Flag Day 5.02 (05 Sep 2002)
========

Flag Day is a RISC OS desktop implementation of the popular
game of Minesweeper.

Game summary
------------

The objective of the game is to uncover all the 'safe' tiles
within the board whilst avoiding uncovering a tile which
contains a mine. To help you work out which tiles contain mines
and which do not, a number (or other graphical clue) will be
displayed in each square when you uncover it, to tell you how
many mines are adjacent to the tile you clicked. If there are
no adjacent mines then Flag Day will uncover further tiles for
you automatically, revealing more of the board in each
direction until mines are encountered.

Click SELECT on a tile to uncover it; click ADJUST on a tile to
place a flag on it. Flagged tiles may not be uncovered until
the flag is removed (by clicking ADJUST on it again).

If you uncover all the safe tiles on the board, you win.

If you uncover a mine, you lose.

Under normal circumstances, the four corners of the game board
will not contain mines, thus giving you a few safe starting
points for your mine hunt.

In most cases it's possible to work out where the mines are
located by logical deduction, but occasionally you may come
across a situation where you are forced to guess. For such
impossible situations, a hinting system is provided: choose the
Hint option from the game menu, and Flag Day will either reveal
or flag the next tile you click, depending on whether or not it
contains a mine. Use the hints sparingly: you are only allowed
one hint for every 50 mines in the board.

When starting a new game, you can use the New game options
window to choose your skill level or set up a custom-sized
board. You can also alter the amount of the custom board to be
covered by mines, as a percentage, but note that you will only
be eligible for entry into the best times table if you use the
default coverage value of 20%.

Notes:

1. Closing or iconising the board window will pause the game.
   Click the icon bar icon (or choose Continue... from the
   icon bar menu) to resume from where you left off.

2. When no game is in progress, clicking the top strip of icons
   in the board window (containing the percentage completed
   and timer information) acts as a shortcut for starting a
   new game with the existing board settings.

3. Flag Day supports interactive help extensively.

Game options
------------

The Choices window, available from the icon bar menu (or click
ADJUST on the icon bar icon), allows many aspects of the game
to be configured. The following options are available:

Game behaviour section:

- Auto-turn blanks: This option (normally enabled) causes
  Flag Day to reveal adjacent blank tiles automatically if
  you click on a tile which is not adjacent to any mines.

- Search and Flag modes: Normally, clicking SELECT uncovers a
  tile and clicking ADJUST places and removes flags. Flag Day
  has an alternative interface method, however, which may be
  enabled by turning on this option. In the alternative method,
  the ADJUST button toggles between Search and Flag modes,
  while the SELECT button both uncovers tiles and places flags,
  depending on the current mode. This alternative method is
  slower to use but safer, because it's less easy to uncover
  tiles accidentally.

- Uncertainty markers: Uncertainty markers are like flags
  except that they do not prevent you from uncovering tiles.
  If this option is enabled, an uncertainty marker will appear
  on a tile after you remove a flag from it; you must click
  again with ADJUST to remove all markings from the tile. The
  uncertainty markers are intended as visual reminders on tiles
  whose contents you are unsure about.

- Show mines at end: When you lose a game, Flag Day normally
  reveals the positions of all the mines in the board;
  disabling this option prevents it from doing so. (If this
  option is disabled, then the 'Show mines' option on the
  game menu becomes available, and performs the same function.)

- Show times at end: If enabled, this option causes the best
  times window to be opened on the screen at the end of every
  game. The best times window contains a status icon showing
  whether the last game was won or lost.

- Auto-save best times: If enabled, Flag Day will save the
  table of best times to disc every time a new entry is made
  into it. If this option is disabled, you must save the best
  times manually by clicking the 'Save' button in the window.

New game setup section:

- Safe corners: If enabled, Flag Day will ensure that a mine
  never appears in a corner square when creating a new game.

