SnakeByte
=========

----- History
Version 1.0, 27 October 1999 First release

----- Description
Back in the early days of home computing, I used to play a 
game on my Apple ][ called SnakeByte.  I think it was published
by Sierra, and it was seriously addictive.

I've tried to recreate SnakeByte for the Avigo.  Alas, most of
the brain cells I had at that time are long dead now, so I
might have some of the details wrong from the original game.
If you remember the old SnakeByte, drop me a line and let me
know how close I got.

Here's the basic idea:  You control a snake in a room by simply
turning 90 degrees left or right.  You're trying to eat an 
apple before a timer expires.  If you don't make it in time, 
more apples appear, and things speed up.  Once you've eaten 
10 apples (plus any added because timers expired), an exit 
(a tiny word "GO") opens at the top of the screen.  If you make
it to the exit, you go to the next level.  Crashing the snake
into any wall or your own tail means you die and have to start
the current level over.

----- Controls
Game controls are as follows:
schedule => turn left
memo     => turn right
address  => Toggle speed up
to do    => exit game

Toggling the speed was added to avoid the long, boring 3 seconds it
would take to go from one side of a level to the other.  Hitting 
address will speed up the snake until address is hit again, or
you make a turn.  Speeding up won't give you more points, or even
save time because the timer speeds up too.  It just picks up the pace
temporarily and saves batteries.

You can also click on the close-window 'x' to exit the current game.
Control of the snake might take a little getting used to.  Just
remember that you are always turning relative to the snake's 
current direction.

----- Scoring 
SnakeByte has 21 fixed levels, and then random levels of ever 
increasing difficulty are produced.  As the random levels get
harder, you might come accross an impossible level (blocked
exit or apple inside 4 walls).  For this reason, a new random
level will be generated when you die at these upper levels.

Each level earns more points than the previous, so the goal is
to really run through the levels.  You score each time you eat an
apple, when you open the exit, and for each tail segment as you 
leave a level.  A free snake is awarded every 5th level.

----- Technical Stuff and Futures
SnakeByte just barely fits into 16K.  I have a lot of things I'd like
to add that weren't in the original game, plus a few little things
to make the game more like the original.  Here's a list of some 
features you might see in a future release:
  .Exit in the frame instead of the gameboard
  .Apple clusters
  .Enemy snake(s) moving around
  .Bonus rounds
  .Bonus items (for extra snakes, extra time, extra points) 
  .Teleport tiles
Adding any of these would make this a 32K app.

----- Credits
Texas Instrument for creating Avigo 10 PDA
Gerard Vermeulen for Freeware SDK
Gerard Vermeulen and Ralf Christmann for simulator/debugger
Jouni Miettunen for creating drobos, which I used as a loose framework
And all the remaining Avigo users and developers

----- Shareware / Commentware / Postcardware / Whateverware
I don't want your money for this game.  But it would be great if you
let me know how you like it.  Send me comments, ideas, fish-sticks. 
The best thing you could do would be to write your own Avigo app
and submit it for the common good.  The Freeware SDK is extremely 
easy to use and very robust (and free).  Download it, and look at 
some of the applications source code.  If you know C, it's a 
breeze to program the Avigo.  I'd also like to plug the simulator
for development.  It lets you test changes almost instantaneously. 

I hope you enjoy SnakeByte.

	Dave Caira
	1408 Kent St.
	Durham, NC  27707

caira@hotmail.com
