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Text File | 1992-05-07 | 22.4 KB | 392 lines

DR. RUDY version 1.24 (C) 1992 By Kevin J. North Released May 7, 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: "RUDY124.*" 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 DR_RUDY1.ICO - Pills & viruses Windows icon DR_RUDY2.ICO - Dr. Rudy Windows icon DR_RUDY3.ICO - Title & big virus Windows icon 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. This documentation manual seems to get bigger and bigger. I realize that a lot people don't bother to read any docs, but hopefully this will be of use to some people. It's pretty extensive for such a simple game, eh? I've tried to cover just about everything you'd ever want to know, and I've organized it into sections. If you simply want to read enough to get started, read sections 2 and 3 below. 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 and even do a mediocre job on old systems with no graphics at all. 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, '2' if you have EGA or CGA or '3' if your computer does not even support 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 center OR up arrow for rotate (some keyboards don't recognize the center), 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 better 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 11 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 the SPACE BAR will pause the game. (This feature was added after several requests, because not everyone has an extended keyboard with a PAUSE key on it, especially those running the game on a PC or XT simulator on another type of machine.) Pressing the SPACE BAR again will resume. Pressing ESC will bring up a message at the top of the screen asking you if you want to abort your game. Pressing 'Y' will abort the game immedeately; pressing 'N' will cause your current game to resume. 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 received 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. To de-register a copy of the game, you can simply press ENTER without typing anything for all three fields. 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 100 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 finally completed the simultaneous two-player mode, and it is 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 -------------- When running Dr. Rudy under Microsoft Windows on a 386 or 486 system, it is important to turn OFF the "Detect idle time" checkbox under the "Advanced Options" window when creating the PIF. The game will not run correctly if idle detect is on. Also, the sound effects may be slightly affected, due to the fact that the game is only getting a portion of the total processor time. Finally, you may have to adjust the game speed manually from the options menu more frequently. Now included with this distribution are three Microsoft Windows icons that you can use (DR_RUDY*.ICO). They are provided for your convenience. If you don't have Windows, you can delete them, but PLEASE, if you want to distribute the game to others, include the icons. This version of Dr. Rudy (1.24) includes a new speed calibration algorithm which will hopefully be more accurate than the previous one. Note that if you are not satisfied with the game speed, you can always go to the options menu and adjust it to your liking. This version also features text mode support -- enough so that you can just barely play the game on a monochrome PC with no graphics. The pill and virus graphics and colors were carefully selected so that you can match pills with viruses in a reasonable amount of time. Adjust the contrast on your monochrome monitor to get two distinct shades of amber. If you are upgrading from a version before 1.20, your old DR_RUDY.DAT file will no longer be compatible. The game will recognize this and create a new one for you. Ian Kabell 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. This program was written using Turbo C++ 1.01, distributed by Borland International. Graphics routines were written completely from scratch. 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). This is tricky, so it may be a while, but I have made progress in programming the card. * 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). Finally, I wish to thank the following people who have given me ideas or otherwise have helped me in the development of the game: Jeff Bastian, Matt Haag, Ian D. Kabell, Robert K. Kistler, Ken Mason, Kenneth L. Love, Louis Schmidt Jr., Eric J. Vette, Ryan P. Zerby. And a special thanks to all those who have or plan to register the game! 8. Policies ----------- DR. RUDY may be copied and distributed freely as long as the executable 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 ------------------- 1.24 - Released 7 May 1992. Fixed major bug in my assembly code for drawing the checkerboard background in VGA that since version 0.97 has been causing causing occasional random problems. 1.23 - Released 6 May 1992. Speed calibration algorithm changed to one that will hopefully be more accurate. "Pause" key added, as well as a confirm prompt when a user presses ESC from the game. Pill lookahead at the beginning of the game and at the start of each 2-player round finally fixed. This resulted in a changed random pill algorithm, so the sample games had to be redone. Text mode support added as a last resort for old PC's with no graphics. Microsoft Windows icons added to distribution archive. 1.21 - Released 21 March 1992. High score initials expanded from 3 to 11 characters. Title screen rearranged to look sharper in the registered version. Notice added to setup mode screen to get people to start distributing the game correctly. 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. 10. About the author -------------------- I am a student Computer Science Major currently attending Michigan Technological University in Houghton, Michigan. During the summer I have been working as a computer programmer back home at Oklahoma State University. I have been familiar with computers for about 8 1/2 years, ever since my dad first brought home a Commodore 64. I love programming, especially in C, and I have written programs in all sorts of areas from utilites to games to graphics programs. Other interests include chess, amateur radio (my callsign is N5UHR), science fiction (especially Doctor Who), music and writing.