Flytrap for Palm Computing Platform

You're an entomologist who specializes in flies, which you affectionately refer to as diptera. Your goal is to capture flies for your collection. To make a good specimen, you need to capture them live, which is easier said than done.

The fly starts out with the entire screen to itself. When you're ready, you press a button to release the trap, reducing the area it has to fly around in. But be careful: if the trap hits the fly, it'll get knocked about, and flies can only take so hard a knock (some species can take more than others).

To capture the fly, you need to release the trap repeatedly until the fly has no more room to fly around in. Be warned: as you close the trap, it gets more and more difficult to avoid hitting the fly.

Features

· Neat background music and sound effects. Over an hour of music in all.
· Life-like simulation of collisions.
· Classic arcade action with high-scores and bonus lives.
· Up to four flies at a time for four times the fun!

Download

You can download the latest version from

	http://www.appliedthought.com/flytrap

Shareware Registration

Flytrap is shareware. If you like it, please register and help support your shareware community. Until you register, you'll have access to only the first 6 levels. When you register Flytrap, you'll get access to 8 more levels, in which you must capture as many as 4 flies at a time.

To register, you can either use your credit card or send a check in the mail. Regardless of how you register, you'll need to know your HotSync username. One way to determine your HotSync username is to run Flytrap and choose Register from the menu.

You can register using your credit card through PalmPilotGear H.Q. Call them at 1-800-741-9070 or (817)461-3480, and they'll take your order over the phone, or fill out the included registration form and FAX it to (817)461-3482. To use the PalmPilotGear H.Q. secure server to register online, go to www.palmpilotgear.com.

To register by mail, send your email address, your HotSync username, and a check payable to Applied Thought for U.S. $10 to:

   Applied Thought
   2318 Wooster Ave.
   Belmont, CA  94002-1550
   U.S.A.

You'll also receive email notification of new versions as they become available.

Contact Info

Questions? Comments? Email us at flytrap@appliedthought.com.

Compatibility with Palm Computing Platform Devices

This version is compatible with all Palm Computing Platform devices, including the original Pilot 1000 and 5000 right up to the latest Palm IIIx and Palm V.

Compatibility with Previous Version

If you have version 10, installing version 1.1 will work fine. Your game in progress, preferences, and high scores should all still be there. If you registered version 1.0, you won't have to re-enter your registration code. If you delete version 1.0 before installing version 1.0, you'll need to re-enter your registration code.

Change History

Version 1.1

· Changed to directly access PWM only when necessary, using the new PalmOS API for background sound when possible. This made sound work properly on the Palm IIIx and Palm V which use a different processor.
· Compiled with CodeWarrior R5 with common sub-expression elimination disabled because of a compiler bug in R5.

Version 1.0

· First public release.
· Made the first level with 2 flies be free.

Version 0.48a

· Reduced dynamic memory consumption by decompressing music on-the-fly. This fixed dialog refresh problems on 1.0 devices.
· Added horseshoe wall ganging: three walls move at a time.
· Flies were made slightly hardier to prevent them from being killed spontaneously.
· Rearranged and edited wall patterns to make it easier to see which walls will move next.
· Adjusted difficulty of levels.
· Reduced default volume for 1.0 and 2.0 devices. 3.0 devices still use Game Sound volume in Prefs app.
· Turned off preregistration in preparation for release. Feel free to give out this version to anyone. The same goes for the URL for this web page.

Version 0.47a

· Wrote a MIDI to PocketSynth converter in Squeak and used it to get lots of background music.
· Wrote music compression in Squeak and decompression in C. Used relative frequency and duration, macros, and Huffman encoding to compress over 1 hour of music to about 5K.
· Changed the way lives are used so that flies either appear at top of screen or in play area. Flies are moved between these areas at the start and end of each level using animations with sound effects. Scoring is also done during the end of level animation.
· Optimized for space and speed. Wrote a simple profiler to find the bottlenecks. Performance is no longer an issue and the application is only slightly larger than the version 0.34a despite the addition of many new features and a lot of music.
· Added support for PalmOS version 3.0, including a small icon and version. The system preference for game sound is used to control the volume in Flytrap on 3.0 devices.
· Made instructions work on 1.0 devices by using scroll buttons instead of scrollbars.
· Added bonus lives.
· Made some of the levels with rotating wall ganging more difficult. This included Level 1.
· Changed to go to next level automatically after a while as well as when button is pressed.
· Named the levels.
· Fixed numerous minor bugs.

Version 0.34a

· Support PalmOS version 1.0.
· Added many more levels.
· Scoring and lives. High scores. Level continues if any flies are alive. Title bar on window. More menu items.
· Either up or down button can be used everywhere.
· Support for shareware registration based on HotSync username.
· Song for completing level successfully.
· Show level number and wait for user to start.
· Dead flies no longer spin, are darker, and bounce less elastically.
· Performance with 4 flies is somewhat worse than version 0.22a.

Version 0.22a

· First version for limited release.

Flytrap is a trademark of Applied Thought Corporation. HotSync, Palm OS, PalmPilot, Palm III, and Palm V are trademarks of 3Com Corporation. WorkPad is a trademark of IBM. PocketSynth is trademark Eric Cheng.
Copyright (c)1998 Applied Thought Corporation.
