1FREEDROID(6) User Manuals FREEDROID(6)
2
6 freedroidRPG - a graphical single player role playing game featuring
7 Tux the Linux mascot
8
10 freedroidRPG [ options ]
11
13 FreedroidRPG is a graphical single player role playing game inspired by
14 games like Diablo and Gothic.
15 In a far-future world, almost all services and jobs were done by robots
17 and droids, most especially the more dangerous ones like police or mil‐
18 itary services. The company providing the operating systems for these
19 bots 'Monopoly Systems' used their closed source operating system mo‐
20 nopoly and a back door within it's operation system to enslave humanity
21 all over the galaxy.
22 But this is not the main problem. Some 20 years after the MS has taken
24 control of the universe, suddenly a very strange thing happened. The
25 bots suddenly rebelled against the MS and didn't respond to the com‐
26 mands of their former superiors at the MS any more. Mankind was under
27 attack by it's bots and had to flee to various secret underground cav‐
28 erns on remote planets of the universe and cannot return any more.
29 This is where the game begins. The Tux awakens from several years of
31 stasis that the MS has put him into and now returns to save the world
32 from the horrible bots.
33
35 -v or --version
36 Prints out FreedroidRPG version information.
37 -q or --nosound
39 This option will suppress all sound output. Very useful if you
40 don't have your sound card configured yet or don't have any
41 sound hardware at all.
42 -f or --fullscreen
44 This instructs FreedroidRPG to work in full screen mode, which
45 is the default mode of operation. Please note that it is
46 strongly recommended that your X Window system is configured to
47 feature a move with 640x480 screen resolution, but it will also
48 work if this is not the case. Note that fullscreen or window
49 mode can also be toggled from within the game via the options
50 menu.
51 -o or --open_gl
53 This instructs FreedroidRPG to use OpenGL as the method for
54 graphics output. If you have hardware accelerated OpenGL on
55 your X11 or your Microsoft Windows installation, this is the
56 recommended output method to achieve much better frame rates
57 and also better graphics quality.
58 NOTE: If you wish to use OpenGL for graphics output, your
60 FreedroidRPG executable must have been compiled to support
61 OpenGL. You can see if that is the case and also if OpenGL
62 graphics output is active in the very first startup menu of the
63 game.
64 -n or --no_open_gl
66 This instructs FreedroidRPG to use plain SDL instead of OpenGL
67 as the method for graphics output. This is usually (much)
68 slower than hardware-accelerated OpenGL graphics output and
69 also some features are disabled in this mode because of speed
70 considerations.
71 -w or --window
73 Start FreedroidRPG in a window rather than using full screen
74 mode.
75 -j or --sensitivity
77 This option can be used to control joystick sensitivity.
78 -d LEVEL or --debug=LEVEL
80 This option can be used to control debug output of the game.
81 Debug output will be printed to stderr, i.e. in most cases to
82 the console you started FreedroidRPG from. The variable LEVEL
83 controls how much debug output you would like to have. LEVEL 0
84 is the default and means (almost) no debug output. LEVEL 1
85 prints the most important debug messages and LEVEL 2 or LEVEL 3
86 print (almost) all debug output, which might be quite a lot.
87
89 Movement and attacking
90 Moving the Tux can now be done exclusively by using the left
91 mouse button. Attacking an enemy is done by clicking on that
92 enemy. The Tux will, in case of a melee weapon wielded,
93 approach the target and then strike. In order to attack an
94 object without moving, you must hold down the shift key and then
95 click the left mouse button.
96 RUNNING: If you hold down the left ctrl key, Tux will run
98 instead of walk.
99 Talking to people and friendly droids
101 When left-clicking the mouse on a friendly character or droid,
102 the Tux will start dialog with that character. In some cases it
103 might also be that some other person approaches the Tux and
104 opens dialog.
105 Reorganizing inventory
106 Open up the inventory screen by pressing the 'I' key. You can
107 now left-click on stuff in your inventory. That will make you
108 'hold' the object in question, i.e. your mouse cursor will
109 change into that one item you picked. If that item can be
110 equipped, you can then equip the item by placing it over the
111 appropriate slot and then left-licking again. When done with
112 reorganizing inventory, you can press the 'I' key to close
113 inventory screen again.
114 Activating a skill or spell
115 The Tux in the course of his travels, will learn a lot of skills
116 and spells. Some of those will even be present at the very
117 beginning of the game. In order to use one of the skills of the
118 Tux, this skill must first be selected. So select a skill, open
119 the skills screen via the 'S' key. Select the skill of your
120 choice by left clicking onto it. You can now close the skill
121 screen again by pressing the 'S' key again. In order to use the
122 selected skill, just press the right mouse button. Some skills
123 might require some targeting. Others will just work on the area
124 where the Tux is standing. NOTE: You can also use F1-F10 keys
125 to quick-select a skill. Fn will select the n-th present skill,
126 which might be subject to change once new skills are aquired.
