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— 1990-05-06
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__W_______E_______L_______L_______T_______R_______I_______X__
© Copyright 1990
by
Gary W. Milliorn
WellTrix is an Amiga® version of the Spectrum Holobyte© program
WellTris©. It has most of the features of the original except for the
pictures and the copy-protection quiz. It is also perhaps not quite as
pretty, but the game itself is fairly playable. Additionally, a number
of features of WellTrix are user-programmable, for example, the colors and
sounds.
WellTrix, for those who have not seen the original, is a quasi-
three-dimensional version of Tetris©. The game is played in a well (thus,
the name). Playing pieces are formed by combining two, three, four (or more)
squares into a shape.
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__O___V___E___R___V___I___E___W__
WellTrix is a game. Play it and you might enjoy yourself. More
than that, you're on your own. Here's what follows:
Copyright
Starting Out
Pieces
Moving Pieces
Keys
Filling Rows
Sides
Corners
Scoring
CLI
WorkBench
THE END
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__C___O___P___Y___R___I___G___H___T__
This program is © Copyright 1990, by Gary W. Milliorn. It may be
freely redistributed as long as the copyright notice remains intact, and
documentation remains together with the program. This program is NOT
public domain; no fee may be charged for it other than a reasonable
duplication fee.
There is no charge for this program, unless you feel it is worth
anything. Mostly, just drop me a note on bix ("gmill") if you like it
or otherwise.
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__S___T___A___R___T___I___N___G_______O___U___T__
When started, WellTrix displays the title screen. You can select
various options from the menus, or can begin playing immediately by selecting
the "Start" menu item (you can also begin by just clicking the left mouse
button or pressing the space bar). When the games starts, WellTrix creates
an empty well and places a playing piece on one of the walls.
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__P___I___E___C___E___S__
The game is played with tiles constructed of 2..5 squares, attached
in regular formations. The following list shows, in a way, the pieces which
are used, where "[]" represents a filled-in square.
2: [][]
3: [][][] [][] [][]
[] []
4: [][] [][][][] [][][] [][] [][] [][][] [][][]
[][] [] [][] [][] [] []
5: [][][][][] ..etc (there are lots)
The level the game is played at determines which pieces will be used:
Level 1 only uses pieces with 2..4 squares.
Level 2 uses only pieces with 4
Level 3 uses pieces with 2..5 squares.
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__M___O___V___I___N___G_______P___I___E___C___E___S__
When a piece is in play, use can use the keyboard to move it
from side to side on one of the four walls, and you can spin it around
a rotation point. After a predefined interval, the piece is dropped one step
lower towards the bottom of the well. When the piece hits the bottom of the
well-side, it wraps on to the bottom of the well and continues progressing
to the opposite side of the bottom, or until it hits another piece (think
of it as momentum).
Naturally, as the game progresses, the interval between steps becomes
shorter and shorter. When a piece is obstructed from moving, a new piece
is placed at the top of the well and the next cycle begins.
How you move a piece depends upon the NORMAL or CLOCK MODE setting.
In "NORMAL" mode, the arrows cause the piece to move up, down, left or right
as indicated. When the central point of the piece (the point around which it
rotates) reaches the end of the side, you have to change arrow keys. Some
people find this confusing, so we have:
"CLOCK" mode, in which the right arrow key moves the piece clockwise,
regardless of which wall it is on, and the left arrow key moves the piece
counter-clockwise. Note that this means that the piece will move opposite
the arrow directions when it is on the bottom of the well. This probably
sounds more confusing than it really is.
