README for heroes 0.29c
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| The following information has been extracted automatically from the |
| Texinfo documentation to help you install Heroes. You should read |
| the full manual for more complete documentation. |
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Summary
*******
* Overview of Heroes
- License
- Getting Heroes
- Reporting bugs, sending suggestions or contributions
* Installation of Heroes
- Needed Libraries
- configure generic instructions
- configure options for Heroes
- Building a relocatable package
- Machines
Overview of Heroes
******************
Heroes is similar to the "Tron" and "Nibbles" games of yore, but
includes many graphical improvements and new game features.
In it, you must maneuver a small vehicle around a world and collect
powerups while avoiding obstacles, your opponents' trails, and even
your own trail.
There are five game modes available. Quest is the classical
Nibbles, in Death Match you start with very long tails a must kill your
opponents, in Kill'em All you must run over lemmings moving on the
ground, in Time Cash or Color modes you must collect money or pyramids
of color. Heroes features 12 original sound tracks, 94 levels (in 10
different tile sets) plus a level editor.
Heroes source code originates from an original MS-DOS game but has
been heavily modified to enhance the portability and some new features
have been added. MS-DOS support has been lost by the meantime. The
original MS-DOS version can still be found on the Internet but is
unmaintained and should be considered obsolete.
The current development focus on cleaning the code and port the game
to available operating systems. Our objective is to release the version
1.0 as a clean and portable base that would allow further important
works such as network support or programmable vehicles.
License
=======
The full game (that is: source code, pictures, sound-tracks, and levels)
is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2.
See the file COPYING for details.
Getting Heroes
==============
Where to fetch new releases?
----------------------------
Heroes development is powered by the free services offered by
SourceForge to the Open-Source community. The web page of Heroes is
http://heroes.sourceforge.net/.
The latest releases of Heroes is always uploaded to SourceForge and
available from http://sourceforge.net/projects/heroes/. Announces
are sent to the heroes-announce mailing list (*note Mailing lists::).
Source code releases are also uploaded to Ibiblio (formerly MetaLab,
and Sunsite)) in /pub/linux/games; see the Ibiblio mirror list
(http://ibiblio.org/pub/linux/MIRRORS.html) to find your nearest
mirror. You will have to wait three or four days to have the files
available on Ibiblio after a release.
A public CVS server is also accessible. See
http://sourceforge.net/cvs/?group_id=7982 for details.
What to download?
-----------------
Heroes is distributed as five packages with independent version
numbering and release schedule.
heroes
The source code, info file, and man page.
heroes-data
The level data (level maps, sprites, etc.)
heroes-sound-tracks
Sound tracks for the game (.xm files).
heroes-sound-effects
The sound effects for the game (.wav files).
heroes-hq-sound-tracks
High quality sound tracks (.xm files), they will replace some
sound-tracks from heroes-sound-track.
The two first packages are required, the others are optional.
The game has been so split because the data and sound files are big
and don't evolve as often as the code does. It would therefore be
unfair to bloat the bandwidth by requiring the mirrors and users to
download everything on each release.
Reporting bugs, sending suggestions or contributions
====================================================
We welcome bug reports or suggestions for Heroes (both program or
documentation). Please email them to <heroes-bugs@lists.sourceforge.net>
or <heroes-discuss@lists.sourceforge.net>. Please, see the Texinfo
documentation of Heroes for guidelines regarding bug reporting.
Installation of Heroes
**********************
Needed Libraries
================
Heroes can be configured to use several libraries to handle display,
sound output and joystick support. Following is a list of supported
libraries (hopefully you won't have to install all of them but just a
subset).
* LibGGI (General Graphic Interface) can be used as a display and
keyboard driver. Get it from http://www.ggi-project.org/.
* LibGII (General Input Interface) will provide joystick support
(the game can be compiled without). Get it from
http://www.ggi-project.org/. It is needed by LibGGI, by the way.
* SDL can be used as a display and keyboard driver. Recent
revisions will also provide support for joysticks. Get it from
http://www.libsdl.org/.
* Allegro, a game programming library, can be used as a display,
keyboard, and joystick driver. http://alleg.sourceforge.net/.
* LibMikMod is a sound library. You don't need it if you want to
compile Heroes without sound support. Get it from
http://www.mikmod.org/ or from
ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/apps/sound/libs/. If you
install LibMikMod from sources you may want to compile LibMikMod
without Alsa support (*note Troubleshooting::).
