Tic tac toe readme

Copyright Pb-games, 2005.

Thank you for downloading tic tac toe! I hope you will enjoy it, even though it's as simple as anything.


Contents:
* Introduction
* System requirements
* Starting the game
* Playing the game
* The offline game
* The online game, connecting and hosting
* Copyright
* Contact information


* Introduction

This is a very simple tic tac toe game that I created in a pretty short amount of time. You can play either against someone over the internet, or against a friend at home. There is no computer opponent to play against, thought that was too annoying to build. The game is totally self voicing, well with Dec talk, but still.


* System requirements

An average speed computer is required. The game will still run on a slow computer, but well, as you can guess, it will be very slow.
You need a soundcard of course, and either a headset or a set of speakers.
The game runs on Windows 95 and above.


* Starting the game

Starting the game is as simple as a few key presses. You can either open it through the program group that the installer will create in your start menu, or if you chose to create a desktop icon you can click on that, or open tictactoe.exe in the folder in which you installed the game, using Windows explorer.
Important! Jaws or any other screen reading software needs to be totally shut down before you attempt to play the game, or the keys won't work properly.

When you first start the game, you will hear an intro sequence. I sing in it, so be warned because I can't sing to save my life! Oh how I love voice tweaking filters and auto tuners... Well back to business.
To skip the intro, simply press the space bar.

When the intro has finished or you have pressed space to skip it, you will be in the main menu. The main menu has three options, play offline, play online and exit. They are all self explanatory. To navigate in any menu in the game, use the up and down arrow keys to cycle between the options and press enter to select one.


* Playing the game

The game is very simple to play. The objective is to try and get five peaces in a row before the other player manages to do so. To move around the game board, use the four arrow keys. As you move around, you will first be told what square you are on, and then what is on that square. When the game starts, both players have five peaces, but the game board is completely empty. To place one of your peaces at an empty square, press the space bar. Sooner or later you will have no more peaces to place, then you have to move existing ones. To move a peace, go to the square with the peace on that you would like to move, and press the space bar. A short sound will indicate that you have picked it up. You can of course only take your own peaces, if you try to take the other players peace or place a peace on an empty square when you have none left to place, you will hear a ding sound. If you get a ding sound, it will not count as a move and you can continue. When you have picked up a peace that you want to move, simply go to the square where you would like to place it and press space. If you pick up the wrong peace you can just go to another of your peaces and press space, and that one will be picked up instead.

To win, one player needs to have five peaces in a row. You can have five in a row vertically, horizontally and even diagonally.
At any given time, you can press the escape key to cancel the currently active game and return to the main menu. Note that if you are playing online, your opponent will be told that you have disconnected.


* The offline game

In the offline game, both players will have to be in front of the same computer and use the same keyboard. Basically all that happens is that you get control over both players on the same machine, so you will have to take turns making the moves.


* The online game, connecting and hosting

Here is when things start to get interesting. What would you think of connecting to your friend on the other side of the world and playing with him or her as easy as if you had been next door? Well, you can do that. This game supports online gameplay through something called TCP IP. Those of you who already know how that works, you can just skip this section.

If you select the play online option from the main menu, you will find yourself in a new menu which has three options. Connect to a computer, host a game and return to previous menu. If you choose to connect to a computer, you will be asked to enter the IP address or host name of the computer that you want to connect to. When you have done so, press enter and the program will try to connect. For the connection to work, the computer that you are trying to connect to must be expecting a connection through that particular port. If it does not, the connection will fail. The port used by this game is number 7777. If the connection is successful, the game will start immediately. If it is not, you will be told why and then you will return to the main menu.

If you choose to host a game, the program will retrieve your IP address. If this fails, you will be returned to the menu where you can select to either connect or host a game. It might fail if you don't have an active internet connection, that is the most common reason. If it does not fail, you will hear a message describing what you can do, how to stop hosting etc. Please note that if you are behind a firewall that blocks ports, nobody will be able to connect to you. Therefore, it is impossible for some people to play with each other, if both are behind a firewall for example. Most routers come with built in firewalls. When someone connects to you, you will hear a signal and the voice will tell you that you have an incoming connection. After that, the game will start.


* Copyright

This game was created by Pb-games, Philip Bennefall. The source code is available for free at our website, see the next section. The small little music clips in the game such as the winning and the intro music were all created by me. They are really bad, but so what. Smirks and slams my imaginary keyboard.
You are not allowed to sell this game without the expressly written permition from Pb-games, however you are allowed to distribute it in any way you like, as long as this documentation and all the copyright notices are not modified.


* Contact information

If you would like to contact us, feel free to do so and we will try to respond as quickly as possible. Send your emails to:
philip_bennefall@pb-games.com
For more great games and the source code for tic tac toe, visit:
http://www.pb-games.com/


Copyright Pb-games, 2005.