This README.TXT file and the Q.COM program which it accompanies are
both copyrighted 1986 by Everett Kaser.  Neither file may be
redistributed in any fashion without the written consent of he who
holds the rights to copy.  Members of the kasergames mailing list
may use the program for their own pleasure.  All others must find
other means of pleasuring themselves.

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Q was a game that I started writing in November 1986.  It was designed
to run in CGA mode on an IBM PC compatible computer.  I've always been
fascinated with mazes, and had also been entranced by the video arcade
game Qix (hence the name of my game: Q... inventive, hmm?).  If you've
ever seen Qix, you'll see the inspiration for the Sparks that run around
the walls of the maze.  To hide the maze, I XOR draw lines from YOUR
starting point in the maze to all points on the outside perimeter of
the maze.  The XOR process of slightly overlapping lines creates a
"moire" pattern that I still find intriquing (my mind seems well adapted
to, and enjoys, PATTERNS, patterns of all sorts).

Anyway, the game never got finished (or even very far along).  For one
thing, I was beginning to get tired of "arcade" games by then (although
not quite done with them, as witness: Snarf, until 1990 or 1991), and
for two thing :-), I ran out of ideas of what to do with it.  I think
(looking back) that the problem was that the game really wanted to be
a puzzle game, but the Sparks and timer tried to make it an arcade
game, and I got distracted by other things before finding a resolution
to the problem.

So, this was where I left it (and where it will ever remain frozen
in the bytes of computer time).  The game is "playable" as is.  Just
run Q.COM (no other files are needed).  It's a DOS game, of course,
so it will take over the whole screen.  It starts with your "life line"
across the top of the screen, and the entire maze is hidden except
for the square in which you are located.  You use the four cursor keys
to control your movement.  Your job is to reveal the entire maze without
running out of your life line.  As soon as you make your first move,
the Sparks start running around the maze, one doing a "left-handed
wall-walk", the other doing a "right-handed wall-walk".  Anytime the
Sparks get close to you, they will shock you, freezing you in place
for a few seconds, and your life-line runs down while you're frozen
in place.  If you run out of life-line, the game is over.  The life-
line slowly replenishes itself as you continue to play.  When you
completely reveal the maze, you're rewarded with a whole new maze. :-)

The mazes are completely random.  That's it.  There's no more to the
game than that.  For such a simple thing, I still find it very
mesmerizing.  Once I start playing it, it's hard to stop until I
finally make a mistake where the two Sparks gang up on me and repeatedly
stun me "to death." :-)

Everett Kaser
July 7, 2001
