Welcome to Quine!

===========================
  ABOUT
===========================

Quine

Where the only thing more dangerous than the monsters is Deja Vu.

You have been sent into a dungeon on a mission to retrieve the spell
of escape from the bottom.  Only when you have this memorized will you
be allowed to leave the dungeon.

Care must be taken!  They say you can never come home again; but if
somehow you do, you will enter a quine state and trace a perpetual loop.

===========================
  HOW TO RUN
===========================

If you are a windows user, run it from windows/quine.exe.

If you are a linux user, install love and run as
love quine.love

For many other platforms, find the relevant love executable or APK and
load the quine.love.

If you are a source diver, go into the src directory.
The build.sh or winbuild.cmd scripts can be used to create a new
.love file and windows executable.

===========================
  HOW TO PLAY
===========================

Movement is done with the arrow keys, number pad, or vi-keys.  
I will not tell you what the vi-keys are.  I have had enough
hate mail for the crime of supporting vi-keys.

There is no diagonal movement.

Hit space or . to wait a turn.

Cast spells using the 1-5 that corresponds to the spell slots.
ASDFG can also be used if you don't want to stretch your fingers.
Pulsing spells need a direction, pick a direction after selecting.

F11 toggles full screen mode.

Enter will start the game and continue from cutscenes.

Escape will quit.

There is also mouse support - an onscreen gadget provides the
arrow directions and the Enter key.

===========================
  ARTISTIC MESSAGE
===========================

Spoilers will follow, so play the game first.

Quine is a meditation on immortality.  What does it mean to live
forever?  The usual concept imagines a continuously unfurling
timeline.  But practically, finite systems have finite states so will
repeat.  This implies immortality can be found in finite time.
Once a loop has occurred, there is no experiential difference
regardless of the number of times the loop is played back.  The system
can be shut down without affecting the immortality of the inhabitant.

This implies an ethical way to deal with humanity.  There is no need
to kill; but merely let us lead out our lives; watching and nudging
them to a place where the tape can be spliced back; eliminating the 
need for any more computation.

Quines are programs that write themselves; likewise, in this state the
person's life now writes itself.  The burning infinity symbol is both
a symbol of infinity, but also itself a loop.  The flames are from the
desire to avoid this particular fate.

Mechanically, the game will track your state along with that of
visible monsters.  A short-term memory is assumed, so a quine has to
be a minimal length.  But if the same situation occurs twice; the game
is ended with an endless repeat.

Design decisions rise directly from this need for minimal state.
There is no progression, hit points are low and fixed, combat is
deterministic.  The spell system is designed to minimize the amount of
state variation you can create as a player, increasing risk of
returning to an earlier setup.  As importantly, the state restriction
makes otherwise abusable mechanics practical.  Being able to refill
spells without limit is usually an exploitable opportunity.  However,
you are likely to end up with the same load out and be quined.
Similarly, the four way movement and monsters that don't let you wait
for them will lead to dancing rather than combat, which, again if taken
too far, will quine the player.

The monster design and mechanics are built around musing about the
different techniques of quining a life.

The clock spiders are the to-do tasks that we check off or leave
unfulfilled. Defeating them may provide a change to the list; but the
gestalt is unchanged as another list replaces it.  Whether checked off
or ignored; todo lists are always only half done.

The coin snakes represent running in place.  They themselves stay in
place until you approach; requiring your buy into the treadmill
they represent.  But when hooked, they follow tenaciously.  They are
the red queen's race, running to stay where you are.  The bank account
may fluctuate, but the total is the same.  The only way to win is to
limit your engagement.

The books are for escapism.  Imagining new worlds and new games is a
powerful way to explore beyond the limits of physics.  They are thus
rather difficult to defeat and require care; or one just enters a
meta-quine of being lost in cycle's of the Hero's Journey.

Skull sheep are a larger force outside yourself that erodes your own
unique identity, leading you to believe in something as reductive as
the Hero's Journey.  This limits your expression and cuts your path to
a narrow one; more amiable to quining.  These are formidable foes if
engaged; but are not aggressive so can be easily avoided by the wise.

Finally, the heart represents yearning and achievement.  The desire to
better oneself and grow.  It would seem that a simple way to avoid
quining is to have a monotonic escalation of power of development,
thus ensuring one can never numerically return to an earlier state.
But as Escher's staircases, the Shepard scale, and Super Saiyan
progression all show, this can itself easily hide a loop.

Once one has reached the bottom and returned; the nature of this
situation is revealed - that by avoiding quining within this game,
you have avoided it in the virtual world, and won your freedom.
You are then free to re-enter the real world.  With whoever else
managed to side-stepp quining...

===========================
  CREDITS
===========================

This is a Seven Day Roguelike.  It was written in a 168 hour time
frame.  Hopefully it doesn't feel like that was the case, however.
Quine was created by Jeff Lait and Faesu.

It uses LOVE as its underlying game engine.

You can contact Jeff Lait at: jmlait [snail] zincland [dot] com.
You can follow Faesu at https://x.com/faesu_/

===========================
  FINAL IMPORTANT NOTE
===========================

Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die!
