X-Git-Url: https://plomlompom.com/repos/index.html?a=blobdiff_plain;ds=inline;f=README;h=ac0e0a37322fbbee2f2f1bac41de7bc7d23d2d87;hb=96cdebb17848901906799677f45c67263f759f6a;hp=1264d3cb5e3688dbf51f576eb9d82fab98d64491;hpb=7d6341b5fe2db48320752701b23545069759297b;p=plomrogue
diff --git a/README b/README
index 1264d3c..ac0e0a3 100644
--- a/README
+++ b/README
@@ -5,58 +5,63 @@ plomlompom tries to build his own roguelike. It doesn't do much yet (although
plomlompom has insanely ambitious long-term plans).
You can move around a player on an island and meet different enemies. You have 5
-hitpoints to lose before death; they start with different amounts of hitpoints,
-depending on their species. Your score grows by killing enemies, to the amount
-of hitpoints each killed enemy started with. Dead enemies become dirt, skeletons
-or "magic meat"--such objects can be collected, and "magic meat" can be consumed
-to gain hitpoints. Note that different kinds of movements/actions take different
-numbers of turns to finish.
-
-Enemies' AI is very dumb so far: Each turn, they try to move towards their
-path-wise nearest enemy. If no enemy is found in their surroundings, they just
-wait.
-
-Note that diagonal movement is possible, but takes (40%) longer than orthogonal
-movement.
-
-Once you start a new world, every move of yours is recorded in a file called
-"record". Once you re-start the game, all of your previous moves are replayed
-automatically up to the point wherere you left the game. To start over in a new
-world, simply delete this file.
+hitpoints to lose before death. Enemies start with different amounts of
+hitpoints, depending on their species. Dead enemies become dirt, skeletons, or
+food to consume (each turn reduces one's "satiation", and the lower it is, the
+stronger the chance of suffering from hunger and thereby losing hitpoints). Note
+that different kinds of movements/actions take different numbers of turns to
+finish.
+
+Enemies' AI is very dumb so far: Each turn, they look out for actors of
+different species to flee from (if their type starts out with more hitpoints
+than they have) or (if the opposite is the case) move towards for purposes of
+attack. If they see no enemy, they search for and consume "magic meat".
+
+Every move of yours re-writes a file "savefile" that describes the new state of
+dthe world, if more than 15 seconds have passed since its last writing. Once you
+re-start the game, the game state is recreated from the "savefile" file. To
+start over in a new world, simply delete this file.
System requirements / installation / running the game
-----------------------------------------------------
The game is expected to run on Linux systems that contain the ncurses library.
-Do the following steps:
+(It may also work on other Unix-like systems with ncurses, who knows. See
+ for OS
+X compatibility.) Do the following steps:
$ git clone https://github.com/plomlompom/plomrogue
$ cd plomrogue
-$ make
+$ ./redo
$ ./roguelike
-(It may also work on other Unix-like systems with ncurses, who knows.)
+(If you got a redo build system installed and in your $PATH, you could also do a
+simple "redo" instead of "./redo". The ./redo script calls a simple partial
+shell script implementation of redo stored below build/redo_scripts/, written by
+Nils Dagsson Moskopp a.k.a. erlehmann.)
-Note that make generates two executables ./roguelike-server and
-./roguelike-client. ./roguelike is a pre-existing shell script that merely
-executes both of them, with the server as a background job. You can also
-ignore the script and start the two by hand.
+./redo generates two executables ./roguelike-server and ./roguelike-client.
+./roguelike is a pre-existing shell script that merely executes both of them,
+with the server as a background job. You can also ignore the script and start
+the two by hand.
Client's keybindings and window management
------------------------------------------
-In the client's default window configuration, the window appearing on the left
-sports a list of keybindings available globally, and additionally via the window
-selected as active.
-
-Hit "w" (per default keybindings) to switch the "active" window to a view that
-allows changing its geometry. One more hit on "w" switches the window to a view
-that allows changing its window-specific keybindings. The global keybindings can
-be changed in the "Global keys" window, those of the window geometry
-configuration in the "Window geometry keys" window, and those of the
-window-specific keybindings configuration in the "Window keybinding keys"
-window; by default, these three windows are not visible, but may be turned on by
-(per default keybindings) hitting the "F6", "F7" and "F8" keys.
