tuxmath - a math game for kids with Tux
"Tux, of Math Command" ("TuxMath," for short)
is an educational arcade game starring Tux, the Linux mascot! Based on the
classic arcade game "Missile Command," Tux must defend his cities.
In this case, though, he must do it by solving math problems.
Use the number keys on the keyboard to answer math equations, and
then hit the space bar or enter. If you don't answer a comet's math equation
before it hits one of your igloos, the igloo will be damaged. If an igloo is
hit twice, the penguin inside walks away. When you lose all of your igloos,
the game ends.
There is also a "factoroids" game in which a ship
destroys asteroids if you type a valid factor of the number for a particular
asteroid. Use the number keys to steer.
Note: most settings are now stored in a config file named
'options' in a hidden directory named './tuxmath' within the user's home
directory. The file consists of simple name/value pairs. It is much easier
to edit this file to set game parameters than to use the command-line
arguments listed below. Also, many options are not selectable from the
command line. The config file contains extensive comments detailing how to
configure the behavior of Tuxmath.
- --help
- Display help for the command
- --version
- Display version and author information
- --homedir
dirname
- seek for user home director(ies) in the specified location, rather than
the user's actual home directory. You can set up a user directory tree in
this location (see README). This option is especially useful for schools
where all students log in with a single user name.
- --optionfile
filename
- read config settings from named file. The locations searched for a file
with a matching name are the current working directory, the absolute path
of the filename, tuxmath's missions directory, the user's tuxmath
directory, and the user's home.
- --playthroughlist
- to ask each question only once, allowing player to win game if all
questions successfully answered
- --answersfirst
- to ask questions in format: ? + num2 = num3 instead of default format:
num1 + num2 = ?
- --answersmiddle
- to ask questions in format: num1 + ? = num3 instead of default format:
num1 + num2 = ?
- --nosound
- to disable sound/music
- --nobackground
- to disable background photos (for slower systems)
- --fullscreen
- to run in fullscreen, if possible (vs. windowed)
- --windowed
- to run in a window rather than fullscreen
- --keypad
- to enable the on-sceen numeric keypad
- --demo
- to run the program as a cycling demonstration
- --speed S
- set initial speed of the game (S may be fractional, default is 1.0)
- --allownegatives
- to allow answers to be less than zero
- --debug-X
- prints debug information on command line. X may be one of the following:
setup: debug messages only during initialization
fileops: file operations (loading and saving data)
loaders: loading of mulitmedia (images and sounds) titlescreen
menu: most operations dealing with menus
menu-parser: subset of operations dealing with menus
game: the comets game
factoroids: the factoroids game
lan: anything dealing with networking
mathcards: generation of math problems
sdl: the general graphical system
lessons: parsing pre-prepared lessons
highscore: loading and saving high scores
options: loading and saving options files
text-and-intl: text and internationalization
all: everything!
- 2013-07-29: Updated for version 2.0.3 by Dmitry Smirnov.
- 2004-12-17: First version of this manual page.
-
This manual page was written by Fabio Brito
<fabio@debian-ba.org> for the Debian GNU system (but may be
used by others).