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                                                      Wheels!  by RJ Cooper & Assoc.

        Wheels!  is a 3D action game in the genre of Duke Nukem, Doom, and a host of others.  However, Wheels!  has been specifically designed for people with disabilities.  This covers:

a) practicing joystick skills to become proficient enough to justify a power wheelchair (hence the name Wheels!).  This includes disabilities such as Cerebral Palsy, Muscular Dystrophy, Multiple Sclerosis, and a host of others.

b) kids with cognitive disabilities that cannot play mainstream games, because the games are too fast, violent, and confusing.  This includes disabilities such as Down Syndrome, Developmental Delay, Mental Retardation, and a host of others.

c) IntelliKeys users that cannot operate anything but IntelliKeys.  This may include either category above.

     For pointing device control of Wheels!  you must restart after installation!

     If this is the demo, I encourage you to copy it for friends.  They, and I, will appreciate it greatly.  If this is the full version, please do not copy for friends.  That would be a violation of the Copyright Laws of most countries.  Instead, download the demo at <www.rjcooper.com/wheels>.

     Wheels!  consists of a series of 3D mazes that players must explore, set in a familiar school-type environment.  Finding the Exit to one maze will take them to the next, with mazes becoming progressively bigger and tougher.  Closed doors must be negotiated, and Locked doors can only be opened by first finding a Key and then pressing Action function to unlock them.  Evil clowns and robots roam the mazes, and must be "creamed" by throwing pies at them.  They can throw pies back, so watch out!  Extra pies and first-aid kits can be collected throughout the maze to replenish supplies.

     Wheels!  contains 3 difficulty levels (only the Easy difficulty level for the first maze is in the Demo).  In the full version, the player selects between the difficulties by simply choosing one of 3 entrances to the school:

Easy: corridors are wide, monsters are relatively few and easy to hit, no damage to player from bouncing into walls, doors open automatically on approach, and several other factors that make play easy.

Medium: corridors are a bit more narrow,  monsters that must be hit more directly, bumping into walls or furniture now decreases your health indicator (the one next to the first aid box), doors must be opened using the Action function, and several other factors that make play a bit more challenging.

Hard: corridors are very narrow, monsters are tougher, walls and furniture, inflict greater damage, doors can only be opened by using Action function on nearby switches, and...well, you know. 

How to Control Wheels!  Gameplay
Wheels!  is set to use the arrow keys for movement, <space> to Shoot Pies, <return/enter> to Actiivate Stuff (opens doors, activates 'Save' tape recorders to save a game in progress, and performs several other functions), and <tab> for both Fire and Action functions.   A standard keyboard works fine.

There is another device, IntelliKeys, a flat membrane keyboard that can use interchangeable overlays.  Most of the overlays that come with this device have the Wheels!  keys ,soWheels!  is very appropriate for operation by this device.

Mac:  I also have had Dave, my most-excellent programmer, develop another control panel, Mouse4Wheels! (M4W!), which translates mouse movement/position and clicks intoWheels! -appropriate keystrokes, as described above.   It loads at startup but only becomes active within Wheels!

Windows: My Windows guys developed an M4W! for the Win95 version, too.  In order to use a pointing-device (joystick included), it must be run before launching Wheels!  

Mouse4Wheels!
M4W! can be set to either Move Mouse mode, meaning that you must be moving the mouse for movement within the game, or Position Mouse, which means that your pointing device functions like a joystick, positioning away from center for faster movement.  Tracker and HeadMouse (both are ways of controlling the cursor by just moving your head) work great in Position Mouse mode.  Firing pies and opening doors can be performed by a single click, or the two functions can be allocated to separate buttons.  Use the <s> key to change speeds.  ** Important SAM-Joystick for Mac note:  Changing SAM-Joystick speed <control-J> when in Wheels!   will be detected by  M4W! instead and will not affect SAM-Joystick speed when not in Wheels! 

Non-clickers:  For those players that cannot do any clicking at all, there are utilties (Mac: SmartClick by us (requires latest version for optimal playing), Magic Cursor by Madenta <www.madenta.com> (also requires latest version), that perform clicking functions simply by hovering over a target long enough.  We have gone to great lengths to ensure that these utilities allow these players access toWheels!  gameplay.  

Players are able to regularly save their own games by using the Activate key/button at the "Save Game" panels (look like old-style tape recorders), which can be found throughout mazes.  In addition, on the Mac, supervisors are able to save games at any point on the player's behalf by pressing Cmd-S on the keyboard.  Supervisors may also access an overhead map-view by pressing the M key (zoom in and out with + and - keys), should players need a bit more help in navigating (both Mac and Windows).  

The PREFERENCES Button at the Main Menu

Display
Wheels!   will default to 100% screen size and high-resolution on all PowerMacs and most Windows 95/98 PC's.  For older Macs and slower PC's, Wheels will default to low-resolution, but please try high-res, just to see if it will work for you, as it looks so much better than low-res.  If Wheels!  is very jerky in high-res then you'll need to change it back to low-res, or perhaps buy a faster computer <grin>.

Sound
Wheels!  plays a constant music soundtrack and oodles of sound effects.  The more sound channels you set in this preference, Wheels!  can play more sounds concurrently (which is good).  The default here is Music on, Extra Sounds on, Volume=4, and Channels=4.  Turning off Music or Extra Sounds can improve performance on slower computers, although it's much less fun that way (note that Wheels!  will automatically turn these options off if not enough memory is available for them).

Control 
Select Map allows you to choose new maps that will be available at the web site <www.rjcooper.com/wheels> and/or alternate Physics, which control several player/character movement and behaviors. 

Special Note:  You can start at any Level by holding down Mac: <command-option>, Win: <alt-esc> while clicking on Start New Game at the main menu.

System Requirements for Wheels!

Because Wheels!  is a 3D action game, it will not run very well, or at all, on very old computers.  Here are the minimum recommended systems for running Wheels.  Please note, however, that you may have to play with some of the Preferences options turned off/reduced to get decent performance on slower computers.

Mac
Minimum: 68LC040 processor, 13" 256 colour monitor, System 7, 8 MB RAM
Preferred: PowerMac or better, 16 MB RAM

Enjoy!

Wheels!  is produced by:
RJ Cooper & Assoc.
24843 Del Prado #283
Dana Point, CA 92629
1-800-RJCooper  949-661-6904  Fax: 949-240-9785
Internet: www.rjcooper.com  Email: techsupport@rjcooper.com

Special thanks to Hamish Sanderson, Mike Trinder, Bo Lindbergh, Gregg Seelhoff, Toggle.com, Dave Warker, Charles Lechasseur, Borzz, and special thanks to Bungie Software, developers of the 3D engine I use in Wheels!