
                               THE SYNDICATE
                                presents...

                   An Amiga-Only game by Josh Farley...

                           Theme by Chuck Hooten



                                ---OOZE---

                               Version 2 AGA

                                   1995

   Ooze is a SHAREWARE product.  This unregistered version is copyright, and
may be distributed freely.  If you enjoy Ooze, and would like to play the
complete version, please refer to the REGISTERING portion of this document
for details...


Table of Contents

   BEFORE PLAYING:

 Introduction
 Installing
 SystemRequirements
 ToolTypes

   THE GAME:

 Controls
 Rules
 Ratings
 MakingBoards

   POST GAME:

 Registering
 TheFuture
 OtherProjects
 History
 Credits

StarDates: 2561-2642

   The galaxy has opened up for those species that have mastered methods of
interstellar travel.  As systems far outside the previous limit of travel
became accessible, species discovered new wonders, and each other.

   By far the greatest wonder of them all is the Ooze.  It is a priceless
wonder; an exceptionally powerful fuel, an incredibly long-lasting energy
source, and an edible, healthy food source that could sustain entire
colonies for weeks with a single teaspoonful.  It makes a lovely pet, is
completely flame-retardant, and gives a perfect haircut every time.  It
quickly became the most important substance in the galaxy, used in
everything from light industry to interstellar engines to fast-food
"near-beef".  Those who control the Ooze, control the galaxy.

   The Ooze was discovered on a small moon very near to the center of the
galaxy.  In a move of brilliant diplomacy, the leaders of the starfaring
species agreed to make access to the Ooze free to all, with amounts given
to each species, distributed according to height.

   Business found a loophole, however.  Multi-species conglomerates found
that they could acquire amounts of Ooze from each species' quota, and in so
doing, corner the market and control the value of the Ooze.  Instead of the
Ooze being available to all, it became a commodity worth more than the
lives of those who used it, far surpassing the previous top product:
cow-pies, which were in a tragic confusion of translation confused by most
non-humans to be an extraordinarily abundant and cheap food source.

   Three things prevent the Ooze from being mined in amounts that would
make it plentiful, and valueless.  The first is an ecological treaty,
preventing Ooze from being harvested in amounts greater than its ability
to replenish itself.  The second reason has more teeth:  the moon of Ooze
sits in the middle of an impossibly dense nebula.  The nebula has only one
clear, safe path from the moon to the rest of the galaxy, and thus a great
bottleneck of starships entering and exiting the "Golden Road" has become a
limiting factor on the exploitation of the Ooze.  The third reason has
confounded all: the Ooze tends to seep through the hands of those
harvesting it.

   Despite numerous attempts by explorers to navigate an alternate pathway
to and from the Ooze, and innumerable tries by scientists to encourage the
Ooze to grow elsewhere, the moon of Ooze within the Golden Nebula,
dangerously close to the galactic core, with its single entry and exit,
remains the only spot in the galaxy to acquire the greatest treasure of all
time.


StarDate: 2642-Present

   As will eventually happen wherever traffic is great, unnecessarry
roadwork is called for frequently, and a pit stop developed at the entry to
the Golden Road.  The Oozeway, as the station quickly became known, has
become a great meeting place and cultural exchange for all species who
need the Ooze.  It is a perfect place to perform spot inspections, and the
United Planets have taken advantage of the opportunity to properly police
the harvesting of the Ooze; at least with those carriers that have not
contributed directly to the policeman's ball.

   But all at the Oozeway is not peace and love, or even order and justice.
Many of the harvesters of the Ooze are little more than mercenaries and
pirates, who found the Ooze to be a more profitable and less dangerous
living than their previous careers.  These people created a market for the
less honorable practices aboard the Oozeway, the most popular of these is
gambling... Make that the second most popular activity...

   These mercenaries, especially those leaving the nebula, have very little
of value to gamble with, and monetary exchange rates between many species
have yet to be established.  Body parts were used in trade for a short
time, but only the very best gamblers could afford to play for longer than
a few hours.  But there is one commodity that all species at the station
have in common; one thing that they all have, and that they all want more
of: the Ooze.

