While many functions of Leasey relate to carrying out tasks which are essential to everyday computing, the product also provides a considerable amount of entertainment. This includes aspects of LeaseySearch, LeaseyAudio, LeaseyRadio and so on. The entertainment value of the product is very much strengthened through the inclusion of the LeaseyGames Module.
Leasey contains many games which can be played either alone, online with other people, or against the computer. The LeaseyGames are divided into three broad categories:
This Chapter will describe each of the three categories of games together with how to access them and obtain help which is specific to the individual game being played.
All the games contained in the LeaseyGames Module have several common factors associated with them:
In addition to the providers already stated, we would like to thank RS Games, NA Soft and Spoonbill Software for their kind generosity in allowing us to bring you an extremely wide range of games as a springboard for future developments.
Please note: In terms of fixing any problems with the games stated below, Hartgen Consultancy are responsible for, (and are in a position to remedy), difficulties with games which are exclusive to Leasey. However, where we have been given permission to distribute games at no additional cost from external providers, we cannot accept responsibility for any bugs which may be found within them. We will do our best to work with the game developers to resolve them, however we are providing these merely as a service to users and as a convenient platform for easy access and distribution.
In order to play any games, the LeaseyGames module must be downloaded and installed. We strongly recommend that you refer to the "Setup" chapter of this User Guide and install the LeaseyGames Module according to the instructions given in the appropriate sub-section. Note that if you have previously downloaded the LeaseyGames Module for Leasey version 2, you will need to do so again in order to take advantage of our complete range of games now available.
If the LeaseyGames Module is not installed, when attempting to play a game for the first time you will be advised of this and will be asked if you would like to install it. Again, please refer to the "Setup" Chapter which will describe precisely what to expect in this regard.
We must now spend some time discussing how the games make it possible for you to play them with appropriate speech output. These fall into two specific categories:
We will describe into which of the two above categories each game falls.
LeaseyGames can be accessed in one of two ways:
At the time of writing, there are 44 possible options which can be selected from the LeaseyGames menu. These are arranged in alphabetical order. Use the Up or Down Arrow keys to select a game to play or use first letter navigation to locate the one you want. Press Enter to play one of the games.
When the Enter key is pressed, (and if using Leasey Basic), Leasey will let you know that she is loading the game and to please wait while this takes place. The loading of the game should only take a few seconds.
While we will not describe how to play each game provided, we suggest you read the below sections carefully prior to playing any one of them.
Online games are provided via the RS Games client. To access online games, please select the option "RS Games Online". All prompts are announced by JAWS.
RS Games is a revolutionary game client that allows people to play games against each other through a central server hosted by the organisation. In addition to making available a number of games, (which can be played alongside your friends or against a "bot" or a computer), a social element to the client means you can chat with people or listen to radio stations while you play.
The most important aspect of the RS Games client is the menu. Menus are used when choosing from several options. For example, each game has a main menu, with options such as "New Game", "Join Game" and "List Games". You might also use menus to choose from a hand of cards or answer "Yes" or "No" to a prompt.
To select an item from a menu, use the Up and Down Arrow keys to move through the options, and press Enter to select. Further keyboard commands are specific to each game, and are referred to in the individual documentation for it.
Prior to playing any of the games, you will need to create an RS Games account. If you don't yet have an account, you should choose "Create a New Account" from the main menu. You will be asked to enter your desired username, together with an email address. The email address you supply must be valid, since a temporary password will be sent to it. We strongly recommend you change your password to something you can remember. You can do this by choosing the "change password" option from the main menu.
If you already have an account, choose the first option in the menu, "Login with an Existing Account", and enter your username and password.
When you login to the server for the first time, you will be asked if you'd like to enable auto-login. This feature allows the game to remember your login information so you do not have to type it in each time you play. If you'd like to enable this feature, choose "yes". Once it is enabled, an option will appear in the main login menu. For example, if your username is BobCat, you will see an option entitled "Login as BobCat". Simply choose that option and you will be automatically logged in.
When within the main menu, moving through the options will allow you to view all the games provided. Press Enter to select a game to play. If the game sounds have not been downloaded to your computer, the RS Games client will do this and advise you that it is taking place. This should only take a few seconds.
Other important keystrokes to note are:
Leasey includes a large number of SpoonBill Software games, all of which are self-voicing, meaning that the output is generated by your default Windows Text to Speech Voice, (see above). Keys usually associated with Leasey, such as to access the Leasey Main Menu, cannot be pressed when accessing these games.
The catalogue of Spoonbill Software games included is as follows:
As game play progresses, you will be advised which keystrokes to use when appropriate. However, in order to close a game at any time, press the letter Q. To access help for the game being played, press F1. When you do this, JAWS will reload and you will be taken to a page where you can read help for it. Use standard text reading commands in order to work through the help. Press ALT+F4 to return to the game.
The above games in this category can be played at what we might describe as a "leisurely pace", meaning that you can take your time. To this end, Leasey Advanced users can switch to an alternative program and return to the game later, perhaps to process Email or carry out any one of a number of other activities. To do this, launch your chosen program from the Start Menu or Desktop, press ALT+Tab, or press Insert+F10 to access a list of running applications.
