Documentation for FAIRWAY v2.4 for the Series 3a
================================================

This game is shareware, so please share it with other Psion-owning
friends!

This documentation is in English only, but please note that in
addition to the READ.ME files in the other four languages, that all
the game text and help screens are also fully converted to the
appropriate tongue! YOU CAN SAFELY DELETE ALL .OVL FILES FOR
LANGUAGES OTHER THAN YOUR OWN, TO SAVE DISK SPACE.

If you unzipped this program without recreating the original program
directories/folders, then please delete these files and try again. (If
you are using the DOS version of PKUNZIP, the "-d" flag will produce
the required structure)

New for v2.4
------------
Please note that the gameplay is almost identical to v2.2. The purpose
of this update is to give my new phone, address and web details within
the program and documentation; in addition to this, a small stats bug
was fixed, and the program file made smaller using AKA; the nag
screens were made less intrusive by the removing of the time delay;
the Danish files were removed, as I suspect they'll be of much less
interest than the other languages; the distribution ZIP was built
using directories, for easier installation;

Quick Installation:
-------------------
Install by putting FAIRWAY.OPA into an APP directory (any device will
do) and FAIRWAY.PIC and one of the language modules into a \FAIRWAY
subdirectory beneath the aforementioned \APP directory. The WVE files
can (optionally) be in any \WVE directory, but the tidiest place is
probably the \APP\FAIRWAY\ directory, with the PIC files etc.

Thus \APP\FAIRWAY.OPA          
and  \APP\FAIRWAY\ENGLISH.OVL (or DEUTSCH.OVL or ITALIANO.OVL or FRANCAIS.OVL)
and  \APP\FAIRWAY\FAIRWAY.PIC
and  \APP\FAIRWAY\CHEER3.WVE
and  \APP\FAIRWAY\CLAP4.WVE
and  \APP\FAIRWAY\SWING2.WVE

and then install the OPA in the normal time-honoured Psion 3 manner ...

================ Main documentation follows ===========================

FAIR24.ZIP
Copyright 1993,1994,1996 UK, Steve Litchfield,
                         22 Grays Crescent,
                         Woodley,
                         Reading
                         RG5 3EN
                         United Kingdom

Registration fee: 12 (or 6 for registered FAIRWAY 1.0 users), please
make your cheque payable to myself. If you live outside the UK,
convert to either Sterling (or Eurocheque in Sterling), US $, DM or
french ff, and send cash.

Other registration options:
1) On Compuserve: do GO SWREG and use id. 6566
2) On RegNet: go to http://www.xmission.com/~wintrnx/regnet/559p.htm and use
your credit card
3) Phone RegNet toll-free in the USA with 1 800 WWW2REG (1 800 999-2734)
   or internationally using (805) 288-1827. When you get through, please
   quote RegNet id. 559

Released as shareware. The shareware version is fully functioning in
every way, with the only nuisance factor being the occasional
interruption of various nag screens, encouraging you to play fair,
play the game, and support authors like myself by sending in some
money. I will then issue you with a personalised key-code, which you
can type into FAIRWAY from the Psion-R screen, and which will disable
all the nag-screens and display your name every time the program is
booted. This will ease your guilt factor, and speed up the gameplay! I
can e-mail you this code if necessary.

Note that the registration code for FAIRWAY also works for Siena Golf,
in case any of you 'downgrade' to the Psion Siena, or go the other
way.

All temporary files, player stats files (*.FWS), menu settings
(FAIRWAY.SET), and saved games (FAIRWAY.SAV and FAIRWAY.BAK) are
stored in small files in your M:\OPD directory.

Gameplay
--------
Fairway takes you onto the professional tournament circuit, where you
can pit your skills against a variety of dubiously named computer
controlled opponents. You have 16 clubs (SupaDrive, 3 woods, 9 irons,
2 wedges and putter) and they are selected automatically, though you
can change the automatic selection with the up/down arrow keys, or
even turn automatic selection off altogether. The current club, and
its expected hitting distance (including rolling, and without
'overswing') are shown inside the power bar.

There are three modes of play. Practice, where you play on your own
and where your performance isn't recorded in the statistics file,
1-Player, where you play in a tournament against the aforementioned 20
computer players, and finally 2-player, where you can play against a
friend within the tournament environment. It is not possible to change
mode half-way through a round/tournament, so you have to decide right
at the start of each game how you want to play!

Note that the playing order of the various opponents remains the same
throughout the game, with your good self taking up the rear, i.e.
playing last, so that you know exactly what you have to do! I hope
this doesn't disappoint fans of 'real' golf too much! In 2-player
game, the winner of each hole gets to shoot first on the following
hole, just like in the real game.

Each hole is randomly generated for this particular tournament, at the
time of playing, so you'll never play the same tournament course
twice! (The actual sequence of par ratings remains the same, but the
hole lengths and contents will always be different.)

Difficulty
----------
Because you are pitted against 20 computer opponents of varying (OK,
random!) skills, there is no need to have a changeable difficulty
setting for the game, as whatever your individual skill, you should
find yourself somewhere in the 'pack', and your challenge will be to
gradually move up the leaderboard, and eventually start winning. The
game is tuned such that you should find winning a tournament a real
challenge even when you've been playing FAIRWAY for a while,
especially as the computer players start playing better once you start
edging into the lead!

