Documentation for The TunnelMan v1.0 ==================================== Index ===== 1. What is The TunnelMan? 2. System Requirement 3. Installation and start up 4. Instructions for game play 5. Instructions for tunnel editor 6. History of The TunnelMan 7. Disclaimer 1. What is The TunnelMan? ========================== The TunnelMan is a semi-action game which requires you to think a little bit in order to get pass each level. In this game, you control a little person (who is a miner) and you have to help him to find his way out from the tunnel. In each level, you have to collect all the dynamites and a detonator before you can use them to blow a hole on the emergency door. After that, you will be able to get to the next level. A detail story can be found when running the program. 2. System Requirement ====================== * 80286 or higher processor * conventional memory of around 300k * VGA monitor * MS-DOS version 5.0 or above (I programmed this in MS-DOS 5.0 but it might work for DOS that has a version number less than 5.0) * disk space of around 1MB (a hard disk is recommended) 3. Installation and start up ============================= It would be great if you can install this game into a harddisk since this game requires frequent disk access. After unzipping the program using pkunzip, you can run the game by typing "tunnel". You may supply the following command line arguments: /h: display help screen /f: set the name of the tunnel file, default is tunnel.dat /s: set animation speed Once you have got into the title screen, you will going to read the story about this game and you can skip to the next screen by pressing any key. Pressing ESC will bring you to the key instruction screen which shows you the rules and the keys for the game. 4. Instruction for game play ============================= You can use the cursor to control the person's movement. Note that there is no key that allows you to "jump" to a higher level. In order to reach a high tunnel level, you must use the ladder and press the up cursor key. You can "drop" yourself from a higher level to a lower level and the person will not get hurt. Collecting objects is simple; you only have to walk to the object and you will pick it up automatically. Note that when there is a brick on top of your head, if you walk under it, the brick will fall. An animation sequence is shown in instruction screen and I highly recommend you read it before you start playing the game. Keys: up arrow: climb up down arrow: climb down left arrow: walk left right arrow: walk right ESC: display a list of keys, number of lives and oxygen left Q: quit program R: retry level F: refill lives (to 9) and refill oxygen space: invoke the tunnel editor 5. Instruction for tunnel editor ================================= The editor itself is pretty self-explanatory. There is only one thing requires to talk about: what keys do you have to use after you get into the graphical editor (i.e. by selecting option 1 from the editor's main menu). Within the editor, you can use the cursor keys to move the big cursor. The HOME and END key can be used to move the cursor to the beginning or to the end of the line. To place / change an object, use the number keys (or the keypad with NUMLOCK on). 1 - brick 2 - ladder 3 - dynamite 4 - detonator 5 - exit 6 - person 7 - wall (or delete if you like) Pressing ESC during editing will bring you back to the main editor menu. Then you may choose to save the level, play the level etc. 6. History of The TunnelMan ============================ This game's idea is taken from the game that I wrote for my "1 line screen" pocket computer 6 years ago. I had decided to port it to the PC a year or 2 ago but I couldn't motivate myself for doing it. I managed to start it in January this year because I was teaching a class of information technology students and I wish to show them how "fun" programming can be, so I did it. The program didn't turn out to be that bad =) but I still think there are quite a few improvements could be made... I hope you will enjoy playing this game as much as I enjoy writing it. This program is written using Turbo Pascal 6.0 with TASM 3.0. Since this is the first game that I wrote, it would be appreciated if you can kindly give me some comments so that I can improve when I write my next game. Here's my e-mail address: chcy@mundil.cs.mu.oz.au Have fun... Cheung =) 19th November 1994 7. Disclaimer ============== You are running this program AT YOUR OWN RISK. The author is not responsible for any damage done by this program.