Zed and Ginger

    A cat runs!
    See the cat run!
    Why does the cat run?
    ...To get to the end, of course.

A single-player game of a cat running along a corridor in a space station just for the joy of it. Inspired by the classic arcade/8-/16-bit game, Metro-Cross.

Created using Ruby and the Ray gem.

License: GPL v3
Website: http://spooner.github.com/games/zed_and_ginger
Author: Bil Bas (http://spooner.github.com) (bil dot bagpuss {at} gmail.com)

Requirements

• Since the game is implemented in a high level language, Ruby, it is significantly more CPU-bound than GPU-bound. That said, it should run well on a 1.5GHz machine and might be playable on slower machines.
• The game uses OpenGL shaders and so must be run with a graphics card that at least supports shaders (A card that supports Shader Model 2.0 should be fine; I don’t use any new features).
• Game is known not to work with Intel integrated graphics (Anything better than that should really work :D).

Running the game

Runs in a 768×480 window by default, but can be resized (larger or smaller) or run at native resolution (full-screen).

Windows

• Run the executable:
  

      zed_and_ginger.exe

OS X

Run from source:

• Ruby 1.9.2 or higher
• Ensure that GLEW and libsndfile are installed:
  

     port install glew libsndfile

  or
  

     brew install glew libsndfile

• Install bundler Ruby gem:
  

      sudo gem install bundler

• Install Ruby gem dependencies from within the zed_and_ginger directory:
  

      sudo bundle install

• Run the executable script:
  

      ruby bin\zed_and_ginger.rbw

Linux

Run from source:

• Ruby 1.9.2 or higher
• Ensure that GLEW, libsndfile, Freetype, Xlib, OpenAL and OpenGL are installed:
  – Kubuntu (Should work for Ubuntu and Debian variants):
  

        sudo apt-get install libglew1.6-dev libsndfile1-dev libfreetype6-dev libopenal-dev

  
  – Archlinux:
  

        sudo pacman -S glew libsndfile freetype2 openal

• Install bundler Ruby gem:
  

      sudo gem install bundler

• Install Ruby gem dependencies from within the zed_and_ginger directory:
  

      sudo bundle install

• Run the executable script:
  

      ruby bin\zed_and_ginger.rbw

How to play the game

• Player 1 (Zed) – WASD + space to jump.
• Player 2 (Ginger) – Arrows and Enter/Return to jump.

Keys can be configured in-game, in Controls.

Scoring

The 100 best scores for each level are stored online. The game also stores your personal best score, so that you can
still advance your score if playing offline (and so you don’t have to compete directly with others if you are terrible
at the game, like the author is).

Scores for each level are readable online at GAMERCV

During a level

• Each tile crossed: 50 points
• Hyper-speed pill eaten: 500 points
• Giant ratoid chased (touched it): 250 points
• Giant ratoid eaten (landed on it): 1000 points + 1 second of extra time

After completing a level

• Remaining time: 2000 points per second
• Hardcore mode: + 20%
• Inversion mode: + 20%

Where to get a copy of the game from

• Downloads and feedback (TIGSource forum): http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=20797
• Project: http://github.com/Spooner/zed_and_ginger
• Repository: git://github.com/Spooner/zed_and_ginger.git

External assets

• Ray (game-making library) [Included in executable versions].
• Original music by Maverick.
• 2D simplex noise function for GLSL copyright © 2011 Ashima Arts (Ian McEwan) under MIT license.
• High-scores hosted by Ippa at GAMERCV

Tools used

• Ruby 1.9.3
• Developed using JetBrains RubyMine IDE
• Graphics created with GIMP
• Sound effects created using bfxr and converted using Audacity
• Windows executable created with the Ocra.

Credits

• Many thanks to Mon-ouie for making the Ray library and generally putting up with me asking dumb questions about it.
• Thanks to kyrylo for helping debug the Linux port.
• Thanks to BlueScope, eigenbom, Fowl (& sister), Ippa, jlnr, Mon-ouie, Peter Cakebread (& family) and SiliconEidolon for play-testing and comments.

License

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.

Full text of the license is provided in COPYING.txt