* SDL_Mixer is an alternative sound engine that can be used only if
you use SDL as display driver. You don't need it if you want to
compile Heroes without sound support. Get it from
http://www.devolution.com/~slouken/SDL/projects/SDL_mixer/.
To summarize, install at least LibGGI, SDL, or Allegro to get video
output and keyboard handling. Install LibGII to get joystick support,
unless you use a recent SDL or Allegro. And install LibMikMod (or
SDL_mixer if you have SDL) if you want sound output.
My personal preference goes to LibGGI/LibGII and LibMikMod which give
you more control over the drivers used. On the other hand, SDL seems
better at doing full screen display and is maintained actively. Allegro
is quite new on Unix.
Heroes also supports memory debugging libraries, such as dmalloc or
efence. See the --enable-mem-debug option in section *Note
configure options::.
configure generic instructions
==============================
Read the file INSTALL if you are not familiar with configure scripts.
configure options for Heroes
============================
configure will do its best to find the libraries and functions
needed by the game. Still, you may give several options to configure
to help it, or to fine tune special features of Heroes.
--enable-html-doc[=DIR]
Build and install html documentation in directory DIR. If DIR
is not given, install in $datadir/heroes/doc.
--disable-sound
Turn off sound support. Sound is enabled by default, unless no
sound engine is found).
--disable-joystick
Do not include joystick support in the game. Joystick support is
enabled by default, unless you don't have GII or joystick support
in SDL.
--with-sdl[=DIR]
Specify that you want to link with SDL. This is the default if
LibGGI is not installed. If you installed SDL in some
non-standard place, you can specify the installation path as an
argument. For example:
./configure --with-sdl=/home/adl/usr
configure will then look for /home/adl/usr/bin/sdl-config and
configure Heroes accordingly.
--with-ggi[=DIR]
Link with LibGGI. This is the default if LibGGI is installed. If
you installed LibGGI in some non-standard place, you can specify
the installation path as an argument
--with-allegro[=DIR]
Link with Allegro. This is the default is neither LibGGI not SDL
can be used. If you installed Allegro in some non-standard place,
you can specify the installation path as an argument
--with-mikmod[=DIR]
Use LibMikMod four sound output. This is the default if LibMikMod
is installed and LibGGI have been selected. You may specify where
LibMikMod is installed using the optional argument.
--with-sdl-mixer[=DIR]
Use SDL_mixer for sound output. This is the default if SDL_mixer
is installed and SDL has been selected. You may specify where
SDL_mixer is installed using the optional argument. Using this
option implies --with-sdl.
--disable-heroes-debug
Turn off tracing support. See the description of the
HEROES_DEBUG variable (*note Environment::). This is enabled by
default to facilitate bug reporting. Using this options should
reduce the size of the resulting binary, and speed up the game by
an indiscernible amount.
The following options are for developing purpose. The default
configuration should be suitable for end users (i.e. players) but people
attempting to hack the code may want debugging symbols or compiler
warnings.
--enable-debug
--disable-debug
This is a three state option. The default is to compile with
debugging symbols: this produce bigger binaries but allow to get
helpfull coredumps, without slowing down the game. You may want
to use --enable-debug to include more debugging data and turn on
some debugging code. Use --disable-debug to turn this off.
Translators: you _do want_ to turn this option on, really! Because
the debugging code includes some checks on the translated messages.
--disable-optimizations
Turn off compiler optimizations options. This can ease debugging.
If you want to supply your own optimizations options, use
something like --enable-optimizations=-O3 -march=pentium''.
--enable-warnings
Try to turn on a large bunch of compiler warnings.
--enable-assert
Turn on some assertions squattered over the source code. This can
slow down things a bit.
--enable-devel
Is a shorthand for --enable-debug --disable-optimizations
--enable-warnings --enable-assert.
--with-mpatrol
Link with MPatrol, a malloc() debugger.
--with-mtrace
Use GNU libc's mtrace() facility to check malloc() usage.
--with-dmalloc
Link with Dmalloc, a malloc() debugger.
--with-efence
Link with Electric Fence, a malloc() debugger.
--enable-mem-debug
Check for mtrace(), Dmalloc, or Electric Fence. Use the first
found.
--enable-gprof
Enable profiling support with gcc, you need gprof to inspect
the file resulting from a run of Heroes.