The aim of Park Boss is to build an amusement park from the ground up. As the boss everything regarding your park is under your control. The rides you add, the staff you employ and how much you pay them, the types of meals you serve, how much to charge for them, the advertising, dealing with situations which arise and balancing the need to keep your visitors happy with making money. Remember that unless you make money you can’t build new attractions.
There is no end to the game. You can keep playing and building as long as you like. There are over 70 attractions you can build along with 15 different zones which can be setup. Every so often you’ll get an offer to by the park. This is equivalent to selling up and taking the money. When you do sell then you invest all the funds in to purchasing new land and you start all over again.
The output from Park Boss is delivered as a mix of human narrated audio and speech emanating from your default Windows Text to Speech voice. Keys usually associated with Leasey, such as to access the Leasey Main Menu, cannot be pressed when accessing this game.
Almost all of the game play is delivered through menus. Use the Up or Down Arrow keys and Enter to select a choice. Pressing Escape will save the current setting and moves back a level in the game play.
Spoken assistance is required throughout the game so there is little need for the provision of help information. However, the following may assist you:
As stated previously, Treasure Troll is part of a series of games developed exclusively for Leasey. Treasure Troll combines quality and fully orchestrated music (which changes depending upon how effective you are at game play), original sound effects and vocal production. The music emanates from the Elias engine. Used in specialist and mainstream gaming products, through Elias the music is just as dynamic and flexible as the corresponding composition would have been in a movie. Simple yet challenging, as with all the Leasey Games the interface is easy to use with few keystrokes to remember.
The output from Treasure Troll is delivered as a mix of human narrated audio and speech emanating from your default Windows Text to Speech voice. Keys usually associated with Leasey, such as to access the Leasey Main Menu, cannot be pressed when accessing this game.
You are a troll who, while walking through a forest, finds the ground suddenly disappearing beneath your feet. You fall into a cave where a vast golden treasury is guarded by a hoard of sleeping fairies. Fairies and trolls are on notoriously bad terms and if they find you in their cave, stealing their treasure, the consequences for you are likely to be painful! Can you play through ten levels of increasing difficulty, and steal the treasure from under their noses without waking them?
The game begins with a main menu. Use your Up or Down arrow keys to navigate through it. To choose an option, press Enter. At the end of each game you will be automatically returned to the main menu.
This game is purely sound driven with no graphics, so you must use the sound effects and audio environments within the game to move from place to place and to avoid enemies and obstacles. For this you will need either a pair of stereo headphones or speakers that are positioned so that it is possible to hear what comes from the left and right, as this plays a crucial role in the game's navigation.
The game takes place inside the fairies' cave. Listen to the ambience and you will hear quiet breathing in the far left and far right of your stereo field. This will tell you where the walls are. You begin in the center of the cave, moving right or left with your arrow keys. You may repeatedly tap the Arrow keys to walk or hold them down continuously to run.
Every few seconds you will hear treasure. It will appear in a random place and begin sliding along the floor until it hits a wall, when it will disappear. The treasure is represented by the sound of coins. You must collect it before it reaches the wall. To do this, walk or run until the treasure is centered in your sound field then press the Space Bar to pick it up. You will hear a chime when a treasure is successfully collected and a soft thud if it has hit the wall.
You must not bump into the walls. If you do, the fairies will awaken and the consequences will cost you a life, you only have three to begin with. Walls can be avoided by listening to the breathing and by getting a feel for the game space.
Every now and then boulders will fal from the ceiling. These will fall more often and faster as you progress. You must take care they don't hit you, or the noise you make will awaken the fairies which will result in you losing a life.
We all know that caves harbour bats. now and then a hungry bat will fly down from the roof. The bats come more often and get faster as you progress. These bats are inteligent and will come after you. You must take care they dont' land on you because if they bite you will be frozen for five seconds, which will make you miss treasure. If you miss too many treasures you will get frustrated and make too much noise which will awaken the fairies, resulting in you losing a life.
From time to time bonuses will fall from the ceiling, making a distinctive sound. You need to catch them before they shatter. Center them in your sound field and press the Space Bar to collect them. The bonuses are as follows:
You are given your score at the end of each level and at the conclusion of the game. There is also a menu option to view your top ten best scores so you can keep a record of how well you are doing!
The scoring system is based upon many factors, for example the time taken to collect treasure, how quickly you collect bonuses, whether you hit a wall, whether a bat bites you, and so on. While you may eventually be successful in beating all 10 levels, you can improve your game play by developing your quick reactions and dodging skills so as to improve your overall score!
As with Treasure Troll (referred to Above), The output from Truffle Troll is delivered as a mix of human narrated audio and speech emanating from your default Windows Text to Speech voice. Keys usually associated with Leasey, such as to access the Leasey Main Menu, cannot be pressed when accessing this game.
Have you met our bumbling but lovable troll, who, at the end of our last game, was catapulted out of the fairies' cave with a heap of stolen treasure with which he went on a huge spending spree? One of the things he bought was an ice cream parlour.