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__K___E___Y___S__
=================================================================
| KEY | NORMAL MODE | CLOCK MODE |
=================================================================
| <- | Moves piece left on | Moves piece clockwise. |
| KP4 | upper or lower well side. | |
| J | | |
+-------+---------------------------+---------------------------+
| -> | Moves piece right on | Moves piece counter- |
| KP6 | upper or lower well side. | clockwise. |
| L | | |
+-------+---------------------------+---------------------------+
| ^ | Moves piece up on left | Spins piece clockwise. |
| KP8 | or right side wall. | |
| I | | |
+-------+---------------------------+---------------------------+
| v | Moves piece down on left | Drops piece to bottom of |
| KP2 | or right side wall. | well. |
| M | | |
+-------+---------------------------+---------------------------+
| KP5 | Spins piece clockwise. |
| K | |
+-------+---------------------------+---------------------------+
| ' ' | Drop piece to bottom of well. |
| Enter | |
+-------+---------------------------+---------------------------+
| ESC | Terminates current game, returns to main screen. |
+-------+---------------------------+---------------------------+
| HELP | Brings up help window. |
+-------+---------------------------+---------------------------+
| F1 | Dumps well contents. |
+-------+---------------------------+---------------------------+
| F10 | Increase speed level. |
+-------+---------------------------+---------------------------+
| DEL | If SHIFT held, clears all side walls and resets score.|
+-------+---------------------------+---------------------------+
| N | Toggle 'Next' display. |
+-------+---------------------------+---------------------------+
| P | Pause program. |
+-------+---------------------------+---------------------------+
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__F___I___L___L___I___N___G_______R___O___W___S__
When the piece is placed at the bottom of the well, if any of its
component squares completely fill in a line (a row and/or a column) at the
bottom of the well, that line is removed and the adjacent rows or columns
move inward toward the center. Think of the bottom as being divided into
quadrants, like so:
A | B
OOOO|OOOO
OOOO|OOOO
OOOO|OOOO
OOOO|OOOO
------+------
OOOO|OOOO
OOOO|OOOO
OOOO|OOOO
OOOO|OOOO
D | C
As rows and columns are deleted, rows and columns furthest from the center
of the well are moved in, extending on the "momentum" concept used when
individual pieces are in motion. For example:
Before After
A | B A | B
....|.... ....|....
....|..OO ....|....
....|...O ....|..OO
OOOO|OOOO ....|...O
------+------ ------+------
OOOO|OOOO ....|...O
....|...O ....|..O.
....|..O. ....|.OOO
....|.OOO ....|....
D | C D | C
In this case, the horizontal lines near the center were deleted, so the
horizontal lines in quadrants AB and CD are moved towards the center. A
similar case can be shown for vertical lines. Note that it is possible
to fill horizontal and vertical lines at the same time.
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__S___I___D___E___S__
When a piece as moved as far as is possible, if any of its component
squares are still on the side walls, that wall is "locked" for the next
three pieces. A locked wall is drawn in red, and you cannot move a piece
on that side. As long as you manage to place at least one of the next three
pieces completely on the bottom, you can keep playing. If you don't, and
lock up all four walls, the game is over.
This is the usual way games end, although they will also end if you
stack pieces all the way up to the top of a side, much like in Tetris ©.
When pieces are trapped on locked sides, they remain there until the
side is unlocked. When that happens, the squares that comprised the original
piece are separated, and are dropped to the bottom of the well, but ONLY if
there is room. Otherwise, they remain frozen on the wall until room is made
for them on the bottom. A piece fragment on one of the sides does not cause
it to lock up, but it will interfere with the motion of the piece you are
currently moving. If your piece rests on a fragment, it will cause the side
wall to lock up as usual.
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__C___O___R___N___E___R___S__
When a pieces drops to the bottom of the well with parts of the piece
on two side walls, the piece will be broken up into two separate pieces when
it hits the bottom, and each separate piece will travel towards the opposite
side of the bottom as usual.
The author of the original program calls this a "feature", although
one might suspect it was discovered after writing the program, not before.
It does make it possible to place a piece that you could not otherwise add
to the bottom without locking a side.
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__S___C___O___R___I___N___G__
You get points for each piece placed, and more if it causes a row or
column to be filled. Scoring increases with the play level you select and
with the speed. Deleting multiple rows and columns scores higher than doing
each one individually. Every ten lines deleted advances to the next speed
level, and may optionally bring up a bonus piece (bonus pieces are not subject
to the normal geometric restrictions -- you'll see). If a bonus piece is
placed on the bottom of the well without locking any of the sides, you get
the bonus points. And so on.
