SeDi's "Pelman III" - This Time It's Fruit
==========================================

Music, Sound, Graphics and Programming by SeDi 1996-9.
  SeDi: sedi@geocities.com -- http://www.geocities.com/Broadway/4156
Uses the Allegro game programming library by Shawn Hargreaves.

#include <std_disclaimer.h>

   "I do not accept responsibility for any effects, adverse or otherwise, 
    that this game may have on you, your computer, your sanity, your dog, 
    and anything else that you can think of. Use it at your own risk."

REQUIREMENTS
------------
SVGA graphics, a mouse, a keyboard, 8Mb of memory, a sound card, and the best
processor you can find.

INSTALLATION
------------
Unzip the archive into a directory of your choice. Run setup.exe before you
run the game itself to configure the sound routines. (Note that joysticks
are irrelevant for this game, so selecting them will have no effect.)

PLAYING THE GAME
----------------
Read the "Game Instructions" pages. (Click on "Game Instructions" on the main menu.)
Hopefully they explain the game well enough for me not to have to re-iterate it all
here. Hint: make a note of the food-processor fruit-changing sequence. You'll need
to know it later in the game.

CHANGING/STOPPING THE MUSIC
---------------------------
There are two pieces of music built into the game. The one you hear to start with is
a MIDI version of the original Amiga version's music. If you click on "Select Music
B" in the main menu, the game will play a new piece of music I wrote specially for
the PC game. If you don't like either of those, click "Turn Music Off" on the main
menu.

USING THE LEVEL DESIGNER
------------------------
The level designer is not all that easy to use (unfortunately). But if you press
"h" (on the keyboard!) when you're in the level designer you'll get a help page
which lists all the available keypresses. (For people who used my Amiga Pelman III
Level Designer, the keypresses are identical in this version.) Here is the text of
the help screen, so you can print it out if you want:-

	Left-click to place tile, right-click to erase tile.
	The level designer is mainly keyboard-operated. Here is what the various
	keys do:-
	< > ... select editing function (or use the following keys)
	  0=place floor, 1=place block, 2=place hole, 3=place up-arrow,
	  4=place right-arrow, 5=place down-arrow, 6=place left-arrow,
	  7=place ice, 8=place transporter, 9=place food processor,
	  b=place banana, t=place tomato, o=place orange, a=place apple.
	n ... change level name
	m ... change max. number of moves
	x ... change level number
	h ... help
	ALT+c ... clear level to current block
	ALT+SHIFT+c ... clear level completely
	ALT+l ... load new level
	ALT+s ... save level
	ESC/ALT+SHIFT+q ... quit level designer, return to menu

A few extra notes on the level designer: before saving a level, the designer will
perform a "security test" on the level. This checks arrow routes to make sure
they're not circular or too long. If there is a bad arrow route, the game will
tell you and not save the level. It also checks that there are an even number of
fruit on a level.

If you want to erase a fruit, just select "place apple" (or whatever fruit you
wanted to erase) and left-click on the fruit you want to remove.

Make sure you've set the level number BEFORE you save a level, otherwise you
may overwrite an existing one (the game will warn you before doing this, however).

Level numbers can range from 1 to 999 (although any levels above level 50 will
not be recognised by Amiga Pelman III). The number of allowed moves can be
anything from 1 to 65535. The level name can be 25 characters long, maximum.

You can place more than two transporters on a level. All of them will work, but
you'll find that only two of them will be transported TO, and one of them only
from one transporter. (Still with me?!) If you place only one transporter on a
level, it won't work. This behaviour is compatible with Amiga Pelman III.

Levels are saved into, and loaded from, the "p3levels\" directory. They always
have the filename format "P3LEV_n" where n is the level number. The game will
play and password-check any levels it finds there.

If you design any good levels, feel free to mail them to me (e-mail address at the
top of this file).

HISTORY
-------

26th March 1999 -- recompiled using Allegro 3.11. addition of setup.exe.

28th April 1998 -- fixed menu bug which sometimes prevented access to the
                   password-entering section and level editor.

Pelman III, gets its name from an old Amiga game I wrote in around '94-5 called
Pelman, which was a version of the well-known card-matching game Pelmanism. Pelman
II followed soon after - it was a fast-paced multi-player board-game which involved
arranging colour-changing spheres in rows. Pelman III (written under my old pen-
name of DII), the biggest of the games to date, was written in 1996, and was
released as shareware. It was the most successful shareware game I wrote to date.

Recently, in a chat, I was asked by someone why I hadn't ported Pelman III onto
the PC. I replied I hadn't had time. She told me to make time. So I did.

Pelman III for the PC has higher-quality graphics, more music, more sound, more
animation, and more levels than the Amiga original. It retains the level-designer
from the original game - and, indeed, the Amiga and PC games are file-compatible
(you can load levels from the Amiga version into the PC game and vice versa).

It was programmed in DJGPP C using Shawn Hargreaves' Allegro library, which made
coding the graphics and sound much easier! Thanks for that, Shawn.

* I will give out the source code of this game to anyone who asks me (nicely!)
for it... bearing in mind that this is a conversion of a game written in AMOS
and therefore its source is not as clear or well-commented as it could be.

---
