---
> The character-select screen: five playables, each with its own HP,
> speed, damage, fire-rate, and signature ability.
Pick a character, fight your way through locked rooms, work the levers
and pressure plates, and find the way out.
## Play
```bash
pip install pygame
python main.py
```
## Controls
| Input | Action |
| ------------- | ------------------ |
| WASD / Arrows | Move & aim (4-way) |
| Space | Shoot |
| Shift | Dash |
| E | Use / interact |
| Esc | Pause / back |
## Characters
Five playable characters, each with its own HP, speed, damage and
fire-rate profile: the balanced Wizard, the Penguin tank, the rapid-fire
Elf, the glass-cannon Shiggy, and the speedster Wolf.
## Levels
Three hand-authored escape rooms. Levels are plain text maps under
`assets/levels/` (see `LEGEND.md` for the tile vocabulary) plus a
`manifest.json`, so new rooms can be added without touching code. An
in-game editor (`editor.py`) edits them live.
## Project layout
| Path | Purpose |
| ------------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------- |
| `main.py` | Entry point & game loop |
| `menu.py` | Title, settings, character & level menus |
| `levels.py` | Level loading & runtime |
| `units.py` | Player & enemy logic |
| `interactables.py` / `static_objects.py` / `tileset.py` | World objects |
| `editor.py` | In-game level editor |
| `theme.py` | Shared palette & UI helpers |
| `audio.py` | Music & SFX |
| `assets/` | Sprites, audio, fonts, level maps |
A deeper walk-through of each subsystem — the game loop, levels,
combat, the editor, the save file, and the self-updater — is in
[Documentation](DOCUMENTATION.md).
## Build (macOS)
```bash
./build_mac.sh # arm64 .app
./build_mac_intel.sh # x86_64 .app
```
The app self-updates from this repository on launch via `updater.py`;
save data lives outside the app bundle and is never touched by updates.
## Versioning
Semantic versioning (`vMAJOR.MINOR.PATCH`); each release is a single
annotated git tag. See [`CHANGELOG.md`](CHANGELOG.md) for the history.
## License
Apache License 2.0 — see [`LICENSE`](LICENSE).
## See also
- [FlashOS](https://github.com/ajhahnde/FlashOS) — AArch64 bare-metal kernel for the Raspberry Pi 4 Model B.
---
[Next: Documentation →](DOCUMENTATION.md)
