.\" .\" Copyright (c) 2009, Charles McGarvey .\" All rights reserved. .\" .\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without .\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met: .\" .\" * Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, .\" this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. .\" * Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the .\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. .\" .\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS .\" IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED .\" TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR .\" PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER OR .\" CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, .\" EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, .\" PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR .\" PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF .\" LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING .\" NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, .\" EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE. .\" .hy .TH YOINK 6 "July 24, 2009" .SH NAME Yoink \- An alien-smashing action game. .SH SYNOPSIS .B yoink [-h|--help] [-v|--version] [OPTION=VALUE]... .br .SH DESCRIPTION .PP Leap tall buildings! Crush stupid robots beneath your feet! Wield your extra-terrestrial powers in the defence of humanity, and send those alien invaders back from whence they came! Do all these things (apart from the last one at the moment) in Yoink! You play the part of a flying alien heroine who must defend her home on Earth from other airborne alien invaders. The game draws inspiration from classic arcade games like Joust, Bombjack, Rampage, and Defender--simple, fast-moving action. .PP .TP .B -h, --help display this help and exit .TP .B -v, --version output version information and exit .PP To attack, you must dive on the enemy at high speed. If you're going too slowly, you'll just drift harmlessly by. Diving from above gives different results from swooping in and hitting them from the side. If you're too close to attack, try to build up speed by running away and bouncing off a nearby building! .PP By charging your special alien powers, you can throw fireballs. The orange bar at the top of the screen represents your power level--at maximum, you can destroy almost anything. Aiming can be tricky, but with a little practice it's quite easy to launch them in the right direction. Try doing a little swoop or circle in the air to line yourself up before releasing your fireball. .PP The heroine has limited energy, measured by the blue bar at the top of the screen. When it runs out, it's game over! She can regain lost energy by picking up bonuses dropped by enemies. .PP To complete the current attack wave, you must destroy all the enemies. Hunt around, especially in the sky, if you can't find the last few. .br .SH OPTIONS .PP There are a plethora of options available for tweaking various aspects of the game. All options can be set either from a configuration file or by passing them as arguments. Some of the more common options can be set from within the game. .PP A .B yoink configuration file ("yoinkrc") consists of key-value pairs organized in a logical hierarchy. The format of the file is human-readable, so you can get in there with your favorite text editor if you like to work under the hood. .B yoink looks for configuration files and loads them in this order, with the options in prior configuration files taking precedence over the same options if they exist in multiple configuration files: .TP 1. $YOINK_CONFIGFILE This is an optional environment variable. .TP 2. $HOME/.yoinkrc This is a specific user's configuration file. .TP 3. /etc/yoinkrc This is a system-wide configuration file. .TP 4. @DATADIR@/yoinkrc This is the base configuration file which should be considered read-only. Look to this file as an example of the format used for configuration files. .PP Options that are passed as arguments take precedence over options loaded from the configuration file(s). This mechanism is good for running the game with a temporary setting which you do not intend to retain. Keep in mind that if you edit and save options in-game, any options you have passed as arguments during the invocation of the game will be saved to the $HOME/.yoinkrc configuration file. You may have to go into that file and remove any options you didn't intend to set. When passing options as arguments, you must use the fully qualified name of the option if it exists in a subgroup. For example: .PP .TP yoink video.fullscreen=true Set the option video.fullscreen to true. This will run the game in full-screen mode. .TP yoink video.maxfps=60 Set the option video.maxfps to 60. This will cap the display rate at 60Hz. .PP You can also set options with array values. Arrays can be passed on the command line by surrounding all the parts with square brackets and separating each part by a comma. For example: .TP yoink video.mode=[1024,768] Set the option video.mode to an array with numbers 1024 and 768. The video size will be 1024x768. .PP Here is a list of some of the options available: .TP .B engine.timestep The amount of time in seconds between each update of the physics state. A value of 0.01 or lower is ideal for accurate physics approximations. Values that are much lower may introduce errors in the game. .TP .B input.grab Takes a boolean (true or false). If true, the cursor pointer will be "stuck" within the area of the window, and many key combinations which would otherwise be handled by the window manager will instead be dropped. This is a low-level option of limited usefulness. .TP .B video.colorbuffers This takes an array of four number values which represent the number of bits to use for red, green, blue, and the alpha channel. This is a low-level option of limited usefulness. The default value is almost always preferable. .TP .B video.cursor This option effects the visibility of the cursor while it is "hovering" over the window. If the value is true, the cursor will be visible. Otherwise, the cursor will be hidden. .TP .B video.doublebuffer If true, double-buffering will be used to render animations with minimal distortions. Otherwise, a single buffer will be used. The recommended value is true. .TP .B video.fullscreen If true, the window will capture the display and render the game in full screen splendor. A value of false means the game will run in a window. .TP .B video.maxfps The maximum number of frames to be drawn per second. A value of 50 is pretty good. If your computer is pretty old, can get away with decreasing this value and still have reasonably smooth animation. You can set this to a very high number to effectively render as many frames as is possible, but the actual rate could be limited by vertical display synchronization, depending on the X11 driver and settings used. You should not set this option higher than the point where the vertical synchronization effectively limits the draw rate or else the game may not be able to update the physics on schedule which could actually significantly lower the quality of the animation. .TP .B video.mode The resolution or size of the window. The value is an array with three number elements representing the width, height, and bits per pixel that make up the video mode.. A typical value is [800,600,32] for a size of 800x600 pixels with millions of colors. .TP .B video.multisamplebuffers The number of multisample buffers used. .TP .B video.multisamplesamples The number of multisample samples used. .TP .B video.printfps If true, the current number of frames being draw per second will be printed to the console. This is usually off by default, but you can set this to true if you're interested in the draw rate you're actually getting. .TP .B video.resizable If true, the window will be resizable by the window manager. This option is meaningless if the game is drawing to the full screen. .TP .B video.swapcontrol If true, drawing will take place at a time which will minimize distortion caused by the vertical refreshing of displays. The recommended value is true. .br .SH ENVIRONMENT .PP .B yoink responds to some variables in the environment: .TP HOME If set to a path of a valid directory (presumably a user's home directory), .B yoink will load options from the configuration file at $HOME/.yoinkrc, if it exists. Saving options within the game will cause this file to be over-written with the new options. .TP USER .B yoink uses this variable to guess the user's nickname, for a high score entry or whatever. .TP YOINK_CONFIGFILE If set to a path of a valid configuration file, .B yoink will load the options from that file, and those options will take precedence over options loaded from other configuration files. Any in-game saving will cause this file to be over-written by the new options rather than the file at $HOME/.yoinkrc. .TP YOINK_DATADIR If set to a path of a valid directory, .B yoink will look in this directory first when it is loading game assets. Set this variable if you move the game's assets to another directory or want to load your own assets. .br .SH BUGS .PP The pixelated graphics are actually intentional. It adds to the charm of the game, don't you think? .PP Send bug reports and patches to: .br Charles McGarvey .SH AUTHOR .PP Neil Carter was the original creator of Yoink, his winning entry in the uDevGames 2003 Mac game development contest. Charles McGarvey rewrote the game with SDL and is the current maintainer.