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                   Alternate Reality Entertainment Presents
                    Our Dbut Mini Game By Terry Cavanagh
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  Here it is, finally, even if it did take me 3 weeks longer than expected!
  Consider ALP an adventure in AI - This is my first every experiment in
  making an intelligent computer player. ALP contains not 1, but 4 different
  puzzles games for you to challenge. 

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System Specifications
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  The game works perfectly on my 486, however, to get music running, you'll
  need a soundblaster compatible sound card. For the graphics, you'll need
  a VGA monitor. I've never had any memory problems, however, only
  conventianal memory is used in the game, so make sure you have a good bit 
  free to play the game. And finally, you'll need an open mind and a
  sense of forethough to suceed at the games.

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Licence Agreement
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  Like all my games to date, ALP is open source freeware - look in the
  source sub-directory for the source code. Being freeware, you're free,
  in fact, encouraged to give these games to as many people as possible,
  as long as you don't charge for it, and you don't change the contents
  of the game. The source code is supplied for other programmers to
  learn from, not to copy and use the routines in your programs. If you
  are curious to how I mananged to program some of the games more
  advanced features (AI, Translucancy), I'm happy to tell you,
  just please ask me instead of taking the code stright from the game.

  ALP was programmed and compiled in Microsoft's QuickBasic 4.5.

  This game is just a mini game, meaning that it was an experiment in
  some new aspect of programming, that it's a very small game, a 5
  minute game, that it took only a few days to program or that it's the spin
  off from another game's engine. More often, however, mini games are
  just projects we take on to pass the time.

  The Library used in making this game is a mixture of James Paige's
  Bam Library and Jason Glouds Gslib. Gslib is a good utility, but I do
  regret using it. The game would have been simple to program in pure
  QB. However, the graphics engine is the same as the graphics engine
  I was going to use for a puzzle game called 'The Crypt', which needed
  the Lib because it was much more graphically intensive. I only expected
  to take a week at this program, however, it took me a great deal longer
  than I expected. The bottom line is that I should have re-written the
  graphics routines to work without Gslib. One Lib that I could not have
  done without, however, is James Paige's Music Lib. I don't even know
  where to start programming to a sound card, and Qbasic Currently has
  no useful music utilities - QMidi is unreliable and userunfriendly,
  BWSB is fine except that the music files take up too much space, while
  DS4QB requires windows to do much the same job that I would have done
  with BWSB. Having seen the Hamster Republic's Rpg, Wandering Hamster,
  I was very interested in the music format they were using. James was
  more than happy to let me use the format for our games, so I'd like to
  say a big special thanks in particular to him.

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Game one : Lights Out
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  I'm really not sure where this game originated, although It's possibly
  one of those handheld games that were out a few years ago. Since then,
  there have been hundreds of games like it made for various computers.
  Here's Mine.

  The bigest difference between this and other lights out games is that
  the game intentially does not wrap at the corners - making it possible
  to 'screw' yourself up in certain levels! Unlike the other games in this
  compilation, the only person you compete with in this game is a strict
  time limit.

  The game concept is simple. You're shown a mixture of red and blue tiles.
  Selecting a tile will cause it and surronding tiles to change color,
  from blue to red and red to blue. To win, make all the tiles blue. Simple?

  Controls are simple too - Simply move with the arrow keys and select
  with the space bar.

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Game two : Overload
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  The game is based on the Commodore classic by the same name, and according
  to the credits on the commodore game, it was based on a game from a
  V-Tech computer.

  It's probably my favorite game from the pack, and also probably the
  most challenging. However, it's kinda complecated to understand at first,
  so here's some basic instructions.

  Move about and select a position with the arrow keys and the space bar.

  When you select a space, You place a tile there, and the number one
  will be printed on the tile. On your next turn, you can select a new
  space of click the old tile again. If you select the old tile, you'll
  see the number '2' on the tile. You can keep doing this until the number
  is three and you click it again. This time, you will capture every
  tile surrounding that one and add one to them. However, if the tile
  above you was already number 3, When you capture the tile the tile
  above it will explode also, capturing every adjacent tile. In this way
  you can cause a chain reaction, possibly capturing the whole board
  if you have your pieces set up right. The last complecation is that
  not every tile has a limit of 4 before it will 'overload'. If the tile
  is at the edge, only 3 will be required, and if the tile is in the
  corner, only 2 will be needed.

  The winner is the person who manages to wipe out all to oppisition. In
  a two player game, that's not very difficult, but it becomes increasingly
  difficult when you add more players, with a maximum of 8 players allowed.

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Game three : Connect Four
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  Connect four is a very old game. It's origin is unknown, however, the
  most well know version is the board game with the red and yellow
  pieces and blue board. That's the one that everyone is farmilar with.

  Play is quite simple - Place a tile on the board. Be aware of gravity.
  Your tile will fall to the bottom of the board. The idea is to score
  4 in a row, be it diagnally, vertically or horizontally.

  I've had reports (From the demo of this part of the game which I
  released) that it's both too hard and too easy! Which makes me think
  the the AI is just right the way it is. However, the problem with the
  game is that the AI is calculated the same way every time you play,
  so if you can beat it once, you can beat it every time.
                                                                    
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Game four : Dominate
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  Dominate is based on a reasonably new windows game where you have to
  capture as many of your opposing players pieces as possible. The winner
  is the player who occupys most of the board.

  To move, select one of your pieces and select one of the possible moves.
  The possible moves beside your piece place another piece there, capturing
  all enemy pieces beside it. However, the possible pieces that are two
  moves away from your piece will cause you to remove that piece and place
  it in the new position. Sometimes this can be the best move, but beware
  that is doesn't leave you open for attack.

  Dominate is also quite challenging, and borders on imposible with 7
  opposing players!

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Contact
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  If you're interested in this game and want to see more like it, go to
  our website at www.alternaterealityentertainment.cjb.net. It's not up just 
  yet at the time of writing, but will be pretty soon.

  Our next release will likely be the Dark Legends Mini games collection,
  a compelation of the mini games we made in Dark Legends Software.

  Drop me a line if you enjoyed this game!
  terrycavanagh@eircom.net

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