                           Snake Pit docs
                          by MERKWood/MAAD

Introduction

Welcome to the "SnakePit" dungeon! The Evil Melator does not like snakes.
He has put forth a challenge to your kind: survive his dungeon and he will
allow your race to survive!

Game Play

SnakePit is played by either keyboard or joystick. The object is to
successfully escape the each dungeon and continue on throughout the Melator's
lair. To escape from a cavern, all you have to do is exit through a cavern
portal. However, most of the caverns in SnakePit do not initially have
exits! If there are no pre-existing exits, you must eat all the grow pellets
in the current maze in order to escape. Each time that you eat a grow pellet,
your snake increases in length. Do not run into your own body, or you'll die!

"Grow" pellets appear as red and white dots. You may also find "Shrink"
pellets throughout the maze (purple and white dots). You do not always have
to eat the shrink pellets to exit a level, but some levels can only be
finished by eating shrink pellets at an appropriate time. You may also
encounter pink bricks along your journey. These bricks will move whenever you
run into them (unless their path is blocked by other bricks), and may
sometimes need to be moved to get at pellets or exits; at other times,
moving them the wrong way or the wrong distance can cause problems.

Starting or Modifying Game Play

By pressing and holding down the right mouse-button, you will see three menu
headings appear at the top of the screen:

Projects  Speed  Tools

Notice that the "Tools" menu heading is ghosted. It is activated by the
PROJECTS menu "Edit" option (see below). Also note that most menu items have
keyboard equivalents as shortcuts.

THE "PROJECTS" MENU

Continue holding down the right mouse-button and move the mouse pointer over
the "Projects" menu option. Seven sub-options will then appear.

Play
Define Keys
Edit
Drums On/Off
Sound On/Off
Quit
High Scores

Play: Release the right mouse-button when this option is highlighted to
      begin a game of SnakePit.

Define Keys: Select this option to modify the key assignments used for
             keyboard control. When the requestor appears, click on a
             direction arrow and press the corresponding key that you
             wish to use.

Edit: Enters the screen editor (see the "Tools" menu description).

Drums On/Off: Turns the drum soundtrack "On" or "Off".

Sound On/Off: Turns all sound "On" or "Off" (drums and sound effects).

Quit: Exits the game.

High Scores: Displays the "High Scores" list.

THE "SPEED" MENU

You may change the speed at which your Snake travels in the maze by selecting
a number from this menu. "1" is the easiest speed; the speed, and hence the
level of difficulty , increases by selecting higher numbers.

THE "TOOLS" MENU

To activate this menu, you must first select the "Edit" option from the
"Projects" menu. After a short wait, a requester will appear asking for the
level number you wish to edit. Select a starting level, then click on the
"Accept" gadget.

The level you select will then load, and you may begin editing. Use the
tools menu option to select the various types of editing tools.

RED BRICK: This represents a solid brick that cannot be moved.
PINK BRIBK: This represents a brick that can be moved by pushing it.
RED & WHITE PELLET: This represents a "Grow" pellet.
PURPLE & WHITE PELLET: This represents a "Shrink" pellet.
ERASE: This tool acts as an eraser.
END EDIT: Exits edit mode.

After selecting a tools option, you will see a white outline of a box. By
holding the left mouse-button the current edit function will be invoked.

There is also a sub-option in the tools menu called "Level". This allows you
to save, load, and clear levels.

Later MERKWooD/MAAD