Molecule Man

20th Sep 2003

There isn't any news. I've been working on Jammer, so haven't spent any time on Molecule Man. Still, at least no-one's emailed me with any bugs ....

24th May 2003

Molecule Man V0.92 is now available. The only notable change from V0.91 is the addition of a sound configuration dialog to the game. Now you add your own sounds without having to hand-edit the sounds.ini file.

15th May 2003

Molecule Man V0.91 is now available for both Windows and Linux. Changes from V0.9 to V0.91 are:

sounds are now produced using the SDL libraries in Linux

created a new console app to generate the sounds under Linux. (SDL wouldn't work with form based apps for some reason, so I had to resort to using a separate program for sound generation. It's a horrible hack, but at least it works ...)

lots more sounds added to the game

fixed a bug which made the game impossible to complete. Ooops!

Molecule Man is a 3d isometric maze game I originally wrote for the ZX Spectrum back in 1986. It was released by Mastertronic and converted for other computers such as the Commodore 64 and Amstrad CPC, and shipped with a program that allowed you to completely change the layout of the maze.

I've now rewritten the game for the PC and released it as open source under the GNU General Public License (see link below). Essentially it means that you're free to download the source code and make any changes you like, as long as the resulting source code is also made freely available.

The new version of Molecule Man was written using the open edition of Kylix from Borland - a Linux version of their Delphi product. Thanks to the cross-platform capabilities of Kylix and Delphi, Molecule Man is now available for both Linux and Windows.

Links:

Screenshots of the old and new versions of Molecule Man are available by clicking below.

Download links for the latest versions (V0.91) of the source code and a pre-compiled executable are given below. Linux users, if you download the executable, you'll also need the Kylix OE libraries. Windows users will need the QT interface dll.

Note that to compile the program you'll obviously need a copy of Kylix or Delphi. The source code will load and compile in each. The open edition of Kylix is a free download from Borland.

Molecule Man on Linux uses the SDL libraries for generating the in-game sounds so Kylix users will also need to visit the Jedi-SDL homepage to download the necessary headers. The SDL libraries are widely used and are included with most Linux distributions, but can also be downloaded and installed from the libsdl website.

To install the source code, follow these instructions ...

create a directory for the source code e.g. mkdir ~./molman_src

cd to that directory

untar the source code archive e.g. tar -xvzf <path to archive>molman_src_V0.92.tgz

Then fire up Kylix and load the MoleculeMan.bpg project.

To install the executable create a directory e.g. mkdir ~./molman

cd to that directory

untar the executable archive e.g. tar -xvzf <path to archive>linuxmolman_V0.92.tgz

To run the game, execute the molman command. To run the maze designer, execute the Designer command.

Don't forget to install the Kylix OE libraries. Installation instructions are in the download file.

To install the source code, follow these instructions ...

create a folder for the source code

use WinZip or a similar program to unzip the source code archive into the folder

Then fire up Delphi and load the molman or Designer projects.

To install the executable create a folder and unzip the executable archive into the folder

Copy the qtintf70.dll file into the directory

To run Molecule Man or the maze designer, open the folder containing the programs in explorer, and double click on the molman or designer programs ...

The most obvious way to configure the game is to use the maze designer supplied with Molecule Man to completely change the layout of the game. You can either edit the maze supplied with the game, or create a completely new one of your own. Once you've saved your maze, you can then load it into Molecule Man by selecting the relevant menu option. Note that to complete the game, you must have collected all of the circuits in the maze before you step on the teleporter square.

You can also configure the game in other ways. For example, you can add your own graphics to the game, or replace the existing ones with a brand new set. Take a look at the molgraphics.ini file that comes with the game - at the top it specifies the number of graphics within the game (you'll need to change this is you add or remove graphics) and which ones are Molecule Man and the circuits he has to collect. Following this are sections specifying properties each of the graphics e.g. the filename, whether or not they can be blown up by bombs etc. For animated graphics, you can also specify the number of frames of animation, and the filenames of each frame. Each graphic that you add should be saved as a .xpm file and be 64x64 pixels in size. You can increase the height and use taller graphics, but you'll have to change the height specifier in the ini file.

You can also change the layout of the status area of the game i.e. the time remaining indicator, the number of pills left etc. This is controlled by the panel.ini file. It specifies the number of lines which are drawn to form a border around around the play area, their thickness, colour and positions. It also specifies the graphics used for the status indicators (allowing you to use your own) and where they appear on screen. Finally, it also specifies the font colour, font size and positions of each of items of the status items.

The molman.ini file controls various game options. By editing this, you can change the amount of time remaining when the game starts, and how quickly it counts down. You can also change the initial number of pills Molecule Man has and how quickly they are used up. Other options allow you to specify the initial number of bombs and coins Molecule Man starts the game with, and the number of pills and bombs each coin buys. The ini file also specifies the keys used in the game, but it's easier to use the redefine keys option within the game to change them.

With V0.92 there's an option in the game which allows you to change the sounds used. Now you can use your own sounds for the clock tick, buy, use bomb etc events. You can also change the ambient sounds that appear at random intervals during the game, and how often they play. Linux users need to bear a few things in mind

1 the sounds must be sampled at a rate 22050Hz, mono, and 8 bit. You can use the sox program to convert your wav files to this format.

2. after you've configured the sounds, you must restart the game for them to take effect.

3. an external program is used to preview the sounds in the sound configuration dialog. By default, this is artsplay, but if you don't have this, you can edit the sounds.ini file and change the soundpreview option to another suitable program (e.g. esdplay, wavplay, playwav etc).

From all this you can see that it's possible to completely change the look and feel of the game.

Fix bugs as I find them

Add an option to sound configutation to turn sound off completely.

Find out why SDL doesn't work with form based programs in Kylix, and fix it.

Think of some more things to put here.

If you want to play the original ZX Spectrum version of Molecule Man, the World of Spectrum website is the place to go. As well as Molecule Man and thousands of other games, you can download Spectrum emulators for many different computers and operating systems, Windows, Linux, Mac etc.

Alternatively, if you have a Java enabled browser you can play online.

Find any bugs, have some suggestions, or just think its crap, let me know ...