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

This is vulcan 0.6, a program that will let you play against the computer a
chess variant that appears in a certain well-known science fiction TV series.


BUILDING
========

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


RUNNING
=======

Run 'vulcan' from the source directory. 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.

Rotate the board by moving the mouse while pressing the left button.
Move the mouse while holding the right button to move the board. To zoom in
and out, hold the 'control' key and move the mouse up and down while holding
the right button.

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

  http://private.addcom.de/meder/3dschach/chess3d.htm

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 used in the program are (C) Renzo del Fabbro. The meshes were
extracted from the original 3DS file and processed by a mesh simplification
program.


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

It doesn't support en-passant captures yet. Pawns are automatically promoted
to queens.

See TECH for some random tech notes.


COMMENTS?
=========

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

  mauro_persano at yahoo dot com
