KINETIC WORM DIMENSION V1.01                             official ZDG help file
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[ contents ]

	copyright & distribution notice
	credits & acknowledgements
	the story, the play
	command line switches
	system requirements
	DOS considerations
	Windows considerations
	setup
	problems
	contacting ZDG

[ copyright & distribution notice ]

	The software product KINETIC WORM DIMENSION (further referred as KW)
	and all related data including music scores, sounds, artwork and text
	issues are

	(c) Sep 1999, dr.noise & bnbb / ZDG. KW is a (tm) of ZDG.

	ZDG claims no responsibility for any software/hardware damage,
	data loss or any other disasters arising from the use or misuse
	of KW. Use it at your own risk.
	
	ZDG grants you the right to freely copy & distribute KW,
	provided the following conditions:
		- no money is taken for copying/distributing, except
		  normal media and shipping/handling cost;
		- all files of the original package, including this text,
		  are remained and unchanged;
		- the original copyright is remained.

[ credits & acknowledgements ]

	- ZDM music player is partially based on the source code of the
	  "s3mod-v1.9" package, (C) 1994,1995 by Daniel Marks and David Jeske,
	  and S3M file format and mixing techniques provided by Future Crew.
	- music tracked in Scream Tracker v.3.21 [FC].
	- drum samples were sampled from Alesis D4 module.
	- particular noise samples were taken from Quake [id Software & NIN]
	  and album "Chaos A.D." [Sepultura].
	- sound effects synthesized in Cool Wave [David Johnston].
	- all artwork is handmade-created in AutoDesk Animator Pro
	  and converted using custom ZDG tools.
	- code written in assembly language and C.
	- compiled with Symantec C 6.1 professional edition.
	- all texts and sources were edited in the FAR [Eugene Roshal]
	  internal editor.

[ the story, the play ]

	KW is based on the well-known classic game called "Python" or "Snake"
	and is a 3D-extension of it. KW game space, also called a level, is
	a set of planes, specially oriented and connected with each other,
	so the worm can crawl from one plane to another, while moving in three
	independent dimensions. Player's goal is to control the worm and
	collect energetic charges appearing in different places on the level.
	Collecting charges, the worm increases its length. The worm cannot
	run into obstacles, into self, or out of level into the void.
	After the required number of charges is collected, a special token
	will appear - an exit, allowing the worm to pass to the next level.
	Player has some amount of time given to complete the level. When it's
	expired, the worm dies. If the worm hasn't reached charge for some
	time, the charge will disappear and respawn in different place.

	Controls

	Cursor keys (arrows up, down, left and right) are used to control
	the worm, and can be redefined via the KEYBOARD SETUP - REDEFINE KEYS
	menu item.
	"gray +" or "A" key is used to increase speed;
	"gray -" or "Z" key is used to decrease speed.
	"P" key pauses the game until any key is pressed.
	"shift" key, while pressed, increases speed at 1.5 times.

	Training mode

	KW features training mode. Once it's enabled, the game will go as
	usual, except when the worm dies the lives will not be lost, and
	after reaching exit token the worm will stay on current level instead
	of passing to the next level. To enable training mode, press T key
	at the level start (when the worm hasn't started to move yet). In the
	upper-left corner of the screen, you should see yellow rectangle with
	black "T" letter. To disable training mode, just press T again at
	any time.

	Volume setup

	KW has three volume settings: HW VOLUME (hardware), MUSIC VOLUME and
	SFX VOLUME (sound effects). Hardware volume is the analog output level
	of your sound card, whereas music and sfx volume are set digitally
	by the software. Therefore, lowering software volume causes some sound
	quality loss due to integer truncation of the digital data. So we
	recommend you to set the desired MUSIC/SFX volume ratio to the highest
	possible values, then set the master volume with the HW VOLUME control,
	because there's no quality loss on the analog output.

	Controls setup

	You can set the control type to ABSOLUTE or RELATIVE with the menu
	item CONTROL TYPE. Absolute type allows you to move in each 2D
	dimension (XY, YZ or XZ) using independent sets of 4 keys (relative
	"up", "down", "right" and "left"), but you of course may use the same
	set for all three planes. Relative method is more gracious yet more
	difficult: in any dimension you use only two keys, one of them turns
	worm's head always left (counterclockwise), and the other - always
	right (clockwise) relative to the worm's moving direction. That is,
	independently of worm's orientation, the controls are tied solely to
	its movement direction. This method requires advanced space thinking,
	but after some practice it can be learned (keys will be the same, but
	only "left-right" pair of them will be really used). "Up-down" pair
	will still work and will duplicate the "left-right" pair. This is
	useful for performing fast 180-degree turns. With absolute control
	type, this task is done easily by pressing two different keys at
	almost the sasme time. With relative control type, you will need to
	press the same key twice, which is very difficult to do fast.

