Liquid War (v5.4.2) - Game options and menus




Introduction
============


  This section describes how the GUI and menus work. Since programming advanced
  GUIs with Allegro is not so easy - standard C programming definitely lacks
  flexibility -, and also since it's somewhat hard for me to figure out what is
  user-friendly and what's not, Liquid War's menus are not always
  self-explanatory. I'll just try and do something better next time!



Map menu
========


  The map menu allows you to choose the map you are going to play on. A map is
  defined by 3 things:

  * A frame. The frame can be chosen with the slider which is below the
    preview. The frames are automatically sorted by alphabetical order.

  * A texture for walls.

  * A texture for the zone where fighters are allowed to move.

  In the middle of the screen, there is a preview of the level. In this menu,
  the values of the parameters can be independently changed by:

  * Moving a slider.

  * Clicking on a
    +
  * or a
    -
  * button.

  * Typing a number.

  On each side of the preview, sliders allow you to choose the two textures.
  There is also a preview of each texture. Below this preview there are 128
  little buttons which allow you to choose single colored textures.

  The name of the map and its resolution are displayed in the lower part of the
  screen.



Teams menu
==========


  This menu allows you to choose the teams which are going to play. There are 6
  square zones in this menu. Each of them is associated to a team.

  To activate a team, that is to say to add this team to the list of the teams
  which are playing, you have to click on one of the 12 colored buttons of this
  team. Then the zone representing the team should be colored whith the color
  you just clicked on.

  To disable a team, just click on the dark button which is on the left of the
  12 colored buttons.

  You can toggle the "Human/Cpu" mode by clicking one the button which displays
  this info. If you read "Human", it means that the team will be controled by a
  player, but if you read "Cpu", it means that the computer will handle this
  team. And he will do it poorly, so remember that Liquid War is basically a
  multiplayer game, and that this cpu control is dedicated to
  beginners
  only.

  Below the 12 colored buttons, there are four buttons which allow you to
  choose your keys. Click on one of these buttons and then press the key you
  want to define. Joystick movements and buttons are considered as keys. You
  can disable the joystick with the button which is at the bottom left of the
  menu. Mouse input is also possible, and mouse movements are considered as
  keys too. To define mouse control, click on the button associated to the
  direction you want to control, and then move the mouse. Then the button
  should display something like "M->". Mouse sensibility can be set with the
  little slider at the bottom right of the menu.



Graphics menu
=============


  Here you can choose the graphic options of the game.

  The "Brightness" slider allows you to set the brightness of the game.

  The "Menu res" slider allows you to set the resolution used by the menus.
  There are currently 5 possible values, which depend on which platform you're
  running the game on.

  I personnaly think the menus look best with the 640x480 resolution, but some
  may prefer higher resolutions. Lower resolutions should only be used if you
  have problems using SVGA video modes.

  The "Game res" slider allows you to set the resolution used during the game.
  The allowed values are the same than those for the menus. I recommend that
  you don't use resolution higher than 640x480, unless you have a Pentium VIII
  running a 10GHz.

  Page flipping can be toggled. It is up to you to decide wether you keep this
  option or not. The main disavantage of turning page flipping off is that the
  info bar and the battlefield can look rahter ugly if they overlap. But if you
  turn page flipping on you will not easily reach the 166 frames per second I
  sometimes get on small levels with my K6-225. I personnaly always turn page
  flipping off.

  The viewport size defines how much of your screen will be used by the
  battlefield.

  * If you set the slider on its left position, the batllefield will not be
    stectched at all. Or if is strechted, it will be by a x2 or a x4 factor. So
    this is the mode wich allows the fastest display.

  * If you set the slider ont its right position, the game will run in
    fullscreen mode.

  * With all the other positions of the slider, the battlefield will keep its
    general proportions but it will be stretched.

  The "Waves" button allows you to toggle the wave effect. You can also do this
  while playing, by simply pressing F4.



Sound menu
==========


  This section allows you to set the sound volumes. There are 4 sliders, which
  are:

  * "Sfx": sets the volume of all the sfx sounds, thats to say'the sounds you
    hear when the game starts, when you loose etc...

  * "Click": sets the volume of the click, this nasty noise you hear each time
    your press on a button.

  * "Game water": sets the volume of the blop blop blop sounds which are played
    continuously while you are playing.

