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|______________________________________________________________________________|______________________|
||                                                                            |||____________________||
||                                                                            ||| /|  /\ /|  _\ /\ /\||
||                                                                            ||| _|_ \/ _|_ _/ \/ \/||
||                                                                            |||____________________||
||                                                                            |||____________________||
||                                                                            |||  /\  /\    /  \    ||
||______ ______ ______ _______ _____ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______||| |  \/ | \/ \__/    ||
||      |      |      |      |      |      |      |      |      |      |      |||  \    / /\ /  \    || 
||______|______|______|______|______|______|______|______|______|______|______|||___\__/_____\__/____||
||      |      |      |      |      |      |      |      |      |      |      |||____________________|| 
||______|______|______|______|______|______|______|______|______|______|______|||   |||||||||||||||||||
||      |      |      |      |      |      |      |      |      |      |      |||___|||||||||||||||||||
||______|______|______|______|______|______|______|______|______|______|______|||____________________||
||      |      |      |      |      |             |      |      |      |      |||      ___           ||
||______|______|______|______|______|             |______|______|______|______|||  /\   |            ||
||      |      |      |               _____              |      |      |      ||| |--| _|_           || 
||______|______|______|              |__O__|             |______|______|______|||       _            ||
||                     | |     |                                              |||/|  /\ _\ /\ /\ /|  ||
||                        \                                                   |||_|_ \/ _/ \/ \/ _|_ ||
||                         |                                                  |||      ___           ||
||                     |       |        o                                     |||  /\   |            ||
||                                                                            ||| |--| _|_           ||
||   _____                                                                    |||   _                ||
||  |__O__|            |       |          _/                                  |||/\ _\ /|  /\ /\ /\  ||
||                                       /                                    |||\/ _/ _|_ \/ \/ \/  ||
||                                                                            |||                    ||
||                     |       |                                              |||                    ||
||                    _-_______-_                                             |||____________________||
||                   |_ _______ _|                                            |||____________________||
||_                    -       -                            _\|/_            _|||  _-______-_        ||
||_=\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/=_||| |_ ______ _| \/ /| ||
||                                                          -/|\-             |||   -      -   /\ _|_||
||____________________________________________________________________________|||____________________||
|______________________________________________________________________________|______________________|


				OUTBREAK v2.0

I. Beta Notification
1. Game requirements
2. Playing the game
 a. getting started
 b. playing
 c. bricks
 d. power-ups
 e. keys
3. Speed Issues
4. troubleshooting
5. known bugs
6. Releases
7. Contact
8. File list

I. Please note that this is a beta version of outbreak 2, there may be glitches or problems. 
I want to fix these glitches, but I need to know of them. Also if you find any level patterns,
meaning the ball gets stuck somewhere in the level bouncing in the save place over and over.
This is an inherent problem when the ball can change angles. Before telling me about these
make sure it isn't just the ball moving slowly out of its pattern. See contact for my e-mail,
send me the level number and then general area of the level (top left, middle, etc...)

1. Game requirments
  required:
   CPU: 		Pentium 75 MHz
   RAM: 		350k
   Hard drive:   	1 Meg free
   Monitor:	        320x200x256 color or greater
   Mouse                
  recommended:
   CPU: 		Pentium 100 MHz
   RAM: 		1 Meg
   Hard drive:   	2 Megs free
   Monitor:		320x200x256 color or greater
   Sound Card           Sound blaster or compatible
   Mouse                

2. Playing the game
 a. To launch the game, double-click on the outbreak.exe in the 
    main directory. Once at the main menu  use the up and down arrow 
    keys and enter to select an option:

	Play      Start the game
      Continue    continue a game
        Help      View Help
        Demo      Watch Demo 
       Options    Change options
       Credits    View Credits
        Exit      Exit the game
    
