ANNOUNCE  ANNOUNCE  ANNOUNCE  ANNOUNCE  ANNOUNCE  ANNOUNCE  ANNOUNCE  ANNOUNCE  
================================================================================

Xenonsoft, South London, England is very pleased to announce the
availability of:


    Humanoid, version 0.3.5.x


`Humanoid' is an arcade video game, written entirely in Java. Software is a
clone of the Williams game "Defender". The software is open source and is
distributed "as free software.". Please read the LICENSE*.


The `Humanoid' arcade video game software can be obtain from 
`http://www.xenonsoft.demon.co.uk/humanoid/humanoid.html'

You might also find it on Demon Internet FTP 
`ftp://ftp.demon.net/pub/java'
when they get around to uploading it to their FTP site (sigh).



The software requires the Java Development Kit minimum version 1.1.4.

For installation instructions read the `INSTALL' file.

It may also be worth reading the `PROBLEMS' file if you have trouble.

The `Humanoid' is available as free software under the license
agreement ("the XPeL") that is compatible with the open source model. This
means that the software will remain free forever more. 

For information about changes between different version see the `CHANGES'
file.


FEATURES
=========

o	Improved game play, and added new sounds for V0.3.5.
o	Pure Java Video Arcade Game
o	All the classic enemies there `Landers', `Mutants', `Baiters', 
	`Bombers', `Pods', and those dreadful `Swarmers'.
o	Humans and planetoid restored every 5th wave.
o	Planetoid explosion
o	Smart Bombs
o	Hyperspace jump
o	Bonus starship and smartbomb every 10,000 points
o	Ability to run as a application or an applet 
	(applet runs great with Netscape 4.51 no problem).
o	Implementation of the finer points of the original game are based
	on "The Winners' Book of Winner Kubey" written by Craig Kubey
	published by Star/ W.H. Aleen ca 1982, a real fantastic book
o	Features the `gamekit' video game engine.
o	Features the `soundkit' sound rendering engine.
o	An easy to use audio rendering engine based on the BASIC 
	command that were implemented on BBC Microcomputer. 
	`SOUND' and `ENVELOPE' statements in Java.
o	Highscores (file save and load in application)
o	Jump Sheet Bonus for advance players. 
o	Reconfigure Game Keys Dialog. 



CHANGES SINCE THE LAST RELEASE V0.3.4
=======================================

Press the Control-`L' key to activate the Jump Sheet Bonus on the prologue
screen. Press the Control-`K' key to popup the Reconfigure Keys dialog in
order to change the game keys. Toggle sound effects on & off with the mute
function Control-`M'.

An addition to the soundkit to that support sampled Sun Audio Clips.

More hunts and hacks for the elusive ScreenUpdater lock up bugs in
JDK1.1.7. 

Tested the software on Windows NT 4.0 / JDK1.2.2 and Solaris 2.5.1 /
JDK1.1.7.

Added class preloader to the application version as well as the applet
version of the game.


RUNNING
========

To run the application on UNIX simple type

	% Humanoid

Window NT users can double-click on the `Humanoid.bat' batch file to start
the Humanoid. You may have to edit the `Humanoid.bat' with notepad or
winpad to fix the classpath and location of the `humanoid.jar'

To run the game as an applet simply copy the HTML file `humanoid.html' and
`humanoid.jar' to the webserver root directory or a local file store.


BONUS
======

Try out the enhanced BBC Microcomputer like sound rendering engine. 
There is an test harness application called `GuiTestSound' which
requires the Swing/Java Foundation Classes. If you have JRE 1.2 then you
will be fine, otherwise you need to download the JFC from the Java Home
Page at `http://java.sun.com/products/jfc/'.

To run the test harness on UNIX type the command:

	% GuiTestSound

On Windows NT double click on the `GuiTestSound.bat' script.  You may have
to edit the batch `GuiTestSound.bat' script to change the classpath setting.


BUGETTES
=========

On rare occasions the infamous `ScreenUpdater' bug rears its ugly head.  In
the JDK 1.1 the AWT key event handling is broken sometimes. You can press
the shift [THRUST] and `A' [UP]a nd `Z' [DOWN] at the sametime.  However
under Window NT/JDK 1.2.1 the problem seems to have been fixed.


Enjoy baby bop.


Peter A. Pilgrim
Member of the Association of C/C++ User group UK. <http://www.accu.org/>
Mon Jun 28 00:25:59 BST 1999



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