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- Bombz
- =====
-
- Tony Houghton
- 271 Upper Weston Lane
- Southampton
- SO19 9HY
-
- tonyh@tcp.co.uk http://www.tcp.co.uk/~tonyh
-
- Introduction
- ------------
- Bombz is a little puzzle game I started writing ages ago. It's nowhere near
- finished, but it's good enough for a preliminary freeware release; I
- haven't got time to work on it at the moment, but positive response could
- change my mind. At the moment there are 30 levels, and now I've made an
- effort to put them in something approaching order of difficulty.
-
- The redraw routine uses an inefficient brute force technique, redrawing the
- whole level every time. It isn't really optimised, so slow machines tend to
- struggle a bit wih VGA monitors. Apart from that, it seems OK on an A310
- and on a RISC PC, on low and high resolution monitors.
-
- Conditions
- ----------
- Bombz and its associated files are freeware, so they may be freely
- distributed, provided they are left unaltered and they are not used to
- make profit apart to cover PD library costs. They may be included as
- part of a larger package, for example a CD collection, provided a charge
- is made only for the collection as a whole, not specifically for Bombz.
-
- Please make an effort to design levels, and if you do, send them to me
- so I can distribute them for everybody's benefit.
-
- Instructions
- ------------
- The object of the game is to get rid of all the bombs on each level then
- escape off the edge of the screen. To blow up a bomb, push it to where you
- want to cause an explosion, then collect a detonator and touch the bomb
- again and quickly get out of the way. A bomb destroys everything surrounding
- it except the metallic walls; if it blows up another bomb, that takes out
- everything around it too so you can set off chain reactions.
-
- You can't push a bomb while you have a detonator, and if you collect two
- detonators at once, one will be wasted.
-
- To progress to the next level you must complete the task before the time bar
- at the bottom of the screen runs down, but you are allowed to continue
- practising on the current level after it runs out.
-
- Choices
- -------
- You can choose between the familiar ZX'/ keys and the cursor keys to move. No
- other keys are needed while playing. Other keys on the menu screen are
- self-explanatory.
-
- If you have a VGA or multisync monitor you will find that the 'Standard'
- monitor setting is either horrible to look at (flickery at 50Hz) or
- letterboxed with too fast gameplay. Try 'De-luxe VGA' at first; if you have
- an ARM 2 or ARM 250 the gameplay will then probably be too sluggish, so try
- 'Economy VGA'. In fact, uncached, my A310 was still too slow with this
- setting, but who uses a multisync monitor without an ARM 3 anyway?
-
- You can choose the number of sound channels or turn the sound off altogether.
-
- Passwords
- ---------
- Passwords are stored with the level data on disk, not in memory, so you have
- to enter the level number first. Then you are given two tries at the password
- before being kicked out to the desktop.
-
- Acknowledgements
- ----------------
- Additional level designs by:
- Ron Houghton
- Chris Joseph
- Volker Pöschel
- David Allsopp
-