  * "Menu water": the same thing than "Game water" except that it concerns the
    sounds played while your are choosing options.



Rules menu
==========


  This menu is the one where you can change the rules of the game.

  The "Army size" slider controls the amount of fighters there will be on the
  battlefield. The position of the slider reflects the amount of fighters of
  all the teams together. If there are 4 teams, then each player will have half
  as many fighters than if there had only been 2 teams.

  The "Time" slider controls the time limit. The game will stop after this time
  is elapsed. You can pause the game by pressing the "F3" key.

  By the way, an info bar can display the time left while you are playing. This
  info bar can be toggled during the game by pressing the "F1" key, and you can
  change its location by pressing the "F2" key. It also displays how many
  fighters there are in each team.



Speeds menu
===========


  The "Cursor x" slider controls the speed of your cursor.

  * If it is set on the left, the cursor goes at the same speed than the
    fighters.

  * If it is centered, the cursor goes twice faster than the fighters.

  * If it is set on the right, the speed of the cursor is multiplicated by 3.

  The "frames/s" slider allows you to limit the number of frames per second. If
  this slider is set on the left, there won't be any limit, so Liquid War will
  repaint your screen each time the fighters move. But this can be a weird
  behaviour if your machine is really fast, for no one cares about 100 fps per
  second, one can not even see them... So this paramters limits the refreshment
  rate, so that there can be several logical moves of the fichters for only one
  screen refreshing. If it is set on its right, the display is limite to 10
  fps, so you'll have to find your setting. I personnally set it right in the
  middle, and get 40 fps. If you press "F5", you'll get the number of frames
  per second, and if you press "F6", you'll get the number of logical moves per
  second. You can also press "F7" or "F8", and you will get the percentage of
  time your computer spends on calculating or displaying the level.

  The "rounds/s" slider allows you to limit the number of rounds per second. If
  this slider is set on the left, there won't be any limit, so Liquid War will
  run as fast as possible. This setting will be of no use if you use Liquid War
  on a slow computer or if you play with hudge maps, but sometimes, with a
  high-end Pentium class computer, it's simply impossible to play on small maps
  because things simply go too fast. So this parameter is here to help you and
  avoid the "10000 moves per sec" problem.



Waves menu
==========


  This is where the wave parameters are set. The waves are just a graphic
  effect, which is not really usefull. I don't often use waves, but I still
  think they can sometimes look nice. Change these parameters if you really
  mean to do it, but if you don't understand what they mean, it is really OK...

  There are 4 different types of waves, each of them being defined by:

  * An "Ampli" parameter, to define how big the waves have to be.

  * A "Number" parameter, to define how many waves should be displayed at the
    same time.

  * A "Speed" parameter, to define how fast the waves should move.

  If you want to undestand what the "WX", "HY", "WY", and "HX" codes mean, try
  to pay with only one type of wave, the "Ampli" parameter of the 3 other types
  of wave being set to 0 (that is to say the slider is on its left position),
  and sea how it looks like.

  The wave effects can be toggled during the game by pressing the "F4" key.



Advanced menu
=============


  This menu allows the user to change the behaviour of the fighters.

  The "Attack" slider sets the agressivity of the fighters. If it is set on the
  right, fighters eat each other very fast. If it is set on the left, it takes
  ages to fighters to change teams.

  The "Defense" slider sets the capacity that the fighters have to regenerate
  themselves. The more it is on the right, the faster fighters regenerate.

  The "New health" slider sets the health of the fighters which have just
  changed teams. The more it is on the left, the weaker these fighters will be.

  The "Winner help" slider controls a parameter which causes fighters to attack
  with various strength depending on how many fighters belong to their team.
  Not very clear... Let's just say that:

  * If this slider is set on the right, the more fighters you have in your
    team, the more aggressive they will become.

  * If it is centered, all the fighters of every team will always attack with
    the same strength.

  * If it is set on the left, the less fighters you have, the stronger they
    will be. In this mode, games usually never end.

  The "Cpu strength" parameter never makes the computer more intelligent than a
  monkey. But if you set it on the right, it advantages the machine
  outrageously and fighters controlled by the cpu will be really strong. So to
  get rid of them you'll definitely need to be clever. Again and again, don't
  forget that Liquid War was conceived as a multiplayer game and that playing
  against the computer is not really an interesting thing to do.

