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 |÷÷÷by÷Lachie÷Dazdarian(KENTAURI)÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷|
 |÷÷÷October÷2005,÷ver.1.2÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷|
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             <<--------------------->>
             <<  Table of Contents  >>
         <<----------------------------->>
         << 1.0 - About The Game        >>
         << 2.0 - Running The Game      >>
         <<    2.1 - Requirements       >>
         <<    2.2 - How To Play        >>
         << 3.0 - Questions And Answers >>
         << 4.0 - Credits               >>
         << 5.0 - Known Bugs            >>
         << 6.0 - Version Updates       >>
         << 7.0 - Contact               >>
         <<----------------------------->>


1.0 - About The Game
====================

Poxie is a 2D action game combining pacman and 
platform game concept, featuring vertical scrolling, 
256 colors graphics and Sound Blaster sound effects 
and music.

The game concept is based on(borrowed from) a relatively 
unknown QBasic game called Panic Vicious made by HUR. 
I don't know if HUR borrowed the idea for Panic Vicious 
gameplay from somewhere too.

Poxie was written in FreeBASIC, a 32-bit BASIC compiler. 

Poxie includes 6 stages, each with different background 
graphics and animation and every second with different 
foreground graphics and enemies.

Poxie features several layers of graphics.

Two background layers. One static(320*200) and one 
scrolling(320*274) pasted over the static one using the 
transparent color feature. Map, character and NPC layers 
placed over the background layers(of course). Two 
particle layers. The regular one that comes in front 
of all the other layers and one special that is pasted 
right after the first static background layer or right 
after the entire background(appears only in some stages; 
for example, rain). Two layers with animated 
sprites(depends on the stage) in front of the map layer 
and behind the map layer(flowing river, flying birds, 
etc).

This game is FREEWARE. I take NO responsibility for any 
damage or loss of data etc. that may occur by 
installing/using this software. You are allowed to 
share/distribute this software in it's original state but 
are not allowed to make money on it. All the artwork and 
music in this game is copyrighted in the sense that you 
may not "borrow" it and use it in your products.


2.0 - Running The Game
======================

Just double click on Poxie_Win32.exe file.

2.1 - Requirements
==================

At this point Poxie is only a 32-bit Windows game. 
It should work on any PC that has Windows 95 or higher 
installed and can provide 7 MB of free RAM memory. A 
bit high for this type of game but not a problem on 
today PCs. For example, Winamp ver.5 takes around 8 MB 
of memory when playing a song. A "fast" PC with Windows 
2000 or above is recommended. FYI, the game runs with 
optimum speed on a Pentium III 866 Mhz in Windows XP 
which is 85 FPS.

Poxie uses FMOD, a very popular library for playing 
music and sound effects in computer games so you need 
to have fmod.dll file in the directory where the game 
executable file is(it comes with the copy of this game) 
or in Windows/System32 directory on your PC. I recommend 
that you copy fmod.dll in that directory if you don't 
have it already there since many games use it. Not 
necessary for Poxie to work.


2.2 - How To Play
=================

In menus you move with arrow keys and with ENTER 
you confirm a choice.

In this game you control the green creature called 
Poxie. Entire control is done by two keys.

To change Poxie's direction to right press right 
arrow key or number 6 on the numeric keypad.
To change Poxie's direction to left press left 
arrow key or number 4 on the numeric keypad. 

To advance on text messages(like "GAME OVER" or 
"STAGE COMPLETED!") press ENTER or SPACE.

You can use the ESCAPE key to pause or to exit 
the game(you need to confirm with Y key while with 
N key you get back to the game).

If you want to take a SCREENSHOT of the game you 
can do that with S key during the game(while it's 
not being paused) and on the main menu(the very main 
menu, not in sub menus like game options). The 
screenshot will be saved in screenshot(num).bmp file 
and you can take as many as you want. Poxie gameplay 
is explained in the in-game instructions. Check it 
first then read on. 

