Space Plumber (QDGDF port) README

This software is GPL. NO WARRANTY. See file 'COPYING' for details.

Introduction

This is a special prerelease of Space Plumber, ported to use the QDGDF [1] library. This adds the following features to the vintage 1.0.x version:

Sound support under Unix; Linux OSS and esound (ESD).
Win32 + DirectX native version.
Improved portability (compiles cleanly under many Unix flavours without the needing of patches).

The disadvantages are:

The command line options documented in [2] don't work.
Gamma correction is broken.
There can be more; see the TODO file for details.

The game itself is unchanged from the 1997 version.

[1] http://www.triptico.com/software/qdgdf.html [2] http://www.triptico.com/splumber/spparams.html

Building and installation

As usual:

./config.sh
make
su -c "make install"

The rest of this document is a copy & paste of the original 1997 README included with Space Plumber (plus some minor typo fixings):

22nd century, somewhere inside planet system X-239. This recently discovered group of planets, all of them with a surface covered completely by water, has become one of the richest source for the mining industry. Powerful companies have installed a vast processing plant network all over these water worlds, carrying there all kinds of technical professionals, engineers, scientists and plumbers. You are a member of a plumber patrol that travels from planet to planet trying to solve problems in these wealth processors.

But as all successful enterprises, these companies spend little money on employees.

When the alarm sounds, you run to your console to read the incoming message. One of the biggest processing plants has a severe fault in its pressure system, letting pass the water inside. But, due to a recent staff rearranging, you are the only space plumber available at this time to make the things work. 'The only one?', you ask to yourself. And the trouble is hard: you have to run through the corridors, find the water extraction pumps and activate them manually, one by one. 'Manually!?', you ask again. But this isn't all: some levels have a security system that locks all the pumps. In these levels you must find first ALL the consoles, deactivate them, and then activate the pumps. 'Why this fu**ed security system is not broken?', you wonder. Well, life's that hard. And expect the light system to be 'unstable' in some of the areas. There is a total of 30 levels in the plant.

The menu

The menu appears after a brief introduction, showing five options.

Begin

This option begins playing level 1. When you finish a level (activating all pumps and deactivating all consoles, if available), an access code for the next level will be shown. Write down these code, it will let you go directly to that level next time you run the program. After resolving a level the next one is launched automatically.

Go Level

This option lets you jump to one level. It ask you to enter the level number and its access code. After this, it works the same than the previous menu option.

Custom

This option lets you create a maze on your own. A random map will be generated for you. Here you can tune some parameters in order to play a customized area. There is a brief description on screen about each one of these parameters, feel free to experiment.

Help

Shows a screen with a quick reference of the keys used in the game.

Quit

Quits. (No! Really?)

I'm inside. What must I do now?

You're inside! Well, it isn't much different from any other first-person games you've already played. You see what Space Plumber sees: stairs, corridors, rooms. Use the cursor keys to move forward (up) and backward (down), the left and right arrows to turn. As the water level goes up, you tend to move slowly, and if you are completely under the water, you can swim in 3D freely, using the keys mentioned above plus the 'C' and 'D' (or SPACE) keys to swim down and up, respectively (you must take your head out the water to take oxygen, if the ceiling lets you). Also, you can look up and down with the PgUp and Del keys.

You'll identify the pumps easily: they are on walls, and their aspect is that of metallic, cross or round shaped, water valves. The consoles appear also on walls and they look like a bricky computer monitor. To switch all of them on, just walk over and touch them (there is no 'use' key).

You'll see a countdown timer in the lower right of the screen. It is just the estimated total sinking time; the game doesn't finish when it takes to zero, only when you die (on having 0% of oxygen) or win (activate all pumps). Note that the levels never sink completely: somewhere there is a little oxygen bag (a room not completely full of water) you can use to survive.

Another thing: when you activate all pumps, the water extraction system begins to work and the water level starts to decrease. You DON'T resolve a level until the water goes below you; you may die without oxygen after activating all pumps but before the water lets you breath.

The F1 key set / unset the low detail mode. This mode is faster, but the overall look of the rendered screen will be worse. The F3 key activate / deactivate what is known as motion blur mode, that is, a hybrid mode that renders the screen in low detail when the player is moving and in high detail when he is stopped. Try this one first if your computer is slow, and remember you must deactivate low detail to use motion blur mode.

The F2 key activate/deactivate the gamma correction. If your game looks too dark, hit this key.

Finally, you can temporally pause the game pushing the F10 key and exit to main menu hitting ESC.

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Angel Ortega http://www.triptico.com