This is the README file for Labyrinth of Worlds, an Ultima Underworld II rewrite I am working on.
Keep in mind this is a work in progress, not even worthy of 'alpha' status yet. :) If you find bugs, the best thing you can do is spend a few minutes and report it on the official LoW bug tracker on sourceforge. (There is a link to it on the main LoW homepage).
You can nab the latest version at http://low.sourceforge.net/
Before you email me with a generic "it doesn't start at all" bug report, make SURE you have the latest version of all the archives that have been posted to the web site. Having one of them outdated is a surefire way to make the game crash instead of run; albeit the current version should be much more polite about noticing missing files and complain rather than just go boom.
YOU NEED THE FILES FROM THE ORIGINAL ULTIMA UNDERWORLD II TO USE THIS PROGRAM. Unlike older versions you need not copy your UW2 installation over into LoW's, but you will need to tell it where it can be found. Check the file 'low.ini' which contains various settings, including the path to UW2's data files.
LATEST CHANGES
You can now set your desired resolution in low.ini (or the
console although the change would then occur on the next
video restart). You can give setup.video.width and
setup.video.height most any value, but fullscreen support
may be unpredictable unless you set them to one of the actual
resolutions supported by your video card). Aspect ratios
other than 4:3 are permissible, and should work properly.
The entire Entity (objects/monsters/triggers/traps) system
has been overhauled, and is now much more clean and stable.
This means, however, that some new bugs may have appeared
so keep an eye out. On the whole, however, things are
much more reliable now.
NPCs can now give objects during conversations; this allows
getting many keys that were previously impossible to get.
Talking about keys: they now work and are able to unlock
items with the corresponding lock. It is still not possible
to unlock all doors, though.
One can now (temporarily) aim at some mobile and hit 'k' to
cause its instant death. This is obviously going to go
away with combat but allows some plot elements to progress
in the meantime.
Mobiles no longer take so much space, now, and are easier
to push around in tight corners.
There have been a number of small and not-so-small tweaks
to various aspects of the appearance of the user interface.
New, Ultimaesque font in place. This font is proportional,
so there might still be a couple of alignment problems left.
Additionally, not all the manual kern pairs have been given
yet so some pairs of letters might look odd next to each
other.
Conversations have been reworked some, and now show the
portraits of whomever is speaking. No trading yet, but that
will come soon.
The deformed mesh handling for NPCs has been improved a great
deal, and is now precached at the beginning of the level.
Everyone should see at least some improvement, and those of
you with kickass 3D cards will notice even more performance
gains.
Many switches and such now work again, even though they all still
look like levers.
Previous changes can be found in the file CHANGELOG/changes.txt
KNOWN ISSUES
Please do not write to tell me about the following bugs/defficiencies since I am already aware of them:
- Some video cards seem to not want to do fullscreen under Windows. Unfortunately, this is really hard for me to track down since I don't have one of every card to test with, and the ones I do have works fine.
- Not all video cards/environment setups obey the gamma setting from SDL; which makes everything very dark for some people. Same deal as above: I can't test/debug this because it doesn't fail for me. Damn.
Of course, if you happen to know /why/ those happen, feel free to tell me how to fix it, or better yet send me a patch with the fix! :)
'PLAY' INSTRUCTIONS
To walk around, use the original UW2 keys, or the (default) mouselook mode:
W J = jump 3 look up
| |
A - S - D 2 look level
| |
Z - X - C 1 look down
CTRL will snap in and out of mouselook mode
'P' will show and (mostly) hide your paperdoll. Clicking on blank areas
of the paperdoll gump will also do that.
TAB Will toggle the UI panels on or off.
ESC Will leave the game.
'~' Will bring down a console where you can read interesting (or not)
messages about what the game is doing, and type commands. The following
commands are understood:
'set var value' will allow you to change some settings (type 'set'
alone to see what they are)
'map n' will teleport you to level 'n', where n is a number
in the set 1 to 5, 9 to 18, 25, 26, 33, 34,
41 to 52, 57 to 59, 65 to 69, 71, or 72. Any
other number will not work and is liable to make
the game crash.
'cload [file]' will execute all the commands in the specified
file (or 'low.ini' if none specified) as though
they were typed in the console. 'low.ini' is
sourced this way when the game starts up.
'csave [file]' will save the current state of all console variables
to the specified file (or 'low.ini' if none is
specified) in a form suitable for later loading by
the 'cload' command.
F11 Will make the visible range cycle between the values 12, 8, 6, 4, and 14.
That function is obsoleted by the 'setup.video.sight' console variable
and will probably go away soon.
F12 Changes the source of light "carried" by the player, cycling between
torch, light spell, lantern, light sphere, daylight spell, night
vision, no light and candlelight.
In addition, you can hit ALT-ENTER to toggle between windowed and full-screen modes if your system can deal with it.
Have fun. Send flames, criticisms, love letters to <coren@users.sourceforge.net>.
Remember to visit uwadv when you get bored with LoW:
CREDITS WHERE CREDITS ARE DUE
Marc A. Pelletier
- Programmer
Michael "Vividos" Fink
- For having a tasty brain to pick on
Willem Jan Palenstijn
- Invaluable autoconf knowledge
Fiona Shultz
- 3d modeling, remodeling and re-remodeling
Josiah "Mr.Hat" Holder
- for nit hunting, locating, and ruthless picking