NAME

       Domino-Chain - Rearrange dominoes on different platforms to start a chain reaction.

SYNOPSIS

       domino-chain

DESCRIPTION

       Domino-Chain  is  a  puzzle  game  where you have to rearrange dominoes on different platforms to start a
       chain reaction that makes all dominoes topple over. There are many strange types of dominoes, such as the
       Ascender  which  will  rise  to the ceiling when pushed, or the Exploder which will blast a hole into the
       platform it stands on.

       Domino-Chain is a faithful reincarnation of the game Pushover originally  published  by  Ocean  in  1992.
       Compared  to Pushover, Domino-Chain has some new levels, some additional domino types, better graphics in
       higher resolution and high-quality music. On top of that, you can load and play the original levels  from
       Pushover if you have a copy of it.

       This  game is free software and created by volunteers. Even though it is in a pretty good state, there is
       a lot to improve. If you  like  Domino-Chain,  please  consider  to  join  the  team  and  to  help  with
       translations, levels, graphics and more.

USAGE

   Rules
       You  control  a figure that can walk along platforms which are connected with ladders. On those platforms
       there are dominoes that will fall according to certain rules. Your task is to rearrange the  dominoes  so
       you can start a chain reaction that makes all dominoes topple over. The rules are:

       Domino types:
              There  are  many different dominoes that behave differently when pushed. Some fall, some not, some
              wait a bit before they fall, some raise, some topple until they meet an obstacle.

       All fall, no crash:
              All dominoes (except for the blocker) must fall and none must crash into another. They are allowed
              to fall off the screen, though.

       Trigger and exit door:
              The trigger domino must fall as last domino. Only then it triggers the exit door to open. When you
              enter the exit door the level has been completed.

       Disallowed moves:
              You may rearrange as many dominoes as you want,  except  for  the  trigger.  You  must  not  place
              dominoes in front of the doors, except for the vanishing domino.

       One push:
              You  may  push only once to start a chain reaction with the dominoes leading to the fall of all of
              them.

       Time limit:
              All this has to be done within a time limit. This limit is usually generous, but not always.

       There is an in-game help as well as and introductory levels that show how all the dominoes work.

   Dominoes
       The following types of dominoes exist:

       Standard, completely yellow:
              There is nothing special with this stone, it behaves like a regular domino and falls when pushed.

       Blocker, completely red:
              This domino can't fall over, so it is the only kind of stone that may still be standing  when  the
              level is solved. Dominoes falling against this stone will bounce back, if possible.

       Tumbler, big red stripe:
              This  domino  will  stand  up  again  after  falling  and will continue to tumble until it hits an
              obstacle or rests against another stone.

       Delay stone, diagonally divided:
              This domino will take some time until it falls, when it is pushed. Dominoes falling  against  this
              stone will bounce back and later this stone will fall.

       Splitter, horizontally divided:
              This stone will split into two stones, one falling to the left and the other falling to the right.
              The splitter can't be pushed. It must be split by a stone falling onto it from above.  A  pile  of
              rubbish falling into it also activates this domino.

       Exploder, vertically divided:
              This  stone  will blast a gap into the platform it is standing on, when it is pushed.  Neither the
              figure nor the pushing domino are harmed by that, the pushing domino will fall into the gap.

       Bridger, 1 horizontal strip:
              The bridger will try to connect the edge it is standing on with the next  edge,  if  it  is  close
              enough, if not it will simply fall into the gap.

       Vanisher, 2 horizontal strips:
              The  Vanisher will disappear as soon as it lies flat on the ground. This is the only stone you may
              place in front of doors.

       Trigger, 3 horizontal strips:
              This stone will open the exit door, as soon as it lies completely flat and  all  other  conditions
              are met (see above). This is the only stone that you are not allowed to move around.

       Ascender, vertical strip:
              This  stone  will  start  to rise as soon as it is pushed. It will rise until is hits the ceiling,
              then it will start to flip into the direction it was initially pushed. When you fall  into  a  gap
              while holding this stone it will also rise and stay at the ceiling until pushed.

       Quantum, diagonally divided:
              All  dominoes  of  this  type  will fall together as if they were quantum entangled. There are two
              types of quantum dominoes with inverted color markings. Those of the same type will fall into  the
              same  direction,  the others will fall into the opposite direction. This is a new type of dominoes
              not present in the original Pushover game.

   Controls
       The figure is controlled using the cursor keys and space. Use the space key to pick up the domino  behind
       the figure or to place it down where you are currently standing. To push press first up to let the figure
       enter the row of dominoes. Then simultaneously press space and either left or right cursor key  depending
       on whether you want to push the domino to your left or your right.