- Safe edges: If enabled, Flag Day ensures that mines never
  apper along any of the four edges of the board, not counting
  the corners (which are governed by the previous option).
  Note that the use of this option creates a greater mine
  density within the body of the board. Since this can have a
  significant impact on how the game plays, you are not allowed
  to enter your score into the best times table if you use the
  Safe edges option.

As a convenient short-cut, the above two options are duplicated
in the New game setup window.

Graphics pop-up menu:

The Graphics pop-up menu allows you to choose the game graphics
that Flag Day will use. Several sets are provided, and you can
see information about each by pointing at its name in the
Graphics menu with interactive help enabled. It is also
possible to design your own graphics sets (see below).

Appearance section:

- Sound: If disabled, Flag Day will cease generating sounds.
  Note that this has no effect on audio output from other
  RISC OS applications.

- Magnify tiles: If enabled, the tiles on the board will be
  enlarged to quadruple size, making them easier to see and
  click. This is especially useful for small graphics sets.

- Grey/alternative tiles: Some of the sets of graphics supplied
  with Flag Day have alternative versions, either offering a
  grey-scale equivalent to the colour graphics or a design
  variant. For example, the Crossword graphics (which normally
  use numbers) feature alternative designs with letters.
  Turning this option on will display the alternative set.

- Style Guide compliant: Usually, Flag Day takes on the normal
  appearance of a regular RISC OS application. However, if its
  compliance with the RISC OS application design guidelines is
  disabled, Flag Day will use a set of graphics in its windows
  that are visually in keeping with its default board graphics.

Graphics
--------

It's easy to design new sets of grahics for Flag Day. All you
need to do is to save an appropriate sprites file in the
Graphics directory within the Flag Day application. The
following sprites must all be present within the file:

 b & i - blank (unturned) tile, and inverted version
     0 - empty tiles (no surrounding mines)
1 to 8 - numbered tiles for the associated number of
         surrounding mines
 m & n - mine and exploded mine
     f - flag
 u & w - uncertainty marker, and inverted version

The graphics can be of any size and colour depth, but note:

1. All the individual graphics must be the same size as each
   other;
2. All the sprites must use the same number of colours;
3. If any of the sprites has a palette, then you should ensure
   that every other sprite has an identical palette, too.

The alternative/grey-scale graphics are optional. If present,
the alternative sprites should use the same names as the main
sprites, but with 'gs' prefixing the single-character name:
'gsb', 'gsi', 'gs0' and so on.

The alternative graphics must be the same size as the main
graphics, but may use a different colour-depth (if fewer
colours are needed, for example). However, the alternative
tiles must all be the same colour depth as each other, and
should all have the same palette (if a palette is present).

Note that Flag Day treats its alternative graphics slightly
differently than the main ones:

1. The normal versions of the flag and uncertainty marker
graphics will always be used, even if the alternative graphics
have been selected, unless the computer's desktop is set to use
only 2 or 4 colours. (This is to provide a clear contrast
between the grey tiles and the coloured flag markers.)

2. Flag Day assumes that the alternative graphics have been
optimised for use in screen modes with few colours, so it will
always use the alternative graphics in screen modes with only
2 or 4 colours.

It is possible to provide interactive help text for your new
graphics, for when the pointer is held over their entry in the
Graphics menu with interactive help enabled. To add such
information, it is necessary to edit Flag Day's Messages file.
Load it into a suitable text editor (such as Edit) and move the
caret to the end of the file. You will see that the last few
entries take the form:

  Help_Menu_Graphics_<filename>:<help-text>

Simply add a new line to the Messages file in the above format,
replacing the <filename> section with the actual name of the
sprites file you have added.

Note that the help text itself can only be a maximum of 235
characters long. If you exceed this length, Flag Day will
inform you of the fact when you attempt to view your help text.

When saving the updated Messages file, please ensure that it
ends with a carriage return (i.e. the caret can appear on a
blank line at the end of the file).

-----
Flag Day copyright  1992-2002 Richard G. Hallas
