Information on the Full version of Foul Playª v1.0

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Game Design - Information on the Full, Retail version of the Game
 
1) The two designers of this game fondly remember how much they enjoyed multi-player board games when they were young.  We particularly enjoyed shouting, laughing and talking to our friends as we played the game.  In Foul Playª - Mystery at Awkward Manor, we have tried to recapture this multi-player interaction, while still providing a challenging and exciting single-player game.

2) The Virtual Travel¨ environment is composed from over 5,000 individual photos of a 14 room mansion in England, and the game includes 65 animations, over 2,000 sound bites, thousands of possible clue locations in the mansion, and over 4,000 game solutions.  Each suspect has a repertoire of almost 1,000 different responses to questioning.  Extensive tutorials and on-line help are also available from within the game.

3) This game may be played by 1 - 6 players (one player for each guest).  Because there are some simple things to read in multi-player games, we recommend ages 7+, although younger children and less dedicated older children will enjoy wandering around, exploring the mansion, finding clues and guessing the solution.  For young children, please note that all parts of the solution may be found directly in the environment, with the exception of the murderer.  Some suspects may be eliminated by various clues discovered directly, e.g. the radio clues or the police phone-in clues, leaving only the correct suspect to be guessed for a solution.

4) Detective Notepads: Six pads are included in the box, along with six pencils and a pencil sharpener.  These notepads are very important for serious game players.  With these, you will be much better able to track your clues to solve the mystery.  Notepad maps (both blank and with SAMPLE NOTES) are also included on the CD; just double-click on them and print.

5) Game levels 1 - 3 are especially designed for new players.  Tutorials, hints and instruction are given throughout game levels 1 - 3, and we recommend that new players always start with one or two games at these levels.

6) Once you have selected your identities, received your opening clues, and started a game, these is an extensive help facility available. Click on the brass "?" button in the main control window to freeze the game and bring up the help screen. This screen gives all the rules and reasoning of the game, as well as hints on how best to solve the mystery before your opponents.  We recommend that all players examine the various sections of the help screen.

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                      Welcome to Foul Playª Demo for Macintosh and Power Macintosh.

This demo starts mid-way through a level 2 game.  Because of space restrictions on the CD, over 96% of the retail version of the game has been left out.  The full, retail version offers over 4,500 different solutions, with millions of different games.  It is designed to work best as a multi-player game (1-6 players, ages 7+), and the most difficult game should take only about an hour to solve -- perfect for a Saturday afternoon with the whole family.

We hope that you enjoy this taste of our murder mystery game. 

Please contact us on-line if you like it:
     eMail: foul-play@armchair-travel.com      or      web: http://www.armchair-travel.com/

               *** IMPORTANT ***        *** IMPORTANT ***        *** IMPORTANT ***

We have also created a native PowerMacintosh version of the game to provide you with superior game performance.  Please follow these guidelines for best results:

** If you don't follow these instructions, you may get poor performance from this product!

1) You will find the the Foul Playª PPC application will run much more quickly on PowerMac machines.  To run this version of the game, you should first copy it over to your hard disk; it will take about 8 Mb of disk space.

2) You MUST use QuickTime 2.0 or later and the QuickTime PowerPlug (v2.0 or later) for this version to work properly on your Macintosh. OLDER VERSIONS OF QUICKTIME will NOT work properly.  We also recommend the Apple Multimedia Tuner. If you have older versions, REMOVE THEM, and copy the QuickTime files from "For Extensions Folder" on the CD into the Extensions folder inside the System Folder on your hard disk.

3) Please TURN OFF as many system extensions as possible.  They WILL slow down the game play significantly, ESPECIALLY under System 7.5

You will also note that the PowerMac version of the game requires more memory to run properly, just as is the case with most PowerMac native software.  The memory partition set for the program is 7,000 K bytes.

If your PowerMac has 16 Mb or more of RAM, you will have plenty of RAM to run the game. You should *TURN ON* "Modern Memory Manager" in the Memory Control Panel for best performance.
                                                    *** IMPORTANT ***
=================   If your PowerMac has only 8 Mb of memory   ====================

You should run the program as follows:

1) Open the Memory Control Panel and set up Virtual Memory for at least 12 Mb RAM.

2) You must  *TURN OFF*  "Modern Memory Manager" in the Memory Control Panel.

3) RESTART your machine.

4) Even with Modern Memory Manager turned off, the audio in this game may be intermittent when using Virtual Memory. This is typical of virtual memory systems for playing audio
-- the hard disk is much slower than actual RAM, and often cannot keep up with the needs of real-time audio/video performance.

5) Remember: Turning off uneeded extensions, especially under  System 7.5, will improve audio performance.


For more information, please contact:
   foul-play@armchair-travel.com
   Mr. William Beckett or Mr. William Donelson
   The Armchair Travel Company Ltd
   London, England - telephone (44) 171-386-5454