BEWorld source bundle                                  Revised: 120422
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1. Overview.

BEWorld is a simple Linux 2D game and a  starting point for coders who
are interested in developing similar games; Tcl coders, in particular,
as this version is written in pure Tcl plus the Brick Engine.

The game consists of a self-contained Tcl script.  Sound effects, mus-
ic,  and sprites are all included in the file.  There's no need to in-
stall  any  external bits and pieces except for an  interpreter  named
Brick Tcl  (or brick-tcl) and SDL,  a standard package that  Brick Tcl
relies on.

The game should run on most  Linux systems that have  XOrg, SDL, and a
sound card,  including lightweight or "tiny" distros. OpenGL  is  sup-
ported but not required.

This is  a  fork of an older (apparently unnamed)  demo program by the
lead developer for the Brick Engine.  The flavor is similar to that of
a  real-time  Nethack;  there  are several small connected rectangular
worlds  and  the goal is to travel through the various worlds and make
it to the end.  However, the current version is much more limited than
Nethack. It should be thought of as a proof of concept.

That said,  the game features  sprite code  that's  relatively easy to
work with,  both  random  and  invariant levels,  a map generator that
should work  in other Tcl games,  support for embedded music and sound
effects, the start of an object-oriented component framework, and oth-
er features that might be useful.

The version of BEWorld provided here is intended for developers. Users
are welcome to give it a try,  but note that installation  requires  a
"build" procedure. For more information, see the following sections.

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2. History and licenses.

Steve H., the creator of the Brick Engine, wrote an apparently unnamed
Brick Engine demo in the 2000s.  It used an old version of the library
API (one that predated the Brick 5.2 API).

BEWorld started out as a port of the demo to the Brick 5.2 API. Subse-
quently,  the  code was restructured and new features were added (with
Steve's advice and assistance). Eventually, it was ported to the Brick
5.4 API.  Brick 5.4 is now required, though older APIs are partly sup-
ported.

As of Spring 2012, upstream for the Brick Engine still existed but the
package had been renamed to "Aries Engine" and rehosted.  This version
of BEWorld has not been tested against the Aries Engine.

Brick Engine  5.4  and the associated  Tcl bindings are released under
MIT/X-based  licenses.  For  more information,  see the following  two
files:

      engine/license-engine.txt
      bindings/tcl/license-brick-tcl.txt

BEWorld 120422 is released under a Creative Commons license; specific-
ally,  Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike 3.0. This
includes  the  music,  but note for attribution purposes that the code
and  the music were created by  different  people.  Additionally, note
that some of the Tcl code is based on public posts by several Tcl dev-
elopers.

For more information, see the source code and the file LICENSE.

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3. Requirements.

BEWorld itself  doesn't need to be built; as noted previously,  it's a
self-contained Tcl  script.  However,  if you'd like to play the game,
you'll  need  to build the Brick Engine 5.4 library and the associated
"brick-tcl" interpreter.  If  you're interested,  proceed as described
in this section and the next one.

Start with a  Linux distro that includes  cmake, gcc,  and development
packages for XOrg, SDL, Tcl, jpeg, libmikmod, and libpng.

Note:  "development packages" means packages that provide header files
and libraries. The exact names of these packages will vary from distro
to distro.

SDL should include the core SDL library (release 1.2.10), SDL graphics
(2.0.22),  SDL  image  support  (1.2.10),  and the SDL mixer (1.2.11).
Other releases may (or may not) work.

For Tcl, any of the 8.5.X releases should work. 8.4.X isn't supported.
For gcc, releases 4.4.3 or 4.6.2 are recommended,  but 3.4.6 and 4.2.4
may work.

OpenGL  isn't  required.  BEWorld  should work fine whether or not you
have  OpenGL libraries or related  features  such as DRI,  accelerated
graphics, or direct rendering.

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4. Building BEWorld.

The following  instructions  are intended for Linux developers.  These
instructions  assume  that  people  are  familiar  with  Linux "build"
procedures in general.

(a) Optional: Log-in as root.

If you're logged in as root, the game will install to a directory tree
named  /opt/beworld and  anybody  will  be able to play it.  If you're
logged in as an ordinary user, the private (or semi-private) directory
tree $HOME/beworld will be used instead.

(c)  Verify  that  the  development  packages discussed previously are
installed.

(d) Obtain the BEWorld source bundle.  This may involve  downloading a
source tarball or using "git".

(e)  Go to  /var/tmp and  unpack and/or  copy the  BEWorld source tree
there.  Note:  Other directories may  be  used  instead  (for example,
$HOME/tmp).

(f) Step (e)  should create a subdirectory which contains a file named
"buildme.sh". Go into that subdirectory.

(g) Execute this command: sh ./buildme.sh

The preceding command should build Brick Engine and "brick-tcl". Addi-
tionally,  it should install a copy  of  BEWorld.  If copies  of Brick
Engine and/or "brick-tcl" are  already installed in system trees  such
as /usr or /usr/local, those copies won't be overwritten or affected.

If the command is successful,  it'll tell you the location of a script
named "beworld".  To play the game,  just run the script.  There's  no
need to set PATH, LD_LIBRARY_PATH, etc.

If the command is unsuccessful, an error message should be printed.

(h)  At this point,  you can delete the subdirectory mentioned in step
(f). It's no longer needed.

Note:  If you  play  the game,  you should hear music as well as sound
effects.

To deinstall the game,  just delete the directory tree /opt/beworld or
$HOME/beworld.