Slider SDK User Guide

© 2003 Guy W. Lecky-Thompson

Introduction

The Slider SDK is a piece of software that is used to customize sliding tile games, so that a re-release package can be created for promotion or sale purposes. Figure 1 shows the various aspects of the redistributable portion that can be rebranded.

Rebrandable Features:

Customized background image;
Configurable number of grid squares;
Partially customized About Box.

Plus:

Send player to your site upon winning;
Choose to shuffle tiles on start up;
Cusomized options secured with encryption.

Figure 1

The SDK comes in the form of a standard Microsoft Windows application, with a main screen looking similar to that in Figure 2.

Figure 2

This document will take you through the various options that are available when running the SDK, and how to distribute your package.

The package ships in an UNREGISTERED form, which means that images are altered in the final product to avoid illicit distribution of rebranded games. Registering is easy, and can be performed on the Slider Registration Web Site. Please ensure that you have run the LT_Register application to obtain your registration serial number.

Once you have obtained your key, by typing your serial number in at the registration page, you can then register the software via the LT_register application:

Once registered, the images that are rolled into the restributable package are no longer altered and you are free to sell, give away or provide for download any games that you create with the Slider SDK.

Preparation

Before you begin, you will need the following:

An image;

A floppy disk or writable CD.

We recommend that your background image be no larger than 640x480 pixels, since this is the minimum screen resolution most Microsoft Windows users will be restricted to. The color depth is not important, but if you have a very complex image, 640x480 pixels large with a 32-bit color depth, it may not fit on a floppy.

Running the Slider SDK

Use Windows Explorer to navigate to the folder where you unzipped the SDK archive, and double-click the Slider_SDK_Win.exe application to run it.

There will be a number of edit boxes which have explanatory text labels, for you to fill in the customization information. A full explanation of all the options can be found in 'Basic Customization' below.

Once all the data has been filled in, click 'Go!' to create the distributable package.

Assuming that the software runs correctly, you will see a number of messages, and find a file with the extension .exe (in the above example, my_game.exe) which can be freely distributed, and contains the game, the image, and your customized About Box.

Preparing the Package

Having run the Slider SDK software you should double click the game executable, to verify that everything works as it should.

If there are any features that you would like added, please send a mail to guy_W (at) lecky-thompson (dot) net, and the developer will see if he can assist you.

If the image is displayed correctly, and the "About box..." text is set according to your wishes, the final check to run is whether the Surf on Win URL is correctly set up.

Assuming all this to be acceptable, the software is ready for distribution, and should be zipped up in an archive, along with simple instructions for running it.

Basic Customization

Note that when command options need to contain spaces, they must be enclosed in quotes.

Picture File

Either use the 'Browse' button to import an existing bitmap image, or use the Web Image Search facility to find one on the Internet.

If you choose the latter option, please follow the instructions on our partners site when you have chosen your image. Please note that it must be converted into a bitmap to be used with the Slider SDK.

This can be done by opening it using Microsoft Paint, and then choosing 'Save As...' and specifying a full color bitmap format and file name ending in BMP.

Grid Size

The number of squares on each side of the shuffle grid. Entering 4 will produce a grid of 4x4 (16) movable squares, with one missing.

Company Name

The name of your company. If it is in several words, please remember to enclose it "in quotes".

Web Site

The URL of your web site, as presented in company documentation.

Tag Line

Some companies have mottos. If yours doesn't, simply enter " " (note the double quotes).

Shuffle

Specifies whether the game should shuffle the tiles when it starts up. Specify YES or NO (in capitals).

Surf on Win

Specifies a URL which the game can optionally send the player to when they have successfully solved the puzzle.

See also Surf on Win Variables.

Output File

This is the name (ending in .exe) of the file that you will distribute as your game.

Advanced Customization

Surf on Win Variables

The Surf on Win option accepts special tags which can be used to substitute variables inside the URL that is fed to the default browser.

Currently, the following are accepted:

^MOVES^ - the number of winning moves

Example:

http://you.com/win.cgi?^MOVES^
If the player were to finish in 10 moves, then the URL http://you.com/win.cgi?10 would be passed to the default browser. The web site would need to have a win.cgi script, possibly for score-keeping, which would allow the player to enter a competition, for example.