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-
- Poing3 Manual 14-Jan-1995
-
-
- ==========================================================================
- Short Description
- ==========================================================================
-
- Poing 3 is an amusing systemfriendly bat & ball game.
-
-
- ==========================================================================
- Changes from Poing 2.2
- ==========================================================================
-
- - New levels
- - Old levels also incuded
- - Levels can optionally be shuffled
- - More audiotracks
- - Bugfixed for 68000 machines
- - Some cosmetical enhancements
-
-
- ==========================================================================
- Disclaimer
- ==========================================================================
-
- This product comes "as is", without any warranties. Use it on your
- own risk.
-
-
- ==========================================================================
- Copyright
- ==========================================================================
-
- Poing3 is copyright 1995 by Paul van der Valk. It's freely distributable.
- No commercial profit may be made of this product without permission of
- the author.
-
-
- ==========================================================================
- System Requirements
- ==========================================================================
-
- Poing 3 runs on any Amiga model running any OS version as far as I know.
-
-
- ==========================================================================
- Starting the Game
- ==========================================================================
-
- Either click on the icon or run the executable ("poing3").
- You will get a screen that allows you to select the old or new
- levels in fixed or in random order. "Old" refers to the Poing 2.x
- levels, "New" refers to 32 new Poing 3 levels.
-
- 1..5 selects an option. Space, Enter or Escape makes a random
- selection.
-
- Once a selection is made the main screen appears. You can select
- 1 or 2 players, controlled by mouse or computer, at various skill
- levels. The skill level determines the initial ball speed.
-
-
- ==========================================================================
- In-game keys
- ==========================================================================
-
- S toggles drums on/off.
-
- L toggles LED/audiofilter on/off.
-
- Esc quits the game.
-
- Any other key pauses the game.
-
- When the game is paused the music stops. Turn it back on with 's'.
- 'o' to turn it off again. 'd' activates 4 soundtracks.
-
- Any other key (apart from the ones below) returns from pause-mode.
-
-
- ==========================================================================
- Special keys
- ==========================================================================
-
- During the titlescreen, or when the game is paused the following keys
- are active:
-
- - numeric keypad '*' screen to back
- - numeric keypad '-' drag screen up
- - numeric keypad '+' drag screen down
- - numeric keypad Enter toggle PAL/NTSC display
-
-
- ==========================================================================
- About Stars
- ==========================================================================
-
- Starting with poing3, the starbonus depends on the selected skilllevel.
- You score {20 * skillevel} points for the first star, with an incremental
- 10 points for the following star(s). Example: 3 stars in skillevel 2
- scores 40+50+60 = 150 points. 3 stars in skilevel 4 score 80+90+100 =
- 270 points.
-
- Stars influence the appearance of the 'lightshow', and the effective-
- ness of breaking the bricky blocks.
-
-
- ==========================================================================
- Command line options
- ==========================================================================
-
- -o Turns the music off.
-
- -ao Audio Off - no sound at all. Automatically activates the -an
- option.
-
- -an Don't lock the audiochannels. This enables for example a
- background alarm to interfer with the poing audio.
-
- -ad Use sound even if the locking of the audiochannels failed.
- Known as "Dirty Audio".
-
- -c Saves the highscorefile ("poing3.scores") in the current
- directory instead of S:.
-
- -e Enables "Easy Mode", meaning that you get an extra ball at every
- 10,000 instead of every 20,000 points. You can't get a highscore
- entry in this mode.
-
- -0 Turn off the lasershow-alike animation in the bottom of the screen.
- This is useful if you're running in NTSC, or want to save some
- CPU usage. This option is automatically activated if -x is used.
-
- -x Use the extended (bottom) part of the screen to display an
- oversight of the 8 levels in the current stage. This is played
- back later in the titlescreen.
-
- -bNNN Defines the buffersize in kilobytes for the -x option. Default is
- hmm... don't remember :)
-
- -rNNN Defines how fast the ball should be recorded for the -x option.
- Use higher values for faster playback rates. Zero (default) turns
- off ball-recording.
-
- -t Testmode. This option runs the game as fast as possible. Primary
- purpose is to check the computer demoskill. To get a quick idea
- of how well the computer plays use:
-
- poing3 -ao -x -b1000 -t
-
- If you want to set up a highscore table with some computer scores
- to compete against use:
-
- poing3 -ao -0 -t
-
- and let it run for 10 minutes or so.
-
- -i Run in interlace.
-
-
- ==========================================================================
- Todo
- ==========================================================================
-
- Future version of poing might benefit from:
-
- - Tooltypes
-
- - Some cosmetical fixes.
-
- - Joystick/pad (cd32 :)) control
-
-
- ==========================================================================
- Author
- ==========================================================================
-
- Feedback can be sent to:
-
- Paul van der Valk
- Fido: 2:281/614.3
-
-