Mightier
http://www.ratloop.com/mightier

Version 1.4
May 31st, 2009

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Step away from the computer!

Welcome to Mightier, the action puzzler that pulls you away from the screen to
solve puzzles by hand with pencil and paper. 

Using a color printer and web camera, the game prints puzzle pages for you to
draw on, then captures the results when you're done. 

From your drawings, Mightier constructs a landscape and characters for a fun
and engaging 3d platformer. 

Drawing by hand is a lot more fun, but the game also supports mouse drawing for
those without a printer, webcam, or spare paper.

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Requirements

This game requires Windows XP or better and a modern DirectX 9 video card with
at least 128MB of video ram. A black&white or color printer is required for the
final level. There is an optional interface mode that requires an autofocus 
webcamera supporting 640x480 resolution and a color printer.

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How To Play

Mightier is a combination puzzle and action game. You play as The Engineer and
The Actionaut to solve puzzles and collect items.

The Engineer
  As the Engineer, your task is to solve drawing-based puzzles in each sector.
  You can either edit these puzzles directly on the computer using the mouse,
  or you can print them out using a color printer and solve them by hand. When
  your solution is complete, the page can be captured using an attached
  webcamera.
  
The Actionaut
  As the Actionaut, you must follow up on the Engineer's solution to collect
  all the stray Datagons in each sector. The Actionaut is controlled from a
  3rd person perspective using the mouse and WASD keys.

  Press ESCAPE at any time to return to the previous game screen.

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Printing and Scanning

The scanning technology relies on special markings on the printed page. There 
are 5 red dots on each page printed by the game. These 5 marks must be visible 
to the web camera when capturing.

If you find that your schematics are not capturing correctly, try some of the 
following things:

- Keep the page as flat as possible on a desk or table and mount the camera
  aiming down at the page.
- Adjust your camera's settings until the dots are clearly visible.
- Make sure the page is evenly lit and the camera can see the entire page.
- Move the page closer to the camera or otherwise adjust the position.
- Draw thicker and darker lines with the pencil or use a black marker.
- The printers red color may not be strong enough. Try drawing over the 5 
  dots with a strong red marker.
- Make sure the loops are well closed with at least 1cm of space between them 
  and the green line indicating the edge of the play area.
- Small loops do not capture very well and may be ignored.

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Options

Edit Settings.cfg to change the video resolution and other options.

turnSensitivity: Defines how quickly the Actionaut turns when moving the mouse,
                 pressing the arrow keys, or using the joystick. Set it between 
                 "0.0" (no turning) and "1.0" (fastest turn speed).
 
gamePadEnabled:  Set to "true" if you have a Logitech Dual Action joystick.
                 Other gamepads may work, but the mapping is designed for a
                 Logitech.

fullscreen:      Set to "true" to run the game in fullscreen mode and "false"
                 for windowed mode. To show the "select printer" box, the 
                 game will temporarily switch to windowed mode. Press ALT-ENTER
                 to switch between fullscreen and windowed mode at any time. 

                 WARNING: The game doesn't like to ALT-TAB in fullscreen mode.

width, height:   Set the game resolution.

saveAllSketchesDir: 
                 Specify a subdirectory to save all captured sketches.
                 
demo:            Set to "true" to enable demo mode.

trailerFile:     Select the in-game trailer file played during demo mode.

trailerWait:     The time to wait in demo mode if there is no input before 
                 showing the trailer (in seconds).
  
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3rd Party Libraries

Mightier uses "BASS" for audio (http://www.un4seen.com), the "Triangle" library 
for Delaunay triangulation (http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~quake/triangle.html), and
the CodeVis "VidCapture" library for video capture 
(http://www.codevis.com/vidcapture/index.html).

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Changelist

1.4   Added special demo mode with in-game trailer playback. Improved red-dot
      feature detection.

1.3   Fixed invisible platforms on ATI video cards. Added Settings.cfg. Added
      support for toggling between fullscreen and windowed with ALT-ENTER.

1.2   Fixed crash when first activating video capture.

1.1   Improved web camera page detection, updated intro sequence, better screen
      fading, and slightly modified dialog text.
      
1.0   Initial IGF Submission

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Contact

mightier[at]ratloop.com
Lucas Pope
Keiko Ishizaka

Thanks for playing.
