X-Git-Url: https://plomlompom.com/repos/test.html?a=blobdiff_plain;f=README;h=bd4c0ebeeb1ed1d7a0526e10e9e3dda5a40161ae;hb=895ac8aaa7694f3e1759abe4de934eaafdb8d009;hp=7b71967e9ab6cd5ef21abbb0147144444ff70969;hpb=07514a620c4af0e3b43efffa90087594e4e62577;p=plomrogue
diff --git a/README b/README
index 7b71967..bd4c0eb 100644
--- a/README
+++ b/README
@@ -2,19 +2,20 @@ plomrogue
=========
plomlompom tries to build his own roguelike. It doesn't do much yet (although
-there are insanely ambitious long-term plans).
+plomlompom has insanely ambitious long-term plans).
-You can move around a player on an island and meet a number of 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.
+You can move around a player on an island and meet different enemies. You have 5
+hitpoints to lose before death. Enemies start with different amounts of
+hitpoints, depending on their species. 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 in the (beeline)
-direction of the nearest enemy, so they often bump into, and get stuck behind,
-obstacles. You can use that for your advantage.
+Enemies' AI is very dumb so far: Each turn, they try to move towards their
+shortest-path-wise nearest enemy. If no enemy is found in their surroundings,
+they just wait.
+
+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
@@ -25,32 +26,32 @@ System requirements / installation / running the game
-----------------------------------------------------
The game is expected to run on Linux systems that contain the ncurses library.
-Perform the following steps:
+Do the following steps:
$ git clone https://github.com/plomlompom/plomrogue
$ cd plomrogue
$ make
$ ./roguelike
-(It might also work on other Unix-like systems with ncurses, who knows.)
+(It may also work on other Unix-like systems with ncurses, who knows.)
-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 may also
-ignore the script and start the two by hand.
+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.
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
-currently selected as active.
+selected as active.
Hit "w" (per default keybindings) to switch the "active" window to a view that
-allows changing its geometry. One further hit on "w" switches the window to a
-view that allows changing its window-specific keybindings. The global
-keybindings may be changed in the "Global keys" window, those of the window
-geometry configuration in the "Window geometry keys" window, and those of the
+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.
@@ -61,7 +62,7 @@ named by the -i command line option of the client. Some other default window
configurations are stored below ./confclient/single_windows/: "map", "info",
"inventory" and "log". Each of these opens up only a single window into the
client, filling up the entire terminal. This may be useful for running multiple
-clients in parallel in multiple terminal windows that may be managed by one's
+clients in parallel in multiple terminal windows that can be managed by one's
own window manager choice, instead of relying on plomrogue-client's bizarre
in-client window management.
@@ -70,39 +71,68 @@ 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 performed 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.
+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 perform 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
-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 ./confserver/world file defines the map object types and the actions
+available to them. Each object type and action is defined by a multi-line block
+wherein each line sets one attribute of the object type or action.
+
+Here's a typical action definition block:
+
+ACTION 1
+NAME move
+EFFORT 5
+
+A line of "ACTION" followed by a number starts an action definition block and
+sets the action's id for internal use to 1. The number after "EFFORT" determines
+how many turns this action takes for the actor performing it. The string after
+"NAME" names the action. Furthermore, if it is one of "move", "pick_up", "drop"
+or "use", it matches internal functions described by these strings to this
+action. All other names (including "wait") currently are matched to a do-nothing
+wait function.
+
+Here's a typical map object type definition block:
+
+OBJECT 2
+NAME ZOMBIE
+SYMBOL z
+LIFEPOINTS 3
+CORPSE_ID 5
+CONSUMABLE 0
+
+A line of "OBJECT" followed by a number starts it, and the number sets the
+object type's internal id. The number after "CONSUMABLE" defines the object
+as consumable (and to so many hitpoints gain). The character after "SYMBOL" is
+the one shown on the map to represent to object type. "LIFEPOINTS" is the start
+hitpoints value for this object type and defines it as animate if it is
+non-zero. The string after "NAME" sets the object type's name. "CORPSE_ID" sets
+the id of the object type that objects of this type degrade to if their
+hitpoints drop to zero if they start out as inanimate (what is not implemented
+yet: or if they are inanimate, but are otherwise crushed). Note that the
+"CORPSE_ID" must match the id of an object type defined in the file (before or
+after, it may even be the same).
+
+All this definition block members must be present within a block, but only
+"ACTION" / "OBJECT" must be positioned at the respective blocks' first line,
+the others may appear in whatever order and even multiple times. If a block is
+finished, however, it cannot be re-defined by starting a new block wit the same
+object type or action id. Tokens in this config file are separated by
+whitespace. Single quotes can be put around string values that are to include
+whitespace by themslves. Note that all numbers must be decimal representations
+of unsigned 8 bit integers, i.e. >= 0 and < 256 and sans preceding "+".
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.