1WARP(6) Games Manual WARP(6)
2
6 warp - a real-time space war game
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9 warp [options]
10
12 Warp is a real-time space war game that requires skill and quick think‐
13 ing. "Real-time" in this context means that the enemies keep moving
14 (and shooting) even if you don't. A unique feature of warp is that
15 blast propagates; it is unhealthy to remain near things that are in the
16 process of blowing up. If a given universe is above a critical density
17 it may chain react. Scoring is like many popular arcade games--there
18 are multiple waves which get harder and harder as you go along. Nobody
19 has ever maxed out the scoreboard without cheating.
20 Unlike many space-war games, warp is not simply a shooting gallery.
22 Along with phasers and photon torpedoes, you have tractor beams and a
23 cloaking device. Skill in navigation is important. It helps to be
24 schizophrenic, because you must manage an Enterprise and a Base simul‐
25 taneously. And enemies do not simply shoot back. You can get tailed,
26 absorbed, snuck up upon, hemmed in, rammed, loved to death, reprimanded
27 for destroying civilized life, dragged around, robbed, damaged and
28 eaten. And if you should happen to get bored by the enemies (a trifle
29 unlikely), you can always watch the interesting star patterns. In
30 fact, you'll have to, since your tactics will depend upon what kind of
31 universe you find yourself in.
32 Warp is played in a double wraparound universe, i.e. the bottom is con‐
34 nected to the top, and the right is connected to the left. You need a
35 crt with random cursor addressing and at least 24 lines by 80 columns.
36 For more information about about how to play, simply run warp and say
37 "y" when it asks if you want to see the instructions. There is also a
38 single-page command summary that you can get while playing by typing a
39 "?".
40 Command line options include:
42 -b Put warp into beginner mode. Makes the difficulty increase more
44 slowly, but penalizes you for it.
45 -d<n>
47 Sets the initial difficulty to n.
48 -l Play a low-speed game. Changes the basic cycle time from 1 second
50 to 2 seconds. This switch is automatically set at baud rates
51 below 2400. You may want to set it at higher speeds if your ter‐
52 minal cannot keep up with the output. (This should never happen
53 on BSD systems, which have an IOCTL call to determine output queue
54 length.) Because this makes the game easier, a separate score‐
55 board is kept for low-speed games.
56 -m Terminal has a meta key which turns on the eighth bit. Ordinarily
58 the eighth bit is stripped in order to ignore parity. Metacharac‐
59 ters will appear to the keymap as prefixed with a ^A, and will
60 subsequently have the same effect as a control character, unless
61 otherwise mapped.
62 -s Just prints out the scoreboards and saved games and then exits.
64 -v Prints out the version number.
66 -x Play an experimental game. This causes warp to ignore any saved
68 game, and disables the ability to save the current game. Thus you
69 can play around with something or show warp to someone without
70 jeopardizing a currently saved game.
71
73 WARPMACRO
74 If defined, names a file containing keyboard mappings and macros.
75 If not defined, the value %X/Kbmap.%{TERM} is assumed. The macro
76 file contains lines of the following form:
77 <keystroke-sequence> <whitespace> <canonical-keystroke-sequence>
79 You may use certain % interpolations and ^<letter> control charac‐
81 ters. For possible % interpolations see warp.h. Sequences in the
82 canonical-keystroke-sequence bounded by ^(...^) are subject to
83 reinterpretation via the keymap. This file has two major uses.
84 First, you can set up your commands to use any kind of prefix key
85 your terminal might have, or change the key bindings in any other
86 way you choose. Second, you can define arbitrary macros, such as
87 this:
88 # define Corbamite maneuver = DDllllll
90
92 Larry Wall <lwall@sdcrdcf.UUCP>
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95 ~/.fullname, if full names aren't in /etc/passwd
96
98 Generally self-documenting, as they say.
99
101 Addicting. At the end of a wave, all you have to do to keep going is
102 hit a space. You see the message "Hit space to continue" and automati‐
103 cally hit space. About 2 seconds later you remember you wanted to go
104 home, but by then it's too late to escape without penalty.
105 You can't kill a backgrounded warp process directly, because it is run‐
107 ning setuid. You have to use the killer built in to warp.
108 Now that there is a space amoeba, there ought to be tribbles. But it
110 might be too much trouble...
111 WARP(6)