PUCK RUSH
=========

An audio game of air hockey. There are no graphics: you play it entirely by
ear, with your screen reader.

You have a paddle at your end of the table and your opponent has one at
theirs. The puck goes back and forth until somebody misses. What you hear is
the puck - further left or right the further it is from the middle, quieter
the further away it is - and the wall it bounces off tells you by its pitch
how far down the table that happened. You hear your opponent moving too, so
listen to where they are standing before you decide where to aim.

Every hit makes the puck faster and the angles wider, so a long rally gets
genuinely hard to read.


WHAT IS IN THE FOLDER
---------------------

    PuckRush.exe      the game
    README.txt        this
    CHANGELOG.txt     what changed in each version
    data/             the game's own files - nothing you need to open

Your settings, your saved login and your key bindings live in
%APPDATA%\PuckRush, not here, so the game folder stays as it came. Deleting
that folder resets the game to how it was the day you installed it.


CONTROLS
--------

    left / right arrow (or A/D, J/L)  move your paddle
    space (or enter)                  serve, and hit the puck back
    S                                 read the score
    X                                 read all three positions
    P                                 pause (offline matches)
    E                                 echo location on/off
    ; ' or T                          chat (network matches)
    /                                 chat, starting a command
    F1                                match menu
    F7                                how long the server has been up
    page up / page down               music volume, anywhere in the game
    escape                            leave the match

Second player on the same keyboard: J and L to move, K to hit.

Menus: arrows to move, left and right to change a value, enter to choose,
escape to go back, tab to re-read the title, home and end to jump.

Text boxes are editable: left and right walk the line character by character
and speak it, ctrl with them moves by word, home and end jump, backspace and
delete remove either side of the cursor, up reads the whole line back, down
says how many characters are in it, ctrl+C and ctrl+V copy and paste, alt+C
clears. Capital letters are announced as "cap" and the letter, so you can
tell what you actually typed. Boxes that only want numbers, like a
verification code, ignore everything else.

Every key can be rebound in the settings.


HOW THE MATCH WORKS
-------------------

* You serve by pressing space while the puck is on your paddle. Hold left or
  right as you serve to angle it.
* When the puck reaches your goal line you must be within reach of it AND
  have pressed hit in the last third of a second. Turn "automatic return" on
  in the settings if you would rather only worry about position.
* Every paddle hit makes the puck faster and the angles wider.
* Sit on a serve for fifteen seconds and the point goes to your opponent.
* First to the chosen score, two clear points ahead.

Arcade mode adds two things, rolled on every paddle hit:

* a shield behind one of the players that bounces the puck back for ten
  seconds instead of letting it in,
* an invisible puck: the rolling sound cuts out until the next hit, and you
  are playing on memory and timing alone.


WAYS TO PLAY
------------

* Against the computer, at six difficulty levels.
* Two people on one keyboard.
* Over your own network. Games announce themselves, so joining usually needs
  no typing at all - the game lists whoever it found.
* Online, with accounts, a lobby, ranking and live spectating.


ONLINE
------

ACCOUNTS

Make an account with a name, a password and a real e-mail address, all on one
screen. A six digit code arrives to confirm it; the account cannot play until
that code is typed in, and codes last fifteen minutes. One e-mail address
holds one account.

After the first sign-in the game remembers you, so the account menu leads
with "Log in as <your name>" in a single keypress. Password boxes always come
up empty - the saved password is used without ever being shown, so a shared
computer never hands your password to the next person at it.

Lost your password? "Reset my password" on the account menu sends a code to
your address.

The game knows where its own server is, so there is nothing to type or
configure - pick Online and it connects.

THE LOBBY

Signing in puts you in a room. You can walk around it with the arrow keys
while you wait for somebody - you hear your own footsteps and everybody
else's, and the walls stop you - and the menu opens from wherever you are
standing.

    arrow keys   walk about
    enter        the menu: games, who is online, a match against the
                 computer (starts straight away on your last settings),
                 the ranking, your statistics, your account
    C            where you are standing
    P            who else is in the room, and how far off
    ; ' or T     say something to everyone
    /            say something, starting a command
    F1           help
    escape       leave the lobby

GAMES

Enter opens the games list. Create one and you are its host; it can carry a
password, and locked games say so in the list. Inside a game:

    enter        host menu (or the player list if you are not the host)
    ;            chat to the game
    P            who is here
    W            watch the match that is running
    escape       leave

The host owns the game: choose who plays, start the match when you are ready,
change the settings or the password, remove someone, hand the game to another
player, or close it. Everyone else in the game can listen to the match live.

Semicolon is the chat key everywhere, including during a match.

Ratings are Elo: you gain more for beating a stronger player.

CHAT COMMANDS

A message that starts with a slash is a command:

    /who /games /stats <name> /ranking /motd /uptime (or just press F7)
    /pm <name> <message>
    /myemail /changemyemail <address> /confirmemail <code>

/help lists the ones you can use.


MESSAGE BUFFERS
---------------

Everything the game says in passing - chat, who arrived, who won, notices
from the server - is kept in a buffer you can read back instead of losing it
the moment it is spoken. There are four: everything, chat, games and server.

    [ and ]        previous / next buffer
    , and .        previous / next line in the one you are on
    shift with them  first / last line
    backslash      say which buffer you are on and where
    ctrl+C         copy the line you are on

These work anywhere in the game, including in the middle of a match - except
while you are typing, where a comma is just a comma.


SETTINGS
--------

Language (English and Polish), master, music, announcer and step volumes,
automatic return, echo location, whether to show the game window, the audio
device, and full key rebinding.

Music volume is also on page up and page down from any screen in the game,
and it is remembered.


UPDATES
-------

"Check for updates" on the main menu tells you the version, what changed and
how big the download is before asking. While it downloads, a beep climbs as
it fills up, space says the exact figure and roughly how long is left, and
escape stops it. Nothing freezes while it runs.


IF SOMETHING IS WRONG
---------------------

The game says nothing at all
    It falls back to printing if it cannot find your screen reader. Make sure
    NVDA or JAWS is running before you start it.

No sound, or sound on the wrong device
    Settings, audio device. Change it and the game switches straight away.

Online will not connect
    Everything except online play works without a server: the computer
    opponent, two players on one keyboard and network games. If the lobby is
    down, that is the server rather than your copy of the game.

The game will not start at all
    Unzip it somewhere you can write to - your desktop or documents rather
    than Program Files - and try again.
