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-
- Free Lunch Design
-
- presents
-
- Harold, the Homeboy
-
- in
-
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- '''' ''' ''' '' ''' '' '' ''''' '' ''
-
- I C Y T O W E R
- v1.3
- =====================================================================
-
-
- GENERAL
-
- Welcome to Icy Tower! This game is completely free. You may play
- it as much as you like without paying a single buck. In exchange
- for playing it, you are instead asked for a small favour. You are
- encouraged to send any comments you might have about this game.
- See contact & support at the end of this document.
-
-
- DISTRIBUTING
-
- Icy Tower is freeware, anybody may (and should) play it. Therefore,
- you are encouraged to distribute this game (in its original form)
- like crazy. Upload to every web site and BBS you know, give a copy to
- all your friends, etc.. Our only requirement is that you give proper
- credits to Free Lunch Design and provide a link back to our site.
- However, this game may not be included in a compilation or any other
- kind of commercial package without the permission from the author.
- This includes coverdisks. See contact near the end of this document.
-
-
- DISCLAIMER
-
- Free Lunch Design does not accept responsibility for any effects,
- adverse or otherwise, that this software may have on you, your
- computer, your sanity, your dog, or anything else that you can think
- of. Use it at your own risk. We have, however, never experienced any
- trouble with it.
-
-
- DESCRIPTION
-
- Icy Tower is small and short but surprisingly addictive game. Control
- Harold the Homeboy as he climbs his tower of infinite height whilst
- doing cool jumps and moves in order to get a high score and awe from
- his friends in the hood.
-
-
- INSTALLING AND STARTING THE GAME
-
- Since you're reading this text the game is probably installed and ready
- to be played already. If not, locate the installation program
- (icytower_install.exe) and run it. When installed you will find the
- necessary shortcuts in your start menu.
-
-
- THE PLOT
-
- One day, when Harold had nothing particular to do, he found a huge
- tower. The tower was icy cold, incredibly high and totally deserted.
- "Ey, dis seems like a cool place to hang out in", thought Harold and
- entered.
-
- The tower was indeed empty, but small platforms here and there made it
- possible for anyone brave enough to ascend to its higher levels.
- "Ey, I bet a homie like me can do some mighty cool jumps and moves in
- here", thought Harold, grazing upwards.
-
- And so it started... Help Harold to make the coolest and highest jumps
- in history!
-
-
- THE TITLESCREEN
-
- The title screen will present you with a menu of the following format:
-
- START GAME - starts a new game
- LOAD REPLAY - loads and plays replays from disc
- INSTRUCTIONS - shows you a brief instruction screen
- OPTIONS - lets you customize the game
- EXIT - exits to your OS
-
- Use the arrow keys or game pad to navigate the menu. The current selection
- will be pointed at by Harold. Use space or button 1 to select.
-
-
- THE OPTIONS MENU
-
- The options menu is divided into four smaller menus. They are all
- described here:
-
- GAME OPTIONS
-
- Here you can alter settings that controls the character and floors.
- To add custom characters, see that section below. Start floors
- must be unlocked by jumping higher and higher in the tower.
-
- CHARACTER - select what character to play with
- START FLOOR - select what floor type to start on
-
-
- GFX OPTIONS
-
- The graphical options control the visuals of the game. Eye Candy comes
- in three flavours; none, some and lots.
-
- EYE CANDY - increase or decrease amount of graphical objects
- FULLSCREEN - toggle between fullscreen and windowed mode
-
-
- SOUND OPTIONS
-
- Here you can change the audio output.
-
- SOUND VOL - adjust sfx output
- MUSIC VOL - adjust music output
-
-
- CONTROLS
-
- In the control menu you can customize the keys used for the game.
-
- LEFT - select key for left
- RIGHT - select key for right
- JUMP - select key for jump
- REJUMP - toggle rejump on and off
-
-
- Note 1: Some computers might have trouble running the game in windowed
- mode. Just so you know, this might not always work.
-
- Note 2: Eye Candy does not add to the game play but will make the
- playing experience better. If your computer is slow and the
- game lags you might want to test to turn this off.
