This file is written by me, Andrew Wood, and will therefore not be in the comic fashion the readme file is. This is because this is just to tell you how we began, and what we've got planned, and therefore not really useful but informative. Here is a timeline:
July 1995: The first pieces of code are written for a club management game by Andrew Wood.
July 1996: After much difficutly with transfers and computer artificial intelligence selecting teams, Andrew Wood decides to convert his game into an international management game.
January 1997: Andrew Wood takes an internet course and starts his own homepage.
February 1997: The international management game is nearing completion, or so Andrew Wood thinks, and a competition is setup to get a name for the game.
March 1997: Andrew Wood's friend Chris Adams, who is just getting into programming, helps out by writing the various help, front page and registration screens (DON'T FORGET TO REGISTER). Another friend of Andrew Wood, Andrew Palfreyman, works on the research including injuries, and players.
May 1997: Sound is added with Chris Adams' voice being used.
June 1997: Broxbourne School is hit by the tragic death of Andrew Palfreyman. Andrew was a great friend of mine and there is more information available on him from my website ( www.zang.demon.co.uk/andrew/ ). A decision is taken to release the game in his memory.
Early July 1997: Andrew Iddon's ideas of calling the game Golden Goal, and the business Apple Tree Software are selected as the winners.
17th July 1997: The partnership APPLE TREE SOFTWARE is officially formed by Andrew Wood and Chris Adams. The shareware version of Golden Goal is released in Andrew Palfreyman's memory containing the research he did.
20th July 1997: On what would have been Andrew Palfreyman's 17th birthday the full version of Golden Goal is released in his memory.
August 1997: Golden Goal is sent to various magazines, but unfortunately unforseen bug means it doesn't work. This takes 1-2 months to fix (1 for 486 DX's and above, 2 for 486 SX's). Work begins on a racing game.
October 1997: All buyers of the game recieve an update. Robin Peel and Stephen Connolly, friends of Apple Tree Software's partners, agree to help out. Stephen Connolly quickly writes a new installation program which is included in the update, while Robin Peel starts rewrite the readme file making it more funny.
November 1997: The new readme file is finished and distributed. Work begins on a gambling game, including Horse Racing, Fruit Machine, Pontoon and Roulette.
January 1998: Alpha version of the gambling game is finished, as a text based graphics game. Graphics work starts as does mouse interface work.
February 1998: Gambling game is named Golden Gambling Zone and will hopefully be released by the end of this month. This file is added.
