Revista CD Expert 50/PCGamer50_80Jogos.iso/Especial/KNOCKIN/Readme.txt

Text File | 2000-05-29 | 15KB | 461 lines

                           KNOCKIN
                          ---------

                by Brainchild Design in 2000


 Contents of this Readme:

   0.     Introduction

   1.     Starting the game
   1.1    Starting a server
   1.2    The lobby
   1.3    Connecting to a server
   1.4    Starting a game
   1.5    Quitting

   2.     Playing the game
   2.1    Controls
   2.1.1  Changing the controls
   2.2    Teams
   2.2.1  Changing team members
   2.3    Points
   2.3.1  Player points
   2.3.2  Team points

   3.     New levels
   3.1    Installing a new level
   3.2    Making your own level
   3.2.1  Graphics
   3.2.2  Sound

   4.     Troubleshooting
   4.1    Requirements
   4.2    Questions & Answers

   5.     Brainchild Design

   6.     Credits


============================================================
 0. Introduction
============================================================

 Multiplayer gaming has never been this easy! Connect to
 your friends on the internet and show them who's the boss.
 The rules are simple: score points by collecting coins and
 loose points by falling down the hazardous holes. Team up
 with your buddies and do some strategic teamplay. Chat
 between the rounds and check the tournament scores. The
 game is totally configurable and easily lets you add your
 own levels.

 Features:
   Internet play
   Realtime chat
   Total flexibility
   Teamplay
   Up to 8 players simultaneously, 4 on the same computer


============================================================
 1. Starting the game
============================================================

 Knockin is a server/client game. That means that you must
 either start a server och connect to a server to be able
 to play the game. Even if you just want to play locally,
 you must still start a server.


 1.1 Starting a server

 In the menu, select Game->Start Server. You will be
 presented with a dialog box, which contains these fields:

   Player Settings
     The Playing checkboxes enable/disable the players.
     The Name fields contains the names of the players.

   Max Players decides how many players will be allowed
   to participate in the game.

   The Local Play checkbox decides whether somebody will
   be allowed to connect to the server. If it's checked,
   nobody will be able to connect.

 Press Start Game when you are done.


 1.2 Connecting to a server

 In the menu, select Game->Connect to Server. You will be
 presented with a dialog box, which contains these fields:

   Player Settings
     The Playing checkboxes enable/disable the players.
     The Name fields contains the names of the players.

   IP Adress is the adress of the server which you want to
   connect to. This can either be a IP number or a DNS name.

 Press Connect to Server when you are done.


 1.3 The lobby

 The lobby is the meeting place between the game rounds.
 You can check the score of the game, both player points
 and team points, see the team line-up and of course talk
 to the other players.

 Most of the lobby is pretty self-explanatory. Worth
 mentioning is that Last points is what was scored in the
 last game, and Total points is the total amount of points
 that a player/team has gained.

 To say something to the other players, just type it in.
 You will see what you type in the line in the bottom. The
 text is sent to all the others when you press Enter/Return.


 1.4 Starting a game

 Only the server can start a game. This is done by selecting
 Game->Start Game in the menu. Again, you will be presented
 with a dialog box, which contains these fields:

   Level cointains all the levels you have installed. Select
   the one you want to play.

   Acceleration is how fast you will be able to accelerate.

   Friction is the amount of friction in the game. Duh!

   Coin Amount is how often coins will appear.

   Points to win is the amount of points needed to win the
   game. When somebody reaches this the game ends.

   Points per coin is the amount of point awarded a player
   when he/she collects a coin.

   - Points per fall is the amount of points that a player
   looses when he/she falls down.

   Negative points decides whether a player will get
   negative points if he/she falls down too much. If
   unchecked, players will never get less than zero poins.

   Reset Game Settings will reset all settings to their
   default values.

 When you're satisfied with your settings, press Start Game.


