                                SNOWCHUCK 1.8


Sickware is proud to present their new game : SNOWCHUCK!
The reason I (programmer) did the game is because I
wanted to know if I would be able to make a game like that.
I did! but the game is "slow"! I tried everything but it
doesn't run very fast! So playing an MP3 or something like that
can be painfully slow while runing the game. Snowchuck
won't run on a 386 or lower processor because of the opcodes I used.
If you run the game in DOS (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED) the keyboard
might be slow. For this, i made a program called FASTKEY
(included with the game) just type it and the keyboard
will be accelerated. The reason I made an extra program instead
of putting the code in the game is that you can use fastkey
for any other occasion. That way you can just include fastkey in your
autoexec.bat file and your keyboard will always be fast!!! YEAH!!!!

Min requirements :
486DX/33Mhz
640k conventional memory

Recommended :
Pentium 75Mhz
Sound Blaster


If you wanna try other games from SICKWARE, you can contact
us by E-MAIL to : ADAT@ATREIDE.NET or go to: HTTP://PAGES.INFINIT.NET/SICKWARE

I would be glad to send you any other games we've made.
And best of all, IT'S FREE!!! No shareware!!!
I'm only making this to show people and myself what I
can do.

OTHER SICKWARE PRODUCTS:
 PSYCHO-FROGGER
 ICON SMASHER VS THE ALIENS
 FRG!


WORDS FROM THE GRAPHICS DUDE/LEVEL LORD

Why a woodchuck you ask? I donno, Patrick (programmer) needed 
something cute for the game and what better then that cute
little fuzzy animal. And since we started making the game in the 
holidays, we said to ourselves 
"heh, why not make a winter game?" 
and thats how it all started. 

By the way, that thing you see sliding
in a blue thingy is a moose, we wanted to make a moose but that's 
very difficult to make in 20*20 so I just did the head in 
a saucer, here's the story I made up for an excuse :

One day, peacefully eating stuff in the woods, some hunters shot
the poor thing with an AK-47, well some guy who likes nature found
that very cruel and insisted on saving the animal. All they were 
able to save was is head, wich they carefully placed in a saucer
and released in the woods(heh, its my story). Well, now the moose 
is pissed off at the world and decided to team up with others 
alike to destroy woodchucks for no reason at all (he received 
brain damage in surgery, better just to not ask any questions).
So there you go, if you think you have a better story just send it to :
SICKWARE@VIDEOTRON.CA
The one with the best story will win a trip to Santa Bananas
with Richard Simmons + I will include your story in this
readme file instead of mine.

Oh yeah, one more thing, if you wanna see
the SnowChuck homepage with tips, updates & downloads go to :
http://pages.infinit.net/sickware/snowchuck.htm

HELP:

I know some of you are going to be screwed in the game so here is this
little instructions guide with tips and stuff :

First off, the controls, here they are

-Jump           Control
-Right          Right arrow
-Left           Left arrow
-"+" BUTTON        INCREASE GAME SPEED (for slow computers)
-"-" BUTTON        DECREASE GAME SPEED (for fast computers)


Ok, I know some of you are really gonna be screwed trying to figure out
what certain things in the games are for or just what they are exacly
so here is the description of everything you'll find in the game :

THE MENU :

By entering SnowChuck, you will be presented a menu that looks somewhat
like this :

-New game
-Load game
-Settings
-Quit

Here are the descriptions of what these do :

New game : Starts a new game

Load game : Loads a previously saved game (you save game by pressing
"esc" button during gameplay and then choosing "save game")

Settings : Arrange sound and music volume

Quit : Gets you out of the game

GAME PLAY SCREEN :

While playing, you can notice different things in the corners of the
screen, here is what they are/do :

Upper left : This is the number of points you have accumulated
Bottom left : This is the number of time you died
Upper right : This is your time left out in the cold, drinking coffee
boosts this.

ENEMIES :

Hypothermic squirrel :
This is a squirrel that fell in a lake and stayed too long in the cold
water for it's own good. It caught hypothermia and now is on the run
to catch a woodchuck from wich he could make a nice coat to get warm.

Snowboard bunny :
Well this is just your ordinary teenage rebel bunny. He's got no other
point in life but to snowboard and piss off other people. Watch out
for him for he is very mean and will try to stop you on your journey.

Frosted the snowman :
Very little is known about this fellaw, except that he seems to be
riding a slay to nowere...

Skyzophrenik pine cone :
This guy escaped the national mental institute for pine cones and is
very dangerous for he hears strange voices that tell him to destroy
woodchucks. You can see the evil in him just by looking at the crazy
look in his eyes.

See readme part (up) for Moose description.

POWER-UPS :

On your way to find a place to hibernate in the game, you will find 
various objects that will help you complete the game. 
Here's the descriptions :

Golden SnowChuck dollars : Along your way you will find those shiny
dollars wich make up an amount of points, the more you collect, the more
you have points.

Level Key : In certain levels, you need to obtain a key to unlock the
passage to another level, be sure to get it when you see it.

Coffee : Its very cold in the winter for a lone woodchuck that would be 
supposed to hibernate. To keep awake and not die freezing, you must drink 
some coffee wich will boost your time out in the cold (red bars) by 1.

Adrenaline shot : What better than a little adrenaline right into the
hearth to boost you up for maximum performance? With this snowchuck is
able to run much faster, maybe even a little to much faster.

Hydrogene : If you listened well in your chemistry class, you know
that hydrogene is very explosive. Bottle-up that stuff as fuel for
your Rocket-pak and you will jump like you never did before.

End passage : Going into this passage will bring you to the next level.


TIPS

-When jumping dont just tap the jump button, let it pressed, this will
allow you to jump much higher.

-When jumping over enemies, jump THEN go in the desired direction, this
will improve your capability to jump over obstacles.

-Take your time when in face of a difficult obstacle, do it one square
at a time.

-Dont start badtripping on your keyboard when you meet an enemy,
there's no need to panic : he can NOT jump or shoot stuff at you.


Well thats about it, have fun playing the game and make sure to
check out the game's web page for new levels and a pictured version
of this help file.