Few tips and tricks...
***
To step on the lowest level in the stage while bouncing 
hold the key toward the center of the stage when 
traveling down. When bouncing with the enemies don't 
try to step on a level if an enemy is flying up right 
behind you since he might follow you and kill you 
instantly. The gap between you and the enemy while 
jumping is very often the one that kills you when both 
of you are walking. Collision with the enemies is pixel 
perfect. Have that in mind. There is only one really 
important tactic you should use in order to be able to 
finish the game. But you have to discover it yourself.
***

About the game options...
***
In the game options you can change the game speed, 
palette, detail level, volume and turn on/off the music. 

It is recommended that you play the game in normal 
palette since the graphics was done in normal palette 
and often the brightest colors of a certain spectrum 
were used so bright palette might result is some colors 
overlapping. 

Full detail means playing the game with all the details 
on(scrolling background, animation, etc). 
If you find playing the game in full detail mode dizzy 
try the stripped detail mode. In this mode background 
and background/foreground animation is switched 
off(flowing river, flying birds, rain, etc). Also, the 
BACKGROUND SOUND is SWITCHED OFF since there is no 
sense in playing it when the reason why it's being 
played is not there. 

The music is played only on the main menu and when 
you finish the game so switching it on/off only has 
an effect there. In-game volume control effects 
on the entire sound/music in the game.

Scrolling option effects only the foreground. CONTINUOUS
means that the foreground will be scrolled as long as
Poxie moves above the bottom middle of the screen. 
LIMITED scrolling will PREVENT further scrolling 
after Poxie reaches a certain height and that was 
the original scrolling from versions prior to version 
1.2. Why the foreground scrolling should be limited 
and was it was in the first place is because when you 
are on the highest level(s) of the stage you lose your 
view of the lower levels which can influence on the 
gameplay. But limiting the foreground scrolling results 
in less "realistic" parallax scrolling and some people 
complained about it. Anyway, that's why I made it as 
an option. If you like the old scrolling which is less 
"realistic" but where you have a better overview of the 
stage pick the limited scrolling. If you think limited 
scrolling ruins the feeling of depth of the stages pick 
the continuous scrolling.
***

***
In the SETUP MENU you can change how the game will 
start by default(full screen or not). Setup menu 
always starts is window mode. When in full screen 
mode you can switch to window mode by pressing 
ALT and ENTER. 

Disabling sound and music means bypassing all 
the sound routines in the game. This is for those 
rare cases when your sound card has a problem 
with FMOD. If you don't have a sound card sound 
should be disabled automatically. Still, this 
setup option is very useful since you can be 100% 
sure that the sound routines won't be used. Just 
have in mind that the program will always try to 
check if fmod.dll is present. I was unable to avoid 
that. When the music and sound are disabled in the 
setup turning on/off the music or changing the 
volume in the game has no effect. 

Allowing “100% CPU usage” means allowing the 
program to use all the available computer 
cycles. It makes the program run smother but 
if you are running more applications in the 
same time it's not recommended(it will slow 
down the execution of those tasks). Why I'm 
making it an option is because I noticed that 
when I don't allow the program to use all the 
available CPU cycles(I do that by putting a 
millisecond delay in the game loops) some 
annoying trembling appears in the highscores, 
credits and game options screen. I also think that 
scrolling is not 100% perfect during the game like 
it is when you allow 100% CPU usage but it's hard 
to notice the change. Anyway, by default the 
computer will not use all the available computer 
cycles. If you don't have problems with 100% CPU 
usage switch that option to "YES".
***


3.0 - Questions And Answers
===========================

This is just a list of questions regarding Poxie 
that some people might ask or wonder about and 
answers on them.

Does Poxie feature a story?
---------------------------
No and it was never planned. Adding a story to 
this game would just be too much. Some games are 
simply not meant to have a story. Despite the worked 
out graphic style story would be forced and a result of 
the finished product while it should be the opposite.

