134 lines
4.4 KiB
Groff
134 lines
4.4 KiB
Groff
.TH WARP 6
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.SH NAME
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warp - a real-time space war game
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.SH SYNOPSIS
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.B warp [options]
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.SH DESCRIPTION
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.I Warp
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is a real-time space war game that requires skill and quick thinking.
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"Real-time" in this context means that the enemies keep moving (and shooting)
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even if you don't.
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A unique feature of
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.I warp
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is that blast propagates; it is unhealthy to remain near things that are
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in the process of blowing up.
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If a given universe is above a critical density it may chain react.
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Scoring is like many popular arcade games--there are multiple waves which
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get harder and harder as you go along.
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Nobody has ever maxed out the scoreboard without cheating.
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.PP
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Unlike many space-war games,
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.I warp
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is not simply a shooting gallery.
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Along with phasers and photon torpedoes, you have tractor beams and a cloaking
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device.
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Skill in navigation is important.
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It helps to be schizophrenic, because you must manage an Enterprise and a Base
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simultaneously.
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And enemies do not simply shoot back.
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You can get tailed, absorbed, snuck up upon, hemmed in, rammed, loved to death,
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reprimanded for destroying civilized life, dragged around, robbed, damaged
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and eaten.
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And if you should happen to get bored by the enemies (a trifle unlikely),
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you can always watch the interesting star patterns.
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In fact, you'll have to, since your tactics will depend upon what kind of
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universe you find yourself in.
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.PP
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.I Warp
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is played in a double wraparound universe, i.e. the bottom is connected to the
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top, and the right is connected to the left.
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You need a crt with random cursor addressing and at least 24 lines by 80
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columns.
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For more information about about how to play, simply run
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.I warp
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and say "y" when it asks if you want to see the instructions.
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There is also a single-page command summary that you can get while playing
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by typing a "?".
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.PP
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Command line options include:
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.TP 5
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.B -b
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Put
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.I warp
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into beginner mode.
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Makes the difficulty increase more slowly, but penalizes you for it.
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.TP 5
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.B -d<n>
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Sets the initial difficulty to
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.BR n .
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.TP 5
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.B -l
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Play a low-speed game.
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Changes the basic cycle time from 1 second to 2 seconds.
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This switch is automatically set at baud rates below 2400.
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You may want to set it at higher speeds if your terminal cannot keep up
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with the output.
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(This should never happen on BSD systems, which have an IOCTL call to
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determine output queue length.)
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Because this makes the game easier, a separate scoreboard is kept for
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low-speed games.
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.TP 5
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.B -m
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Terminal has a meta key which turns on the eighth bit. Ordinarily the
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eighth bit is stripped in order to ignore parity.
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Metacharacters will appear to the keymap as prefixed with a ^A, and will
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subsequently have the same effect as a control character, unless otherwise
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mapped.
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.TP 5
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.B -s
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Just prints out the scoreboards and saved games and then exits.
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.TP 5
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.B -v
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Prints out the version number.
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.TP 5
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.B -x
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Play an experimental game.
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This causes
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.I warp
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to ignore any saved game, and disables the ability to save
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the current game.
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Thus you can play around with something or show
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.I warp
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to someone without jeopardizing a currently saved game.
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.SH ENVIRONMENT
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.TP 5
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.B WARPMACRO
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If defined, names a file containing keyboard mappings and macros.
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If not defined, the value %X/Kbmap.%{TERM} is assumed.
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The macro file contains lines of the following form:
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.sp
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<keystroke-sequence> <whitespace> <canonical-keystroke-sequence>
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.sp
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You may use certain % interpolations and ^<letter> control characters.
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For possible % interpolations see warp.h.
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Sequences in the canonical-keystroke-sequence bounded by ^(...^) are
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subject to reinterpretation via the keymap.
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This file has two major uses.
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First, you can set up your commands to use any kind of prefix key your terminal
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might have, or change the key bindings in any other way you choose.
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Second, you can define arbitrary macros, such as this:
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.sp
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# define Corbamite maneuver
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= DDllllll
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.SH AUTHOR
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Larry Wall <lwall@sdcrdcf.UUCP>
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.SH FILES
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~/.fullname, if full names aren't in /etc/passwd
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.SH DIAGNOSTICS
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Generally self-documenting, as they say.
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.SH BUGS
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Addicting.
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At the end of a wave, all you have to do to keep going is hit a space.
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You see the message "Hit space to continue" and automatically hit space.
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About 2 seconds later you remember you wanted to go home, but by then
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it's too late to escape without penalty.
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.PP
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You can't kill a backgrounded
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.I warp
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process directly, because it is running setuid.
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You have to use the killer built in to
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.IR warp .
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.PP
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Now that there is a space amoeba, there ought to be tribbles.
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But it might be too much trouble...
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