## Critical Mass (aka Critter)

Your world has been infested by an aggressive army of space critters. Overrun and unprepared, your government was unable to defend its precious resources. As a last effort to recapture some of the 'goodies', you have been placed into a tiny spacecraft and sent after them. Critical Mass (aka Critter) is a shoot'em up (smup) similar to Galaxian. The basic idea is simple: you move your ship back and forth at the bottom of the screen, shooting up, while bad guys fly around and shoot at you.

### Running:

If you haven't already done so, just run Critter! A config file will be created the first time you exit the game.

#### Mac OS X

> The config file is called config.txt and will be created in your $(HOME)/.critter/ directory.
> Double clicking on GoConfigDirectory.command will automatically open the config directory in the Finder. You can then open the config.txt file in your favorite text editor.

####

#### Linux

> The config file is called config.txt and will be created in your $(HOME)/.critter/ directory.
> A note about sound in RedHat and FedoraCore: If you find sound to be lagging, start Critter with the SDL_AUDIODRIVER set to "alsa" or "dma" (for bourne shell: "export SDL_AUDIODRIVER=alsa"). Unfortunately, some distributions ship with a patched SDL library that is not game friendly. Note the the binary zip package from SourceForge contains all the original non-patched libraries.

#### Windows

> The config file is called config.txt and will be created in the directory where Critter is started.

You can edit the config.txt file to change resolution, fullscreen mode, etc. Or you can specify it on the command line. When Critter exits it will write the current configuration to the config file. Many of the settings can also be changed within the game (See Config menu).

### Video Resolution:

You can select the most common video resolutions via the in-game config menu. It is possible to run Critter at any resolution by editing the config.txt file. By default the game will reject resolutions that that don't have an aspect ration of 4/3 e.g. widescreen displays. Non 4/3 resolutions can be enabled in the config menu. The downside is that things may look a little stretched. In the latest version, the game will automatically add all resolutions supported by SDL (OpenGL/fullscreen). To add a new resolution, simply add it to the end of the line containing "set resolutions = 1600x1200,1280x960,1152x864,1024x768,800x600,640x480,512x384". After saving the file and restarting Critter, the new resolution will be available in the in-game config menu. Be careful not to switch to a resolution you monitor does not support! You have been warned.

### Keyboard/Mouse Controls:

The default action bindings are:

PrimaryFire | SPACE | Fire!
PrimaryFire | MOUSEBUTTON1 | Fire!
SecondaryFire | LALT | Fire!
SecondaryFire | MOUSEBUTTON2 | Fire!
TertiaryFire | LCTRL | Fire or Bark!
TertiaryFire | MOUSEBUTTON3 | Fire or Bark!
Motion | MOTION | Move via Mouse
MotionUp | UP | Move up
MotionRight | RIGHT | Move right
Confirm | RETURN | Confirm selection
EscapeAction | ESCAPE | Cancel selection
CritterBoard | TAB | Show/Hide CritterBoard
Snapshot | F12 | Take snapshow (snapNN.png)
PauseGame | p | Pause game
ChangeContext | c | Toggle locked-in / Mouse-look style (for developer)

Go to http://criticalmass.sourceforge.net/ for the latest news, email info, etc.

Have fun,
Frank (crittermail2005 at telus dot net).

Copyright (C) 2001-2005 by Frank Becker