Is Poxie a mini-game?
---------------------
Yes, by all means. I had to remind myself on that 
many times while developing it. Poxie is definitely 
cut down in development on few places. I had an idea 
for 4 more stages but from the very start I've decided 
to only have 6 stages in the final product. And while 
doing the graphics for the third world my enthusiasm 
went seriously down together with the available free 
time so this ambition was ditched for good. Also, this 
game was done in isolation during the summer(no 
Internet) so I was missing few programming routines 
that would be very useful in development. Poxie was 
developed only for 2 weeks(8-10 hours per day, in 
average), with around 3.5 weeks between start and 
completion of the game. So I can't "sell" this as 
something monumental.

Are there any cheats? The game is too hard!
-------------------------------------------
No there aren't. And the game is easy. Once you learn 
those two-three tricks. I really can't force myself to 
make in any easier. There are two kinds of people, the 
one that can play action games and the one that can't. 
No offense to the latter. I just don't want to make my 
game a child's play so that EVERYBODY who tries it out 
is able to finish it without frustration. The minimum 
challenge has to be there.

Why the game AI is so simple?
-----------------------------
I was just emulating the Panic Vicious AI and didn't 
have an ambition to improve it. Poxie is a simple game 
so thus the simple AI. But there are TWO type of AIs in 
Poxie. The second one appears in stages 5 and 6 with one 
type of enemy and it's not terribly smart but in 
conjunction with the first type of AI it makes those 
stages more difficult to pass.

How the scoring works?
----------------------
The scoring system is rather boring and I didn't have an 
inspiration for a more complex one though I admit that 
there is space for that. With every peace of food you eat 
you get 15 pointes. With every finished(NOT SKIPPED) stage 
you get 300 points. Also, for finishing the game you get 
extra 500 points. To beat the highscore you will have to 
collect few 500/1000 bonus pickups, not skip any of the 
stages and finish the game and that where lies "beating 
the score" challenge. Not much, I know.

Is Poxie a Panic Vicious remake?
--------------------------------
Well, no. I really don't want to call Poxie a Panic 
Vicious remake since Poxie might be inferior in 
gameplay department compared to Panic Vicious and 
Panic Vicious has more levels. I guess using Panic 
Vicious game concept was just an easy way to ensure 
a good gameplay for my game. It is obvious that Panic 
Vicious is a bit lacking in the graphics department so 
there was space for making something better. At least 
in some elements. There are few important differences 
between Panic Vicious and Poxie, if we ignore the 
sound, graphics and graphical design. In Poxie you 
need to rotate between jumping pods in order to 
restore them to the original state while in Panic 
Vicious jumping pods are restored to the original 
state when a certain amount of time passes so there 
is no need for rotation. This is the most important 
difference and this rotation feature influences on 
the gameplay quite a bit. Another thing is 3 enemies 
per stage in stages 1 to 5 and different type of AI 
in stages 5 and 6. Last thing would be the gravity 
effect during the jumping.

Why there is no music playing in the stages?
--------------------------------------------
At this point I couldn't compose a decent track 
even if my life depended on it. Making those poor 
tracks(if not terrible) for main menu and game end 
was already enough discouraging. I just don't know 
enough things today to compose anything worthy so 
composing music for the stages was not an option. 
Anyway, I think the background sounds are a nice 
substitute.

Why didn't you include the source code in the package?
------------------------------------------------------
Some people probably dislike the fact I don't 
like sharing source codes of my games. The main 
reason is that I feel that my source codes don't 
offer anything useful to other programmers. It's just 
game design oriented code that uses a lot of code from 
other, better programmers. Also, Poxie code is terribly 
uncommented and un-optimized. Very "hard-coded", if you 
know what I mean. I simply didn't have time to worry about 
clean and re-usable(for other projects) code. I think I've 
proven with my FB port of R.E.Lope's scrolling engine that 
I'm eager to share knowledge or promote other's people 
knowledge. Poxie uses a lot of code from the mentioned 
engine and only really new thing is the background 
scrolling. But scrolling full screen images is really a 
child's play. Giving Poxie source code to public would 
be like showing my dirty laundry to it. Not to mention 
it allows people to cheat in the game.

