				Balloon version 1.0

		Original by Andreas Ess		ess.andreas@cable.vol.at
		TI-86 port by Andreas Finne	andreas@calc.org
		GFX by Johannes Rajala		carrot@sgic.fi


Welcome to the thrilling story of a balloon which flees from his 'master'
and glides through a wonderful world of gravity, traps and enemies!

The Game:
	You're a balloon and have to find your way past traps, enemies, etc.
The problem is that you slowly loose height. If you land somewhere and stay
there for about 1 second, you'll die. (You'll also die if you touch an enemy.
Or a candle. Or one of those pins, fans, etc.)
	The only way to gain height is one of the warm fans on the floor. You
can recognize them in most levels by the air which is streaming upwards.
There are also fans which can transport you in different directions (these will
appear in latter levels)

Now, what can you do to help the Balloon?

The only thing you basically have to do is pressing

 LEFT   - go left
 RIGHT  - go right
 MORE   - pause game (+/- to change contrast)
 EXIT   - exit game
 (UP)   - gain height(if fuel available (tornado))
 (2ND)  - shoot rubber band(only if you collect any)

So far so good, but there are - you guessed it - some problems...

In Balloon, you'll find various objects:

* Normal background like plants, pictures, guitars, etc.
* Foreground, e.g. desks, wall, floor, table, etc.
* Floor fans - will lift you up
* Other fans will you push you in a certain direction (defined in editor
   using gray arrows)

THE OBJECTS
~~~~~~~~~~~
These will give you 25 points each for collecting it.

* COIN.
 You'll earn 100 points. If you collect 5000 points, you'll earn a live; same
 for 10000, 15000, etc.
* TORNADO.
 If you get this, you have some kind of fuel. Pressing up will lift you up,
 until you have no power-points left.
* RUBBER BAND.
 This can be used to shoot at enemies. (not all enemies can be killed)
* HOUR GLASS.
 Get 10 seconds extra-time. There are levels with time limit and such without.
* LETTERS.
 In some levels you'll have to collect these letters in correct order (BALLOON)
 to succeed. You can check what you have collected already in the right upper
 corner of the screen (if nothing is to collect, it says "Balloon").
* BALLOON.
 Extra life!
* WHITE BALLOON.
 Invicibility for next few seconds (note however that you might die by being
 on a floor for a too long time)
* CHECK POINT.
 You'll return to this point if you die. NOTE: if you press the CLEAR key
 in the status screen, the check point will be undone.

WHAT ABOUT THE BAD GUYS???
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* PINS.
 The most basic enemy - I don't recommend flying against one...
* SOCKET.
 Switches off/on. Pass when it's off, obviously.
* BALL.
 Just jumps up and down. If it's only one ball, it's quite simple to pass it,
 but a few balls can be quite nasty.
* BEE.
 This is a difficult one (IMHO), it flies around and can be a big hinderance
 to you. Luckily, you can kill it with rubber bands.
* ARROW.
 Just flies in your direction. It's faster than the other enemies, but no real
 problem. Can't be killed using rubber bands (okay, that might be a problem :)
* HEDGEHOG.
 Runs until there's a gap or a wall in front of him, then turns around. I don't
 recommend landing on it...
* CAT.
 The cat runs around until it hits a wall, then it turns. If you are in the
 area of it, it'll jump for you.
* TEETH.
 These weird enemies jump after you permanently.

If you have any suggestion, tell them me.

SPECIAL THANX GO TO:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 Johannes Rajala        - my favourite GFX man!
 Matti Jokela           - for his awesome Lite Compressor used to compress
			  several things in this game
 The TICALC.ORG team    - for their fantastic service!
 The rest of the Usgard team & the beta testers:
  Sam, Jimmy, Austin, Nathan, Wayne!

BALLOON.ZIP contains:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
balloon.86p     - the executable, 1.0
balloon1.86s    - the 10 standard levels (not too difficult?)
escape.86s      - a demo of a world by Nathan (2 1/2 levels) - it's quite easy 
balll.86s       - Weird World by Johannes - 2 quite nasty levels!
balcom.86s      - "Balloon Combat" - 8 levels from my brother Markus
-
bledit.bat      - call this to make your own levels
gldedit.exe     - the actual editor
glde.pcx        - the tiles available
std.fnt         - the font for the editor
lc.exe          - Lite Compressor by Matti Jokela, version 1.05
bin2str.exe     - Converts binary to 86S, by Jimmy

HISTORY
~~~~~~~
v0.9            - everything's working, except the highscore input.
v1.0            - hi score is now stored, but no input of name (Usg 2.0??)

May 2001
ported to the TI-86
		- added input of name when you get a hiscore

FAQ
~~~
Q:      When an enemy gets out of the screen, it doesn't appear anymore?
	Is that a bug?
A:      This is no bug. An enemy will be "killed" if its X coordinate gets
	either < -64 or bigger than 192. (I think Sqrxz uses a similar technique)


THE EDITOR:
~~~~~~~~~~~
The editor is surely not very good, but I think it sufficient for making levels,
I hope. Be sure to have the following files in the same dir to edit levels:

BLEDIT.BAT
GLDEDIT.EXE
LC.EXE
BIN2STR.EXE
GLDE.PCX

Just use BLEDIT to make your levels, only SAVE ONE LEVEL PER SESSION.

KEYS:
~~~~~
 F1             - change description and author
 F2             - save level (.obj), generate BCOMP.BAT to compress it.
 F3             - load level from .obj
 ARROWS         - move cursor
 A,S,W,D        - select item to put
 SPACEBAR       - set item
 ENTF           - delete item
 SHIFT + KEY    - enter text message
 . , ! ?        - the normal text signs
 F5             - delete stage
 F6             - insert stage
 F7             - go to stage - 1
 F8             - go to stage + 1
 F9             - remove stage
 F10            - add stage
 -              - decrease level width
 0-9            - short cut for several objects (plant, etc.)
 z,u            - inc/dec time by 4 seconds. 0 seconds = no time limit
 t              - change task
			NONE - no task, obviously
			COLLECT BALLOON - collect the letter "BALLOON" in
				correct order


Some ideas for levels...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Besides "normal" levels, you can give the player an extra task, here are a few,
perhaps you find out more...
 * set the time limit very low, and place several hourglasses in level, without
   these, the level can't be done
 * make something similar with tornados
 * let the player collect BALLOON
 * you could also make a level where the player wouldn't survive without
   invicibility, so he would have to collect this all the time

MORE IDEAS?

Well, have fun!! And mail me with your comments, questions, etc.!

	Andreas				Andreas
	Ess				Finne
	ess.andreas@cable.vol.at	andreas@calc.org

