Provided by:
freedroidrpg_0.11.1-1_i386 
NAME
freedroidRPG - a graphical single player role playing game featuring
Tux the Linux mascot
SYNOPSIS
freedroidRPG [ options ]
DESCRIPTION
FreedroidRPG is a graphical single player role playing game inspired by
games like Diablo and Gothic.
In a far-future world, almost all services and jobs were done by robots
and droids, most especially the more dangerous ones like police or
military services. The company providing the operating systems for
these bots ’Monopoly Systems’ used their closed source operating system
monopoly and a back door within it’s operation system to enslave
humanity all over the galaxy.
But this is not the main problem. Some 20 years after the MS has taken
control of the universe, suddenly a very strange thing happened. The
bots suddenly rebelled against the MS and didn’t respond to the
commands of their former superiors at the MS any more. Mankind was
under attack by it’s bots and had to flee to various secret underground
caverns on remote planets of the universe and cannot return any more.
This is where the game begins. The Tux awakens from several years of
stasis that the MS has put him into and now returns to save the world
from the horrible bots.
OPTIONS
-v or --version
Prints out FreedroidRPG version information.
-q or --nosound
This option will suppress all sound output. Very useful if you
don’t have your sound card configured yet or don’t have any
sound hardware at all.
-f or --fullscreen
This instructs FreedroidRPG to work in full screen mode, which
is the default mode of operation. Please note that it is
strongly recommended that your X Window system is configured to
feature a move with 640x480 screen resolution, but it will also
work if this is not the case. Note that fullscreen or window
mode can also be toggled from within the game via the options
menu.
-o or --open_gl
This instructs FreedroidRPG to use OpenGL as the method for
graphics output. If you have hardware accelerated OpenGL on
your X11 or your Microsoft Windows installation, this is the
recommended output method to achieve much better frame rates
and also better graphics quality.
NOTE: If you wish to use OpenGL for graphics output, your
FreedroidRPG executable must have been compiled to support
OpenGL. You can see if that is the case and also if OpenGL
graphics output is active in the very first startup menu of the
game.
-n or --no_open_gl
This instructs FreedroidRPG to use plain SDL instead of OpenGL
as the method for graphics output. This is usually (much)
slower than hardware-accelerated OpenGL graphics output and
also some features are disabled in this mode because of speed
considerations.
-w or --window
Start FreedroidRPG in a window rather than using full screen
mode.
-j or --sensitivity
This option can be used to control joystick sensitivity.
-d LEVEL or --debug=LEVEL
This option can be used to control debug output of the game.
Debug output will be printed to stderr, i.e. in most cases to
the console you started FreedroidRPG from. The variable LEVEL
controls how much debug output you would like to have. LEVEL 0
is the default and means (almost) no debug output. LEVEL 1
prints the most important debug messages and LEVEL 2 or LEVEL 3
print (almost) all debug output, which might be quite a lot.
-r CODE or --resolution=CODE
This option sets the screen resolution. Use the -h option to
list all valid resolution codes.
HOW TO PLAY
Movement and attacking
Moving the Tux can now be done exclusively by using the left
mouse button. Attacking an enemy is done by clicking on that
enemy. The Tux will, in case of a melee weapon wielded,
approach the target and then strike. In order to attack an
object without moving, you must hold down the shift key and then
click the left mouse button.
RUNNING: If you hold down the left ctrl key, Tux will run
instead of walk.
Talking to people and friendly droids
When left-clicking the mouse on a friendly character or droid,
the Tux will start dialog with that character. In some cases it
might also be that some other person approaches the Tux and
opens dialog.
Reorganizing inventory
Open up the inventory screen by pressing the ’I’ key. You can
now left-click on stuff in your inventory. That will make you
’hold’ the object in question, i.e. your mouse cursor will
change into that one item you picked. If that item can be
equipped, you can then equip the item by placing it over the
appropriate slot and then left-licking again. When done with
reorganizing inventory, you can press the ’I’ key to close
inventory screen again.
Activating a skill or spell
The Tux in the course of his travels, will learn a lot of skills
and spells. Some of those will even be present at the very
beginning of the game. In order to use one of the skills of the
Tux, this skill must first be selected. So select a skill, open
the skills screen via the ’S’ key. Select the skill of your
choice by left clicking onto it. You can now close the skill
screen again by pressing the ’S’ key again. In order to use the
selected skill, just press the right mouse button. Some skills
might require some targeting. Others will just work on the area
where the Tux is standing. NOTE: You can also use F1-F10 keys
to quick-select a skill. Fn will select the n-th present skill,
which might be subject to change once new skills are aquired.
