BALLOONrain - Full Documentation

by
Manu TOO

Summary:
I. Introduction
II. The Shareware
III. Menus
IV. Game
V. Conclusion
VI. Order full version

Read the agreement license

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I. Introduction

BALLOONrain is a puzzle game with a powerful 3D engine to offer you a wonderful challenge. Its concept is new and innovative; you never played such a game!

With its various game modes and difficulty settings, you will play like you prefer : in a fast paced action, or with all the time you need to relax and think.

Minimum system requirements :

- OS: Windows XP/ME/2000/98 (Windows 95/NT not supported)
- CPU: 200 MHz Intel Pentium or equivalent
- RAM: 32 MB
- DirectX 8.1
- Video: DirectX 6.0 compatible 8-MB 3D card
- Sound: DirectX 8.1 compatible sound card
- Input: Keyboard, Mouse or Joystick

Recommended system requirements :

- CPU: 1.0 GHz or faster Intel Pentium III or AMD Athlon processor
- RAM: 64 MB or more
- Video: DirectX 8.1 compatible 64-MB 3D card

The game has been tested successfully on these 3d video cards :

- Nvidia : TNT 1, Geforce 2, Geforce 2 MX, Geforce 3, Geforce 4 MX, QuadroFx 1000
- ATI : Radeon 7500, Radeon 9700 Pro

The game can run, but with a few glitches on these cards :

- ATI Rage Pro
- 3dfx Voodoo 2

Characteristics :

- powerful 3d engine serving perfectly the pure and original gameplay
- 6 beautiful different balloons
- 4 gatherers
- 4 arenas, with 2 different backgrounds
- 8 bonus
- 4 game modes
- more than 100 levels

II. The Shareware

BALLOONrain is a game sold in shareware. So you can play it and test it before to buy it, but you have these limitations :

- just a few levels available, but it's enough to make you discover the game
- expert difficulty blocked in Survivor
- score blocked to 16,000

Moreover, after 14 days, the game will not start anymore, and if you still want to play it, you will have to register your version, so you could enjoy the totality of the game. Once paid (by check, paypal, credit card, etc...), a key (a small file) will be sent to you by email, allowing you to unblock your game.

Order the full version now!

You can have a copy of this version on your hard drive or removable media for test only. You can't sell this version, but you can copy it freely to everybody, as long as you don't modify it.

If you regularly use this version, you should pay the authors to encourage them to continue to do quality products.

III. Menus

In the menus :

You can use the mouse, or the arrow keys and enter, to select any submenu or option. Click on "Back", to come back to the previous menu.

In some menus, when you change an option, a "Apply" button will appear. You have to click on it to validate your changes; if you just click on "Back", then it won't apply these changes.

Main menu :

- New game : begin a new game
- Multiplayer : play in Survivor Mode, with several human players in the same arena
- Options : configure the game and the system
- Demo : watch the demos, including the ones you saved
- Credits : see the credits of the game
- Exit : quit under windows

"New game" menu :

Here you can choose which game mode you want to play, or do the tutorial.
Each game mode menu will let you choose the level or the zone to play, and contains an "Instructions" submenu that will explain you the basics of mode. When you're ready, just click on "Play", it'll bring you in the difficulty menu.

"Difficulty" menu :

- Kiddy : it's the easiest mode; if you're a casual player, it's still not a piece of cake, but it should give you the time to think and relax.
- Trainee : here, it's a bit harder, still not really tough, but you won't have time to fall asleep !
- Veteran : the real things begin, you need to be an experienced player before to challenge this difficulty.
- Expert : you play like a terminator, you react in 1 thousandth of second, and almost never fail ? Then this difficulty is for you.
- No Time Limit : if you prefer to have no time pressure, take all the time you need to think and try new things, then turn this option on.

Once you clicked on the difficulty you wanted, you're thrown in action !

"Options" menu :

- Profile : handle profiles
- Controls : configure the controls
- Audio : configure the sound and the music
- Video : configure display settings, and 3d rendering options
- Game : modify game options
- Hi-scores : show all the hi-scores for each game mode
- Statistics : show the scores of the last 100 games, for each game mode

"Profile" menu :

In this menu, you can choose a profile, or create a new one. Each profile contains its own settings (controls, game, video, etc...), and its own statistics. Only the hi-scores are shared through all the profiles.

"Controls" menu :

Here, you can choose if you want to play with the mouse, the keyboard or your joystick. To configure each action, just click on the current button/key, and then press the new button/key you want.
2 players can play on the keyboard.

- Player : choose which player to configure
- Control : select the control for the current player
- Autoback : when you move from cell to cell in the arena, sometimes when you want to stop on a cell, actually your gatherer already began to move to the next one. The more Autoback is high, the more the distance your gatherer will come back to the previous cell. If you don't see what it changes, just let it to 50%, it'll work fine.

