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  C E N T I P E D E  v1.21 by Miran Amon                     25. september 2002
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TABLE OF CONTENTS:
0) Disclaimer
1) Introduction
2) System Requirements
3) Installing the game
4) Playing the game
5) Known bugs
6) Credits
7) Contact


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0. Disclaimer

   "I do not accept any responsibility for any effects, adverse or otherwise,
   that this code may have on you, your computer, your sanity, your dog
   or anything else you can think of. Use it at your own risk. I have,
   however, never experienced any trouble at all with this software."


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1. Introduction

Centipede is a clone of the well known classic of the same name. There are
a lot of incarnations of this game out there (on the PC, cell phones, etc.).

The objective of the game is to guide your centipede (snake, worm, whatever)
through a playing field and eat food that is dropped on it every now and then.
Every time you eat a piece of food, the snake grows. Once you've grown enough
you can move to the next level.

This game is FREEWARE which means you can copy and upload it as much as you
like. In fact, you are encouraged to do so. However you cannot charge money
for it or distribute it as though it is your own work. If you copy the game
please include all files that came in the zip unmodified.

File list:
   levels.dat            - the level pack
   samples.dat           - the Centipede sounds
   centipede.exe         - the main executable
   readme.txt            - this file
   readme.1st            - a short description
   music\
      *.mid              - game music
   skins\
      *.dat              - skin data files
      *.ini              - skin description files
      *.ttf              - fonts
      ....
      


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2. System requirements

Hardware:
   Any more or less modern PC will do.
   
Software:
   This version is for Windows. It was developed and successfully tested in
   WindowsXP, although it should run on all other 32 bit Windows operating
   systems (Win95 and above).
   Centipede was developed with Allegro 4.0 which means you will also need
   alleg40.dll and a recent version of DirectX.



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3. Installing the game

To install the game unzip the archive to a new directory on your hard drive
preserving the directory structure. If you don't have alleg40.dll download it
and copy it to your windows\system32 directory. Also install a recent version
of DirectX, if you haven't done it already.

When you run the game for the first time it will generate a 'centi.ini' file in
its directory (if it's not already there). You can later edit this file to 
customize the game to your preferences. You can edit these values in the file:

   [MAIN]
   skin='path to your skin file'
   fullscreen=0/1                 ; (0 - windowed, 1 - fullscreen)
   
   [COLORS]                       ; colours of the tiles in standard RGB format
   wallX='r,g,b'
   floorX='r,g,b'
   snakeX='r,g,b'
   foodX='r,g,b'
   borderX='r,g,b'
   
Note: Replce the 'X' with one of these values:
   0 - to define the colour for the face of the tile
   1 - to define the first shadow colour (bright)
   2 - to define the second shadow colour(dark)
   
   [MUSIC]
   playlist = 'path to a pls file'
   sound_volume = 'v'               ; volumes are in the range [0,255]
   midi_volume = 'v'
   disable = 0|1                    ; if set to 1 there will be no sounds or music


   
You can optionally select a different configuration file by executing the
game with the path to the configuration file you want to use as the first
program command line parameter. For example:

   ./centipede.exe centi2.ini
   
would run the game with settings stored in the file named 'centi2.ini' that
is located in the curent working directory.



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4. Playing the game

Settings:
   Before you start playing you should select the difficulty level. There are
   two parameters which define this. They are called 'speed' and 'growth level'
   and are both values ranging from 1 to 8. Speed is obvious: if you select a
   higher value the snake will move faster. Growth level defines how much the
   snake grows each time you eat a piece of food (e.g. if you select 5 the
   snake will grow 5 tiles for each food piece).
   
Controls:
   Use "ARROW KEYS" on your keyboard to guide your snake around the playing
   field. If you crash into a wall or into yourself you lose one life. To
   continue playing press the "SPACEBAR".
   The game is over when you have no lives left. To help you survive the snake
   will stop for a moment just before it's about to crash giving you one final
   chance to change the direction.
   
Scoring:
   Points are awarded every time you eat a food piece and when you move to a
   higher level. Whenever you just escape a crash (when the snake pauses for
   a moment) you lose some points.
   
   Exactly how many points you gain or lose depends on your difficulty settings
   and the number of steps that you take to get to the food. You get more points
   if you play at a higher difficulty level and if you take fewer steps to get
   to the food (actually if you take to many steps you don't get any points
   at all).
   
   For every 10.000 points that you collect you get an extra life.
   
The levels:
   To finnish one level and move to the next one you must eat 20 pieces of
   food. When you have finnished all the levels you start again only this time
   you have to eat 10 more pieces of food on each level.



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5. Known bugs

Contact me if you find any.


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6. Credits

Shawn Hargreaves <shawn@talula.demon.co.uk>
And all the people who helped him writting the Allegro library
http://alleg.sourceforge.net

Doug Eleveld <deleveld@dds.nl>
For writing the the DeGUI library (on
which my GUI code is largely based).
http://huizen.dds.nl/~deleveld/

Whoever wrote the original Centipede or whatever it was called.



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7. Contact

If you want to contact me for any reason write to:

   miran_amon@hotmail.com
   
You can get the latest version on my homepage:

   www.geocities.com/miran014/



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                                                        (c) 2002 by Miran Amon