                               ͻ
                                BOMBS AWAY! 
                               ͼ
                               By: Dave Dobson                              

                               Copyright  1995

Introduction:

Bombs Away! is similar to the many minesweeper games available.  It offers 
many useful features such as benevolent autostart, a hint key, multiple 
playfield sizes and difficulty levels, and a detailed record of best times.


System Requirements:

VGA graphics and a two-button mouse.  The game takes up just over 100K of
disk space, and it uses about 250K of RAM.


Required Files:

BOMBS  .EXE     Game Program
FREEnn .EXE     Graphics files (nn = 0 to 11)
EGAVGA .BGI     Borland Turbo C (TM) graphics driver

These two files will be generated by BOMBS.EXE if not present:

HISCORE.DAT     File for best times
PREFS  .BA      Size and difficulty preference for start-up 


How To Play:

The game is played on a rectangular playing field consisting of a grid
of squares, some of which contain deadly explosives.  The squares start
out covered by blue things.  At the beginning of the game, the computer
will select a good opening square for you (an empty one if possible) and
uncover it and any adjacent safe squares.  After that, the clock starts, 
and the game is in your hands.  You can perform three actions:

1) UNCOVER A SQUARE (Left mouse button) -- If the square contains a bomb,
   it will detonate, ending your virtual life and the game.  If not, the
   square may contain a number, which is the number of squares adjacent
   to the square which contain bombs.  Adjacency is counted at sides and
   corners, so each square is adjacent to eight other squares unless it
   is at the edge of the playing field

   For example, if a * is a bomb, the following arrangements might occur:

              1221            12221
      111     1**1           12***2
      1*21    1332           1*46*3
      12*1     1*1           112**2
       111     111             1221

   This should become pretty straightforward after a game or two.

   If a square contains no numbers or bombs, then it is adjacent to no
   bombs.  This means that it is safe to uncover all of the squares around
   the square, and the game does this for you automatically. If more
   empty squares are uncovered, the squares adjacent to them are also
   cleared.  You can reveal a big area of the puzzle with just one 
   well-placed click.

2) PLACE A FLAG (Right mouse button) -- Use this action to place a flag on
   a square you suspect contains a bomb, or to remove a flag you have   
   already placed.  Use the numbers to help you figure out where the 
   bombs are:
                                           111
     11211                               1231   <- only three of the four
     121  <- both of the hidden        11      hidden squares have
     11211     squares have bombs        1121       bombs -- which ones?

3) UNCOVER ALL ADJACENT (Both mouse buttons simultaneously) -- Use this
   action if you think you've marked all of the bombs adjacent to a 
   numbered square.  If the number of flags adjacent to the square 
   you click on is equal to the number for that square, you will uncover
   all non-flagged squares adjacent to the square you dual-click on.
   This is good if you flagged the bombs correctly -- it saves you from 
   having to open all of the adjacent squares -- but if you misplaced one
   of the flags, you'll be toast.

The object of the game is to locate and mark with flags all of the bombs 
in the playing field in the shortest amount of time.  You only have as 
many flags as there are bombs, so if you run out and haven't won, 
you've made a mistake somewhere along the way.  Note that unlike other 
games of this ilk, in Bombs Away! you win the moment you correctly
flag every bomb.  This is good if you get down to a situation like
this with one flag left to place:

        ͻ
          2ղ  = flag
          231  = edge of playfield
          111   = covered space
              

Instead of blindly opening one of the two squares, and risking all of
your hard work on a fifty-fifty shot, you can try your flag on one, and
if you don't immediately win, you can remove it and try the other square.

If you lose, the locations of any unflagged bombs will be shown, with the
one that blew you up blinking.  If you placed any bogus flags, they will
be marked.

Other Features:

Difficulty:  There are five levels of difficulty, Amateur through Eughh.
  Amateur is trivial, with only one out of fifteen squares containing a
  bomb, and Euggh is exceedingly difficult, with one in three squares
  containing a bomb.  Games at the higher difficulty levels may be 
  impossible to solve without random guessing or hints.  To change
  difficulty levels for the next game, click on the difficulty bar 
  to cycle through the levels.

Size:  There are five sizes, 1-5.  The playfield will be (9 x size) 
  squares across and (5 x size) squares high, so size 1 is 9x5 and 
  size 5 is 45x25.  To change the playfield size for the next game,
  click on the size bar to cycle through the sizes.

Top Times:  The best three times for winning the game are stored for 
  each size and difficulty pair.  You will be prompted to enter your 
  name if you are among the top three after a game.  To view the best 
  time list, click on the Top Times bar.  You can cycle through the 
  different difficulties and sizes by clicking on those bars on the
  Top Times window.  Clearing the scores will reset only the times for
  the difficulty level and size pair you are currently viewing -- to
  reset all times, it may be easier to delete the file HISCORE.DAT
  while in DOS.

Hint (+10):  If you get stuck, you can ask for a hint.  This will 
  reveal a covered bomb-free square in the puzzle, but it will add
  ten seconds to your time, and the revealed square will be an ugly
  color to mark its dishonorable origins.  The square revealed will be
  adjacent to at least one other uncovered square.  If ask for a hint
  and you only have bombs left, the computer will ponder this fact for
  a while and then chirp at you in irritation.


NOTES:

This game was developed using Borland's Turbo C (TM) system, an
excellent programming environment and language compiler.  It has 
been playtested successfully on several 386 machines.

Please report any problems or comments by e-mail to dob@umich.edu
or by normal mail to:

Dave Dobson
2424 Pinecrest Ave.
Ann Arbor, MI  48104

If you play it a lot, please let me know by e-mail or postcard or 
something -- it would make my day.  If you make more money than I 
do (I'm a grad student, so that's not hard) feel free to send me 
a donation of $5 or so to help me save for a sound card.  If you 
send me $10, I'll send you the C source code.

LEGAL NOTICE:

This game and its constituent files are freely distributable by 
non-commercial entities by any means (BBS's, FTP, e-mail, stone tablet,
mule train, etc.).  The author's permission is required for the game 
to be included on shareware CD-ROMs or on shareware distribution 
companies' disks for which a distribution or other fee is charged.

All copyrights and other legal rights are retained by the author, 
David M. Dobson.  
