Steamcatcher is a game, where the players control steam engines, and have to catch each other in order to steal a carriage. Stealing carriages is important, because score flows in based on the count of carriages pulled. The more carriages you pull, the sooner you reach the target score.
The trains move on a railway track. Segments of the track are connected by switches. Switches are important, because you can control your desired direction by setting them.
Setting a switch is based on bidding: First a players places an amount of so-called Action Point (AP) on a state of a switch (a state connects two specific railway segments). Then either he, or others can raise the amount to take control of the switch, maybe bidding for an other state. This way a catcher can stop an escaper, or vice-versa.
Each player receives the same amount of AP, constantly flowing in. It's up to their decision what they spend it on, or pile it up. However, there's a cap for the AP.
From the game directory, type "python steamcatcher.py", this should do the trick.
You are asked to enter a nickname. Do so, but it shouldn't be longer than 16 characters (it will get clipped anyway). In the following menus, you can choose between the options with the W/S or Uparrow/Downarrow buttons, and select an option with the Space bar or the Enter button. You can almost lways use the Escape button to go back to a previous menu.
In the main menu, you can either host or join a game. You should know what these things mean. When hosting, wait for all the players who you want to play with to appear in the 'Players connected' list (you will need you 33402 UDP port to be open for this). Choose win conditions as instructed on-screen. When everybody is ready, select the map you want to play on. This will load it, and the game will commence.
If joining, you will need to enter the hostname or IP-address of the hosting machine. Then wait patiently, until the game starts.
Note: As of the current version (v0.1), the network code doesn't guarantee that connection reuqests or such attempts surely reach their destination. However, on stable internet connection, things seem to go all right. The in-game network traffic is much less sensible for loss than the initial, so once everyone is in the game playing, bad things are not likely to happen.
There are two main aspects of the game: switches, and controlling the train
Switches first. The directions of a switch are signed by small arrows. Yellow color, or the color (red, green, blue) of a player means open direction, while white means closed. A switch can not be crossed from a closed direction, the train will bump back from it.
If you move the mouse above an arrow, it and it's possible direction-pairs will be highlighted in lilac. If there's only one possible pair, a single left-click will do a bet on that state. If there are multiple possible pairs, first click one end, and then another. By using the right mouse button on any arrow of a switch, you will re-bet the last state of that switch, which you placed a bet on. This is faster, if you only want to attack an other player's bid.
Bidding costs money. The base bid (10 AP) will not be shown. Otherwise, a number near the switch will indicate, how much you have to bid to take control. The rightmost instrument shows your current AP, and it is also indicated in text.
The switch becomes 'frozen', if any train comes near to it. Then, it's state will be the current state. The bidder of this state loses the amount he put on the switch. Other players who lost will get back most of their AP (80%).
Next, the train. The central instrument shows the speed, while the righter instrument informs about steam pressure, or force. It has two pointers: the red one showing maximal available steam pressure, the black one showing how much we use of that. The red one limits the black one, obviously. The maximal pressure is slowly decreasing. To boost it back, you have to use some coal. This is achieved by clicking on the engine of your train. Each click burms one piece of coal. To set the force you want to exert, use the W and S buttons. W means forward, S means backward. So, when the train moves forward, W will accelerate it furter, while at moving backwards, W is negative acceleration - braking.
Also note the red light. When it's on, it means that the direction of force you exert is opposite to the train's movement direction. So, this shows wether you are braking or accelerating.
Coal can be picked up at coal mines, when the engine is near them. Darker railway shows this area. When the engine is there, click with the mouse on the coal mine to pick up one piece of coal.
If you run out of coal, you'll get one piece for free, if your maximal steam power is quite low. This way you can't get stuck in a place without coal.
Happy gaming!
Steamcatcher was written in Python, version 2.3. The pygame and pyopengl libraries are necessary, and the psyco library can speed-up things a bit, if present. Network traffic is approxiamtely 3-4Kb/s downwards.
Steamcatcher was dreamed and created by "Mindless Game Studio", non-registered group of computer-friendly people. Credits go to: Syl for composing the music theme, Goss for gimping the graphics, Kukkerman for writing the level editor, and Ron for the game engine.
The source code is put under the GNU GPL license (see copyright.txt). The graphics are also free to use. The main menu sound is from the tape "Sounds of steam engines", and is copyrighted by it's respective owner. The theme music is composed and copyrighted by Syl, who permits to use it with the Steamcatcher game. For furter usage, contact him (somehow). Main menu background is from the site http://www2.chem.elte.hu/gigant_club/pic/hu/steam/424/index_hu.html, copyright holder is unknown.