Chicken: Zen Kane
=================
A game. Of sorts.

- By Tam Toucan of Three Drops Software
    http://tamtoucan.com
    http://twitter.com/tamtoucan

- Graphics provided by Rob Fearon
    http://bagfullofwrong.co.uk/
    http://twitter.com/retroremakes

CREDITS
=======
Me and the Voices In My Head.


SUMMARY
=======
Escape from the pink robots before they cook you for Christmas dinner.

   Q W E
   A   D  Movement    S Skip turn    SPACE Teleport
   Z X C

Some history here -  http://tamtoucan.tumblr.com/post/40436351563/zen-kane

Stranded on an alien planet a lone chicken battles overwhelming odds
against hordes of death dealing robotic deep fat fryers. You make your
move and the alien robots march towards you. Some collide in a cacophony of
electronic screams, leaving a pile of twisted metal for you to lure further
robots to die on.

You maybe out-numbered, but you are no ordinary space faring, robot battling
chicken. You have TelePoultry Power! The ability the stop time and move to a
new location (that's teleportation Kyle).

Can you survive?

No, because like life, everybody dies in the end. Even heroic chickens.


RUNNING THE GAME
================
Running zenkane.exe will run the program using whatever config has been
set up, by default this uses a windowed screen of 1024x1024. To change
or reset the configuration to fullscreen/windowed use the following
scripts

  zenkane_windowed.bat
        starts the game in a 1024x512 window.

  zenkane_fullscreen.bat
        start the game in fullscreen using desktop resolution.

The first time the game is run a screen will be displayed prompting for
the input control method. There are four different methods


1. ONESWITCH (auto-scanning) Control
------------------------------------
  A single key (SPACE by default) is used for input. The
  difference from the non-auto-scanning ONESWTICH is that the
  user can only provide a single input with it; that the key has
  been PRESSED.

  The Menu options are cycled through with time left on the
  current option shown as a reducing coloured rectangle.
  To select an option press the key.

  When playing the game a display of direction arrows, a teleport
  button and a pause button will be shown. These will be cycled
  through, to select an option press the key.

2. ONESWITCH Control
--------------------
  A single key (SPACE by default) is used for input, the
  difference from auto-scanning ONESWITCH is that the user can
  provide two inputs with it; that the has been PRESSED and that
  the key has been HELD.

  The Menu options as selected by HOLDING the key. The time
  to hold the key is shown as a reducing coloured rectangle.
  If the key is released before the rectangle disappears then
  the current option moves to the next.

  So a shorter PRESS of the key is used to move between options
  and a long HOLD is used to select.

  When playing the game a display of direction arrows, a teleport
  button and a pause button will be shown. A short PRESS of the
  key moves to the next option and a long HOLD of the key selects
  the option.


3. HEADTRACKER Control
----------------------

  The mouse cursor, but not mouse buttons, is used for input.

  To select a Menu option the cursor must DWELL (be placed on)
  the option until the reducing coloured rectangle disappears.

  When playing the game a display of direction arrows, a teleport
  button and a pause button will be shown. DWELL the cursoe on
  the option to select it.


GAME CONFIGURATION
==================
Lots of options are configurable. To change them run the

    configuration.exe

program. This will use the same input method (ONESWITCH,
HEADTRACKER or STANDARD) as currently be used for the game (or
will prompt for the method if none has been chosen).

Descriptions are provided for all the options. To reset all the
options back to their defaults run

   RESET_CONFIG.bat

NOTE: This also clears the current input method and so the game
will prompt when re-run. So use this if you choose the wrong
control method.

GAME DIFFICULTY
---------------
There is a game level called 'CUSTOM' which can be selected from
the title page. This uses values which can be set using the
configuration.exe program. You can therefore make the game as
easy or hard as you like.

There are also the AUTOAIM, AUTOFIRE and AUTOZOOM options. In
fact if all three of these are turned on the game will play
itself and beat the EASY level.

ADVANCED TWEAKING
-----------------
There are lots of other options in the honeydew.cfg file. If you
are feeling adventurous you can edit this file (maybe take a
copy first!) and see what you find.


CONTROLS
========
The method of input is chosen the first time the game or the
configuration editor is run. To chose a different one the
RESET_CONFIG.bat script must be run. See the RUNNING THE GAME
section for full details of the control methods.

Here is a summary (keys and times are defaults, use the
configuration editor to change them)

   STANDARD
      MOVE     in the 8 directions using

        Q  W  E
        A     D
        Z  X  C

      SKIP     a turn with 'S' i.e. stay in the same
               place and allow the robots to move.
      TELEPORT start and stop with SPACE
      PAUSE    with ESCAPE

   HEADTRACKER and ONESWITCH
      MOVE     in the 8 directions using the arrows
      SKIP     a turn with the circle in the center of the arrows
      TELEPORT start and stop with the multi-coloured arrow
      PAUSE    with the icon of the two rectangles


TROUBLESHOOTING
===============
The latest version of the game can be found at

    http://tamtoucan.com/

or (direct link)

    http://tamtoucan.com/games/zenkane.zip

I've seen problems when the max display size is less than 1024x1024. Sorry
if this affects you I'm trying to fix it.

The game tries it's best to work with different graphics cards, but there
maybe some problems (if so please tell me!). One complex area is the method
of updating the map texture. If the game runs slowly or fails to start then
you could try changing the MAP_UPDATER value.

That option can be found in the ADVANCED OPTIONS area of the configuration.exe
program. The TSUB_UPDATER should always work, so try that if the game crashes.

NOTE: Currently TSUB_UPDATER seems to be broken. It is probably

Another option is the turn of shaders using the USE_SHADERS option.

You can also try running the game from a command window and checking for
an error message. That won't actually help, but you can then contact me
with it :)


CONTACT
=======
I can be found

  Skulking around the owvideogames forum
    http://www.retroremakes.com/remaketalk/

  Twitter
    http://twitter.com/tamtoucan

  Email
    dr@tamtoucan.com

I'd love you hear from you; Love or Abuse or just Hello!


THANKS
======
This would not exist if I had not stood on the shoulders of giants. Some of
those colossi are

   Rob Fearon for donating his IP for abuse

   RetroRemakes community for help, support, and a place to spurt words

   GloriousTrainwrecks for existing thereby making the world a better place

   Barrie Ellis (@OneSwitch) for the great work he does and help with this

   BFXR - http://www.bfxr.net/

   Audacity for a great sound editor - http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

   OpenGL for being a graphics API that's not D3D

   OpenAL for being a sound API that's not Microsoft

   YOU! for reading this far!


HISTORY
=======
v0.96  Pre-release for testing
v0.97  Fixes to MAP_UPDATER and Shaders to work on older cards
v0.98  Updates
       * Added grid (and lots of options)
       * Added current score display
       * Increase size of telepower graphic
       * Changed border color and thickness of telepower graphic
       * Reduced EASY_NUM_ROBOTS_MIN to 6
       * Added README_CONFIG.txt
       Bugfixes
       * Fixed needing to press TELEPORT if run out of telepower

LEGAL STUFF
===========
This software can be distributed by non-commercial means for
free as long as the entire package is unaltered and all files
included.

There is NO COMMERCIAL DISTRIBUTION of this package or any of
it's contents without prior permission from the copyright
owner.  This includes a fee for copying and distributing this
software.  This includes a on a cd, dvd or other distribution
methods.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND,
EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF
MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT.
IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY
CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT,
TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE
SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
