Documentation

Contents

about the game

Light Cars - a Lighttech Interactive production
this game is a remake of the well known tetriss console racing game , the game is based on sound only and so people using screen readers must unload them before loading up the game, otherwise the game will mallfunction
Light Cars offers much more than the originall tetriss game that was written in 1986.
as with all are games, lighttech put's it's own touch and groove on the game, and so the games are always unique to it.

Installation and Configuration

to install light cars just click the ' lc_setup.exe file and follow on - screen instructions.
a program grupe called "Light cars" will be created in your start menu \ programs \ Lighttech Interactive sub menu

note that before starting the game for the first time you should run the configuration program and fill the required information.

game menus

the menus in light cars are easy to navigate and intuitive to use.
the main menu has these items :

• start game -- starts a new game of light cars
• load game -- loads your saved game.
  
• send score -- lets you send your score to the Lighttech Interactive score charts.
  
• test speakers -- plays a panning sound from left to right to ensure the speakers are set up correctly
  
• key mapper -- lets you enter a sub menu with a list of keys you can remap to your liking.
• view local top ten -- lets you enter a sub menu which you can view scores for the 3 difficulty levels of the game , including the option of resetting the score tables and high score to 0
  
• learn game sounds -- lets you listen to the various sounds of both arcade and tetris mode.
  
• exit game -- exits the game

Starting the game

@@game modes

before you actualy start the game you can select your game mode
Light Cars has two themes:

1. tetriss mode-- the default mode when you start the game.
   in this mode you'll get no special items, no obsticles and no bonus level, just the clasic tetriss racing game, and a music that'll raise in pich and speed each level you complete.
   
2. Arcade Mode -- this particular game mode was designed fully by Lighttech Interactive and that's where our touch comes in to the game.
   more about arcade mode will be discussed in arcade mode consepts

• tetris mode
  easy:
  in the easy difficulty level you'll have cars coming from 1 track at a time, getting faster and faster each level.
  normal:
  in the normal difficulty you will have multiple cars coming from each track (starting from level 5 and up)and getting faster and faster each level.
  crazy:
  in this difficulty not only you'll have multiple cars coming for each track, but the arrow keys will act in reverse, and that means that if you press your right arrow key,your car will move left, and if you press your left arrow key, your car will steer right.
  
• arcade mode
  in the arcade mode,the cars will act the same in each difficulty like when playing the tetris mode
  how ever, you will have less time to grab an item or escape from a hazard if your playing the normal or crazy difficulty levels.
  

the 4 cars

here follows a describtion of each of the 4 diferent cars in Light Cars

• LEGO CAR
  the lego car is made of tiny squared lego cubes that make up it's form.
  this car is the most stable car on the road from all other 4 cars, meaning it'll have a very little chance to skid off track.
  but it is also the slowest of the 4, meaning it'll take you more time to finish a level with.
  
  
• LIGHT CAR
  this car is the most powerfull and fast car in the game!.
  with a plain engine to get it going, the LIGHT CAR is undoubtedly the fastest car.
  how ever, it has a great weakness of being the less stable of the 4 cars, you'll have a lot of chance skidding off to another track very oftenly with it.
  
• ELECTRIC CAR
  this car is a small toy racing car model, that works on batteries.
  it is a very fast car, allmost as fast as the LIGHT CAR, but being more stable than it. you'll often need engine repairs for it if you crash too much.
  
  
• ELECTRIC JIP
  the ELECTRIC JIP is very similar to the ELECTRIC CAR, both of them being toy cars and running on batteries.
  the advantage of the ELECTRIC JIP on the ELECTRIC CAR is it's stableness, but it's also slower than it's counterpart.
  

Playing the game

playing the game is fairly simple to understand, there are 3 tracks on the screen which your car can race on, left, center, and right.
you move between tracks using the left and right arrow keys, and start/stop your car with the up and down arrow keys.
each time you start the game (after selecting your car and difficulty level), you'll have to press the up arrow once to start your car going, there is no need for acceleration, the cars are virtual and there for dont need you to accelerate. as your car speeds up on the track other cars will start coming from the opposite direction of your car trying to crash you. You have to keep avoiding them for as long as you can, and with each level you complete, cars become faster and come more frequentlly!
Each time you collide with a car, a life is subtracted - you start the game with a total of 5 lives, 0 points, and the level is 1. You have to cover a certain amount of road to get to the next level, where cars get faster and faster
Can you make it up to level million?
Each 10 levels you'll be taken to the bonus level(arcade mode only)

--the bonus level
the bonus level of Light Cars is a shoot-the-birds game, where you have birds coming across the screen(panning from left to right), and you have a shotgun you must kill them with.
When you hear a bird at the center of the screen, press your control key to fire your gun at it.
If you manage to kill it, 2000 points will be added to your score, and if you miss it, 2000 points will be subtracted from your score.
After 20 birds, the bonus level ends, and you'll be back in the game where you left off.
In adition, when finishing the bonus level you can get 2 bonuses :

1. if you have more than 10000 points in the end of the bonus level, you'll get a random item.
   
2. if you have 20000 points in the end of the bonus level, you'll get 2 random items.
   

