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               Episoder ver 2.1 by Charlie Wiederhold (c) 1996
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Thank you very much for trying out Episoder ver 2.1, the easiest and fastest
way to create your own episodes, and try out all those .MAPs you have been
downloading. Also, it is a VERY easy way to distribute your .MAP files in
one comprehensive .ZIP file. Just include a .SOD file (You will read about
that later) with the pack, and if the person who downloads it uses Episoder,
they can just load that .SOD file and quickly play all the files in your pack.

Before you begin, there are a couple of things you need to know.

The files you should get with this package:

EPISODER.EXE - The program that creates your new episodes
README.TXT - This info file

Installing Episoder:

Episoder can reside anywhere on your hard drive, but you will probably want
either put in where all your .MAP files are, or just in your Duke directory.
Before you begin, this is for Duke Nukem 3D Registered ONLY! Also, this is
a DOS based program, so if you are a Windoze addict, you'll just have to
go to the DOS prompt and deal with it. :^P

Ok, the only .MAP files you will have access to are the ones that are in the
same directory as Episoder. In order to play these MAP files, they must also
be in your Duke directory. I wish that could be changed... but the way the
.CON file works, you must have them in your Duke directory. So, it would
probably be best just to put it in your Duke directory. Secondly, Episoder
parses your USER.CON file, and only modifies the areas where the levels played
are concerned. So, you can still have your super powered shotgun, and play the
new levels. So you will need your USER.CON in the same directory as Episoder.
If there is no USER.CON available, Episoder will create it's own with the
default settings.

When you run Episoder, it creates files called .SOD files. (The name comes
from EpiSODE. Get it? Silly, but if you can think of a better name then I
would be more than happy to hear it. hehe). Episoder will not modify the
USER.CON until you tell it to. So, you can create several Episodes... and then
try each one of them out at a time. This way, rather then saving lot's of
USER.CON files, you will have these smaller .SOD files that you can just load
when you want to play. (Note: The .SOD files are just simple text files.
I was going to save them as binary files, but instead of being around 1k in
size, they would have all been around 15k. I figured you would rather have
the smaller sized files. Just for your information.)

So, to sum it up, it would be best to put Episoder in your Duke directory.

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Running Episoder
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If you every used Episoder 1.0, then get ready to brace yourself.
Episoder 2.1 is so much more powerful that I am having trouble remembering
everything to put in here.

1) First you must understand how many levels you can use:7

I wish that you could create any number of Episodes, with any number of levels
in each episode. But, in order to do that, I would have to hack your
DUKE3D.EXE. I really don't feel like doing that, and I don't think you would
want me to do that. ;^) So, you are limited to the default standard game
settings. This is:

3 Episodes

Episode 1 - 7 Levels
Episode 2,3 - 11 Levels

2) The main menu:

You will see a window pop up when you start up Episoder. It will say:

Hollywood Holocaust
Lunar Apocalypse
Shrapnel City
Load .SOD File
Rename .SOD File
Exit Episoder

The first 3 are what you select to modify that specify Episode. I will cover
what goes on there later in more detail.

If you want to Load a .SOD file that is already created, just select the Load
option, and another window will pop up showing you all the .SOD files in the
current directory. Press Enter and there you go!

If you want to rename your .SOD file so you can use it for later (The default
file name is DEFAULT.SOD) just select Rename. The area at the top of the main
menu will go blank, and that is where you type the new name. When done, press
Enter, and the new .SOD file will be saved and loaded.

When you select Exit, 2 things will happen. It will prompt you if you want
to save the current .SOD file. Just answer Yes or No. Then, it will ask you
if you want to import the current .SOD file into your USER.CON. If you would
like to be able to try your new Episodes, select Yes... otherwise No. Even if
you choose not to import the settings, the .SOD file will be saved for later
usage.

3) Editing Episodes:

When you select an Episode to edit, another window will pop up to the side
of the main menu. It will list what the current .MAP files are being used,
along with their Descriptive Names. You will see a highlight bar marking the
first level in the Episode. Just use the Arrow keys to move up and down
and select different Levels. From here, you have several options:

a) Press Enter to select a new .MAP to be used in that position. A window
will pop up in the lower left corner that shows all the .MAP files in the
current directory. Select which one you want, and press Enter. Notice, the
descriptive name of the level becomes the name of the .MAP file.

b) Press Tab to change the descriptive name of the level. A section will clear
where the old name was. Type in the new name you would like to use and press
Enter. The .CON file says that the names can be 32 characters long, but I have
never gotten 32 to work. The most I could ever get to work was 30. Duke kept
exiting when compiling the .CON file because it said the names were to long.
So, the maximum characters you can use are 30.

c) Press Delete to make that a blank portion in the Episode. When you actually
run Duke, that space will be there, but it will not have any level that you
select. Instead, it sends you to Toxic Dump. Don't ask me why, but it does.

d) Press F1 to reset all values in that Episode to the default from the
regular game.

e) Press Escape when you want to go back to the main menu.

That is pretty much everything to it, but there are a couple more things that
you may need to know...

4) Other options, items you should know.