 1.5 Quitting

 To quit a game in progress, select Game->Quit Game in the
 menu. The game will be aborted, no points will be awarded
 and everybody will go back to the Lobby. Only the server
 can do this.

 To quit Knockin, select Game->Quit. If you're running a
 server, all the clients will get disconnected.


============================================================
 2. Playing the game
============================================================

 The rules of the game are very simple. If you collect a
 coin you will get points, if you fall down you loose
 points. So all you have to do is to collect as many coins
 as you can and avoid to fall down. But watch out for the
 other players. They WILL try to make things difficult for
 you!


 2.1 Controls

 Each player has four inputs: Left, Right, Up and Down.
 These can be fully customized to what you feel is best.
 The default settings are:

   Player 1:                   Player 2:
     Left:   Left Arrow          Left:   A
     Right:  Right Arrow         Right:  D
     Up:     Up Arrow            Up:     W
     Down:   Down Arrow          Down:   S

   Player 3:                   Player 4:
     Left:   J                   Left:   Joystick Left
     Right:  L                   Right:  Joystick Right
     Up:     I                   Up:     Joystick Up
     Down:   K                   Down:   Joystick Down

 2.1.1 Changing the controls

 To change the cotrols from the default settings, select
 Options->Change Controls in the menu. You will be
 presented with a dialog box. On your left you will see the
 names of the players. To change a control, simply press
 the button which corresponds to the right player and
 control, and then press the new control that you wish to
 set.

 For example, say you want to change the Up control for
 player 2 to Y. This is what you would do:
   Press the button which is on the Player 2 line and the
   Up column.
   Press Y.


 2.2 Teams

 Each player can, if he/she desires, be part of a team.
 Teamplay will lead to a much more strategic gameplay.

 2.2.1 Changing team members

 You change what team each player is part of by selecting
 Options->Names/Teams in the menu. You will be presented
 with a dialog box where you can change the names of the
 players, whether they're part of a team and in that case,
 the name of the team. The various fields are:

   The Name fields holds the names of the players.

   The Solo/Team checkbox decides whether the player is
   on his own or in a team. If it's checked, the player
   will be on the team with the name typed in the Team
   field.

   The Team field holds the name of the team that the
   player will be on.


 2.3 Points

 There are two different types of points: Game points and
 Tournament points. Game points is used only in the game
 rounds, and is what you get when you collect a coin or
 loose when you fall down. When one of the players reach
 the Point limit, the game round ends, and each player is
 awarded Tournament points, depending on how well he/she
 performed. Each team will also receive Tournament points,
 depending on how well all the members of the team
 performed.

 2.3.1 Player points

 After a finished game round, each player will receive a
 certain amount of Tournament points, depending on which
 place he finished in. The points awarded are:

   1st place:  10 Points
   2nd place:   8 Points
   3rd place:   6 Points
   4th place:   5 Points
   5th place:   4 Points
   6th place:   3 Points
   7th place:   2 Points
   8th place:   1 Points

 2.3.2 Team points

 The points awarded to each team is a bit more complex.
 Firstly, the team ranking is calculated by counting
 each team-members Player points. Then each team will
 receive Team points according to the same list as for
 Player points.


============================================================
 3. New levels
============================================================

 All the levels have their own file directory placed under
 the 'Levels' map in the 'Knockin' directory. The name of
 the level will be the same as the name of the directory.

   C:\
   |
   +-[Knockin]
       |
       +-[Gfx]        <-- The default level data (don't
       +-[Sound]      <--  change in these)
       |
       +-[Levels]     <-- Place your level under this map.
           |
           +-["Levelname"]
               |
               +-[Gfx]
               |   imagefile.bmp
               +-[Sound]
                   soundfile.wav


 3.1 Installing a new level

 If you find a level on the internet it's probably packed in
 a zip file (learn more at www.winzip.com).  After you've
 downloaded the zip just unpack the file with subdirectories
 and place it under the 'Levels' map. That's all you need to
 do, the game should now present you the new level in the
 dropdown menu when you start a new game. If you want to play
 the new level with other computers over internet they must
 also have the exact same level.