   One game emerged as the platform of choice for wagering insane amounts
of this very precious substance.  This game rewards thought, encourages
foresight, and best of all, concludes rapidly; allowing much more Ooze to
be wagered than a slower game of skill.  Another advantage is that the game
uses the Ooze itself as playing pieces, requiring that each player have the
goods he wishes to wager in hand at the commencement of the game.  By
prodding the Ooze with small electrodes, players encourage it to ooze,
leap, and influence color changes in the opponent's Ooze.  As millions look
on, the ultimate in high-stakes gambling takes place, with the winnings of
a single match representing months of hard work, unknown numbers of lives
lost, and the well-being of entire species; much like politics.  And
thousands of matches take place aboard the Oozeway in each Earth day.

   This game of skill once had a different name, but now it is known simply
as...  OOZE.

   Ooze can be installed simply by un-lha'ing it's archive.  Ooze will 
magically appear where you want it.  There are no assigns, fonts, or 
libraries required to run Ooze.

   To un-install Ooze (Why?), simply delete its' directory.

   If you have a mod-style song that you would prefer to use instead of the
OozeTheme, simply copy the song into the Sound directory, and rename it as
"OozeTheme.mod".  If you choose to change themes, it is recommended that
you store a spare copy of the original OozeTheme in a safe place, in case
the song you select is not of the version3 med standard, or the song you
select uses up more chipram than you have available.

REQUIRED:

   AGA Amiga (or perhaps some 24-bit cards)

   1,500k free Chip Ram
     250k free Fast or Chip Ram


   If you play Ooze from floppy, the disk MUST be write-enabled for the
game to function properly...

   Hard drive installation, multi-tasking, and file compression are all
available to those users with enough memory to take advantage of them...

   The Ooze icon now contains two ToolTypes for setting some start-up
preferences.  They are:

CLOSEWB= YES or NO : If set to YES, Ooze will shut down the WorkBench,
                     freeing up some Chip Ram.

SCREENMODE=        : The hex value of the Screen Mode you wish Ooze to use.

Nearly all functions in Ooze are controlled with the mouse.

OPTIONS:

 Human/Computer
 Name


The -QUIT- button will exit Ooze.

The -PLAY- button will enter the game.

To push the Ooze screen to the back (multi-task), click in the extreme
     upper-right hand corner of the screen, in either the Options screen,
     or in the game itself.


GAME:

To select one of your pieces to move, click upon it, and it should turn
     silver.  To move, just click where you want the piece to move.  If the
     move was legal, the piece will move appropriately, and it will become
     the other player's turn.  The color of the mouse indicates whose turn
     it is.

   The rules of Ooze are fairly simple.  When it is your turn, you select a
piece to move, and move it either one or two squares away.  If you move one
square, then the original piece can ooze, and stays where it is.  If you
move two squares away, then the original piece must leap, and moves from
its original location to the square you selected.

   At that point, any surrounding pieces belonging to the opponent are
turned into your pieces, and it becomes the other player's turn.  Turns go
on until all squares are full, and the player with the greatest number of
pieces is the winner.

   If these instructions are in any way unclear, give the game a play or
two, and the rules should be easily picked up as you go.

   The ratings system implemented within Ooze is a fairly complex one,
underneath its' transparent surface.  The player's wins and losses ratio is
taken into account, as well as the quality of his opponent, and the
quantity by which he won.

   What it amounts to is this: to gain a higher rating, a player must play
other players with high ratings, defeat them, and win by a large number of
pieces.  Any of the three above requirements will raise your rating.
Losing to a high-quality opponent will often raise your rating by more
points than defeating a low-quality foe.

   The Hi-Scores board, displayed if no clicks of the mouse are made for a
set amount of time, will display the top ratings of all human players
recorded in Ooze.  

   The Board Maker utility is fairly simple to use.  To add a block, where
pieces cannot be moved, left click on the place you want the block.  To
remove a block, right click on it.

   Pressing the -l- key will bring up a requester that allows you to load
in previously made boards for editing.

