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## Instructions

### - Title screen and settings -

> 1. The basics
> 2. The details
> 3. Title screen and settings
>    - Gameplay
>    - Controls
>    - Presentation
>    - Registration
>    - Top scores
>    - Tutorial
> 4. Keyboard interface controls

When you launch the game you are welcomed by this screen from where you can configure the game settings, view the top scores, or start the game. Either click on the desired option with the mouse, or select it using the arrow keys and press enter to confirm. If this is the first time you start the game you will be presented the tutorial to help get you up to speed.

Let's begin with the settings. There are four tabs in the settings dialog: Gameplay, Controls, Presentation and Registration.

### Gameplay

Under this tab you'll find the settings that affect how the game is played; difficulty, what rules are active, how often the various pieces may show up.

Many of these options are locked as you first begin to play. A locked option requires the completion of a particular task to become available. Reveal the task in question by moving the mouse pointer over the option you are interested in unlocking.

##### Game Type

While the regular game is the main attraction, eventually some smaller puzzles with completely different objectives will become available. How these minigames are played will not be explained here as their rules are shown on your screen on start. You can stop the rules for a game from appearing by flagging the "don't show again" box when you are done with the reading. If you prefer to discover the rules by experimenting, as that can be a big part of the fun, you may disable them altogether under the presentation tab in the settings.
Should you want to reread rules you have hidden, press F1 twice on the title screen to reset the "don't show"-flags. The sky will flash in acknowledgment and the next time you start a minigame its rules are displayed again.

##### Difficulty

This setting controls the overall difficulty of the game. It affects both timer speed and segment complexity. Also, some of the nastier special pieces won't appear at all on the lower difficulties.

When you first start the game, five difficulties are there to choose from. As you prove your skill, a sixth difficulty level appears, and this one is definitely not for the meek.

##### Modes

Here you'll find a number of options that offer minor alterations to the rules. What most of these do remains secret until they are unlocked, but here are some examples:

> helpful: With this mode set, Loopy, the computer player, will suggest a placement for each piece as it appears in the sky. If you can't quite get the hang of how to play, then this option is for you. However, if your aim is to enter the top scores list, you should be aware that if you let Loopy make most of your decisions she might very well want the credit too.
> During a game with "helpful" active, press F1 to toggle "demo mode" in which Loopy will gladly play along by herself with no need for human interaction.
> timeless: If you don't like to play under pressure, use this mode to turn off the timer. The price you pay is that you get one lemon only and no way of getting more.

> online: With online mode enabled, you submit your score to the global top scores list after a game is over. For this to work you must have an Internet connection established when you complete the game.

> During a game with the online option enabled, an indicator in the upper right corner of the screen shows the status of the game. If a network problem is detected or machine performance drops the speed below what can be considered fair, this indicator turns red and no score will be posted.

> As with the local top scores, there is one global list for each difficulty level. Each registration key can have up to five scores on each of these lists at any one time. If you have five scores already and post a new one that is better, the lowest of your current entries disappears to make room for the new.

##### Frequency

Too many rotators? Perhaps you want fewer droplets and more balloons? If you don't like the distribution of the pieces in game, here is the place to change it. From the start of the game, all of these are locked. They unlock as you get more experience with the various pieces.

### Controls

This tab is divided into two sections. One for keyboard control and one for mouse control.

##### Keyboard

This is where you set the keys used to control the game. To change one of the controls, click in the corresponding box and press the button you prefer to use.

There are also two settings for speed control: movement speed and rotation speed. If you find the controls respond too slowly or are too sensitive, use these to increase or decrease the speeds as needed.

##### Mouse

> mouse control: with this box checked, keyboard control is disabled for the game and mouse control activates instead.
> Note that this is for gameplay only, where small differences in play makes it impossible to have both methods in use at the same time. The user interface can always be controlled using either keyboard or mouse, whether this option is checked or not.

> swap buttons: the default setting lets you place a segment using the left mouse button and rotate it using the right. If this box is checked, the left button instead rotates the segment and the right button places it.

> accelerate: if this box is checked, the segment moves towards its shadow at a higher speed than usual. Otherwise it is locked to the same speed as that offered by keyboard movement.

> middle click for next piece: with this box checked, you can use the middle mouse button to abandon the current segment and continue directly to the next. This will cost you a lemon.

> wheel rotate: check this box if you want to rotate the segment using the mouse wheel. If checked, wheel up rotates the segment to the right, and wheel down rotates the segment to the left.

