
Dino Puzzle Documentation
=========================

For The Puzzle Pack Version 2.0
Produced By Detached Solutions

Main Developer: Brandon Sterner
Co-Developers: Jason Kovacs, Dan Englender

What is Dino Puzzle?
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This is an Action-Puzzle game where objects fall from the right to the left side of
the screen, and you must eliminate them by matching two pairs of similar objects.
There are birds, snakes, plants, and mushrooms as objects that can be matched, and
as you remove them from the playing field, points will be awarded. You must try to
keep the game going as long as possible and gain points to get the high score. The
game will get increasingly faster as you go along, thus keeping the game continually
challenging and fun to play.

There are four possible rows for these objects to randomly appear in at the right of
the screen, and they will slowly drop to the left side and stop moving when another
object is in the way. As the objects are dropping, the player can swap the current
contents of the rows by using a dual-arrow flipper that is moved up and down between
the four rows. The purpose of this functionality is to arrange the rows such that
the rightmost object of a row is the same kind as the one falling above it. That
way the two objects will match and be removed, thus gaining points and opening up
space for other objects to fall into. Strategy must be used to match and remove the
objects in order to keep the game going. If they cannot be removed fast enough, then
the objects will stack up to the right side of the screen, and a gameover will occur
if no more can fall. An added bonus to this game is that some eggshell objects will
occasionally appear, and the player can allow for the other bird, snake, plant, and
mushroom objects to be enclosed in two eggshell halves to gain more points. Although
the instructions of the game sound complicated, playing it is rather simple and very
entertaining.

Controls in Dino Puzzle
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UP/DOWN:
  The Up and Down arrow keys move the dual-arrow flipper up and down within the
  four rows of the playing area.
2ND KEY:
  The 2nd key is used to swap the objects in the two rows that the flipper is
  currently pointing to.
LEFT KEY:
  Pressing the Left key will cause for the objects to drop faster from the right
  to the left side of the screen. When you have the rows lined up as you want
  them, you can hold left to make the objects come down to speed up the gameplay.
  Releasing Left will resume the normal speed of the falling objects.
MODE KEY:
  The Mode key will Pause the gameplay at any point, and display a message that
  says the game is paused. The Enter and 2nd keys will resume the gameplay.
CLEAR KEY:
  The Clear key will exit the gameplay at any time and return the user to the
  title screen of Dino Puzzle. Quitting the game by this method will check if
  the current game has a high score and store that score if so.
DEL KEY:
  The Delete key will quit PuzzPack to the TI-OS homescreen, and if the current
  game has a high score, then that score will be stored if so.

Dino Puzzle Objects
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Birds, Snakes, Plants, Mushrooms - These are the normal objects of the gameplay
  that must be matched in pairs of 2 to have them removed from the playing area.
Eggshells - These objects are special within the gameplay in that they are used
  to enclose other objects between a top and bottom half of an eggshell. When
  this is strategically done by the player, more points are awarded since the
  eggshells fall less frequently than the other objects.        

Details About Eggshells
-----------------------
When a bottom eggshell half appears, you should position the rows so that the
shell lands in the most empty row. That way, more objects will be able to stack
up in the shell, and once you close the egg with a complementary top shell, the
bonus points will be awarded for each object you enclosed. The bottom shell is
one that opens to the right of the screen, and the top shell is one that opens
to the left of the screen. If you have a top shell fall on its own without any
bottom shell under it, then it will merely disappear from the gameplay. If you
let a bottom shell drop and top shell drop right after it, with nothing in the
middle, the eggshell pair will still disappear and points will be awarded, but
not as much as if you had more objects enclosed. If a bottom shell drops onto
another bottom shell, then both will be removed from gameplay unfortunately,
so you must use strategy to not let this aspect happen, and position the bottom
eggshells in other places.

Levels and Gameovers
--------------------
As you remove objects and accumulate points, the level number will increase by
one after a certain amount of progression in the game. This level number can be
seen at the bottom of the screen in the middle, after the letters "Lv". The game
initially starts at level 1, and as the levels get higher, the gameplay gets
faster, making it more challenging to prevent a gameover. Whenever the rows of
objects stack up to the right side of the screen, and the current object pairs
are unable to fall past the black line, then a Gameover will occur. When this
happens, your current score will be checked and stored if it is the high score,
and you will be returned to the title screen to begin from level 1 again.

PuzzPack Information
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Be sure to read the PuzzPack v2.0 Documentation file for more information about
this Flash Application that Dino Puzzle is a part of. The background information,
general controls, credits & thanks, and contact information for this application
can be found in the PuzzPack.txt file.

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Copyright  1999-2001 - Detached Solutions
