Space Plumber (QDGDF port) README
=================================

 Space Plumber - A maze solving 3D game
 ttcdt <dev@triptico.com>
 Home Page: https://triptico.com/software/splumber.html

This software has been released into the public domain. See file LICENSE
for details.

This game was originally written by Ángel Ortega. The TTCDT Dev Team took
over its maintenance (not really) in 2018. We don't plan to make any
modification nor bugfix to this software; we will just host it and check
that MS Windows binaries are still functional <Claire from the ttcdt, 2019>

Introduction
------------

This is a special prerelease of Space Plumber, ported to use the
QDGDF [1] library. This adds the following features to the vintage
1.0.x version:

 * Sound support under Unix; Linux OSS and esound (ESD).
 * Win32 + DirectX native version.
 * Improved portability (compiles cleanly under many Unix flavours
   without the needing of patches).

The disadvantages are:

 * The command line options documented in [2] don't work.
 * Gamma correction is broken.
 * There can be more; see the TODO file for details.

The game itself is unchanged from the 1997 version.

 [1] http://www.triptico.com/software/qdgdf.html
 [2] http://www.triptico.com/splumber/spparams.html [broken link]

Building and installation
-------------------------

As usual:

 ./config.sh
 make
 su -c "make install"

The rest of this document is a copy & paste of the original 1997 README
included with Space Plumber (plus some minor typo fixings):

Background story
----------------

22nd century, somewhere inside planet system X-239. This recently
discovered group of planets, all of them with a surface covered completely
by water, has become one of the richest source for the mining industry.
Powerful companies have installed a vast processing plant network all over
these water worlds, carrying there all kinds of technical professionals,
engineers, scientists and plumbers. You are a member of a plumber patrol
that travels from planet to planet trying to solve problems in these
wealth processors.

But as all successful enterprises, these companies spend little money on
employees.

When the alarm sounds, you run to your console to read the incoming
message. One of the biggest processing plants has a severe fault in its
pressure system, letting pass the water inside. But, due to a recent staff
rearranging, you are the only space plumber available at this time to make
the things work. 'The only one?', you ask to yourself. And the trouble is
hard: you have to run through the corridors, find the water extraction
pumps and activate them manually, one by one. 'Manually!?', you ask again.
But this isn't all: some levels have a security system that locks all the
pumps. In these levels you must find first ALL the consoles, deactivate
them, and then activate the pumps. 'Why this fu**ed security system is not
broken?', you wonder. Well, life's that hard. And expect the light system
to be 'unstable' in some of the areas. There is a total of 30 levels in
the plant.

The menu
--------

The menu appears after a brief introduction, showing five options.

Begin
~~~~~

This option begins playing level 1. When you finish a level (activating
all pumps and deactivating all consoles, if available), an access code for
the next level will be shown. Write down these code, it will let you go
directly to that level next time you run the program. After resolving a
level the next one is launched automatically.

Go Level
~~~~~~~~

This option lets you jump to one level. It ask you to enter the level
number and its access code. After this, it works the same than the
previous menu option.

Custom
~~~~~~

This option lets you create a maze on your own. A random map will be
generated for you. Here you can tune some parameters in order to play a
customized area. There is a brief description on screen about each one of
these parameters, feel free to experiment.

Help
~~~~

Shows a screen with a quick reference of the keys used in the game.

Quit
~~~~

Quits. (No! Really?)

I'm inside. What must I do now?
-------------------------------

You're inside! Well, it isn't much different from any other first-person
games you've already played. You see what Space Plumber sees: stairs,
corridors, rooms. Use the cursor keys to move forward (up) and backward
(down), the left and right arrows to turn. As the water level goes up, you
tend to move slowly, and if you are completely under the water, you can
swim in 3D freely, using the keys mentioned above plus the 'C' and 'D' (or
SPACE) keys to swim down and up, respectively (you must take your head out
the water to take oxygen, if the ceiling lets you). Also, you can look up
and down with the PgUp and Del keys.

You'll identify the pumps easily: they are on walls, and their aspect is
that of metallic, cross or round shaped, water valves. The consoles appear
also on walls and they look like a bricky computer monitor. To switch all
of them on, just walk over and touch them (there is no 'use' key).

You'll see a countdown timer in the lower right of the screen. It is just
the estimated total sinking time; the game doesn't finish when it takes to
zero, only when you die (on having 0% of oxygen) or win (activate all
pumps). Note that the levels never sink completely: somewhere there is a
little oxygen bag (a room not completely full of water) you can use to
survive.

Another thing: when you activate all pumps, the water extraction system
begins to work and the water level starts to decrease. You DON'T resolve a
level until the water goes below you; you may die without oxygen after
activating all pumps but before the water lets you breath.

The F1 key set / unset the low detail mode. This mode is faster, but the
overall look of the rendered screen will be worse. The F3 key activate /
deactivate what is known as motion blur mode, that is, a hybrid mode that
renders the screen in low detail when the player is moving and in high
detail when he is stopped. Try this one first if your computer is slow,
and remember you must deactivate low detail to use motion blur mode.

The F2 key activate/deactivate the gamma correction. If your game looks
too dark, hit this key.

Finally, you can temporally pause the game pushing the F10 key and exit to
main menu hitting ESC.
