Deluxe Snake readme
-------------------

 1 -- Disclaimer
 2 -- Copyright/Permissions
 3 -- Requirements
 4 -- Install/Remove
 5 -- How to play/Gamemodes
 6 -- Power-ups & mushroom effects
 7 -- Scoring (points & lengths)
 8 -- Keys
 9 -- Merging hiscore-lists
10 -- Known bugs
11 -- Contact me
12 -- Credits
13 -- Changes



1) Disclaimer:
-------------

Deluxe Snake (the "Product") is provided "AS IS", and without warranty of any
kind, either express or implied, including, but not limited to, the implied
warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. The entire
risk as to the quality and performance of the Product is with the user. Should
the Product prove defective, the user assumes the cost of all necessary
servicing, repair or correction. In no event shall the author Daniel Schlyder
be held liable for any damages whatsoever (including, without limitation,
direct, indirect, incidental, consequential, exemplary, punitive, loss of
business profits or special damages) arising out of use or inability to use
the Product, even if Daniel Schlyder has been advised of the possibility of
such damages.



2) Copyright/Permissions:
------------------------

Deluxe Snake is Copyright (C) 1999, 2000 Daniel Schlyder. All rights not
specifically granted below are reserved. Copyrights on individual MIDI tunes
are held by their respective composers (see credits below).


Deluxe Snake may be freely used and distributed subject to the following terms:

(1) Deluxe Snake may not be sold or resold, distributed as a part of any
commercial package, used in a commercial environment, used or distributed in
support of a commercial service, or used or distributed to support any kind of
profit-generating activity, even if it is being distributed freely, without
prior written permission from the author Daniel Schlyder.

(2) The integrity of the original Deluxe Snake distribution file, as
distributed by Daniel Schlyder, is essential. Deluxe Snake and all of its
related files must be distributed together in the original format. The Deluxe
Snake distribution file may not have files added to it or removed from it, and
none of its contents may be modified, decompiled, or reverse engineered.

(3) Daniel Schlyder retains the right to modify these terms at any time, and
without prior notice.



3) Requirements:
---------------

* Windows 9x/Me/NT4/2000 (with DirectX 3.0 or higher)

* Pentium or better processor

* Graphics card that supports 640x480 in 15bit or higher colour depth

* Allegro DLL 3.9.33 (included)



4) Install/Remove:
-----------------

Install the game by unzipping the archive, preserving pathnames, to a directory
of your choice. (The files will be extracted to a subdirectory named
DeluxeSnake). Install an upgrade patch by unzipping the archive, preserving
pathnames, into your gamedir, replacing files as necessary.

Double-click dsnake.exe, or type dsnake at a DOS prompt, to start the game.

Please note that you can keep your old config.dat, hiscores.dat, and stats.dat
files. If a new version is not compatible with these, then they will just be
overwritten.

Uninstall the game by deleting the DeluxeSnake directory and all its contents.



5) How to play/Gamemodes:
------------------------

Your goal is simple: eat the numbered food to gain points. Game ends when you
eat yourself, or crash into a wall.


UltraBasic
----------
In this gamemode, only one food is spawned at any given time, and it remains in
the arena until eaten.


Basic
-----
In this gamemode, up to three food may spawn at once, and food will disappear,
or turn into walls (40%), if not eaten quickly enough. Bonus points equal to
1 + length / 50 are awarded every second.


Deluxe
------
This gamemode is just like Basic, but has a lot of extra stuff to make the game
more fun:

Frogs                Eating a frog gives you a power-up (see list below).
Gifts                Same as frog, only gifts don't move around.
Megafood             Extra high value food.
Mushroom             30% chance of food turning into this if not eaten.
Mushroom Generator   May spawn when number of mushrooms is above 9. While
                     spawned, it generates red mushrooms at a slow rate. Remove
                     it by reducing number of mushrooms to less than 10 again.
                     Eating a generator will spawn 3-6 new mushrooms.
Stone food           May spawn when number of walls is above 3. A stone food
                     counts up from 1 to 9, after which it becomes a grey wall.
Tailbite             Bite yourself in the tail to cut length in half. When you
                     do this, all blue walls turn grey, and 3-6 new mushrooms
                     are spawned.


Deluxe Cash
-----------
In this variant of the Deluxe gamemode, you get bags of gold when eating frogs
and gifts, and can then buy the power-ups you need, when you need them. You can
have a maximum of six bags of gold at any time. Eat more, and you'll get candy
canes instead. Buy power-ups using the blow up walls and reverse keys plus the
special buy keys. Power-ups cost:

Antidote    2
Bomb        4
Diet Pill   2
Multiplier  2 (can be 2X or 3X)
Life        6 (only in 3 lives games)
Reverse     2
Shield      1


3 Lives
-------
The Deluxe modes can be played with three lives for longer games. When you die,
the snake will slowly shrink to start size and be placed in starting position.
You will then be granted a special version of the antidote power-up that
protects you against everything except border and snake tiles for a short time.
In Deluxe Cash mode you can regain a lost life by paying six bags of gold.



6) Power-ups & mushroom effects: (N/A in all modes)
-------------------------------

Antidote          protects against mushroom effects
Candy Canes       eat the candy for bonus points
Diet Pill         food eaten reduces length
Doubler           2x scores, 1.5x lengths
Dynamite          collect 3 to assemble bomb, then press Space to blow up all
                  blue walls, or Alt to blow up 4 grey
Mushroom, red     control keys are reversed
Mushroom, blue    generates 2 blue walls
Reverse           press Left Control to reverse direction travelled in
Shield            Survive crashing into a blue wall
Tripler           3x scores, 2x lengths

Antidote, Diet Pill, Doubler, and mushroom effects, lasts 15 seconds with
normal gamespeed.



