  ___  _            _
 | _ )| | __ _  __ | |__
 | _ \| |/ _` |/ _|| / /
 |___/|_|\__,_|\__||_\_\
  ___  _                                 _ 
 / __|| |_   _ _  __ _  _ __  _ _   ___ | |
 \__ \| ' \ | '_|/ _` || '_ \| ' \ / -_)| |
 |___/|_||_||_|  \__,_|| .__/|_||_|\___||_|
                       |_|
0.45 Alpha.

Copyright 1996-99 by Anthony P. Hamilton


                                         Ŀ
                                  CONTENTS
                                
 Introduction
 Minimum Requirements
 Recommended Set-up
 Command-Line Options
 Distribution
 Trouble-Shooting
 Contacting POW Productions
 Development Team


                                            Ŀ
                                 INTRODUCTION
                               
    Wanna good shoot-em-up? You've come to the right place. This game was
going to rock the world of shoot-em-ups on the PC, but lack of support
and reliability of today's greedy and fickle comercial publisher have
not made it worthwhile to continue production on it. So this version is
made avaliable for public consumption.


                                               Ŀ
                            MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS
                          
 80386.
 DOS 5.
 640K RAM (with minimum of 500K free)
 VGA adapter with minimum 256K RAM.
 3 Megabytes of free disk space.


                                              Ŀ
                             RECOMMENDED SET-UP
                           
 486 or better
 Lots of free conventional RAM
 Disk cache.
 Local-bus video.
 Gravis UltraSound (with 1meg of RAM).


                                               Ŀ
                            COMMAND-LINE OPTIONS
                          
The following options can be used when you run this game from the DOS prompt:

 -userLevels
Use this option to play user-defined levels from the LEVELS directory.

 -setSound
Executes the set-up menu. Same as running SETSOUND.EXE

 -noPause
Doesn't wait for a key at initialisation if no errors occur.

 -config FILESPEC
Specifies an alternate path and filename for the configuration file.
Use the -setSound option with this option to change the sound settings.
This is useful if you wanted to run Black Shrapnel from CD-ROM.
Example: BLACK -config C:\BLACKCFG\BLACK.CFG


                                            Ŀ
                                 DISTRIBUTION
                               
Black Shrapnel is supplied as-is. No warranty is implied or offered by the
authors of this game for any damages incurred by the use, distribution, or
anything else related to this game. All trademarks mentioned are the
property of their respective owners. 



                                              Ŀ
                               TROUBLE-SHOOTING
                             
If you are having trouble getting this game to work, before you do anything
else, read the initilisation screen carefully. Then read the following
points. It is most likely that a problem you are having is a result of your
computer being incorrectly configured. Contact us only of you think there
is a problem with this game and supply as much information as you can.

 Some keys don't work when others are pressed:
This is a hardware problem with some keyboards that can only handle a limited
number of keys at the same time. Either redefine the keys (use shift, ctrl
and alt preferably) or use a keyboard that doesn't have this limitation.

 Poor sound quality:
The Gravis Ultrasound is by far the best quality sound card for this game.
If you don't have this hardware and experience poor quality sound, try using
the high quality sound options and reducing the number of sound fx channels
within the set-up.

 Erratic animation and disk access:
If you're not using disk caching software, it is highly recommended that
you DO! Without it, your system is not taking advantage of advanced
software that will improve the performance of your machine and will
improve the life of your hard-drive. 


                                                   Ŀ
                          CONTACTING POW PRODUCTIONS
                        
 Post:
POW Productions
43 Holcombe Crescent
Ipswich
IP2 9QL
England

 e-mail:
antman@enterprise.net


                                              Ŀ
                               DEVELOPMENT TEAM
                             
  
 Anthony Hamilton : Code / Design / Sound FX / Graphics / Levels
 Roger Wong       : Music / Graphics / Sound FX
  

 Additional support:
  
 Simon Booth      : Unchained Graphics Toolkit
 Otto Chrons      : Digital Sound and Music Interface
  


                                        --+
                                    NOTES
                                  +--
 Some of the graphics are temporary and need replacing at this stage.
 Ignore the bits in this document that don't yet apply (like defining keys).
 Current key set 1: QAZX, left CTRL/ALT.
 Currnet key set 2: Arrow keys, right CTRL/ALT.
 The level editor is unfinished. Do not design any levels for real yet.
 Run-time debug checks may slow things down at this stage.
 Test keys:
   1-5 change scroll speed.
   D toggle the map tiles on and off.
   S create shrapnel at player position
   C change shrapnel type creates with S.
   T Visualise enemy scenery collision 


                                              --+
                              PLANNED ADDITIONS
                            +--
 Lots more pretty map tiles.
 Sonic Blaster primary weapon.
 Map gadgets: luna buildings, people, jeeps, ect...
 More enemies (including end of level guardians).
 In-game player colours.
 And lots of other stuff!
 Level gadgets are activated when their hot-spots are 30 pixels off the
  right of screen. I must try to find a better way of doing this.
 The game may eventually crash after a long period of time if any spark or
  flame shrapnel is on-screen. I am aware of this bug and know the cause,
  but have yet to find an acceptable fix.
 Re-do many of the graphics.
 Fix bug where the player joines immidiatly after dieing if fire button
  is down.
