                                
                                 /----------\
                                 |  SPAWN   |
                                 |          |
                                 | SOFTWARE |
                                 \----------/
                                   PRESENTS
                    
                     /-----\  /-----\  /-----\  |----\
                     |  ---/  |     |  |     |  |     \
                     |  |--\  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |   )
                     |  |  |  |     |  |     |  |     /
                     \-----/  \-----/  \-----/  |----/
                                     TO
                     /-----\    /-\    /-----\  /--\/--\
                     |  ---|    | |    |  -  |  |      |
                     |  /--/    | |    | /\  /  | |  | |
                     | |        | |    | | \ \  | |--| |
                     \-/        \-/    \-/  \-/ |-|  |-|
                                   V. 1.1

                Written by Graham Lally. (C) Graham Lally 1996
             Ideas, Design, Casting and Costumes by Graham Lally.
                Names for horses thought up by Graham Lally.

    Welcome to the premiere racing simulation game for Microsoft's
(Bill -hnnnghh- Gates) QBasic. I wrote this cos I couldn't think of what to
add to my as-yet-untitled Race game type thingy. Anyway. Here's the
instructions, for those of you who haven't played before...

A STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE TO THE GAME
================================
    When first running the game (by pressing Shift-F5), you will be presented
with a 3x4 grid (after my cool titles). 9 of these contain names, or "Empty".
The other 3 have yellow writing.

    The 9 boxes are each player that has been stored. Before starting any
race, you will need to select some names. This is simple. Use the number pad
and Space bar to select/deselect the required names. Note that you cannot
select "Empty". When selected, names will have a red box around them.
    Once you have selected the desired names, select "Place Bets" to begin
The racing.

    The penultimate box says "New Punter". This will allow you to introduce or
erase people. To do this:
    
    1. Select "New Punter"
    2. Select the box to put the new player in. (Press Space)
    3. Confirm the choice.
    4. Type in the new name (up to 12 letters), or "Empty" to completely erase
        it. Press Return (cunning part).
    5. Ta daa! Change complete. New player, which you can now select (unless
        it is "Empty").
6. Er...
    7. No, that's it...

    The box marked "Top 20" will list the current top 20, past and present
people, the number of races raced, and their bank balance.

PLACING bets
------------
    Once players are selected, you will be shown your choices, and their
current bank balances. Press a key to skip this.
The game will choose 10 horses randomly, and assign random odds.
You will then be asked to place bets. There are several steps to this:

    1. Choose a horse (1 - 10), as shown on screen. The odds shown are for
       a Win bet (see below).
       If you decide you don't want to bet, select Horse 0.
    2. Choose the type of bet.
        1: Win. Predict that the horse chosen will win the race (i.e, come
            first). Money will be won at the odds shown.
        2: Place. Predict that the horse chosen will come 1st, 2nd or 3rd.
            There is more chance of the bet winning something, but the
            amount won is LESS than the amount shown.
    3. Enter the amount of money being bet. This can be no higher than the
        player's current bank balance (shown at top).
    4. Decide, if there is enough money left, whether or not to bet again.
        If so, repeat the process. If not, the next player can bet (or the
        race starts).

When betting, note that the lower the odds, the more chance the horse has of
winning. (See "How Odds Work")

The race
--------
    The race will then start. Note the RUNNING COMMENTARY. :-) 1st, 2nd and
3rd positions will be printed at the bottom of the screen. Once finished,
press Space to continue...

WEIGHED in
----------
    The game will process the bets, and display the odds. It will
automatically work out how much money you each get back. (See next section
to find out how this is done.) Press a key again. You will be shown
each player's bank balance, and then asked if you want to stay. "Y" will
start the betting again. "N" will quit the program. It should be noted that
at this point, all the new data will be saved, ready for next time.

HOW ODDS WORK
-------------
    Been horse-racing before? Skip this bit then, matey.
OK. Odds. These dictate the amount you win should your horse come in 1st (if
Win Bet) or 1st/2nd/3rd (if Place bet). The amount you win is the amount
you bet multiplied by the odds for that horse.

    FOR EXAMPLE.
        Mr. Magoo bets 200 on "Rickety Donald". It is a Win bet, and the odds
are 4/1. "Rickety Donald" wins. Mr. Magoo gets back 200*4, plus the 200 he
originally bet. He gets back 1000. (Unfortunately, being Mr. Magoo, he walks
into a wall on the way back.)

LEMONS
------
    This is the first Spawn game to make use of LEMONS. This rather dodgily-
Acronymised System means that Punters will be saved on disk, so that rich
people can keep all their money. To ensure it works, make sure that the path
is set to where the "GFSave.G2F" file is kept on your disk.

    For example, if it is in C:\DOS, this line:

                    save$ = "G2FSave.G2F"
Should read:
                    save$ = "C:\DOS\G2FSave.G2F"

This also needs to apply to the file G2FHigh.G2F.
Thanks.

N.B. The cleverer of you will probably have already discovered how to change
people's Bank Balances. However, this ruins the whole point of everything,
and I would hope that you are all above this sort of thing.
(And if you haven't discovered yet, I'm not going to tell you...)

Please see GF2RDME.TXT if you haven't already.
^^^^^^
Then play G2FII.BAS if you haven't already.

P.S. LEMONS stands for Laz's Excellent Method Of iNformation Storage
                       ^     ^         ^      ^   ^          ^

                                                        Laz.

