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v1.3 ===================================================================== GENERAL Welcome to Icy Tower! This game is completely free. You may play it as much as you like without paying a single buck. In exchange for playing it, you are instead asked for a small favour. You are encouraged to send any comments you might have about this game. See contact & support at the end of this document. DISTRIBUTING Icy Tower is freeware, anybody may (and should) play it. Therefore, you are encouraged to distribute this game (in its original form) like crazy. Upload to every web site and BBS you know, give a copy to all your friends, etc.. Our only requirement is that you give proper credits to Free Lunch Design and provide a link back to our site. However, this game may not be included in a compilation or any other kind of commercial package without the permission from the author. This includes coverdisks. See contact near the end of this document. DISCLAIMER Free Lunch Design does not accept responsibility for any effects, adverse or otherwise, that this software may have on you, your computer, your sanity, your dog, or anything else that you can think of. Use it at your own risk. We have, however, never experienced any trouble with it. DESCRIPTION Icy Tower is small and short but surprisingly addictive game. Control Harold the Homeboy as he climbs his tower of infinite height whilst doing cool jumps and moves in order to get a high score and awe from his friends in the hood.

INSTALLING AND STARTING THE GAME Since you're reading this text the game is probably installed and ready to be played already. If not, locate the installation program (icytower_install.exe) and run it. When installed you will find the necessary shortcuts in your start menu. THE PLOT One day, when Harold had nothing particular to do, he found a huge tower. The tower was icy cold, incredibly high and totally deserted. "Ey, dis seems like a cool place to hang out in", thought Harold and entered. The tower was indeed empty, but small platforms here and there made it possible for anyone brave enough to ascend to its higher levels. "Ey, I bet a homie like me can do some mighty cool jumps and moves in here", thought Harold, grazing upwards. And so it started... Help Harold to make the coolest and highest jumps in history! THE TITLESCREEN The title screen will present you with a menu of the following format: START GAME LOAD REPLAY INSTRUCTIONS OPTIONS EXIT starts a new game loads and plays replays from disc shows you a brief instruction screen lets you customize the game exits to your OS

Use the arrow keys or game pad to navigate the menu. The current selection will be pointed at by Harold. Use space or button 1 to select. THE OPTIONS MENU The options menu is divided into four smaller menus. They are all described here: GAME OPTIONS Here you can alter settings that controls the character and floors. To add custom characters, see that section below. Start floors must be unlocked by jumping higher and higher in the tower. CHARACTER START FLOOR GFX OPTIONS The graphical options control the visuals of the game. Eye Candy comes in three flavours; none, some and lots. EYE CANDY FULLSCREEN - increase or decrease amount of graphical objects - toggle between fullscreen and windowed mode - select what character to play with - select what floor type to start on

SOUND OPTIONS Here you can change the audio output. SOUND VOL MUSIC VOL CONTROLS In the control menu you can customize the keys used for the game. LEFT RIGHT JUMP REJUMP select select select toggle key for left key for right key for jump rejump on and off - adjust sfx output - adjust music output

Note 1: Some computers might have trouble running the game in windowed mode. Just so you know, this might not always work. Note 2: Eye Candy does not add to the game play but will make the playing experience better. If your computer is slow and the game lags you might want to test to turn this off. Note 3: Rejump. If this is on, you can hold spacebar and Harold will jump constantly. If off you'll have to repress space to make a new jump. Some like it one way, some like the other. GENERAL CONTROLS Move about in the menus using the arrow keys and enter. When playing, these are the default keys for controlling Harold: Left and right arrows Space P - run left/right - jump - pause

You can quit the game back to the menu by pressing P and then ESC. If you have a game pad connected, use the direction pad to move Harold and button 1 to jump. PLAYING The first thing you need to know is that Harold will constantly accelerate as long you move him. The second thing is that the faster Harold runs, the higher and longer will he jump. The third thing is that you can bump into walls, turn around and maintain most of your speed. This is a useful technique if you want to do cool jumps. As you escalate the tower it will start to scroll slowly and you will have to keep up in order to not fall of the screen. This is not so hard in the beginning since the scrolling is very slow. But every 30 seconds, an alarm clock will sound and the scrolling will go slightly faster. The clock in the upper left corner of the screen shows you how