Unfortunately, though trolls might be good at making ice cream, they're not terribly good at keeping staff, so now he has to run it all by himself. He must run to the freezer, collect bowls of ice cream on his tray, then run back and deliver orders. Unfortunately his customers aren't the most patient people in the world, so he needs to be quick or the customers will get angry and start wrecking the place. Over five minutes the action gets faster, more flavours are ordered and there's less time before the customers get irate. Can you deliver enough orders to make a profit? Can you also manage to serve the luxurious rum truffle ice creams for premium prices?
The game begins with a main menu. Use your Up or Down arrow keys to navigate through it. To choose an option, press Enter. At the end of each game you will be automatically returned to the main menu. Please note that there are two modes of game play: "Easy" and "Expert". The differences are described below.
This game is purely sound driven with no graphics, so you must use the sound effects and audio environments within the game to move from place to place and to locate your customers. For this you will need either a pair of stereo headphones or speakers that are positioned so that it is possible to hear what comes from the left and right, as this plays a crucial role in the game's navigation.
The game takes place inside the ice cream parlour. When the game begins, you are advised which flavours of ice cream can be sold. More flavours are added as the game progresses. As your ice cream parlour grows in popularity, the more flavours people will wish to buy!
The freezer containing your current stock of ice creams is located on the extreme right. You will hear a sound when you reach the freezer door. In order to open or close it, press Enter. With the freezer door open, use the Up and Down Arrow keys to move through the available stock, and press the Left and Right Arrow keys to adjust the quantity of those items you wish to carry on the tray. The more bowls of ice cream you carry, the greater the chance of you being able to serve your customers quickly. However:
As the game progresses, each customer will ask you for a choice of icecream. You need to be fast as more and more customers will enter the store. In order to serve a customer, use the Left or Right Arrow keys to locate him or her in the centre of the stereo field and press the Space Bar. Hold down the Left and Right Arrow keys to run, tap each key to walk.
Should you wish to check your stock levels, press the letter S. To hear the time remaining in the game, press the letter T.
The objective of the game is to make as much profit as possible. At the end of each game, you are told how much money was made in sales, whether costs were incurred in replacing broken furniture your angry customers had damaged, and, (when appropriate), whether icecream bowls needed to be replaced due to them being dropped. Money is deducted to replace furniture or bowls. Hopefully, you will hear how much profit has been made overall. There is also a menu option to view your top ten best scores so you can keep a record of how well you are doing!
Finger numbing action, stunning audio imagery and a touch of morbid comedy is combined in this game, promising hours of thrilling and challenging game play.
The game features pristine sound effects and original orchestral music, carefully combined to create a truly unique gaming experience. Fight your way through four virtual worlds filled to the brim with all kinds of murderous monsters, treacherous traps and other surprises, and finally attempt to defeat the boss who is patiently waiting for you at the very end.
This game is what is called a "side-scroller" which means you control Q9's direction by using the Arrow keys on your keyboard; moving him left and right to navigate through the levels. This game is purely sound driven with no graphics, so you must use the sound effects and audio environments within the game to move from place to place and to avoid enemies and obstacles. For this you will need either a pair of stereo headphones or speakers that are positioned so that it is possible to hear what comes from the left and right, as this plays a crucial role in the game's navigation.
The output from Q9 is delivered as a mix of human narrated audio and speech emanating from your default Windows Text to Speech voice. Keys usually associated with Leasey, such as to access the Leasey Main Menu, cannot be pressed when accessing this game.
You assume the role of the little alien Q9 who has had the misfortune to crash on Earth, managing to lose his spaceship somewhere in the process. Now it's your job to guide him through numerous dangers and exciting adventures so that he can, with some luck, find his spaceship in order to return home again.
The game begins with a main menu. Use your Up or Down arrow keys to navigate through it. To choose an option, press Enter. At the end of each game you will be automatically returned to the main menu.
To move Q9 left and right, hold down the respective arrow keys, i.e. Left arrow moves Q9 to the left and Right arrow moves him to the right.
To run, first hold down the Ctrl key along with either one of the directional arrows. If you change direction by pressing the opposite arrow key to the one you are holding, you will quickly change direction without taking a step. This is a good way of spinning around when you need to attack something quickly, without wasting time.
To jump, press the up arrow. Holding this key down results in continuous jumping and pressing an arrow key whilst in the air enables you to move faster or slower, depending on the speed at which you press the arrow keys. You have to press the arrow keys in quick succession to move, rather than holding the key down. You can use this key combination to avoid falling into the pits and jumping over certain enemies.
Q9 is armed with a number of weapons from the start. The default weapon is a Large wooden club which is always available and can be used an unlimited number of times. However, using the club forces you to be close to the enemy you are attacking and does less damage than your other weapons.
You also have a slingshot equipped with rocks - use this to hit enemies from a greater distance. Be careful though as the slingshot has a limited amount of ammunition (you will need to pick up rocks along the way).
Finally, you have a weapon with a difference; the Deus Shield. This weapon acts as both attack and defense by protecting Q9 for a short time and also by hitting enemies with their own attacks twice as hard. Obviously your Deus Shields are limited, but like the rocks, you have the opportunity to collect more as you move through the worlds.
You are automatically equipped with the club from the beginning.
To change weapon, use the number keys 1, 2 and 3. 1 is the Large wooden club, 2 is the slingshot and 3 is the Deus Shield. There is also a fourth weapon somewhere, but we shall conveniently forget to mention how to access it...
