WinMaze Manual v1.04 (WinMaze 1.61)


If you are online, you can download the newest version from http://www.winmaze.de/m/m.html




What is WinMaze?
WinMaze is a 3D-shooter like game where you control a smiley through a 3D-maze. The goal is to reach a specified amount of money, that you get if you kill other players. During gameplay, you can decide that you want to save money to win the maze as fast as possible, but you can also buy additional items to give you some advantages against your enemies. Some other items are for protection against items that others might have.
How to start?
After installation, you should configure your sound and graphics devices and, very important, your controls.


The settings dialog
  • In the "Display" section you can choose the resolution at which WinMaze will run. Lower resolutions and bit depths will save processing power, at higher resolutions the graphics will look much better. You can also set a fullscreen flag to force WinMaze to change the screen resolution and to use the entire screen for rendering. If disabled, WinMaze will run in a window.
  • In the "Audio" section you select your audio device and adjust
    volumes for sound fx and music.
  • The "Player" section allows you to select the colors of your player that others will see. Every player contains two colors, one for the body and one for the face. The "Force espawn" flag forces you to respawn when you died after a specified time. If not set, you have to respawn manually by pressing the fire button. The "Show smoke color in color of player" flag specifies which colors are used to display the smoke that shots create. If enabled, the smoke colors will be the same as the body color of the player that triggered the shot. If not enabled, every smoke looks grey. The "Shake camera on hit" flag enables shaking of the camera if a shot hits you and you loose a health point.
  • In the "GUI" section you can configure the colors of your ingame hud.
  • The "Detail" slider allows you to set the graphics detail. If you have a slow machine, lower the slider to the left to have best performance. The highest detail level ist only recommended for very fast CPUs with Geforce 2 GTS graphics accelerators or higher. Below is a detailed list, showing which things change in the appropriate detail level settings:

    Detail
    Enabled Features
    1
    		 - Lowest setting
    2
    		 - Hyperjump Effect
    3
    		 - Smoke for shots
    4
    		 - Player Shadow
    5
    		 - Smoke if player dies
    - Explosion effect if player dies
    6
    		 - Smoke for shots with more detail
    7
    		 - Wall Edges in map Doors 3
    8
    		 - Lens Flares
    9
    		 - Improved Hyperjump Effect
    10
    		 - Highest setting


The controls dialog

The controls dialog allows you to assign specified keys / mouse buttons etc to specified commands that will be executed ingame. Many controls are standard 3D-shooter command like walking, shooting and others. But most of them are new and have to be explained.

In WinMaze, you have a list of items that help you during gameplay against your enemies. You get items if you spend money for it. If you sell an items, you don't earn any money (who would want to disable an item again after buying it), but if you buy it again, it also costs you money for a second time, so take care of your items.

You are invisible to all enemies
Colorlessness
 Only the border of your body and your face are still visible. It's not as good as invisibility, but if an enemy is looking at you from
a distance he might not see you immediatly

No Face

 Your face will no longer be visible to other enemies, they won't know where you are aiming at
Auto answer
 If you get hit by another shot, you will fire a shot in the direction where the shot that has hit you came from
Big Shot
 The radius of your shot doubles in size and you'll hit enemies if you would have missed them normally
Reflective Shot
 Your shot will no longer be killed if it hits a wall, it will be reflected and will still be alive even if you are already dead
Shot Through Walls
 Instead of reflecting the shots on walls, this feature allows you to pass walls as if they weren't there. The only walls were shots die are walls at the level border (if you have Reflective Shot enabled the shots will be reflected there)
Fast Shot
 This doubles the speed of all your shots. Don't underestimate this feature, its very very useful, think of lag in internet games, movement of your enemy etc!
Walk Through Walls
 This feature allows you to walk through walls
Quick
 Doubles your walking speed
Enemies On Map
 Allows you to see enemies on your mini map. Note that you can't see enemies that have the "Hide On Map" feature (see below) enabled
Hide On Map
 Hides you from mini maps of other players, even if they have the "Enemies On Map" feature enabled
Deadly
 Immediately zeroes the health of your enemy and kills it
No Deadly
 Anti-Feature to feature "Deadly". If your enemy has "Deadly" and you have "No Deadly", every hit that your enemy gets counts like a normal
hit
Got You
 If you have this feature enabled, every shot that hit's you doesn't hurt you, it hurts your enemy
No Got You
 Anti-Feature for "Got You"
Allow Minimap
 Allows you to display a minimap for easier navigation through the maze
Key
 Allows you to open doors
Hyperjump
 Immediately warps you to another area of the maze

Single Player
In the current version of WinMaze, playing in single player mode is not implemented yet. However, you can start the solo mode already, providing you the map "Doors 2" with 15 players that does nothing than rotating. They have the feature autoanswer enabled. The goal is to reach 100 points, but don't care, I'm sure you'll win!! :) In this mode, all items are set to mode "possible", so this is a very good testing area for gameplay, maps etc.
Multi Player

Multiplayer gaming is what WinMaze is all about. Together with the T-Game Server technique, WinMaze provides a fully functional 24h server technology and a global place where all players of T-Game.Net games can meet each other all the time.
After pressing the "Multi Player" button, a dialog is displayed that shows the current servers available. Select one and click "Connect" or double click on the server you want to join. You'll be promted to enter your name and your password. If you are not a registered member of the T-Game.Net, you can leave the password field blank. However, if you try to join with a name that is already registered by another member, your connection will be dropped.
After a successfull log in, you are in channel "#lobby" of the current server where you can chat with other players. In this channel, you can create and join games, join other channels etc.