much time you have left until next speed up. Icy Tower can be played in many ways, although you might not get very much score in some of them. :) The allover goal of the game is to get a high score and nice place in the high score list. You will get 10 points for each floor you reach. This alone will not gain you any great scores however. To be really victorious, you need to learn the secrets of combo jumps. To start the combo mode, you will have to make a jump at least two floors high. I.e. run with Harold until you have enough speed, jump and land two floors above to where you started. When in combo mode the meter to the left of the screen will fill up and it will drain within a second. In order to stay in combo mode you need to make another jump of at least two floors. If you manage to do that before the meter is empty, the meter will be refilled and you can continue doing combo jumps. When the meter runs out or if you make a non-combo jump, you have finished your combo and you will be given score depending on how many floors in total you managed to climb during your combo. The rewards you can be given are: GOOD, SWEET, GREAT, WOW, AMAZING and EXTREME and a few more. The latter ones are really hard to get and will require some intensive practice. The tower is of infinite height and Harold will never reach the top. It's up to you to make sure that his stay in the tower generates a lot of score so that he doesn't need to feel ashamed in front of his friends. Good luck! REPLAYS Icy Tower 1.3 features the possibility save your jump sessions and view them at a later time. You can also send the replays to your friends and brag about how skilled you are. Every time you finish a jump session, a menu will appear where you can either watch it all again, save it or continue to the main menu. If you choose to save the replay, you need to enter your name (so that you can take credit) and a filename. How far you got, your score etc. will be recorded automatically. The replays will be saved in the replays/ directory where you installed Icy Tower. If you want to send your replay to a friend, this is the place to look for it. To view a replay at a later stage, either open it via the LOAD REPLAY option in the main menu, or simply drag and drop the file on the Icy Tower icon. CUSTOM CHARACTERS In Icy Tower 1.3 you can make your own characters, complete with their own sound effects and background music. It's not altogether easy, but if you set your mind to it, you will succeed. For information on how to make your own characters or add someone else's, read the information available in the characters/ directory.

TROUBLESHOOTING / FAQ Before trying anything out, make sure you have the latest drivers for DirectX and for your graphics and sound cards! Q: The gamepad/joystick acts strange. It seems to pulls in wrong directions and so on. What is wrong? A: During setup your gamepad/joystick will be initialised and calibrated. Don't touch it! Let it be still while the game is in setup-mode. Q: The game starts and the menu shows but I cannot choose anything! A: Disconnect any joysticks are gamepads. Q: The game runs slow and choppy! How can I speed it up? A: Try turning off the Eye Candy and make sure you run in fullscreen. Q: I never manage to get any cool combo jumps! What am I doing wrong? A: Try harder. :) Make sure you use the walls to bump on and take it slow, you have more time to concentrate than what it feels. SPECIAL THANKS A game doesn't get done all by itself. There's always people and stuff around who inspires the final product. We'd like to thank the beta testers who valiantly played the game inside and out looking for bugs and recording cool replays. Arnon Yaari Bartek Kruk David Haines Honza Snabl Hubertus Struck Martin Kascak Sebastian Zyrkowski Thanks a bunch! A truck load of thanks goes out to the form members at the Free Lunch Design forum for helping me testing and finding bugs for the 1.3 release. Without you there would be no new version. I'd also like to thank the ones who helped out with testing the previous 1.2 version: Aleksander Janeczko, Arnon Yaari, John Boney, Matthias Freund, Marek Fajkowski, Robby Forrest and Tomer Bauer. Thanks! Also, all of you who play the game and compete with your friends, spreading the game all over the world. Thank you too! Last but not least a huge thank you goes out to Daniel Eriksson for helping out in our darkes hour when the entire Icy Tower 1.3 source code was lost in a crash. TECHNICAL MUMBO JUMBO Icy Tower is written in c using the game library Allegro. For the sound effect playback, AllegroOGG was used.

Allegro: AllegroOgg: AUTHORS & CONTACT

http://alleg.sf.net http://nekros.freeshell.org/delirium/alogg.php

Free Lunch Design is an independent game developer from Sweden. Our aim is to create small, high quality games, where gameplay is in focus. Icy Tower was written and designed by Johan Peitz. Johan Peitz also drew the graphics. The fabulous music was composed by Anders Svensson who also created the sound effects. Visit us on the web: http://www.freelunchdesign.com

If you have comments, bug reports, or just want to ask something you can contact Free Lunch Design by e-mail. We do however get a lot of mail and it might take a while before we answer, so if you have a question please check the online FAQs and forums first. E-Mail: info (at) freelunchdesign (dot) com If you want to support Free Lunch Design in monetary ways, please enter our web site (see above) and click our sponsors a few times. You can also donate money from the site via PayPal. FINAL WORDS Icy Tower became a game much bigger than we ever could have imagined. It is played and enjoyed by gamers of all ages, all over the world. It's nice to see that all the players of Icy Tower out there, are having as much fun as we had when we created the game. In closing, here's a poem by John Boney: Harold As I sat there, trying to complete my work, he was calling me. When I was in the hall gathering books, I heard his voice. My heart pumps more blood through my restless body, and he is still there, constantly beckoning me. I have said to him that he cannot control my life, but his power overrules my futile pleas. I am a dog on a leash, the cruel master constantly jerking me back to him. When we first met, he only spoke in unintelligible ramblings. "Whoop-a-doobadoo!" he would say. My friend why do you speak so? I see you for hours everyday, yet I cannot understand you. "Whoop-a-doobadoo! Whoop-a-doobadoo!" The more I listen, the more I hear. "Come," he now says, "I want to be with you." I try to sleep, but he jerks me back from my rest on this cold floor. If only I could remove this painful collar, which engrafts itself around my neck and controls my head. Oh, how it itches. I am powerless before the master. His eyes are covered to shield him from the pain he is causing. He is unaware that he is abusing me every moment he lives. "Join me. You are safe in here." Ouch, why must you jerk me so? Your kazoo is harmonious, but it plays a tune of death. Are you trying to torture me? If only you knew the strife you inflict, you could change your ways. You wear a

toboggan, for it is cold within these walls. But I have no protection, except this collar, which I fear may never come off. ]

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