Spawns of Deflebub - Readme File

General introduction:

Hi kids and kid-essences! This is Doktor Luderkraft emitting straight from the abyssal environs of the ghastly Castle Luderholm. Here, at your perusal and astonishment, lie the unfathomable breeding grounds of the Elder Gods, the hatchlings eagerly learning the unearthly angles of Mysto-Space. I have personally devised a game of unsacred deflectionary bent, which - by repeated exposure - warps these infants to a raging Blind Idiot God -demeanor, ready to spread cosmic horror throughout the universe.

To fund these breeding grounds of unbounded godledicookery, I used to sell toy-kits (through a trusted name in toy industry - a mere facade, though) similar to this Ballgame that Dares not to Speak its Name. This had the added benefit of perverting the opportune specimens from countless young, the herd (you know, humans and such).

However, the kids these days are rather jaded, and have grown weary of the rather useful opiate called plastic, which has efficiently been used for mind control over the recent decades. So, I have hired a group of molemen from the depths of Hollow Earth, as an affront for my digital enterprises (this LudoCraft thingy). Molemen speak Fortran as their native language, and are thus naturally proficient with all computers. Already, LudoCraft has made several offerings to the Elder Gods, creating bubble realities that will eventually sap away all that humans hold dear and concrete: Milk cartons will melt away to outer space! The innocent fish will grow perverse and gigantic and speak of ancient things at length! Earth is just a huge marshmallow... and Azathoth is the eternal, universal camp master by THE FIERY, ROASTING WRATH THAT IS THE CENTER OF THIS MINDLESS UNIVERSE!!!!

[A spat of loud, hacksaw-like coughing follows]

…Anyway, this product is the latest baby-step along the path of total perversion of this puny planet Earth. As you play this masterpiece, your mind will trace the outlines of the Elder Gods, haunting behind the very soil you take your solace on. You WILL be tainted, impure, as that is my will! So, kids - game on... game on, and succumb.

The game features:

Gameplay: A perverted spawn of dodgeball, pinball, billiards and breakout - among others
Retro style atmosphere with whizz-bang visuals, models and sounds. The player controls the spawn of the up-and-coming Elder Gods in unfathomable mazes inside mind-warping bubbles of reality! (The Elder Gods originate from the vast seas of space, hence they resemble common sea creatures.)
Nine maps representing the primary patterns of the Elder God mind.
Sound: Retro sounds with semi-musical undercurrents (at least if you like the kind of soft-synth stuff they make in Japan).
The game is designed for Internet/LAN multiplayer games – hence, its multiplayer only.

Requirements and Installation

You need a retail version of Unreal Tournament 2004 to be able to play Spawns of Deflebub. Your UT2004 must be also patched to the latest version v 3369 which can be downloaded from here. The installed game files require 222 MB hard drive space.

Installation instructions:

Double-click the file deflebub_setup.exe file
To uninstall use the uninstallation shortcut.

Getting started

Starting Spawns of Deflebub

You can start Spawns of Deflebub from the shortcut created during the installation to the Windows Start Menu.

You can also use any of the following alternate methods:

Alternate method 1) Start UT2004 normally, go to the Community menu->User mods, selecting Spawns of Deflebub from the list and pressing the Activate button
Alternate method 2) Browse to UT2004\Deflebub folder and execute the Deflebub.bat file.

Controls

In Spawns of Deflebub you control a game character, either an octopus or a fishbone. The controls mostly use the same keyboard settings as normal UT2004. The critical controls are:

Movement keys (forward, backward, strafe left, strafe right)
Action keys (normal fire for building tiles, alt fire for shooting a ball)
Mouse wheel for zooming in and out

In addition, mouse is used to control the point of view. The fire button (normally mapped left mouse click) builds a tile in front of the game character. The alt fire button (normally mapped to right mouse click) shoots a ball that bounces from the walls and tiles in the level.

Game objectives

The objective here is simple: Hit the opposing team’s players with a ball by bouncing it from any tile or wall. You will get points when the ball has bounced from one or more walls or tiles and hits another team’s player - more bounces, more points (1 to 4 points to be exact). Shooting straight towards a player will not give you any points. At all times avoid the balls, and their possible trails (also your own). You will loose points if a ball hits you or another player of your own team.

Build walls to protect yourself and to create bounce-targets for your shots. You can also use walls to trap other players, and to create shooting alleys and otherwise dangerous areas to hinder the other players.

Success depends on tactical communication, team cooperation and synchronization of the team’s actions.

Each player will have five individual balls in the beginning of each level. In a normal game-play situation, a player can play only one ball at a time - shoot another, and the previous one disappears. Collecting an ammo token will give five balls to each member of your team (note that the maximum number of balls you can holds is also five). You can also collect powerups to increase ball speed (speedball, ultraspeed), shoot through tiles (piercing ball), gain a lethal trail for your balls (trailball) or shoot multiple balls at the same time (multiball).

HUD

The HUD contains the following items:

Scores of both teams and scorelimit
Ballcount
Time limit
Personal score
Active powerups

Setting up Spawns of Deflebub Dedicated Server

Setting up Spawns of Deflebub dedicated server is a straightforward operation. First you need to have a UT2004 version 3369 installed on your server machine. After this you should install Spawns of Deflebub normally to your server, see Requirements and Installation section located on top of this document how to do it.

After the installation, you should have UT2004\Deflebub folder containing the Spawns of Deflebub game folders and files.

Starting server

There is a bat file inside UT2004\Deflebub folder named DeflebubServer.bat and by running it you start a dedicated server on your machine. If you are using Linux or don't just want to run the bat file, the command for starting the server is the following. You should run the command from the Ut2004\System folder.

ucc.exe server BLO-Linelines.ut2?game=LCBlobs.BLOGameInfo -log=BLOserver.log -MOD=Deflebub

INI files

Unless specified otherwise, the dedicated server uses UT2004\Deflebub\Deflebub.ini file for the settings file of the server. The file will be generated automatically first time you start the server. There is good documentation at the Unreal Admins page about UT servers and how to configure them correctly.

Credits

LudoCraft Game Design and Research Team

Game Design
LudoCraft

Team Leader & Producer
Tony Manninen

Game Concept & Art & Audio Design
Pekko Koskinen

Lead Programmer & Developer
Tuomo Korva

Art Design
Tomi Hurskainen

Level & Art Design
Heikki Korva

3D Models & Animation
Tomi Kujanpää

Animation & 3D Models
Laura Vallius

Play Testing
Mikael Latva, Mikko Rajanen

2006
ludocraft.oulu.fi/deflebub/
University of Oulu - Department of Information Processing Science

Contact information: