BLACKOUT! Classroom Edition
Jake Nease and Thomas A. Adams II
(c)2014 McMaster University

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      SECURITY NOTES
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The code provided is given as-is without warranty or garantee of accuracy, functionality, or security.
It is a prototype of a research tool only intended for supervised classroom and research use, not general public use.
We do not recommend making links to your installation public with this version.
In fact, the game is quite insecure, and easily subjected to SQL injection. We will address this issue in future versions.
It is possible (I think) for a player to spoof their identity as another player.
In a supervised classroom setting, neither of these things are likely to happen. 
BE SURE TO INSTALL THIS ON A DEDICATED DATABASE.

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      INSTALLATION TIPS
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1. Unzip Blackout.zip and copy all code into the server directory where you want to run the game.
2. Create a MySQL database for the game, with a user account and password that the game will use for it.
3. Update dbconnect.php with the relevant database information (hostname, database name, user name, password)
4. Run installnew.sql in phpMyAdmin or similar on that database. This will create the necessary tables and fill it 
   with the necessary starting data.
5. You should then be able to play by directing your browser to the index.php file for the game. 

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       USER ACCOUNTS 
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Running CreateBlackout.php will create one teacher account and 25 player accounts for you.
They have the following default usernames and passwords.
 
Game Manager Account:    
username: teacher
password: teacher1234

Players  (username / password)

player1 / player1!
player2 / player2!
player3 / player3!
player4 / player4!
....

Unfortunately, the user management GUI is not finished. That means if you want to make your own user accounts with unique passwords 
(highly recommended) then you should edit the GMs and Players tables yourself in phpMyAdmin or by any suitable MySQL database 
software or just regular php code.

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             MAPS 
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The game comes with two maps, Ontario and Mexico. Both are based on real data, so power plant purchased may be different 
depending on the environment. 

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        GAMEPLAY NOTES
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1. Your gas plants will turn up as much as they need to in order to meet YOUR pledge obligations.  
    1a. Your gas will automatically turn up before buying power from someone else, even though they may have extra power which might go to waste.
2. If you don't have enough gas plants, then you will buy power from another player.
    2a. You buy power from someone else at the market rate (the highest amount sold to the grid)
    2b. You will first buy up extra power that was produced by coal, nuclear, wind, or solar but never sold
    2c. Other people will only turn up their gas plants in order to make power to sell to you when all coal, nuclear, wind, and solar power has been exhausted. 
      2ci. In rare cases where the market rate is very low, the price for this premium power will be 50% more than the cost to produce it.
			
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          CREDITS
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Game Designers:
Thomas A. Adams II, Jake Nease

Programmed By:
Thomas A. Adams II

Playtesters:
Jaffer Ghouse
Vida Medianshahi
Kushlani Wejesekera
Kalia Akkad
Haoxiang Lia
Chris Ewashuck
Chris Zhong
Chinedu Okoli

Title Photo Credit:
Jaffer Ghouse

Game Name Chosen By:
Ariane Adams