ToonStruck Demo Release Notes ----------------------------- These release notes are intended to provide last minute information regarding the ToonStruck cover disk demo. If you are having trouble getting ToonStruck to run on your system, please read the troubleshooting section below. Installation ------------ Insert the demo CD into your CD-ROM drive. Change to the ToonStruck directory on the CD and type 'install' then follow the onscreen instructions. When the demo is installed, change to the install directory on your hard drive and type 'toonstrk'. If you are running from Windows '95 select 'Run' from the 'Start' menu and select 'install.exe' in the ToonStruck directory on the CD. When the installation is complete select 'Run' from the 'Start' menu and select 'toonstrk.bat'. Recommended Requirements ------------------------ PC IBM(clone) Pentium 16Mb RAM 1Mb SVGA Video Card ( VLB / PCI ) 4x CD-ROM Drive 16bit Stereo Sound Card Minimum Requirements -------------------- PC IBM(clone) 486 8Mb RAM 256k SVGA Video Card ( VLB / PCI ) 2x CD-ROM Drive 8bit Sound Card ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Gameplay Instructions --------------------- Cursor Controls --------------- When cursor is a diagonal arrow pointer: Left or right click to move Drew to that point in the scene When cursor is a pointing hand (over exits, paths, doors etc.): Left click to walk towards exit and leave scene, right click to leave scene immediately When cursor is a magnifying glass: Left or right click to get (where appropriate) a description of whatever the cursor is over. When cursor is a tapping hand: Left click to 'push', 'press' or 'activate', & right click to get (where appropriate) a description of, whatever the cursor is over (you'll hear a silly noise if there is no description available). When cursor is an opening and closing hand: Left click to 'use', & right click to get (where appropriate) a description of, whatever the cursor is over (you'll hear a silly noise if there is no description available). When cursor is chattering teeth: Left click to talk to, & right click to get a description of, the character the cursor is over. When cursor is a 'picking up' hand: Left click to pick up (cursor turns into that object), & right click to get (where appropriate) a description of, whatever the cursor is over (you'll hear a silly noise if there is no description available). Using Objects ------------- Having picked up an object, left click to 'use' that object in the current scene (must be over the area of the scene where you want to use the object). Alternatively, move the cursor over the inventory bag (see below) and left click to place the object in your inventory (short cut: while the cursor is an object, right click at any time to instantly place object in inventory bag). Storing Objects --------------- Bottom left of the screen is a small blue bag. Left or right click on the bag to bring up a close-up of its contents. This close-up serves as the inventory screen where useful objects may be stored for future use. Right click over any object in the inventory screen to get a description of that object. Left click on an object to pick it up, the cursor will become that object. Left click over an empty slot to return the object to the bag. Whilst holding an object left click away from another item or slot to return to the main scene still 'carrying' the object (as the cursor). Flux Wildly ----------- Flux is the purple guy following you around the game. Left click on Flux to turn the cursor into a 'Flux Head'. In some places you can left click the Flux Head cursor to trigger additional dialog. Left click over Flux or right click anywhere to return to normal cursor. Other controls -------------- Press F1 to bring up the Options screen. Here you will be able to: 1. Independently control the volume levels of the music, sound effects and dialog in the game. 2. Leave the demo (quit to DOS or Windows). 3. Return to the game. Note that the video resolution control and 'save/load' game functions have been disabled for this demo. Press 'spacebar' to 'fast forward' past the current line of dialog. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Troubleshooting --------------- This section provides troubleshooting techniques to get the demo running and achieve optimum game performance. Configuration ------------- If you need to alter the settings for your video card after installation, run VIDSETUP.EXE from your ToonStruck directory. If you need to change the settings for your sound card, run 'SETUP.EXE' from your ToonStruck directory. It is possible to manually configure many of the settings within ToonStruck in order to overcome a problem. Before trying any of these please read the 'problems & solutions' section below. The use of these switches should not be necessary if the install program was followed correctly. Command Line Switches (override 'TOONSTRK.CFG'): Usage: TOONSTRK [options] -h Help -? Help -u Disable UniVBE -v Install UniVBE using existing VESA 2.0 Drivers -w Do not sync to monitor refresh -6 Force 6-bit DAC palette data -p Do not program the palette (colors) Most of the configuration information is obtained from the 'TOONSTRK.CFG' file. You may change video modes by setting the 'Width' and 'Height' fields within this file using a text editor. Supported resolution are: 640x400 640x480 320x200. UniVBE ------ UniVBE is a generic video BIOS extender compatible with VESA 2.0. It enables quick, linear access to your video cards memory. For ToonStruck to run optimally either UniVBE has to be installed correctly or you have to be using a VESA 2.0 video driver supplied by the manufacturer of your video card. UniVBE is constantly being