VGA Kix 1.5 By Edward Mueller 11/28/95 Introduction: Kix is an arcade style video game for the PC similar to the old Taito arcade game Qix. Using your stylus, you attempt to draw areas on the game board without getting caught by the Kix or other opponents. You complete a level after you have claimed a certain percentage of the total board. Higher levels have wilder Kix; eventually you must deal with two Kix! Requires a fast 286 PC or better with VGA. Features: - One or two players each having the ability to tailor the game to suit their preferences. - Runs in VGA Mode-X (320x240 256 colors). - Supports music and digitized sound effects on Sound Blaster and Gravis Ultrasound sound boards. - Supports keyboard and joystick controls. Distribution: This program is FREEWARE and is released into the public domain. It may be freely distributed so long as the original archive file nor any of its contents are modified in any way. Installation: Create a directory for the program files, e.g.: mkdir c:\games\kix. Using PKZIP 2.04g, unzip the program files into the directory just created. Then, type kix to begin. YOUR CURRENT DIRECTORY MUST BE WHERE THE PROGRAM FILES HAVE BEEN INSTALLED. If all goes well, the main menu will be displayed which contains information on configuring the program and setting options. Configuration: The game supports one or two players. Each player has a configuration file: PLAYER1.CFG and PLAYER2.CFG. These files contain options which allow each player to tailor the game to their particular tastes. The format of the configuration file is contained in the on-line help accessible from the main menu. Options can be changed once you select the number of players. Kix uses the Digital Sound Interface Kit (DSIK) developed by Carlos Hasan. DSIK supports the Sound Blaster series of sound boards along with 100% compatibles and the Gravis Ultrasound in native mode. You must run the SETUP program to specify your sound card type and parameters. Sound effect files are stored in WAV format. Music files use the DSIK proprietary format. Use the program CONV to convert music files from other formats to the DSM format used by DSIK. Place these DSM files in the Kix directory and the program will randomly select among them. Play: Type "kix" from the DOS prompt to get to the main menu where options may be selected by pressing the corresponding keys. Press the space bar or Enter key to begin. Specify whether it will be a one or two player game. Each player's options will be displayed which may be changed if needed. Press the space bar to continue. You will see the "PLAYER 1 READY!" message appear and the game begins after a brief pause. You may press the Escape or F1 key at any time during play to pause the game and bring up a help window. Press the space bar or Enter key to return to the game. Controls: You can use the keyboard or a two button joystick to control the stylus. Using the keyboard, press the arrow keys to move the stylus around the border. To draw a fast line, hold down the Alt key and move the stylus using the arrow keys. To draw a slow line, hold down the Ctrl key instead of the Alt key. If you're using a joystick or Gravis Gamepad, it will calibrate auto- matically. One button controls fast draw while the other controls slow draw. Background Files: One of the nice features of the program is to display background images when you uncover pieces of the board. These images are available in another archive called KIXBACK.ZIP which should be available wherever you obtained the main program files. The program GIF2BCK can convert most 256 color GIF images into a background file that can be used by Kix. Run GIF2BCK with no parameters to get help on using GIF2BCK. Technical Stuff: If you run the program under OS/2 or other multitasking operating system, here is some information which may help. 1. The program intercepts hardward keyboard interrupt 9. Key presses the program cares about are handled, others discarded and the old INT9 is NOT called (I'd like to, but haven't been able to get it to work). I don't know if this will cause any problems running under OS/2 or not. 2. The program uses hardware timer 0, but increases the tics/sec. to handle the tailorable frame rate. 3. Music and digitized sound effects work in real mode only. The program has been tested and runs well under Windows 95 with no special setup needed. If you have difficulty running under Windows, try increasing the amount of free conventional memory available. Problems: Most problems running the program are caused by not enough free conventional memory. Kix does not use any type of extended or expanded memory. The game will run in as little as 500 KB free, but only if music is disabled and sound effects are played through the PC speaker. In order to use all features you'll need around 560 KB free. Information on contacting the author is included with the on-line help. Revision History: Version 1.0 (first release) Version 1.2 (unreleased): * Faster area filling when not using pictures. * Better keyboard support. * Allows higher scores. * Enhanced Kix movement algorithm. * Miscellaneous bug fixes. Version 1.4: (unreleased): * Sound Blaster support for digitized sounds. * Integrated player options with main menu. No need to edit .CFG files again. * Improved error handling and recovery. Version 1.5: * Added context sensitive help on player options. * Background pictures now recycle. * Added background music. * Now uses WAV sound effect files. * Improved all menus. * Misc. bug fixes.