
           Help file for !ShPlouc by Florent de Dinechin

   The fully 3D, interactive and multimedia game with stereo sound
                      in 16K of BASIC !

                         Version 2.0


Copyright notice:
This game is freeware, which means that you are free to distribute it 
as long as all the files are distributed (including this one 
and the !RunImage0 file) and as long as you don't make any profit on it
(Contact me before including on any magazine cover disc).
You are also free to modify it (regardless of its current near-perfection), 
but I want a copy of your version before everybody.


      What is ShPlouc?

This protogame is a poor copy of the old Shufflepuck (sp?) on the old Mac. 
Some day you just want to show to your friends what you can do in BASIC 
over a weekend on a 4 year old Archie.

This game is fully 3D, interactive and multimedia with stereo sound
and artificial personality. Yes it is.



     How do I play?
     
With great enjoyment. 



     Why do the graphics look so poor?
     
Well, the game was designed on an A4 which
  1/ has a black-and-white VGA screen, and
  2/ has an ARM3, at something like 20 Mhz.

Because of 1/ I didn't bother to play with colors which I can't see.
I'm not merely being jealous of you coloured people: color modes are
also slower, and because of 2/ I'm really needing this bandwidth to get
25 frames/s.

If you want color, offer me a RiscPC, which solves 1/ and 2/.





    The sound annoys me... What can I do?

You can press f12 and then enter 'audio off' :) Or see below



    My grandfather loves it but doesn't hear the sound ?

The volume is set by the third line of the
!RunImage. Set it to 0 if you want to get rid of the sound, 
or to 15 for the grandfather.



    In which other case do I have to edit the code myself?

Well, there is also the second line, selecting between 
two equally magnificient graphics for the ball (TRUE/FALSE).
You probably don't want to touch this.

Anyway the "source" is provided as !RunImage0 (commented in french only,
that's the cultural part of it). Feel free to edit it.
(I had to compress the game with StrongBS to keep it fast enough for
my A4)



    Acknowledgements, by the way
    
Thanks to Mohsen Alshayef for StrongBS, and to Dom Symes et al for Zap.



    History and antihistory (what do we get in the future?)

Well, I managed to pack the 2-ball game in the A4, that's for version 2.0.

I am still looking for decent samples, if anybody cares
(the ROM voices suck don't they?).
I will also add rotation inertia (?is it the proper phrase), 
which should be simple and fun (keep telling that).
I might also add little tokens on the playtable to make the ball faster, 
random bumps, etc. I might. It's getting difficult in BASIC.

Then I'll add several different characters, with neural network 
and genetic algorithm for game learning. Oh, and they'll whistle 
"l'Internationale" and discuss about existentialism while playing.
This major rewrite will be in Java, of course.

If anybody out there has other ideas...



   So where do I send the money ?

 
No, no money. A RiscPC should suffice, as I said.



f2d@mygale.org       Florent de Dinechin
                      145 Queen's Court
                       51 Queen's way
                        London W2 4QS
