In the “c:\program files\mXac\CircumRealty” directory, run the “Circumreality.exe” application.
The second time that you run CircumReality.exe, a pester-window appears requesting payment for the game. The game still works without paying, although some graphics-functionality and text-to-speech functionality is limited. Payment is NOT supported at the moment, since the game is unfinished.
Skip through to “Play the Trial version”.
You might (or might-not) be prompted with another HTML-like page (using my “Escarpment.dll” code, source-code included in mXacSourceCode.zip). This page prompts you for your user name.
Every person in the household would have a different user-name. Each user-name has an associated password-file. The password-file lets players play-in multiple CircumReality worlds, just like text-MUD players can use a MUD client to play in many different MUD-worlds. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUD)
If this window shows up, press “Create a new password file”.
Type in a user-name, such as “Test Now”.
Click “Next”.
A preferences screen, with preferences common to all CircumReality worlds appears.
Leave it unmodified, and press “Next” again.
When I pressed “Next”, somehow (I don’t remember programming it), my CircumReality game automatically logged onto my local server.
The following screen will appear in CircumReality.exe:
If you look on the “World Simulator” window, you will see that you are logged on:
Back in the game-client, scroll-through the “Rules of conduct” and press the “I agree to abide by these conditions” button.
CircumReality hosts its own HTML-like windows (provided through Escarpment.dll, in the mxacSourceCode.zip download). HTML-like pages WITHIN the game are critical for user-interface design (and flexibility)!
Select a race:
If you select “Show a (fe)male portrait”, the dialog-“tab” switches to “Chat” (I’ll show that later), and random portrait is displayed.
ALL of this is handled by the HTML-like displays for the windows, as well as the multi-core RENDERER built-into CircumReality.
Select a gender. (If the player has entered preferences to always use the same gender, then they are NOT asked this question.)
Type in the character’s name. If the player has selected a name that they always use, then the player will-not have to type in a name.
Since text-to-speech is used EVERYWHERE in the game, you should press “Speak my name” to hear what your chosen-name sounds like when it is mispronounced by text-to-speech.
Press “OK”.
On another planet
You begin the game on a different planet, from the main game-world. The game was supposed to end on the “different” planet. Since I only finished 20% of the content, the game does-not end... oh well.
The first thing that you might wish to do is increase (or decrease) the image-quality. There is an option at the top. You can also turn-off text-to-speech.
A higher image quality:
You look-around the room by clicking-and-dragging on the room image.
Your character defaults to a random face. To change your character’s face, click on your character’s image, underneath the room display:
Every “object” has a menu of 2-to-6 options, as well as a more-advanced, “What else can I do?” Click on “What else can I do?”
Oops! The appearance-changing option isn’t listed. I may have coded the character-image so that “Change my appearance” does-not appear in the menu until later.
In the edit box, type in the natural-language command, “Change my appearance”. (REMEMBER: The program is not-yet finished. The user-interface is INCOMPLETE and ROUGH.)
The following UI appears in the lower-right corner of the screen:
The most-fun way to change your character’s appearance is to press “Press this” link, to show a number of different images.
Click on an image you like.
Click on the “Keep this face” option.
Repeat until you find the best face for your character.
NOTE: I ONLY show the character’s head, since (a) it’s a lot-less work to 3-D model, and (b) this provides for better emotes.
Click on the “Book” image in the lower-left corner of the screen.
Move your mouse over the enlarged book-image, and click on the enlarged book-image. The cursor will show “Open
The book opens, but due to a user-interface bug, you only see the text as very-small, and unreadable. If you are actually playing-along, you will-have noticed a text-to-speech voice speaking-out narration such as “You open “My adventures in Amroth.””
To view the book enlarged, move your mouse-cursor to the top of the screen. An icon-menu will slide down; it is mostly filled with emote icons. Click on the “Zoom” tab:
The book is kind-of like a linking-book in the Myst series. It is also a journal, showing-you how you have affected the world, like the radio in Bethesda Game Studio’s Fallout 3. (THE RADIO FEATURE in Fallout is VERY-VERY COOL/IMPORTANT.) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallout_3, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myst_(series) )
You can have the book read to you by clicking on the text, where the mouse-pointer tooltip shows, “Read the right page of
To enter the world, press the “Enter the story” menu-option, visible in the menu on your right.
