Marble Drop ReadMe File

1.  Introduction
2.  How To Uninstall
3.  Some Additional Hot Keys
4.  Performance Issues
5.  I Can't Hear Any Sounds
6.  Fiddling With Your Monitor Resolution

------------------------------------------------------------------

1. Introduction

Welcome to the readme file for Maxis's new meditative strategy
game Marble Drop. We have included this file to make
sure that our customers have the most up to date information 
available. In the course of developing any computer game, 
information changes hands many times, and often at the very last
minute. Sometimes, these last minute changes cannot get written 
into the formal manuals, such as the User's Manual. For Marble Drop,
we wanted to add a few things and make a few corrections so that
you, our customer, can enjoy your puzzles as much as we do.


2.  How To Uninstall

To uninstall Marble Drop for Win95:

	a. From the START menu, or from Explorer, select the 
	   Control Panel folder.
	b. From Control Panel, select Add/Remove Programs.
	c. Highlight the Marble Drop program, and then click on
 	   Add/Remove.

This will fully remove Marble Drop from your hard drive and from 
your registry.

To uninstall Marble Drop for WIN 3.1

	a. From the main Windows program mangager screen, open up
	   the Maxis group.
	b. From this window, double-click on the "Uninstall Marble
	   Drop" icon.

This will remove Marble Drop from your desktop and from your hard
drive.


3.  Some Additional Hot Keys

The help file that accompanies Marble Drop does an excellent job
of documenting the available hot keys. Also, we have tried to list
the hot key next to its appropriate command in the menu bar.
However, we were able to include two more hot keys right at the
last minute of production. If you want to increase or decrease the
speed of your game without using the menu system, you can simply
use "+" or "-"  respectively. The keys on the number line of your 
keyboard work great, but all of the cool people use the keypad.


4. Performance issues

We wanted to offer a few suggestions that might help speed up
your game play. So, without any further ado:

	a. On the lower end machines, we really recommend playing
	   in 640 X 480 resolution. While perhaps not as sharp, and
	   definitely not as big as the 800 X 600 or 1024 X 768, this
	   resolution is the least taxing on your system. You
	   do not lose much graphical quality and you lose nothing
	   from gameplay. And that's what this is really about.

	b. Additional RAM goes a very long way in caching sounds
	and animations which should improve the speed of your game.

	c. If your puzzles are still moving too slowly, as a last
	resort you might want to turn off your sound. We went to
	a good deal of effort to ensure that sound was not essential
	to the play of the game. While adding ambiance to the play,
	and more importantly adding fun, the sounds are not critical
	to your solving the puzzles.


5.  I Can't Hear Any Sounds

When you originally installed Marble Drop on your machine, there
were several dialogue boxes at the end of the process which asked 
if you wanted to install Direct X on your computer. In order to hear 
sounds in Marble Drop, Direct X needs to be installed on your system. 
Without getting too technical, Direct X is a program which allows us
to directly access your sound hardware. And that is what allows Marble
Drop to play music and sounds.

If you can’t hear sounds, there are several explanations:

Problem: You failed to install Direct X.
Solution: You will need to reinstall Marble Drop on your machine. 
Don’t forget to answer yes to all the Direct X questions. You will 
be prompted on what to do and the computer will automatically install 
all the needed files.

Problem: You installed Direct X, but did not restart your computer.
Solution: You need to restart your computer in order for Direct X 
to take effect. So close all applications and quit; then restart.

If you still can’t hear Marble Drop Game Sounds, then you will have 
to perform all the usual diagnoses:

- Make sure your speakers are plugged in correctly.
- Check the volume settings.
- If headphones are plugged in, then use them. Or take them out.
- Make sure no other applications are running which could cause a
  conflict when simultaneous *.wav files are playing back.

If you are still having trouble, please contact our tech support.
Or contact the people who made your computer for further assistance. 
Or call you parents for some real down home sympathy.


7.  Fiddling With Your Monitor Resolution

We found that changing your monitor resolution while Marble Drop
is active can have some interesting results. When you change the
resolution on your monitor, Marble Drop will change resolution to
support your new desktop size. So if something goes wrong during
that screen change, Marble Drop might become confused. The end
result of this is your screen will probably return to its original
resolution and Marble Drop may take a while to catch up. There 
should not be any real harm done. But, for the sake of brevity, we
recommend closing down Marble Drop before resizing your desktop.


We hope that you enjoy your puzzles. We had a great time testing
them. Once you've completed the game, you should go back and find 
some new solutions. We put a lot of time into testing your puzzles
and we found some really fun solutions. So they are there for the  
finding. If you find something overly creative, let us know.

We would love to hear from you.


Maxis South
Quality Assurance Team