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DR. RUDY version 1.20 (C) 1992 By Kevin J. North Released February 23, 1992 * Game Manual * 1. Notice --------- This program is being distributed primarliy among electronic bulletin board systems. Please distribute this file in an archive format (ARJ, ZIP, LZH, etc.) with the following name: "RUDY112.*" where the asterisk represents the appropriate extension. Please verify that the following files are present: DR.EXE - Executable program file DR_RUDY.DOC - This documentation manual ORDER.FRM - Registration form The data file that the program creates, called "DR_RUDY.DAT", is created automatically if not present, and should NOT be included in the archive file. 2. Introduction --------------- DR. RUDY is an arcade/action game for one or two players. It was written to support 256-color VGA mode, but will also work on color EGA and CGA systems. To run the program, type in "DR" at the DOS prompt and press ENTER. The first time you run the program, you will get a message on the screen asking you to enter the video card of your choice. Press the '1' key if you have a VGA system, or '2' if you have EGA or CGA. The choice you made will be saved to a configuration file in the current directory called "DR_RUDY.DAT", so the next time you run the program you won't have to choose the video card again: you will instead be presented with a short title screen instructing you to press the space bar to begin. At this screen you can use F10 to have the program ask for a new video card and re-calibrate the game speed (useful if you move the game to another computer). 3. How to play -------------- Dr. Rudy, a research physician for a major company, has just returned from a one-week vacation with his family. Upon entering his office, he is surprised to find that a virus experiment he was running has gotten out of control and there are now viruses contaminating several other experiments. Luckily, Dr. Rudy has a supply of vitamin capsules which are known to be lethal to the viruses under certain conditions. It is your job to help Dr. Rudy stop the virus infestation! To start a 1-player game, press the ENTER key. You will first be shown a small "menu" of three options: "Begin Game," "Change Level" and "Change Skill." To select an option, use the '2' key to move down and the '8' key to move up (or use the up & down arrow keys). Press ENTER to choose an option. Choosing "Change Level" will increase the current level by one. If the level exceeds 15, it will "wrap around" to 0. Choosing "Change Skill" will change the skill level of the game. Press ENTER to toggle between "EASY," "ADVANCED" and "EXPERT." Finally, choosing "Begin Game" will start the game with the level and skill that you selected. For your first game, you probably will want to choose "EASY" and level 0. You are presented with a bottle with some viruses in it of three different colors. Immediately Dr. Rudy presents you with a pill and it is your job to guide the pill as it slowly falls through the bottle and place it such that it becomes lethal to neighboring viruses. To move the pill to the left, press the '4' key. To move the pill to the right, press the '6' key. It is suggested that you use the numeric keypad for this with the "Num Lock" light on; however, extended keys are now supported and you may use the left & right arrow keys if you like. You may also rotate pills counterclockwise by pressing the '5' key, or speed up a pill's descent by pressing the '2' key. The extended-key equivilent would be the keypad centre OR up arrow for rotate, and the down arrow for descent. Pills are made up of two sections, each one of the same colors as the viruses in the bottle. By placing pills such that you get four of the same color in a row, vertically or horizontally, the whole line disappears, taking any viruses that were in that row with it. If you can get more than one virus at the same time, you will get a much bigger score. Once a pill hits the bottom of the bottle, a virus or another pill, Dr. Rudy will quickly hand you a new one. You can watch Dr. Rudy in the upper-right hand corner of the screen to see what color pill he'll hand you next. When all viruses are cleared, you go to the next level: Dr. Rudy hands you another bottle which has four more viruses in it than last time. But you also score more points for each virus that you destroy. If you can't place the vitamin pills fast enough, and they start stacking up, you're in trouble. If the bottle fills all the way to the top, the game is over. If you did good enough, you may get a high score - in which case you'll be prompted to enter your initials. After entering up to 3 characters, press ENTER. 4. Game features ---------------- If you don't quite understand how to play, then you can watch the sample game. Just wait about ten seconds at the title screen, and suddenly the game will start to play by itself. Pressing the space bar will activate a brief, built-in instructions screen. During game play, pressing ESC will immedeately end your game and return you to the main menu. Pressing ESC at the title screen or sample game will return you to DOS. Dr. Rudy features three different skill levels: "EASY," "ADVANCED" and "EXPERT." In EASY mode, there are three colors of viruses and three colors of pills: red, blue and yellow. I have had many requests from people to make the game more difficult, so I added two more skill levels. In ADVANCED mode, a fourth color is introduced: green! Half of the blue viruses have mutated into green, so you must eliminate them as well. Dr. Rudy will now hand you some green pills. In EXPERT mode, there are no green viruses, but Dr. Rudy has a whole bunch of green pills and no time to sort through them. You are given green pills that you don't even need! You can still eliminate them by getting four greens in a row, but they obviously can't be used to eliminate viruses. Note: In CGA mode, a fourth color is not available, so pills and viruses with a "drilled-out" center are used. Dr. Rudy features an "options menu" in which you can customize