Provided by: snowballz_0.9.5.1-5_all bug

NAME

       snowballz - fun RTS game featuring snowball fights with penguins

SYNOPSIS

       snowballz

DESCRIPTION

       Take command of your army of penguins as you blaze your path to victory!

       March  through  snow  laden  forests  to conqueror new frontiers and grow your small army.
       Ambush enemy lines with blasts  of  freezing  snowballs.  But  don't  neglect  your  home,
       invaders are just over the next snow drift!

       Gather fish for your cold penguins to munch on as they warm up in your cozy igloo.

       It's a snowy world you don't want to miss!

REQUIREMENTS

       You  will  need to make sure that you have all of these items installed on your system. If
       you use linux most of these will be in your distribution's repository.

         * Python 2.4
         * pygame
         * PyOpenGL
         * Numeric
         * PIL

CONTROLS

       You can control snowballers (not workers) by selecting them (ether by clicking on them  or
       dragging a select box around them) and right clicking to tell them to do something.

       Left click to select, right click to perform an action. If you right click somewhere, they
       will move and stay there until they get cold or  you  tell  them  to  go  somewhere  else.
       Snowballers  that  don't  have any orders (they are cleared when they get cold), will walk
       around their home igloo. Penguins get cold when hit by snowballs.

       To disband your units (make them go stray around their igloos) by pressing the **o**  key.
       You  can  also  make  your  penguins run somewhere without stopping to throw at enemies by
       middle clicking instead of right clicking.

       You can move the screen around by using the arrow keys or  **aswd**  keys.  Hold  down  on
       space to bring up a nice big minimap.

       Zoom  in  and  out  with  the  page-up and page-down keys. Note that for now it might be a
       little slow when zoomed out!

CHAT

       To send a chat message, first press enter to bring up the chat box. Once up,  simply  type
       your  message and press enter again. Your message will be sent to everyone! If you want to
       send to just one person, you can type::

        >playername Hi playername! This is a privet message!

       playername being the name of the person you want to send a chat message to.

       There is tab completeion too! So you can type ">" then hit TAB to see all players that you
       can  send  a  privet  chat  to. Two useful shortcuts you can use are the "," and "." keys.
       Press the period when you aren't in chatmode and it will bring up the chatbox  to  send  a
       message  to  the  last  person  that sent a privet chat to you. The "," works the same way
       except to the last person you sent a privet chat to.

       If you ever have a bunch of chats on your screen that you just want to get rid of, you can
       press the **c** key to clear them all.

TAKEOVER

       If  you tell a snowballer to move to an enemy igloo (by right clicking on it), it will run
       without stopping until it gets into it. If you can hold the enemy igloo  for  30  seconds,
       it, the region, and all penguins belonging to the igloo will become yours.

       Be  carefull  though,  if  an  enemy snowballer enters the igloo you are taking over, your
       penguin will be shown the door with a cold snowball in his face.

       Penguins (on ether side) can not exit an igloo that is in the middle of a takeover.

       When an igloo is being taken over, the penguins belonging to that igloo will  go  bananas.
       The  workers  will just run around in a panic and the snowballers will rush to try to save
       it in time not listening to your orders. (actually, the workers don't  do  that  yet,  but
       they will!)

       On the bottom right corner of igloos there is a marker designating which player that igloo
       belongs to.  When  an  igloo  is  in  jeopardy  (being  taken  over),  that  marker  turns
       multicolored.

WARMING AND REASSIGNING

       When a penguin gets cold from being hit with too many snowballs, it will run madly back to
       it's home igloo (you won't be able to control it again until it's warm). Once back in it's
       igloo,  it  can  take up to 40 seconds to get warmed up (depending on how cold it was when
       going in)! It also requires a fish before it will go back out if it's warmth was  below  a
       certain level (your workers will automatically gather fish).

       If  you tell a snowballer to enter one of your igloos (again, by right clicking on it), it
       will enter it. Immediately after entering, the igloo you told it to  go  to  becomes  it's
       home  igloo.  If  it is all the way warm, it will exit immediately. Otherwise it will stay
       for a snack and warm up.

TERRAIN TYPES

       In the game you will come across two different types of land; Ice  and  snow.  Really  the
       only difference between the two is that snowballers can only create snowballs on snow (not
       ice).

       Try to catch your enemy on the the ice with your snowballers standing on the snow. If  you
       can, you'll cream 'em!

TIPS

       When one of your penguins enters their igloo and is only a little bit cold, they won't eat
       a fish but will still get warm. The colder the penguin, the longer they take to warm up!

       You can gain a strategic advantage in a snowball fight if your  penguins  are  among  some
       trees  while your opponents aren't. Snowballs that hit trees have no effect on surrounding
       penguins.

       Normally, a snowball that lands next to a penguin brings it's warmth down  just  a  little
       while  a  direct  hit will bring it down a lot. If your penguins get close enough to their
       enemy, they are much more accurate!

       One mean strategy you can use against your opponent when they are between  your  army  and
       their  own  igloo  is  to  send one of your penguins into their igloo. This will make your
       penguin run without stop towards their igloo distracting the enemy. This  will  give  your
       snowballers  a  chance to get a handle on the situation. If your snowballer does manage to
       get into their igloo, all of their snowballers  will  panic  and  race  to  it,  and  stop
       throwing their snowballs!

CREDITS

       The game has been developed by:

         * Joey Marshall <joey@arcticpaint.com>
           - lead programmer
           - designer
           - gfx

         * Matthew Marshall <matthew@matthewmarshall.org>
           - programming
           - networking

       This  man  page  has  been made by Miriam Ruiz <little_miry@yahoo.es>, based in the README
       file that comes along with the game.

SEE ALSO

       You can find more information at http://joey101.arcticpaint.com/snowballz/

                                            June 2007                                SnowballZ(6)