Provided by: rocksndiamonds_3.3.0.1+dfsg1-3_amd64 bug

NAME

       Rocks'n'Diamonds - A game for Unix/X11

INTRODUCTION

       This  is  a nice little game with color graphics and sound for your Unix system with color
       X11. You need an 8-Bit color display or better.  It  is  not  recommended  on  black&white
       systems, and maybe not on gray scale systems.

       If  you  know  the  game "Boulderdash" (Commodore C64) or "Emerald Mine" (Amiga), you know
       what "ROCKS'N'DIAMONDS" is about.

The Menues

       You can see eight blue circles on the left side of the eight green menu texts;  these  are
       buttons  to  activate  the  menu  commands  by simply clicking on them with the left mouse
       button. The button will then change to red.  (You can control the menues over the keyboard
       or joystick, too. Just use the arrow keys and the 'Return' or 'Enter' key or, if you use a
       joystick, the appropriate direction and the fire button.)

The menu 'name'

       When you start the game the first time, your login name will appear in the 'NAME:'  field.
       If you want to use a different name for playing, for example a funny player name or a name
       for cheating, you can click on the button and enter a new name.

       If you choose a certain special name, you will be in a cheat mode where you can choose all
       levels without playing the lower levels before... :)

The menue 'level'

       If  you  have played some levels of this game, you can choose the already played levels at
       any time, but you cannot choose the higher levels. This means, you can choose levels  from
       level 0 to the highest level that you have ever won. This is known as your 'handicap'.

       If  the  level  number is red, you have choosen a 'ready' level, if it is yellow, you have
       choosen a 'user' level, which is blank and can be edited by  yourself  with  the  built-in
       level editor (see below).

       To  choose  new  level  series,  click  on the button on the left and choose the new level
       serie.

Hall of fame

       Click on this button to see a list of the best players of this level.  Click again  to  go
       back to the main menu.

Level creator

       This  brings  you to the level editor, if you have switched to a 'yellow' level, which are
       empty and can be filled by yourself. See below.

Info screen

       This screen shows you all  elements  which  appear  in  the  game  and  presents  you  the
       background music loops which you can listen to while playing the levels (only available on
       Linux and FreeBSD systems).

Start game

       This will start the game.

Setup

       To change some things in the game, use the setup menu.   You  can  enable/disable  "Sound"
       (enables/disables  _all_  sounds  in  the  game), "Sound loops" (only allowed on Linux and
       FreeBSD systems with VoxWare[tm] sound driver; don't worry if you never  heard  of  it  --
       it's  the name of the standard Linux sound driver), "Game music" (can always be enabled on
       very fast systems [exception: you don't like it], on slower  systems  it  will  take  some
       percent  of  CPU  time  which will slow things down a bit) and "Toons", which will forbid/
       permit the little animated toons.

       "Buffered Gfx" can be set to "off" on slower systems, "Fading" gives a nice fading  effect
       when  displaying  new  screens,  but  unfortunately I haven't found a system which is fast
       enough to display it so far.  (Maybe this works better on highly accelerated  X  servers.)
       Better set this to "off" if you have a normal system...

       Set "auto-record" to "on" if you want to automatically record each game to tape.

       If  you  have  a  Linux or FreeBSD system with a joystick, you can choose the "1st" or the
       "2nd" joystick port and use "Cal. Joystick" to calibrate it. Use  "Save  and  exit"  after
       calibration to save it for later playing sessions.

       "Exit" quits the setup menu without saving the changes, "Save and exit" will save and then
       return to the main menu.

Quit

       Exit the game.

How To Play The Game

       When the game has started, you can see the playfield on the left side and a control  field
       on the right side. The control field contains the following elements:

       Level indicator
              Tells you which level you are playing.

       Emeralds
              Shows you how many emeralds you still need to win the current level.

       Dynamite1
              Shows you how many dynamite bombs you have.

       Keys   Shows you which keys you have in your inventory.

       Score  Shows  the  current  score.  In some levels there are some extra items giving extra
              score points.

       Time   The seconds you have still left to play the level.

       Stop/Pause/Play
              Game controls to stop the game, pause it and go on playing. If the tape recorder is
              recording your game, it is stopping/pausing/playing as well.

