Man Linux: Main Page and Category List

NAME

       Rocks’n’Diamonds - A game for Unix/X11

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
       is  not recommended 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.

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  the  left  mouse button. 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 menuname’
       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.

       If you choose a certain special name, you will be in a cheat mode where
       you can choose all levels without playing the lower levels before... :)

The menuelevel’
       If you have played some levels of this game, you can choose the already
       played  levels  at  any  time, but you cannot choose the higher levels.
       This means, you can choose levels from level 0  to  the  highest  level
       that you have ever won. This is known as your ’handicap’.

       If  the level number is red, you have choosen a ’ready’ level, if it is
       yellow, you have choosen a ’user’ level, which  is  blank  and  can  be
       edited by yourself with the built-in level editor (see below).

       To  choose new level series, click on the button on the left and choose
       the new level serie.

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’
       level, which are empty and can be filled by yourself. See below.

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 (only available on Linux and FreeBSD systems).

Start game

       This will start the game.

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  allowed  on  Linux  and  FreeBSD  systems   with
       VoxWare[tm]  sound driver; don’t worry if you never heard of it -- it’s
       the name of the standard Linux sound driver), "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.

       "Buffered Gfx" can be set to "off" on slower systems, "Fading" gives  a
       nice  fading  effect  when  displaying new screens, but unfortunately I
       haven’t found a system which is fast  enough  to  display  it  so  far.
       (Maybe  this  works better on highly accelerated X servers.) Better set
       this to "off" if you have a normal system...

       Set "auto-record" to "on" if you want to automatically record each game
       to tape.

       If  you  have a Linux or FreeBSD system with a joystick, you can choose
       the "1st" or the  "2nd"  joystick  port  and  use  "Cal.  Joystick"  to
       calibrate  it.  Use  "Save  and  exit" after calibration to save it for
       later playing sessions.

       "Exit" quits the setup menu without saving the changes, "Save and exit"
       will save and then return to the main menu.

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.

       Dynamite1
              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. On
              slower systems (and a 486DX33 with Soundblaster  _is_  a  slower
              system)  it  increases  the  game  speed  to turn off background
              music. You can completely turn off  all  sound  effects  in  the
              setup  menu,  although  it is much more fun to have them enabled
              when it doesn’t eats up to much speed.

              (A little note: The sound server currently needs about  10%  CPU
              time  on my 486DX/33/SBPro system when playing background music.
              I wonder if this would get better with a better soundcard,  like
              Gravis  Ultrasound,  or  if  only  pure  CPU power helps in this
              case...)

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 (the smiley) with the arrow
       keys or with the joystick (if you have no joystick and  even  no  arrow
       keys  on  your keyboard, you can use the keys ’i’, ’j’, ’k’ and ’m’ for
       the directions. 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  keys  ’e’,  ’s’,
       ’d’ and ’x’. To place a piece of dynamite, use the right fire button on
       your joystick or use the ’b’ key  (and,  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!

       Note: It is *highly recommended* to use a  joystick  for  playing  this
       game! It is possible to play it with the keyboard, but it is *much more
       fun* to play with a joystick, and some levels  are  very  difficult  to
       solve with the keyboard. So, the best platform for this game is a Linux
       or a FreeBSD system (which gives you background music, too).

The Level Editor

       To build your own levels, just choose a ’yellow’, empty level.  If  you
       cannot  find  any  ’yellow’  levels,  choose a different level serie or
       choose the higher level numbers (if you have a small ’handicap’ number,
       the higher levels will be skipped to reach the ’empty’ levels.

       Another  way is to create your own level series. Just add a line to the
       file ’levels/ROCKS.levelinfo’ with the following entries:
       - the  name  of  the  level  directory  (create  this  directory  under
       ’levels’)
       -  the  name  of  the level serie (don’t use any whitespaces within the
       name)
       - the ’ready’ (red) levels (start with zero)
       - the ’empty’ (yellow) levels (set this to some number of blank levels)

       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:
              Just press the ’record’ button (the one with the  red  point  on
              it)  and  either  press  ’Start  Game’  or  press on ’record’ or
              ’pause’ to end the pause mode and start playing and recording.

              If you have set "auto record" in the setup  menu  to  "on",  you
              just have to press ’Start Game’ as usual.

       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.

And Now Have Fun!

       Have fun playing the game, building new levels and  breaking  all  high
       scores! ;)

AUTHOR

       If  you  have  any  comments, problems, suggestions, donations, flames,
       send them to

            info@artsoft.org

       Have fun!

                               20 November 1995