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__O___P___T___I___O___N___S__
"All programs should have options. Otherwise, they would be completed
in advance of schedule and have fewer bugs."
_____________
__C___L___I__
WellTrix may be run from the CLI, but it only supports one option.
When started from the CLI, the argument syntax is as follows:
WellTrix [fontname[(.|/)size]]
where the fontname is the name of the font to use with the program,
followed by an optional point size (if not 8). Examples:
Welltrix -- use system font.
Welltrix Helvetica/11 -- use Helvetica font, 11 point.
Welltrix clean.9 -- use Clean font, 9 point.
Font requests are ignored if the height is greater than 11 points.
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__W___O___R___K___B___E___N___C___H__
Welltrix may also be run from WorkBench. It uses the icon tooltype
array to allow specifying the following (innumerable) options:
COLOR0 -- set the background color to the value indicated by the
supplied 6 hex digits. Ex: COLOR0=000000 (black, the
default).
COLOR1 -- same as COLOR0, sets the wire-frame colors.
COLOR2 -- same as COLOR0, sets the filled-square colors.
COLOR3 -- same as COLOR0, sets the side-locks.
FONT -- set the program font (otherwise, the system font is used,
or Topaz/9 or Topaz/11 if the system font is too large).
Fonts are spec'd as: "fontname[(/|.)size]", eg. "Topaz/9"
or "Geneva.9".
LEVEL -- set the initial skill level setting, a value from 1..3.
MOVE -- set the movement mode, one of two values: "NORMAL" or
"CLOCK".
NEXT -- enables the "NextPiece" display when set to "ON".
SCOREFILE -- location to save high-score file, usually the current
directory, or "S:WellTrix.Scores".
SOUND -- enables the sound effects when set to "ON". An internal
default sound is used for each sounds effects file that is
not supplied or cannot be read.
SOUND_BONUS -- filename of sound to be played when a the bonus round begins
or when the bonus points are scored.
SOUND_DROP -- filename of sound to be played when a piece drops to the
bottom of the well.
SOUND_ERROR -- filename of sound to be played when an error occurs.
SOUND_FILLED -- filename of sound to be played when one or more rows or
columns have been filled.
SOUND_OVER -- filename of sound to be played when the game begins or ends.
SOUND_SIDES -- filename of sound to be played when any of the side walls
changes state (when it locks or unlocks).
SOUND_SPEED -- filename of sound to be played when the the next level is
achieved and the game is speeding up.
SPEED -- set the initial speed setting, a value from 1..6.
WINDOW -- window definition for debugging.
VERBOSE -- enables debugging messages if "ON".
VOLUME -- set the sound amplitude, a value from 0..64. 0 is quietest.
There are sensible defaults for all of these options, including sound,
so most of you will not have to mess with this. However, changing the sound
effects can be amusing. Be careful that you effects are not too lengthy,
because the sound server finishes each sound before proceeding -- this can
cause wierd latencies between an action and its sound effect.
_______________________________________________________________________________
T H E E N D
Written, Produced and Directed
by
Gary W. Milliorn
Original Program Concept........ Alexey Pajitnov
Assistant Director.............. Kristin Hughes
Sound Editor.................... Perfect Sound®
Sound Consultant................ Larry Stell
Production Designer............. Gene Muhleysen
Production Associates........... Kristin Hughes
Arnaldo Cruz
Mark Harris
Jan Snyder
Key Grip........................ Kristin Hughes
Filmed in....................... Amigachrome
Edited on....................... Z2.7
Stunts.......................... Manx Aztec ANSI C, 5.0a, 16 bit mode.
Special Thanks to............... Leo Schwab for "proc.zoo".
Richard L. Stockton for "soundc.zoo".
Any resemblance to actual programs, names, or characters, whether
living, dead or undead, is purely coincidental. So there.
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__W_______E_______L_______L_______T_______R_______I_______X__
© Copyright 1990, Valan Inc.
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