"Video" menu :

Basic Options :

- Fast : set all the settings to accelerate the display, for old computers (see Minimum system)
- Normal : for most computers, with a good 3d card (see Recommended system)
- Quality : for high end computers (example : Pentium 2ghz / Athlon XP 2000+, with Geforce 4 / Radeon 9600)
- <3d device name> : if you have several 3d cards in you computer, let you choose the one you want
- Resolution : select the display resolution
- Bits : the color depth : "16 bits" means 65'536 colors, and "32 bits" means 16.7 million colors
- Refresh rate : the rate of your monitor
- FSAA : Full Scene Anti-Aliasing, smooth the display, but can be very expensive on older 3d cards
- Windowed : toggle Full Screen / Windowed rendering
- Model Details : tune the quality of the 3d models (balloons, gatherer, arena, ...)
- Special Fx : enable / disable all the FX (smoke, explosion, sparkles, ...)
- Anisotropic Level : set this high end 3d card feature

Advanced Options (only for experienced users) :

- 3d engine : select the global renderer type; except if you have troubles, you should not change it
  - DirectX 6 : if your 3d card is really old (ex: Rage Pro, Voodoo 1 & 2), you can try this mode, it could help improving your frame rate; but with it, you can only have Low or Very Low Model Details
  - DirectX 7 : use fixed T&L pipeline
  - DirectX 8 : use vertex shaders
- T&L processing : allows to select if the T&L is done in hardware by the 3d card, or in software by the CPU; except if you have troubles, you should not change this
- Specular lighting: enable / disable the light reflections; except if you 3d card is old, it should almost not change the frame rate
- Sync Frame : enable / disable the Vertical Synchronization
- Mirror : enable / disable the mirror effect; it can't be enabled when the Model Details are Low or Very Low; moreover, if the frame rate is too low, the engine will automatically remove objects from the mirror
- Water : choose between the dynamic water (only available with DirectX 8 cards), the bump water (not available on every 3d card), and no water
- Textures : choose the color depth of the textures
- Filtering : choose between bilinear and trilinear texture filtering
- DoNotClip : used by the DirectX 6 renderer; depending of your 3d card, enable or disable it to accelerate your frame rate

"Game" menu :

- Bonus : enable / disable the bonuses in Survivor and Challenge mode
- In-game Help : show / hide the panel displaying the different available combinations, and their scores
- Camera view : "Top" to have a classic 2D top view, "Side" to have a classic 3D side view, and "Moving" to have a dynamic 3d side view
- Distance : change the camera distance
- Angle : change the camera angle
- Draw Fps : show the frame rate

IV. Game

How to play ?

The best to be initiated to the basics of the gameplay is to play the tutorial. There, step by step, you will discover everything you need to get in the game.

Puzzle :

In Puzzle mode, you have to assemble balloons of the same colors, 4 by 4. Once the Arena is empty, you will move to the next one.
Each Zone contains 5 Arenas. But in Kiddy difficulty, you will move to next Zone after have completed the 3 first Arenas, and in Trainee difficulty, you will have to complete the 4 first Arenas to move to next Zone.

Survivor :

In Survivor mode, you have to try to survive the longest time possible. You can do different combinations to score :

- 4 balloons of the same color earn 100 points
- 2 of a color, and 2 of another color earn 50 points
- 3 of a color, and 1 of another color earn 25 points
- 4 of different colors earn 200 points

Challenge :

In Challenge mode, you have to do a certain number of determined combinations. They will appear from time to time on the top left of the screen. Else, the rules are the same than in Survivor mode. You can do the same kind of combinations to score.

Ghosted :

In Ghosted mode, you will play like in puzzle mode, except the arenas are usually bigger, and in each level, one or several ghosts will haunt you. You can do the same combinations than in the Survivor mode. It's a very stimulating mode.

Bonuses :

In Survivor and in Challenge, every now and then, bonus will appear. Each one has different effects :

- All same (a little balloon): transforms all the balloons to the one in this bonus
- Speed (a blue capsule) : your gatherer moves faster
- Hi-speed (a red capsule) : your gatherer moves even faster
- Lift (2 crossed blue V) : the balloons are lifted on the top of your gatherer, so you can freely move
- Push (an orange arrow) : you can push the other balloons, with the balloons you're already holding
- Runaway (2 little blue balls) : try to catch it to earn bonus points !
- Score X2 (a golden X) : double the points you earn
- Time warp (6 black spikes) : slow down the time

Time bonus :

In Survivor mode, you'll get a bonus depending of the time you can survive. That's why even if you do nothing, you can see your score raising slowly. Actually, the time bonus raises slowly at the beginning, and a lot faster after 10 min of game.

Scores & difficulty :

The scores are consistent all along the difficulty levels. It means the higher the difficulty, the higher the score you can do.
But in higher difficulty, if you don't play fast enough, you'll lose very quickly.

Music :

You can listen your own music in the game, in any format supported on your computer (ie: mp3, ogg, wma, etc...), by placing your own music files in the subdirectory "Music". The game will choose randomly which music to play at each game start. You can add your own music for menus in "Music\Menu" and for the in-game menus in "Music\Menu_Ingame".

V. Conclusion

Credits :

- ManuTOO (aka Emmanuel Rivoire) : Code, Design, Models, Textures, Sounds
- Localization : Dutch by Bolle, English by Blake Grant, German by Blueskied.com, Spanish by MysteryStudio.com
- Music : Andy Mene; Audio Class; G Mazon; Jan; Karatekid15; Magnum Eq; Nemo; Puckstar Studios; Rawslyn Ruffin; Souldust; Vision Trips; Xtremewebz; Dave Dalishous; Tom Sheets; Asim Khan - Rafael A Carrillo
- Menu background : Ben Bianconi

Last word :

We worked very hard during 2 years to bring this game to you. So we really wish you to have fun with BALLOONrain ! :-)

A question, a suggestion ?
Contact : Web Form

Copyright Emmanuel Rivoire - ©2004