the game. Press F10 to enter this menu. Use the 8 & 2 keys (or the up & down arrow keys) to select an option, and press ENTER to choose it. To exit this menu, press either ESC or F10. The first few options are "toggle" options, meaning that when you choose the option the current status of that option will be reversed; i.e. from on to off or from off to on. "Frequent save," on by default, will have the program save your configuration file to disk every time a change is made in the options menu or you get a new high score. If this is turned off, the options are only saved when you exit the program. You will probably want frequent save left on if you have a habit of turning off the computer before fully exiting programs. You can toggle "Game sound" and "Demo sound" to turn sound on or off during game play and during the sample game. Sound is generated on the standard PC internal speaker. It might be wise to turn off the sound if your roommate is taking a nap. If you are in VGA mode, the option "Toggle virus animation" appears. It's on by default, but if you find that the viruses are too distracting then you can toggle this option to "OFF". Viruses are not animated in CGA mode. "Adjust game speed" allows you to change the speed of the game. The Dr. Rudy game automatically configures its speed to your computer the first time you run the program. It should configure itself so that pills fall at approximately 2 lines per second. If for some reason this is not the case on your computer, or you find the game to be too easy or too difficult, you may want to manually change the speed. This can be done quite easily using this option. A sample game screen will appear, after which you can press '+' to increase the speed, or '-' to decrease the speed. When the sample game is running at the same speed as you'd like the game to play, press any other key and you will return to the options menu. Immedeately to the right of this option is a number; you can use it as a relative guideline as to what speed the game is currently set to (but remember you can't change this number directly). Higher numbers represent faster speeds. One last note: It is possible that the sample game will act strangely when you are adjusting the game speed, in that it makes different moves than what it usually does. This is normal and will not cause any problems. If the sample game ends before you are done adjusting the speed, simply choose this option again. "Register your copy" allows you to enter registration information if you decided to register your copy of the game (described in the next section). You are prompted for your name, serial number and registration code. Enter each item exactly as it appears on the sheet that was sent to you, pressing ENTER after each one. If you typed in the information correctly, you will see "CORRECT" at the bottom of the screen, and the two-player mode will be activated. The last option is "See shareware screen," which displays the Dr. Rudy shareware notice. Game policies are described in section 7 of this manual. 5. Registering your copy of the game ------------------------------------ Dr. Rudy is currently being distributed as freeware, which means that you are not required to send any money to the author. My goal in writing this game is to provide entertainment for computer users of all ages, not to make people feel guilty with yet another Shareware notice requesting mandatory contribution. However, this program now represents approximately 90 hours of programming & development time, and I would appreciate any contributions sent to me. In order to encourage users of this program to contribute, for version 1.20 I have finally completed the simultaneous two-player mode, and it will only be available to those users who have "registered." I am only asking for $10, which should be a bargain compared to some of the other games out there. To register your copy, simply make a printout of the registration form in the file ORDER.FRM included with this program (or copy the information from it onto a sheet of paper if you don't have a printer), fill out the form, enclose a check or money order redeemable in the U.S. for $10 and mail it to this address: Dr. Rudy Registration c/o Kevin J. North 2623 S. MarVista St. Stillwater, OK 74074-2227 You will receive from me (among other things) a sheet of paper which has your name, unique serial number and registration code on it. These can be typed in from the option "Register your copy" from the Options Menu, as described earlier, and two-player mode will then be activated! Here's another bonus: Your registration will be good for all future versions of the program! You could potentially obtain the latest version off of your favorite BBS, enter the same codes, and have a fully registered copy of the newest version in a few moments. 6. How to play in 2-player mode ------------------------------- To start a 2-player game, assuming you have registered your copy, press ENTER from the title screen. Move the arrow to "Change Skill" and press ENTER until "2-PLAYER" appears. You can then either select the level you would like and start the game as described in section 3 of this manual. Game play is essentially the same, but strategy is completely different. You are playing not for points, but to beat your opponent by winning 3 games before he does. You win by either getting rid of all of your viruses first, or by your opponent loosing by filling up his bottle to the top. Each player should take one side of the keyboard. The right player obviously uses the keys on the number pad to play; the left player uses 'Q' to move left, 'E' to move right, 'W' to rotate and 'S' to drop fast. To make the tournament even more fun, there is a slight addition to the game: if you manage to clear more than one row or column (not virus) using a single pill, your opponent will not get his next pill, but instead will get random garbage falling from the top of the bottle, and he can not play until it is done falling. This can be used as a strategy for winning, especially in high levels when garbage is likely to cause your opponent to get messed up so badly that he will fill his bottle to the top and loose! 