127 Opening chests and searching dead bodies or containers
128 NEW METHOD: Clicking the left mouse button on a chest (while
130 standing sufficiently close by) should spill all the chests con‐
131 tent onto the floor. However there is also the old method of
132 chest interaction, which also allows you to put stuff back into
133 the chest and take stuff more selectively out of the chest:
134 OLD METHOD: To do this, you must be standing in front of the
136 chest or on the dead body and then use the loot skill (see
137 above). This skill is easily recognized by the open chest icon
138 used for it. This will open up an interface screen where you
139 can then trade stuff from your inventory to the container and
140 vice versa.
141 Skills and attribute stats of the Tux
143 To get an overview of your Tux character, press the 'C' key to
144 open character screen.
145 You will see the current Strength, Dexterity and Magic stats.
147 These will stay very much constant unless you spend some train‐
148 ing points with a teacher to raise those attributes. They are a
149 prerequisite for equipping certain items but also influence the
150 damage the Tux does and also his chance to hit and the like.
151 Some items might also give you a bonus to your current strength,
152 dexterity or magic scale. Because of this, there is the 'base'
153 value for the bare Tux and also the 'now' value with all bonuses
154 currently applying.
155 Apart from this, you can see the most important combat and magic
157 skills of the Tux below. The range goes novice--average--expe‐
158 rienced--skilled--adept--masterful and so on... These skills
159 strongly influence the speed at which the Tux will strike, the
160 damage he does, the amount of capsules he will have at this dis‐
161 posal in takeover game (see below) and also the amount of force
162 points the Tux can have at most. To raise these skills, some
163 training points have to be spent with an appropriate teacher for
164 this skill.
165 Hacking droids
166 The Tux is gifted with a unique inert skill to hack droids. He
167 can use this skill on any droid in the game. In order to hack a
168 bot, which will result in the machine being destroyed, you must
169 first activate the takeover skill. Then hold down right mouse
170 button to stay in takeover mode. The next machine touched by
171 the Tux while in this state will be target of the Tux' hacking
172 attempt. But for this attempt to succeed, the takeover subgame
173 must be won first. Losing the takeover game will result in the
174 droid being free again and the Tux very much weakened from the
175 failed attempt.
176 Playing the takeover subgame
177 After the takeover subgame was initiated, the two droids strug‐
178 gling for control will be presented. Then the player gets to
179 decide which side of the takeover game he wants to play. The
180 player on the left side takes the yellow color, the player on
181 the right side takes the magenta color. Note that which side to
182 choose may be the most important decision of the takeover sub‐
183 game, cause one side may host strong tactical advantages over
184 the other. After sides have been chosen, the takeover capsules
185 will be placed. Each droid has a limited number of capsules to
186 place and must try to convert the central status bar to his
187 color. The number of capsules you have at your disposal depends
188 on how much takeover skill you have acquired so far. Once the
189 takeover subgame is won, the droid in question will be
190 destroyed. Loss of takeover subgame results in the Tux being
191 very much drained of energy and therefore very vulnerable.
192 Keyboard summary
193 I Open/Close Inventory Screen
195 C C ... Open/Close Character Screen
197 S Open/Close Spells&Skills Screen
199 Q Show Quest Status Log
201 P Turn on/off Pause Mode
203 Tab Turn on/off automap display
205 Escape Pops up the main menu
207 F1-F10 Quick-Switch to aquired skill/ability/spells 1-10. These
209 numbers refer to the list of skills aquired so far and
210 therefore their effect might be subject to some change
211 once the Tux aquires new skills.
212 1-9 Quick-Use items from the quick-inventory. (That's those
214 small items placed on the very bottom of the inventory.)
215 Space Closes all opened screens.
217 Left Ctrl Key
219 Running instead of walking is active as long as you hold
220 down this key.
221 F12 Take a screenshot
223
225 FreedroidRPG comes with a built in level editor. The level editor can
226 be entered at any point of a running game and it's also possible to
227 continue a game after level editing. This feature is there for testing
228 and development purposes (and not for cheating). To enter the level
229 editor, use the 'Level Editor' option from the escape menu inside a
230 running game.
231 If you wish to make permanent changes to a map and then contribute the
233 map to the Freedroid project, please make sure that you start a fresh
234 game and then edit the fresh map. Otherwise there will be blood on the
235 floor, items lying around and mission relevant doors already opend and
236 the like. So best select 'New Game' and then enter level editor imme‐
237 diately after game startup.
238 How FreedroidRPG maps are organized
240 FreedroidRPG maps contain a multitude of data. The important data
242 types are:
243 Floor: This is for floor tiles like grass floor, grass-and-sand
245 floor, stone floor... Floor tiles are irrelevant to the
246 Tux movement.
247 Obstacles:
249 Obstacles are all the map parts, that are above the floor
250 but still not items that the Tux could pick up, e.g.
251 walls, doors, teleports, chests, ...
252 Items: Items are stuff that the Tux can pick up, e.g. laser
254 sword, buckler,...
255 Level parameters:
257 Level parameters are values that control the overall
258 properties of the level, like light strength, level size,
259 where the level is connected to other levels, what music
260 tracks to play, ...
261 Level editor controls
263 Moving around:
265 You can always use the left mouse button to move around
266 on the given map as well as use the cursor keys for this.
