gtkballs - A simple logic game
This manual page documents GtkBalls. GtkBalls is a
simple logic game. The goal of this game is to make the highest score by
matching a number of balls of the same color in a horizontal, vertical or
diagonal line. For further information on how to play this game refer to the
rules section in this manual page.
- --display
[hostname:dpy]
- Specify what display GtkBalls should use. See X (1x) for more
information on the syntax of hostname and display.
The standard play area of GtkBalls is a 9x9 grid (it can be
changed through "Rules" option in ingame menu). When GtkBalls is
first started a number of balls are placed in a random manner on the grid.
Balls are in different colors (and/or shape). You may move balls on the grid
by selecting them and selecting an empty square on the grid as destination
for the ball you selected. Balls will only move if they are not blocked by
other balls. Each time you move a ball, unless you score some points, new
balls appear in a random manner on the grid. If the grid is full then the
game is lost. However this is bound to happen, your goal is to make the
highest score. In order to do this you must make lines in a vertical,
horizontal or diagonal way with balls of the same color. By default a line
must have at least five balls of the same color (it can also be changed
through "Rules" option in ingame menu). Making a line of minimum
amount of the balls, specified in rules, will earn you twice the points for
your score. If you make lines over minimum amount of the balls it will earn
you even more points. In order to help you decide which ball you are going
to move, there is an indicator on top of the grid that shows what colors the
next balls that will appear on the grid will be.
GtkBalls is a graphical program using the Gtk+ windowing toolkit.
This section describes it's user interface.
- New
- Selecting this menu entry will abandon the current game and start a new
one or start another game if you just finished one. You may use the
keyboard shortcut CTRL-N to do this also.
- Rules
- Selecting this menu entry will open "Rules" dialog box, where
you can set board width and height, number of different objects to appear
on the board, number of objects that will appear on the board after each
turn and number of objects that must form the line to eliminate it. You
may use the keyboard shortcut CTRL-R to do this also.
- Save
- Selecting this menu entry will open "Save game" dialog box,
where you can save current game to play it later. You may use the keyboard
shortcut CTRL-S to do this also.
- Load
- Selecting this menu entry will open "Load game" dialog box,
where you can load previously saved game. You may use the keyboard
shortcut CTRL-L to do this also.
- Hall Of Fame
- Selecting this menu entry will open a dialog box showing the high scores.
Only the ten best scores are shown. This dialog also displays the name of
the person who achieved a high score and it's date. You may use the
keyboard shortcut CTRL-H to do this also. Please note that you have
to add your user to group games to be able to save high scores. For
instance this can be achieved by using the command
sudoadduser<your_user>games
- Quit
- Selecting this menu entry will quit GtkBalls. You may use the keyboard
shortcut CTRL-Q to do the same thing.
- Undo
- Selecting this menu entry will undo your last move. You may use the
keyboard shortcut CTRL-U to do this also.
- Preferences
- Selecting this menu entry will open the "Preferences" dialog
box. You may use the keyboard shortcut CTRL-P to open it also. This
dialog box allows you to set some options. Click on a check box to
activate or deactivate them. Click on the theme name to select it. Then
click on the Apply button to save your settings or click on
Ok button to save your settings and close this dialog box. You can
disable the showing of footprints, path of the ball, color of the next
balls indicator, animation of disappearing of the ball and set time limit
per move from this dialog box.
- Rules
- Selecting this menu entry will display a dialog box describing rules of
the game. You may use the keyboard shortcut F1 to open it
also.
- About
- Selecting this menu entry will display a dialog with the logo and the
copyright information of GtkBalls. You may use the keyboard shortcut
CTRL-A to open it also. For more details on the license, click on
the Show license button. This will open another dialog box where
you can read the GNU General Public License.
The GtkBalls web site at:
http://gtkballs.antex.ru
GtkBalls was created by Eugene Morozov
<jmv@online.ru>. This manual page was created by Christoph Thompson
<obituary@freshmeat.net>. Current maintainer of GtkBalls and
this manual page is drF_ckoff <dfo@antex.ru>.
GtkBalls is copyright 1998, 1999 Eugene V. Morozov under
the terms of the GNU General Public License. GtkBalls is free
software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the
GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation;
either version 2 of the license, or (at your option) any later version.