NAME

xoids - X Window Asteroids style game

SYNOPSIS

xoids

DESCRIPTION

Xoids is an Asteroids style game which uses full color pixmaps instead of vector-style graphics.

The main features of the game are:

Full color

One or two players

Two player game is either against each other or cooperative

You can bounce off of asteroids if you are moving slow enough

Shots impart inertia on your ship

Shots have relative speed

Asteroids have appropriate masses (realistic physics)

The alien (called the Slurb) tracks players instead of wandering randomly

Thrusting and using hyperspace can overheat your engines

MAIN MENU

After the game initializes, you will see a main menu, from which there are several options. Currently, the only Main Menu Option which drops you into a sub-menu is the Options menu. At this time, the only option available is Game Speed. To adjust game speed, select Options from the main menu and then use the left and right arrow keys to adjust the speed. The maximum is 100%, and 50% seems to work well on a Pentium 75 machine with an S3 graphics card running Linux. Experiment.

GENERAL NON-SHIP CONTROL

Q: This can be pressed by either player and it causes Xoids to quit.
P: Pause the game.
ESC: Exit to the Main Menu.
+: Increase clock speed.
-: Decrease clock speed.

SHIP CONTROL

The following keyboard keys are used to control the ship(s).

UP ARROW: Activate player ONE's thrust.
LEFT ARROW: Turn player ONE's ship to the left.
RIGHT ARROW: Turn player ONE's ship to the right.
RIGHT SHIFT: Fire player ONE's weapon.
RETURN: Cause Player ONE to go into hyperspace (disappear and then appear in a different location).
F: Activate player TWO's thrust.
C: Turn player TWO's ship to the left.
B: Turn player TWO's ship to the right.
LEFT SHIFT: Fire player TWO's weapon.
SPACE: Cause Player TWO to go into hyperspace (disappear and then appear in a different location).

ONE PLAYER

Five ships are allotted at the beginning of the game. Blast away asteroids and Slurbs until you are dead.

TWO PLAYER DUEL

Points are decremented for dying, but there are unlimited lives. The first player to reach 20,000 points wins.

TWO PLAYER COOPERATIVE

The players' ships are linked via an elastic cable and there are unlimited lives. Still, like Two Player Duel mode, the first player to 20,000 points wins, which means the game may turn out more competitive than cooperative, but hey...

The second player uses 'C' for 'turn left', 'B' for 'turn right', 'F' for thrust, left SHIFT for 'Fire', and SPACE for hyperspace.

OPTIONS

Xoids currently takes no command line options, however, there is an Options menu available within the game.

BUGS

There is a problem with window refresh after deiconification. Running xoids currently causes X Windows autorepeat to die. Use 'xset r on' to turn autorepeat back on.

COPYRIGHT

AUTHORS

Tim Ebling, tebling@oce.orst.edu