Hello. My name is Pig and I am not a happy fellow. This is because I rely on you, a human, to save me from the evil factory-farmer by typing as accurately as you can. The factory farmer punishes me for every mistake: a kick for every low score, a missed meal for every missed key. Pigs are very bright. The factory farmer is not very bright. He is mean and cruel, and if you quit before reaching your target score, he slices and dices and turns me into sub-standard meat products. So please, follow my destructions carefully. God save Pig!

Command-Line Arguments: You can set the appearance and keyboard type when you start Makin’ Bakon. Default values were used for the following screenshots. These are yellow for bold, white for foreground and transparent for backgound, and uk for keyboard type. Do ‘bakon -h’ for a full list of options, and always use a bright colour for bold.
The ‘bakonrc’ Preferences File: You can set your preferences here so you don't have to set them on the command-line. Notice that all colour options are set to ‘trans’, which are the configuration file defaults and result in a transparent background, a white foreground and yellow for bold. I think this is confusing, but then, humans aren't as bright as us pigs.
The Welcome Screen: This screen tells you what a nasty fellow the factory-farmer is, how mean and cruel he is. He's horrible. He's ugly. He has the face he deserves, sour and mean. This screen also tells you about the test lesson, which you should do really carefully, without making any mistakes. Repeat after me, ‘I am not mean and cruel, I am not mean and cruel ...’
The Test Lesson: This sets your target score, the one you will have to beat to spare me from the butcher's block. From now on, whenever you start Makin’ Bakon, your target score will magically increase by one point above your last finishing score. This is nasty magic with nasty odds, and all stacked in the factory-farmer's favour.
The Main Menu: This is the lesson list. You use the up and down arrow keys to navigate, or just press the appropriate letter, like ‘H’ for ‘Can Pig Help?’. Explanations of each lesson appear to the right of the menu. The fortune-based lessons aren't worth doing, they are not funny, they are really difficult, with lots of nasty symbols. Avoid them completely.
Changing The Default Lesson: Choose ‘Change Default’ or press ‘C’ from the main menu to go back and do the default lessons that you are really, really good at. Don't go forward. Don't do the numbers and symbols lessons at all – they are really difficult and you will never use those keys. Best ignored, that's what I say.
Getting Help: Choose ‘Can Pig Help?’ or press the letter ‘H’ from the main menu to select the help screen. Do this before you do anything else. Don't do any lessons, don't try and be clever. It's very short. It's witty. It's entertaining. It tells you how to use Makin&rsquo Bakon and what the different options mean.
The Lesson Screen: The scores window records your typing speed for the lesson, plus your accuracy and score for the session. You will find your target score at the top of the screen. The character you are supposed to type next is highlighted on the virtual keyboard, and you are told what finger to use in the space bar. You are not supposed to look at your keyboard, but Pig won't tell what factory-farmer doesn't see...
Making Me Suffer: Your typing errors have grave consequences. I get blamed for your mistakes and the mean and cruel factory-farmer kicks me and deprives me of food. I am quite vocal about my suffering. I am not a stoic, I moan and complain, though it does me no good. When I suffer, you suffer with me. Your accuracy goes down and you lose a point off your score.
The Lesson-Help Cheat: This is a really useful cheat. If you are only half way through a lesson and getting muddled, or you've got tired digits, then press ‘CNTRL+I’. A help screen will pop up, pausing the clock so that your score is unaffected. Have a break, make a cup of swill, whatever. Press ‘CNTRL+I’ again when you are ready to start typing.
Turning Things Off: If you find the keyboard and scores window distracting then you can turn them off. Do ‘CNTRL+N’ to turn off the keyboard and ‘CNTRL+S’ to turn off the scores window. You use the same shortcuts to turn them back on again. Scores will appear at the end of each lesson, and messages telling you about nasty kicks for me will still appear when you make mistakes.
Quitting Lessons Early: You lose a point off your score for quitting a lesson early, so it's only worth doing if your score is complete hog-poo. I don't get punished if you do quit a lesson early, but I mind a great deal when you lose points, so why don't you just press ‘CNTRL-I’ and take a lovely swill-break instead.
Quitting The Game: If you beat your target score then I get to live for another day and it is safe for you to quit the game. Otherwise you have to keep on playing. You can't quit, think of me! Think of the sub-standard meat products on the supermarket shelves! Think of the pleasure you'll be giving the mean and cruel factory-farmer!