		Absorb README

	Running the game

Double-click on the "run_windows.bat" in the root directory of the game. Do note that you cannot run the game directly from the Release -directory due to the way its directory structure is organized.

	Game objective

Absorb is an abstract shooter taking place in Irem's R-Type universe. In the future a story mode with campaings for The Bydo and Humans will be implemented, but for now, the player can only test his mettle in the challenge mode.

You control the Light Bydo - an energy organism that feeds on external sources of heat and radiation. You have no attacks of your own, but you can absorb bullets from enemies and refire them at their source.

The game progresses in a series of waves, where you will meet progressively more difficult enemies. When you beat all enemies, a next one will appear.

	Game mechanics

The Light Bydo steers as in other shooter games. Arrow keys move the craft directly in the appropriate direction. Other craft operate on different principles and have a heading.

In absorb state, your craft is invincible and cannot take damage. Any bullets you hit are added to your bullet gauges. You can press the fire button to release them.

You have a limited potential for absorbing. When the absorb time is up, you will fall back into normal mode. This may mean death in most circumstances, so use your absorb potential wisely - it recharges much slower than you use it up.

The enemies have hitpoints but you have not. One shot kills you when not in absorb mode. Also absorbing too many bullets overloads your systems and kills you, so you cannot remain under extreme fire for too long.

The enemies have varying attack patterns, but mostly they attack randomly, which eliminates the learning aspect present in most shooter games - the only option is to be good at managing your energy and most of all - to dodge well.

It is impossible to get stuck. In the latter stages, some enemies will not have attacks of their own (or attacks that you can absorb), making you unable to collect energy from them, but in these situations another enemy (specific to the level) should be present to allow progression.

	Keys

Arrow keys 	- steer craft
d		- release bullets
f		- absorb bullets

	Hidden features

To change the resolution, change the run_windows.bat. Should be self-evident.
Command-line switches;
	-f	Fullscreen
	-r	Resolution, follow with WIDTHxHEIGHTxBPP (ie. -r 800x600x32)
	-c	Channels for sound, follow with a number (ie. -c 128)

	Known bugs

The particle system we use to generate effects utilizes point sprites. More specifically, older ATI graphics cards (Radeon 9xxx series) have severe problems displaying large amounts of them on Windows systems (at least Catalyst 6.2, 6.5 and 6.6). We are certain that this is a driver/hardware issue, as many other cards operate just fine (all tested NVidia models).

To fix this, we would be forced to revert into a regular billboard-based particle engine, but this, in turn, requires much more bandwidth between the card and the processor. We didn't have time for this.

Thus, fuck you, ATI. Fuck you.

Our OSX port maintainer has this to say towards Apple:

"Fuck you, Apple. Fuck you."

Apparently development with older versions of OSX has some problems. Ask him.

	Future

This is an alpha version. Once we get a scripting system done, actual level design will ensue. If possible, tributes to other gems in the shooter genre will be modellet, notably ships from Sanxion, Layer Section, Uridium and Gradius. These will not appear in the plot, but as bonus ships in multiplayer deathmatch and survival game modes.
