================================
          SUPER STACK!
Copyright (c) 2000, Oren Bartal
================================
    Last update: 29/2/2000
================================

Requirements:
=============
Minimum system::
 * Pentium
 * 2 megabyte memory
 * MSDOS 6.22

Typical system:
 * Pentium 2
 * 32 megabyte memory
 * Win95/98
 * Soundblaster compatible sound card

Optimal system:
 * Pentium !!?!
 * 2 petabyte memory
 * Win95/98
 * Pyrophysics Quantum Sound Omulator Plus

NOTE:
Under Win2000 the sound will not work, so you will have to activate the game with
the '-nosound' switch.

Also, if the game gets stuck after you start it and see a star falling to the center of the screen, or gets stuck somewhere after that - its probably the sound engine, so you should play with no sounds (-nosound).

Default Keys:
=============
Menus - Moving ......... Arrows/Numpad
        Selecting ...... Enter
        Returning ...... Esc

Game  - Moving (*) ............ Left/Right
        Fast Drop (*) ......... Down
        Rotate (*) ............ X
        Flip (*) .............. Z
        Exit .................. Esc
        Continue .............. Space
        Pause game ............ P
        Delete Bootblock ...... Ctrl+B

(*) You can change these game keys from the main menu

Menus:
======
Play for level clearing -
 Play a series of premade levels, which are divided into three levels of difficulty.
 Here you can also find the tutorial levels to help you get started.

Play for score - 
 Play for the high score!
 Before you start, you will be asked what level of difficulty you wish to play at;
 The high scores are for each of the three difficulty settings.

Redefine keys -
 Change the default keys for game play, this is saved for later sessions.

Bye - 
  This option quits the game, however, there is a small chance it will
  delete your entire hard-drive.

Rules:
======
Hmm... Rules.
It is not so easy to explain the rules for this game without some demonstration,
So there are 7 tutorial levels to help with that.
But lets try anyways:

The object of the game is to decrease the counter (which is located above the
game wizard - at the bottom left of the screen) until it reaches zero - then you
win.

How?
Its a simple task: All you have to do, is to "trap" stars between objects -
each star trapped will decrease the counter by one.

Every turn, a block falls from the sky (Tetris like) and you mask rotate it and
move it to the place you want it to settle.
Unlike Tetris, the blocks are always made from two pieces, each piece is one of the
five different pieces of the game (each shall be explained later).
Also unlike Tetris, once one of the blocks pieces touches the ground, the other
pieces keeps on falling until it also reaches the ground (but you can't control it).
Sounds confusing? It really isn't, look, lets say that our level looks like this:

########
#      #
#  AB  #
#      #
#      #
#      #
#   %  #
#   %  #
########

Once the block "AB" touches the "%", this will be the result:

########
#      #
#      #
#      #
#      #
#   B  #
#   %  #
#  A%  #
########

Not that hard, isn't it?
Good, now lets not forget our goal. Trapping stars.
Stars can be trapped both horizontal and vertical (not diagonal).
This is a very basic star trapping:

########
#      #
#      #  A = Object A
#      #  S = Star
#      #
#      #
#      #
# ASSA #
########

In this example, both stars are trapped by object A, So both stars AND both object A's will disappear, reducing 2 from the star counter (two stars where trapped).

Here is another example:

########
#      #
#      #  A = Object A
#      #  S = Star
# A    #
# S    #
# S    #
#SASA  #
########

Here, two stars are trapped vertically, and one is trapped horizontally, notice that the same object can cause two star trapping at the same time.
The leftmost star will be the only thing to remain after the rest of the objects disappear. (In this example the star counter will be reduced by 3)

Great! That's easy! Where is the catch?
Hmm...
Several things make star trapping harder.
First, There are three different kinds of objects, and you can only trap stars between the same objects.

########
#      #
#      #  A = Object A
#      #  B = Object B  
#      #  S = Star
#      #
#      #
# ASSB #
########

In this example nothing will happen - the stars are not between the same objects!

You don't have to trap stars in order to get rid of Non-star objects, you can also
trap "nothing", and both objects will disappear:

########
#      #
#      #  A = Object A
#      #
#      #
#      #
# A    #
# AA   #
########

In this example all object will disappear since they are the same and they touch
each-other. But don't forget! Even though you have made some object disappear, the
counter will not decrease because no stars where trapped!

Now, lets look at an interesting thing that might happen:

########
#      #
#      #  A = Object A
#      #  B = Object B
#      #  S = Star
#      #
#  B   #
# BASA #
########

Lets examine what will happen:
First, the star will disappear with both A's (and the counter will decrease by one).
But look!
After the A under the B disappeared, the B will fall down to fill the space up,
and then the board will look like this:

########
#      #
#      #  B = Object B
#      #
#      #
#      #
#      #
# BB   #
########

Both B's touch each-other, so they too disappear!
By doing this, we have created a chain-reaction!

Chain reactions are cool, because they give you Bonus stars!
What are bonus stars, you ask?

Bonus stars are special stars that fall from the sky (you can't control them), once they touch the ground they try to make new chain reactions, if they can't, they disappear, decreasing the counter for each bonus star!

This is a bit confusing, but once you play the game, I'm sure you'll understand how cool bonus stars are.

Here is a little info:
Bonus stars always land on the lowest columns, and come in the following numbers:

2 Bonus stars for the first chain-reaction
4 for the next one
6 (a whole row) for the next
12 (two rows) for the one after
and 18 (three whole rows) for the following chain-reactions.

One last thing...

You lose the level if one of the two middle columns reaches the top of the screen - So make sure they stay the lowest!

Basic tactics:
==============
Don't just match similar objects together! When normal objects disappear,
you don't get any stars stacked! - If you can't stack stars, try to chain
react some normal objects - you will get bonus stars that will be stacked.

This is the easiest way to chain react with normal objects,
Lets say this is our board:

########
#      #
#      #
#      #
#      #
#      #
#  A   #
#  B   #
########

And we get an "AB" block.
Sure, we can do this:

########
#      #
#      #
#      #
#      #
#      #
#  AA  #
#  BB  #
########

But we will get nothing!
We can do this:

########
#      #
#      #
#      #
#  B   #
#  A   #
#  A   #
#  B   #
########

Aaha!
Once the two A's will disappear, the top B will fall on the bottom B, creating a chain-reaction that will give us 2 Bonus stars! From no stars at all!

You get the idea. (I hope)

Credits:
========
Programming, Graphics, Levels and kinda Everything by Oren Bartal
 Catch me at oren-br@inter.net.il

Huge thanks to all the beta testers: Maoz, Nachch and Yasha.

Also,
Thanks for Angelo Mottola from Enhanced Creations for the DirectQB
engine. Its just plain great.

Believe it or not, this whole thing was created with QuickBasic 4.5 - The Programming language for REAL programmers ;)

Last words:
===========
If you read this far you must be very bored, so go and play!
That's it. Now go and play.
Or else.