You may also press the ALT key to quickly switch between the weapons, which is good when you are hard pressed in a battle and need to activate a Deus Shield at lightning speed for example.
To hear how much ammunition you have left for a particular weapon, select it either with one of the number keys or the ALT key and then press "A".
During the game you will run across (literally in some cases!) pits here and there. You'll have to jump over these unless you want to see poor little Q9 hurtle down hundreds of feet to his death! These pits are represented by a howling wind (you can of course learn this sound in the "Learn Game Sounds" menu). Around the edge of each cliff are two small, muddy patches which will help you clear the gap. To do this, it is best if you approach the mud slowly and walk onto the second patch and jump from here. Remember! You have to press the arrow key quickly whilst airborne for you to cover enough distance and avoid falling. The distance between each cliff increases depending on which difficulty level you are playing, so if you are on Easy the pits will be smaller while on Insane, well good luck!
Every so often you'll hear a constant "blip" sound which you should run after wildly as these are bonus items. To get your bonus just run to the place you hear the "blip" and once the sound is in the centre, you should get your bonus item. The various bonus items you can get are:
If you're not fast enough the bonus items will hit the ground and shatter, so run run run! How quickly they fall depends on the difficulty level set.
As you are running along, you will eventually find yourself faced with a strange something that makes a peculiar humming sound that rises and falls in pitch. This, without a doubt, is a fortune field. Tread carefully around these as they may have quite drastic results. Whenever you step on a fortune field it will either take away, or give you 50 strength. This means that you can either be extremely lucky, or find yourself a tad closer to the grave... You may simply jump over these if you are not feeling brave enough. The fortune field will have exactly the same effect on any enemy that runs over it, though of course they will also jump over the fields at times.
Once Q9 reaches the end of a level safely he will come across the Level Portal which transports him to the next level or world. All you need to do to move on in the game is move so that the portal sound is centralized in your headphones/speakers and wish Q9 good luck in the next stage of his quest!
There are 4 worlds which Q9 must complete before he can go home and these are as follows:
Every time you transport to the next world you will encounter 1 or more new enemies. The only exception is the aptly named "Death World" which features every enemy from every level! (excluding the gorillas) All of the worlds, however, contain pits and bonus items and of course, the Level Portal at the end.
In each world there are 3 levels which gradually increase in difficulty. For example, the 1st level of the Jungle World is the easiest while the 3rd level of the Mountain World is a nightmare and the entirety of the Death World is, let's just say - very very difficult!
When you lose a life you will be taken back to the beginning of the level at which you died, and once you run out of lives you have to start all over again.
Between Levels 2 and 3 in each world, there is a rather nice bonus level which gives you the chance to try and pick up as many bonus items as possible in a roughly 30 second time limit. These bonus levels are located near waterfalls, as you will hear, and when the allocated time is over, Q9 falls through the water and down into the next level.
NOTE: Navigation is slightly different in the bonus levels. All you have to do is run left and right by tapping the arrow keys (no Ctrl this time) as fast as you can and collect the falling bonus items. There is no speed limit, so try and press those buttons with lightning speed! Each keystroke moves you 1 step.
What would an action game be without enemies? There's certainly a nasty bunch ready to make Q9's life difficult in this game, so make sure you learn how to recognize them in the "Learn Game Sounds" menu.
Below is a list of the enemies you're going to encounter and a brief description of what they do:
The game automatically saves itself whenever you complete a level. This means that you are able to resume from the last level that you arrived at, with exactly the same number of lives and rocks and other properties as when you left off. The saved game file is automatically deleted when you complete the game, as well as when you lose your last life.
In survival mode you start with twice your usual resources (which is to say 200 strength, 100 rocks for the slingshot and 4 Deus Shields). However, you only have one life and you cannot get any extra ones by grabbing bonus objects. This means that you have to make your way through the adventure in a slightly more realistic manner. If you die once, then you are dead and that's the end of it. Good luck!
My Country Place is a farming sim game. You are responsible for a farm consisting of twenty plots of land and a large house. You can lay your farm out in any way you like, raise a large variety of crops, buy animals, build farm buildings, buy farm machinery to improve crop yields, and furnish your house with the best that money can buy. Each year there will be tasks to perform together with new challenges to meet. You will see your farm grow and improve as you play.
This game is purely sound driven with no graphics, so you must use the sound effects and audio environments within the game to assist in moving from one location to another. The output from My Country Place is delivered using speech emanating from your default Windows Text to Speech voice. You will need either a pair of stereo headphones or speakers that are positioned so that it is possible to hear what comes from the left and right, as this plays a crucial role in the game's navigation. Keys usually associated with Leasey, such as to access the Leasey Main Menu, cannot be pressed when accessing this game.
Please note that the game events do not correspond exactly to a farm's conventional calendar.
You have lived most of your life in the big city but have always dreamed of getting away from the heat and noise, escaping to the country. You’re not afraid of hard work and you think a house and a plot of land would just suit you. Suddenly you receive a windfall. This, together with the money you’ve saved enables you to buy a good piece of land and a sound, sprawling old ranch house. You even have $100,000 over to give you a start. You clear away your old life, pack the bare essentials and head off for your country place.