When you start up Episoder, if it finds no .SOD file it will go ahead and
create the DEFAULT.SOD file and use it. If it only finds one, no matter what
the name, it will use that one. So, say the only .SOD file I have is
CHARLIE.SOD, it will automatically use that one. If you have more than one,
it will prompt you to select the one you want to use. Just highlight the
one you want to edit, and it will load that .SOD file.

You can also specify which one you want to use in the Command line. So, if
you wanted to use CHARLIE.SOD you could just type this at the command line:

C:\>EPISODER CHARLIE.SOD

Also, when Episoder parses your USER.CON, it looks for certain lines in it
to know where to stop. If you have never edited your own .CON files, you can
just skip this stuff. But, if you have, and you deleted anything, double check
to make sure these two lines are in there. the first one belongs before all
information about the episodes and levels, the second belongs after that.

// Level titles cannot excede 32 characters.

// Music will not play if the .MID file excedes 72000 bytes.

I know that the words excede and excedes are misspelled, but that is how they
are in the .CON file. Even if the guys at 3D Realms can't spell, at least they
can program. hehe

If these two lines are not there, it may cause some problems. What exactly
will happen, I am not sure. Most likely when you try to run Duke 3D you will
get all these errors telling you that things are undefined. Just delete your
USER.CON file, run Episoder again, and import the settings. Everything will be
back to normal. Or just use RESETCON.EXE which is available from my page.

I know I am forgetting something, but at least this covers most everything.
Enjoy Episoder, and I hope it is helpful.

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What is different from Episoder 2.0 and 2.1
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There was a bug that completely dissabled Episoder 2.0. It was really simple
to fix, but made it to where Duke would not run. Somehow even though I was
limiting the level file names to 30, it was STILL getting "File to Long"
errors. Well, after just a little adjustments, everything was OK.

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Legal Information
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Duke Nukem 3D is (c) copyrighted by 3D Realms.
Episoder is (c) copyrighted freeware by Charlie Wiederhold

The authors of Episoder and Duke Nukem 3D are not responsible for any
damage done to your hardware or software while in use of these programs.

Episoder is FREEWARE. In other words... I am not going to ask you to send
me money just to make myself feel cool, or try to make money. I write software
for other people to use... because A) I want to help make life easier on
everyone B) I love programming... and that is the main reason I do it.

I really feel that people who write programs and want to distribute them to
the public in the form of shareware should NOT ask for money. If you like my
work... then the only pay I would like is for an email telling me so. That in
itself is enough to keep me going, and makes me want to continue programming.
If I wanted money for it... I would go get a job programming for a company.
Instead... while I get my education at The University of Texas at Austin...
I will continue to program for the fun of it.

But... if you actually feel like sending me money... or want to waste your
entire life savings on my humble programming exploits... feel free to. But,
you are going to have to find out my address on your own... because I'm not
going to give it to you. :^P *PHHBBBBTTTTT*

So there.

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About the author
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My name is... you guessed it... Charlie Wiederhold.
I am a student at The University of Texas at Austin, and am majoring in
Computer Science. I am also in the Longhorn Band, and absolutely love music.
Almost so much that I had chosen to major in it. But I got smart and chose my
current major... and am very happy.

Other software you may have seen by me:

EditCON - Probably my most "famous" so far. It allows you to modify settings
in the .CON files for Duke Nukem 3D. I had many plans for it, but time has
taken it's toll... and I most likely will never work on it again. Oh well...
other people have taken up the slack and are making some very good editors
out there.

ResetCON - Distributed with EditCON ver 2.0... this simple program resets your
.CON files for Duke Nukem 3D to their exact original factory settings.

Episoder 1.0 - This allows you to create whole new Episodes easily for Duke
Nukem 3D with any new .MAP files you have obtained. The first version is
rather simple... after DOSRTSMaker is finally completed and distribution
begins, I am going to go back to work on it to make it more effective and
easier to use.

Episoder 2.x - This program

Runduke - A network game launcher designed for The Duke Nukem 3D Rodeo
Shootout, a Duke 3D gaming tournament held monthly in Fort Worth, Texas at
The Rodeo Steakhouse. I help to manage this tournament, and the front end
manager used by this tournament and even on daily playing is Runduke. Someday
I will make it available to the public, but for now it is exclusive to The
Duke Nukem 3D Rodeo Shootout. http://rampages.onramp.net/~bminer/duke/

DOSRTSMaker - Allows you to quickly use RTSMaker ver 2.0 and create any new
RTS file you want. It serves as a front end for RTSMaker, and greatly
speeds up the process of creating RTS files.

Again... thank you for trying my software, and as I said before... a simple
email message is the only thing I would like, if you enjoy using any of
my programs.

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       Author : Charlie Wiederhold
      Student : The University of Texas at Austin - Computer Science
    WiederWeb : http://ccwf.cc.utexas.edu/~wieder/
  RTS Archive : http://ccwf.cc.utexas.edu/~wieder/ROTT/
Rodeo Shootout: http://rampages.onramp.net/~bminer/duke/
       E-Mail : wieder@mail.utexas.edu 
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