I developed this game on Linux (Ubuntu 14.04 64 bit).
It is written with FLTK, and has no other dependencies.
To compile it, you first need FLTK 1.3 (I recommend to use at least version 1.3.3) or above.
As I have no access to and no knowledge about Apple OSX I can only assume that the code should compile and run on this platform (as FLTK works well on OSX).
I have successfully tested and run a Mingw compiled version of the program under Windows XP and Windows 7.
Under Linux the program was tested with various distros, also some older ones.
One main goal at development was to use NO external libraries whatsoever (except FLTK of course) to stay simple and clean. So the code should be really easy to compile.
As this program consists only of one source file/per executable, you could
compile it just with fltk-config:
fltk-config --use-images --compile src/fltrator.cxx
fltk-config --use-images --compile src/fltrator-landscape.cxx
The excutable can be run from the build folder, no need for an install.
Nevertheless there is a Makefile in order to be more flexible.
According to the goal to use no external libraries, the program plays .wav
files by using the builtin play tool of the OS. This is aplay for Linux
and play for Apple (actually I don't know for sure).
Works pretty well - at least on Linux...
If you don't hear sound please make sure, that this program is installed on your system and plays sounds from the command line.
Under Windows there is no such tool and one cannot output multiple sounds in
background easy (I stayed with the old Windows MM-API - PlaySound(), because
everything else seemed complete overkill). So I made a little executable
playsound.exe that is called by fltrator.
It has to be in the path somewhere (or in the same path as fltrator).
It is also possible to specify a play command by command line option (see --help).
Under Linux you can also use your own sound-player, when you stick to the outline given in playsound.cxx.
Either fetch FLTK from www.fltk.org and compile it yourself or install the FLTK development package of your distribution (if it is at version 1.3 or higher).
This is the default.
In a terminal change to the fltrator directory and issue:
./configure
make
make install (optional)
Say you downloaded it to ~/fltk-1.3/:
First configure and compile FLTK.
cd ~/fltk-1.3
Configure and compile it, usually you only need:
make
If that succeeds go to the fltrator directory and
./configure --with-fltk-dir=~/fltk-1.3
make
make install (optional)
NOTE: make install copies to ~/bin. Make sure that you have included this
path in your search path.
Running FLTrator in fullscreen on a big monitor is really a great pleasure! It also runs faster and more smooth I believe.
So I dug out some instructions how to change resolution under Linux using Xrandr and and also for Windows and integrated it everything into the program.
Note for Linux: For fullsceeen to work you must have the libxrandr-dev package
installed.
[Tested to work under Ubuntu 12.04 and 14.04, Windows 7]
As noted already, I am no Windows specialist. However I successfully run some of my programs written for Linux crosscompiled with 'mingw' under Windows.
FLTrator normally would like to use a 200Hz timer for scrolling the landscape. This is just the right speed for a smooth scrolling by 1 pixel/frame. No problem under ANY Linux system. But a BIG problem for a Windows system, as far as I experience.
The problem is twofold: FLTK's timer for Windows are restricted to a maximum rate of ~65 fps 'by design'. So it was necessary to implement an own timer handling using Windows hires timers and integrate these with FLTK's main loop.
The second problem is, that Windows hires timers seem to be not very reliable (but maybe it's just my lack of knowledge, how to set up things right).
So the Windows version by default just uses 100 FPS using Windows hi-res timers. That seems to work...
If you have still performance problems with it, I found 40 FPS to be the ideal
rate in this case. Therefore I have added an option HAVE_SLOW_CPU to compile
with a 40Hz timer (using FLTK timers). This makes the scrolling a little jumpy,
but maybe this even adds to the retro feeling...
You can enable the switch in your compile shell with:
export HAVE_SLOW_CPU=1
before running
make -e
Note: With FLTrator 1.5 there is a runtime switch to change the frame rate.
See section Performance issues below.
This requires that you have the mingw development package of your distribution installed.
Download FLTK into some directory say: ~/fltk-1.3-mingw/:
cd ~/fltk-1.3-mingw
make clean
./configure --host=i686-w64-mingw32 --enable-cygwin --enable-localjpeg --enable-localpng --enable-localzlib
Note: Use the mingw host you have installed on your machine in the --host=... switch
(The above was mine under Ubuntu 14.04).
The compilation may stop (at least it did until recently) somewhere within fluid. But this doesn't matter, as the FLTK libraries are built already at this point.
After successful build of FLTK change to mingw subfolder of your fltrator folder.
cd {your-fltrator-folder}
cd mingw
Edit the Makefile to point FLTK_DIR to your previous built FLTK-mingw or use the export override and the same commands as above to build the Windows executables.
If that succeeds:
make install
will then copy all needed files to the INSTALL_PATH specified in the Makefile (default: ~/Downloads/fltrator). You can copy them from there to your Windows machine.
I didn't try it, but if you have a working development suite, I guess it should be very easy to build as you need only single file projects.
On older hardware or on a Windows system FLTrator's default framerate of 200 fps may be too high.
With version 1.5 the frame rate can be changed in runtime:
On the title screen you see the current frame rate in the bottom/right corner. Pressing '-' or '+' will change to the next value down or up.
Experiment with the values, until you get the best mix of performance vs 'jumpyness'. Allowed values are 20, 25, 40, 50, 100, 200. I recommend a rate 40+.
Of course lower values will decrease the smoothness of the scrolling.
If you found your best rate, you can put it in the command line:
-Rfps e.g. -R40
Note for Windows: You will get 100 and 200 FPS only, if you didn't compile with
the HAVE_SLOW_CPU option.