Menus

Menus can be controlled through the mouse or the arrow keys. Enter or Left Mouse button to select.

Opening Menu

Play Game - Opens the Play Game menu, where you can start a new game, continue an existing game, or remove unwanted games.

Options - Lets you adjust a variety of parameters.

Help / Information - Opens this help system. You may return to the game by clicking on "One Nation Under God" in the Windows toolbar.

Exit - Leave the game. You may also exit by pressing the Esc key.

Play Game

Selecting Games - It displays a list of the games you wish to play. If the game has been completed, it allows you to "view" the game. As you scroll up and down, notice that the lesson for that game is displayed at the bottom of the screen. Press the Delete key to permanently delete the currently highlighted game. Select a game to play or view it. Select "Start New Game" to begin a new game. Note: if this was your first game, this part is skipped and it goes on to the next step.

New Game - Type the New you with to give your game, and press Enter.

Select Lesson -Select the lesson you wish to use for your game. The lessons at the top give more general background information regarding the founding of country, so you may wish to work through these lessons first.

Select Level - Select the level / world you wish to use for your game. You may choose any level, but they arranged from easiest at the top to the most difficult at the bottom. Some levels use the "Simplified Controls" which do not require a great deal of hand / eye motor skills.

Options

Note - This menu is preset to be acceptable for most situations.

Screen Resolution - Sets how detailed your screen will be. It displays width x height x bits per pixel. Pixels are the tiny dots that make up the pictures on your computer screen. The larger the numbers, the more detail and the smoother the image. The bits per pixel refers to how accurately the system displays the colors in the game 16 bits = 65,536 colors that can be displayed, 24 bits = 16,777,216 that can be displayed. 16 bits should work just fine. When setting your screen resolution, keep in mind that the larger the number, the slower it will run. You should normally not have to deal with this setting. You can also select Windowed, and the game will play inside a window on your desktop. Think of this as keyboard only, as certain mouse functions do not operate in this mode.

Lighting - This mostly adjusts the overall lighting of the game. This can be adjusted if your display it too dark or light, or you just prefer variety in the look of the game. There is also a nighttime mode for a challenge.

Full Visual Range - If this is off, then distant objects fade into a black fog. You should only set this to off if your system is very slow and not able to play the game at an acceptable speed.

Dynamic Lighting - This allows you to turn off the lights and sheen effects in the game. Turn this off if your game exhibits a lot of flickering on the walls, which can happen on older systems. It may also speed things up.

Shadows - Some video display adapters will not correctly display the shadow underneath Sam. Turn this off if Sam's shadow looks messed up.

Menu Animation - On some really old systems, the waving flag menu animation has problems, or the One Nation logo is surrounded by black. Turn Menu Animation off if this happens to you.

Background Music Volume - Adjusts the volume of the background music. This will not affect the Start Spangled Banner song at the end.

Sound Effects Volume - Adjusts the volume of the boings, bangs, etc. within the game.

Mouse Buttons - Some people like to control the walking using the left button, others don't. This setting has no effect within the "simplified controls" levels.

Mouse Sensitivity - Determines how much the motion of the mouse affects turning / looking in the game.

Text Size - This affects the size of the educational text within the game.

Uncle Sam - You can choose between a cartoony character and a more realistic version.

Read Automatically - When set to On, Text-to-speech system will read the educational text on the screen whenever it changes. It also automatically stops when the text goes away. At any time (regardless of this setting), you may ress the R key to read the current text.

Speech Technology - Choose between Off (disables speech entirely), SAPI 4.0 buffered (will work on most computers, but has a pause before speaking), SAPI 4.0 (will work on most computers with a good sound card), and SAPI 5.1 (works on Windows XP only, and has the most accurate pronunciation). Rarely, SAPI 5.1 will not work on inexpensive sound cards, even under Windows XP. If the program detects that it can't run SAPI 5.1, then it automatically switches to SAPI 4.0 buffered.

Done - Exit Options Menu. You can also use the Esc key.