 (Go to www.brainchilddesign.com to find out where to get
 new levels.)


 3.2 Making your own level

 3.2.1 Graphics

 To make your own level all you need is a paint program that
 can save pictures in bmp format. Before you begin to paint
 spend some time studying the graphics from the default
 level. These are the files that the level is made up of:

   Coin.bmp         - The token you collect for points
   Level.bmp        - The background playingfield
   Lobby.bmp        - The chat/score board (why change?)
   Mask.bmp         - Map on where the holes are
   Players.bmp      - A column of eight players
   PlayerIcons.bmp  - The icons to the left of the playernames
   Scores.bmp       - The scorewindow background
   TeamIcons.bmp    - The icons to the left of the teamnames
   Teams.bmp        - The tag shown on the players in teamplay

 You don't need all these files to make a new level. If a
 file doesn't exist in the level's directory it's replaced
 by the corresponding default one.

 Things you need to know:

 Transparency
   The color that represents transparent is fuchsia, that's
   maximum red and blue and no green.

 Players
   The players are always considered as round disks with
   the same diameter as the width of the players.bmp. The
   game will cut the column into a new player at the
   same distance down the column as the picture is wide.
   There should be eight players.

 The mask
   Holes are represented by absolute black. Any other
   color are considered playable area. The picture must
   be the same size as the levelpicture.

 Icons
   The iconfiles are split up in the same way as the
   players and in the same order. Make it clear which icon
   that represent which player or it could be very
   confusing.

 3.2.2 Sound

 The soundfiles are as follows:

   CoinSpawn.wav    - The sound that's played when a coin appears
   Death.wav        - Okay it's quite obvious what they all do...
   GetCoin.wav
   Knock.wav
   PlayerSpawn.wav


============================================================
 4. Troubleshooting
============================================================

 Knockin is our first multiplayer game with internet support.
 Due to our lack of resources, Knockin is probably not
 perfect. We have tried to iron out all the bugs, but there
 is bound to be more.

 One major issue is that Knockin is very sensitive to high
 ping-times. This means that you probably can't play the game
 over a modem connection. Sorry.


 4.1 Requirements

 To play Knockin you will need:

   A decent computer
   A new version of Direct X
   A really fast internet connection (for net play)

 We're not sure about what you actually need, since we
 haven't tried Knockin on that many computers. But if you
 have something like a Pentium II 233 or better, you will
 have no problems running Knockin.

 If you intend to play Knockin over the net, we suggest that
 you find someone pretty close to you to play with. This will
 reduce the ping-times to a minimum. Hopefully you will be
 able to play without getting too annoyed...


 4.2 Questions & Answers

 Question:
   I get the error "You need at least 16-bit colours to run
   this. Please change your settings." What is wrong?

 Answer:
  You are running Windows with only 256 colours. Please
  change your display depth to at least 16-bit, and restart
  Knockin.

 Question:
   When I play Knockin over the net, everything gets jerky,
   and I have difficulties steering. How can I fix this?

 Answer:
   Are you using a modem? In that case you probably can't
   fix it. If you're using a LAN connection, try playing
   with a friend that is closer to you. Best is if you share
   the same LAN.


============================================================
 5. Brainchild Design
============================================================

 Brainchild Design is a small group of people trying to make
 good freeware games. We all do this in our sparetime, so
 we can't really compete with the big guys. But we believe
 that a game doesn't have to be that complex to be fun.
 "Simple but yet addictive!" is what our games are all about.

 Please visit our homepage:
   http://www.brainchilddesign.com

 There you might find a newer version of Knockin, and
 possibly even the source code. You can also download all
 our other freeware games.


============================================================
 6. Credits
============================================================

 Code
   Mattias Brynervall

 Graphics
   Andreas Brynervall
   Martin Magnusson

 Music/Sfx
   Anders JG Nilsson