INTRODUCTION
============

This is vulcan 0.92, a program that will let you play against the computer a
chess variant that appears in a certain well-known science fiction TV series.


INSTALLING
==========

You need OpenGL and X libraries and header files installed.  As of version 0.5,
you also need libpng.


To install system-wide, either
	run `make' and then run `sudo make install',
or
	as the superuser, run `make install'.

The data files will be installed in /usr/local/share/vulcan, and the game
binary 'vulcan' will be installed in /usr/local/bin. If you wish to change this
configuration, edit the Makefile and change the variables PREFIX, BIN, and
DATA_DIR (at the beginning of the file).


Alternatively, to install in the current user account,
run `make PREFIX=~/.vulcan install'.

In this case, the data files will be installed in ~/.vulcan/share/vulcan,
and the game binary 'vulcan' will be installed in ~/.vulcan/bin.


RUNNING
=======

Run `vulcan'. Use the option -h to see some command line options.


GAMEPLAY NOTES
==============

Click with the left button on a piece or a square to select it. If you
can move the piece, the squares where the piece can be moved to will be
highlighted. Click on the right button to unselect.

Rotate the board by moving the mouse while pressing the left button.
Move the mouse while holding the right button to zoom in and out.

While in a game, press ESC to bring up the menu.

The rules implemented by this program were created by Jens Meder, and are
described here:

  http://home.arcor.de/jens.meder/3dschach/indexe.html

In a nutshell, here's the idea:

  * viewing the board from above, you'll notice that some squares overlap.
  * from that view, piece moves are the same as in regular chess, except
    that you may choose which of the overlapping squares the piece will land at.
  * the movement of a sliding piece (bishop, rook or queen) is blocked by
    a piece in any of the overlapping squares; the sliding piece may land
    above or below the blocking piece.
  * the small 2x2 boards (the "attack boards") can be moved to an adjacent
    corner at the same level if they're holding just one piece, or to a corner
    of a different level if they're empty.


3D MODELS
=========

The 3D models were extracted from the xscreensaver mode `endgame', which in
turn uses the 3D models from glChess. The comments in chessmodels.c say the
following:

  Copyright (C) 2006  John-Paul Gignac <jjgignac at users dot sf dot net>

  Copyright (C) 2002  Robert  Ancell <bob27 at users dot sourceforge dot net>
                      Michael Duelli <duelli at users dot sourceforge dot net>


LIMITATIONS
===========

It doesn't support en-passant captures yet. Pawns are automatically promoted
to queens. There's no draw (perhaps it should've been called `Klingon' instead). 

See TECH for some random tech notes.


COMMENTS?
=========

Please e-mail any comments, suggestions and patches to:

  <m at fzort dot org>