Opening chests and searching dead bodies or containers
NEW METHOD: Clicking the left mouse button on a chest (while
standing sufficiently close by) should spill all the chests
content onto the floor. However there is also the old method of
chest interaction, which also allows you to put stuff back into
the chest and take stuff more selectively out of the chest:
OLD METHOD: To do this, you must be standing in front of the
chest or on the dead body and then use the loot skill (see
above). This skill is easily recognized by the open chest icon
used for it. This will open up an interface screen where you
can then trade stuff from your inventory to the container and
vice versa.
Skills and attribute stats of the Tux
To get an overview of your Tux character, press the ’C’ key to
open character screen.
You will see the current Strength, Dexterity and Magic stats.
These will stay very much constant unless you spend some
training points with a teacher to raise those attributes. They
are a prerequisite for equipping certain items but also
influence the damage the Tux does and also his chance to hit and
the like. Some items might also give you a bonus to your
current strength, dexterity or magic scale. Because of this,
there is the ’base’ value for the bare Tux and also the ’now’
value with all bonuses currently applying.
Apart from this, you can see the most important combat and magic
skills of the Tux below. The range goes
novice--average--experienced--skilled--adept--masterful and so
on... These skills strongly influence the speed at which the
Tux will strike, the damage he does, the amount of capsules he
will have at this disposal in takeover game (see below) and also
the amount of force points the Tux can have at most. To raise
these skills, some training points have to be spent with an
appropriate teacher for this skill.
Hacking droids
The Tux is gifted with a unique inert skill to hack droids. He
can use this skill on any droid in the game. In order to hack a
bot, which will result in the machine being destroyed, you must
first activate the takeover skill. Then hold down right mouse
button to stay in takeover mode. The next machine touched by
the Tux while in this state will be target of the Tux’ hacking
attempt. But for this attempt to succeed, the takeover subgame
must be won first. Losing the takeover game will result in the
droid being free again and the Tux very much weakened from the
failed attempt.
Playing the takeover subgame
After the takeover subgame was initiated, the two droids
struggling for control will be presented. Then the player gets
to decide which side of the takeover game he wants to play. The
player on the left side takes the yellow color, the player on
the right side takes the magenta color. Note that which side to
choose may be the most important decision of the takeover
subgame, cause one side may host strong tactical advantages over
the other. After sides have been chosen, the takeover capsules
will be placed. Each droid has a limited number of capsules to
place and must try to convert the central status bar to his
color. The number of capsules you have at your disposal depends
on how much takeover skill you have acquired so far. Once the
takeover subgame is won, the droid in question will be
destroyed. Loss of takeover subgame results in the Tux being
very much drained of energy and therefore very vulnerable.
Keyboard summary
I Open/Close Inventory Screen
C C ... Open/Close Character Screen
S Open/Close Spells&Skills Screen
Q Show Quest Status Log
P Turn on/off Pause Mode
Tab Turn on/off automap display
Escape Pops up the main menu
F1-F10 Quick-Switch to aquired skill/ability/spells 1-10. These
numbers refer to the list of skills aquired so far and
therefore their effect might be subject to some change
once the Tux aquires new skills.
1-9 Quick-Use items from the quick-inventory. (That’s those
small items placed on the very bottom of the inventory.)
Space Closes all opened screens.
Left Ctrl Key
Running instead of walking is active as long as you hold
down this key.
F12 Take a screenshot
USING THE LEVEL EDITOR
FreedroidRPG comes with a built in level editor. The level editor can
be entered at any point of a running game and it’s also possible to
continue a game after level editing. This feature is there for testing
and development purposes (and not for cheating). To enter the level
editor, use the ’Level Editor’ option from the escape menu inside a
running game.
If you wish to make permanent changes to a map and then contribute the
map to the Freedroid project, please make sure that you start a fresh
game and then edit the fresh map. Otherwise there will be blood on the
floor, items lying around and mission relevant doors already opend and
the like. So best select ’New Game’ and then enter level editor
immediately after game startup.
How FreedroidRPG maps are organized
FreedroidRPG maps contain a multitude of data. The important data
types are:
Floor: This is for floor tiles like grass floor, grass-and-sand
floor, stone floor... Floor tiles are irrelevant to the
Tux movement.
Obstacles:
Obstacles are all the map parts, that are above the floor
but still not items that the Tux could pick up, e.g.
walls, doors, teleports, chests, ...
Items: Items are stuff that the Tux can pick up, e.g. laser
sword, buckler,...
Level parameters:
Level parameters are values that control the overall
properties of the level, like light strength, level size,
where the level is connected to other levels, what music
tracks to play, ...
Level editor controls
Moving around:
You can always use the left mouse button to move around
on the given map as well as use the cursor keys for this.