       Music buttons
              The  three  music  buttons  can  be  used to control the background music loop, the
              'looping' sounds and all other sounds. The little red light  shows  you  if  it  is
              enabled  or  disabled.  On  slower  systems (and a 486DX33 with Soundblaster _is_ a
              slower system) it increases the game speed to turn off background  music.  You  can
              completely  turn  off all sound effects in the setup menu, although it is much more
              fun to have them enabled when it doesn't eats up to much speed.

              (A little note: The  sound  server  currently  needs  about  10%  CPU  time  on  my
              486DX/33/SBPro  system  when  playing  background music. I wonder if this would get
              better with a better soundcard, like Gravis Ultrasound, or if only pure  CPU  power
              helps in this case...)

About the game itself

        Of course you know Boulderdash, so you will know how to play the game. :) If not: You can
       move your playing figure (the smiley) with the arrow keys or with  the  joystick  (if  you
       have  no  joystick and even no arrow keys on your keyboard, you can use the keys 'i', 'j',
       'k' and 'm' for the directions. To 'snap' a field near you without moving to it,  you  can
       use  the  left  fire  button  on your joystick (hold it down, move the stick to 'snap' the
       field, release the button) or the keys 'e',  's',  'd'  and  'x'.  To  place  a  piece  of
       dynamite,  use  the  right  fire  button  on  your joystick or use the 'b' key (and, after
       placing the dynamite, better see to move away from this field...).

       Just try the levels from the 'tutorial' level serie to see what most of the elements do or
       have a look at the info screen!

       Note:  It  is *highly recommended* to use a joystick for playing this game! It is possible
       to play it with the keyboard, but it is *much more fun* to play with a joystick, and  some
       levels  are very difficult to solve with the keyboard. So, the best platform for this game
       is a Linux or a FreeBSD system (which gives you background music, too).

The Level Editor

       To build your own levels, just choose a 'yellow', empty level.  If  you  cannot  find  any
       'yellow' levels, choose a different level serie or choose the higher level numbers (if you
       have a small 'handicap' number, the higher levels will be skipped  to  reach  the  'empty'
       levels.

       Another  way  is  to  create  your  own  level  series.  Just  add  a  line  to  the  file
       'levels/ROCKS.levelinfo' with the following entries:
       - the name of the level directory (create this directory under 'levels')
       - the name of the level serie (don't use any whitespaces within the name)
       - the 'ready' (red) levels (start with zero)
       - the 'empty' (yellow) levels (set this to some number of blank levels)

       To edit a level, you can use all three mouse buttons to draw in the  level  window.  Click
       into  the elements field with one of the three buttons to remap it to the new element. Use
       the arrow widgets to scroll around in the level.  Use  the  'flood  fill'  field  to  init
       exactly  ony  flood  fill  operation  in  the level field (you will be prompted). Click on
       'control window' to switch to the control window.

       In the control window you can modify different parameters  like  the  size  of  the  level
       playfield,  the  name  of  the level, the scores for different elements and something like
       that. The four 3x3 field on the upper left can be edited like the level field and indicate
       the  'contents'  of  smashed crunchers (just try it out with some crunchers in one of your
       own levels).

        'Undo & Exit' leaves the level editor, throwing away all the changes you have done to the
       level.
        'Save  &  Exit'  leveas  the  level  editor  and saves the new level (the old one will be
       deleted).

The Tape Recorder

       You can use the tape recorder to record games and play tapes of previously  played  games.
       Just use them like a normal video recorder.

       Recording a game on tape:
              Just  press the 'record' button (the one with the red point on it) and either press
              'Start Game' or press on 'record' or 'pause'  to  end  the  pause  mode  and  start
              playing and recording.

              If  you  have  set  "auto record" in the setup menu to "on", you just have to press
              'Start Game' as usual.

       Saving a game tape:
              To save a tape to the tape file corresponding to the level (that means that you can
              only  save  one  tape file for each level), just press the 'eject' button (the very
              left button). Then you will be prompted if you really want to replace the old  tape
              (if an old tape exists).

       Playing a tape:
              Just press 'play' and then either 'play' or 'pause'.

              While  recording  or  playing,  you  can press 'pause' to stop the recording or the
              playing of the tape and continue by pressing 'pause' again.  You can use either the
              tape recorder buttons or the game control buttons for this purpose.

And Now Have Fun!

       Have fun playing the game, building new levels and breaking all high scores! ;)

AUTHOR

       If you have any comments, problems, suggestions, donations, flames, send them to

            info@artsoft.org

       Have fun!

                                         20 November 1995                       ROCKSNDIAMONDS(6)