revised and upgraded as more and more video cards become available. If you have problems installing UniVBE, your video card may not be supported by the version of UniVBE shipped with this demo. For more information look in the SciTech software web site WWW.SCITECHSOFT.COM. To obtain a compatible VESA 2.0 driver contact the manufacturer of your video card. Windows '95 ----------- To attain optimum performance from ToonStruck we recommend running from MS-DOS mode. If you have an 8Mb system you may find that ToonStruck will not run under a DOS box. If you are experiencing low sound volume, or no sound, make sure the volume control slider, accessible from the taskbar, is turned up. If you have trouble installing the sound card, make sure the auto-detection settings in the install program are the same as the Windows '95 settings or simply run from MS-DOS mode. The Windows '95 sound settings are found in the 'Sound card' properties section under the 'Device Manager' tab in the 'System' icon of the 'Control Panel'. If you are experiencing poor CD performance make sure the settings are correct for your CD-ROM drive. These settings appear under 'Control Panel' - 'System' - 'Performance' - 'File System' - 'CD_Rom'. Problems & Solutions -------------------- * The install program did not auto-detect the sound card correctly. Try manually selecting your sound card settings, if you know them, from within the installation program or by running the sound setup program 'SETUP.EXE'. Choose the 'Select Digital' button and enter your sound card specifics. If you still cannot hear sound you may need to disable sound altogether for the demo to run. Select 'No Digital Device' from the 'Select Digital' button. * No sound is heard when 'Test' is selected in the installation program. See above. * The machine locks-up after displaying the UVBELib banner. There is a conflict between UniVBE and one or more programs running on your system. Try disabling UniVBE by entering 'TOONSTRK -U' unless you have one of the specific components mentioned next. If you have 'Windows for Workgroups' on your system the program EMM386.EXE could be causing the conflict. You should try removing it from the file CONFIG.SYS and rebooting your machine. If you have a MACH64 PCI video card you should try running using the DOS4GW DOS extender. To do this use the following command line 'DOS4GW MAIN JUMP22 -A'. If this still does not work try disabling UniVBE by entering 'DOS4GW MAIN JUMP22 -U'. This technique may also work for other PCI video cards. * The screen goes blank and sound is not heard or stops playing. The video setup is causing a conflict with your system. Try disabling UniVBE by entering 'TOONSTRK -U'. If this does not work try disabling the video card from trying to sync to the monitor by entering 'TOONSTRK -W' or failing that 'TOONSTRK -U -W'. * The screen goes blank and sound continues. The palette (colors) are not being programmed properly into your video card. UniVBE may have detected your video cards DAC incorrectly. Try selecting a generic DAC by entering 'UVCONFIG -d7' then running the demo. Failing that, try disabling UniVBE altogether by entering 'TOONSTRK -U'. * The palette (colors) are displayed incorrectly. See above. * The palette (colors) appears too dark. You may have a 6-bit DAC video card that requires specific palette data. Try forcing to a 6-bit palette by entering 'TOONSTRK -6'. * An error message appears saying 'ToonStruck may play slow or flicker'. The optimal video configuration could not be set up on your machine. ToonStruck requires a 1Mb video card to run optimally. If you have a 1Mb video card and you still get this error message there is a possibility that UniVBE did not detect your video card correctly. This may be because your video card is too new to be supported by the version of UVCONFIG.EXE shipped with this demo. See the section on UniVBE for more details. * An error message appears saying 'Could not configure linear access'. The optimal video configuration could not be set up on your machine. ToonStruck requires either UniVBE correctly installed or VESA 2.0 driver support from your video card manufacturer. See the section on UniVBE or Contact your video card manufacturer for details on obtaining a VESA 2.0 driver for your specific video card. * An error message appears saying 'Out of memory'. You do not have enough memory to play ToonStruck, memory is being used by other software or your memory is configured incorrectly. ToonStruck requires a minimum of 6Mb free. If you are running the demo from a Windows '95 DOS box, restart in MS-DOS Mode if you have an 8Mb system, or, if you have more, try altering the memory allocation in the DOS session properties box by setting the 'DPMI' section under the 'Memory' tab to 8192. If your system is running using the memory manager 'EMM386.EXE' try adding the switch '/NOEMS' to the command line in CONFIG.SYS. If your system is using another memory manager, such as 'QEMM', try disabling the expanded memory option using the memory managers setup utility. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ UniVBE and Uvconfig are copyright SciTech Software. All rights reserved. Windows '95, MS-DOS and EMM386 are copyright Microsoft. All rights reserved. QEMM is copyright Quarterdeck. All rights reserved. NOTE: Part of ToonStruck is packaged on this CD using Info-ZIP's compression utility. The installation program uses UnZip to read zip files from the CD. Info-ZIP's software (Zip, UnZip and related utilities) is free and can be obtained as source code or executables from various bulletin board services and anonymous-ftp sites, including CompuServe's IBMPRO forum and ftp.uu.net:/pub/archiving/zip/*.