MIND ODYSSEY README
===================

(This document looks better if you go to the Edit menu and turn Word Wrap on.)

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. The Main Menu and the Menu Bar
3. Mosaic
4. Treasure
5. Tile Quest
6. Technical Stuff
7. Notes About the Code

===============
1. INTRODUCTION
===============

Welcome to Mind Odyssey.

Due to some unfortunate mishap, you are about to be unexpected hurled into a puzzle game 
consisting of three different varieties of randomly generated puzzles brought to you by
jimjaylia productions.

When you load up our executable, you will find three different games. Select the game of
your choice. And play it a bit. And then get tired of that and play another. Repeat as
necessary.

(Apologies are extended for the pitiful attempt at humour made in this file. Readers are
politely reminded that last minute humour is not funny, and this was typed up at the very
last minute just like everything else.)

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2. THE MAIN MENU and the MENU BAR
=================================

The main menu loads and presents you with three choices:
	Mosaic
	Treasure
	Tilequest

In that order. However, the main menu is much more sleek. Not velvety sleek. Sleek like
fast cars with big engines. It has these crazy lightning bolts and happy coloured buttons.

So what you do is clicked on one of the buttons. If you can't decide, use a kindergarten
rhyme such as eanie-meanie-mynie-mo. (Or however made up words are supposed to be spelt.)

Or, if you want, you could get confused by having to make a choice. If this happens, click
the Help button on the menu bar at the top. You are in the main menu which has a menu bar.
Got that? Good. Now in that menu bar, you can ask for help. You can do that at any time.
Mind Odyssey is smart enough to figure out what kind of help you might want. But it won't
help you cheat. We didn't have time to program that feature in.

Click the Help/About... menu option will tell you about the brilliant creators of this
game.

If you go to the Game menu, you'll notice the other options are grayed out. That's not
because you need to pay us money before you can use those features, it's that they don't
make sense right now.

Here's an overview of the menu bar:

Game menu
	New Game	(F2)
	Reset Game	(F3)
	
	Undo Move	(Ctrl+Z)
	
	Back to Games Menu (Esc)
	
	Quit

Help menu
	How to Play...
	About...

The break down:

NEW GAME (Hotkey: F2) starts the current game TYPE over with a fresh, new board. This is the
option you pick when you're hopelessly stuck and tired of playing that same Mosaic puzzle 
over again. It gives you a new Mosaic puzzle. Not an old one. That old one's gone forever.
If you don't want to play that game any more, hit the Escape key to go Back to the Games
Menu.

RESET GAME (Hotkey: F3) resets the game you were just playing to its original position. Do
this when you want to start the same puzzle of the same type over again.

UNDO MOVE (Hotkey: Ctrl+Z) will take back your most recent move. (Applies only to
Tilequest.) There's a small penalty for doing this by the way. Oh, if you haven't made a
move, you can't take it back. You can't undo your undone move, and you can't undo more than
once. Those are the rules.

BACK TO GAMES MENU (Hotkey: Esc) will take you back to the Main Menu. Not the Menu bar at
the top, the Main Menu. The happy coloured one with the lightning bolts. This is the option
you pick when you're tired of the game type, and the puzzle you've been working at.

QUIT will get you out of everything and back into the real world of word processors and
spreadsheets. Have fun.

HOW TO PLAY tells you how to play whatever game you're playing.

ABOUT tells you about the creators and a whole bunch of inside jokes you won't understand
because they're inside jokes!

=========
3. MOSAIC
=========

OBJECTIVE: To arrange the tiles in numerical order.

A board is shown with numbered tiles that are out of order. One space is empty; tiles 
can be moved into it. Slide the tiles into the empty space by clicking on them, so that 
the numbers are in order beginning at the top left corner and continuing from left to 
right. The empty tile must be place in the bottom right corner.

PLAYING: Click tiles adjacent to the empty tile to move them into the empty tile.

SCORING: At the end of the game, the number of moves taken is reported. Although it 
depends on the particular puzzle, most 3x3 boards can be solved in about 50 moves
and most 4x4 boards can be solved in around 120 moves.

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4. TREASURE
===========

OBJECTIVE: To manipulate the board so as to fill it with only blue pieces.

PLAYING: Clicking on any of the nine pieces will toggle the colour of it and the four 
surrounding pieces. Keep clicking different pieces to manipulate the board.

SCORING: When you finish the puzzle, the game will tell you how many moves you took 
and the minimum number of moves required to solve puzzle. As a matter of fact, every 
single problem can be solved in under nine moves.

STRATEGY: Memorize how to do certain manipulations on the board to save time. For example, clicking the four corners and then the centre will flip the color of every piece on 
the board.


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5. TILE QUEST
=============

We never did decide if it was TileQuest, Tilequest, Tile Quest or TiLeQuESt.

OBJECTIVE: To trace a path over all empty tiles.

In the puzzle, you are the Stickperson. The red tiles are walls which cannot be crossed. 
The grey tiles are empty spaces which must be passed over. The green tiles are spaces 
that have already been crossed and may not be crossed again. To cover the grid you must trace a path which never intersects itself nor intersects the walls.

PLAYING: Click the tiles surrounding the Stickperson or use the directional keys on the 
keyboard to move the Stickperson in the desired direction. Go to the Game menu and select 
Undo take back your most recent move. You can reset the puzzle by selecting the Game menu 
and choosing Reset.

SCORING: Your score is based on the number of tiles covered, and the time taken to 
complete the puzzle. There is a penalty for undoing moves and a bonus for completing 
the puzzle.

For any math nerds out there, the formula is:

percent = (tiles covered) / (total tiles)
rate = (tiles covered) / (total time)

Restricted rate to the range 1 <= rate <= 6

raw score = (percent) * (percent) * (rate) * 100

After that, subtract 50 points for each undo.

Make score at least 0.

Add 200 points for winning.

If you're a REAL math nerd, you'll notice that the number of tiles covered is a cubic
factor in the formula. That means good scores need lots of tiles covered quickly.

STRATEGY: 
Avoid making any move that forces you to end at a certain point. Sometimes, this
is necessary, but avoid that if possible.

Play Tile Quest a lot. It's the best game. We all know it.

==================
6. TECHNICAL STUFF
==================

System requirements:
(Note: any computer less than five years old should have no problems)

	Intel or compatible 486 computer
	Video card running at 640x480 resolution
	Windows 95 or newer (*)
	A mouse
	A keyboard
	1 MB free hard drive space

Recommended system:

	Intel Pentium or equivalent computer
	Video card running at 800x600 resolution and 16-bit colour

(*): Mind Odyssey was not tested on Windows ME, 2000 or NT.

It is strongly recommend that you play with 16-bit colour if available. To join the world
of bright pretty colours, right-click your desktop, select Properties from the drop-down
menu, and then click the Settings tab. On this tab, change your colour settings from 8-bit
to 16-bit. You may need to reboot your computer if strange things happen.

=================
7. ABOUT THE CODE
=================

The code is freely available according to the terms of the GNU General Public License.
The program is freeware, and may be freely and openly distributed, but not sold.

There is enough flexibility build into the code to extend the project to encompass other
tile-based games.			