Super-Retriss Version 2.00
Unregistered Release
VGA game inspired on TETRIS (tm)
Manual of Operations



COPYRIGHT (C) 1992 by
Rogelio Bernal
All Rights Reserved



Ariana Fu / R.Bernal
62 Boylston St. #909
Boston, MA.02115





Written using Turbo C++ V1.0






WHAT TO DO


What you have to do is very simple. Every zone (or screen) will show ONE
flicking brick. You must ELIMINATE the row in where the brick is located,
by filling all the empty spaces with the pieces falling from the top of
the screen. When you're done, you will receive bonus depending on how many
seconds it took you to finish and how many empty lines are from the top of
the board to the highest brick found. Then you will see another zone (or
screen), and so on... When you finish the last zone of the current set,
you'll go back to the first zone again.
This release contains the standard 51 zones, plus some more files with new
zones.

To start playing, just type SR from the DOS prompt.



MAIN MENU OPTIONS


The main menu has been changed. The options available and their function
are :

1.- PLAY> Go to play !
2.- HIGH SCORES> To see the high score's table
3.- GRAPH-MATCH> Not included in the shareware release

4.- LOAD ZONES> Load new set of zones
5.- ZONE DESIGNER> Design your own zones
6.- REDEFINE KEYS> Select your favorite keys to play



1.- PLAY


A familiar menu will be displayed, to select the set of pieces (as in
previous versions) you want to play with.

(1) - The set #1 contains the typical pieces found in every Tetris-like
game (7 different pieces / 4 bricks per piece).
(2) - The set #2 adds three more pieces.
(3) - The set #3 uses the pieces from sets #1 and #2 plus a few more,
with a total of 15 different pieces.

The pieces have not changed from previous versions.
I suggest you to use always the set #3. The set 3 may contain some pieces
difficult to play with, but there are also some pieces very helpful, not
present in the smaller sets.




SuperRetriss v2.00 Main Menu Options 1




If you decide not to play, the ESCape key will bring you back to the main
menu.
After you press 1,2 or 3, you will be asked for the zone you want to start
playing. Registered release allows you to start from any zone you want, always
within the limit of the zones available in that set. Shareware release lets
you start from zones 1 trhu 10. If you are not sure how many zones are in the
current set, you can find the number by selecting the options 4 or 5 in the
main menu. You can also go back to the previous menu with the ESCape key.

After you enter the zone number, wait one second and start to play. The
keys are shown in the initial screen, but you can select any keys you want
using the option 6 in the main menu.



2.- HIGH SCORES


All entries in the table coming with this program have been reset to
10,000. If you have a table you wish to keep using, delete the file
SRETRISS.SCO from the directory where this game has been installed, and
copy the old STETRISS.SCO from the last release to the new directory.
Then, rename it to SRETRISS.SCO.If you have any problems, please,let me
know.


3.- GRAPH-MATCH


Nice VGA game not included in the shareware release. There are shareware
copies of Graph-Match being distributed.



4.-LOAD ZONES


This option lets you to load different sets of zones from the disk, that
you previously created or obtained from other sources.
However, there are some restrictions :

- You can only play ONE set of zones (or file) at a time. This means that
if you create a file by using the ZONE DESIGNER, and you create four
zones, when you exit the zone designer and go to play the game, you will
play only those four zones, until you exit the game and run it again or
you select a different set. Every time you run the program, the default
set will be the standard also included in the trial release (BOARDS.DAT).

- When you load a new file of zones, such file MUST be in the same
directory as the game in order to be found by the program. Another
important limitation is that the program will display only the first 20
files found (extension *.ZNE). This doesn't mean that you are limited
to 20 zone files (i.e. you can create a subdirectory and move the old
zone files to it), but you are to do the job.

SuperRetriss v2.00 Main Menu Options 2





Mouse users

Point & click with the mouse on the file name you want to use. It will
become red color. If you want to select a different one before exit the menu,
just point & click on the new name. The last one will turn to normal
ink and the new file will turn red.

To exit the menu, point & click on the title screen to load the selected
zone (the one in red). If you click on the title screen before selecting
any file, you will leave the menu with the current set of zones unchanged.
Also, if you don't want to load any file, just press ESCape.



Keyboard users

Use the arrow keys to move the blue arrow and point to the file you want to
retrieve. Then, press ENTER or SPACE to select, or ESCape to exit without
changes.




5.- ZONE DESIGNER



If you don't have a mouse or a trackball installed, this option will be
displayed as UNAVAILABLE, and you will not be able to enter this option.

If you do, after select this option, before enter to the design screen,
the program will ask you :

DO YOU WANT TO MODIFY THE CURRENT SET
OR START WITH A NEW ONE (C/N) ?

If you answer C, you'll be able to edit and change the current set.
However a new name will be asked for it when you save it. So, no matter
what you do, you will never lose the current set, unless you save it with
the same name.

If you answer N, a new,clean,empty set will be ready for you to create
whatever you like. It will have only one zone (empty) for you to start
working. Later I shall explain how to add more zones.

To go back to the main menu, press ESC.

You can also click on the C or N on the screen with the left button of the
mouse. The right button will quit, going back to the main menu.





SuperRetriss v2.00 Zone Designer 3





How to design



Identifying the areas

For a clear explanation and to avoid repeating, we'll assign intuitive
names to each of the different areas on the screen :


* On the left side of the screen you will see some small windows with all
the available colors for blocks. We'll call it the BLOCK AREA.

* On the top of the middle of the screen, you'll see three windows showing
a reduced drawing of the zone being edited, and the two adjacent zones
(previous and next). This area will be called the REFERENCE AREA.

* Under the reference area you'll see a window indicating the number of the
area being edited, and a big block used to indicate the current color being
used by the editor. This is the INFORMATION AREA.

