welcome to mousepursuit
 
 
the game
 You are a mouse.  You like cheese.  You also dislike smashing into things.  Your goal is to race through the 3 levels as quickly as possible, collecting as many cheese cubes as you can.  Imagine there is a hungry cat following you.  This is why it is important to go fast.  Also, if you do not go fast, your friends will think you are a sucky wuss, and you will receive a disparagingly low score.  To reach the finish line, you must avoid crashing into obstacles, which are deviously laid out to impede you.

the keys (also spelled in on the intro screen):
's' to start
'q' to quit

'f' to speed up
'v' to slow down
space to jump
mouse to move left and right

binaries and source
 download the executable to mousepursuit here.
 download the source to mousepursuit here.
 mousepursuit was written for windows NT4.  however, it runs in win98 and win2k.
 mousepursuit doesnt use any windows-specific features, so with some hacking, it
 should run on any GL and GLUT compatable system.

install info
 mousepursuit was written in microsoft visual c++.  therefore, unless you want to muck around, just unzip the source archive into a folder, open the .dsp file (allow VC++ to use the .dsw as the workspace, and choose the mousepursuit.dsp that it prompts you for), hit F7, and you're on your way to happiness.  i've had the openGL link barf sometimes.  i dont know why.  it's very frustrating.  you get a million link errors, and the thing doesnt build.  hitting F7 again builds fine.  so, just do it twice if that happens.  somehow, the project forgets to link the openGL stuff, but when you build again, it remembers.  but, if it compiles fine, ignore this.

 the executable mousepursuit.exe is in the Release directory where you unzipped the source.  run it and enjoy.  3 files will be created (level_1, level_2, level_3).  keep them with the program.  ignore the billions of warnings that come up.  the compiler is just freaking out about all the const double to float conversions that i was too stubborn to take care of.  if it doesnt work, throw your hands in the air and email me.

important stuff
 mousepursuit runs in a roughly 1000x700 window.  so if you arent running at 1024x768 at 32bpp, you're hosed.  also, your win95/98/NT4/2000 box needs to have full openGL support.  and GLUT libraries too.  the cs148 windows programming instructions will set you up fine. when you run it, before you hit the start key, make sure the window is fully visible.  also, since i suck at windows programming, if the cursor leaves the window, you can't control the little mouse.  so keep the cursor in the window.  mousepursuit has only been tested on winNT and win98, but it should run elsewhere.
 

misc info
 Mousepursuit is a pretty straight openGL application.  It uses a range of C++, openGL and GLUT features:

*Directional lighting
*Ambient and diffuse surface materials
*Manual distance clipping
*Heavily object-oriented architechture
*GLUT stroke fonts, both on a static 2d plane as well as within the 3d space
*Rate controlled frame refresh (uses the rubik's timer)

 I intended the game to take place in 3d space, but to consist of primarily 2d forms.  Since the game is (essentially) a one dimensional race, the models for the obstacles and cheese did not need to be particularly complex.  The action of the obstacles and cheese is also rate controlled.
 

mousepursuit was conceived and written by chris mcgraw.  do what you will with the source, but just tell them that i wrote it.  unless they think it sucks, in which case you can tell them that i wrote it and that they can go soak their heads.
cmcgraw@stanford.edu, 2000