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Atomic Worm ReadMe
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(c) Charlie Dog Games 9th july 2008

This document provides information about "Atomic Worm". A game developed independantly by "Charlie Dog Games"
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How to Use This Document
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To view the Readme file in Windows Notepad, maximize the Notepad window, and turn on the Word Wrap feature. To print the 

Readme file, open it in Notepad or another word-processing program, and click Print on the File menu.

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CONTENTS
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   1. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
   2. INSTALLATION TIPS
   3. TROUBLESHOOTING
   4. Credits
   5. Known Issues
   6. Game Play Hints


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SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
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Microsoft Windows 98 ME, Microsoft Windows 2000, Microsoft Windows XP

PIII 1 GHz CPU or better
256 MByte system ram or better
Hardware Video support
Direct X Sound
Minimum graphics resolution 800*600
Microsoft Mouse or compatible pointing device.
Windows-compatible sound card
250 MByte of Hard Disc required for installation


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INSTALLATION TIPS
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Ensure that at least 250 MByte of space is available on the hard disc before installing and running the game.

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Instructions
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Use the mouse to guide the worm around the game board collecting tokens.  Collected tokens form a trail which follows the worm around the board.  If the worm head collides with the trail then a life is lost.  The worm starts the game with three lives. 

If three of the same tokens are collected one after the other then all tokens of that type are removed from the worms trail.  When the tokens are removed from the trail a meter on the left of the screen goes up.  When the meter reaches the top the level is complete and an exit appears on the game board somewhere.  The worm must then go into the exit to finish the level.

When three of a kind are collected there is a short wait of ab out 5 seconds before they are removed from the trail.  This is to give the player chance to add additional tokens to the trail.  Getting matches of more than three at a time is worth a lot of points.  If the player wants to force a match of three to be removed they can click the left button.  this is useful if the worm is in a corner and about to collide with the tail.

Extra lives are awarded at the following scores:
10,000
100,000
1,000,000 and each subsequent million reached (2,000,000 3,000,000 etc)





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TROUBLESHOOTING
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Users who have older machines (pre-PIII) may find that they have low frame rate issues.  If this is the case then I'm sorry but there isn't much I can do to help :(

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Known Issues
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Users running the game on early versions of Windows 98 SE may experience stability problems. 
When run in windowed mode on low end machines frame rate may not be constant.  The developer recommends running the game in full screen mode and on low end machines the "detail option" should be set at "low".

