Thanks
for checking out our little demo. We’ve tried to create a non-violent family oriented
game that is both fun to play and stimulates a part of your brain that is worth
an investment.
If you
like what you see, you can purchase the full version at www.garagegames.com.
For only $14.95 you get:
·
Over
50 levels
·
Over
50 parts
·
5
background environments
·
4
musical tracks
·
A
super cool Builder where you can create your own maniacal levels.
·
Email
your own levels to friends.
·
Join
the Chain Reaction Community Contests and compete against other like-minded
puzzle masters!
We hope
you enjoy playing the Chain Reaction Demo… Have Fun!
Chris
Cole
CTO
& Co-Founder of Monster Studios, LLC
·
Contents
·
Uninstalling the Chain
Reaction Demo
·
Level Goal (Or
"How the heck do I play this crazy game?")
·
Part
Manipulation & the “Start” Button
·
Mouse
Controls (Left Button)
·
Hot
Keys
·
Starting
Chain Reaction in Fullscreen Mode
·
Notes
We’ve
really tried to keep the system requirements down to a minimum. To play Chain
Reaction you’ll need.
·
Win98,
WinNT, Win2000, Win Me or Win XP.
·
450Mhz
or greater processor. (Truth-be-told I wrote Chain Reaction on a PIII 550Mhz
Win98 machine, so a 450Mhz machine should work fine but might be a bit sluggish
on the larger levels.)
·
Video
Hardware accelerator card. Most old cards will run Chain Reaction, however not
a whole lot of compatibility testing has been done with these cards. If you’re
having trouble running Chain Reaction on an old card you may be out of luck,
however check out Starting Chain
Reaction in Fullscreen Mode for a possible fix. No guarantees on this
though!
·
DirectX
8.0. Actually Chain Reaction should run on DX7.0 but again it’s hard to find
machines with these older drivers. If you need to upgrade go to www.microsoft.com/windows/directx/downloads/default.asp.
Presumably,
if you are reading this document, you have already downloaded the Chain
Reaction Demo.
·
To
install the Chain Reaction Demo onto your hard drive double click on the
chainreactiondemo_installer.exe file included in the download.
·
This
will invoke the installer.
·
Follow
the installer directions to complete the installation of the Chain Reaction
Demo onto your hard drive.
The
Chain Reaction Demo comes with an uninstaller.
·
Goto
Start->Programs->Chain Reaction Demo->Uninstall.
·
This
will invoke the Chain Reaction Demo’s uninstaller.
·
Follow
the uninstaller instruction.
When
you start the Chain Reaction Demo you will see a series of introduction pages
followed by a self-running level. These pages have instructions on how to play
the demo so you may want to read each of them. However, you may click
through any of these screens at any time to take you directly to the Home
Page. Once on the Home Page you have three options:
·
Play – Clicking on this button will
start the first of the demo levels. Successfully completing a level will
advance you to the next level. Once all the levels have been completed you will
be returned to this Home Page.
·
Buy
Me! – Obviously we
want everyone who has seen this demo to click on this button at least once. It
will direct your browser to our product purchase page. Hopefully you’ll like
Chain Reaction well enough to buy a copy for yourself, your family, some
friends, maybe your cat… J
·
Exit – This will exit the demo.
We've created
a game that is simple to understand yet hopefully will supply hours of
entertainment. The goal of each level is always the same; get MC Monster
(that's the little purple guy in the rocket ship) onto his landing pad. If you
can get him to stop (or at least slow down) on the pad, the level will be
solved.
Parts
with orbiting stars can be moved. The other parts are locked down. Use the free
parts to solve the level. Move, flip, rotate, or stretch them however you see
fit, then press the “Start” button to see the reaction. This essentially turns
on physics. If you didn’t get it quite right, hit the “Stop” button and
continue moving the parts about on the screen until you solve the level.
You’ll
notice that there are stars circling the parts that you can move. If you don’t
see any stars hit the “TAB” key. This will toggle the stars on and off. Some
parts are kind of small. Watch the stars - you can grab a part only when the
stars change from yellow to pink.
Sometimes you can’t see all the
parts. Use the camera arrows on the lower right of the screen to position and
zoom the camera. If you are having trouble grabbing a part, try zooming in on
it. The red button in the middle of the arrows will center the camera onto MC
Monster - kind of nice when your view gets wacky.
Click
& Drag = Moves
camera.
Click
& Drag over part = Grabs,
drags or manipulates objects.
Click
& Drag over part property = Manipulates property (like flip or rotate or
stretch).
Ctrl -
Click & Drag = Free
Rotate quickly rotates camera.
Shift -
Click & Drag = Free Zoom
quickly zooms camera in/out.
Double
Click = Center camera
over MC Monster.
Mouse
Wheel = Zooms in and
out.
ESC = Exit - quits the game.
ALT-ENTER = Toggles between
Windowed and Fullscreen modes.
TAB = Toggles active stars & rollover
text - kind of nice when building a level.
C = Centers
camera on MC Monster.
Some
older video cards (hardware accelerators) do not support windowed acceleration.
This sounds a little complicated and in fact it is but bare with us for a
minute. By switching to fullscreen mode some display problems can be fixed. You
may be asking yourself, “So why doesn’t Chain Reaction detect this in the first
place?” Well, in fact, we are attempting to detect this however we’ve
discovered that some cards still run Chain Reaction but fail our windowing
test. So here’s a short step-by-step instruction to tell Chain Reaction to play
in fullscreen mode at startup.
·
Open
the folder where you installed Chain Reaction.
·
By
default this is “C:\Program Files\Monster Studios\Chain Reaction”.
·
Double-click
on the file called “Chain Reaction.ini”. This is an initialization file for
Chain Reaction.
·
Find
the block labeled [DISPLAY]. Make sure it DOES NOT have a semicolon ‘;’ in
front of it.
·
Below
this block you should see a
“WINDOWED=1” label.
·
Change
this ‘1’ to a ‘0’.
·
You
should now have a “WINDOWED=0” label.
·
Save
and close the “Chain Reaction.ini” file.
·
That’s
it! Now try running Chain Reaction in fullscreen mode.
·
If
Chain Reaction still fails to display anything, your card is probably too old
to play Chain Reaction.
·
Keep
an eye on the Monster Studios web page (www.monsterstudios.com) for
additional downloads, contests, expansion packs, patches and the lot. We’re
already working on new titles so if you enjoy Chain Reaction be sure to check
in once in a while to see what we’re cooking up next.
·
For
on-line help see Chain Reaction On-Line Help.
·
If
you have technical problems or would like to rant or rave, GarageGames has a
Chain Reaction forum setup. Be sure to check in for the most up to date hints,
strategies or just plain Chain Reaction community fun on the Chain Reaction Forum.
·
There
is a known texture corruption bug we’re currently working on. This bug does not
seem to affect gameplay.
·
For
those of you with GeForce 2 cards. It is necessary for you to get nVidia’s most
recent drivers. You can find them at the nVidia Driver Web page.