Abuse README

This is a fork of the original Abuse SDL port from http://abuse.zoy.org/. It switches the build system to CMake to make crossplatform building easier, and ports the original SDL version to SDL2. This version also removes some of the content that was in the original abuse.zoy.org version (namely, fRaBs), as the licensing information for it had some conflicting information.

Restoring fRaBs should be as simple as copying the data file over to the install directory, but they're not being included in the GitHub "official" builds. Likewise, the sound and music files are currently not included, as it's unclear if they were ever really allowed to be distributed.

Placing those files into the "sfx" and "music" directories (or copying them into the installed data directory) should re-enable sound and music.

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1. Introduction
2. Additional Features
3. Requirements
4. Running Abuse
5. Configuration
6. Installing the datafiles
7. Notes
8. Special Thanks
9. Feedback

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1. INTRODUCTION

Welcome to Abuse, the port of the classic game Abuse to the Simple DirectMedia Layer. Abuse was originally developed by Crack dot Com and released in 1995 for MS-DOS. A Linux version was also made available at a later date. It had a few limitations the most restrictive of which was that it only ran on an 8-bit display, and only in a window.

The version of Abuse will run at any color depth and supports fullscreen mode, as well as many other new features. It should also be more portable and hopefully run on a variety of *nix variants, as well as Windows and macOS.

2. ADDITIONAL FEATURES

Abuse has the following extra features over the original:

• Runs at a screen bit depth of 8, 16, 24 or 32.
• Fullscreen display.
• Scaling by any amount (eg. 2, 3 or 4)
• SDL2 support for hardware scaling and anti-aliasing.
• Stereo sound with panning.
• Mouse wheel support for changing weapons.
• Customizable keys.

3. REQUIREMENTS

Abuse has the following requirements:

• SDL2 2.0.3 or above.
• SDL_mixer 2.0.0 or above.

4. RUNNING ABUSE

Generally, just launch it however is appropriate for your platform after running the install build. If Abuse has been installed properly, the command:

abuse

will start the game.

The following command-line switches can be used:

-datadir <arg>    Set the location of the datafiles
-edit             Start in editor mode
-f <arg>          Load the map file named <arg>
-fullscreen       Enable fullscreen mode
-antialias        Enable anti-aliasing
-lisp             Start in lisp interpreter mode
-mono             Disable stereo sound
-nodelay          Run at maximum speed
-nosound          Disable sound
-scale <arg>      Scale by <arg> amount

5. CONFIGURATION

Abuse also has a configuration file where these options can be set instead of using the command line. The file "abuserc" will be created in your ~/.abuse directory the first time Abuse is run.

Lines starting with a ';' are comments. Setting an option to '1' turns it on, and '0' turns it off.

To change the keys used in the game, simply type the key after the option. The following special keys can also be used:

Code	Represents
LEFT, RIGHT, UP, DOWN	Cursor keys and keypad.
CTRL_L, CTRL_R	Left and right Ctrl keys.
ALT_L, ALT_R	Left and right Alt keys.
SHIFT_L, SHIFT_R	Left and right Shift keys.
F1 - F10	Function keys 1 through 10.
TAB	Tab key.
BACKSPACE	Backspace key.
ENTER	Enter key
INSERT, DEL	Insert and Delete keys.
PAGEUP, PAGEDOWN	Page Up and Page Down keys.
CAPS, NUM_LOCK	Caps-Lock and Num-Lock keys.
SPACE	Spacebar.

The default key settings are as follows:

Action	Bound to
Left	Left arrow, A
Right	Right arrow, D
Up/Jump	Up arrow, W
Down/Use	Down arrow, S
Prev Weapon	Left or Right Ctrl
Next Weapon	Insert

The mouse always controls your aim, with Left button for fire and Right button for special. The mouse wheel can be used for changing weapons.

6. INSTALLING THE DATAFILES

This repository contains the majority of the data files. The only data currently missing are the sound effects and the music as they weren't released into the public domain.

You can still grab them off of http://abuse.zoy.org/ and extract them into the data directory, and they will be used by the build script.

Under Windows and macOS, Abuse looks for the data files in a path relative to the executable. Using the CMake install and publish targets will set up the directory in the correct way. (See BUILDING.md for more information about that.)

Under Linux, by default, Abuse expects the datafiles to be installed in the following location:

/usr/local/share/games/abuse

However it is possible to change this and tell Abuse where to find the files if they are in another location.

The location can be set when Abuse is compiled. See the INSTALL.md file for instructions on how to do this.

You can also specify the location with the -datadir argument when Abuse is run. See section 4 above.

Finally, the location can be set in the configuration file. See section 5 above.

7. NOTES

Scaling:

Scaling is still experimental and not very fast. Try scaling by different amounts to see which ones work the best.

8. SPECIAL THANKS

Go to Jonathan Clark, Dave Taylor and the rest of the Crack Dot Com team for making the best 2D platform shooter ever, and then releasing the code that makes Abuse possible.

Also, thanks go to Jonathan Clark for allowing Anthony to distribute the original datafiles with Abuse.

Thanks also to everyone who has contributed ideas, bug reports and patches. See the AUTHORS file for details.

9. FEEDBACK

For this fork, please use the GitHub page if you have any questions, comments, or find bugs.

The original code was taken from http://abuse.zoy.org/, but any issues on non-Linux platforms should be directed to the GitHub page.

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Have fun!