How come all DAT file are not encrypted?
----------------------------------------
I gave up on the idea of encrypting the map file since 
they would be easy to decipher if I've encrypted them 
slot by slot. Yes, there are more convenient encryption 
routines for map files from the one I'm using with the 
highscore table but I just didn't want to bother with it. 
But for those really nosy people I've hard-coded few 
checkups which prevent you to make any notable and 
useful change in the map or "pick" files. Actually, 
only really useful thing you could do if there wasn't 
any protection would be changing the number of pickups 
in the stages but this protection prevents you to do 
that. Maybe it's time for me to learn to save and
load BINARY files.

Can Poxie be killed by an enemy when the end stage 
---------------------------------------------------
animation is being played?
--------------------------
No. When the end stage animation is playing all 
enemies stop and in case Poxie falls on an enemy or an 
enemy falls on Poxie nothing will happen.

How come the game ends when I still have one life left?
-------------------------------------------------------
In Poxie the number of lives displayed on the screen is 
the TOTAL number of lives, counting the Poxie on the 
screen and not the number of REMAINING lives in "stock". 
This game is not the only one that uses that kind of 
counting and this way is more logical when you think 
about it. Imagine, when you still have one life left 
and get killed what happens? You die, naturally. The 
last life is lost. Same in Poxie. If you see on the screen 
that the number of lives is 1 that means that the Poxie 
walking on the screen is that last one and when he dies 
the game ends.

The game ending stinks!
-----------------------
Go suck a lemon!


4.0 - Credits
=============

Graphics and design: Dean Janjic(a.k.a. Lachie Dazdarian)
Programming: Dean Janjic
Music: Dean Janjic
Sound effects: Various public domain resources, some 
generated by Dean Janjic using Fruity Loops Studio 5
Game concept: Copied from Panic Vicious by HUR and 
slightly altered

Tools used during creation of Poxie:
--------------------------------------------------------
The source code was compiled in FreeBASIC ver.0.14.

GFXlib 2, a FreeBASIC's gfx library by Angelo Mottola 
was used to do code all the graphics routines in the game.

Sprites were drawn in PIXELplus 256 by Chris Chadwick 
and saved in it's standard format. PIXELplus forever!

Background images were made in GrafX 2.00 Beta by 
Sunset-Design(MS-DOS version). Despite the fact that 
this program lacks many features and you can't change 
the resolution in Windows I find it the most useful 
program for making low-res, 256-colors images in Windows. 
If you can boot your PC in MS-DOS mode even better since 
then you can work in one of the 60(!) available screen 
resolutions.

Music was composed in Fruity Loops Studio 5 and few 
sound effects were generated in it too. This is a great 
program. Don't base your judgment on it by the music 
I've composed in it. 

Audacity was used to edit(cropping, cutting, amplifying, 
etc.) the sound and music files and to convert some of 
them to different formats.

The code was written in FBIde 0.4, an open-source IDE 
for the FreeBASIC compiler. I wish I could say it's 
great but it's not. It IS the best FreeBASIC IDE at this 
point and it's better than nothing. Still, I hope 
it will improve(if that didn't happen already).

Music and sound support by FMOD sound library by 
Firelight Technologies Pty, Ltd.

Aha-soft IconoMaker was used to create the game icons.
---------------------------------------------------------