[ command line switches ]

	You can run KW with the following switches:
	-nosound	disables all sounds (use in the case of hangs etc.)
	-slowdma	alternate sound playing mode. Use in the case of some
			sound problems (see "problems" section).
	-file <filename>	specifies an external level file
				(see build_en.txt).

[ system requrements ]

	CPU:	486DX4-100 as a low limit. pentium-133 will be just fine.
	Memory: approx. 1.5 Mb of free RAM.
	Video:	VESA 1.2 compatible SVGA card with at least 1 Mb of video
		memory.
	Sound:  Sound Blaster Pro compatible card (optional).
	Mouse:	not required.
	OS:	DOS 3.x or higher (further referred simply as DOS),
		Windows 95 or higher (further referred simply as Windows),

[ DOS considerations ]

	To launch KW in native DOS, no EMS/XMS/DPMI memory managers are
	needed. Just don't forget to load mouse driver, and you're set up.
	However, you can try different combinations of EMS/XMS/DPMI managers
	to see if it speeds up things (a little possible, though).

[ Windows considerations ]

	No additional tunings required to launch KW under Windows.
	However, this version of KW will NOT work under Windows NT.

[ setup ]

	KW is designed to setup itself without external help. However,
	it uses the "SET BLASTER" environment string to determine the I/O
	port, IRQ and DMA settings for Sound Blaster. Windows automatically
	adds this string in autoexec.bat. In DOS, you probably will have to
	add this string manually. The format is:

	SET BLASTER = Axxx Iyy Dzz

	where:	xxx is the hex address of I/O port (usually 220),
		yy is IRQ line,
		zz is DMA channel.

	for example, if your SB has I/O port 220, IRQ 5 and DMA 3,
	then the string should look like this:

	SET BLASTER = A220 I5 D3

	NOTE: the string may contain extra parameters such as Txxx, Hxx etc.,
	      but they have no sence for KW.


[ problems ]

	problem: [ WIN ] immediately after starting KW, the screen
		 turns black and system hangs deeply. Display may go into
		 standby mode.
	       > this bug occurs on some types of video cards (S3trio64V2)
		 with all DOS SVGA programs, and is not KW fault. Possible
		 cause is video driver. Problem was solved by installing
		 DirectX 5 video drivers (in fact, any newer drivers).

	problem: [ ALL ] SB initializes properly, but no sound is heard.
	       > check SB IRQ and DMA values - they must be equal to what
		 KW reads from the "SET BLASTER" environment string. 
		 Check if other application is holding control of SB.
		 Check the volume level and/or speaker connection.
	       > This problem also referres to some soundcars like SKY ROCKET.
		 The cause is unknown, but you can try to cure the problem by
		 running KW with the -slowdma switch.

	problem: [ DOS ] SB cannot be initialized.
	       > this happens if your SB is not 100% hardware-compatible with
		 SB Pro. Usually such cards have DOS drivers to be added in
		 your config.sys and/or autoexec.bat in order to enable the
		 SB Pro compatibility. Install these drivers as described in
		 manual.

	problem: [ DOS ] when starting KW, n emergency stop occurs diplaying
		 the message "A PAGE FAULT HAS OCCURED DUE TO INSUFFICIENT
		 MEMORY".
	       > This error usually happens on machines with DIMM type of RAM
		 and is concerned with protected mode code of Symantec C
		 compiler. Problem was solved by enabling 15-16 Mb memory hole
		 option in BIOS. Other solution is to boot pure DOS, without
		 any EMS/XMS memory managers. But there is no warranty of
		 success on other systems. It's recommended to launch KW
		 under Windows (ain't that a shame?!).

	problem: [ ALL ] if KW with enabled sound is launched at the very
		 first time after booting DOS or starting DOS session under
		 Windows, some programs running after KW may work incorrectly
		 or hang.
	       > It's recommended to add the following line in your CONFIG.SYS:
			STACKS=0,0
		 This shouldn't affect the performance of your system and will
		 additionally free some amount of base RAM.
	       > If, for some reasons, it isn't allowed to add "STACKS=0,0",
		 you can disable EMS support for DOS session where you run
		 KW, or make a separate shortcut for KW. You can also run
		 any program before running KW.

	problem: [ALL] sleepiness, dizziness, pursuant hearing hallucinations,
		 partial or total loss of ability to navigate in space.
	       > Try to play KW a bit less :)


[ contacting ZDG ]

	we are Zoolook Design Group.
	home page (russian): http://members.tripod.com/ZDG
	home page (english): http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Chasm/4496
	mail: dr_noise@mail.ru, dr_noise@hotmail.com
