Hex3D ver 0.0.1 ALPHA: By Christopher M. Rogers 

 Contact:
   Phone: (970) 218-3291
   Email: cajhne@hotmail.com
   URL:   www.whitecatgraphics.com
NOTE: This game is a class project, and has many known problems. This release is purely for shits and giggles. :)



Quick Start (Windows XP):
  1. Copy glut32.dll to your windows/system file folder (this the library responsible for making the game window, so this is important!)
  2. Run hex.exe
  3. You're ready to go!
Instructions:

    Moving the Camera:

    By default, the camera is selected when the game is run. The camera is placed at an arbitrary position in orbital around the board.
To move the camera along its orbit, hit the "S" key to put the program into "Spin" mode (an S will appear in the lower left-hand corner in the mode status box.

Use the mouse to orbit the camera around the board by clicking and holding on a black area of space and dragging the camera around its orbit.
To zoom the camera, press the "Z" button, and note the "Z" that appears in the Modes box. You may now click a black area of screen and drag the camera closer or farther away from the board.

    Selecting and modifying lights:

    By default, 4 light sources (0-3) are active. Information on each active light appears on the left-hand side of the screen in the form of colored hexagons (color representing the color of the light). When a light is selected, the position of that light is displayed beside it's numbered hexagon.
Use keyboard keys "0-7" to select/activate a light.

After you have selected a light, you may modify it's orbit around the board in the same manner you rotated the camera.
Simply set the game into spin mode with the "S" key, and drag the lightsource around it's orbit. Zooming a light source toward the center of the board is likewise done with the "Z" key, placing the program into zoom mode and then dragging the lightsource closer or farther away.

You may also switch a light's scalar to make it infinitely far away with the "I" key. The X,Y,Z position of the light will be changed to it's angle of rotations around the X and Z axis, and the distance will read "inf" for infinity, indicating that the light is infinitely far away from the origin. You may switch the scalar back to normal (1) by pressing the "I" key once more. You may turn on and off a presently selected light with the "O" key.
In addition, you may change the light color by setting the R, G and B modes in the program with respective "R" "G" and "B" keys, and then click-dragging in black space to change them.
If a light-source is placed in X,Y,Z coordinates that fall within the viewing frame, it will appear as a small square of color. To re-select the camera, you can either hit "C" or hit the number of the presently selected light once more to deselect the light (which auto-reselects the camera).

Playing The Game:

Each player start out with one piece on the board at opposite ends of the gameboard. By default the game starts out with player 1 (the green sphere) as the active player. A player may place a new piece on any tile adjacent to a piece of his/her color already present on the board. A player may also "jump" one of his/her own pieces already present.

To place a piece:
Click on an empty tile anywhere adjacent to a piece of the same color.

You may only place a new piece on an empty tile, not ontop of another piece, or in a space with no tile.
To jump a piece:
Click on a player piece of the currently selected player to put it in "jump" mode.
The piece will start bouncing in place
You may then click on a tile on the other side of an adjacent tile to hop the piece over it. Note that this leaves an empty place that the other player may jump into.
To Switch players:
Although players switch automatically, alternating turns, you can switch player pieces with the "P" key. Note that the highlighted player changes in the upper lefthand corner, indicating whose turn it is.

How the game works:

    Players alternate turns. The object of the game is to gain the most spaces on the board by "capturing" the most tiles. A tile is captured if a player piece is set on it. When a player places a piece on a tile (either by placing or hopping onto it), all the tiles around the captured tile that are occupied by the other player are captured as well. In a typical game, a lot of back-and forth capturing occurs. A player wins when there are no more possible moves for one or both of the players. This can happen in three ways:

    1. There are no more empty tiles on the board.
    2. There are no more of one player's pieces on the board (one player is wiped out)
    3. One player traps another, so there are no more moves that the other can make. If this happens, the trapping player gains the rest of the ending tiles.


    In each case, the player with the most captured tiles wins. This count is kept in red under the respective player at the top left-hand corner of the screen.

Other Modes:


Help Mode:
Press 'H' to activate Help mode. When you are in jump mode, this shows you where you can jump to, by making a tile under the mouse cursor flash if you can jump to it.

This is useful for beginners, and also for odd camera angles where it may not be obvious where you are alowed to jump.
Texture Mode:
You can switch the texture of the game board by pressing the "T" key once, to switch to the next texture, or multiple times to scroll through the textures available.


Software Package Design:

    This game fits on a business card CD. I've designed this package as a commercial sleeve for the product. Printed samples available upon request. (Original is vector graphic, printable at any resolution)



All content herein, graphics, and everything (c)2005 by C.M.Rogers