
              Clumps
             --------
       by Alan Trewartha 1995
 
Aim of the Game

You have to clear the board, amassing the highest
score you can. Tiles disappear if you click on
them - but only if there is a group of identical
tiles - a clump. If there are no clumps, then you
can not move and the game ends.


Score
 
Clump of 2 tiles ...  1 point
         3       ...  4 points
         4       ...  9 points
         5       ... 16 points
         6       ... 25 points (and so on...)
         
The score table is ranked by points per tile.
 
 
Starting the game

Install the game on the application bar by double
clicking on its icon in the directory window.
Clicking on the icon on the application bar icon
will produce the playing board (select) or the
preferences dialogue box (adjust).

To start a game you can click 'New Game' on the
playing board, or select "New game' from the
application bar menu. The preferences window can
also be opened from the menu.


Preferences

Play Area - Pretty straight forward. This sets up
the size of the playing area.

Tiles - This shows the name of the sprite file
being used for the tiles. Click on the Sprite file
button to display the games 'Tiles' directory. If
you drag a sprite file from a directory to this
window, it will change to show your new choice. A
large sprite file will force !Clumps! to revert to
a default sprite file. If the sprite file isn't in
the Tiles directory, !Clumps! will copy it there
first.

Options - At the moment this does nothing. The
intention is that these settings will allow you to
set the difficulty of play and allow you to see
the computer set up the board or not.

Save - This sets the preferences file. The next
time that you run 'Clumps', it will use the
settings that you have selected when you click
this.


Designing Tiles

Any Sprite file that contains 11 sprites '1a' to
'5a', '1b' to '5b' and '00' will work. The '00'
sprite is used to size the sprites.


-------------------------------------------------

To do list...

Priority: Make the board fill up properly so that
you can finish! [ahem]

Link the difficulty level to the set up routine.

Sound - 'hurray', 'shame' ?

Do we really need interactive help support here?

Make this help file easier to understand.

-------------------------------------------------

Legal Gubbins

This game is totally free! Wow.

You are free to distribute 'Clumps' without
modifications.

I ask that if you like this game and keep it, that
you should make a small donation to the charity
'Shelter' or some other charity for the homeless.

This game is a port of the game 'Macigame' for the
Macintosh by Takeshi Takahashi. You can read about
this game on his Web Page:
(http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~yh2t-tkhs).
It is apparently a 'cult' game in Japan. Takeshi
also created the nifty 'bunnies'.

You can contact me by email:
(mailto:alant@alant.demon.co.uk)
with any queries or bug reports. Thanks.