267 To change the current level, you can either use the 'go
268 level north/east/west/south' buttons (if available) or
269 you can press escape to enter the menu and change the
270 level inside the menu.
271 Floor edit mode:
273 The FreedroidRPG level editor has 2 modes of operation:
274 The first mode is floor edit mode. In floor edit mode,
275 right mouse button will plant floor tiles. You can use
276 the left mouse button to select the floor tile type from
277 the selection bar. To change from floor edit mode to
278 obstacle edit mode and back again you can use the 'f' key
279 on the keyboard.
280 Obstacle edit mode:
282 The other mode is obstacle edit mode. In obstacle edit
283 mode, right mouse button will plant new obstacles. You
284 can select the type of obstacle to be planed by clicking
285 the left mouse button into the obstacle selection bar on
286 top of the screen. However, planing obstacles with the
287 mouse is a bit unprecise. To plant obstacles in a more
288 precise way, you can use the number pad. Each of the
289 number pad keys 1-9 will plant the currently marked
290 obstacle to a specific standard location within the tile
291 you're currently standing on. It doesn't matter where
292 inside this tile you're standing if you use this mode of
293 operation.
294 In obstacle edit mode, there are also several other keys,
296 that might help to speed up level edit operations. The
297 1-8 keys on the normal keyboard (not the number pad!)
298 will select specific wall types. The T key will select
299 teleporter. The R key will select refresh. The U key
300 will select a chest. The A key will select an alert.
301 In obstacle edit mode, you will also notice that if you
303 get close to some obstacle, the obstacle may get 'high‐
304 lighted' i.e. it's color map will be awkwardly but
305 noticeable shifted. That means that this obstacle is
306 currently marked. If you press the 'x' key now, the
307 obstacle in question will be deleted. Sometimes there
308 are more than one obstacle associated with the current
309 map square. If that is so, you can use the 'n' key to
310 switch the marker from one obstacle to the other and back
311 again.
312 Planting waypoints:
314 Currently, droids (and that means all non-player charac‐
315 ters) move about on a level using predefined waypoints.
316 To plant a waypoint, press the 'w' key. This should turn
317 on/off the waypoint on the square where you're standing.
318 Connecting waypoints:
320 Waypoints are of no use as long as they are not connected
321 among each other. To connect one waypoint to another
322 waypoint, go to the first waypoint, press the 'c' key,
323 then go to the second waypoint and press the 'c' key
324 again. This has established a one-way connection from
325 the first waypoint to the second waypoint. To allow the
326 droids to move the other way around as well, do the same
327 thing with reversed order of waypoints. To inspect the
328 possible ways for droids from one waypoint to other way‐
329 points, just step on the square with the waypoint. You
330 will notice a dotted line leading from this waypoint to
331 all other waypoints that are possible targets from here.
332 Planting map labels:
334 Map labels are not the same as obstacle labels. Map
335 labels can be used for various purposes, like e.g. to
336 define the point where a teleporter should put the Tux or
337 to define a spot that will cause some event to happen as
338 soon as the Tux steps on this spot. To define a new map
339 label, press the 'm' key on the keyboard. You will be
340 prompted for the map label. Giving an empty string here
341 will delete the existing label on this square. Note that
342 there will be a colorful circle appearing on any map tile
343 that has been fitted with a map label.
344 Planting obstacle labels:
346 Obstacle labels are important so that some obstacles can
347 be marked for events to happen. If e.g. an event is sup‐
348 posed to remove a special wall obstacle, then this obsta‐
349 cle must be given a name first, so it can be referred to
350 later in the definition of the event. To plant a label
351 on an obstacle, you must first mark this obstacle (see
352 obstacle mode explanation above). As soon as the obsta‐
353 cle in question is marked, you can use the 'h' key on the
354 keyboard. You will be prompted for the new label to
355 attach to this obstacle. Giving an empty string here
356 will delete any existing obstacle label of this obstacle.
357
359 The FreedroidRPG project features a home page at freedroid.source‐
360 forge.net. The project itself is hosted at the Sourceforge. The
361 project summary page at http://sourceforge.net/projects/freedroid/ can
362 be used to access download and status information. Note that home page
363 and project summary page are shared with the Freedroid classic develop‐
364 ment branch as well.
365
367 ~/.freedroid_rpg/config
368 The file containing all configuration setting of this user.
369 ~/.freedroid_rpg/
370 Saved games for this user will also be placed in this directory.
371
373 FreedroidRPG does currently not care about any environment variables.
374
376 Debug output can be produced by using the -d or --debug command line
377 options as described above.
378
380 While the FreedroidRPG engine can now be considered fairly stable, the
381 story and characters are still far from completed and also the maps are
382 seriously underdeveloped. If you encounter any problems or bugs, have
383 some idea for future FreedroidRPG development or wish to contribute in
384 some way, please send e-mail to <freedroid-discussion@lists.source‐
385 forge.net>.
386
388 Johannes Prix, Reinhard Prix, Bastian Salmela.
389
391 freedroid(6),
392Linux MARCH 2003 FREEDROID(6)