Bombz
=====

Tony Houghton
271 Upper Weston Lane
Southampton
SO19 9HY

tony@caspian.uklinux.net	http://www.caspian.uklinux.net/bombz.html

Introduction
------------
Bombz is a little puzzle game I started writing ages ago. It's nowhere near
finished, but it's good enough for a preliminary freeware release; I
haven't got time to work on it at the moment, but positive response could
change my mind. At the moment there are 30 levels, and now I've made an
effort to put them in something approaching order of difficulty.

The redraw routine uses an inefficient brute force technique, redrawing the
whole level every time. It isn't really optimised, so slow machines tend to
struggle a bit wih VGA monitors. Apart from that, it seems OK on an A310
and on a RISC PC, on low and high resolution monitors.

Conditions
----------
Bombz and its associated files are freeware, so they may be freely
distributed, provided they are left unaltered and they are not used to
make profit apart to cover PD library costs. They may be included as
part of a larger package, for example a CD collection, provided a charge
is made only for the collection as a whole, not specifically for Bombz.

Please make an effort to design levels, and if you do, send them to me
so I can distribute them for everybody's benefit.

Instructions
------------
The object of the game is to get rid of all the bombs on each level then
escape off the edge of the screen. To blow up a bomb, push it to where you
want to cause an explosion, then collect a detonator and touch the bomb
again and quickly get out of the way. A bomb destroys everything surrounding
it except the metallic walls; if it blows up another bomb, that takes out
everything around it too so you can set off chain reactions.

You can't push a bomb while you have a detonator, and if you collect two
detonators at once, one will be wasted.

To progress to the next level you must complete the task before the time bar
at the bottom of the screen runs down, but you are allowed to continue
practising on the current level after it runs out.

Choices
-------
You can choose between the familiar ZX'/ keys and the cursor keys to move. No
other keys are needed while playing. Other keys on the menu screen are
self-explanatory.

If you have a VGA or multisync monitor you will find that the 'Standard'
monitor setting is either horrible to look at (flickery at 50Hz) or
letterboxed with too fast gameplay. Try 'De-luxe VGA' at first; if you have
an ARM 2 or ARM 250 the gameplay will then probably be too sluggish, so try
'Economy VGA'. In fact, uncached, my A310 was still too slow with this
setting, but who uses a multisync monitor without an ARM 3 anyway?

You can choose the number of sound channels or turn the sound off altogether.

Passwords
---------
Passwords are stored with the level data on disk, not in memory, so you have
to enter the level number first. Then you are given two tries at the password
before being kicked out to the desktop.

Acknowledgements
----------------
Additional level designs by:
Ron Houghton
Chris Joseph
Volker Pschel
David Allsopp
Tristan Cooper
