HPAVC/HPAVC CD-ROM.iso/pc/WANDR330.ZIP/README

Text File | 1997-01-02 | 7.4 KB | 151 lines

This is a revival of the old Boulder-Dash game called Wanderer
which I founded with its sources in the Atari-St archive.
Though there are now many other Boulder-Dash shareware and
even freeware games on the World Wide Web which have nicer
user interfaces, I decided to revive this program since a
lot of work was made in creating the difficult levels.
(See the file credits in the screens\ subdirectory.)

I have changed the program somewhat to make it friendlier
and easier to use; however, a lot more work is probably necessary
to provide the user interfaces that most people are accustom
to these days. As the sources are included with the distribution,
you are welcome to do this.

As I have mentioned in the readme3.3 file, this is an MSDOS
adaption of this classic program which I compiled using DJGPP
GNU C for the PC. DJGPP is a free MSDOS compiler which produces
32 bit code and runs in MSDOS protected mode on Microsoft
Windows 95. You can get DJGPP at various Simtelnet mirror sites
or at x2ftp.oulu.fi. The original version of the sources of wanderer
which I started from can be found in the atari.archive.umich.edu
in the games/puzzle section.

If you are running the executable on an operating system
other than Windows 95, you will probably need a DPMI server.
(QDPMI, Windows OS/2, etc) or CWSDPMI.EXE (from csdpmi*.zip)
in the current directory or path.

As a result of this adaption, the sources may not support
other operating systems without further modification despite any
the comments in the files. The main changes are the adaption of
the program to the XSI curses package called pdcurs22
which is also available from the same sites. I understand that
this curses package supports a large number of operating systems.

The new makefile is almost the same except that LIB now refers
to -lcurso and -lpano in order to be compatible with the new
curses package.

I found the original version to frustrating and difficult
for me. I have taken the liberty to change the user interface
to make it a little more friendly and I hope the original
developers are not unhappy with my changes. So far I have
been unable to contact them. (As the sources of the game
have been posted for more than 9 years, I have assumed that
they are public domain and I would be free to modify them and
re-post them.)

I have put the solutions of the first two levels in the directory
called solution. To see the solution while running the program,
read the file using the cntl-r command, specify the file name
solution\path.1 (or path.2) and then play it back using the key
command *. Note you should be in the start position (using the
r command for re-start) prior to playing back the solution.

If anybody solves some of the other screens, I would appreciate
if you record the solutions and send them to me. I would
like to post the solutions of all the screens in my next release.

Here are some useful hints, if you have not yet discovered them.
To start the program in map mode enter "wanderer -f".
If you want random access to all the screens without password,
put a file with name NO_PWS into the screens directory.

[e-mail]


Below is the original readme file that came with the distribution.

__________________________________________________________________________


                        * W A N D E R E R *
                ----------------------------------

    This program requires the header files string.h and curses.h, and
the curses and termcap libraries libcurses.a and libtermcap.a. If your
system doesn't have them then you might as well give up now.

    Still here? Good - then everything's OK.

    First thing to do is edit the wand_head.h file. Most of the filenames
are self-explanatory - the lock file is usually in /tmp , you probably
dont need to change it. SCREENPATH is the directory in which the screen
files, screen.* , are kept. HISCOREPATH is the name of the hiscore table
file - this will be created when you run the program, but must have group
and other read and write permission. Also, the directory SCREENPATH is used
to hold the credits file.
    The masterpassword is the password that you can give when you try to
jump screen with ~ (see file wand.info) that will allow you to go to any
screen at will. This is for wanderer 'wizards' only. Separate passwords
for each screen are drawn from the file /usr/dict/words - if you dont have
it on your system then you'll have to change the file jump.c . These passwords
are given to the player upon completing each screen. The passwords can be
disabled by creating a file in the SCREENPATH directory called no_pws .

    New screens can be created by using the editor (thanx [e-mail]) that
is built into the game. You enter it with the -e flag, and the screen you edit
is held in the file ./screen . To add this one to the others, place it in the
SCREENPATH directory with a name of the form screen.* , making sure that it is
readable by everyone and that the screens number is subsequent to the last of
the screens already held in the directory. Screens may be tested with
either 'p' or 'n', and by using 'm' the number of moves for the screen may be
altered.

    The hiscore table holds only one entry per username - this is to
prevent one or two people from taking over the entire table.  If you object to
this feature, it is easily removed from the scores.c file. The table can also
be edited by the 'wizard' using the -m flag. This prompts for the
masterpassword before allowing you to remove any entry by typing its
number. Use '0' to exit the editor.

    Not much more to say, really. Info on playing the game can be found in
the wand.info file. Once you have edited the header file, just type 'make'
to run the makefile. You may need to edit the makefile so that it conforms
with your system. If you dont know how to do this, there's bound to be
someone around who does.

    Environment variables:
        Wanderer uses several of these. Here they are...
SAVEFILE ---- the path of the file to be used for saved games
NEWKEYS  ---- if you want to redefine the keys
NEWNAME, NAME, USER ---- scanned in that order to get a name for the hiscore
                         table.

    The MSDOS port and save routines are courtesy of Greg Margo, who has also
tidied up a lot of my messy programming :-). Any problems with them, send
to HIM, since I wont know what to do.

    All that remains is for me to say that the source was written by me,
Steven Shipway,  on a sun/3-160 called poppy at Warwick University. The
latter are completely unaware of this major breakthrough in software
design (:-), and this is probably a good idea, since they may well disapprove
of this use of computing time and facilities! (Only kidding)

                                -Steven Shipway

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary of flags:

-c  Reads credits file from SCREENPATH/credits
-s  Shows hiscore table from HISCOREPATH
-e  Enters screen editor working on file ./screen
-m  Enters hiscore table editor after prompting for the MASTERPASSWORD
-f  Starts game with map-type screen instead of normal screen - although I
        personally think this makes the game too easy...
-v  Prints version
-t  Tests the screen
-r  Record mode. Records keypresses into the given file
------------------------------------------------------------------------------