--- WHAT IS THIS? ---

Frivolity is a free, Perl-based reference implementation of the Volity
platform for Internet-based multiplayer games. It is released under
the LGPL open-source license. (See the accompanying LICENSE file.)

Volity is a complex platform, but I've endeavored to make it easy to
get started creating games through the embedded perldocs. After
installing, "perldoc Volity" to get started.

Further reading, including more general information about what Volity
is and how it works, may be found on the Volity Developers' Site:
<http://www.volity.org>. See especially the Wiki.

Volity's more public face is the Volity Network:
<http://volity.net>. Some of the games running there are written using
Frivolity. You can publish your own creations to the Network, too! See
<http://volity.net/dev/>.

--- PREREQUISITES ---

Frivolity requires several Perl modules to work; the Makefile.PL
checks for their presence on your system. All are available from CPAN.

--- INSTALLATION ---

The usual incantation should suffice:

 perl Makefile.PL
 make
 sudo make install

It will, by default, install several Perl modules into your site-perl
location under the Volity namespace, and place a server script
(volityd) in /usr/local/volity/bin. If these locations do not suit
you, edit Makefile.PL appropriately. (See the ExtUtils::MakeMaker
manpage for instructions on modifying this file.)

You'll note there's not much in the way of testing now. We hope to add
some nice test suites in the future.

--- DOCUMENTATION ---

Once you've installed this software, type

 perldoc Volity

Or, visit http://volity.org/docs/ for a link to a hypertext version of
the most recent Frivolity documentation.

Frivolity includes a lot of modules and a lot of documentation, but
I've done my best to arrange it so that the most important stuff,
especially for people wishing to develop games, is easier to get to.

--- RUNNING YOUR FIRST PARLOR  ---

While no automated testing exists yet, you can manually test your
installation by attempting to set up a game parlor that runs Tic Tac
Toe. At examples/tictactoe/conf.yml you'll find a configuration file
that you can modify with a valid Jabber ID and password for your test
to use. (If you already have a Jabber login from any source, you can
just plug it in here.)

Once you've updated the file (and installed Frivolity), try feeding it
to volityd with a command like this (assuming that volityd ended up
somewhere in your PATH):

 volityd -C examples/tictactoe/conf.yml

If everything worked, you should now be able to create a new table at
the parlor with any Volity client. In Gamut, this involves the
Game->New Table At... command. (If you don't already have Gamut, you
can download it from volity.net.)

--- CONTACT ---

Please send all questions, comments, bug reports, etc. to Jason
McIntosh <jmac@jmac.org>.

For community discussion about these modules, see the Frivolity web
forum: http://volity.net/community/forum.html?forum_id=2

Use can also use any Jabber client (including Gamut, the Volity
project's official Java-based client) to visit the Volity devchat, at
<devchat@conference.volity.net>.

Happy Hacking!

Jason McIntosh
April 9, 2007
