
				    RM STAR



RM-Star is a mix between a game and a utility.
It was written in a weekend for the SpeedHack 2002 programming competition.
The SpeedHack page is at http://www.allegro.cc/speedhack/

The rules mandated to create a program derived from an existing vertical
shooter game, and to make innovative use of it.
Our entry is a utility which represents the filesystem as a collection of
space objects, on which different actions can be executed.
The player's ship can collide with them, or shoot them via a variety of
weapons. The actions to execute on collision or when shooting with those
weapons can be defined in a text file.

This program is free software. See file COPYING for details.

    This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
    it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
    the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
    (at your option) any later version.

    This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
    but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
    MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
    GNU General Public License for more details.

    You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
    along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
    Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA  02111-1307  USA


The latest version of RM Star can be found at:
http://lyrian.obnix.com/rmstar/


RM Star normally uses the rmstar.cfg configuration file.
Two additional configuration files are included for your enjoyment:
rmstar2.cfg: a configuration file for (very) advanced users
rmstar3.cfg: a configuration file for wary sysops
Watch out! With RM Star, it's easy to shoot oneself in the filesystem by
accident. No liability accepted for any damages. You were warned.


 * Requirements:

You will need a copy of Allegro 4.0 to compile this game.
Alternatively, there is a DOS precompiled binary availble from:
http://lyrian.obnix.com/rmstar/



 * Controls:

Right and left arrows move, up arrow increases speed.
Space bar fires a missile, L fires the laser (difference is only cosmetic).
PageUp/PageDown cycles through weapons.
ESC to quit.
Alternatively, the joystick can be used.



 * SpeedHack

The requirements for the SpeedHack programming contest were:
 - Start off the Allegro demo game source
 - Have a scrolling message of some sort
 - Include a virtual machine to control some kind of scripted logic
 - 'Go nuclear': include radiations of any type
 - Act of Goat: build a web page hyping the program

All of these were fulfilled by RM *.
In particular, to locate the portions of source, edit the file rmstar.c,
there are two blocks of code between:
/* BEGIN SPEEDHACK CODE REUSE MARKER */
/* END SPEEDHACK CODE REUSE MARKER */
Both blocks are the selection and setting of the animation type.
Most other parts of the original source were only slightly modified,
mainly to clear background to a non zero color, change some variable
names, or remove some unused code.
The original demo.c file is included for reference.


The web page for SpeedHack is at http://www.allegro.cc/speedhack/



 * Credits:

Game: Annie Testes and Vincent Penquerc'h
Original code: Shawn Hargreaves (demo code and generated sound effect code
  (from SPEED) and some code from grabber)
Font: Annie Testes (from eme)
Introduction text: Unix Wars (Eric S. Raymond et al.)


