Dr. Windows 3/dr win3.zip/dr win3/WINGAMES/DRAGC300.ZIP/DRAGCITY.DOC

Text File | 1993-05-13 | 13KB | 253 lines

Welcome to DRAGCITY U.S.A.   Version 3.0     Copyright Richard Nikula 1993.

   Your uncle died and has left you his dragster.  Its not state of the art.
   In fact, its a manual 3 speed job with the engine in front of the driver.
   You've decided to cast good judgement aside and race it yourself.

STARTING DRAGCITY

   To invoke DRAGCITY, enter the following command:
     DRAGCITY [options]

     Options are as follows.  I would suggest that if you use the same
     options most of the time to create a batch file or to specify the
     options from menu program.

     -m : Suppress mouse usage even if a mouse is present.  All entry
          must be done from the keyboard.  The keyboard can be used for
          entries even when this option is not used, except the gears
          display which results in unexplainable (in a paragraph) gear
          selections.

     -s : Suppresses the sound effects.

     -d : Suppresses digital sound effects and uses the PC speaker

     -l : Moves the tachometer to alternate location.

     -t : Activates tournament mode if 2 or more players are racing.

     -p1name:  Specifies player 1's name.
     -p2name:  Specifies player 2's name.
     -p3name:  Specifies player 3's name.
     -p4name:  Specifies player 4's name.

     -a# : Set the default accelerator sensitivity.  The default value
          is 5.  The accelerator can still be adjusted during game play.

     -c# : Adjust for various (fast) computer speeds.  The game should
         autoadjust for processors up to 25Mz. However, if you find the
         elapsed times to be too fast, specifying -c1, -c2, etc will slow
         you down.

     -xn# : Sets the car color for player n's car.  # is any number between
         1 and 255.  Numbers 1 thru 7 and 56 thru 63 represent work best.

     The following settings will most likely not need to be specified but
     can be if problems with default settings occur:

     -p : Suppresses page switching.  If your graphics card doesn't work
         with paging active, try this option. It will result in
         slower elapsed times however and eliminates access to gears
         and history at some times.

     -e : Set video mode to EGA 640 X 350 X 16 colors
     -v : Set video mode to VGA 640 X 350 X 16 colors.

   Note: options can be combined but must be specified separately
   as in the following example:

     DRAGCITY -m -s -p1Joe -p2Bill

   starts the game no mouse, no sound and 2 players (Joe and Bill).

INITIAL OPTIONS MENU

   As an alternative to using the option switches, you can specify
   the settings via the options menu.  The options menu is presented
   automatically when DRAGCITY is started with no switches. The
   options can be changed by typing the first letter of the option
   (or if mouse support is active, by clicking near the beginning of
   each option).  To leave the options menu, press ENTER (with the
   mouse, click on the "press ENTER" line or press both buttons
   simultaneously).  If for some reason, you don't want to continue
   with DRAGCITY, pressing escape (ESC) terminates the program.

   The option settings and their defaults are as follows:

   Players   -  Default is 1 player.  Up to 4 players may be specified

   EGA/VGA   -  Default is based on current graphic monitor.  Shouldn't
                need to be adjusted.

   Mouse     -  Default is Mouse active if a mouse driver is loaded or
                Keyboard if not. If DRAGCITY can not find the
                mouse driver, you cannot set the mouse option on.

   Sound     -  Default is sound on.  Sound can be set off.
                The game makes a small amount of sound to indicate
                relative speed. If you wish to play without
                being heard, turn the sound off.  If a Sound Blaster
                driver is available, digital sound will be used.
                Note, the sound blaster driver must have the correct
                port, DMA, and IRQ values set in it (these are not
                overridden).  If you get errors initializing the sound
                support, use INST-DRV to change the driver.

   Tournament - Allows racing in either friendly or tournament modes.
                In friendly mode, racers take turns one a time and
                compare times. In Tournament mode, the players race
                against each other based on the draw. Requires at
                least 2 racers. Default is "friendly".  Actually I
                like to play tournament mode by myself and use my
                imagination.

PLAYER NAME SPECIFICATION

   Being a pleasant program, DRAGCITY requests that players enter
   their names.  You can either enter your first name as requested
   or just press ENTER (or a simple mouse click will do), in which
   case, you will be known by the affectionate name, PLAYER1, PLAYER2
   and so on.  If you specify all names via the switches above, you
   will bypass this request.  Names are used to show whose turn it is
   and for posting entries to the history file.

RACING:

   To drive, you need an accelerator and a clutch.  If you have a mouse,
   the right button acts as the accelerator.  When pressed, you
   accelerate otherwise you slow down.  The left button is your clutch.
   Just tap it whenever you want to change gears (and initially to leave
   the starting line).  If you don't use a mouse, the space bar can be
   used as an accelerator (pressing it once starts accelerating and
   pressing it again starts slowing you down).  Also the ENTER key is the
   clutch (which works just like the left mouse button).

   The first thing you need to do is stage.  (Note, before you begin
   the stage you can press ESC to activate the menu bar and choose
   gears to alter the gears as desired.) This is done by
   accelerating up to the starting line.  As you enter the staging
   area, the upper yellow light will turn on.  As you complete
   staging, the 2nd yellow light goes on.  Once this occurs, the
   remainder of the lights will begin to cycle.  You want to engage
   the clutch as soon as the bottom green light goes on.  If you
   engage the clutch too soon, you "red light" and have to start
   over.  You also need to adjust your engine speed (using the
   tachometer) to get a good start while not starting too slow,
   "going up in smoke", or blowing your engine.  Your RPMs when you
   leave the starting line have a big influence on racing time.

   Once you have starting racing, you will change from the starting line
   view to the racing view.  As you race, you will need to shift.
   Shifting too soon will result in lugging down the engine and a slower
   racing time.  Shifting too late also slows the racing time.  You'll
   have to get to know your car to determine the optimum points.  If you
   rev your engine too high, it will break so be careful going above "red
   line".  If you blow your engine while racing, the red light in the
   middle of the oil gauge will glow (you may be able to coast across the
   finish line if you are going fast enough).

   At the completion of the quarter mile, your reaction time, elapsed
   time, total time, and top speed are shown.  If any value is in the
   top ten, it will be followed by an asterisk (*).

   At the completion of each race, a menu bar is displayed at the
   top of the screen.  To race again, click the left button on the
   Continue box.  To display the record file, click on Records.  To
   change the gear values for additional race scenarios, click on
   the Gears box.  To show an analysis of the race, click on the
   Breakdown box.  To quit, click on the Quit box.  If during the
   race, you want to quit, pressing ESC will display these boxes.
   Only continue and quit can be selected, the remainder can only
   be viewed before and after racing.

   If you don't have a mouse, C, R, G, B, and Q can be used for Continue,
   Records, Gears, Breakdown, and Quit, respectively.

GEARS ADJUSTMENT

   If you select