--disable-display
This disable all screen output, making the game rather unplayable.
This suppress decencies over third party libraries like GGI or SDL,
therefore you may find it useful with some debugging tools like
checkergcc.
Building a relocatable package
==============================
"Relocation" refers to the ability to install or move the game in a
directory which is different from the one it has been configured for.
This usually happens if you create a binary package for Heroes and
don't know in advance where the user will unpack it. This section
describe how Heroes find for his files, in order to allow relocatable
packages. Most people don't need to read this section, only packagers
might be interested.
The values of the ./configure options you used to specify
directories (such as --prefix, --bindir, or --datadir) are all
transformed into paths relative to PREFIX and then hardcoded into the
Heroes binary. Because Heroes uses only paths relative to PREFIX, the
relocation process is just a matter of guessing the correct value of
PREFIX at runtime. This guess is done using various informations
available: first the original value of PREFIX is tried, then PREFIX is
computed from the path to the current binary (argv[0]) when
available, then the content of the environment variable PATH is used
to find the binary and derive PREFIX, finally Heroes assumes it is
running from the BINDIR directory. The whole process is not garanteed
to succeed, but you can also override those paths with some enivronment
variables (*note Environment::).
Machines
========
Heroes has been reported to compile and run on the following
architectures. Since Heroes can use SDL, GGI, or Allegro as display
driver, the following list shows the driver which was used.
Linux/i386 (GGI, SDL, or Allegro)
Should build out of the box. Packages for some Linux distributions
are available from the web pages.
Suse 7.1 users, the libc shipped with your distribution
(glibc-2.2-7) will crash every time Heroes calls the ngettext()
function. The workaround is to configure Heroes with configure
--with-included-gettext so that it uses its own version of
ngettext().
Red Hat 7.0 users, the compiler shipped with your distribution
(packaged as gcc-2.96-54.i386.rpm) is an experimental version
which is still _bugged_ despite the pile of fixes applied. It
actually produces unfaithful code for Heroes, so please use
another compiler. Either upgrade to a newer version
(gcc-2.96-64.i386.rpm is known to work) or use the one provided
by the kgcc package.
Linux/m68k (SDL)
Is reported to work when the sound (SDL_mixer) is disabled
(configure --disable-sound or heroes -S). Any feedback on
this issue is welcome. See also the BUGS file.
FreeBSD (SDL)
Should build out of the box. Packages are available from the web
pages.
Solaris (SDL)
Should build out of the box.
Win32/MinGW32 (SDL)
Can be cross-compiled (native compilation untested). The script
used to cross build the Heroes package available on the web page
is in the subdirectory arch/mingw32.
Win32/VisualC (SDL)
See the files in the arch/VisualC subdirectory of the Heroes CVS
tree. We used to distribute these files along with the rest of the
sources, but stopped because they are now completely out-of-date
(they have not been updated since version 0.7). However you can
use them as a start point if you think about compiling Heroes with
MSVC.
Digital Unix (GGI)
Should build out of the box.
NetBSD (SDL)
I had to tweak SDL 1.1.6 to get it working, and also force Heroes'
configure to use the result of sdl-config --static-libs instead
of sdl-config --libs. Both issues should be fixed today (FIXME:
need to check).
OpenBSD 2.9 (GGI & SDL)
It looks like some configure hints need to be given when using
either libs.
A build of Heroes configured with GGI will apperently complete
successfully, however the resulting binary fails to load, with the
dynamic loader complaining about a missing symbol from libpthread.
So you'd rather configure Heroes with
./configure --with-ggi=/usr/local LDFLAGS=-pthread
Then Heroes appears to work fine.
If you prefer to use SDL, things are different. I had to configure
Heroes with
./configure --with-sdl=/usr/local LDFLAGS=-L/usr/X11R6/lib X11BASE=/usr/X11R6
Unfortunately, the resulting binary froze when initializing SDL (in
SDL_init()). Please send us a note if you are luckier. FIXME:
Look how other packages using SDL are built, I'm probably missing
something.
IRIX 6.5 (SDL)
Heroes 0.7 has been reported to compile and run with SDL 1.1.3 and
gcc + libraries from freeware.sgi.com on IRIX 6.5.
BeOS (SDL)
Heroes 0.9 has been reported to compile and run out of the box.
If you got Heroes working on a platform which is not listed here,
please send a notice to <heroes-discuss@lists.sourceforge.net>.