   Pressing the -s- key brings up a similar requester for saving your
board.

   Pressing the -q- key at any time will quit the board editor.

   The Board Maker is fully functional as of version 2, and will now
automatically add your board to the list that Ooze uses to choose boards
from... If for any reason you wish to delete a board, you can do so without
worry; Ooze will not try to load in a board that does not exist.

   This button sets whether the player will be controlled by a person or by
the computer, allowing you to select 1-player vs the computer, 2-player, or
computer vs computer games.

   If the player is controlled by a person, then this button will bring up
a requester, asking you to enter a new name for the player.  Type in text
only, and press -Return- to accept the name.  If the name has been used
before, the player's statistics will be shown as well.  If the name is new,
a new player will be initiated.

   If the player is controlled by the computer, then this button cycles
through the available computer players, and causes their statistics to be
displayed.

   The registered version of Ooze saves player rankings.

   Ooze is available for: US orders            - $10
                          International orders - $15

   Please specify that you want Ooze.


                                                     Josh Farley
                                                     43 La Placita Way
                                                     Chico, CA 95928

Possible future enhancements include:

      Character images and animations for computer players
      Password protection for players
      In-game music
      A low-memory workbench version
      More computer players
      Modem play
      Any feasible user-suggested improvements

   If any bugs are found in Ooze, please report them.  Bugfixes, if needed,
will definitely be performed.  Any bugs, or ideas for improvements to Ooze
are greatly appreciated, and can be sent to:

                                                     Josh Farley
                                                     43 La Placita Way
                                                     Chico, CA 95928

   Well, there's TeleTerm, my shareware Terminal program...

Features:

     XEM support
     XPR support
     Internal multi-tasking of windows
     Faster interleaved bitmaps for smooth scrolling (OS 3.x)
     Public screen, so other programs can open on TeleTerm's screen
     Can open on the WorkBench
     Numerous visual controls, from ScreenMode to ScreenPens
     Low memory consumption (could theoretically run in 512k)
     60 user-defined macros
     Highly detailed phonebook, including multi-line BBS support, and full
           preferences control for each entry
     Much, much more...



   Also well underway is a commercial venture into gaming entitled
STALKORS.  Stalkors is an isometric action/adventure game set on a space
station where something has gone horribly wrong.  Myself, as well as a trio
of artists and a musician, are collaborating on this AGA-only, Amiga-only
epic game.

Features include:

    512 colors on-screen
        fast & fluid animation
        numerous friends & enemies, items and weapons
        an extremely detailed plotline to keep the player occupied
        realistic lighting, smoke, and item interaction
        fully multi-tasking
        allows player to select memory usage & screen modes for the game

  A demo of Stalkors will be available soon, and I can be reached for
answers to questions related to any of my projects.

Version 1a - Original shareware version.

Version 1b - Original registered version.  Added keyfile.  Added computer
             players Sloppimus and Bloodsucker.  Added fourteen new boards,
             and included demo version of BoardMaker utility.  Added
             two-player game.  Added saving of high scores.

Version 2  - Made starting player random.  Upgraded graphics (ECS).
             Changed computer player Bloodsucker to Leech because of name
             length restraints (ECS).  Made "Ooze" effect and name color
             cycle (ECS).  Upgraded Boardmaker and created file "BoardList"
             which contains the filenames of all available boards, so
             user-made boards can now be used.  Changed opening window
             graphics.  Changed title screen graphics.  Made cursor more
             visible in requestors.  Fixed display bug in HiScores
             screen (ECS).  Added busypointer routine.  HiScores file
             structure altered.  Added tooltypes.

   All code, graphics, sound, and music are the product of Josh Farley and
are copyrighted 1995.

   The Commodore Installer and AmigaGuide are the product of Commodore.

Development Tools:

     Amiga 1200 by Commodore Business Machines
     DSS8+ by Great Valley Products
     Blitz Basic 2 by Acid Software
     Brilliance by Digital Creations
     Deluxe Paint 4 by Electronic Arts
     Octamed Professional 4 by Teijo Kinnunen


