Take a look at the game manual. It's included in the game downloads, but you can also read it online.

Check the game output, it should give you an indication of the problem. On Windows systems, you can find the game output in the files stdout.txt and stderr.txt, on Linux systems on the stdout and stderr locations (i.e. probably on the console).

Please contact us with a copy of your stdout and stderr outputs.

No. In fact, you are expected to destroy the pirate to advance to higher levels.

Defeating the pirate depends on a simple manoeuvre. The pirate always tries to attack you from the side, and therefore always tries to stay at the same "height" as your ship. However, his reactions aren't quite as fast as yours. If you approch the pirate from the middle of the screen, moving upwards at the same time, he will try to follow you. Quickly changing your vertical direction to downwards allows you to "dive" under the pirate. And once you're there, he will usually try to keep his distance. In later levels, you may have to use your shield while approaching the pirate.

Max Fighter always starts in the same mode that was active when you left the game last time. Switching to fullscreen mode and not switching back should make it start that way again next time.

If you are knowledgeable enough about these things, you can try to compile the source code yourself. For Windows and Linux systems of various architectures, this should work fine.

If you are using a different platform than those we actively support, you might have to modify some paths and settings in the souce code and build files. We are always interested in supporting more platforms, so please do not hesitate to contact us if you need assistance.

If you have successfully built a version for a new system, we would gladly host the resulting package on this website and add it to the download section, if you are fine with that. You will be credited as the creator and maintainer of the package. If you modified the source code to accomodate a new platform, we would appreciate it if you send us the necessary source code patches so that we can officially support this platform. Please only do so if you agree to transfer the copyright for your code changes to us, however. You will still be credited as a contributor at the appropriate sections in the source code.

Please do not hesitate to contact us. We are always interested in feedback of any kind, and want to help bring Max Fighter to as many people as possible.

The current stable Linux release of OpenAL only supports monaural playback of stereo samples. Mono samples can be panned freely (which is why sound effects are played in stereo), but stereo samples like the music files will be played as centered mono samples by OpenAL.

However, OpenAL 1.1 for Linux is in the works, and will hopefully remedy this behaviour. When it comes out, it might be necessary to recompile Max Fighter to get music playback in stereo.