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A little documentation to go with the program .....
The object of this game is to locate the hidden treasure and remove it from the woods. This may sound very easy, but there are a few problems to overcome and these will be described later ...
When the program starts up, you see a 10-by-10 grid full of question marks. Each question mark represents an unexplored part of the woods. In order to explore the woods, simply click the desired part with the left mouse button (hereafter referred to as a 'left click'). At the start, you can only explore the edges of the wood. Having explored a part of the wood, the question mark will be replaced with one of 4 (four) things ...
1) A picture representing a path - you can then left click on any adjacent question marks to explore further into the woods.
2) A picture representing a thief - you have to creep around these and this type of square has the effect of blocking the path in that direction.
3) A picture representing a spider web - this also blocks the path, but you can use a match (resource) to burn the web, after which it becomes a normal path. Right click the cobweb to get rid of it.
4) A picture representing the treasure - you now need to get the treasure out of the woods as quickly as you can. Left click on an adjacent path square to move the treasure to the next square
All boundary squares are explorable at any time - you are not restricted to your initial path.
Once you get the treasure to the edge of the woods, you have succeeded in your task and a window pops up to congratulate you and show you the game statistics. However, success is not guaranteed and you may not be able to get to the treasure, in which case, a different window appears. In both success and failure, you can either exit the program, or have another go. Select the appropriate button for your choice.
There are (depending on your configuration) either 3 or 4 menu items at the top of the screen and these are described here.
The 'Game' menu option contains options to reset the game, exit the program (Alt-F4 works as well).
The 'Mode' option can be used at the start of the game to set the type of game you want. The possible choices are 'No limitations', 'Limited resources' and 'Fastest time'. Select 'No limitations for the simplest version of the game. You can burn as many cobwebs as you like and there is no real hurry. The 'Limited resources' option only allows you 5 (five) matches with which to burn the webs. Once these are all used up, the right click will no longer work. 'Fastest time is a sort of competition mode, in which the resources are not limited, but in a damp wood, using a match takes time to light etc and you will incur a time penalty for each match you use. You will need to decide carefully where you use them, but don't take too long in doing so. Once you have started exploring the woods, you cannot change the mode.
The 'Styles' menu is configuration-dependent and therefore may not appear. This menu came about as a result of two things: firstly, although my programming is not too bad, my artwork is. The single most common improvement suggestion during beta testing concerned the poor quality of the artwork. Secondly, (as stated above), the grid is 10-by-10 and there are 40 thieves (hence the name ...), 40 path squares, 19 cobweb squares and 1 treasure square (100 in total). Looking at this in an abstract way, they can be seen as 40 blocking squares, 40 path squares, 19 hinderance squares and 1 treasure square. Therefore the following functionality was added to the program firstly, to enable you to supply better artwork of your own and secondly, to vary the artwork with styles (or themes). For instance, you might just as well be looking for moonshine in the Florida swamps and avoiding alligators, as looking for treasure in a wood and avoiding thieves - the method of play still applies. In order to use this functionality, you need to :-
a) do a bitmap (.bmp format) for each of the squares and save them as :-
'unknown.bmp' (for the unexplored parts),
'treasure.bmp' (for the thing you are looking for),
'block.bmp' (for the thief, or whatever),
'path.bmp' (for the explored parts that lead to other parts) and
'hinder.bmp' (for the cobwebs, or whatever).
b) create a sub-directory and copy the above named bitmaps into it.
There is no limits to the size of each bitmap and they need not be the same size. The program will scale the given bitmap so that it fits the current square size.
It is advisable to use the long name facility for the directory name, as this is what will appear under the menu option 'Styles'. You are free to create as many styles as you wish. As long as the above 5 bitmaps exist in a sub-directory (under the location of the ali_baba.exe program), the name of that sub-directory will appear as a possible style. In order to change the style, simply select the required style from those available. This can be done at any stage of the game and the changes will take place immediately.
There is no online help, as the program is really very easy to use - don't be put off by the details of this file. The program is, however, shareware and you can use the menu option 'Help|Register Ali Baba' to enter the registration code that will be supplied to you when you give me some money !!!!! The registered version is virtually identical to the shareware version, except for the shareware notice that does not appear and the selected mode is saved and used as default for the next time the game is played.
That's about it, as far as documentation goes - try it and see.
