tb1/tbo/README

Tom Bombem: Obfuscated!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

by Vince Weaver <vince@deater.net>
                http://www.deater.net/weave/
		
"Homework is the mother of procrastination."


COMPILING/RUNNING:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
   gcc -ansi tbo.c -O2 -o tbo

Has been tested on x86 FreeBSD, x86 Linux, PPC Linux, and Tru64 Alpha.

Needs at least VT102 emulated terminal support.  
Should run in Color on color xterm or ansi-color (Linux) terminals.

Runs fine in all X-terms tested.  Unfortunately has high flicker-rate on 
unaccelerated Linux framebuffer console (but runs fine on stock text console).


NEAT THINGS:
~~~~~~~~~~~~
The C code is designed to look like a box-cover if this game were
commercially sold at a store.


BACKGROUND:
~~~~~~~~~~~
The Tom Bombem series of games [http://www.deater.net/weave/vmwprod/tb1/]
are scrolling space-shooters that I've written over the years.  From
Turbo-Pascal in DOS, to SDL under Linux, to an 8k-text-mode-hand-assembled
-Linux-x86 binary, to a 4k Apple IIe 6502 game.

But now he reaches the final frontier:  Obfuscation!


STORY:
~~~~~~
You are Tom Bombem, guardian of Earth!  One day you are on routine patrol
in your crudely rendered spaceship when evil objects shaped like T's start
attacking!  Destroy as many as you can to save the day!


GAMEPLAY:
~~~~~~~~~
Use , and . [or the arrow keys if you have a proper terminal emulator]
to steer.  The spacebar shoots.

The game gradually gets harder the higher your score is.  Every 30 points
or so your shields will increase.

OBFUSCATIONS:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This was a hard program to obfuscate.  

Some of the obfuscations done:

 * Pseudo random number generator [actually a very horrible one]
 * All collision detection and "sprite" drawing done entirely with
   bitwise operations.  While a bit convoluted looking it was much easier
   to get right than typical collision detection routines.
 * the text strings are all more-or-less rot-4 encoded just to make
   things less obvious
 * Made all variable and function names single characters.
 * Removed as many parenthesis as operator precedence would allow.
 * Random other obfuscations as was prudent.
 * Arranged into the screen-shot format.


Common Complaints:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Complaint:  I can't shoot things in the right-most column!
 
Response:   That is by design.  Otherwise a wall-hugging strategy makes 
            the game trivially easy.


Complaint:  What are those ugly dots falling from above?

Response:   Stars scrolling by!  You are either moving really quickly,
            or else you are just looping in a big circle.
	    
	    
Complaint:  I miss the typical "Tom Bombem" sliding ship motion
            [ie pressing left starts your ship moving left, not
	    moving a discrete distance like this game].
	     
Response:   I can't make everyone happy!  Usually people complain 
            that I _do_ have the sliding motion.  Only being 16
	    chars wide it should be OK the way things are, though
	    your keyboard might get a workout.


Personal High Score
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 (after not much trying, really)

 SCORE:   185
 HIT RATIO: 46%


Special Thanks to:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 KRG


--

vmw
27 February 2004

--

/*  Vince Weaver  vince@deater.net  vmw5@cornell  www.deater.net/weave  */

main(){char O,o[66]="|\n\\/_  ",*I=o+7,l[]="B!FhhBHCWE9C?cJFKET$+h'Iq*chT"
,i=0,_;while(_=l[i++])for(O=0;O++<_>>5;)*I=*(I++-(_&31));*I=0;puts(o+5);}