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- 3-D Maze Game
-
-
- SUMMARY
- =======
-
- The Mazelord sample is a 3-D maze game. The objective is to get as high a
- score as possible by zapping other players, and by destroying automated
- drones which wander around the maze. When there are no other players,
- zapping drones still makes an interesting game in itself.
-
- Mazelord is a networked or non-networked game, depending upon how it is
- invoked. In both versions, the player is placed in a room of sanctuary in a
- palace. In this room, players may not shoot, and drones cannot hurt players.
- Once outside of its 3x3 confines, however, anything goes. Your task is to
- hunt down drones and other players and 'zap' them. Zapped players are
- teleported back to the sanctuary, and zapped drones are teleported to a
- random location in the maze.
-
- MORE INFORMATION
- ================
-
- Drones appear as gray robots. The number and speed of drones is configurable
- under the Options. A suggestion is 20 drones, speed 2.
-
- The controls to Mazelord are simple:
-
- - UpArrow: Move one square forward.
- - LeftArrow: Turn left, stay in same square.
- - RightArrow: Turn right, stay in same square.
- - DownArrow: Move one square backwards.
- - Space: Zap whatever is in line of sight.
- - X: Exit the game.
- - W: Whisper something. Anyone within the specified # of squares
- of you can hear your message.
- - S: Shout something. Same as whisper, except people who are
- farther away can hear your message.
-
- To play, ideally you should be running on a 486 or MIPS with lots of memory
- and sound enabled, although the game should work on other systems. Note that
- if you don't have sound, you can still play. The important sounds are
- changed to speaker beeps.
-
- Upon invoking Maze, you have several options:
-
- File Menu
-
- NewGame: Starts a new game. Make sure you have configured the game
- under the OPTIONS menu unless you want the defaults and want
- to play Locally rather than over the network.
- PauseGame: Pauses the movement of all drones, but you will be a sitting
- duck if someone shoots at you.
- StopGame: Resets the game.
- Exit: Exits the game.
-
- Options Menu
-
- Networked/Local: Determines whether you will be playing against other
- people on your network domain or not. It's fine to run
- NETWORK'd when there is no one else playing. Default is
- LOCAL.
- PlayerSettings: Brings up a dialog with two list boxes. The first shows
- a list of bitmaps you can choose from to be your character.
- Currently, there is a fish and a smiley face, but the number
- of choices will be increasing. You can also choose a home
- maze. This isn't used right now, but soon your home maze will
- be added to a random part of the existing maze, and you will
- be able to teleport there at will.
- Drones: Brings up the drones configuration dialog box. Select the
- number of drones you want and the speed you want them to go,
- (# of moves per second). Move algorithm is currently ignored,
- as all drones use the same semi-random algorithm.
-
- The display consists of the following:
-
- - A 3-D view of the maze. There are drawing bugs in terms of correctness,
- but unless you're watching for them, they generally don't make a
- difference. If you have doubts about a wall, you can verify its
- existence on the overhead view.
-
- - Overhead view: This view is two squares in each direction from where
- you are located. You can't see other players on the overhead map, but
- you can see a small triangle in the center, which indicates which way
- you are facing. This window is an ABSOLUTE view; up is ALWAYS north
- on the window, regardless of which direction you're facing in the maze.
-
- - Text window: This gives information about what is happening in the game,
- such as who you zap or who zaps you, and notification when players enter
- or leave the game. You will also see messages whispered or shouted by
- other players if they are close enough.
-
- - Score window. This shows all players active in your domain if you're
- networked. The display includes the bitmap being used by the player, their
- score, and a directional indicator to show the ABSOLUTE direction you
- need to go to reach the square that player is in. These are updated
- every time they change.
-
- Have fun with the game!
-