____  Copyright (C) Dan Garcia, 2005. All rights rsvd : A finite, two-person,
 / ___| __ _ _ __ ___   ___  ___ _ __ ___   __ _ _ __   : perfect-information
| |  _ / _` | '_ ` _ \ / _ \/ __| '_ ` _ \ / _` | '_ \  : game generator.
| |_| | (_| | | | | | |  __/\__ \ | | | | | (_| | | | | : 
 \____|\__,_|_| |_| |_|\___||___/_| |_| |_|\__,_|_| |_| : by Dan Garcia
                                                        : ddgarcia@cs \
http://gamescrafters.berkeley.edu                       : .berkeley.edu 
...............................................................................

INTRODUCTION
============

   Welcome to GAMESMAN! Hopefully this will provide a quick summary of what
you need to know to build and play with this remarkable system. Feel free
to read through my thesis (available at the URL above) to find out more about
the inner workings of the system and to read more up on the games themselves.
In general, GAMESMAN is provided to allow the interested game theorist to:

* Learn new games interactively
* Explore how changing the rules affects the play of the games.
* Teach themselves strategies of the game with the "Value Moves" option.
* Program in new games (modules) and add them to the Gamesman database.

GAMES
=====

The games packaged with this distribution are:

* 1210 (Inline nim) Available in both X-window & text versions
* 3spot (3-Spot) Available in both X-window & text versions
* achi (Achi) Available in both X-window & text versions
* blocking (Meta Game - Blocking) Available in text version only
* ctoi (Chung Toi) Available in both X-window & text versions
* win4 (Connect 4) Available in both X-window & text versions
* con (Connections) Available in both X-window & text versions
* cmass (Critical Mass) Available in both X-window & text versions 
* dodgem (from Winning Ways, p 685) Available in both X-window & text versions
* graph (general-purpose graph solver) Available in text version only
* iceblocks (Ice Blocks) Available in both X-window & text versions
* Lgame (The L Game) Available in both X-window & text versions
* lite3 (Lite 3) Available in both X-window & text versions
* mancala (Mancala) Available in both X-window & text versions
* tore (Mu Torere) Available in both X-window & text versions
* nim (Nim) Available in both X-window & text versions
* qx (Quick Cross) Available in both X-window & text versions
* rubix (Rubiks Magic) Available in both X-window & text versions
* stt (Shift-Tac-Toe) Available in both X-window & text versions
* sim (Sim) Available in both X-window & text versions
* slideN (SlideN) Available in both X-window & text versions
* snake (Snake) Available in both X-window & text versions
* tactix (2-D Nim) Available in both X-window & text versions
* ttt (Tic Tac Toe) Available in both X-window & text versions
* wuzhi (WuZhiQi) Available in both X-window & text versions

NEW 2003 FEATURES
=================
- by Sunil Ramesh

* Added Database capability
* Added goAgain (really Brian did!)
* Cleaned up versions of others

NEW 1999 FEATURES
=================

I spent some time this summer, and have finally put in the ability to:

* Solve loopy games (such as dodgem) correctly!
* Modify more game characteristics other than just standard / reverse.
* Verify if the game database is corrupted somehow (good for programmers)

BUILDING
========

Please refer to the "doc" folder for instructions to build GAMESMAN.

DEVELOPERS
==========

If you want to add a game to Gamesman, talk to me and I'll try to provide
you with help. Then I'll add your game to my system! Here are some games
which would fit in perfectly:

* Achi
* Fox and Geese (almost finished!)
* 5x5 Connect 4
* 5x5 Tic Tac Toe (middle is both X _and_ O)
* DeBono's Red/White/Blue and get to 12 game

PLAYING
=======

There's a top-level utility that takes care of all the graphical programs,
which is bin/XGamesman - just run that and click the buttons and it will
run the other programs. Each program should be self-explanatory, and they
have the same interface, which should make learning each new game easier.

I hope GAMESMAN provides you hours of enjoyment!

Dan Garcia
1999-08-26
UC Berkeley