			Seven Weeks: a 7DRL

Seven Weeks is a 7DRL written in Java about a cat burglar. It focuses heavily
on movement and stealth rather than combat and is set in a mostly unspecified
science fiction setting.

HOW TO GET THE GAME RUNNING
	Seven Weeks is written in Java and packaged in a JAR file.

	Users who wonder how to start the application should most likely
	use one of the batch files for Windows;
		Seven Weeks Fullscreen.bat
		Seven Weeks Windowed.bat

	Seven Weeks is meant to be cross-platform, but I haven't tested it
	on any platform but Windows yet. If anyone has any troubles
	getting it running on any other platform to which Java has been
	ported, I'll try my best to release a post-seven-days patched version
	for them.

HOW TO PLAY
	Play through the tutorial to learn how to play.
	(You start the tutorial by typing 'T' at the main menu.)

	Read the author's newsgroup post to understand more about the game.
	(This being a 7DRL, this document is being written under a time
	limit - the newsgroup post won't be as limited.)

HOW TO WIN
	Play through seventeen missions without incident to "win" the game.

	Winning itself is no spectacular feat: the game is about maximizing
	your score. To do so, you must choose juicier, more risky targets,
	and obviously survive through as many missions as possible.

ANTICIPATED QUESTIONS
	Q:	So, who are you?
	A:	I'm an occasional lurker and first-time poster to RGRD.
		This is my first attempt at a roguelike, seven days or not.
		:)

	Q:	Is the source available?
	A:	Yes, but be warned that it's very ugly. See the newsgroup
		post.

	Q:	Some of these levels are very hard! How can anyone possibly
		play through them?
	A:	Theoretically, some levels might be impossible to finish.
		This is an artifact of the level generation algorithm
		having been put together in a hurry and the game not having
		been extensively playtested. You can always safely escape a
		horrible level, since you start next to an exit.
	
	Q:	Some of these levels are laughably easy!
	A:	The excuses are as above. If a level is too easy, simply
		clear out all the pocket change and make sure not to select
		levels of that difficulty again.

	Q:	Did the game just freeze on me?
	Q:	Level generation is slow.
	Q:	Line-of-sight calculation has very strange results and is
		very slow. (Notable example: the tutorial level.)
	A:	True. That's the sort of thing that happens(at least to me)
		when one forces oneself to make a game in seven days sharp.
		(Of course, if the game actually FROZE on you and never
		responded again, something might've been wrong.)

	Q:	Ugh! This code is HORRIBLE.
	A:	See above.

	Q:	What's a good score for a beginner?
	A:	I honestly don't know, having tweaked balance until the end.
		Let's hope someone posts their experiences to the newsgroup!
		If you want really comparable scores, try playing with
		some specific seed and comparing yourself to other people
		who have played the same game. There are NO random elements
		within the game, so this should be a very fair comparison.

	Q:	What's the purpose of requiring the player to specify gender?
	A:	I felt some personal pronoun-related grammar was required 
		for the game to feel like a roguelike. That, sadly, was
		reduced to one conditional at the high score screen.

	Q:	Seventeen missions? Isn't that a bit much?
	A:	The number was honestly chosen to add up to about seven
		weeks. (Seven days for me, seven weeks for our anti-hero.)
		You have noticed that there are automatic savegames?
		You don't have to play them all at once - just enter the
		same name and gender the next time you play and you'll
		start where you left off.

	Q:	What's with the addresses?
	A:	The addresses are seeds for the PRNG. If you find a buggy
		level, or just an interesting one, you can reproduce it
		later by entering the same address. (The last randomly
		generated level is also saved as
		level/LastGeneratedLevel.level).

	Q:	Hey, the level format is human-readable!
	A:	Yes, it is. It was my intention to make a couple of clever
		levels by hand, but I never got further than making the
		tutorial.

	Q:	Four viewports? How.. confusing.
	A:	Hey, there's not even an inventory or a combat system.
		Give it a chance. (And make GOOD use of the scroll feature
		if you want to succeed, as well as the 'x' key.)

	Q:	Some of these robots don't do anything at all when they've
		found me.
	A:	Not all of them are "combat" models. Some are just sensors-
		on-wheels(or hanging-from-ceilings) out to find you and
		call attention to you. Models that are equipped with a weapon
		need to see you(not just sense your heat) to actually shoot 
		at you, so it's worthwhile to escape visual attention by
		crawling or ceiling-climbing.


	Q:	What does it mean that a house is a "public building"?
	A:	It starts out fully explored, because it's assumed that
		the player character has visited it in advance.
		Naturally, this decreases the security rating of the house
		somewhat.

	Q:	The font is too small/too large/ugly.
	A:	You can substitute your own font by putting PNGs containing
		16x16 ASCII characters(not all are used) in place of those
		in the "font" directory.

	Q:	So how does our hero know exactly when the police are going
		to storm in?
	A:	I guess he carries a police radio, or some futuristic
		equivalent. The game would be HOPELESSLY arbitrary without
		that element.

ANYTHING ELSE?
	See the newsgroup post.
