worth more than a good book.  Shipping source code is the
only way we can prove that our attitude is more than a pose.  And third, we
wish that somebody had been doing this when we were getting started.  We
would have made far fewer dumb mistakes.  And last, we are slowly but surely
writing a book on QuickBASIC games that we hope you will all buy.
        Q: Who is Annalisa, anyway? -- M. D., Ocho Rios
        A: She was the programmer's daughter, to whom he dedicates this effort.
He wishes he could have known her a little bit longer.