Hazards
-------
There are the usual golf hazards of trees (which can block your shot,
unless you squirt the ball out under them, or deliberately play with
an extravagant hook or slice to go round them) and light rough, rough,
long grass and bunkers (in all of which you'll need to hit harder than
normal, to varying degrees). Long grass and bunker shots also suffer
from a built-in random factor, as in real life! Also, there is
normally a wind blowing, with a special arrow showing its speed and
direction (and an extra digital readout of its speed). If you are
putting at the time, the arrow is used to show the break on the putt,
i.e. the slope of the green and its size. Note that if the arrow is so
short that you cannot distinguish its direction, then the wind/slope
is probably not sufficient for you to worry about! The edges of the
green are 'rougher' and will tend to slow your ball down, as with a
real green.

Hitting the ball
----------------
The method used to hit the ball is the same as you've probably used
before on other computer golf games. There are cross-hairs to aim your
shot and a 'power bar' (along the bottom of the screen when it's your
turn to play) to control how hard you hit the ball.

Using one of the FAIRWAY action keys (Tab, Delete, Space or Enter),
use the '3-click' method, whereby you tap the key once to start the
'power bar' moving, once more to stop it rising and one last time to
time your shot, by stopping the bar as close as possible to the timing
mark shown. Timing your shot badly will result in hooking or slicing
the ball, or in imparting spin if you are putting. Note that hitting
the ball too hard when putting can cause the ball to jump over the
hole, and not drop in. So you can't just blast the putt at 50 mph
straight at the hole!

Note that FAIRWAY allows for 'overswing'. Notice the thick bar a short
distance from the left edge of the power bar. This is the 100% mark,
and stopping the power bar on this mark will assure you of 100% power,
to achieve the expected hitting distance for that club. If you allow
the power bar to rise beyond the 100% mark, you will achieve more than
100% power, for extra distance, but at the expense of magnifying any
timing error in your shot. In other words, if you hit your shot with
120% power, but manage to slice the ball as well, the slice will turn
out far more extravagant than if you had hit with 100% power. Also,
bear in mind that mistiming your shot also reduces the hitting power
available, so you can see that overswing should be used only when
absolutely necessary, and then with maximum precision on the timing
line!

FAIRWAY uses the laws of physics when it calculates ball motion, and
was designed to give some of the feel of the real game. This has
several effects. For example, when putting, notice that the markings
on the power bar are not evenly spaced, and that although hitting the
ball to half the maximum putting distance still needs the power bar to
be taken up to the fifth graduation (ten graduations = full scale),
this mark is nearer 75% of the on-screen maximum. This non-linearity
is designed to represent what happens on a real putting green, with
friction, inertia and so on.

Getting help
------------
Pressing the Help key will usually bring up a help menu in the usual
Psion style, with each help option typically having a sub-menu of its
own. Feel free to browse around the help screens, the help information
is fairly complete. Don't worry, because the game is very simple to
play, especially so if you've played golf on a PC before.

If you are doing particularly badly, the help menu will automatically
appear, though you can get rid of it by pressing ESC, as usual.

Menu options
------------
The Menu key gives you access to the overhead and ball lie views, to
the scorecard so far, to the player statistics screen and to the setup
menu. And of course there is an Exit option, by which you can
terminate your game.

You can also turn off (or on) automatic showing of the overhead view
and the ball lie, and can also ask the computer whose shot it is and
which shot they're currently playing. The auto-showing of the
leaderboard and the auto-selection of clubs can also be customised.

The save game option will save your current game (as at the start of
the hole currently being played) to a specific file in the \OPD
directory of your internal disk. This can only be restored when
FAIRWAY is launched. This is designed to discourage people cheating by
a continual cycle of Save-play-restore on a 'difficult' hole. I often
found I saved games by accident on exiting the game, when in fact I
didn't want to overwrite my previous saved game. FAIRWAY now keeps the
'old' saved game temporarily as FAIRWAY.BAK, so if an accident does
happen you can always delete FAIRWAY.SAV and rename the .BAK file to
FAIRWAY.SAV !

Each menu option has its own hot key, by which you can go straight to
their function without going through the menus, e.g. Psion-X will take
you straight to the "Exit: save game? (Y/N/C)" screen.

Note that all the menu option settings will be retained from one game
to the next. FAIRWAY uses a small file called FAIRWAY.SET to do this.

Setup options
-------------
The setup menu will appear at the beginning of every game, and allows
you to control how the game should work. You can select the playing
mode (Practice, 1-player, 2-player), your name and that of your human
opponent (if any) and whether you want sound effects (On, Off). Notice
that if you are registered, your name will automatically appear in the
setup box when you play the game.

************************************************************************
Thankyou for playing FAIRWAY v2.4. Please play fair with shareware!
Steve Litchfield +44 (118) 9265081
web.ukonline.co.uk/Members/slitchfield
************************************************************************

(#) Note that if you really want to run FAIRWAY in German, French or
Italian modes, simply install either DEUTSCH.OVL, FRANCAIS.OVL, or
ITALIANO.OVL instead of ENGLISH.OVL and create a small file called
either GERMAN.FLG, FRENCH.FLG or ITALIAN.FLG in your internal root
directory. This will 'flag' to FAIRWAY to switch languages. This
information may be of use to you.

Note to hackers: Please don't try to hack this game. Although everything is
possible, it really isn't worth it! Use your undoubted programming skills to
write something of your own instead and make a positive contribution to the
Psion software world!!

Have fun!!