   Hints
       If  you  don't  know  where to start in a level, simply push a stone and observe what happens. This helps
       very often to get a general idea how to solve a level and where the problem is.

       If you forgot which domino has what kind of special property press F1 to get a short  help.  This  window
       also displays a short hint, once the time of the level is out.

       The first levels introduce you to the dominoes. Here you can explore how the different dominoes behave in
       different situations.

CONTACT

       You can file bug reports, discuss ideas for new features and offer contributions on the

       Domino-Chain Issue Tracker
              https://gitlab.com/domino-chain/domino-chain.gitlab.io/issues

       which is the central point to get in contact with the project.  There, you'll also find links to the code
       repository,  and  so  on. If you need to contact us privately, please contact Andreas Röver via roever at
       users dot sourceforge dot net.

AUTHORS

       Andreas Röver:
              Project founder, main programming and reverse engineering.

       Volker Diels-Grabsch:
              Text-based level format, build system and code assorted bugfixes and patches.

       Roberto Lorenz:
              Music composition and arrangement.

       Harald Radke:
              Theme graphics.

FILES

       Domino-Chain places a few files on your hard-disc in everyday running. Those files will be placed in your
       home directory.

       Location on Unix systems:
              ~/.local/share/domino-chain

       The following files are saved:

       solved.txt:
              This  file  contains  checksums  of all the levels that you have successfully solved. In the level
              selection dialogue those levels contain a mark. If you loose this file those marks are gone.

       *.rec: These files contain recordings of activities within  a  level.   They  are  automatically  created
              whenever  you  solve  a level but you can also actively make a recording by pressing 'r' while you
              play a level. When you observe something strange while playing, make a recording and  send  it  to
              us.  Also when the game crashes a recording will be saved. You can delete these files whenever you
              want. You can distinguish the recordings by the prefix in their  name.  "Sol"  stands  for  solved
              levels,  "Man"  for  manually  created  recordings  and "Err" for recordings made when the program
              crashed.

NOTES

   Level Designers
       Domino-Chain will eventually get a level editor, but right now it doesn't. However, all levels are stored
       in a readable plain text format, so you can create and modify levels directly with a text editor.

       To  get  your levels officially included in the Domino-Chain project, you need to adhere to the following
       rules:

       License:
              They need to be put under the GPL, or a compatible license.  Otherwise inclusion  is  legally  not
              possible. Copyright stays with you, of course.

       Complete sets:
              Please  contribute only complete sets and no single levels.  They don't need to be long, 10 levels
              is enough, but this way you can keep up a constant scheme and theme logic of the levels.

       Solutions:
              You absolutely must provide a recording of one possible solution to each level. That  solution  is
              not within the distribution, just within the source code repository. It is used to ensure that the
              solution of your level is still possible after we made changes to the program. This way  we  limit
              possible frustration.

       Non-compressed:
              Do only send non-compressed level sets. We need those for the inclusion in the source. And we need
              those for possible future updates.

       Index: Use the index file to reorder levels, don't rename the files. This way inserting a  level  becomes
              very easy.

   Graphics
       We  have  graphics  for  most themes, but not for all. Those themes do have some foreground graphics, but
       their background tiles are all black. You are very much invited to create and to  improve  the  graphics.
       Even  more  important, though, is the creation of a new main figure. In either case, please contact us if
       you are interested.

       The backgrounds are made out of 20x13 tiles. Each tile has a size of 40x48 pixel. The reason for that  is
       the  non square pixel of the 320x200 resolution of the original game. For each theme there is a PNG image
       file containing all the blocks that may be used by the levels. To make it possible to  place  the  blocks
       more  freely  into  the  PNG  file  a  LUA  file  accompanies the image. This LUA file contains the block
       positions of all the used blocks.

       It is already implemented to use transparency within the blocks. Right now  you can stack up to 8 layers,
       but if necessary this can be made dynamic.

       It  is  also  planned to have something like animated tiles, but they have to be kept at a low count. Not
       too many frames and not too many animations. They are not intended to make the background dynamic, but to
       rather  be  a little finishing touch to the graphics. Possibilities are trees that move from time to time
       in a breeze, a bird that sails through the sky from time to time, and so on.

       The figure is more complicated. The image figure.png contains  all  possible  animation  images  for  the
       figure,  one  animation below the other. On request we can provide an additional GIMP image that contains
       in separate layers possible surroundings of the figure  in  different  animation  frames  (like  ladders,
       steps, ground, a carried domino, and so on). We will happily provide that image to an interested artist.

CREDITS

       We want to thank the developers of the original game for making such a nice little game.

                                                                                                 DOMINO-CHAIN(6)