BLOKS

Table of Contents
Welcome and Registration
About Bloks
System Requirements
Registering Bloks
Contacting Stand Alone Inc.
Business Hours
Email
Phone
Regular Mail
World Wide Web
Reporting Bugs
Version History
Playing Bloks
Getting to the Point
General Game Controls
New Game
Continue Game
Controls
Help
High Scores
Enter Password
About
The Paddle
Starting Paddle Controls
The Ball
The Bloks
Normal Bloks
Space Ships
Invulnerabloks
Treat Bloks



Welcome and Registration

About Bloks
Welcome to Bloks, a game of cunning, speed, and mass destruction.
In this game, you use balls, your paddle, and special weapons to destroy all of
the bloks on the screen. This first chapter is full of inportant stuff, but it
you want to just get on and play the game, go ahead and skip to Chapter 2.
Really, itÕs okay.

Included in this archive are the following packages:

¥Bloks.prc
This is the software package that you need to install on your PalmPilot.

¥Bloks.pdf
This is the usersÕ manual for Bloks.

¥Bloks.txt
This is a text only format of the usersÕ manual. If at all possible,
use the pdf version of the manual as it has layout and graphics that cannot be
included in the text version. The pdf version of the manual is viewed using
Adobe¨ Acrobat Reader¨. This can be obtained free of charge at www.adobe.com.

¥SAStuff.txt
A list of all of the software available from Stand Alone Inc.

System Requirements Bloks is designed to work on both the PalmPilot
Professional and Personal units, as well as the Palm III device. Throughout
this manual, PalmPilot is used to refer to any of these units.

Registering Bloks Bloks is Shareware, and costs $15.00.

The Bloks Demo will work for a 30 day trial period. At the end of the 30 Days,
it will stop working. To avert this tragedy, you will need to get in touch with
Stand Alone to register your software. You can register with us by several
different methods.

You will need to include the following information, no matter how you choose to
register. Most importantly, you need to include your name EXACTLY as it is
entered in your PalmPilot, including spaces. We use this to generate your
password, so it must be precise. You will need to specify which programs you
wish to register, and include payment for each of them. We accept Visa,
Mastercard, and American Express. If you are using normal mail, you can send us
a check as well. Make sure to include your card number, the expiration date,
and what type of card you are using. You also need to give us a way to get in
touch with you. Email is the preferred way, followed by your address and phone
number. An Email address is not strictly necessary, but it will result in much
faster service.

For instant gratification, register by phone, and pay using Visa or Mastercard.
To do so, call (773) 477-2492 and we will give you a password right over the
phone.

Alternatively, you can send us a check to the address below.

You can also Email us. Just Email us the relevant information, and weÕll send
you a code. If you are registering through Compuserve, use, GO SWREG.

Once you register, you will receive a password from us. You can install this
password one of two ways. There is an option to Enter Password via the Enter
Password option in the menu. Tap on it to bring up a screen that has a space to
enter the password.

Contacting Stand Alone Inc.
There are several ways to get in touch with us here
at Stand Alone, Inc. Email is the preferred form of communication, but whatever
works for you is fine. If you have any questions, comments, suggestions or
compliments, please don't hesitate to contact us through any of the methods
listed below.

Business Hours
Stand Alone is open from 9 AM to 7 PM Monday to Thursday, 9 AM to 6 PM Friday,
10 AM to 4 PM Saturday and we are CLOSED on Sunday. These times are CST and GMT
-5.

Email
internet: info@standalone.com
AOL: Std Alone
CompuServe: 76342,3057

Phone
Voice: (773) 477-2492
Fax: (773) 477-2579

Regular Mail
Stand Alone
3171 N. Hudson, Suite 1
Chicago IL, 60657
USA

World Wide Web
http://www.standalone.com

Reporting Bugs If you find a bug in our software, it would be helpful if you
reported the bug to us. To report a bug, please Email us with Bug Report
Request in the subject line. In the Email, include the following information:

¥What type of PalmPilot you are using (i.e. Personal)
¥The software name and
version number (i.e. Bloks 1.0)
¥The error number
¥A brief description of how
we can recreate the error
¥Your name and Email address so we can contact you
when the bug is fixed

When reporting bugs, it is best to Email us, rather than calling, so that the
programers have a written record of the information they need to solve the
problem. As soon as we receive your Email, the programer will examine the
problem, and fix it.. Because our programers are busy creating software, it can
take a while for them to reply, but they will release a new version of the
software that fixes the bug as soon as they can.

Version History
Version Date Notes
1.0 June 1,1998 First public release

Playing Bloks
Now, on to the good stuff!

Getting to the Point
The point of Bloks is to have fun, but thatÕs no surprise.
Beyond having fun, the point of Bloks is to destroy all of the bloks and space
ships on each level by whatever means necessary. You can use the ball, special
weapons, or even the paddle itself in your quest for destruction.


General Game Controls
Before getting into the action of the game, there are a
number of game controls found by tapping the Menu silkscreen button. Next to
each menu option is the Grafitti shortcut.