-
- Note 3: Rejump. If this is on, you can hold spacebar and Harold will
- jump constantly. If off you'll have to repress space to make
- a new jump. Some like it one way, some like the other.
-
-
- GENERAL CONTROLS
-
- Move about in the menus using the arrow keys and enter. When playing,
- these are the default keys for controlling Harold:
-
- Left and right arrows - run left/right
- Space - jump
- P - pause
-
- You can quit the game back to the menu by pressing P and then ESC.
-
- If you have a game pad connected, use the direction pad to move Harold
- and button 1 to jump.
-
-
- PLAYING
-
- The first thing you need to know is that Harold will constantly
- accelerate as long you move him. The second thing is that the faster
- Harold runs, the higher and longer will he jump. The third thing is
- that you can bump into walls, turn around and maintain most of your
- speed. This is a useful technique if you want to do cool jumps.
-
- As you escalate the tower it will start to scroll slowly and you will
- have to keep up in order to not fall of the screen. This is not so
- hard in the beginning since the scrolling is very slow. But every 30
- seconds, an alarm clock will sound and the scrolling will go slightly
- faster. The clock in the upper left corner of the screen shows you how
- much time you have left until next speed up.
-
- Icy Tower can be played in many ways, although you might not get very
- much score in some of them. :) The allover goal of the game is to get
- a high score and nice place in the high score list.
-
- You will get 10 points for each floor you reach. This alone will not
- gain you any great scores however. To be really victorious, you need
- to learn the secrets of combo jumps.
-
- To start the combo mode, you will have to make a jump at least two
- floors high. I.e. run with Harold until you have enough speed, jump and
- land two floors above to where you started.
-
- When in combo mode the meter to the left of the screen will fill up and
- it will drain within a second. In order to stay in combo mode you need
- to make another jump of at least two floors. If you manage to do that
- before the meter is empty, the meter will be refilled and you can
- continue doing combo jumps.
-
- When the meter runs out or if you make a non-combo jump, you have
- finished your combo and you will be given score depending on how many
- floors in total you managed to climb during your combo.
-
- The rewards you can be given are: GOOD, SWEET, GREAT, WOW, AMAZING and
- EXTREME and a few more. The latter ones are really hard to get and will
- require some intensive practice.
-
- The tower is of infinite height and Harold will never reach the top.
- It's up to you to make sure that his stay in the tower generates a lot
- of score so that he doesn't need to feel ashamed in front of his
- friends. Good luck!
-
-
- REPLAYS
-
- Icy Tower 1.3 features the possibility save your jump sessions and
- view them at a later time. You can also send the replays to your friends
- and brag about how skilled you are. Every time you finish a jump session,
- a menu will appear where you can either watch it all again, save it or
- continue to the main menu.
-
- If you choose to save the replay, you need to enter your name (so that
- you can take credit) and a filename. How far you got, your score etc.
- will be recorded automatically. The replays will be saved in the
- replays/ directory where you installed Icy Tower. If you want to send
- your replay to a friend, this is the place to look for it.
-
- To view a replay at a later stage, either open it via the LOAD REPLAY
- option in the main menu, or simply drag and drop the file on the Icy
- Tower icon.
-
-
- CUSTOM CHARACTERS
-
- In Icy Tower 1.3 you can make your own characters, complete with their
- own sound effects and background music. It's not altogether easy, but
- if you set your mind to it, you will succeed. For information on how
- to make your own characters or add someone else's, read the information
- available in the characters/ directory.
-
-
- TROUBLESHOOTING / FAQ
-
- Before trying anything out, make sure you have the latest drivers for
- DirectX and for your graphics and sound cards!
-
- Q: The gamepad/joystick acts strange. It seems to pulls in wrong
- directions and so on. What is wrong?
- A: During setup your gamepad/joystick will be initialised and calibrated.
- Don't touch it! Let it be still while the game is in setup-mode.
-
- Q: The game starts and the menu shows but I cannot choose anything!
- A: Disconnect any joysticks are gamepads.
-
- Q: The game runs slow and choppy! How can I speed it up?
- A: Try turning off the Eye Candy and make sure you run in fullscreen.
-
- Q: I never manage to get any cool combo jumps! What am I doing wrong?
