MANIA was written by Shane S. Smith, lead program analyst of SQUEEM Software. We are a small company inspired by unreasonably high priced commercial and some Shareware software. We believe that if a product is of sound quality people will register and therefore we price our software LOW! It's a principle that seems to work and we have every intention to continue to work the same way in the future.
We believe that Mania is the finest piece of software we have produced. Our intentions were to write a versatile game for many age groups, and harness the addictiveness and overall success of our MineSweeper game. We firmly believe Mania accomplishes just this.
We do not expect any bugs- if you encounter one, PLEASE let us know!
The objective to Mania is to strategically shoot balls from your cannon so that four or more colored balls rest aside each other. You may use the walls to bounce balls around hard, tight places or even move your cannon along the bottom of the screen to acquire a different shot.
When four or more balls are touching, it causes them ( and any below them that rely on them ) to shatter. Periodically all the balls will move down ( check the time window ), and if any ball crosses or rests below the dotted boundary line you lose.
Double-click the Mania game icon. If you have not registered you will encounter a soon to be familiar dialog box encouraging you to register your software. If you have obtained a registration number you should hit "OK" and enter your information. If not, hit "NOT YET". The game will now boot up and display a title screen. Wait for the screen to disappear and start the game by selecting "NEW" under the "FILE" menu.
Also, you may customize the game to your ability level under the "GAME" menu. Select "Difficulty" and choose your setting. Mania has two different styles of game play. Cut-throat ( default ) and Staged. Staged is just like Cut-throat except a number of pre-set marbles start on the screen. Every time you clear all the marbles in a staged game, a new set will appear. Staged games do not support PRE-SCHOOL level of play.
You may look at the high score list ( High scores are not recorded for PRE-SCHOOL difficulty ) or even clear the list from the "GAME" menu. When viewing high scores the game will default to the scores of the currently set game type. Control of music and sound effects can be obtained under the "GAME" Menu also.
Start a regular game by choosing "NEW GAME" under the "FILE" menu. The game will start immediately. Move the cannon along the bottom of the screen by using the , key to move left and . key to move right ( you may change these keys under the "GAME" menu ). Track the cannon angle with the mouse. The cannon can shoot at any angle that is in an increment of 5 degrees. Release the marble by pressing the mouse button. When the marble rests another will be loaded.
A Mania network game is incredibly exciting. If AppleTalk is loaded and a network is present the "NETWORK" menu will be enabled. Choose "ESTABLISH CONNECTION" to choose another computer to connect with. Your options will be limited to any other Mania games.
After you establish a connection choose "NEW NETWORK GAME" under the "FILE" menu to begin a networked game. Only Cut-throat games are networkable, don't worry about this though, Mania will switch the game type for you.
The only difference beyond this point from a regular game is the "NETWORK WARP HOLE". Periodically this will appear moving across your screen. If you manage to shoot a marble through this hole it will be WARPED to your opponents screen and added to his/her marbles. Watch for the WARP HOLE!!!
( ÑNOTEÑ Unregistered copies will be limited to a 90 second network game. )
I hope you enjoy playing this game as much as I do. I would like to thank Brenda for bearing me through, yet another programming venture; Marc for enhancing adding his incredible graphics, and a special thanks to all the people I sentenced to hours upon hours of Mania playing.
If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions we will be happy to hear them. Feel free to Email us at "brenda@squeem.com". Please include "Mania" in your subject header.
We are pleased to announce our new web site, please visit it at your leasure "http://www.squeem.com". You can download all of our software and find out what we're doing all from this page. Please enjoy our product, and thank you for trying Mania.
