Welcome to

   R O C K S   ' N '   D I A M O N D S
   -----------------------------------

A game for Unix/X11 by Holger Schemel, (c) 1995 by Holger Schemel.

Introduction
============
This is a nice little game with color graphics and sound for your
Unix system with color X11. You need an 8-Bit color display or better.
It is not recommended on black&white systems, and maybe not on gray
scale systems.

If you know the game "Boulderdash" (Commodore C64) or "Emerald Mine"
(Amiga), you know what "ROCKS'N'DIAMONDS" is about.


Getting started
===============
Just 'cd' to the 'rocks_n_diamonds' directory and type 'rocksndiamonds'!
This works only on Linux boxes, because the included binary was
compiled for Linux systems. If you have another Unix system like
HPUX, NetBSD or SUN, you first have to type 'make' to compile it.
This may be needed on Linux systems, too, if you have an older
system (kernel, libraries, ...) or if you have only ELF libraries.

(The included binary was compiled on the following system:
Kernel 1.2.13, libc 4.5.26, GCC 2.5.8, 'a.out' format)

The Menues
==========
You can see eight blue circles on the left side of the eight green menu
texts; these are buttons to activate the menu commands by simply clicking
on them with the left mouse button. The button will then change to red.
(You can control the menues over the keyboard or joystick, too. Just use
the arrow keys and the 'Return' or 'Enter' key or, if you use a joystick,
the appropriate direction and the fire button.)

The menu 'name'
---------------
When you start the game the first time, your login name will appear in
the 'NAME:' field. If you want to use a different name for playing, for
example a funny player name or a name for cheating, you can click on the
button and enter a new name.

If you choose a certain special name, you will be in a cheat mode where
you can choose all levels without playing the lower levels before... :)

The menue 'level'
-----------------
If you have played some levels of this game, you can choose the already
played levels at any time, but you cannot choose the higher levels. This
means, you can choose levels from level 0 to the highest level that you
have ever won. This is known as your 'handicap'.

If the level number is red, you have choosen a 'ready' level, if it is
yellow, you have choosen a 'user' level, which is blank and can be
edited by yourself with the built-in level editor (see below).

To choose new level series, click on the button on the left and choose
the new level serie.

Hall of fame
------------
Click on this button to see a list of the best players of this level.
Click again to go back to the main menu.

Level creator
-------------
This brings you to the level editor, if you have switched to a 'yellow'
level, which are empty and can be filled by yourself. See below.

Info screen
-----------
This screen shows you all elements which appear in the game and presents
you the background music loops which you can listen to while playing the
levels (only available on Linux systems).

Start game
----------
This will start the game.

Setup
-----
To change some things in the game, use the setup menu.
You can enable/disable "Sound" (enables/disables _all_ sounds in
the game), "Sound loops" (only allowed on Linux systems with
VoxWare[tm] sound driver; don't worry if you never heard of it --
it's the name of the standard Linux sound driver), "Game music"
(can always be enabled on very fast systems [exception: you don't
like it], on slower systems it will take some percent of CPU time
which will slow things down a bit) and "Toons", which will forbid/
permit the little animated toons.

"Buffered Gfx" can be set to "off" on slower systems, "Fading" gives
a nice fading effect when displaying new screens, but unfortunately
I haven't found a system which is fast enough to display it so far.
(Maybe this works better on highly accelerated X servers.) Better set
this to "off" if you have a normal system...

Set "auto-record" to "on" if you want to automatically record each game
to tape.

If you have a Linux system with a joystick, you can choose the "1st" or
the "2nd" joystick port and use "Cal. Joystick" to calibrate it. Use
"Save and exit" after calibration to save it for later playing sessions.

"Exit" quits the setup menu without saving the changes, "Save and exit"
will save and then return to the main menu.

Quit
----
Exit the game.


How To Play The Game
====================
When the game has started, you can see the playfield on the left side
and a control field on the right side. The control field contains the
following elements:

Level indicator		Tells you which level you are playing.

Emeralds		Shows you how many emeralds you still need
			to win the current level.

Dynamite		Shows you how many dynamite bombs you have.

Keys			Shows you which keys you have in your inventory.

Score			Shows the current score. In some levels there
			are some extra items giving extra score points.

Time			The seconds you have still left to play the level.

Stop/Pause/Play		Game controls to stop the game, pause it and go on
			playing. If the tape recorder is recording your
			game, it is stopping/pausing/playing as well.