When you first launch the game you will enter the Main Menu in which there are four options.
As with all List Boxes within the game, the Main Menu is navigated by pressing the Up or Down Arrow keys.
Before you begin your first farm you may like to configure your text to speech settings. Do this by pressing Enter on the appropriate item in the main menu. This will bring into view a List Box.
To change the voice, press the Up or Down Arrow keys. Doing so will cycle between all of the Text to Speech voices installed on the computer. Selecting a voice will cause sample text to be spoken using the selected Text to Speech engine.
To adjust the rate of speech, press the Left and Right Arrow keys.
To adjust the volume press the letters V to increase and Shift+V to decrease the level.
To adjust the pitch of speech, press the Left Bracket to decrease and the Right Bracket to increase. Typically, these keys are situated to the immediate right of the letter P on a standard QWERTY keyboard.
Press Enter at any time to save the settings.
Before beginning to set up your farm you may need to give it some thought, as when the game begins you have only a limited time to get your first crop sewn. Failure to do this on time means you will have a year with your fields lying fallow. Bills still have to be paid whether you are making money or not, so fallow fields are not a good thing. So consider the following.
Do you want your farm to be arable or mixed? If you intend to buy animals you will need to build a barn to house them, plus a grazing pasture so that they can eat grass for most of the year. You will also need to purchase some fodder for them or they will starve before you can get them out to graze. Fodder is not cheap, but buying too little can have disastrous consequences very fast. You can check fodder at any time by pressing letter F.
Decide which crops you want to plant. Fruit costs more money to plant and maintain but fetches more. If you’re going to have animals you need to grow at least four fodder crops, these are all the grains plus sugar beet, clover and hay. Do you need to have clover and hay or is one better than the other? Fresh flowers and salad vegetables both grow in greenhouses. They are both expensive but is one better than the other? Are you going to have one or both greenhouses?
Here is a list of crops and their planting costs. Please note other costs will be incurred during the year.
You may only plant one field of any type of crop on your farm.
There are three kinds of animals you can buy. They are:
You are allowed to buy five of each type of animal.
You also have a chicken field containing five chickens. This is a great way to make money in spare moments as will be discussed later.
To start a new farm, use your Up and Down Arrow keys to focus on New Farm in the Main Menu and press Enter. After the introductory scene has been played, you will be asked to name your farm. Type in a name and press Enter. You will immediately hear music and your farm’s ambience. To adjust the music volume, use the Page Up and Page Down keys. The game can be paused and resumed at any time by pressing the letter P.
You are standing on the farm’s main thoroughfare. Behind you is the front door to your house, you can hear it, that buzzing type of sound. To your left is a rustling hedge with ten openings in it which lead into ten fields. Across the path to your right is a similar rustling hedge with openings into ten large fields. The fields are arranged vertically. It is important to note that the bottom lefthand field for example is considered to be “the first field on the left”. It will be useful to know this information when you begin to plan your farm and for later exploration. If you walked straight up the middle of the farm you would come into the chicken field. We’ll have time to explore later, right now we have work to do.
To access the Management Menus you can press F1 from anywhere on the farm. These menus give you access to planting, building, buying, selling and more.
There are several points to bare in mind when navigating the Management Menus.
Pressing Enter on any item from the Management Main Menu will take you into a sub-menu relative to the item you have chosen. For example, if you select the first item relating to planting crops, the sub-menu for this will appear. Pressing the Escape key will return you to the Management Main Menu, a Leasey concept with which you should already be familiar. You will be advised that you are back in this menu. Pressing Escape once more will return focus to the farm, which is not confirmed through speech output.
Crops can only be planted from the beginning of September to the beginning of November. To check the date at any time, press letter Y. To plant crops, press F1 to bring up the Management Main Menu”, focus on “Plant Crops” and press Enter. You will find an alphabetical list of crops together with their planting costs and which type of field it requires. It is not possible to use first letter navigation in this menu, so please press the Up or Down Arrow keys instead.
Some crops, for example fruits and greenhouses, can only be planted on large fields. Press Enter on a crop you would like to plant and you will be asked where you would like to plant it, together with a list of available fields. Use your Up and Down arrow keys to find the one you would like and press Enter.
If you are planning on raising animals on your new farm, one of the first things you will need is a barn. Make sure you have left a field free for it. To build a building, press F1 to open the “Management Main Menu”, focus on “Build a Building” and press Enter. Here you will see a list of buildings together with their costs. Find the one you want to build and press Enter. You will be asked where you would like to place it. If there is more than one space free you can use your Up and Down Arrow keys to cycle through them till you find the one you want, then press Enter.
As your farm grows richer you may want to build more buildings to improve the yield of your farm. Fruit juice brings in much more money than the raw fruit, the dairy comes with all kinds of exciting upgrades for you to buy and if you make enough to build the winery well, who doesn’t like a nice glass of wine? You’ll really see your profit margins spiral!
Of course it may happen that you fall on hard times or want to change things around. You may need to put building land back out to crops again. If you need to tear down a building simply open up the “management Menu” by pressing F1 and press Enter on “Tear Down Building”. You will be asked which building you wish to tear down. The appropriate building can be selected with the Up and Down Arrow keys and press Enter to select. You will get back a small per centage of the price you paid to build it and your field will be usable for crops again.
