The object of the game is to shoot the barrels that are located around the edge of the arena. To fire a shot, position the cursor so it is along the side of the arena. The cursor will look like a small gun. Then click the mouse button, and a bullet will be fired into the arena. You can shoot from any place along the edge of the arena, but shooting from a position where there is a barrel will not destroy that barrel. Instead, you have to trace backwards from the barrel to find out where to shoot from. Each diagonal line within the arena is a reflector that will reflect your bullet off at 90° from its original direction.
When you are in Target Practice mode, all the barrels will just crack apart when they are hit. The object is to shoot all the barrels without wasting any bullets. In Russian Roulette mode, however, one of the barrels is full of explosives and will blow up the entire arena. The object then becomes merely to survive. You can play against the timer in either mode.
In Russian Roulette mode, you can also have the program warn you if you hit a barrel that is close to the explosive barrel. Note that this distance depends on how many barrels you have left!! If really want to get stressed, you can also have the program randomly move the explosives to a different barrel at regular intervals.
The game options are saved within the program for your convenience.
When you choose New Arena, the arena’s size will change to fit the window. You can print the arena whenever you want to.
Suggestions for a Good, Mind-bending Game
1) Roulette mode playing against the timer (no warnings or random explosives)
2) Roulette mode with warnings, random explosives, and NO timer
Registration
If you have any suggestions for improving this program, please let me know. If you haven't paid for the program, please do so. It took a lot of effort to get the program to work, so a contribution of US$5 or more will be greatly appreciated.
I'll be happy to send you a list of my other programs if you want me to. I also do custom programming, in case you need a program that will do something special.
My address is:
John Lindal
P.O. Box 4092
Point Dume, CA 90264
USA
My E-mail address is:
jafl@alice.wonderland.caltech.edu
Disclaimer
I have tried to debug this program on all the common Macs. However, I can’t guarantee that it will work with all systems. If the program does crash, send me a letter telling me how it happened (error messages and numbers are very useful!), and I’ll try to fix the problem.
Please don't feel that you have to pay for the program before you report a problem. (But it wouldn't hurt.) I'm more interested in fixing bugs and getting new ideas than getting paid for the program.
Bugs Fixed from Previous Versions
1) David Perlman discovered that playing sounds would sometimes crash the program.
2) Numbers occasionally appeared with a slash in the middle. (This one was very rare.)
3) Entering a huge number (>1.0E38) in a dialog would crash the program.
4) Mike Dickens pointed out that “if you have the screen space, use it!” He's right, so now you can move the game window to any screen.
5) The printout had a strip of garbage at the bottom of the page.
6) Gary Dauphin suggested that the game could be made even more mind-bending. So, now you can have the program warn you when you hit a barrel close to the explosive one, and you can have the program randomly shift the explosives from barrel to barrel while the game is in progress.
7) Lloyd Wood pointed out that the fonts in my program were interfering with the system’s fonts.
