=======================================
	     Blake's 7
    	   The Oric Game
=======================================

Website: blakes7.defence-force.org.
Forum: forum.defence-force.org - "Games" forum.

Version 1.00
October 2017

Jos Mara (Chema) Enguita
Email: enguita@gmail.com

This file must be distributed alongside with the game disk file in whatever
format, and including the instructions manual and all the docs.

INTRODUCTION
============

IMPORTANT: Read the instructions in the included pdf!

Here it is! My latest production for the Oric family of computers. Probably the most 
difficult technically speaking. Featuring more than 50 colorful rooms with many objects
to interact with, big sized sprites and animations, many many texts, and sound effects, 
all run by an engine named OASIS (Oric Advanced Script Interpreting System), which 
handles things such as memory management, resource loading and a multitasking script 
interpreter.

I could have probably made a much bigger game, as I am only using the 70% of a 3" disk
capacity (thanks to the fabulous FloppyBuilder), but one has to decide when  to finish. 
And I could not spend one year more on this game.

I hope you enjoy playing the game as much as I enjoyed programming it.

Happy gaming!

LOADING THE GAME
================

You can play the game using an emulator, such as Oricutron or Euphoric. Simply boot with the
game disk image file, or select it in the first drive (A) in your emulator and reboot. If
your emulator needs it, remember to select the emulation of a Microdisc controller.

To play the game in a real Oric with a real floppy drive, you should create a physical disk
from the disk image. You can use writedsk for that operation. The image file corresponds
to a disk with 2 sides, 40 tracks and 17 sectors, so it can be written to a 3" disk. Beware 
the game will only work if your drive has to heads.

writedsk is an old real mode DOS application, so you'll need a computer running Windows 98 or less
in order to use it. Other alternatives have been pointed out, such as SAMDisk, but I never
tried those.

You can download writedsk from the Oric Tools repository in GitHub:
https://github.com/oric-international/oric-tools/tree/master/euphoric-tools/disk_image_tools/real_disk_tools

And read about SAMDisk here: http://simonowen.com/samdisk/

The game has also been tested on other floppy emulators, such as HxC and Cumulus. Follow
the instructions of your device about how to use the disk image file.

COMPATIBILITY NOTES
===================

The game requires a Microdisc unit or some compatible device. Jasmin or other controllers are 
NOT supported.

Cumulus
-------

During the testing process we found a bug in Cumulus (the Microdisc+4 Floppies emulating
device based on SD cards) firmware version 0.5 which prevented the game for saving the 
status properly. I have tweaked the sources to avoid the bug and now it should work with no
problems.

IMPORTANT: Dsk image write protection in version 0.5 of the firmware is quite cumbersome, 
requiring you to unprotect the image each time you select it.

Remember to UNPROTECT the disk image after mounting it or writing will fail and
the game will hang trying to save. Follow your Cumulus instruction about how to do so (the
letter 'P' should disappear at the left of the disk image name in the main menu).

Joysticks
---------

The game supports an IJK joystic interface and will auto-detect if a joystick is attached. 
Please attach your joystick to the LEFT port of the controller.

A message will appear if the joystick is detected, just before the game starts.

If you have an attached joystick and at some time want to change back to using the
keyboard, simply pop up the game's menu (pressing ESC) and redefine your keys.


REPORTING BUGS & COMMENTS
=========================

Any thoughts, comments, questions, reports of bugs, etc., are more than welcome. 
Post them in the Oric Forums (forum.defence-force.org) or email me at 
enguita@gmail.com


CREDITS AND COPYRIGHTS
======================

I wanted to create this game as homages both to old LucasFilm graphic adventures, 
and the marvelous Blake's 7 TV show. The rights to Blakes7 as of 2017 belong to 
B7 Media (www.b7media.com).

No copyright infringement of any kind is intended, and there is no lucrative interest 
in this production. The game is completely free and has been created by a fan for the fans 
of retro-computing.

If you play this game, I'd like to receive a picture of your computer running Blake's 7. 
That is all I ask for. You can send it to my email below.

This game is distributed under the Creative Commons v. 4.0 license: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 

Contact me if you want to create any derivative work.


CHANGELOG
=========

Version 1.00
------------
Initial version


Please report any further bug that you encounter (in the forums or directly 
emailing me at enguita@gmail.com). I will try to fix them as soon as possible

Happy playing!!!

-- Chema


