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XLABY(6)			 Games Manual			      XLABY(6)

NAME
       xlaby - X Labyrinth, the	aMAZEment

SYNOPSIS
       xlaby [ options ]

DESCRIPTION
       X  Labyrinth is a labyrinth game	under X11 that is played directly with
       the mouse pointer: the  walls  block  the  pointer's  movement  on  the
       screen.

       The  goal  of  the game is to retrieve the four colored squares:	to re-
       trieve a	square,	it is sufficient to move the pointer over it,  and  it
       will  disappear.	 However, to make things more infuriating, the squares
       have to be taken	in the following order:	red, yellow, green  and	 blue.
       When the	blue square is obtained, the game is won.

       Unless  otherwise specified (see	OPTIONS	below),	it is possible to quit
       the game	at any moment by pressing Q or escape and to suspend the  game
       by pressing Z or	tab (same key to resume).

       If the maze window is suddenly obscured or changes size or position, it
       is  possible to restore it to the correct position, size	and visibility
       by pressing the space bar.

       It is possible to chose between three types of maze building algorithms
       (see OPTIONS below): the	"tree",	"flood"	and "chain" maze.

       Exit code is 1 in case of  error,  42  if  the  maze  was  successfully
       solved,	and 0 otherwise. This can be useful in shell scripts for exam-
       ple to test the user's patience.

OPTIONS
       -b, --blind
	      Run in blind mode. You don't get to see the walls	of  the	 maze,
	      which makes it slightly harder.

       --build,	--slowbuild
	      Show  the	 maze  as it is	being built. This is the best possible
	      explanation of how the maze building algorithms work.

       -c, --chain
	      Use the chain maze building algorithm: the maze is  built	 by  a
	      self-avoiding  random  walk that starts from start every time it
	      is blocked.

       --copying
	      Display copying information and exit. See	the file  COPYING  for
	      more information.

       -d, --discover
	      Run  in  semi-blind mode.	The walls become visible only when you
	      bump into	them.

       -display	name
	      Run on the specified display. Overrides the DISPLAY  environment
	      variable.

       --grabkbd
	      Grab  the	keyboard as long as the	game is	being played. This in-
	      hibits window manager hotkeys for	example;  frequently  used  in
	      conjunction with --noquit

       -f, --flood
	      Use  the	flood  maze building algorithm:	the maze is built by a
	      self-avoiding random walk	that starts  from  the	last  possible
	      place every time it is blocked.

       -h, --help
	      Print help information and exit.

       -i, --info
	      Print game instructions and exit.

       --noplay
	      Do not play the game (only display the generated maze).

       --noquit
	      Forbid  quitting	the game (i.e. disables	the Q and Z keys). Be-
	      ware, this can be	dangerous, especially when used	in conjunction
	      with --grabkbd.

       -p, --play
	      Play the game. This option is compulsory (so that	 people	 won't
	      accidentally start xlaby and then	not know how to	quit).

       --pos X Y
	      Define  the X and	Y position of the maze window. If this parame-
	      ter is omitted (or invalid values	are  given),  window  position
	      will be chosen at	random.

       -q, --quantum
	      Run in quantum mode: every time the pointer changes cell,	it has
	      a	 certain  probability of doing a quantum leap to another posi-
	      tion in the maze.	It is uncertain	whether	 that  actually	 makes
	      things easier or more difficult.

       -s, --size number
	      Set  the	maze  size.  number is a number	between	0 (very	small)
	      and 9 (huge). Note that the maze will always fit in the  screen:
	      if  it  is too large, the	cell size will be reduced, and if that
	      is still not sufficient, the maze	dimensions will	 also  be  re-
	      duced. Note that xlaby will not run if the dimension of the root
	      window is	less than 40x40	or so :-(

       -t, --tree
	      Use  the	tree  maze  generating algorithm: the maze is built by
	      growing trees of walls from the edges and	the center. It is very
	      easy to solve, and also quite slow for large sizes.

       -v, --version
	      Print version number and exit.

       -w, --warranty
	      Print absence of warranty	and exit. See  the  file  COPYING  for
	      more information.

       Note that multiple options cannot be concatenated, so
	      xlaby -pt
       is not valid: use
	      xlaby -p -t
       instead.

       Also  note  that	 standard X toolkit options are	not recognized,	as the
       program uses low-level X.

ENVIRONMENT
       DISPLAY
	      The default display name.

RESOURCES
       None!

BUGS
       Option syntax is	very non-standard. Having to use the --play option  is
       a pain.

       X  resources  are  not recognized. The colors cannot be specified. Only
       the position of the window can be given,	and it does not	interact prop-
       erly with the window manager (only I do not trust WMs).

       There are probably cases	which I	overlooked and in which	the window  is
       not  fully visible.  Unfortunately, as far as I know, the Xlib does not
       furnish any easy	way of making absolutely sure  a  window  is  entirely
       visible.

       I guess it must look awful on a monochrome display.

       The tree	maze is	outrageously slow for large maze sizes.

       The  game  is  about  unplayable	when run across	a network as the mouse
       cursor may freeze for a long time on a cell boundary.

       There is	no high	score table. So	the name of the	first person who  com-
       pletes the size 9 chain maze in blind mode shall	not go down in History
       (still, if you do, send me a mail).

       The  blue  square (randomly placed) may overlap another one.  Actually,
       this is more a feature than a bug.

       There is	no way to change  the  number,	colors,	 or  position  of  the
       squares.

       The  man	 page  does  not describe all the bugs (otherwise this section
       would be	the longest by far).

AUTHORS
       Peter Horvai (peter.horvai@ens.fr) for the initial idea and chain  maze
       algorithm.

       David  Madore  (david.madore@ens.fr)  for  most of the programming, the
       tree maze algorithm, and	this man page.

       Special thanks to Mladen	Dimitrov for the flood maze algorithm.

COPYING
       GNU public license. See the file	COPYING	for more information.

SEE ALSO
       maze(1)

				  01 DEC 1997			      XLABY(6)

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