NAME
alex4 - Alex the Allegator 4, a retro platform game
SYNOPSIS
alex4 [gamefile]
DESCRIPTION
Guide Alex the Allegator through the jungle in order to save his
girlfriend Lola from evil humans who want to make a pair of shoes out
of her.
Alex the Allegator 4 is a platform game in the style of old Gameboy
games. You can play the game with a keyboard or a joystick. On the
keyboard the following keys are used:
Arrow keys Movement
Alt Jump
Control Shoot (only when you’ve found eggs to fire!)
When you’re on the menu screen, you can choose the window size with the
following keys:
1 160x120 window
2 320x240 window
3 640x480 window
4 full-screen
CUSTOM MAPS
The Alex the Allegator homepage links to many user-contributed maps.
Each set should contain several ".map" files and a text file describing
the collection. To play the maps, simply start alex4 with the name of
the text file as argument.
If you want to create your own maps, you can use the built-in map
editor (described below), but you’ll need to create the description
file yourself. This is a plain text file that needs to list the file
names of your maps between "#start#" and "#end#" markers (these markers
are not optional). You can include a description of the maps outside
these markers. For example, for a collection of three maps:
In this game, Alex must rescue the Yellow Tetris Piece from the
pirates of Ching Shih.
#start#
journey.map
sea-of-despair.map
endgame.map
#end#
USING THE MAP EDITOR
Use the map editor to create your own maps. You can enter the map
editor from the menu screen or by pressing F1 while playing a custom
map. The basic editor commands are:
Shift+L load an existing map
Shift+S save the map
Insert+Left/Right widen the map
Delete+Left/Right shorten the map
F1 change the map’s properties, e.g. its name.
Maps are composed of tiles. Tiles can contain scenery, enemies, items
and other game objects. The mouse cursor shows the currently selected
tile. To draw tiles, use the left mouse button. You can cycle through
the available tiles by using the z and x keys, choose a tile from a
palette using the p key, or pick a tile from the screen using the right
mouse button.
Tiles can be given special behavior using the following commands:
q instant death
w map exit
e roll activator
r breakable block
t submerged in water
y on the water surface
a Alex’ start location (facing left)
Shift+A Alex’ start location (facing right)
Use the following command to place items and enemies:
1 extra life
2 star bonus
3 cherry bonus
4 egg
5 extra heart
Shift+Q grunt
Shift+W spear grunt
Shift+E crusher
Shift+R spike fish
Shift+T jellyfish
Shift+Y cannon
Shift+U spike truck boss
Shift+I ground pounder boss
SEE ALSO
The Alex the Allegator series homepage
〈http://allegator.sourceforge.net/〉
AUTHOR
Alex the Allegator 4 was written by Johan Peitz, Free Lunch Design.
This manual page was written by Peter De Wachter <pdewacht@gmail.com>,
for the Debian project (but may be used by others).
2008-02-07 alex4(6)