Music buttons		The three music buttons can be used to control the
			background music loop, the 'looping' sounds and
			all other sounds. The little red light shows you
			if it is enabled or disabled. On slower systems
			(and a 486DX33 with Soundblaster _is_ a slower
			system) it increases the game speed to turn off
			background music. You can completely turn off all
			sound effects in the setup menu, although it is
			much more fun to have them enabled when it
			doesn't eats up to much speed.

			(A little note: The sound server currently needs
			about 10% CPU time on my 486DX/33/SBPro system
			when playing background music. I wonder if this
			would get better with a better soundcard, like
			Gravis Ultrasound, or if only pure CPU power
			helps in this case...)

About the game itself: Of course you know Boulderdash, so you will know
how to play the game. :)
If not: You can move your playing figure (the smiley) with the arrow
keys or with the joystick (if you have no joystick and even no arrow
keys on your keyboard, you can use the keys 'i', 'j', 'k' and 'm' for
the directions. To 'snap' a field near you without moving to it, you
can use the left fire button on your joystick (hold it down, move the
stick to 'snap' the field, release the button) or the keys 'e', 's',
'd' and 'x'. To place a piece of dynamite, use the right fire button
on your joystick or use the 'b' key (and, after placing the dynamite,
better see to move away from this field...).

Just try the levels from the 'tutorial' level serie to see what most
of the elements do or have a look at the info screen!

Note: It is *highly recommended* to use a joystick for playing this
game! It is possible to play it with the keyboard, but it is *much
more fun* to play with a joystick, and some levels are very difficult
to solve with the keyboard. So, the best platform for this game is a
Linux system (which gives you background music, too).

The Level Editor
================
To build your own levels, just choose a 'yellow', empty level. If you
cannot find any 'yellow' levels, choose a different level serie or
choose the higher level numbers (if you have a small 'handicap' number,
the higher levels will be skipped to reach the 'empty' levels.

Another way is to create your own level series. Just add a line to the
file 'levels/ROCKS.levelinfo' with the following entries:
- the name of the level directory (create this directory under 'levels')
- the name of the level serie (don't use any whitespaces within the name)
- the 'ready' (red) levels (start with zero)
- the 'empty' (yellow) levels (set this to some number of blank levels)

To edit a level, you can use all three mouse buttons to draw in the
level window. Click into the elements field with one of the three buttons
to remap it to the new element. Use the arrow widgets to scroll around in
the level. Use the 'flood fill' field to init exactly ony flood fill
operation in the level field (you will be prompted). Click on 'control
window' to switch to the control window.

In the control window you can modify different parameters like the size
of the level playfield, the name of the level, the scores for different
elements and something like that. The four 3x3 field on the upper left
can be edited like the level field and indicate the 'contents' of smashed
crunchers (just try it out with some crunchers in one of your own levels).

'Undo & Exit' leaves the level editor, throwing away all the changes you
have done to the level.
'Save & Exit' leveas the level editor and saves the new level (the old one
will be deleted).


The Tape Recorder
=================
You can use the tape recorder to record games and play tapes of previously
played games. Just use them like a normal video recorder.

Recording a game on tape:
-------------------------
Just press the 'record' button (the one with the red point on it) and
either press 'Start Game' or press on 'record' or 'pause' to end the
pause mode and start playing and recording.

If you have set "auto record" in the setup menu to "on", you just have
to press 'Start Game' as usual.

Saving a game tape:
-------------------
To save a tape to the tape file corresponding to the level (that means
that you can only save one tape file for each level), just press the
'eject' button (the very left button). Then you will be prompted if
you really want to replace the old tape (if an old tape exists).

Playing a tape:
---------------
Just press 'play' and then either 'play' or 'pause'.

While recording or playing, you can press 'pause' to stop the recording
or the playing of the tape and continue by pressing 'pause' again.
You can use either the tape recorder buttons or the game control buttons
for this purpose.


And Now Have Fun!
=================
Have fun playing the game, building new levels and breaking all high
scores! ;)

If you have any comments, problems, suggestions, donations, flames,
send them to

	aeglos@valinor.owl.de
or	aeglos@uni-paderborn.de

or Snail Mail

	Holger Schemel
	Sennehof 28
	33659 Bielefeld
	GERMANY

Have fun,
		Holger
