PC World Komputer 1999 March

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Text File | 1998-12-05 | 11.8 KB | 299 lines

Welcome to R O C K S ' N ' D I A M O N D S ' 9 8 ------------------------------------------- A game for Unix/X11 by Holger Schemel, (c) 1995-98 by Holger Schemel. Introduction ============ This is a nice little game with color graphics and sound for your Unix system with color X11. You need an 8-Bit color display or better. It will not work on black&white systems, and maybe not on gray scale systems. If you know the game "Boulderdash" (Commodore C64) or "Emerald Mine" (Amiga), you know what "ROCKS'N'DIAMONDS" is about. Getting started =============== Just 'cd' to the directory 'rocksndiamonds-*' (Unix) or 'rocks-*' (DOS) and type 'rocksndiamonds' (Linux) or 'rocks' (DOS/Windows)! This works only on Linux and DOS systems, because the included binary was compiled for Linux (i386/libc5) (if you have the Unix package) and DOS (if you have the DOS/Windows package). If you have another Unix system like HPUX, NetBSD or SUN, you first have to type 'make' to compile it. This may be needed on Linux systems, too, depending on your kernel version, your libc version, your binary format, your processor, ... (The included binary was compiled on the following system: AMD K6, kernel 2.0.35, libc5, gcc 2.7.2.1, ELF format) The Menues ========== You can see eight blue circles on the left side of the eight green menu texts; these are buttons to activate the menu commands by simply clicking on them with a mouse. The button will then change to red. (You can control the menues over the keyboard or joystick, too. Just use the arrow keys and the 'Return' or 'Enter' key or, if you use a joystick, the appropriate direction and the fire button.) The menu 'name' / 'team' ------------------------ When you start the game the first time, your login name will appear in the 'NAME:' field. If you want to use a different name for playing, for example a funny player name or a name for cheating, you can click on the button and enter a new name. This menu will show the text 'team' instead of 'name' if you activated the team (local multiplayer) mode in the setup menu. See below. The menue 'level' ----------------- Choose any level from the current level series you want. The former 'handicap' limitation in choosing levels has been removed because of beeing annoying. If the level number is red, you have choosen a 'ready' level series (which is read-only and cannot be modified by the level editor); if it is yellow you have choosen a 'user' level series (which is writable and can be changed by the builf-in level editor). See below for using the level editor. To choose new level series, click on the button on the left and choose the new level series. Scroll the page up and down with the blue arrow buttons if there are more level series than would fit on the screen. Hall of fame ------------ Click on this button to see a list of the best players of this level. Click again to go back to the main menu. Level creator ------------- This brings you to the level editor, if you have switched to a 'yellow' (writable) level series. Info screen ----------- This screen shows you all elements which appear in the game and presents you the background music loops which you can listen to while playing the levels (not available on all systems). Start game ---------- This will start the game. The game will be automatically recorded 'on tape' if you have choosen this from the setup menu (see below). If you haven't choosen auto-recording level, but want to record this certain game, press the 'record' button on the level tape recorder to start game and recording. Setup ----- To change some things in the game, use the setup menu. You can enable/disable "Sound" (enables/disables _all_ sounds in the game), "Sound loops" (only useful on Linux systems), "Game music" (can always be enabled on very fast systems [exception: you don't like it], on slower systems it will take some percent of CPU time which will slow things down a bit) and "Toons", which will forbid/ permit the little animated toons. Forget about the setup options "Buffered Gfx" and "Fading" -- they have no effect at the moment and will probably disappear in future versions of the game. (Double-buffering is now always activated, because systems are fast enough now compared to 1995, when the last version of the game was released. Especially soft-scrolling needs the double-buffering. About fading from one screen to another with silly effects: Most players will probably deactivate it after a few minutes (see also "quick doors").) Enable "scroll delay" to avoid scrolling at each step, giving you an area where you can walk without scrolling until you get near enough to the screen border. Enable "soft scroll" for soft-scrolling. Looks nice, but may need a relatively fast graphics card. Systems from 1998 and later should be fast enough for enabling soft-scrolling. Enable "quick doors" if you are unpatient when switching between the several game screens where the doors have to be opened or closed. You will almost surely enable this if you design your own levels and therefore often switch between game and editor screens. Set "auto-record" to "on" if you want to automatically record each game by the built-in level tape recorder. For configuration of input devices like keyboard and joysticks, choose the sub-menu "input devices". "Exit" quits the setup menu without saving the changes, "Save and exit" will save and then return to the main menu. Input Devices (sub-menu of the setup menu) ------------------------------------------ "Player" lets you choose one of the four players. "Device" lets you choose the input device you want for this player; you can choose between the keyboard and one of the maximal four supported joysticks. (Normally you won't have more than two joysticks, but the Linux joystick driver supports more than two joysticks.) "Customize" / "Calibrate" lets you calibrate a joystick or customize the keyboard keys used for moving