FX-Repton User Manual

FX-Repton is a clone of the old BBC Micro Repton 3 game. It has been derived from KRepton, originally written by the author for KDE using the Qt toolkit.

I release the game under a GNU GPL license. If you like this program, you might send me a postcard from your hometown :-) at this address:

Sandro Sigala
Viale De Gasperi, 8
25041 Darfo Boario Terme (BS)
Italy

History

The original Repton 3 game was produced on the BBC Micro and was the third hit Repton game for Superior Software. The Repton game engine was developed by Matthew Atkinson.

The maps and graphics of the "Repton 3", "Repton around the world", "Repton thru time", "Life of Repton" episodes included in FX-Repton are copyright (c) 1986 Superior Software Ltd.

The first clone I wrote, in 1996, was Repton. It was a Linux-only version written using the low-level svgalib library. It was able to load the original .rep maps.

The second clone I wrote, in 1998, was KRepton. It was a rewrite of Repton, written using the Qt toolkit library for KDE 1.x. In KRepton I introduced a new, more flexible map file format. In version 2.0 (the last) a level editor was also included.

More information about the Repton games history and a selection of clones can be found at the Repton Appreciation Society site.

How to play

The only keys you need to use are the four arrow keys. The objective of the game is to collect all the diamonds (in the Repton 3 episodes, in the others the objects may change) and get the bomb before the time out.

The key bindings

Key	Description
F2	Restart the level
P	Pause the game
ESC	Minimize the game
Alt-X	Quit the game
Up	Move Repton up
Down	Move Repton down
Left	Move Repton left
Right	Move Repton right

Hints:

• If you wish to know what a single object is, you might find a brief description in the Legend Window, from the Help ? menu.
• The Map Window may give you some help during playing (in the Help ? menu, too).
• Please remember to annotate the password, once you have finished a level.
• If you do not like the graphics of a certain episode and/or you are more familiar with another scheme, during playing you can load the graphics from another episode by choosing it from the Episodes menu while keeping down the SHIFT key.

Development notes

FX-Repton was developed using free software only components and tools.

• The program itself is written in portable C++ thanks to the excellent FOX Toolkit.
• The development platform was Windows 98 using the Dev-C++ environment.
• The Windows executable was compiled with the MinGW version of the GNU CC compiler.
• The graphics were done with the GIMP image manipulation program.
• The installation distribution was created using the Inno Setup Compiler.

Credits

• Jasper Renow-Clarke <cm5hdjjr@bs41.staffs.ac.uk> for the help about reverse-engineering the BBC Micro Repton format and for the .rep maps. He wrote another Repton clone (for DOS). You might find a copy at the Repton Appreciation Society.
• George Russell <george.russell@clara.net> for feature suggestions.