The word "sokoban" is japanese, and means "warehouse keeper". The original Sokoban was the winner of a computer game contest held in Japan in the early 80's. If you know who the original programmer was, please enlighten me. The game became a commercial game on NEC computers. (Info from Takeshi Miyazaki.)
Much later, someone made a version for Unix (Curses). This game was poorly documented, which is why I didn't know anything at all about the original game when I released version 1.0 of MacSokoban.
Files in this package:
- MacSokoban 2.1:
The game file itself. This single file is all you need to play the game.
- Extra:
The file "Extra" supplied with the game contains the levels that were level 51 to 85 in MacSokoban 1.0. Levels 1 to 50 are kept in the game file. (See section 5.)
- MacSokoban readme (this file):
Some comments and docs. This doc file is not necessary to play the game. The help screens in the game should be sufficient. This file is just a little bit more verbose.
- MacSokoban score mover:
A small utility that you might need if you have an older version and want to keep your old score. See section 7.
2. Playing
When you start the game the first time, the first thing you must do is to create an entry in the Players menu. As delivered, one player is defined, namely myself. Feel free to remove me; it just remains as an example.
The object of the game is to, for each level, rearrange a set of "gold bags" (should perhaps have been cardboard boxes) to certain positions. When you have solved all levels, you have won the game. There is another kind of score kept, but don't bother about it for now.
You move the man with the mouse or the keyboard. Keyboard movement is done with arrow keys, "2468" or "hjkl". Clicking with the mouse in a neighbor square has the same effect as pressing keys.
The man can move the gold bags by pushing them in front of himself, one at a time. This of course means that if you push it into a corner, it is stuck. If you get stuck (which will happen frequently) you can restart the level from the Edit menu. You can also save a position with "Copy" and restore it with "Paste". "Undo" is supported for the last move.
If you press the control key while pressing a key or clicking, the man will move as far as possible in the chosen direction. If you press shift instead, he will move and push as far as possible.
If you click the mouse somewhere but the closest positions, the path-finding algorithm is activated, and the man will go to that position if there is an open path there.
When moving using the mouse, you can click-and-drag to make several moves in a sequence by holding the mouse button down while moving.
3. Statistics
The object of the game is to solve all levels. Does this mean that the game is over when you have reached level 50 (or level 35 in the "Extra" file)? Not necessarily. The game keeps records of the lowest number of moves and pushes used for each level, so you can try to find better ways to solve levels. The "Fiddle" menu is intended for fiddling around with theese things. Choose "Show statistics window" to see the number of moves you are using when playing. If you get a new record, it will be indicated in the Statistics window.
Please note that this "optimizing" should not be considered the main point with the game. Solve first, optimize later if you think that is fun.
4. Features
Version 1.0 wasn't very polished, since I didn't think it was that interesting to spend a lot of time on a "clone" program. However, version 2.0 is a lot more polished, and adds a lot of features.
Features in 1.0 that weren't in the Unix version:
Ñ Animation. Just simple, basic animation of the symbols over the white background. Still, better than "jumping" from grid position to grid position.
Ñ Mouse support. You can shift-click and control-click just as well as using the keyboard, and, most important, a path finding algorithm is included, so you can click on the position you want to go to, and the game will find the shortest path and go there, if there is any path at all. (This feature is very nice on some levels where you need to go back and forth over large distances!)
Ñ Sounds. The game plays a short tune each time you solve a level, as a reward (or is this rather a punishment?)
New features in 2.0:
Ñ Much nicer graphics.
Ñ Real animation, that is, the man walks, turns, pushes, etc.
Ñ Color.
Ñ Standard levels built-in.
Ñ External files for other levels.
Ñ Lowest number of moves and pushes are stored for each level.
Ñ It is possible to go back to levels you have previously solved.
Ñ Click-and-drag movement. (Note that undo brings you back not to before the last push, but to the beginning of the entire click-and-drag!)
Ñ A Diploma is made for players who solve all levels. It is put in the Clipboard so it can be pasted in some application that allows printing. (MacDraw, MacWrite, MS Word, etc.)
Ñ A small stand-alone utility, 'MacSokoban score mover' is included. See section 7.
New in 2.1:
Ñ Revision of the sound routines. Occasionally, Macs running System 7 had probems with the sound. These problems should be solved now.
Ñ Minor bug fixes.
Future plans:
If (if!) I find the time to work more on MacSokoban, I'm planning the following improvements:
Ñ Multi-step undo.
Ñ Graphical level editor.
Ñ Better Score Mover (built-in?)
Ñ Better melodies. (They are ok, but have wrong tempo in many places.)
Ñ More levels. (This, you can help me with! Please send me any new levels you design.)
5. Levels
The 50 original screens are built-in into MacSokoban. These levels are very good levels, well designed and ordered in increasing difficulty.
35 other levels, who recently appeared in the latest reelase of XSokoban, is in a separate file, 'Extra'. You can play them by opening 'Extra' from the File menu.
You can make your own levels with a text editor (like BBEdit or TeachText). When you have made a level and want to try it, you can put it into the game with the "Import" command. (It is recommended that you put it into an external file, created with "New", to avoid changing the original set of levels.) You can also save levels to text files with 'Export'.
If you make your own external files, you can put a PICT resource (number 133) to be used as template for the Diploma to players who solve it. If the resource is nt present, no diploma is made. Use the PICT in the game file or in Extra as model.
The Unix version of Sokoban used a naming convention for screen files that was "screen." + level number, e.g. "screen.1". MacSokoban follows this convention when suggesting a name for exported levels, and it also tries to find the number of imported levels according to this naming convention. However, you can use any name you want as long as it doesn't have to work under the Unix version or under MacSokoban 1.0.