7. Other notes -------------- This program was written using Turbo C++ 1.01, distributed by Borland International. Graphics routines were written completely from scratch. Unlike many other recent games, the Dr. Rudy program is very small and it was written efficently. Version 1.02 was able to run in a mere 64K under Desqview! DR_RUDY.DAT files from any previous version can NOT be used with the current version. If you run this version with an old data file in the current directory, the program will recognize that the file is outdated and will create a new one automatically. In any case, you will have to start your high scores over again and re-configure your options. Ryan P. Zerby played the right player in the 2-player demonstration which, by the way, can be viewed even if you have not registered as sort of a "sneak preview." It occurs on every other game demo. Try watching it with demo sound turned on to hear some new sound effects. In the high scores display, a '+' is shown if the player achieved the score in ADVANCED mode, and a '*' is shown if the player achieved the score in EXPERT mode. In upcoming versions, you can expect to see one or more of the following: * AdLib/Sound Blaster music support (WILL be available for unregistered users). * More than just three characters for initials. * Two-player mode in which you and your opponent can play different levels (a way to make the game more even). * Network support (the current version is NOT network-compatible). 8. Policies ----------- DR. RUDY may be copied and distributed freely as long as the execuable program file and its accompanying manual and registration form are distributed together, and no file is modified in any way. The file DR_RUDY.DAT that the program creates should NOT be distributed, and CANNOT be distributed if you have registered your game (registration is good for one person only). If for some reason you have not registered, and your copy of Dr. Rudy already has 2-player mode activated, delete the file DR_RUDY.DAT and run the program again. If it still is activated, I would appreciate your writing to inform me that an illegal "pirated" version may be in distribution. This program contains no warranties, either explicit or implicit, and in no case shall I be held responsible for any damages caused by the use or misuse of the DR. RUDY program or its accompanying documentation. Also, the references to "viruses" in this program have nothing to do with the much-talked-about malicious "computer viruses" that are wandering in computer systems. (Indeed, I, the author, am very strongly opposed to computer viruses of any kind and their uncaring, and often naive, creators. The executable Dr. Rudy file was compressed with LZEXE and will probably crash, warning you immedeately, if a virus ever manages to get into the file and you try to run it. Be sure to keep backup copies of all of your programs!) 9. Revision history ------------------- 1.20 - Released 23 February 1992. The simultaneous two-player mode is finally finished (and not easy either)! Two-player mode is to be available only to registered users, and I have added the file ORDER.FRM to the distribution archive and an option in the options menu to allow users to self-register their copy. Two-player demo mode also added. Format of the data file changed. Input routine at high score entry screen changed. 1.12 - Released 14 December 1991. I finally figured out how to do VGA palette rotation - it's tricky code! The viruses in the game are now finally animated. I also completely restructured the options menu so that it's easier for me to build on it in the future. 1.10 - Released 7 December 1991. New assembler CGA routines added which make the game run extremely fast under that mode; also a VGA assembler routine was added to slightly increase text-drawing. Selecting a level is now done under a sub-menu screen after ENTER is pressed. Two new skill levels added, which include the use of green pills (or drilled-out green pills in CGA). Sample game changed (due to change in random pill algorithm). 1.02 - Released 12 October 1991. Minor bug which kept the PC speaker on after aborting a game during a sound effect is now fixed. Lower-case character set added. Bitmap graphics slightly modified to look even sharper on the screen. 1.00 - Released 8 September 1991. The 1.00 version is finally finished! I added the built-in instructions screen, and new mini title screen - the latter allowing you to change the options for a different computer quite easily. 0.97 - Released 25 August 1991. Planned as small-scale release to get the game released with more features as soon as possible, because with approaching deadlines the 1.00 version will not be ready for a while. This version features: Top 17 high scores which save to disk. Sound effects added. Options menu with sound/save toggles and easier speed adjustment. New assembler VGA routines which really speed up graphics-drawing. Extended key support. 0.90 - Released 10 August 1991. First full release. CGA now supported. 0.10 - Released 22 July 1991. Test version released in Stillwater, OK. Very few features except for the game play itself. VGA only. This version was released to have other people test the game for me: to see if it worked correctly on their computer and if they had any comments. 10. Other programs by the author -------------------------------- CVIEW - View binary files of all kinds in a pictorial format on the screen. Great for analyzing those "mysterious" files! FAVORITE - A "Favorites Finder" program which will rank songs, movies, etc. in order by simply showing you two at a time and asking which you like better. Comes with Turbo C source code. SLIDES60 - Screen graphics SlideShow program, which comes with a viewer, slide maker, and 60 slides. ANSGUIDE - Text file that explains in detail IBM character graphics and ANSI, along with a demo program and files. EVILIDOL - Basic text adventure game... save the land of Belkar from a curse!