- Changed the board display a little bit to make it more "OS/2-like."
- Updated the Help System
- Made the AI less "suicidal." It had a tendency to commit suicide at the beginning of the game.
- You can now choose whether each color is controlled by a human or computer player. You can even do Human vs. Human or Computer vs. Computer.
- Added the pictures in the status window to indicate whose turn it is.
- Fixed a minor memory leak.
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TITLE
Legalities
** Legal Garbage **
This program is Copyright 1995 by Brian W. Brown. All rights reserved.
The program may be freely distributed, provided that 1) All files remain unaltered (with the exception of compression and bundling for distribution) and are packaged together, and 2) The program is not sold for profit without the express written consent of the author. A minimal distribution fee may be charged to cover the cost of media and shipping. This should conform to current Shareware guidelines for distribution fees.
The author has made every effort to ensure that the program is safe and will not cause problems on any system that it is run on. However, no warranty is implied. Use this program at your own risk; the author is not responsible for and damage caused, directly or indirectly, by its use.
Registration of the program does not change any of the above statements, including, but not limited to, implied warranties. The author is furthermore not responsible for lost or missing registration fees, or any money sent as payment for registration. This applies particularly to attempts at registration that do not follow the guidelines specified in this document.
The intent of these legal specifications is to absolve the author of any responsibility associated with the use of this product. Any use or situation not specifically addressed shall still be applied in the same manner, that is, in absolving the author of all responsibility.
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TITLE
Whateverware
** Whateverware **
This program is Whateverware. You don't have to pay me any money to register it like shareware, but I would like to hear from you. Send me a quick e-mail. Tell me what you like, what you don't like, or just say "I am using your program."
While I require no registration or payment for use of the program, I am offering a registration option. The cost of registration is one dollar ($1.00). I will obviously not make any money off of this, I just want to see how many people will actually register. Registered users will be notified of any upgrades and new products.
So, here are the rules for registering:
- Send me a buck via snail-mail.
- Include your e-mail address.
The cost of registering without an e-mail address is $100.00. In other words, don't do it. I will stay in contact with all registered users through e-mail only.
How to reach me:
Brian W. Brown
1200 Mill Creek Blvd. A303
Mill Creek, WA 98012
e-mail: bbrown@eecs.wsu.edu
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TITLE
Options
** Options **
The options window allows you to customize your game play. You can select how difficult the game should be, the size of the board, and the type of board. If you chose a board type other than the standard board, there will be a pattern of barriers on the board. No bacteria can move into these barriers; they will remain empty the entire game. However, they can be jumped over. Click on the OK button to accept the settings. Clicking on the CANCEL button will leave the settings as they were before.
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TITLE
Rules and Play
** Rules and How to Play **
The board is made up of a grid of cells, each of which may be empty (healthy), or contain a bacteria of either strain, red or green. You play red, the computer plays green. A move consists of a single bacteria of your color performing an action, which can be either a divide or a jump. When a bacteria divides, it splits to create a "child" bacteria in a (previously empty) adjacent cell. This is how new bacteria are created. The other type of move that a bacteria can make is a jumping move. It leaves the cell it was previously occupying, and jumps to an empty cell exactly two cells away in any direction (including diagonals). A new bacteria is not created when a jump is made.
When a bacteria moves into an empty cell, either by dividing or jumping, that is next to one or more enemy bacteria, it "captures" those cells as well, taking them over from the enemy. The game is sort of like Reversi in this sense, and is where the real challenge and strategy comes into play. If you did not understand my description of the rules, just go play the game a few times. You will figure it out quickly.
To move a bacteria, simply click on it with the mouse (left button), and drag it to where you want it moved. Before you pick up a piece, the mouse pointer will tell you if you can pick up the bacteria in the cell. If you cannot, the pointer will be an "X". If you can, it will be a hand. When you pick it up, the pointer will show you where you can move that piece. It will be an "X" if it cannot be moved there, it will be a double-circle if moving there would be a dividing move, and it will be a single-circle if moving there would be a jumping move.
A small picture will appear in the one of the status windows, telling you whose turn it is. If the picture appears in the red window, it is red's turn. If it appears in the green window, it is green's turn. The picture will be of a face if a human controls that color. In that case, the game will wait for you to make a move. If the color is controlled by the computer, the picture will be of a computer. This indicates that the computer is thinking about its move. Also while the computer is thinking, the mouse pointer will appear as a light bulb.
The game is over when one player cannot move. If there are any empty cells on the board at this time, they will be automatically filled by the player that has those cells surrounded. After the board is completely full, the number of bacteria belonging to each player is totaled, and the player with the most bacteria on the board wins.
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TITLE
About the Game
** About the Game **
My OS/2 version of Bacteria War is based on similar games that have appeared in various places, such as the arcade game ATAXX and as the "Microscope Puzzle" in the DOS CD-ROM game The 7th Guest. I made it simple and fast, in the hopes that people would treat it like Minesweeper -- that is, nothing big, bulky and fancy, but a game you can bring up and play a quick round or two to take a break from working on your paper or coding that annoying subroutine.
It is a full 32-bit, multithreaded PM application, and it is "well-behaved." That means I wrote it so it would not take over the system while you are playing. Too many programs are sloppily written, probably due to the influence of Microsoft Windows, where the hour-glass pointer is all too common. Not so here. Even while the computer is thinking, you can do other things, including changing the options for the current game!
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TITLE
Bacteria War
BACTERIA WAR
by Brian W. Brown
Bacteria War is a game of microscopic warfare between two competing strains of bacteria. The game board is a grid of cells in healthy tissue, and the bacteria work to capture as much of the healthy tissue as possible. The strain that captures the most territory wins.
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