left, right, up and down, "snapping" fields without moving towards them and placing bombs. Just press the key you want to use for the specified action or press Return or Enter to stay with the already configured values. "Exit" brings you back to the setup screen. Quit ---- Exit the game. How To Play The Game ==================== When the game has started, you can see the playfield on the left side and a control field on the right side. The control field contains the following elements: Level indicator Tells you which level you are playing. Emeralds Shows you how many emeralds you still need to win the current level. Dynamite Shows you how many dynamite bombs you have. Keys Shows you which keys you have in your inventory. Score Shows the current score. In some levels there are some extra items giving extra score points. Time The seconds you have still left to play the level. Stop/Pause/Play Game controls to stop the game, pause it and go on playing. If the tape recorder is recording your game, it is stopping/pausing/playing as well. Music buttons The three music buttons can be used to control the background music loop, the 'looping' sounds and all other sounds. The little red light shows you if it is enabled or disabled. About the game itself: Of course you know Boulderdash, so you will know how to play the game. :) If not: You can move your playing figure with the configured keys (which will normally and by default be the arrow keys) or with a joystick. To 'snap' a field near you without moving to it, you can use the left fire button on your joystick (hold it down, move the stick to 'snap' the field, release the button) or the key you have configured for this action (by default one of the left modifier keys like 'Shift' or 'Control'). To place a piece of dynamite, use the right fire button on your joystick or use the key you have configured for this (by default one of the right modifier keys, but you can change all this to what you like). After placing the dynamite, better see to move away from this field...). Just try the levels from the 'tutorial' level serie to see what most of the elements do or have a look at the info screen! The Level Editor ================ To create your own levels, it's a good idea to start with your personal level series, which has been created automatically the first time you started the game (together with some configuration files). These personal files are stored in '~/.rocksndiamonds' on Unix systems and in 'userdata' in the current playing directory (which normally is the game directory) on DOS/Windows systems. The levels that come with the game are normally read-only, to avoid problems on multi user systems, but you can set them to 'writable' in the file 'levelinfo.conf' ('lvlinfo.cnf' on DOS systems) in each level directory. To edit a level, you can use all three mouse buttons to draw in the level window. Click into the elements field with one of the three buttons to remap it to the new element. Use the arrow widgets to scroll around in the level. Use the 'flood fill' field to init exactly ony flood fill operation in the level field (you will be prompted). Click on 'control window' to switch to the control window. In the control window you can modify different parameters like the size of the level playfield, the name of the level, the scores for different elements and something like that. The four 3x3 field on the upper left can be edited like the level field and indicate the 'contents' of smashed crunchers (just try it out with some crunchers in one of your own levels). 'Undo & Exit' leaves the level editor, throwing away all the changes you have done to the level. 'Save & Exit' leveas the level editor and saves the new level (the old one will be deleted). The Tape Recorder ================= You can use the tape recorder to record games and play tapes of previously played games. Just use them like a normal video recorder. Recording a game on tape: ------------------------- If you have enabled "auto-record", every game will automatically be recorded, so you just have to press "start game". Pressing the 'record' button on the tape recorder will start game and record it in any case. Saving a game tape: ------------------- To save a tape to the tape file corresponding to the level (that means that you can only save one tape file for each level), just press the 'eject' button (the very left button). Then you will be prompted if you really want to replace the old tape (if an old tape exists). Playing a tape: --------------- Just press 'play' and then either 'play' or 'pause'. While recording or playing, you can press 'pause' to stop the recording or the playing of the tape and continue by pressing 'pause' again. You can use either the tape recorder buttons or the game control buttons for this purpose. If you want to continue a previously recorded game, press 'pause' while playing, then 'record' to switch from 'paused playing' to 'paused recording' and then continue the game by pressing 'record' or 'pause'. If you want to fast-forward the tape to get faster to the point where you want to continue playing, press 'play' again while already playing, therefore activating 'fast forward' playing mode. Press again the 'play' button to enter a special playing mode: 'pause before end' will stop a few seconds before the end of the tape (which will in most cases stop a few seconds before you get killed in the previous playing recorded on that tape) -- after the automatic stop (which enters the 'pause' mode) you can continue the game as described above. And Now Have Fun! ================= Have fun playing the game, building new levels and breaking all high scores! :-) If you have designed new levels, mail them to me to include them in the next version (which will be released much earlier than again after three years like this version... ;-) If you have any comments, problems, suggestions, donations, flames, send them to aeglos@valinor.owl.de or Snail Mail to Holger Schemel Oststrasse 11a 33604 Bielefeld GERMANY Have fun, Holger