THREE WEEKS IN PARADISE (1984 Mikro-Gen / 2001-2011 Remake Team SpecNG)

This game was originally programmed by David Perry for Mikro-Gen in 1984.
Team SpecNG has his support of releasing this game as Freeware.


The plot
========
You are Wally and you have taken your family (Wilma and Herbert) on a cruise in the tropics. However, the boat sinks and you are trapped on this cannibalistic island. Your wife is captured and hangs upside-down in a lianna and Herbert, he's being slowly cooked in the natives' cauldron.
Your quest is to rescue your family and escape from the island.
Facing numerous of puzzles and enemies, you make your way through the jungle, finding objects and locations. Using the objects on other objects (or simply carrying them), will get you off the island faster than you can say "I'VE GOT A LOVELY BUNCH OF COCONUTS! WHAT?".


The Remake
==========
Starting in 2001, Marco A.G. Pinto of Portugal and Robert Bergström of Sweden, took on the great challenge of converting the ZX Spectrum 48K game to a more modern platform; the PC. First using Dark Basic, the team began their voyage. After the first Alpha release, the team upgraded to Dark Basic Pro and had lots of difficulties with it, as it was brand new and full of bugs. They made their contribution to the DB Pro team and helped them develop the product. After many patches, they now have a game that they finally can call FINAL. Of course, there may still be patches...
For this project, the talented musician Stephen Mifsud of Malta kindly made all the music. Thank you Stephen!


The Controls
============
LEFT.................Left Cursor (left arrow)
RIGHT................Right Cursor
Jump.................Space bar
Use objects..........Down Cursor
Enter "in signs".....Up Cursor
Help screen..........F1
Quick Save...........F6
Quick Load...........F9
Take screenshot......F5
Quit/Cancel..........ESC


Requirements
============
1. A PC with Windows XP/Vista/7 (x86 and x64)
2. DirectX 10
3. Keyboard and mouse
4. A monitor
5. Electricity


Running the game as Administrator
=================================
Because the game allows to record positions, settings and screenshots, it must be run with Administrator privileges, since the default install folder doesn't allow changes.
In order to do so, you must right click on the game icon and select: "Run as Administrator".
If you are an advanced user, just change the writing permissions of the folder: "C:\Program Files (x86)\Three Weeks in Paradise 3.0" by right clicking with the mouse on it, select "Properties"->"Security"->then the shielded button "Edit..." and then look for "Users blah blah", click on the check-box "Write" and then "Apply"->"OK" and it is done.


Project Members
===============
Programming, game ideas
Marco A.G. Pinto, Portugal

Graphic design, web design, sound effects, concept development, animation
Robert Bergström, Sweden

Music
Stephen Mifsud, Malta


Contact
=======
www.specng.org


Bug reports
===========
Although thoroughly tested, TWIP can still contain bugs of various flavours. Report any of those and be as precise you can. In the past there were issues with game speed, which we hope is fixed now. On some computers the game ran normally but on others very slowly, making the game unplayable. Report everything you can!
Please mail "feedback@specng.org"


New in version 3.0
==================
1. Now compiled with DBPro V7.7 RC7 to make it DirectX 11 compatible
   (Win7 x86 and x64).
2. Added properties to the executable: game name and our team.
3. New (better) icon for the executable.
4. The music in the main menu screen has a higher bitrate (96kbps->128kbps).
5. Made the code more modular.
6. The screenshots now have four digits and begin in 1: "screenshot0001.bmp".
7. The code is a lot faster in slower machines because of a change in the
   main loop cycle. This won't be noticeable on new machines but can boost
   performance on older systems.
8. Fixes:
   a) Changing the settings in the help screen would sometimes be too
      fast.
   b) Taking screenshots in the Rain God room while him, Wally and the
      indian were touching each other, the indian would appear behind the
      Rain God. The same happened in the frog room.
   c) Running TWIP in a desktop window now has borders.
   d) In the main screen, if trying to quit and then select not to, it
      just removes the vulture and doesn't redraw the screen.
   e) If we were coming from the room under the sea, the frog would become
      invisible for a few seconds.
   f) If we had the in-game music off, then executing the game again and going
      to the help screen to turn it on, it would continue off.
   g) Added a function that, before hiding the sprites, it checks if they
      exist avoiding the possible error "sprite not found".



