Confrontation - a Spacewar-type game
By Matt Sarnoff
Version 1.2 - July 8, 2003


What is Confrontation?
----------------------
Confrontation is fairly similar to the classic game Spacewar--two players maneuver their spaceships around and try to destroy each others' ships with a variety of weapons. The view is top-down, and the ships move with inertia effects similar to those in games like Asteroids (and XPilot!). Each player's ship is shielded, and each shot diminishes its victim's shield. When a player's shield gauge is depleted, his ship explodes in a violent blast (did I mention that the game has some pretty cool particle effects?), and the two ships return to their starting positions for another go. A player receives one point each time he/she kills his/her opponent. When a player reaches the set point goal (10 kills by default) the game is over. Note that if a collision between two ships results in the simultaneous deaths of both players, no points are awarded.

What's new in version 1.2?
--------------------------
-Incorporated JPEG support into the program! I've replaced those monstrous .bmp backgrounds with
 high-quality jpegs, saving nearly SIX MEGABYTES of space!
-Increased the framecap from 30 fps to 45 fps. The game plays slightly faster now.
-Decreased the ship rotation interval from 9 degrees per keypress to 5 degrees per keypress, making it
 easier for you to aim more precisely.
-Progress messages are displayed while the game is loading.

System requirements
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-Windows 98, NT, Me, 2000, or XP with DirectX
-alleg40.dll (included in this zip file)
-Video card and monitor capable of 800x600 resolution at 16- or 32-bit color
-About 4.6 MB of hard drive space (not much of a problem nowadays, huh?)
-At least 32 MB RAM (once again, not much of a problem nowadays)
-DirectSound-compatible sound card
-Mouse
-Keyboard (duh!)

In case you're interested, this program was written on a 700MHz Pentium III with 256MB RAM.

Controls
--------
Player 1:
	Rotate left	A
	Rotate right	D
	Fire		S
	Thrust		W
	Change weapon	Tab

Player 2:
	Rotate left	Left arrow
	Rotate right	Right arrow
	Fire		Down arrow
	Thrust		Up arrow
	Change weapon	Numpad 0

For more information, see the in-game help by selecting "Instructions" from the main menu.


Selecting a color depth
-----------------------
By default, Confrontation runs in 16-bit (high) color. If you would like to play in 32-bit (true) color, run Confrontation with the command-line option -32bit (in Windows, you can do this by creating a shortcut to Confrontation.exe, and changing "Target" to "C:\Confrontation\Confrontation.exe -32bit" (or whatever folder you've installed it in) in that shortcut's Properties dialog.

Bugs
----
I've managed to work most of the bugs out, but there are still a few:

- If the two ships collide at an extremely slow speed, they may get "locked" together. Sometimes it results in spontaneous death, sometimes a player can get out by reversing direction and thrusting.

- In rare cases, the mouse pointer may disappear while in one of the options screens. I think this is a problem in Allegro's GUI routines. In any case, if this happens, use the Tab key to switch fields and Enter to activate buttons. The pointer will usually reappear when you exit the dialog.

- Sometimes, if you turn the music on from the Audio Options screen during a game, the program may spontaneously abort. I have no idea why.

Conclusion
----------
If anyone is interested in porting this game (especially to Linux), please let me know via email (matts226@cox.net). I heard they just came out with a Mac OS X port of the Allegro WIP 4.1.10, so I may jump on my sister's Mac and build an OS X version. Also, if you'd like to suggest an addition or point out a bug, don't hesitate to let me know. All comments are welcome. My AIM screen name is MattS0226 (zero two two six).

Credits
-------
Program and graphics by Matt Sarnoff
Uses Allegro 4.0.0 by Shawn Hargreaves et al., JPGAlleg 2.6 by Angelo Mottola, and DUMB 0.9.2 by Ben Davis
Most sound effects are from Lucasarts' "X-Wing Alliance," and are probably copyrighted.
Title music: "Dead Lock" by Elwood
In-game music: "Contact" by Andreas Viklund
Composed using Bloodshed Software's Dev-C++ (VC++ sucks...gcc forever!)

"If I knew where I was going, I would already be there." -Billy Corgan