Magnetic Transports: Readme for version 1.0
Magnetic transports is a simple game, mostly constructed to test JOGL and see what new things Java 5.0 brings.
The goal of the game is to, given a field with obstacles and landing pads, construct a network of transport "roads" between the landing pads. The thing is that the planet (far far away) is magnetic so the transports are a form of magnetic gliders that glide on the surface of the planet.
The gliders are quite cost efficient, they generate their acceleration- and lift force by exploiting the magnetic surface. They lack any kind of steering though, that is why the player has to place magnetic pillars around the map to guide the magnetic gliders via magnetic influence to their goal (the next landing pad). Though the surface does not always provide the glider with the same acceleration force, some parts of the surface have higher "power" and create larger forces than others. That means that the glider will move through the landscape at varying speeds, making the placement of the magnetic pillars harder to calculate.
Table of Contents
Installation
First of all, the game only runs on three platforms: Linux, Windows and MacOSX. There are seperate downloads of the game for each of those platforms available at the download page, if you don't have your platform's package, then you have to download it first.
The game requires Java (>=JRE 5.0) which is available for most platforms at http://java.sun.com. Go to the JRE 5.0 download section, then click "Download JRE 5.0". Most platforms should already have java installed, but may have an out of date version of it. The best thing to do is probably to try to run the game, if it doesn't work then try updating.
The game itself comes in a .jar file placed directly in the main folder of the unzipped zip file. Launching jar files differs from platform to platform but the basic command is "java -jar magnetic-transports.jar" (assuming that the jar file is indeed named "magnetic-transports.jar" and that it is in the search path). Windows users should also be able to just double click the jar file (after installing java) to get the program to run.
The menu
The menu is very direct, it contains five options.
New Game
Opens a dialog asking for the desired play field size. The game becomes more complicated and time consuming the larger the play field is. Therefor this is a way to select difficulty or how long one wants to play. The smallest play field size that I would recommend is about 700x500, that will produce a simple play field with two landing pads (if the default settings are used).
Load Game
This option will open a dialog from which one can choose a saved game that one wants to continue. Games are saved by pressing ctrl+s while inside a game.
Options
This will open a dialog from which one can set a lot of different options. The labels have tool tip text explaining what the option does, so one can for instance place the cursor over the "Pad distance:" label in the "New game" tab to find out what it does. A lot of these options affect the difficulty of the game.
About
Opens a small about box with some information regarding the game and where one can find news and updates concerning it.
Exit
Exits the menu (and shuts down any games that are in progress).
The game interface
The game interface is the interface of the window that contains the play field. There are two major parts, the objects displayed in the game and the actual commands that can be invoked on the window.
Game objects
Each object in the game has a graphical representation (a sprite). Some objects interface with each other and some objects can be directly altered by the user.
Transports
They look like small green ships and they are the central object in the game. These ships are autonomous, they can not be directly interfaced with. Once they start they will keep on going forward, until they dock somewhere, crash or glide outside the game field.
The transports are "magnetic gliders", they have the same polarity as the magnetic surface and are hence repelled by it. They also abuse the ground's magnetism to generate acceleration force, which drives them forward. Their polarity also means that they are affected by all kind of magnetic things.
Transports are vulnerable and will crash if they hit other transports or obstacles. They will be left on the ground when they crash, retaining some of their magnetic influence on other transports and posing as obstacles.
Landing Pads
They look like large metal squares that can split open. They are used as both landing and launching pads for transports. They can house any number of transports and can launch transports in eight different directions. Transports land on the pads by just being over them (the whole transport has to be within the perimeter of the landing pad to dock). One launches transports from the pads by double clicking the pad and then choosing the direction in which the transport should be launched. Landing pads have no magnetic effect on transports.
Mountains
They look like large boulders. They are basically just an obstacle which the transports have to avoid. The mountains have the same polarity as the ground and will repel transports (although not by much).
Magnetic pillars
They look like small round things with an plus or minus sign painted on top. They are the only means the player has to control the transports, a magnet marked with a plus sign will repel transports, magnets with a minus sign will attract transports. Do note that magnets are obstacles and transports will crash if they glide into them.
The planet's surface
The planet's surface is divided into sectors, each sector provides transports above the sector with a given amount of acceleration force. The force provided by a sector is however not constant, it gradually changes with time. One can view the current levels of force provided by pressing the tab key, green means that it provides a lot of force, deep red means that it hardly provides any.
Game controls
- Keyboard commands
- Tab: Displays an overlay of how much acceleration force the surface's sectors provide.
- Ctrl+s: Saves the current game.
- Single left clicking:
- The button tray (top left corner): Puts the action of whatever button was
pressed on the cursor, for instance if a magnet was clicked then it is
put on the cursor, ready to be placed. The bulldozer button can be
used to remove placed magnets.
- If an action is on the button: Performs the action where the mouse clicked, this can for instance place a magnet or remove one.
- The button tray (top left corner): Puts the action of whatever button was
pressed on the cursor, for instance if a magnet was clicked then it is
put on the cursor, ready to be placed. The bulldozer button can be
used to remove placed magnets.
- Double left clicking:
- Landing pad: Shows an dialog from which one can launch docked transports.
- Magnetic pillars: Shows an dialog from which one can set the power of the
magnet.
- Landing pad: Shows an dialog from which one can launch docked transports.
- Single right clicking:
- Removes any action that is currently on the cursor.
- Dragging while pressing the right mouse button: Scrolls the game field.
The goal of the game
The goal of the game is to, given a field with obstacles and landing pads, construct a network of transport "roads" between the landing pads. This is done by having a single transport dock with all available landing pads (even the landing pad that it started at). One can not have one transports dock with half of the pads and then have another dock with the rest, it has to dock with all. That ensures that the player has constructed a way to get from any pad to any other.
The game starts with a randomly generated game field. It will contain a few landing pads and mountains, all transports (two times the number of pads by default) will be docked at the same pad. The way to find out which to start from is by double clicking all until one finds the correct landing pad. Then the construction begins, one places magnets at strategic spots and then launches transports, guiding them to the next landing pad with the magnets.
Contact info
For more info and the latest version, please visit
http://www.lokorin.com/magtransports/
To contact me (questions, suggestions etc), please use
http://www.lokorin.com/contact.php
For other projects and the latest news: http://www.lokorin.com