    Play
     Start a game
    Continue
     Go to the code screen where you can type a level code given to
     you every five levels.
    Help
     Go to the help screen. Use the right and left arrows to scroll
     through help that shows you all the bricks and powerups and explains
     the game
    Demo
     The computer controlled game, plays a random level. Press escape or
     wait for it to finnish to return to the main menu
    Options
     Change game options:
      Sound
       Cycle through sound options of no sound, PC speaker, or Sound Blaster
      Speed
       Speed of the game, this can't be changed in the game, so use the test speed
       option to see how fast it is.
      Mouse Sensitivity
       Change the sensitivity of the mouse (0 to 63, 0 is superfast, 63 is slow) 
      Key Sensitivity
       Change the sensitivity of the mouse(0 to 63, 0 is slow, 63 is fast
      Sound Quality, 11Khz or 8Khz, if the game runs slow, try 8Khz or turn off sound
        
 
b.  Most people have heard of the game breakout, you have a paddle 
    and ball and you have to knock out bricks in the level without 
    the ball going off the screen. When you start the game, you will 
    have a paddle with the ball stuck in the middle.  To launch it,
    press both mouse buttons at the same time. You then have to keep 
    the ball from getting zapped in the electric ray at the bottom 
    of the playing area, by keeping it up in the brick part with the 
    paddle. Just move the paddle under the ball to bounce it back up, 
    or catch a powerup. When you run out of lives, your paddle will 
    fall into the ray also. If you have achieved a high score, a input
    prompt will be displayed for you to type in a name, the game will 
    save your name and score. 
    
c.  There are twelve bricks, varying below:
       
       Grey, Red, Green, Blue   Single hit bricks, 250 points each
       dynamite                 blows up a brick in all directions, 2500 points 
                                around it
       bomb                     blows up two bricks around, 2500 points
       Glass                    cracks on first and second hits, 
                                breaks on the third, 750 points
       bonuses                  single hit, gives you major points  
       spring                   Bounces the ball in the opposite direction
                                it came, no points
       cement                   can't be knocked out except with explosives, no points
       heart brick              Gives you a life, no points       

       There are also invisible bricks that can't be seen until they are hit, when they
       will turn grey. They are normal bricks after that

d.     Power-Ups:
       Orange                   Fireball, ball sets off explosions when it bounces off bricks
       Red                      A paddle gun, press left button to shoot a bullet
                                that will blow up bricks, including bonuses without 
                                their effect
       Black                    Cannon ball, ball goes through bricks
       Green                    Makes the paddle sticky and you relaunch 
       Blue                     The paddle is unstable, sliding at the current momentum
                                and decellerating when you stop moving, making the paddle much
                                harder to control                       
       Yellow                   Your paddle is controlled by AI for 30 seconds
       Purple                   Reverses paddle movement
       Heart                    Gives you an extra life
       Lightning                much faster and aims, shocks the paddle for 2 seconds      
       Bonus Score              falling score you can catch for extra big points      
       Bomb                     Blows up bricks below, but don't touch it!
       L                        Next level

    If you pick up a powerup, it turns any others you have off. If you get shocked
    by lighting, you lose your powerup, and bombs will blow up your paddle and take
    away a life.
       
  
  Orange                   
    Fireball, ball sets off explosions when it bounces off bricks, blowing
    up anything in the radius
  Red
    This powerup makes it so the red things on the end of the paddle are guns.
    You can click or press space to fire. You must let go of the button to 
    shoot again, you can't hold it down. Bonuses will also be blown up without
    gaining the bonuses value. That goes for extra lives too.
  Black
    makes it so the ball dosen't bounce off bricks, otherwise it is a normal 
    ball.
  Green
    The ball will not bounce off the paddle, and you have to press both buttons,
    just like launching the ball for the first time.
  Blue
    Makes the paddle slippery and has momentum, but I think it is worth 2500 points
  Yellow 
    The compute takes over the paddle for thirty seconds. If it dies, this goes away,
    and it won't get any powerups, nor will it dodge bad ones
  Purple
    When you move the mouse, the paddle goes in the opposite direction, making it much
    harder to play.
  

3. Speed Issues
   First of all, I didn't know much about programming when I started this game, so the
   game runs at about 110 frames per second when the ball is going the right speed. 60
   fps is excellent for a game, movies run at 63 or something in america. I could have 
   made fewer updates per second and move everything farther, so it wouldn't require as 
   good of a computer.   

   If the game is too slow, try the following:
    Turn off the sound
    
    Turn up the speed of the overall game, this is a delay to slow everything down
    
    Turn down sound quality, this will make it so the wave player
    dosen't have to process as much information and won't have to 
    send as much to the sound buffer
   
    For some reason, the compiled version of the game is slower than the code. If
    you somehow made it compile, try running the source.
  
   If that dosen't work, e-mail me with your computer specifications.
   I will try to tell you how to speed it up.