The following symbols are allowed:
space: Empty space.
#: Wall.
.: Destination position (to be filled with a gold bag).
$: Gold bag starting on empty space.
*: Gold bag starting on destination position
@: Player starting on empty space.
+: Player starting on destination position.
6. Bugs, compatibility
The game modifies itself in order to keep records and options. This is very convenient as long as you don't try running the game from a read-only disk or a read-only file server. Sorry, you just can't do that. (On the positive side, you only have one file to store when you want to put it away for a while.) It is possible that AutoDoubler¬ and similar transparent compression tools can cause similar problems if MacSokoban is compressed with such a utility. A possible solution to this problem is to make an external file with all the 50 built-in levels.
7. The 'MacSokoban score mover' utility
If you havn't played any previous version of MacSokoban, you can skip this section. If you do have an older version of MacSokoban, typically 1.0 to 1.0.3, and want to coninue from where you left, but using version 2.0, you can use the small utility 'MacSokoban score mover' to transfer the old scores to the new copy. Note that all scores in the new copy are erased. (Use a copy of your old MacSokoban game to avoid mistakes.) When you launch 'MacSokoban score mover', you get a welcome window. After clicking the 'copy' button, a Standard File dialog appear. Choose the *old* copy and click on 'open'. The dialog appears a second time. Choose the *new* copy and click 'open'. If everything goes well, the program quits and you can launch MacSokoban with your old scores and continue playing.
The current 'MacSokoban score mover' does only work correctly for levels up to 50. If you have a higher level, I'm sorry, but it can't handle it correctly (yet). On the other hand, levels 51 and up (now 1 and up in 'Extra') are much easier than the last levels up to 50, so I hope this is not a major inconvenience.
8. References
The game originated as a game running under MS-DOS, as mentioned above. I first played the Unix Curses version, to which the author is unknown. The 35 extra levels were taken from Xsokoban, which is written by Joseph L. Traub (E-mail address below). The first 50 levels seems to be the same over all these versions. MacSokoban is made using only the levels and rules from the other versions. It was programmed from scratch.
There is one more Mac implementation of Sokoban, named "Sokoban" and is made by Scott Lindhurst. It was released two months after the 1.0 release of MacSokoban. (I was first!) Actually, Scott's game had a major influence on MacSokoban 2.0. This new version would probably never been made if there wasn't for Scott's game - at least if he hadn't claimed that his game was better. (Perhaps it was in some ways - like having the levels built-in, which MacSokoban 1.0 didn't have - but not any more.)
Finally, Sokoban fanatics should also try Blockade by Christer Ericson. It has a similar game mechanism, but is still quite different.
Other games for the Mac that I have made include:
Ñ Bikaka (hexagonal tetris)
Ñ Bachman (related to Pacman)
Ñ Slime Invaders (shoot'em up)
Ñ Skiing Game (slalom)
Ñ Hexmines (hexagonal Mines)
Ñ Classic Daleks (Daleks the way I want it)
plus
Sprite Animation Toolkit (animation library - currently in beta test)
9. Legal issues
This game is free of charge for personal use and non-commercial distribution on diskettes (2 MB or less) and BBS's. However, the game (but not the levels) are ⌐ Ingemar Ragnemalm 1992. Distribution for profit without my written permission is forbidden.
Shareware Authors Inc. owns the exclusive rights to the sale and distribution of this program on CD-ROM and all other high-capacity (over 2 MB) media. All other such distribution is strictly prohibited.
10. More levels
You can make new levels with any text editor. Brief docs for how to do it are included in the game.
If you make new levels that you think are really good, please send them to me (E-mail address below) or to Joseph L. Traub (xsokoban programmer, E-mail address jtlo@andrew.cmu.edu). In the latter case, it will probably take longer until your files reach the Mac version. You can, of course, post levels separately if you can't reach any of us. If you want more levels, you might be able to find them in new releases of the Sokoban games on other platforms.
11. Acknowledgements
The help from the testers, who found lots of strange bugs that I *really* thought I had fixed, is greatly appriciated, especially Bo Ragnemalm and Christer Pettersson, who solved all 85 levels, cokin%phakt.usc.edu, who found a particularly ugly bug in the last phase of the testing period for version 1.0, and Stefan Wrammerfors, who once again found one of the more obscure bugs. Also, thanks to the testers of 2.1, Chris Kidwell, N.W. Choe and others.
Several of the features in 2.0 was made after communication with Robert E. Maas. He pointed out the big difference between levels 1-50 and 51-85. The new levels are generally much easier than most levels in the original set, which makes them unsuitable as high levels. This was fixed by supporting external files. Robert also suggested movement by "click-and-drag". Margaret M. Jasiewicz suggested the "diploma". Other people have suggested improvements, like the statistics. I guess I have lost your names. Sorry if I did.
Ingemar Ragnemalm
ingemar@isy.liu.se
Snail mail:
Ingemar Ragnemalm
PlÜjaregatan 73
S-58330 LinkÜping
SWEDEN
Finally, a message from Shareware Authors, Inc, who have asked to distribute this program on a new CD-ROM:
__________________________________________
*This Text File Must Accompany All Distribution of This Program*
__________
SHAREWARE AUTHORS, INC owns the exclusive rights to the sale and distribution of this program on CD-ROM and all other high capacity (over 2MB) media. All other such distribution is strictly prohibited. Shareware Authors Inc., P. O. Box 640876, Kenner, LA 70064 USA
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