* Under the information area, there is a big grid (the EDITING AREA),

* On the right side of the screen there is a menu with several options
available (MENU AREA).

* Under the menu area there are two buttons with a left/right arrow on them.
This is the SELECTION AREA



Block Area

Used to select the color you want to use. Just point & click on the
window with the block color desired, and you will see how the big block in
the information area is redrawn using the same color. Then, anything you
draw on the editing area will be drawn using that color.



Reference & Selection Areas

To move from one zone to another you can use the arrow keys LEFT & RIGHT,
or point & click on any button in the selection area. The editing area
will show the new zone to be edited, and the reference area will also be
updated.

NOTE that when you move to a different zone, you will lose the changes in
the last zone, UNLESS you COPY it to the file (option 1 of the menu).





SuperRetriss v2.00 Zone Designer 4




Editing Area

The usage of the mouse to draw a new zone (or make changes) on the grid
is very intuitive. All green small squares indicate the available
locations for single blocks.

The left and right buttons of the mouse have different functions :

* Left Mouse Button : When you click this button pointing inside one
of the green squares in the grid, a block in that location will be
drawn with the color of the big block shown in the information area.
If there was already a block OF THE SAME COLOR, instead of redraw it,
it will delete it. You just need to click again to redraw the block.

* Right Mouse Button : This button is used to delete blocks. Whenever you
want to delete some particular blocks, use this button. If you want
to start over again, select the option 5 of the menu.


Menu Area

There are five options available from the menu. Select anyone by pointing
and clicking on it.

1.- COPY : It updates the changes to memory. The zone being edited
will not be saved on memory until you select this option.
For example, if you have been working on the zone 1, and now you want
to save it and start with the number 2, you must select COPY in order
to save this zone before you go to the zone 2.
On the other hand, if you tried to modify a particular zone, but you
don't like what you did, you can retrieve the original by leaving
that zone and going back to it.
Notice that when you draw on the editing area, the reference area
does not show the modifications. The reference area shows the zones
AS IN MEMORY. Remember, the zone will not be saved until you press
copy and see it on the reference area.

2.- DEL : It eliminates the current zone from the set. No undo available.
However, it will ask you if you are sure. Just press Y or N, or
simply click on them (on the screen) with the mouse.
You can't use delete if there is only one zone in the set. In other
words, you cannot have a set with 0 zones.

3.- GRID : Toggle display of the green grid on the editing area.

4.- NEW : It will create an empty zone after the last existing zone. So
far, a maximum of 100 zones are allowed. After 100, this option will
not work. If you consider that 100 zones are not enough for you, let
me know and we'll see what can we do.

5.- CLEAR : It will delete all blocks currently in the editing area. To
start over again on a particular zone.



SuperRetriss v2.00 Zone Designer 5




Save Zones to Disk (Not available in the Shareware release)

If you want to save the zones to disk or just abort and use them, press ESC.
The program will ask you if you want to save the set on the disk.

- If you answer N, you will be able to play with the new zones, and, if
you like them, you can go back to the designer, select C to edit the
current one, make some changes and save it. Or, just don't save it and
when you load/create a new one, or exit the game, it'll be lost forever.

- If you answer Y, it will ask you for a file name. DO NOT INCLUDE
EXTENSION, neither invalid characters for DOS filenames such * : ? ...
If the name is not valid or DOS reports any error, your data file will
not be saved and probably the program will exit to DOS. So make sure to
give valid names and have free space in your disk.

For this game there would not make sense to have a zone containing no blocks
at all. Every single zone needs to have at least ONE block on it. If you try
to ESCape when there is one or more empty zones, the program will inform you
of that fact, and bring you back to the editor with the empty zone found as
the current zone to edit.
If you want to abort everything you did and play the set as it was before
your editing session, follow these steps :

- Make sure there are no empty zones (you don't really need to
check that, since the program will do it for you).
- If any, delete them, and exit again.
- Do not save the file (if you really don't want it at all) when asked.
- Select LOAD ZONE from the main menu, and load the previous set.

If you create a set of zones that you didn't save, but after playing it,
you decide to save it, you have to select ZONE DESIGNER, then select
continue editing current set, click with the mouse on the COPY option, press
ESCape and answer Y when asked. If you don't click on COPY at least once,
the program will assume that you didn't make any changes and it will not ask
you whether you want to save it or not.



6.- REDEFINE KEYS


This option has been added because of many users requested so. In order
to make life much easier, after selecting the keys you want to use, you
will be asked if you want to save that configuration as permanent, so
you don't need to redefine them every time you load the game. But notice
that after you save them, you will not be able to play with the default
keys anymore. You may say "Well, I just need to redefine them again as
they were before". But notice that the default set allows you multiple
keys for the same function (ie.: SPACE BAR, ENTER and UP-KEY to rotate),
while your choices are just one key for each function. Anyway, you can
always copy the file SRETRISS.CFG from your original diskette to restore
the default keys in case you miss them...


SuperRetriss v2.00 Redefine Keys 6




The ESCape and function keys cannot be used, and the program will not
do anything if you try to select them. Keys such PrtScr,Shift,Alt...
will also not be accepted.












SRETRISS.EXE : COMMAND LINE OPTIONS



The executable file SRETRISS.EXE accepts a few command line parameters.
This are their function and syntax :

Syntax:

SRETRISS [parm] > Characters [ and ] must not be typed.
They indicate that "parm" is optional.

Where "parm" is one, and only one of the following :

-h : Displays the help screen, similar to this page.
-? : Same as -h.
-v : Displays version number. Useful to verify fake updates.
-s : Displays the results of the machine's speed test.

The character / may be used instead of -. Characters may be upper or lower
case letters. Also, characters / or - may be omitted.



















SuperRetriss v2.00 Command Line Options 7