Thanx to:
Richard Eric Lope for making me the designer I am 
today and for providing the FreeBASIC routines I 
needed in order to complete this game. Nothing of this 
would be made without you.
Pete for editing QB Express and for being a great guy 
in general.
Andre Victor T. Vicentini for developing FreeBASIC. You 
are a god on Earth!
Angelo Mottola for developing GFXlib 2. Without you I 
would be forced to used SDL or Allegro. What the fuck 
"blit" supposed to mean?!? Blit to surface crap.
Adigun Azikiwe Polack for writing a tutorial about 
adding icons to FreeBASIC programs.
Na_th_an for not telling me to sod off. ;)
SJ Zero for doing the QBXL Audio Editions. I'm a 
fucking groupie! Love your stuff!
Neo for writing the encryption routines I've used 
in QBasic and which work great in FreeBASIC too. 
Nekrophidius for hosting my site. Thanx man. Really. 
It means a lot. I hope I'll be able to pay your service 
one day.
Ryan, Sumo Jo, Zap, aetherFox, Rhiannon, Deleter, DrV, 
MystikShadows, anarky, Rattrapmax6, Vincent Peters, 
lurah, Jace Masula, VonGodric, Z!re, Cha0s, Antoni Gual, 
Jonathan Wallace, MarzecTM, Barok, Oz, Piptol, Pyrodap, 
Joe King, Jocke The Beast, Syn9 and everyone I forgot to 
mention(really?) for being in the community and doing 
something there. More or less. And to all the people who 
developed the tools in the tools section not mentioned so 
far.  

Phew.  


5.0 - Known Bugs 
================

In Windows XP(and probably in other versions) once 
in a blue moon when you switch from full screen mode 
to window mode or exit the game while it's in full 
screen mode your Windows might get stuck in 320*200 
resolution. The only thing that can help you then beside
restarting Windows is to drag yourself to start menu and 
"Run..." option and run the game again from there. I'm not 
sure if this is a FreeBASIC problem of a general problem of 
Windows and full screen applications.

Miscellaneous program crash. Err...this happened many 
times during the development and stopped while I made some 
changes in the code but I've never found out in all the 
cases what was the problem. The crash should only happen 
if an sprite out of bounds is attempted to be displayed. 
Many checks and rechecks were done to prevent this. It 
is possible that there is a bug in the very sprite loading 
routine. I can only hope this doesn't happen anymore. The 
last version of Poxie was played for hours and no crashes 
happened. 

Please report bugs and problems with Poxie so I can fix 
them for a future version.


6.0 - Version Updates 
=====================

Version 1.2(10.10.2005):
------------------------
Uh, yet another update. Why this one? Well, I 
just can't help myself but trying to please the 
people who are interested in nothing but listing 
the flaws and "flaws" of other people's games and 
not saying a word of praise. Anyway, one of those 
people mentioned that the foreground scrolling is 
all wrong which I knew but at that time I didn't 
know why I made it like that. When I got home I've 
realized why the scrolling was the way it was so 
I've changed it a bit and added an extra game option. 
It's not much better but this version gives a 
more "realistic" feel and, like I said, you have 
an option to pick between two modes of scrolling. 
Check "How To Play" section to find out why. Beside 
adding this option the background scrolling has 
also been changed. Now the background doesn't 
scroll with the same speed as the foreground but
slower which should have been in the first place. 
Because of that the background has to start 
scrolling from the lowest Poxie's position which 
again is not the luckiest solution but I see no 
way to avoid that with the current graphics and 
background image height. Also, I've changed the 
way of how the SLEEP statement is used because 
it resulted in too much tremble with full screen 
scrolling(HIGHSCORES or CREDITS screen) and since 
I can't avoid the trembling completely I've added 
an option in the setup where you can disable the 
usage of the SLEEP statement. It could be my video 
card or GFXLib 2. Who can tell? That would be it. 
And this is probably the LAST update unless some 
critical bug gets reported.

Version 1.1(30.09.2005):
------------------------
Major fixes: 100% CPU usage problem has been solved by 
adding a small millisecond delay in all the game loops.
Minor fixes: Corrected some words in the game and in the 
documentation that were incorrectly used("graphic", 
"highscore").

Version 1.0(14.09.2005): 
-----------------------
First released version of the game and the original 
release date.


7.0. Contact
============

My email : lachie13@yahoo.com
KENTAURI website : 
http://www.kentauri.cjb.net or 
http://kentauri.digitalblackie.com

Feel free to email me about anything concerning my games 
and game design in general. Comments, bug reports and such 
are welcomed. You can also visit the KENTAURI forum if you 
please.

---Lachie Dazdarian, 10.10.2005.