4. troubleshooting 
   If you can't make this work, your computer sucks or you are
   an idiot, but email me anyway (see contact), with the following:
   Your computer's following specificatinos:
     CPU 
     RAM
     Sound Card



6. Releases
Outbreak v1.0
written in 1997 by Michael, Dillon and Isaac
We never released nor updated this one, been sitting on my 
hard drive ever since(it sucked, run old.bas to see)

Outbreak v2.0a
Started in October 1998, by Dillon and Michael
-Got the core of the game done, glass, grey brick, cement, 
and dynamite were done

Outbreak v2.01a
-added more blocks, bonus, double bonus, megabonus
-added mouse control
-added computer demo
-added trig to make the ball go at any angle
-10 levels done

Outbreak v2.02a
-added help system
-added bombs
-added cheats
-added speed control

Outbreak v2.03a
-added star bricks
-added help system
-20 levels done

Outbreak v2.04a
-fixed some masking glitches(can't blow up the paddle)
-added sound blaster support
-added springs

Outbreak v2.05b
*first beta*

Outbreak v2.06b
*Beta*
-fixed some trig errors (damn those radians!)
-fixed a mouse glitch
-fixed paddle bug
-Added wave sounds
-completed 25 of 25 levels
-added falling powerups
 -Paddle gun
 -cannon ball
 -sticky paddle
 -reverse
 -life
 -lighting
 -AI
 -Clock

Outbreak v2.07b
*Beta*
-Out of stack space, need to optimize
-fixed some powerup glitches
-removed paddle gun, too buggy

Outbreak v2.08b
*Beta*
-fixed stack problem (save vars, CLEAR:CLEAR, reload vars)
-fixed glue glitch
-fixed high score glitch
-made some levels

Outbreak v2.09b
*Beta*
-added falling bombs, can blow up the cement(or paddle) below
-fixed patterns in levels
-readded paddle gun, works now
-replaced clock with slippery (clock made the game too easy)

Outbreak v2.10b
*Beta*
Not much, now that the game is pretty much finnished
I have been playing more than updating little stuff
-fixed some sound problems
-fixed more level problems

Outbreak v2.11b
*Beta*
-fixed a glitch where you got a powerup on a wall and it would
 make it so you couldn't move within two pixels of the border.
-made three levels

Outbreak v2.12b
*Beta*
-Made the points rise from the paddle when you get a powerup.
-Fixed the reverse/slippery/AI/shock powerup glitch where the 
 paddle would jump when it the powerup ended.
-Finnished all 50 levels, I might modify some

Outbreak v2.13b
*Beta*
-Added sound quality option, much smoother with low quality
-Bad news, I can't make it compile, the code is too big. If I was to 
 make it work, I have to get rid of a thousand lines of code.
 I don't know whether to release the source and let you code
 rippers tear it up, or leave it on my computer until I figure
 out a way to compile it.

Outbreak v2.14b
-fixed demo glitch, the paddle gun only shot once for thirty seconds
-removed coninue option from the main menu, I'm lazy and didn't want
 to finnish the continue stuff.
-fixed bug with falling bonus points, it used to not add to your score
-made the firework spell 'Outbreak'
-added sparks to stuff like the bricks and paddle gun

Outbreak v2.15b
-added Fireball powerup(cool!)
-added invisible bricks
-made it so all sparks could be different colors



7. Contact
Please e-mail any bugs to the following email address with 
the subject 'Outbreak':

    Dillon	 katmai25@hotmail.com

Describe the bug and tell me what was happening in the 
game. Also send the following information:

CPU type/Speed
Amount of RAM 
If you have a mouse and if you where using it
If you have a soundcard and if you had sound active with the sound quality

Example:
 
 The paddle won't go all the way to the wall when the slippery
 powerup is out of time

 Pentium II 250 MHz CPU
 16 megs RAM
 Mouse, I was using it
 Sound Blaster 16, it was used on 8k sound

8. File list
-Main directory 
 Outbreak.bas
 Reset.bas
 Old.bas

 Readme.txt
 Progammers read this.txt

-Sprites\
 sprites.bsv
 sprites2.bsv

-Data\
 Credits.dat
 Help.dat
 Help2.dat
 Hiscore.dat
 Firework.dat 
 Outbreak.ico
 Outbreak.cfg

-Sound\
 -11k
  01.wav
  02.wav
  ...
  22.wav
  24.wav
 -8k
  01.wav
  02.wav
  ...
  22.wav
  24.wav

-Levels\
 1.lev
 2.lev
 ...
 49.lev
 50.lev



