1PUSHOVER 2========== 3 4Pushover is a faithful reimplementation of the game with the same name published 5in 1992 by Ocean. It contains the original levels. The graphics and sound are 6very similar when compared with the original game. 7 8 9Gameplay 10---------- 11 12The task of the game is to rearrange the dominoes on the different platforms so 13that you can start a chainreaction that makes all dominoes topple over. You may 14rearrange all dominoes (except for one kind of domino) and place them wherever 15suitable (except in front of a door). 16 17 18You win the level, when: 19 20- all dominoes (except for the blocker) have toppled 21- no dominoes have crashed, they may fall off the screen though 22- the trigger domino fell last 23- and you reached the exit door within the time limit 24 25The dominoes: 26 27All in all there are 10 different types of dominoes: 28 29- Standard, completely yellow. There is nothing special with this stone, it 30 falls when pushed. 31- Blocker, completely red. This domino can not fall over, so it is the only kind 32 of stone that may still be standing when the level is solved. Dominoes falling 33 against this stone will bounce back, if possible. 34- Tumbler, big red stripe. This domino will stand up again after falling and 35 will continue to tumble until it hits an obstacle or rests on another stone. 36- Delay stone, diagonally divided. This domino will take some time until it 37 falls, when it is pushed. Dominoes falling against this stone will bounce back 38 and later this stone will fall. 39- Splitter, horizontally divided. This stone will split into 2 stones, one 40 falling to the left and the other falling to the right. The splitter can't 41 be pushed. It must be split by a stone falling onto it from above. A pile of 42 rubbish falling into it also activates this domino. 43- Exploder, vertically divided. This stone will blast a gap into the platform it 44 is standing on, when it is pushed. Neither the ant nor the pushing domino are 45 harmed by that, the pushing domino will fall into the gap. 46- Bridger, 1 horizontal strip. The bridger will try to connect the edge it is 47 standing on with the next edge, if it is close enough, if not it will simply 48 fall into the gap. 49- Vanisher, 2 horizontal strips. The Vanisher will disappear as soon as it lies 50 flat on the ground. This is the only stone you may place in front of doors. 51- Trigger, 3 horizontal strips. This stone will open the exit door, as soon as 52 it lies completely flat and all other conditions are met (see above). This is 53 the only stone that you may not move around. 54- Ascender, vertical strip. This stone will start to rise as soon as it is 55 pushed. It will rise until is hits the ceiling, then it will start to flip 56 into the direction it was initially pushed. When you fall into a gap while 57 holding this stone it will also rise and stay at the ceiling until pushed. 58 59Controls 60 61The ant is controlled using the cursor keys and space. Use the space key to pick 62up the domino behind the ant or to place it down where you are currently 63standing. To push press first up to let the ant enter the row of dominoes. Then 64simultaniously press space and either left or right cursor key depending on 65whether you want to push the domino to your left or your right. 66 67Hints 68 69If you don't know where to start in a level, simply push a stone and observe 70what happens. This helps very often to get a general idea how to solve a level 71and where the problem is. 72 73If you forgot which domino has what kind of special property press F1 to get a 74short help. This window also displays a short hint, once the time of the level 75is out. 76 77The first few levels introduce you to the dominoes. Here you can explore how 78the different dominoes behave in different situations. 79 80 81Files 82------- 83 84Pushover places a few files on your hard-disc in everyday running. Those files 85will be placed in your home directory. This directory is in 86 87- My Documents\Pushover on Windows systems 88- ~/.pushover on Unix systems 89 90The following files are saved: 91 92- solved.txt: This file contains checksums of all the levels that you have 93 successfully solved. In the level selection dialogue those levels contain a 94 mark. If you loose this file those marks are gone. 95- *.rec: These files contain recordings of activities within a level. They are 96 automatically created whenever you solve a level but you can also actively 97 make a recording by pressing 'r' while you play a level. When you observe 98 something strange while playing, make a recording and send it to me. Also when 99 the game crashes a recording will be saved. You can delete these files 100 whenever you want. You can distinguish the recordings by the prefix in their 101 name. "Sol" stands for solved levels, "Man" for manually created recordings 102 and "Err" for recordings made when the program crashed. 103 104 105Graphics 106---------- 107 108Right now Pushover uses scaled versions of the graphics of the original game. 109You are very much invited to improve those graphics. Please contact me if you 110are interested so that I can tell you what the state of affairs is. But I will 111tell here the basics 112 113I have already replaced the dominoes with new graphics, but the graphics for the 114ant and the background themes still need improvement. 115 116The backgrounds are made out of 20x13 tiles. Each tile has a size of 40x48 117pixel. The reason for that is the non square pixel of the 320x200 resolution of 118the original game. For each theme there is a PNG image file containing all the 119blocks that may be used by the levels. To make it possible to place the blocks 120more freely into the PNG file a LUA file accompanies the image. This LUA file 121contains the block positions of all the used blocks. Right now all the blocks 122are one below another so the LUA files contain ever increasing y positions and 123always the same x position. 124 125It is already implemented to use transparency within the blocks. All the 126existing levels use just one layer and thus need completely opaque tiles. But 127many of those tiles could be separated into a stack of different tiles. This 128then means the level need to be updated to actually use a stack of tiles instead 129of just one. Right now we are limited to 8 layers, but if necessary this can be 130made dynamic. 131 132It is also planned to have something like animated tiles, but they have to be 133kept at a low count. Not too many frames and not too many animations. They are 134not intended to make the background dynamic, but to rather be a little finishing 135touch to the graphics. Possibilities are trees that move from time to time in a 136breeze, a bird that sails through the sky from time to time.... 137 138The ant is more complicated. The image ant.png contains all possible animation 139images for the ant, one animation below the other. I have an additional GIMP 140image that contains in separate layers possible surroundings of the ant in 141different animation frames (like ladders, steps, ground, a carried domino...). I 142will happily provide that image to the interested artist. 143 144 145Level Designers 146----------------- 147 148Pushover will eventually get a level editor, but right now it hasn't, please be 149patient. 150 151But here are already some rules that you have to adhere to if you want your 152levels included into the program 153 154- They need to be put under the GPL licence, or something compatible. Otherwise 155 inclusion is legally not possible. Copyright stays with you, of course. 156- Please only contribute complete sets and no single levels. They don't need to 157 be long, 10 levels is enough but this way you can keep up a constant scheme and 158 theme logic of the levels. 159- You absolutely _must_ provide a recording of one possible solution to each 160 level. That solution is not within the distribution, just within the source 161 code repository. It is used to ensure that the solution of your level is still 162 possible after we made changes to the program. This way we limit possible 163 frustration. 164- Do only send non-compressed level sets. We need those for the inclusion in the 165 source. And we need those for possible future updates. 166- Use the index file to reorder levels, don't rename the files. This way 167 inserting a level becomes very easy. 168- You must not have more than one animated tile per level background. 169 170 171Credits 172--------- 173 174My thanks go to the original developers of the game. ..... 175 176 177