The new farm year always begins in September. In game time a day runs for about 6 seconds, so a year lasts about 36 minutes. This gives you ample time to perform farm tasks, explore, make improvements, buy upgrades for your house and grab some spare cash by playing mini games.
Throughout the year you need to perform set tasks to care for your crops and animals. Failure to do anyone of a number of things can result in your crops or animals dying. You also need to keep a close eye on your cash. Check how much is in the bank from anywhere on the farm by pressing letter C. You have money going out all year: household bills, crop maintenance, etc, if you have cows and goats you may have income during the year but your main income is at harvest time. You need to manage your money so that you have enough to pay for everything through the year as well as your new crop planting. You start with $100,000. You are permitted an overdraught of $20,000 but this has to be repaid within three months or your farm will go bankrupt.
When you begin playing for the first time, your farm house will be behind you, (slightly to the right), and the chicken field some distance ahead.
If you press the Left Arrow once or twice, you are likely to hear the sound of the hedge. The hedge is your guide for navigating to different farm locations.
When located at the hedge, press the Up or Down Arrow keys to move through the farm. Periodically, you will hear the sound of an opening, indicating that a field can be examined. Press the Left Arrow key to determine the field’s existence, and if appropriate, any crop or building which may be situated within it.
You are now inside the field. Press the Right Arrow key, and the word, “Farm”, will be announced, indicating that you are once again located on the main farm thoroughfare rather than the field previously entered.
A corresponding number of fields are located on the righthand side of the farm, which can be reached by pressing the Right Arrow key several times. You will know that you are on the righthand side as you will once again hear the sound of the hedge.
Naturally, when navigating through the fields with the Up and Down Arrow keys in this situation, you would press the Right Arrow key when focused on an opening, so as to determine the field and anything which may be found there. The Left Arrow key will, in this scenario, return you to the farm.
Tip: When wishing to interact with a field as discussed in later sections, you only need to take one or two steps into it. Taking further steps could result in you losing orientation on the farm.
As you walk your farm you’re always accompanied by your trusty cell phone. This is a very good thing as you will receive periodic SMS reminders which let you know what needs to be done next.
To access your SMS messages, press F5. Your messages will appear in a list with the most recent first. Press Enter to open and read a message. Press the Delete key to delete it. Press Escape to exit the SMS list. Press F6 to hear the most recent SMS message.
We now need to introduce you to the Context Menu. As the name suggests, the Context Menu is context sensitive, and will provide you with a list of choices you can make relative to where you are located.
To access the Context Menu, press the Space Bar. All tasks which you can perform with the Context Menu are discussed in the next few sections.
The first task of the year is fertilization. All the crops need fertilising or they will die. You need to walk to each field in turn. Once there, press the Space Bar to bring up the Context Menu. You will be asked if you’d like to perform the task, simply press Enter and you will hear a sound to let you know the task is going ahead.
In the spring your animals, if you have them, can be turned out to grass. Do this by walking to the barn, entering it and pressing the Space Bar to bring up its Context Menu, finding the item “Take Animals Out to Graze” and pressing Enter. It’s a good idea to check how much fodder is left in the barn at this stage too.
From March to May the crops are sprayed and pruned, but not all in one go. Watch your phone so that you know which ones have to be done next. Perform each task by entering a field and pressing the Space Bar to bring up the Context Menu. If you enter a field where nothing needs doing that particular month, and press the Space Bar, no menu will appear. If you’re unsure you’ve done everything, walking the farm and checking each field in this way sets the mind at rest.
It’s a hot summer and some of the crops need water. Keep a close eye on your phone so that you know which ones need doing. Enter the relevant field and press Space Bar to bring into view the Context Menu. Take particular care with the grapes during the summer if you have them.
In July the sheep and goats have to be dipped or they will get scab and the wool will be lost. Worse, you will incur a hefty vet’s bill. When you receive the SMS text message, go to the grazing pasture, press the Space Bar to bring up the Context Menu, find “Manage Animals” and press Enter.
It’s harvest time, hurray! Go to each field in turn, press the Space Bar and reap the reward for your hard work. Once the crop is harvested you’ll be asked if you’d like to replant the same crop in that field. If you’d like to change things around simply press Down Arrow to the option “No”, and press Enter. You will then have an empty field to plant or build on as you like.
Don’t forget, the grazing pasture is a part of your harvest if you have sheep and goats, so walk into it, press the Space Bar and select “Manage Animals”. Wool fetches a good price.
Before you go to market it’s a good idea, if you have animals, to make sure they have plenty to eat for the winter. Go to the barn and press the Space Bar to activate the Context Menu. The first item you’ll hear is “Place Fodder”, together with how many pounds of fodder you have. Press Enter on this and you will be given a list of fodder to select from, together with how many pounds you have of each. You need to work out how much your animals are going to eat during the winter, check on it closely and buy more if you have underestimated.
There are a few things to remember when visiting the market.
Firstly, prices vary, so if your top crops are getting bottom prices you might want to wait a few minutes and try again.