7) Scoring (points & lengths):
-----------------------------

                           points      length
                           ------      ------
candy cane                 50          1
diet food                  10-90       - 1-9
food                       10-90       1-9
megafood                   150-250     15-25
mushroom (if immune)       10          1
red mushroom (if poisoned) 20          1
mushroom (else)            30          1
mushroom generator         40          1
stone food                 0           1-9
tailbite                   length      - length/2



8) Keys:
-------

Default control keys: (you can change these in the options menu)

Left Arrow     change snake's direction to left
Right Arrow    ------------- " ----------- right
Up Arrow       ------------- " ----------- up
Down Arrow     ------------- " ----------- down
Left Control   reverse direction travelled in (need Reverse power-up)
Space          detonate bomb, blowing up all blue walls
Alt            detonate bomb, blowing up 2 grey wall
A              buy Antidote power-up
D              buy Diet Pill power-up
X              buy Multiplier power-up
Enter          regain a lost life (only in Deluxe Cash mode)


Other keys:

P              pause game
F1             display name of currently played tune
F2             display name of currently played tune's composer
F4             toggle FPS counter on/off
F11            take screenshot (.tga)
Esc            return to menu



9) Merging hiscore-lists:
------------------------

You can merge hiscore-lists by starting the game from a DOS prompt with two
arguments pointing to the files you want merged. Like this:

   dsnake <filename1> <filename2>
   
Or with one argument, if you want that list merged with the default
hiscores.dat. Like this:

   dsnake <filename>

On success both lists will contain the top 20 of the combined lists hiscores.



10) Known bugs:
--------------

S3 based graphics cards fail to set graphics mode
-------------------------------------------------
Probable cause: bad drivers or internal Allegro bugs. Setting hardware
acceleration to max may help. You'll find this option under:

   Settings->Control Panel->Display->Settings->Advanced


"DCOM missing" warning message
------------------------------
The original Windows 95 distribution lacks DCOM. You can download an update
from Microsoft's site at:

   http://www.microsoft.com/Com/DCOM/Dcom95/dcom1_3.asp

As far as I know, DCOM is needed for high precision timers. I don't think my
game needs this, so if you can live with the annoying warning message...


Game crashes when trying to change colour depth on a Voodoo 3 graphics card
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Not sure why this would happen. Could be bad drivers, Allegro bug, or my fault.
In any case, I haven't managed to fix it yet. Sorry!



11) Contact me:
--------------

For comments, suggestions, and bug-reports, please send mail to dsc@c2i.net

Download new versions from the game's homepage:

   http://home.c2i.net/dsc/deluxesnake.html



12) Credits:
-----------

Design, Programming, and Graphics: Daniel Schlyder

Additional Graphics: Jan Evensen (explosion anim)
                     Darren Hebden (shield and bag of gold)

Music: Fredrik Sand (Fall, and Partille)
       Jay Baron (The Jayomon Beat)
       
       (While playing, press F1 to display name of current tune).

Testing: Eivind Johan Smedholen (RIP)
         Bernt A. Linge
         Ole Anders Hove
         Trond Refsnes
         Massimiliano Lussana

Allegro logo, sfx, textures, and fonts: Unknown
(Contact me, and I'll put your name here!)

Special Thanks to: Michael Bukin
                   Jani Utriainen
                   The Allegro Community

Allegro DLL compressed using UPX (http://upx.tsx.org).



13) Changes:
-----------

2.9.1 - 14.09.2000
o increased chance of Tripler slightly
o multiplier power-ups no longer affect length removed by biting tail
o tailbite always cuts visible length in half (minimum length is five though)
o uses new Allegro DLL version 3.9.33 (you can delete 3.9.32)
o minor speed optimization (maybe?)
* a few very minor bugs fixed


2.9 - 11.08.2000
+ added support for longer games with 3 lives for the Deluxe modes
+ added support for 4 different gamespeeds (easy, normal, fast, and too fast)
o changed costs of power-ups in Deluxe Cash mode. (Shields cost 1 and bombs
   cost 4, all other power-ups cost 2). So it's harder now, and impossible to
   go on forever just buying Diet Pills. Warning: Old Deluxe Cash hiscores-
   lists will be deleted. Hiscores-files from version 2.8.4+ can be loaded in
   this version, but saved files won't be compatible with older versions.
o added power-up Tripler (triples scores and doubles lengths). Rare.
* fixed a few minor bugs
o lots of minor stuff you probably won't notice


2.8.6 - 15.07.2000
o added soundfx for end of poison and antidote effects, stonefood spawning,
   eating mushroom generator while protected by antidote, and removing mushroom
   generator
o replaced sounds for spawning and eating mushroom generators, stonefood
   countdown, get powerup reverse, and action failed
o changed display to show next hiscore on list, instead of always first place
o last game's score displayed below hiscores, if not high enough to enter list
o awards for mushrooms and mushroom generator increased slightly
o added fade in/out effect to dynamite frame
* fixed merge hiscores-files error message not displayed if number of
   parameters is above two


2.8.4 - 01.07.2000
* fixed a couple of serious bugs in the hiscores code. Unfortunately I had to
   break hiscores-list compatibility again. (I'll fix your old hiscores-file if
   you email it to me!)
* changed stats fileformat to fix a stupid bug. Old stats will be lost.


For info on older versions, visit the game's homepage.