Creating a game


To create a game, click the "Create Game" button while you are in the lobby. A dialog will open where you can set up the game. You can define the items that all player will have, set the money limit when a player wins and other settings.

How to set up the items:

Every item can be set up individually. You can decide between five modes:

Disabled
 The items is disabled and can't be activated during gameplay. It also will not be listed in the item list.
Buyable
 The item is currently disabled, but can be bought during game for money.
Already bought
 The item is already bought. If you disable this item, you'll have to spend money to get it again.
Possible
 The item is currently disabled. Enabling the item doesn't cost you anything.
Possible and enabled
 The item is currently enabled. If you disable it, you can enable it later again for free.


After pressing ok, a new channel will be created and other users are able to join it. You can press "Start Game" now to start the game. Other users that join the channel are able to enter the game by pressing "Enter Game" now.


Joining a game / channel

To join a game or channel, press the "Join Channel" button. You'll get a list of currently available channels and their status icon.

  • A green icon means, the channel is open for you, you can join. But the members are currently talking only, no game is running.
  • A blue icon means that the channel is currently ingame. You can also join this channel. Additionally, you'll get a button "Enter game" to enter into the game currently running.
  • A red icon means that the channel is closed and that you are not allowed to join at the moment (the host may be busy, or a game mode doesn't allow joining while ingame, currently not implemented, reserved for future use)
After double-clicking a channel or pressing "Join" you'll join the current channel and go back to the chat dialog.
The Game

While in a game, you have a first person view to the 3D maze where you shoot at your enemies. You can move through the maze like in a 3D shooter. The goal is to hit and kill other players that are playing with you to get money.

Points
You will get the following points if you hit and kill an enemy:

A hit gives you 1 point
A kill gives you 2 points.

That makes a total of 5 points if you kill a player with full health.


The Item List

The item list (available by holding shift by default) shows you the current state of your items. The list displays the item name, its cost and its hot key which you can use to enable the item. And it shows you the item state. The following states are given: A red item means that you don't have enough money yet to buy the item. A green item means that you have enough money and are allowed to buy the item. And a yellow item indicates that the item is enabled.

The Player List

The player list is a sorted list that shows you all players currently playing in the game. Additionally, you also get statistical information about the number of kills / deaths for every player, ping and more.

The Minimap

The minimap gives you an overview of the map you are currently playing on. If you have the item "Enemies on map" enabled, you will also see your enemies, but only if they don't have the item "Hide on amp". You are displayed flashingly.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: If I join a multiplayer game, my enemies do not move and I cannot kill them

A: You are obviously using a router, firewall or something similar. Be sure to map the UDP port 8790 to be able to play as client. If you want to run a server, you also have to map the TCP port 7790.
Q: I killed myself, but killing himself is not possible usually?

A: You tried to hurt a player that got the "Got You" feature, and you don't have the anti-feature yet. If an enemy has the "Got You" feature enabled, all hits that usually would apply to him, apply to the sender of the shot, in this case, this is you. You can only kill those enemies if you buy the anti-feature "No Got You".
Q: The game isn't running smoothly, is my computer too slow?

A: This may be the case. A chance to get the problem solved is if you are running the high version. The high version uses very big textures that may be too much for your video card (you should have at least a Geforce 2 GTS for the high version). You may download the normal ersion then to get a better performance.
Also make sure that your detail level in your settings isn't set to a too high level.
Q: During start of the game engine I get the message "Fatal Error! One of the required GL extensions isnt supported!"

A: Maybe your video card isn't capable of providing all required features the game needs. At least a TNT2 is required to run the game. If you have a graphics card that fulfills what the game needs and you still have problems, reinstalling the openGL driver may help you out here.
Q: How do I set up my own LAN with my friends?

A: You need to download the T-Game.Net server, available both for Windows and Linux. Don't care about where you run the server, WinMaze and the server work very well together on the same machine.
Disclaimer
WinMaze is copyright (C) 2002-2003 by Nils Ingo Leif Schneider. The program is intended to be a freeware product and it is also intended that the program is spread. You may spread the program to everyone you know, you are allowed to include the program on freeware and shareware websites and you are also allowed to include the program on CDs and DVDs or any other data media which goal is to spread free software. The condition is that the whole WinMaze package is NOT modified in any way.
The program is provided AS IS! I'm not responsible for any damage that may result by using / abusing or not using the software. Use the program at your own risk.