Meteor Madness Readme
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 1. Intro
 2. Installation
 3. How to Play
 4. LAN/Internet Play
 5. Unlockables
 6. Bugs / Known Issues
 7. Credits

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	INTRODUCTION:
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	Thank you for trying Meteor Madness! We hope it provides you with as much fun and amusement as possible. Meteor Madness is a vertical racing game where you play the role of a trans-dimensional energy being, racing across a field of meteors against another similar being. The game was developed in C# with XNA over 7 months by a small team. There are several modes of play available by default - the game starts with Arcade, Practice and Versus modes. Arcade mode is an infinite progression that gets progressively more difficult until the player's first loss. Practice and Versus mode are self-explanatory.
	
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	INSTALLATION:
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	Depending on which download method you chose, the installation process will be different. If you chose the one-click deployment method, just run the setup file included in this archive. It will automatically choose a directory and place the game there for you, provide a start-menu shortcut to load the game at will, and provide an uninstall entry in the windows program list.
	
	If you chose the non-autoinstall package, then the game files are loose in this archive. You can pick your own directory to place the game, no registry entries will be made, no start menu shortcut nor uninstall entry will be made either. You're totally in charge of putting the game where you want. Make sure you have XNA Redistributable and .NET framework installed or the game will NOT load. These frameworks/libraries are NOT included in this package and are completely necessary. If you're not sure which option to use, choose the click-once option. We would like to take this opportunity to point out that neither of these install options have any DRM (Digital Rights Management), copy protection or any other malware/semi-malware. Such implementations are usually more trouble than they're worth. If you have any technical questions about our software, please don't hesitate to ask.
	
	Microsoft .NET Framework:
	http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=17851
	
	XNA 4.0 Redistributable:
	http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=20914

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	HOW TO PLAY:
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	In your quest to go really fast and beat the other energy... thing, you will have several tools at your disposal. You can move left and right across the screen, boost, or shield. Obstacles will travel down the screen and block your path, you can either dodge them or plow through. If the obstacle is large, you will begin to drill through it. This will slow you down and give your opponent the upper hand. You can deal with this in 2 ways, by dodging or shielding. Most obstacles will break instantly if they collide with you while you have your shield up. Your shield and boost abilities both pull from the same energy reserve, so be sure to use them wisely. Using them concurrently will drain the meter twice as fast. The blue orbs will replenish energy.
	
	In arcade mode, you can earn 'Replay Tokens' (you start with 3 of them). These serve one purpose that can be applied for 2 reasonse - using a replay token lets you re-play the level you previously finished (whether you won or not) at the SAME skill setting. If you lost the match, this keeps you from losing the entire game. If you didn't lose the match, this lets you keep your score but stave off the spike in difficulty associated with going to the next level. Replay tokens are granted every 30000 points.
	
	The preferred control device is a wired 360 controller (or 360 Control Emulator hooks), however keyboard controls and mouse controls are supported. Only one player at a time can use the mouse, but both can use the keyboard if needed.
	
	360 Controller:
	Left Thumbstick: Move L/R
	A Button: Boost
	B Button: Shield
	Start: Pause
	
	Keyboard: (Player One)
	Left Arrow: Move Left
	Right Arror: Move Right
	Up Arrow: Boost
	Down Arror: Shield
	
	Keyboard (Player Two)
	See above, but with WASD
	
	Mouse:
	In mouse mode, the game will calculate left/right for you depending on where the cursor is. If it is left of the player, it will move left and vice versa.
	Left Button: Boost
	Right Button: Shield
	
	NOTE: During LAN / Internet games, the game will always use player 1's configuration, even if you are player two. This is so that if you are playing single player mode and then later decide to play a netgame, you won't have to put down the gamepad and start using the keyboard or whichever control input is assigned to p2 in your local settings.
	
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	LAN / NET PLAY:
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	Near the end of the development cycle we began experimenting with getting the game to run across a network. This feature is the result. In the versus-mode sub-menu, select the 'netplay' option. How you proceed from here will depend on whether you want to host the game or join an existing one, as well as whether or not you are playing a game on the local network or over the internet. By default the netplay lobby will show you all of the games on the local network that are currently looking for a guest to join in. The controls for this menu are as follows:
	
	A (Gamepad) / Enter (Keyboard) - Join the selected waiting game
	Up/Down - Select a game to join
	Y (Gamepad) / F3 (Keyboard) - Host a new game
	F4 (Keyboard) - Directly connect to a specified IP address
	The game uses port 14242
	
	As the host you can select the skill level to use, and kick a player who has joined. The race will begin as soon as the guest signals ready. As the guest you specify the game to join, and when the host gets your request the game will wait until you signal ready. As soon as you do, the race will start. During the match, the game will always use the selected control method for player 1 (in the options menu), whether or not you are player two in the match.
	
	We tested the game extensively over LAN and found the performance satisfactory, however little testing was done over the internet.
	
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	UNLOCKABLES:
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	There are several unlockable goodies in the game! Rewards are unlocked for the following feats:
	- Winning 10 arcade matches (unlocks a new mode)
	- Reaching level 20 in arcade mode (unlocks a new mode)
	- Destroying 2500 or more meteoroids (unlocks a new mode)
	- Get a score of 150000 or higher in Arcade mode (unlocks a character skin)
	- Get all of the achievements (unlocks a neat feature. Press the Back button on your xbox 360 controller in practice mode to use it)
	
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	BUGS / KNOWN ISSUES:
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	This game REQUIRES .NET Framework 4 and the XNA 4.0 redistributable libraries to run. The binary won't even load without them. We're trying to find a way to catch this case, but unfortunately haven't found a solution yet. If the game isn't loading at all for you, see if XNA and .NET are installed. That's probably your problem.
	
	If the game throws an exception while in full-screen mode, the game won't always render the error report window. Or anything at all for that matter. Alt-Tabbing doesn't seem to do the trick. You'll have to use the task manager to end the process. This unfortunately makes debugging abit of a pain while in full screen mode. Fortunately, we haven't run into too many exceptions lately. If you run into a problem, try replicating it in windowed mode if at all possible. Your mileage may vary.
	
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	CREDITS:
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	Sanik Bewm Software is:
	
	- Sean Healy : Studio Manager
	- Joshua Corvinus : Technical Director / Secondary Manager
	- Elin Nylander : Artistic Director
	- Matthew McDonald : Audio Director
	
	And hopefully even more smiling faces when we can accomodate them! Much love to everyone on the team and to everyone who likes our work!
		
	Meteor Madness is copyright 2013 Sanik Bewm Software.
	
	This software makes use of the Lidgren network library, which is under the MIT license. Lidgren can be found at: http://code.google.com/p/lidgren-network-gen3/
	This software also uses some (heavily remixed) sounds from http://www.freesfx.co.uk