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PowerWorm Manual

  1. Installing and Running the Game
  2. Playing the Game
  3. Troubleshooting
  4. Credits
  5. Legal Stuff

A. Installing and Running the Game

To install, unzip the pworm.zip file to a directory using PKUnzip or WinZip, go to DOS (if you have windows, a dos box might work), and change to the directory where you unzipped the pworm files. (eg: C:\>cd pworm) If you want to use a sound card for midi music, first type SBMIDI to enable the driver. (Don’t just click on it from windows, it will unload as soon as you go back to the GUI) You will need a soundblaster or 100% compatible music card for this. If you own a wavetable or MPU401 compatible device, then type SBMIDI /3 to enable it. Now type pworm to run. Now, the POWERWORM short intro will play, press escape to skip it. The first time you run, you will be asked to answer 3 questions:

B.Playing the game

When you run the game, you will get the powerworm screen. Press a key. The scren will become grey and a little menu will appear in the upper left corner. In that menu you can select your theme. Select your theme using the up and down arrows and enter to continue. The game will then begin.

What to do

You control a worm. The worm will move. It won’t stop moving. You can direct it using the left and right arrow keys. You must take as many sprites as you can. A sprite is an object appearing in the playing field. A sprite can be many forms, depending on the theme you chose. In the army theme it will be a little flag. You can take a sprite by worming over it. The more sprites you get, the higher your score get, but the longer your worm gets. The worm may not crash into the wall or himself, if he does, the game’s over. You may understand that the higher your score goes, the harder the game gets, b’cause the worm keeps getting longer and longer, and he can’t crash in to himself. The purpace is to get the highest score. Maybe it’s hard to undrstand, but just play it and you’ll see.

In-Game keys

Left arrow : Rotate left
Right arrow : Rotate right
+ : Decrease speed, increase delay
- : Increase speed, decrease delay
* : Save current settings
P : Pause/Resume game
Esc : kill yourself

In-Highscore-screen keys

If you get into the highscores, type your name and press enter, otherwise, press enter anyway. In the bottom of the screen, a menu will appear, this is what it will say:

Enter : Continue (continues the game, you may try again)
Escape: Clear (Clears the highscores)
X : Exit (returns to DOS/Windows)

C. TroubleShooting

FAQ

-I don’t get SFX
You must have a soundblaster or 100% compatible card to play SFX Check other porgrams, your speakers/headphones might have a bad connection, or your soundcard might be badly configured. Check the configuration, run RESET.EXE to re-answer the questions on MIDI, SFX and Computer Speed If these don’t work your soundcard might not be compatible with DMAPlay

-I don’t get MUSIC
You must have a soundblaster or 100% compatible card to play MUSIC Check other porgrams, your speakers/headphones might have a bad connection, or your soundcard might be badly configured Check the configuration, run RESET.EXE to re-answer the questions on MIDI, SFX and Computer Speed Check the midi file, it should be smaller than 32 K Check if you loaded SBMIDI Try to load OLDMIDI.EXE instead of SBMIDI.EXE

-The game goes way to fast/slow
Run RESET.EXE, you can then change the speed setting You can manually alter the delay during the game by pressing +/- on the numeric keypad when you are playing, then press * on the numeric keypad to save the new settings.

-I have a wavetable/MPU401 device and I get synthesizer/no music.
Run SBMIDI /3

-I get a SBMIDI not loaded error, but I did load the driver
Check if the driver loaded itself on interrupt 80h, otherwise it won’t work. If you’re running from windows, don’t just first click SBMIDI then PWORM, go to a dos box and load the two programs in the same dos box. Try to run OLDMIDI instead of SBMIDI

-When I try to run the uncompiled version of PowerWorm, QB says it can’t find something.
You need QB4.5 with the media library to run this program (media.qlb)

-I get an error that I don’t have EMS, but I have lots of RAM
Run from windows, or use an extended memory manager, like EMM386 PowerWorm will need 6 handles= 28 pages of ram = about 2 megs

Things to mind

When you forgot to load SBMIDI, so you don’t have any music, then, during the game, you alter your speed and save the settings (*), you will save NO MUSIC, and there won’t be any anymore. Run RESET.EXE to turn the midi back on.

Yes, you can use parts of this program in one of your own, but you have to ask me first. If you wan’t to use one of the libs, contact their authors. I am not responsible for any damage done by this program to your PC.

D. Credits

Programming

J.Hendrickx

QMidi

Jesse Dorland

Blast lib

Andrew L. Ayers

DMAPlay

Mike huff

The guy from the EMS lib, whoever that is

My friends (for beta testing)

E. Legal Stuff

Legal stuff: PowerWorm © EchoStyle 1998. This program is protected by copyright law and distributed as freeware on an as-is base. You can freely distribute it as long as you don’t make any changes. You may use parts of this in your own program, but you must contact me first. I am not responsible for any material or psychological damage done you this program, read readme.txt before running the game.

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