___ _ _ _ _____ _____
/ __\ | _____ _(_)_ __ (_) ___ ___ \_ \\_ \
/__\// |/ _ \ \/ / | '_ \| |/ _ \/ __| / /\/ / /\/
/ \/ \ | (_) > <| | | | | | __/\__ \ /\/ /_/\/ /_
\_____/_|\___/_/\_\_|_| |_|_|\___||___/ \____/\____/
|----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Bloxinies II |
| Made by Sebastiaan Jansen |
| http://thandor.net |
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Bloxinies II lets you continue the adventure from the first Bloxinies. This
time you encounter more enemies with a vivid 256-color palette! Again, you can
escape worlds by collecting all the diamonds and go through the exit door.
Contents:
1. How to play?
2. System requirements
3. Customize Bloxinies II
4. Play the original Bloxinies levels
5. Performance counter
6. Known bugs
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| 1. How to play? |
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Start Bloxinies II by starting BLOXII.EXE. Via the menu you can select a
single-player or multi-player game, or read the instructions and the story
line. Select your option by pressing the highlighted letter (i.e. S, for
single-player)
You can use the arrow keys to move Bloxinies around and use AWSD to move the
second player, called Bloxie.
Boulders can be pushed to block enemies or block shooters. Enemies can also be
used to prevent the static shooters from shooting you. Bombs can be dropped
with either <SPACE> or <G> depending on the player you are moving.
Please read the in-game instructions to get familiar with all the game's
objects and functions.
The F1 or ESC key will open the menu and F8 will close the menu.
In-game you can use:
- F2 to restart the current level, at the cost of one life.
- F3 to restart the game, taking you back to level one.
- F4 to toggle sound effects.
- ESC or Q to quit the game.
Once in the menu, F8 will get you back into the game.
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| 2. System requirements |
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The game has been tested on an 8MHz 8088 with 640KB RAM and VGA-graphics. Due
the simplicity of the game it will probably run fine on 4,77MHz systems as
well. In case the game runs slow, try disabling sound effects by pressing F4.
Bloxinies II will not run on systems with 256KB RAM installed and Bloxinies II
will not run on IBM MCGA color adapters.
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| 3. Customize Bloxinies II |
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Use the Bloxinies II level-editor by starting EDITOR.BAT to create new
levels. Use the following keys in the editor:
- Arrow keys : movement of the 'editor block'.
- [ and ] : select between placeable objects.
- <Spacebar> : place the selected object.
- D : delete any object/tile you're standing on (in other words: clear).
- S : Save the level.
- T : Save and test the level directly. Use T to switch back to the editor.
- + : Skip to the next level.
- = : Return to the first level.
To add, rather than edit, new levels to an existing file you must manually
copy the textual level blocks.
To create an empty level use the following format:
Level 1
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
To create new levels you don't have to edit the existing level data. You can
create new files and run Bloxinies II using parameters. The first parameter
is the file for single-player levels, the second for multi-player levels.
For example:
- 'BLOXII.EXE CUSTOM.DAT' Runs Bloxinies II pointing to CUSTOM.DAT for single
-player levels
- 'BLOXII.EXE SINGLE.DAT MULTI.DAT' Runs Bloxinies II pointing to SINGLE.DAT
for single-player levels, and to MULTI.DAT
for multi-player levels.
- 'BLOXII.EXE LEVSINGL.DAT CUSTOM.DAT' Runs Bloxinies II with the original
single-player levels, but with custom
multi-player levels.
If you want to go further you can create your own graphics by loading a third
parameter. You can load up normal .PCX files. Try loading BLOXII.GFX with
Neopaint for example and see how the graphics are drawn.
An example of the parameter:
- 'BLOXII.EXE SINGLE.DAT LEVMULTI.DAT CUSTOM.GFX' Will start custom single-
player levels, standard
multi-player and load new
graphics.
Technical specifications on the level .DAT files are as following:
The file LEVSINGL.DAT contains single-player levels and the file LEVMULTI.DAT
contains multi-player levels. In both files the first row is the name of the
level (which isn't used in-game actually, but an empty title triggers the
end-game sequence) and is followed by a block of 12x16 numbers which are the
actual level. Use the following legend to create a level:
A: Empty tile
B: Big stone wall
C: Big grassy stone wall
D: Red brick wall
E: Red grassy brick wall
F: Key
G: Bloxinies (Player 1)
H: Bloxie (Player 2)
I: Diamond
J: Exit door
K: Red 'Spider' enemy
L: Grey 'Mouse' enemy
M: Horizontal shooter
N: Boulder
O: Heart
P: Wood
Q: Wood with knot
R: Wood with plank
S: Bomb
T: White brick wall
U: White brick wall with grating
V: White brick wall with flag
W: One way arrow up
X: One way arrow right
Y: One way arrow down
Z: One way arrow left
1: Demon
2: Horizontal and vertical white brick shooter
3: Wood key slot
4: Gate closed
5: Gate open
6: Switch pointing left
7: Switch pointing right
/: Cobweb, right down corner
\: Cobweb, left down corner
|: Cobweb, right upper corner
?: Cobweb, left upper corner
Place only one Bloxinies in single-player levels and place both players in
multi-player levels. Use only one exit in each level. It's not necessary to
place walls as a border; Bloxinies cannot fall off the level. The source code
defines a maximum of 11 enemies, 7 simultaneously exploding bombs and 11
gates but this is usually enough to create a tough level.
|----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| 4. Play the original Bloxinies levels |
|----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
Please run OLDLEVEL.BAT to play, manually converted, levels from the first
Bloxinies game.
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| 5. Performance counter |
|----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
To activate a performance counter please enter the in-game menu by pressing F1
or ESC. Once in the menu press F10 and then press F8. Back in the game you'll
see a counter in the lower left corner. These are the number of ticks within
each game cycle. The higher the number, the faster the game runs. At least
around 200 ticks is playable. Lower will work but the game's feeling will be
slower.
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| 6. Known bugs |
|----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
1. Mice sometimes still walk one pass when entering the menu.
2. Cob-web makes Bloxinies get stuck, but still able to move boulders/things
in it's first "stuck" move.
3. Having more than 10 bombs in your inventory garbles up the counter.