New Game
Select New Game to (surprise!) begin a new game starting at Level Zero.

Continue Game
Continue Game starts you at the level on which you ended your
last game. The continued game starts you with three bounces on the ball, and no
special abilities.

Controls
Controls allows you to set up the control buttons any way you want.
The buttons begin in the default setup, and all references to controls in the
instructions refer to the default. To change a control, tap on the picker next
to the button image and select the desired effect from the menu.

Help
If you need a bit of advice on playing Bloks, tap the Help option.

High Scores
Selecting High Scores gives you a list of all the high scores for Bloks

Enter Password
When you register, select Enter Password to enter your registration code.

About
The About screen gives you the version number of Bloks, as well as information
on how to contact Stand Alone, Inc.


The Paddle
Controlling your paddle is the most basic, and important, part of
Blocks. Your Paddle is your basic weapon of destruction against the bloks. The
most important job of your paddle is to keep your ball from hitting the bottom
of the screen. If a ball hits your paddle, then it bounces off of it. You
paddle isnÕt tied to the bottom of the screen, and can move anywhere. However,
be careful about bringing you paddle away from the base line. If your ball gets
underneath your paddle, it will bounce downward, probably right to the bottom
of the screen where it will lose a bounce. By hitting the ball with the side of
the paddle, you can direct the path of the ball.

You can also use your paddle to destroy space ships and bloks. The number of
times needed to hit an object with the paddle to destroy it depends on what you
are hitting. Also, if you hit a blok that normally drop treats with the paddle,
no treats are dropped. So, itÕs not always to your advantage to destroy things
with your paddle.

Starting Paddle Controls
The following are the default paddle controls.

Date Book Button: moves the paddle left
Address Button : activates special functions
Up Button : moves the paddle up
Down Button : moves the paddle down
To Do list Button : moves the paddle left
Memo Pad Button : moves the paddle right

You can get a number of treats that give the paddle special abilities. The
treats are explained in the following Treat Bloks section.

The Ball
The ball is the second most important part of Bloks. You only get to
keep going as long as you have at least one ball in play. Each ball has a
number of bounces, and each time the ball hits the bottom of the screen, it
loses a bounce. One Bounce: Two Bounces: Three Bounces: Four Bounces: Five
Bounces: Invinciball: If a ball reaches level six, it becomes an Invinciball.
Invinciballs will destroy most blocks and keep going. They will even destroy
Invulnerabloks with one hit, but an undamaged Invulnerabloks will cause an
Invinciball to bounce back. The Invinciball is your strongest weapon.

The Bloks
The bloks are your targets; you exist only to destroy them. Normally,
it takes two bullets, two hits with the paddle, or one hit with the ball to
destroy a blok. Any blok that sustains more damage than required to destroy it
is completely obliterated, and the ball will keep going, rather than bouncing
back. The bloks are not placed directly next to one another, so it is sometimes
possible to slip a ball through the cracks between the bloks.

Normal Bloks
Normal bloks come in there types. All of them take two bullets, two hits with
the paddle, or one hit with a normal ball to destroy. They are the most common
form of blok.

Space Ships
Space Ships are tough bloks that move around the screen. They take twice the
number of hits to kill as a Normal blok. Every time that you hit a Space Ship,
they drop a treat.

Invulnerabloks
The Invulnerabloks are your worst enemy. They take sixteen bullets, sixteen
hits with the paddle, or eight hits with the ball. While they will be
destroyed with one hit of an Invinciball, an undamaged Invulnerablok will
bounce the Invinciball back as it is destroyed.

Treat Bloks
Treat bloks are as tough as Normal bloks, but they release treat drops whenever
they are hit. These treats give your ball or paddle special abilities. Collect
the treats by hitting them with your paddle.

Long Paddle
The Long Paddle treat lengthens the paddle , making it easier to hit the ball.

Round Paddle
The Round Paddle can make your job more difficult. It shrinks the paddle and
rounds it off, making the ball harder to hit and more likely to rebound at a
sharp angle.

Fast Ball
If you grab this treat, all balls speed up. ItÕs not too bad, as long as you
donÕt get too many of these.

Slow Ball
The Slow Ball treat helps you out by slowing all balls down.

MultiBall
If you grab MultiBall, then four new balls explode from the treat. They all
start at level one, but can be increased by the Extra Bounce treat. You can
have up to ten balls on the screen at once.

Extra Bounce
Extra Bounce increases the level of all the balls on the screen by one, which
is especially valuable if you have many balls going at once. The Extra Bounce
treat is the only way to get the Invinciball.

Sticky Paddle
This treat gives you a new paddle that sticks to the balls. Tapping the
Address button releases all of the balls. The balls also release when you hit
a blok with your paddle. Take note that if you hit a blok with a ball stuck to
the paddle, rather than the paddle itself, the ball wonÕt be released.

Shooter Paddle
Getting the Shooter Paddle treat turns your paddle into a mobile gun platform.
To shoot, tap the Address button. You can have up to ten bullets on the screen
at once.

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