Secondly, crops go bad. You can’t leave them for more than two months before selling or you won’t have anything to sell. If something is about to go off you will hear a warning, a series of peremptory tones which sound every five seconds or so. When you hear this, immediately press F1 to open the “Management Menu” and press Enter on the item “Visit the Market”. You will be asked what you would like to sell, together with a list of available crops and the prices they are fetching. Press Enter on the one you’d like to sell. You will be asked for confirmation. Press Enter and you will hear a cash register ring to confirm the sale has been made.
If you have cows and goats or have chicken eggs to sell you will grow used to visiting the market roughly once a month. These three things are good to have and can really help with the bills.
Before the farm shuts down for the winter the animals must be brought safely into the barn. You will receive an SMS message mid-November telling you that it is time. Go to the grazing pasture, press the Space Bar to open the Context Menu, and press Enter on “Bring Animals into the Barn”. Be sure to check during the winter that they have enough fodder. If the fodder runs out they will immediately starve.
Before we discuss the benefits of purchasing upgrades for your house, lets learn how to explore it.
As previously stated, you can hear the door of the house as you navigate with the Down Arrow key, since it is located at the opposite end of the farm to the chicken field.
Be sure that the sound of the front door is located in the centre of the stereo field and simply press the Down Arrow key to walk through it.
You are now in the main hallway and you will note that the sound of the music has changed. As you would expect from a hall, at either side of you are rooms which can be entered. On the left can be found the Master Bedroom, Bedroom 2, and the Bathroom. On the righthand side is located Bedroom 3 and the Living Room. Entering the Living Room does reveal further rooms which will be explored later.
The concept of walking into each room can be explained in the following way. Use the Arrow keys until you hear the loudest part of the door’s entry point on either the left or right. This may take some practice. When it is located, press the corresponding Left or Right Arrow key to locate the door and walk through it with the Up or Down Arrow keys.
For example:
If you explore the Living Room, you will find that it contains the Sun Room straight in front of you, located by pressing Up Arrow, and the Dining Room behind you and to the right. You need to walk through the Dining Room in order to reach the kitchen area.
As described in the next section, you will certainly want to spend money upgrading your house to include the best luxuries money can buy. When you do buy the items, you will want to find out what they look or sound like.
Locate the item you have bought with the Arrow keys. It will be denoted by either an ambience or beep sound if it is furniture. Ensure it is located in the centre of the stereo field and press Enter to read its description.
The winter is a time for taking stock, exploring and, if you have the money, buying upgrades. If you open the “Management Menu” by pressing F1 you will see two kinds of upgrade, “Farm Upgrades” and “House Upgrades”.
For your farm you can buy machinery such as a tractor, a sheller harvester, a combine, an oil press and, once you have it, all kinds of nice things for your dairy. Each upgrade affects a different crop and will dramatically improve its yield. Some upgrades affect more than one crop. There’s even an upgrade for the animals.
The house upgrades are arranged by room. Nothing is cheap, but then you are not planning on moving anywhere, so you want everything for your home to be the very best you can get. Once you have it you can explore the house, find where it is within the room, it may have its own special sound, and each and every item has its own unique description.
“My Country Place” comes with four mini games. One of these is a way to make extra money in your spare moments while the other three come up randomly as part of the annual challenge.
As we know, things don’t always run smoothly and once a year, in August, there is a crisis. You will receive an SMS message informing you that there is a problem and telling you which field is in danger. When you enter the field you will be plunged into a fun mini game. Instructions on how to play will be automatically given to you. If you win, the crop will be saved. If you lose, you fail and the crop will die. No crop is safe so take care!
At the back of your farm is a field containing five chickens. When you enter this field they will run around you then bounce away. They lay eggs which you can collect and sell, they fetch $15 per egg, but it’s not so easy! The eggs make a bleeping sound and they are not all pitched the same. The bleep gets lower when the egg is behind you. You must get the eggs in the center of the stereo field and then walk over them to collect them, whereupon you will hear an “egg cracking” sound. It is likely that you will need to use all four Arrow keys to achieve this. And there’s one thing more. You can only find these eggs while they’re warm. After a while they go cold and you can’t hear them anymore. Practice makes perfect, however, and the quiet winter’s a great time to make a good stash of egg money before it’s time to start the year’s tasks again.
The game is automatically saved every time you exit. Just press ALT+F4 and the game will close. When you wish to reopen the game, select “Load Farm” on the Main Menu. You should hear the message “Welcome to …” and your farm name. You will be placed at the exact location where you were when you exited the game. For example, if you exited in the chicken field, that is where you will be when you restart. If you are not quite sure of game time, simply press letter Y to check the date.
We hope that you are going to spend many hours building up your farm, gaining profit, and purchasing items for your new home. It could well be therefore that you will want to take a backup of your farm and restore it if software needs to be reinstalled for any reason. You also may wish to copy your farm for playing the game on another machine without having to start again. This section will show you how you can do these things.
In order to backup a farm:
To restore the backup, perhaps to an alternative location:
Matchmaker is a simple matching tile puzzle game which takes its inspiration from a multitude of matching games, among them Candy Crush, Pudding Pop, BeJeweled etc. It is meant to be fun, relaxing and unstressful.