• press "shift" to know your points
• press "h" to know your high score
• press "L" to know how many lives you have left
• press "tab" to know in which level you are
• press "enter" to get your full status of level and lives remaining
• press "p" to pause / unpause the game.
  
• press "f2" to save your game
  

arcade mode consepts

playing the arcade mode is a whole other thing than with playing the tetris mode.
While you still follow the same consept of avoiding cars just like in tetris mode, you'll have to be on the watch for some more objects, items, and hazards.
here are covered the behaviors and objects alocated with the arcade game:

1. hazards:
   
   • hole in the road
     occasionally, there'll be a hole in the track you must go around to avoid, your car will provide you with a warning beep 5 or so meters before the hole.
     you'll hear your self getting closer to the hole (acompanied by stones and water running down the hole), and you'll have to sworve quickly to another track to avoid falling inside and losing the game.
     
2. behaviors:
   
   • skidds
     it will often happen (depending on which car you chose), that your car will skid off the track to another track.
     these skids happen either when you collide with another car, or your car gets unstable and skid's to eather sides.
     there are 2 types of skids : shorte skid, and long skid.
     the shorte skid will skid your car 1 position to eather side,i.e, if you are in the left track and suffer a shorte skid,your car will end up on the center track. but if you suffer a long skid,your car will end up in the right track.
     
   • engine getting fouled
     if you crash a number of times (depending on which car you chose), your engine can foul up and your car will slow down by half.
     if you have a damaged engine and crash again, your car engine will sound low piched, and the cars speed will be reduced to a quarter, another crash and your engine will fail, causing you to lose the game!
     
3. items.
   sometimes you'll hear a really small and high piched toy car(item car), each item car has a unique item you can collect for your inventory.
   
   • thousand point bonus -- will add 1000 points when picked up.
     
   • extra life -- will give you an extra life.
     
   • brakes -- will give you the ability to prevent 5 skids when activated(using inventory)
     
   • engine repair -- will give you an engine repair you can activate(using inventory)
     
   • laser canon -- gives you a laser canon for your car with 5 rounds you can use to blast up cars in your way(using inventory)
     
   • 10000 point bonus -- adds 10000 points.
     
4. the inventory.
   your inventory items can be accessed by the page up and page down keys just like in a menu.
   the first item is laser canon, the second is brakes, and the third is engine repair.
   if you have selected the laser canon ,for an instance, when you'll press the action key (control key by default), that item will be activated, i.e you'll shoot the lazer canon.
   another feature of the inventory is accessed by pressing the inventory key(i by default), that will speak the items you currently have and their quantity, for an example, if you have 3 laser rounds and 2 engine repairs, it will say, 3 laser canon, 2 engine repair.
   if you try to press the action key on an item you have selected (with page up and page down) but have 0 items of that particular item, you'll hear the invalid selection sound.
   

saving and loading a saved game

you can press "f2" to save your game during game play, note, how ever, that you can't save your game more than once in a level.
you can load your game from the main menu by either selecting "load game" from the main menu, or by pressing f2.
note that if you played a game on tetris mode and after losing you toggle to arcade mode from the main menu(by pressing f5) and load your game, you will resume your game as you left it,i.e. same mode, same score, inventory items etc.

mapping the keys

llight cars gives you the ability to map the keys used in the game to your liking using the "key mapper" option from the main menu.
when you press enter on "key mapper", you'll be presented with a list of functions you can map(use the up and down arrow keys to scroll between them), if you decide you'd like to map the "start car" key to the space barr, for an instance, you press enter on that, the game will say "press key to map", now you can press the key you would like to map to that function, in this case the space barr, the game'll say "mapped", and you will be back in the menu of functions.
you can use the ' restore keys option to restore all the keys to the defaults, or the "exit to menu" option to exit back to the menu, or press the escape or left arrow to do the same thing.
here follows a list of the default keys of light cars:

• arrow keys enter and escape: used in game menus.
  
• f5 or m: toggle between tetris and arcade mode(main menu only)
• v: announce the version of the game (main menu only)
• h: announce your high score(in game and in main menu)
• up arrow: start car
• down arrow: stop car
• left arrow: move left
• right arrow: move right
• shift: speak points
• l: speak lives
• tab: speak level
• enter: speak player status
• p: pause/unpause the game
• page up and page down: sicle between inventory items(arcade mode only)
  
• i: speak inventory(arcade mode only)
  
• control: activate item(arcade mode only)
• F2: saves a game(during game play), loads a saved game(from main menu)
  
• f5 /f8: toggles background music(tetriss mode only)
• f6/f7: increase / decrease the volume of background music(tetriss mode only)
  
• escape: exit the game

points system, sending your score to the web and game statistics

Here's how the game is scored:

• avoid a car = +10 points
• complete level = the number of level * 20 points
• collide with a car = -50 points

• shoot bird = +2000 points
• miss bird = -2000 points

contacting Lighttech Interactive

you can contact Lighttech Interactive by visiting
www.lighttechinteractive.com
and selecting the "contact lighttech interactive"link.
or you can email
support@lighttechinteractive.com
and we will try to answer as soon as possible.

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