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SDLROIDS(6)			      Games			     SDLROIDS(6)

NAME
     SDLRoids - an enhanced shoot-the-asteroids game for X

SYNOPSIS
     sdlroids [options]

DESCRIPTION
     SDLRoids  is essentially an Asteroids clone, but with a few extra features,
     and some nice game physics.

     You can run in either windowed mode (default) or in  fullscreen  mode.  You
     can (usually) switch between them during play by pressing Alt-Enter.

     The  play	area (apart from the score/lives/etc. display) is a square, cen-
     tred playing area, as the original Hyperoid did. This is a feature,  not  a
     bug. :-)

OPTIONS
     -f, --fullscreen
	    Start in fullscreen mode.

     -g, --geometry WxH
	    Open a window W pixels wide and H pixels high instead of the default
	    480x480.

     -b, --benchmark FRAMES
	    Run in benchmark mode. Display FRAMES frames without delay and quit,
	    printing the resulting FPS.

     -s, --nosound
	    Don't initialize the sound.

     -l, --list-joysticks
	    List all available joysticks and exit.

     -n, --joynr NR
	    The  index	of  the  joystick  to use. All found joysticks should be
	    listed when SDLRoids starts.

     -j, --joystick PATH
	    Use the specified device as the primary joystick.  If  the	path  is
	    correct, this joystick will become number zero.

     -0, --fire NUM
	    The  number  of the joystick button to use for firing the main guns.
	    Default = 0.

     -1, --shields NUM
	    The number of the joystick button to use to turn on the shields. De-
	    fault = 1.

     -2, --bomb NUM
	    The number of the joystick button to use for detonating  smartbombs.
	    Default = 2.

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

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

ENVIRONMENT
     These  are  the environment variables you can set to change the behavior of
     SDLRoids.

     SRDATADIR
	    SDLRoids looks for datafiles in the same directory	as  the  binary,
	    the current directory and the compiled in path. You can override the
	    location using this environment variable.

     SDL_JOYSTICK_DEVICE
	    The  joystick  device to use as your main joystick. This environment
	    variable is overridden by the --joystick argument.

GAMEPLAY
     The object of the game is intuitive - shoot everything that movies,  except
     the stars (which are powerups or other good stuff).

     You  have	3  lives,  unlimited fuel and firepower, 150 shield energy and 3
     smartbombs. Your ship gets darker when you lose a life,  but  you	keep  on
     playing  (unless  you hit an asteroid). You get an extra life every 100,000
     points. When you lose the game, you  start  over  immediately  at	level  1
     (there  is  no waiting around between games).  Alternatively, you can press
     F1 to get a new game starting on level 1.

     In addition to the asteroids and yourself,  there	are  four  other  things
     you'll encounter in the game:

     Hunters
	    The  `UFO'	equivalent.  Can take one or more hits, the colour gives
	    you a hint how many - they start off light cyan, but  if  they  ini-
	    tially  needed  two  or  more hits, they'll turn dark cyan when they
	    only need one more hit.

     Spinners
	    These spinning kamikaze baddies chase you and try to crash into you.
	    The colour indicates how many hits are left before you destroy it  -
	    1=dark purple, 2=cyan, 3=dark cyan, 4=yellow, 5=dark yellow, 6=blue,
	    7=dark  blue,  8=green, 9=dark green. And if you get far enough into
	    the game, they can take more hits than even  that.	 :-)  When  they
	    crash  into  you, the number of hits left is how many hits they take
	    out on your ship - if a dark cyan one hits you, that's  three  lives
	    gone. So for yellow or worse, which can be hard to hit enough, using
	    a  bomb to get them is often the best/safest bet. (Shields are worth
	    a try in emergencies, but it's hard to time it right.)

     Swarmers
	    These green squares are basically inert, but  recursively  split  up
	    several  times unless you catch them early (before they've `swarmed'
	    much).

     Bonuses
	    Spinning stars which chase you like Spinners (be careful not to con-
	    fuse the two) and give you a bonus when they hit you. They	are  al-
	    ways  in  `light'  colours,  and  the  colour  indicates  the type -
	    red=score (the amount depends on which level you're on), green=extra
	    shield, blue=extra bomb, yellow=extra life. The bonus type works its
	    way backwards through that list over time, so (most  notably)  extra
	    life  bonuses  have  to  be  caught  as quickly as possible to avoid
	    merely getting a bomb.

KEYS
     The following keys control your ship:

     Cursor Left/Right
	    Spin your ship to the left or right. Self explanatory, really. :)

     Cursor Up/Down
	    Forward or reverse thrust. Since this is a game that takes place  in
	    space,  you  only use the thrust to change speed / direction. If you
	    don't use the thrust, you'll continue gliding in the same  direction
	    even if you steer.

     Space  Fire  your	main guns (you can, and should, hold this one down - the
	    wonder of autofire). You can get double or triple powerups	as  well
	    as a powerup that increase the range of your guns.

     Tab    Turn  on  your shields while pressed down. When your shields are on,
	    you can't be hurt but enemy craft will be. You have  limited  shield
	    power, so make sure to keep a look on the shield counter.

     s	    Detonate  a  smartbomb. This will kill all enemies ships (i.e every-
	    thing xcluding asteroids and bonuses).

     Other keys:

     Esc    Exit the game.

     Pause Key
	    Pause / unpause the game.

     F1     Quit your current game and start new game from level 1.

     Alt-Enter
	    Toggle between fullscreen and windowed mode (if supported).

     Ctrl-z
	    Iconfify and pause the game.

     Ctrl-g
	    When running in windowed mode, this  grabs/releases  the  mouse  and
	    keyboard  focus  and hides/shows the mouse pointer. It has no effect
	    in fullscreen mode.

     JOYSTICK CONTROL
	    Since version 1.3.3 you  can  also	play  with  a  joystick  or
	    gamepad  (if supported by your computer). You can use both ana-
	    log and digital joysticks / gamepads. When using an analog con-
	    troller there is a small deadzone. These are the default  bind-
	    ings (buttons can be remapped with command line options):

     X-Axis
	    Turn your ship left or right.

     Y-Axis
	    Forward or reverse thrust.

     Button 1
	    Fire main guns.

     Button 2
	    Activate shields.

     Button 3
	    Detonate a smartbomb.

BUGS
     Bonuses  currently  only  come  in  one color. This is a bug and it will be
     fixed eventually.

     The sound is only 8-bit 8kHz mono.

AUTHORS
     Edward Hutchins wrote the original Hyperoid, for Windows 3.x.

     Russell Marks (russell.marks@ntlworld.com)  ported  it  to  Unix/Linux  and
     added  sound,  and  wrote	this man page (partly based on the original ver-
     sion's help dialog, but mostly based on game experience and RTFS :-)).

     David Hedbor (david@hedbor.org) ported the game to SDL (both  for	graphics
     and  sound) and has since added lots of features. See the ChangeLog for de-
     tails.

Version 1.3.4			March 27th, 2001		     SDLROIDS(6)

Want to link to this manual page? Use this URL:
<https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=sdlroids&sektion=6&manpath=FreeBSD+Ports+15.1.quarterly>

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