Where our game differs from most is that it is infinitely customisable. Instead of playing on one size of board with one set of tiles, or only a limited choice, you can customise the board to be as large or as small as you like, you can also customise the levels to be as simple or as challenging as needed, plus there are a large number of tile sets, with more being frequently added.
This game is purely sound driven with no graphics, so you must use the sound effects and audio environments within the game to assist in moving from one location to another. The output from Matchmaker is delivered using speech emanating from the JAWS screen-reader.
The puzzle consists of a board laid out with tiles. Each tile contains a value according to which set you are playing with, it might be fruits, gems, colours, numbers etc. You need to match a line of three or more tiles to clear them from the board. You may make lines of tiles vertically or horizontally but not diagonally. As tiles are cleared, tiles from the row or column above slide down to fill the empty places on the board and new tiles are added at the top, you will never see an empty space on the board. The more tiles you clear, the more points you score, you also earn bonus points for making more than one match at a time. When you have cleared a certain number of tiles you complete a level and can move up to the next, which scores higher, but the number of tiles you need to clear each level usually increases. The object of the puzzle is to make as many matches and score as many points as possible before all the matches run out.
When you first open Matchmaker you will be placed in the main menu. This contains three options:
To make any changes to your speech configuration, select “Configure" from the Main Menu, then select “Configure speech Verbosity”. We recommend initially however that the settings in this menu are left at their default values at least while you are becoming used to playing the game, although you will almost certainly want to change one of the options as and when you become more accomplished.
Pressing Enter on this option allows you to configure whether you would like JAWS to announce cleared tiles, announce clearing score, announce multi-match bonus scores and announce total score. Pressing Enter on any item in this menu will cause a further sub-menu to appear, containing the options "On" and "Off". Press Enter to select an item, whereupon you will be returned to the "Speech and Verbosity" configuration menu.
Matchmaker comes preconfigured and ready for you to play with an eight by eight board and the fruit set of tiles. You may, however, want to customise the game further. It is worth noting that changing any of the settings overwrites all the game configuration settings you have, so do make sure to go through the game configuration thoroughly or Matchmaker will not play properly.
First you need to decide what size of board you would like to play on. Follow these steps.
Your board is now configured, you will be returned to the configuration menu. Note, a square board, for example length 10, width 10, object variants 10 is easier to play on than an irregular board.
You’re still in the “Configure Game” menu. You now need to decide which set of tiles you want to play with. To do so, follow these steps.
Next you need to configure how many tiles need to be cleared before a level is complete. To do this, follow these steps.
You do not need to configure the timer unless you are planning to play a timed game. If you would like to configure the timer, follow these steps.
Important! On completing game configuration, tap the Escape key once to exit the “Game Configuration” menu. You will find yourself in the main “Configuration Menu”. Press Up Arrow to reach the ”Save Settings” option and press Enter. You will then be returned to the “Main Menu”. If this last part is not completed your settings will not be saved and you will have to begin again.
To begin playing matchmaker, select “Play” from the “Main Menu” and press Enter. You will be asked to select a difficulty level. There are three difficulties, but as game play is the same whichever level you work with we will discuss the levels in a later section.
When the game starts you are placed at the top lefthand corner of your board which is laid out with tiles. You can now move around the board using all four Arrow keys, exploring either in horizontal rows or vertical collumns. When you see two tiles of the same value together, for example two apples, that is the start of a potential match. Explore till you find a third apple. It does not have to be on the same row or in the same column, it can come from anywhere. When you find a match, select it using your Space Bar. You will hear a symbol sound to tell you it has been selected.
Now, navigate back to where you saw the pair of tiles and move to where you want to put the third one to make a line of three either vertically or horizontally. There will be a different tile already there. Press your Space Bar to swap that tile for the one that will make a match. You will hear a tambourine sound if the swap is valid and the game will tell you if the match has been made and how many tiles have been cleared. A swap is only valid if it will make a line of three or more matching tiles. If you have made an invalid swap you will hear a double buzz sound, your tile will be de-selected and you will need to try that match again.
If, at any time, you wish to cancel a swap, you can do so by pressing the Delete key. If you would like to check how many tiles you have cleared, press T. To find out your score, press S. To check what level you are on, press L. To adjust the volume of the music, press page up or page down. To adjust the volume of the sound effects, press control page up and control page down.
If, by the sliding down of tiles and the swapping of others, you manage to find several matches with one swap, you will earn bonus points. The more matches you make with one swap, the more bonus points you will earn. Also if you can visualise in your head what your board looks like you may be able to employ strategy to manage your swaps so that large numbers of matches can be made at one time.
You can always exit the game quickly by pressing ALT+F4. If you exit this way your game will be saved. You can also tap Escape from inside the game to return to the “Main Menu”. If you do this your game will be terminated and you will be warned to this effect.
Beginner: In this difficulty there are always moves to make, tiles may be added in pairs or triplets. If you always save your game you can go on playing it for as long as you want to.
Normal. The standard game, the tiles are added at random and finding matches, particularly on the larger boards, is not quite so easy. It is possible to run out of matches.
Timed Game. The most difficult. You play against the clock. Make matches as quick as you can, because every few seconds items are removed from the board. The less tiles there are, the less matches you can find.