To change the current level, you can either use the ’go
level north/east/west/south’ buttons (if available) or
you can press escape to enter the menu and change the
level inside the menu.
Floor edit mode:
The FreedroidRPG level editor has 2 modes of operation:
The first mode is floor edit mode. In floor edit mode,
right mouse button will plant floor tiles. You can use
the left mouse button to select the floor tile type from
the selection bar. To change from floor edit mode to
obstacle edit mode and back again you can use the ’f’ key
on the keyboard.
Obstacle edit mode:
The other mode is obstacle edit mode. In obstacle edit
mode, right mouse button will plant new obstacles. You
can select the type of obstacle to be planed by clicking
the left mouse button into the obstacle selection bar on
top of the screen. However, planing obstacles with the
mouse is a bit unprecise. To plant obstacles in a more
precise way, you can use the number pad. Each of the
number pad keys 1-9 will plant the currently marked
obstacle to a specific standard location within the tile
you’re currently standing on. It doesn’t matter where
inside this tile you’re standing if you use this mode of
operation.
In obstacle edit mode, there are also several other keys,
that might help to speed up level edit operations. The
1-8 keys on the normal keyboard (not the number pad!)
will select specific wall types. The T key will select
teleporter. The R key will select refresh. The U key
will select a chest. The A key will select an alert.
In obstacle edit mode, you will also notice that if you
get close to some obstacle, the obstacle may get
’highlighted’ i.e. it’s color map will be awkwardly but
noticeable shifted. That means that this obstacle is
currently marked. If you press the ’x’ key now, the
obstacle in question will be deleted. Sometimes there
are more than one obstacle associated with the current
map square. If that is so, you can use the ’n’ key to
switch the marker from one obstacle to the other and back
again.
Planting waypoints:
Currently, droids (and that means all non-player
characters) move about on a level using predefined
waypoints. To plant a waypoint, press the ’w’ key. This
should turn on/off the waypoint on the square where
you’re standing.
Connecting waypoints:
Waypoints are of no use as long as they are not connected
among each other. To connect one waypoint to another
waypoint, go to the first waypoint, press the ’c’ key,
then go to the second waypoint and press the ’c’ key
again. This has established a one-way connection from
the first waypoint to the second waypoint. To allow the
droids to move the other way around as well, do the same
thing with reversed order of waypoints. To inspect the
possible ways for droids from one waypoint to other
waypoints, just step on the square with the waypoint.
You will notice a dotted line leading from this waypoint
to all other waypoints that are possible targets from
here.
Planting map labels:
Map labels are not the same as obstacle labels. Map
labels can be used for various purposes, like e.g. to
define the point where a teleporter should put the Tux or
to define a spot that will cause some event to happen as
soon as the Tux steps on this spot. To define a new map
label, press the ’m’ key on the keyboard. You will be
prompted for the map label. Giving an empty string here
will delete the existing label on this square. Note that
there will be a colorful circle appearing on any map tile
that has been fitted with a map label.
Planting obstacle labels:
Obstacle labels are important so that some obstacles can
be marked for events to happen. If e.g. an event is
supposed to remove a special wall obstacle, then this
obstacle must be given a name first, so it can be
referred to later in the definition of the event. To
plant a label on an obstacle, you must first mark this
obstacle (see obstacle mode explanation above). As soon
as the obstacle in question is marked, you can use the
’h’ key on the keyboard. You will be prompted for the
new label to attach to this obstacle. Giving an empty
string here will delete any existing obstacle label of
this obstacle.
PROJECT HOME PAGE AND LATEST VERSIONS
The FreedroidRPG project features a home page at
freedroid.sourceforge.net. The project itself is hosted at the
Sourceforge. The project summary page at
http://sourceforge.net/projects/freedroid/ can be used to access
download and status information. Note that home page and project
summary page are shared with the Freedroid classic development branch
as well.
FILES
~/.freedroid_rpg/config
The file containing all configuration setting of this user.
~/.freedroid_rpg/
Saved games for this user will also be placed in this directory.
ENVIRONMENT
FreedroidRPG does currently not care about any environment variables.
DIAGNOSTICS
Debug output can be produced by using the -d or --debug command line
options as described above.
BUGS, LIMITATIONS AND HELP
While the FreedroidRPG engine can now be considered fairly stable, the
story and characters are still far from completed and also the maps are
seriously underdeveloped. If you encounter any problems or bugs, have
some idea for future FreedroidRPG development or wish to contribute in
some way, please send e-mail to <freedroid-
discussion@lists.sourceforge.net>.
AUTHOR
Johannes Prix, Reinhard Prix, Bastian Salmela.
SEE ALSO
freedroid(6),