### Presentation

This tab is divided into three sections: presentation, sound and network.

##### Presentation

> full screen: check this box if you want the game to run in full screen mode. A change here won't take effect until after you close the Settings dialog. You can also toggle between full screen and windowed mode at any time by pressing alt/option - enter .
> If you have more than one screen and wish to play in full screen mode on another display than your main, press F12 while on the title screen to go through the available displays. Windows version only.

> hide cursor when playing: with this box checked, the mouse pointer is automatically hidden during a game when the mouse is not in use.

> accelerate score: check this box if you want the scrolling score- and combo displays to move out of the way faster.

> hide tutorial: once you know how to play the game and feel that the tutorial is no longer necessary, you may remove it from the title screen menu with this option.

> hide minigame rules: while each set of minigame rules may be disabled individually when once displayed, check this box to not see any rules at all, perhaps if you prefer to learn by experimentation.

##### Sound

Here you have two dropdowns for volume control, one for the music and one for the sound effects.

> stop music during pause: check this box if you want the music silenced when you pause the game or temporarily change to another window.

> flip speakers: a contender for the most-obscure-feature-ever award, check this box if you want the game to swap the right- and left sound channels when mixing the sound effects.

##### Network

These settings are used for when connecting to the michi.nu top scores server. For most Internet connections the default setting will just magically work. However, if you need to go through a proxy, select auto-detect proxy from the connection dropdown to use the one configured in the system, or use this proxy to manually enter one yourself.
Note that proxy settings are only available in the Windows version of the game. OSX users who need to use a proxy should configure this in the system settings.

> update scores automatically: check this box if you want the game to automatically update network status and global top scores on launch and when the scores cache gets old. If you leave this box unchecked, no network connection is made unless specifically requested by a click on the global scores tab or by playing an online game.

If a network request fails for any reason, the network status line becomes clickable (whether on the title screen, or in the settings-, top scores- or name dialog). Click it to retry the failed request.

### Registration

If you haven't yet bought the game, this fourth tab is here to help you with that.

The fastest and easiest way to get full access to the game is to use the built-in registration wizard which handles the whole key bit automatically. Just click the buy online now button and follow the instructions and you will have the game unlocked in minutes. You will need a credit card, but the process is completely safe thanks to our payment service provider eSellerate.

Equally secure and almost as easy to use is our web store. Click the visit michi.nu button or open your favorite browser to http://www.michi.nu/ and then select Buy in the navigation bar. This will take you to our store from where you can buy the game using either a credit card or PayPal. You will receive an e-mail with your registration details.

If you bought the game in our web store or have a registration key from somewhere else, click the unlock the game button and enter your registration name and the key that goes with it. If this information is valid, the register button lights up. Click this button to unlock the game.

Note that the registration tab disappears completely once the game is registered.

### Top scores

This is where your achievements in the game are recorded for posterity. A full set of top scores is kept for each difficulty level. Switch between these using the upper tabs.
Each list holds up to a thousand entries, though only ten are displayed in detail. For these the following information is shown, from left to right:

1. position
2. name
3. score
4. segs: number of segments placed at the end of the game
5. loops: number of successfully completed loops
6. biggest: size (in pieces) of the biggest loop made during the game
7. average: average size (in pieces) of the loops made during the game
8. level: level reached at the end of the game

Five additional records are also kept:

- loop size: the biggest loop made in any game on this difficulty
- segment: the highest numbers of segments dropped
- loop: the highest number of loops completed
- combo: the highest combo multiplier reached
- best scoring loop: the highest score awarded a single loop

Use the lower tabs to choose which information you want to see:

> local: the local top scores list, unique to your installation of the game.

> global: the global top scores list, shared by And Round Again players from all over the world. Only games played in the online mode are eligible for entry here.

> Visit http://www.michi.nu/games/round/ to see the full global scores list with more entries and detail than will fit inside the top scores window.
> minis: the top three scores for each game type except regular are kept here

> stats: a small selection of statistics for if you like to see your games in numbers

### Tutorial

The first time you launch the game, the tutorial will automatically open. Later you can access it from the title screen menu. Rather than being a complement to this documentation, the tutorial contains a condensed, less detailed, version of the information herein, combined with several interactive sequences in which you can try the various elements of the games; different aspects of the rules, the special pieces, the combo system, and so on. Click the "try..." buttons to access these sequences, some of which are smaller games or puzzles by their own right.

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