--------------------------------------------------------
                     Murderball 8000
--------------------------------------------------------

Thank you for finding Murderball 8000, a video game for PC computers running Windows.

Murderball 8000 is a first-person, networked multiplayer game resembling soccer.

Murderball 8000 was created in a game engine written from scratch by cohort 5 graduate students of the Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy, a program within the University of Central Florida.
The game engine itself is a culmination of programming exercises meant to teach a variety of topics, including C++, parsing, design patterns, concurrency, networking, graphics and physics.
The game itself was written in about a week of full-time programming by a small team of these software engineering students, who also created the assets.
This game is basically just another exercise in a class mostly about software engineering.
Most of the game itself is implemented in a scripting language written by the students.
As such, you have access to the bulk of the game logic and can modify it.

Please visit www.fiea.ucf.edu for more information about FIEA.

Please visit http://www.sultansofscratch.com/ and http://www.driftersgame.com/ for other, far more polished games made by the same students.

Please read through this file for instructions on how to install and run the game.

--------------------------------------------------------
                     Installation
--------------------------------------------------------

0. You must have DirectX installed on your machine to run this game.

1. Unpack the RAR archive file.
   a. If your machine lacks a program that can unpack RAR files, download and install one from the internet.
   b. A common such program is WinRAR.

2. Run the LobbyServer.
   a. You probably need the .NET framework installed on your machine to run the lobby server.
   b. Run a lobby server on some machine accessible to both players.  You only need one.
   c. Double-click LobbyServer to start the server.
   d. Under Server Settings, choose an IP address of the machine that runs the server, but DO NOT SELECT 127.0.0.1 (localhost).
   e. Note which IP address you chose, because you will need that information for a later step.
   f. Press Start Server.

3. Tell the game which lobby server to use.
   a. Explore the unpacked directory and edit the file NetworkData.xml under Media\Configuration, that is, Media\Configuration\NetworkData.xml
   b. Change the IP address to that of the machine you wish to run the server on.
   c. You will need to do this for all game clients that will use the same lobby server.

--------------------------------------------------------
                     Starting the game
--------------------------------------------------------

4. Run the game:
   a. Double click the Murderball link to run the game.

5. Main Menu:
   a. The main menu has a few options: Play Online, Credits and Quit.
   b. Use arrow keys to move the cursor and highlight menu options.
   c. Press "Enter" to select the highlighted menu option.

6. Playing a game:
   a. To play a game, you must have network access to a lobby server.  See instructions above.
   a. Highlight and select the "Play Online" option from the main menu.
   b. The Server Connect Screen asks for your name.
   c. Type in the name you want to use to play the game.
   d. Note: Some names are disallowed if the game considers them profane.
   c. After entering the name, the Game Select Screen appears.
   e. Type in the name of a game you want to join or create.  Note, the numbers next to each of the available games has no meaning.  You must enter the full name of the game.

--------------------------------------------------------
                     Playing the game
--------------------------------------------------------

7. Play the game:
   a. Upon connecting to the game host, the game will display the playing field.
   b. If you host a game, you will be frozen until another player joints.
   b. The game takes place on a playing field with two goals at opposite ends of the field.
   c. Each player has a goal, and there is a ball.
   d. The orbs at the left of the screen indicate the score.
   e. The timer at the upper right of the screen indicates the time remaining in the game.
   f. Players can move around the field, take possession of the ball by touching it, and can kick the ball.
   g. Keyboard keys control your player:
      W moves forward
      A moves left
      S moves backward
      D moves right
      Left-arrow rotates left
      Right-arrow rotates right
      Space kicks the ball
      Esc enters the pause menu.
   h. Player with possession of the ball move slower than players without possession.
   i. Kicking the ball into the opponents goal scores the player 2 points, and carrying the ball into the goal scores 1 point.
   j. The size of the goal depends on the scores of the players.  Players with higher scores have larger goals, making it easier for their opponent to score against them.
   k. The game ends when either one player has scored a net of 10 points above the other player, or when the timer runs out.

8. Exiting a game
   a. At any time during a game, including while waiting for an opponent, you may enter the in-game pause menu by pressing Esc.
   b. From that menu you can resume or quit the game.
