iMaze - version 1.0 May 1994 by Hans-Ulrich Kiel and Joerg Czeranski at TU Clausthal join the iMaze community and have fun! What is iMaze? ============== iMaze is a multi-player network action game for TCP/IP with 3D graphics under X11/XView. It has successfully broken down the local FORTRAN lessons. Other features include: - sophisticated, reliable network protocol, works even with SLIP connections via modem - windows can be freely scaled to avoid speed drawbacks due to poor display performance - modular, portable source code - extensive documentation (german) After hours of testing, dueling and enjoying MidiMaze 2 on the Atari ST we decided that it wouldn't be such a bad idea to write something similar for Unix. "iMaze" means "Internet Maze" and by a strange coincidence it is also a substring of "MidiMaze". For those whom fate has denied the pleasures of MidiMaze we should add the following: You run through a labyrinth and shoot everything that is round without being hit by other round anythings. Of course anything round is one of the following: - other players playing over the net - computer controlled ninjas - deadly shots (except your own) We even managed to have this work be accepted as our "Softwarepraktikum" (some kind of term project every computer science student in Clausthal has to do). If you wonder what Clausthal is: it is that little town just between Berlin and Bonn with no girls, bad weather, slow Internet connectivity and weird people willing to devote their time to stupid computer games. What do you need to play iMaze? =============================== iMaze was written on SunOS 4.1.3 with the XView library. It was tested with cc, gcc 2.4.5 and on Linux Slackware 1.2 with gcc. And even Solaris 2.3 failed in rejecting our source code (it compiled with SparcWorks C 2.0.1). You may be able to compile it with another OS, if you have the XView library. It should run with any graphics hardware including black and white and grayscale X displays. What do you get? ================ If you don't have "imaze1.0.tar.Z" yet, get it now from ftp.tu-clausthal.de:/pub/unix/games/imaze (while this README waits for you). Uncompress it and un-tar it, it will create the directory "imaze". The directory "imaze" contains this README. The directory "imaze/source" contains the sources and the Makefile. The directory "imaze/labs" contains some demo labyrinths. Precompiled binaries and german documentation (which HUK is very fond of) are also available. How to compile? =============== At first, $OPENWINHOME needs to be defined as /usr/openwin, /usr/local/openwin or wherever your OpenWindows stuff resides. Then type "cd imaze/source". You may want to define the default server host as: DEFINES=-DDEFAULT_SERVER='"host.name"' in the Makefile. Otherwise the default is to connect to the iMaze server in Clausthal. Choose the appropriate definitions in the first section of the Makefile. Type "make install". The binaries will be put into the directory "imaze" (or what you defined as "BINDIR" in the Makefile). How to start? ============= First start the server on any host with a labyrinth file as argument, e.g. "xv julia007.jpg"... ooops... did I say "xv"? No, it really was "cd .." followed by a "./imazesrv labs/demolab.lab" Then start the XView clients and the ninjas in arbitrary order: "./imaze [-Ws ...] [server-host]" where -Ws ... are the usual generic XView options and server-host is the host, on which the server was started (if different from DEFAULT_SERVER). "./ninja [server-host] [shot-percentage]" where server-host as above; shot-percentage (0 to 100, 100 is default) determines the aggressiveness of the ninja. On Linux you _must_ specify server-host as "localhost", if you start a client (imaze or ninja) on the same machine as the server (imazesrv)! The default will not work! The rules of the game ===================== Aim: Run through the labyrinth and shoot the other players without being shot yourself. Doors: Colored walls are doors. Some doors can be passed through in one direction only. Shots: You can only shoot forward. If you shoot again, your previous shot dies. The shot dies also, if it hits a player, a wall or a door. Death: After being shot, you are suspended from the game for 3 seconds and then join in again at a random place. Score: There are no scores yet. How to use the XView client? ============================ The XView client has three buttons: "Open" opens a map, a rear view or a compass. "Properties" opens a properties window. You may activate scrollbars for the map there. The other options aren't so important. "Disconnect" disconnects your client from the server and kills it. For playing click on any of the client windows, so that it receives keyboard input. The cursor keys move the player, the spacebar is for shooting (remember: you have one shot only). With ^S you pause your player, with ^Q you resume. The main window will display a 3D view. If you are not in the game, the main window is simply grey, if you have been shot, the lucky enemy is displayed. How to create new labyrinths? ============================= You can create your own labyrinths with "genlab". Typing "./genlab" gives you the possible arguments. Just play around with it. But you should at least specify "-v" for verbose and "-s" for searching for a labyrinth without traps. The values for -d and -D shouldn't be too high. Known bugs ========== It is known, that on Linux the XView client will mumble something about "invalid object, embedding seal incorrect", when you open the map. Often the ninjas just don't have an idea where to move. Just give them a break, they're still kind of dumb. :-) It is no bug, that you can't leave a one way door in the other direction, even if you have just touched it. Prior versions ============== The beta version is not compatible with the 1.0 release. Where to get iMaze from? ======================== The newest version is always available on ftp.tu-clausthal.de (139.174.2.10) in the directory /pub/unix/games/imaze. You can fetch it via anonymous ftp, fsp (port 21) or email to mail-server@ftp.tu-clausthal.de. How to contact us? ================== We, Hans-Ulrich Kiel and Joerg Czeranski, can be reached via email as: Kiel@rz.tu-clausthal.de Czeranski@rz.tu-clausthal.de Or put anything intended for us as a single archive (e.g. tar) via anonymous ftp into /pub/unix/incoming on ftp.tu-clausthal.de.