+Multiple windows may fill the screen. One of these will be selected as "active"
+â identified by dollar signs enclosing its title. Active windows may come with
+window-specific keybindings. Furthermore, global keybindings are available no
+matter what window is selected.
+
+Hit "W" (per default global keybindings) to switch the active window to a view
+that allows changing its geometry. One more hit on "W" switches the window to a
+view that sports (and allows changing its) window-specific keybindings. (One
+further "W" will return the window to its default, "normal" view.) The global
+keybindings are visible (and can be changed) in the "Set global keys" window,
+those of the window geometry configuration in the "Set window geometry keys"
+window, and those of the window-specific keybindings configuration in the "Set
+window keybinding keys" window; by default, the latter two are not visible, but
+may be turned on by (per default keybindings) hitting the keys "F6" and "F7".
Keybindings and default window selection / visibilities / geometries are read
from the textfile ./confclient/interface_conf by default, or by another one
@@ -71,40 +76,30 @@ in-client window management.
Replay game recording
---------------------
-Run "./roguelike -s" to watch a recording of the current game from the
-beginning. Hit any player action key to increment turns (they will not trigger
-the actions usually mapped to them, only repeat the actions done at that point
-in the game as defined in the "record" file). Keys to manage windows, scroll on
-the map and quit the program do their usual thing. Append a number to the -s
-option (like "-s100") to start the recording at the respective turn number.
+Once you start a new world, every move of yours is recorded in a file called
+"record". It gets overwritten when a new game world is started after deletion
+of the "savefile" file. Run "./roguelike -s" to watch the current game's
+recording from the beginning. Hit any player action key to increment turns (they
+will not trigger the actions usually mapped to them, only repeat the actions
+done at that point in the game as defined in the "record" file). Keys to manage
+windows, scroll on the map and quit the program do their usual thing. Append a
+number to the -s option (like "-s100") to start the recording at the respective
+turn number.
Hacking / server internals and configuration
--------------------------------------------
-The movements/actions available to the player and the enemies are defined and
-can be changed in ./confserver/map_object_actions. Each entry consists of a
-first line of a numerical ID used internally to uniquely identify and manage the
-action, a second line of the number of turns the action takes, and a third line
-of a string that maps the action to the game logic to do when it is called.
-Finally, a delimiter line of "%%" ends the entry.
-
-The different map object types, i.e. species (including the player's human one)
-and item types, can be edited in ./confserver/defs. Here the first value is a
-numerical ID that represents the object type, the second one describes what type
-this object decomposes to when it gets destroyed/killed, the third value is the
-ASCII character used to represent the object visually on the map, the fourth
-value is the number of hitpoints the object starts with (items are dead and
-start with zero hitpoints, anything else moves), the fifth is the string that
-names the object in the game log. Finally, the same delimiter as for the map
-object action definitions file follows. Note that the only valid item use so
-far, consuming "magic meat" to gain hitpoints, is so far hard-coded (this should
-change in the future).
+The game world is set up and made subject to player commands by
+./roguelike-server. It's controlled by commands explained in the file
+./SERVER_COMMANDS. The server usually reads these from the files ./server/in
+(written to by ./roguelike-client), ./confserver/world, ./record and ./savefile.
All source files are thoroughly documented to explain more details of
plomrogue's internals. The ./roguelike-server executable can be run with a -v
option for helpful debugging info (mostly: what messages the client sends to the
server). Server and client communicate via files in the ./server/ directory
-(generated when the server is first run). The ./server/in fifo receives commands
-for the server as null-terminated strings. The ./server/out file contains a
-serialized representation of the game world's data as it is to be available to
+(generated when the server is first run). The ./server/in file is read by the
+server for newline-delimited commands. The ./server/out file contains server
+messages to be read by clients. The ./server/worldstate file contains a
+serialized representation of the game world's data as it is to be visible to
the player / the player's client.