VCThunder 0.5
====================

Hydro Thunder (1999), Offroad Thunder (2000), Arctic Thunder (2001) and
Ultimate Arctic Thunder (2004), the arcade games, on Windows 10 and 11 --
from your own copy of each game.

THIS DOWNLOAD CONTAINS NO GAME. You need your own MAME CHD of each game you
want to play. VCThunder supports exactly these builds:

    Hydro Thunder            v01.01b, 1999-02-27
    Offroad Thunder          2000-02-25
    Arctic Thunder           v1.002, 2000-12-18
    Ultimate Arctic Thunder  v1.9.5.0, 2004-05-03

and tells you, before writing anything, if a CHD holds a different one.
Ultimate Arctic Thunder comes from its update disc (MAME's 040503_1309
CHD, or your own .cue and .bin), laid over Arctic Thunder, so it needs
Arctic Thunder's CHD too. The cabinet's own Ultimate Arctic Thunder disk
cannot be used: its game files are encrypted to that cabinet.


Getting started
---------------

1. Unzip this folder somewhere you can write to: your Documents or Desktop,
   not Program Files.
2. Put your .chd files (and Ultimate Arctic Thunder's update disc) in this
   folder, next to VCThunder.exe.
3. Run VCThunder.exe. It finds them and imports each game that is not
   imported yet; it takes a few seconds. (A .chd kept elsewhere: press
   Import... on a game and choose it, or drop it onto VCThunder.exe.)
4. Press Play.

Windows may say VCThunder.exe is from an unknown publisher: it is not
code-signed. "More info", then "Run anyway", if you trust this download.
Each file's SHA-256 is listed on the release page.


Updating
--------

Unzip a new version over this folder. Your settings (vcthunder.ini), your
saves (save\) and your games (data\) are kept: the zip contains none of them.
Deleting vcthunder.ini brings back the default settings.


Problems
--------

vcthunder.log in this folder describes the last run. Please attach it to an
issue at https://github.com/mourix/VCThunder/issues

Everything VCThunder can be set to is in its launcher: run VCThunder.exe
with no game selected. VCThunder.exe hydro, offroad, arctic or uarctic
starts that game directly, for a shortcut per game.