- A: Try harder. :) Make sure you use the walls to bump on and take
- it slow, you have more time to concentrate than what it feels.
-
-
- SPECIAL THANKS
-
- A game doesn't get done all by itself. There's always people and stuff
- around who inspires the final product. We'd like to thank the beta
- testers who valiantly played the game inside and out looking for bugs
- and recording cool replays.
-
- Arnon Yaari
- Bartek Kruk
- David Haines
- Honza Snabl
- Hubertus Struck
- Martin Kascak
- Sebastian Zyrkowski
-
- Thanks a bunch!
-
- A truck load of thanks goes out to the form members at the Free
- Lunch Design forum for helping me testing and finding bugs for
- the 1.3 release. Without you there would be no new version.
-
- I'd also like to thank the ones who helped out with testing the
- previous 1.2 version: Aleksander Janeczko, Arnon Yaari, John
- Boney, Matthias Freund, Marek Fajkowski, Robby Forrest and
- Tomer Bauer. Thanks!
-
- Also, all of you who play the game and compete with your friends,
- spreading the game all over the world. Thank you too! Last but not
- least a huge thank you goes out to Daniel Eriksson for helping out
- in our darkes hour when the entire Icy Tower 1.3 source code was
- lost in a crash.
-
-
- TECHNICAL MUMBO JUMBO
-
- Icy Tower is written in c using the game library Allegro. For the
- sound effect playback, AllegroOGG was used.
-
- Allegro: http://alleg.sf.net
- AllegroOgg: http://nekros.freeshell.org/delirium/alogg.php
-
-
- AUTHORS & CONTACT
-
- Free Lunch Design is an independent game developer from Sweden.
- Our aim is to create small, high quality games, where gameplay
- is in focus.
-
- Icy Tower was written and designed by Johan Peitz. Johan Peitz
- also drew the graphics. The fabulous music was composed by Anders
- Svensson who also created the sound effects.
-
- Visit us on the web: http://www.freelunchdesign.com
-
- If you have comments, bug reports, or just want to ask something
- you can contact Free Lunch Design by e-mail. We do however get a
- lot of mail and it might take a while before we answer, so if you
- have a question please check the online FAQs and forums first.
-
- E-Mail: info (at) freelunchdesign (dot) com
-
- If you want to support Free Lunch Design in monetary ways, please enter
- our web site (see above) and click our sponsors a few times. You can also
- donate money from the site via PayPal.
-
-
- FINAL WORDS
-
- Icy Tower became a game much bigger than we ever could have imagined.
- It is played and enjoyed by gamers of all ages, all over the world.
- It's nice to see that all the players of Icy Tower out there, are having
- as much fun as we had when we created the game.
-
- In closing, here's a poem by John Boney:
-
- Harold
-
- As I sat there, trying to complete my work, he was calling me.
- When I was in the hall gathering books, I heard his voice. My
- heart pumps more blood through my restless body, and he is still
- there, constantly beckoning me. I have said to him that he cannot
- control my life, but his power overrules my futile pleas. I am
- a dog on a leash, the cruel master constantly jerking me back to
- him. When we first met, he only spoke in unintelligible ramblings.
- "Whoop-a-doobadoo!" he would say. My friend why do you speak so?
- I see you for hours everyday, yet I cannot understand you.
- "Whoop-a-doobadoo! Whoop-a-doobadoo!" The more I listen, the more
- I hear. "Come," he now says, "I want to be with you." I try to
- sleep, but he jerks me back from my rest on this cold floor. If
- only I could remove this painful collar, which engrafts itself
- around my neck and controls my head. Oh, how it itches. I am
- powerless before the master. His eyes are covered to shield him
- from the pain he is causing. He is unaware that he is abusing me
- every moment he lives. "Join me. You are safe in here." Ouch, why
- must you jerk me so? Your kazoo is harmonious, but it plays a
- tune of death. Are you trying to torture me? If only you knew the
- strife you inflict, you could change your ways. You wear a
- toboggan, for it is cold within these walls. But I have no
- protection, except this collar, which I fear may never come off.
-
- ]
-
-
-
-
-
- - The End-
-
-
-