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icbm3d(1) icbm3d(1)
Release 0.4
DESCRIPTION
ICBM3D ("Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles, 3D") is a 3D game of
defense.
Selecting a Level:
To start out at a specific level, append "-L", followed (without a
space)
by the level number you want, to the end of the command line:
% ./icbm3d -L5
% ./icbm3d my.computer.edu:0.0 -l10
Getting Help:
If you wish to be reminded of the usage and keyboard controls, use
the
"-help" switch:
% ./icbm3d -help
Note: the help display shows you the current keyboard mappings, as
they
were compiled into the game.
Version:
If you want to verify which version of ICBM3D you have, you can use
the "-version" switch:
% ./icbm3d -version
Lyrics (?):
For some fun (and very appropriate) lyrics to a hilarious Tom Leher
song, use the "-lyrics" switch (or just "-l"). You'll probably want
to pipe it through "more" or "less", since it's longer than 24 lines
(the typical terminal size), or to "lpr" to print it, or redirect it
to a file with your shell's ">" command.
% ./icbm3d -lyrics | more
% ./icbm3d -lyrics > lyrics.txt
Note: The game does not begin when you ask for "-help", "-version" or
"-lyrics"...
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icbm3d(1) icbm3d(1)
Release 0.4
TITLE SCREEN ------------
When the game starts, the ICBM3D window will appear, and the ICBM3D
title will appear. Press [Space] to begin the game at the selected
level, or use [L] and [K] to change the current level.
(NOTE: Key commands listed in this document represent the default
keys. See run "./icbm3d -help" and/or view "keydefs.h" to see what
keys your copy of the game is set up to use.)
PLAYING THE GAME ----------------
The game is played with the mouse and keyboard. (Their specific
controls are described below.)
The main components of the screen are as follows:
* Cross-hairs
This is used to aim your defensive "Anti-ICBM" weapons.
It is a white three-dimesional cross-hair ("+"-shape).
There is a grey "shadow" of your cross-hair directly below it on
the ground, as a reference.
NOTE: Your cross-hair turns red when it's close to a missile.
* Cities
You start the game with 16 cities. They are represented by blue
clusters of buildings layed out evenly in a 4x4 pattern on the
ground.
(If you're in "Simple City" mode, your cities actually look like
pyramids, not clusters of buildings.)
(The ground just around your cities is a green square).
* Defense Bases
You also start the game with 4 defense bases. This is where your
AICBM Bullets are launched from. They are represented by green
buildings on the outer edge of your cities (on the corners).
Each Defense Base starts with a limited number of bullets.
Once the bullets run out, or if the Defense Base is destroyed,
no more bullets can come from that position. YES! All four of
your
Defense Bases can be destroyed and/or run out of bullets, leaving
you
defenseless! But don't worry, if you survive the level, all of
your
Bases will be rebuilt and rearmed. "Empty" bases (without
bullets)
appear as a slightly different shape than "active" bases.
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* Missiles (ICBM's)
"The Enemy" (tm) is attacking your cities by launching ICBM's
(Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles). These appear high in the
sky and drop down towards your cities. If one hits a city, the
city is
destroyed. (There is a white flash, the city disappears, and
rubble
is left in its place.) Missiles leave a trail of smoke behind
them.
Although unrealistic, when a missile is destroyed or hits the
ground,
its smoke-trail disappears. This is to make the game a little
easier,
and is also what happens in the original Missile Command.
WIND: Wind can blow smoke around, making it harder to determine
where a missile is actually going. Be careful!
SCORE: You get higher points the closer missiles are to the
ground.
* Planes
"The Enemy" (tm) also sends bomber planes which fly over your
cities,
launch a missile, and then fly away.
SCORE: Planes which aren't "making their escape" are worth 200
points.
Planes which are (they have already dropped their missile) are
worth 500.
* AICBM "Bullets"
Bullets are launched from your defense bases and fired toward the
position that the cross-hair was at when you fired. They explode
when they reach their destination. They are represented by purple
"plasma" balls. Small "X"'s mark where each bullet is to explode
(ie, the position where your crosshair was when you fired).
* Explosions
While you may think explosions are not very useful to describe,
they actually are very important. Like the original "Missile
Command"
game, the explosions (which start out small, grow to a certain
size,
and then retract) are what actually destroys missiles.
When you launch an AICBM bullet, if its explosion makes contact
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with
a missile, that missile is destroyed in mid-air. (This is of
course
the object of the game.) The missile then explodes, which may in
turn
cause another incoming missile to be destroyed. In "ICBM3D",
explosions
are represented with red diamond-like shapes.
* Level
The level you're currently on is displayed on the upper left
corner.
* Score
Your score is displayed in the center of the top of the window.
You gain score by destroying missiles with AICBM's. The closer
the
ICBM is to the ground when you destroy it, the more points you
get.
If you pass a 10000-point mark during the current level, and don't
have all 16 of your cities, you gain a new city. This means that
even if all of your cities are destroyed in the middle of a level,
you may still "make a comeback" by destroying enough ICBM's or
getting
enough bonus points at the end of the level!
* Anti-ICBM Bullet Counts
As stated above, each of your Defense Bases has a limited number
of
AICBM bullets. The number of bullets each base has appears in the
center of the base.
* Other Debris
When cities or defense bases blow up, large "chunks" of them go
flying
and then disappear. It's mean not only to look cool, and as extra
visual feedback, but also to make the game harder. >:^)
When cities explode, small red bits of debris fly up for a while
from
where the city was. Note that, like with smoke, wind can affect
the
direction these bits go.
Controlling the cross-hair (and view)... with the mouse:
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ICBM3D has a relatively steep learning curve when it comes to
getting
used to the controls. Don't be discouraged... it IS kind of
difficult
to control until you've played the game a few times! Eventually,
you'll
be able to play without thinking about the controls.
The following controls are available with the mouse:
Left-Clicking Middle-Clicking Right-Clicking
----------
-+--------------------------------------------------------------
Left/Right | Move Left/Right Move Left/Right Rotate View
Left/Right
Up/Down | Move Up/Down Move Away/Towards Rotate View
Up/Down
So in other words, you click the left-button and drag left/right and
up/down to move the cross-hair left/right and up/down...
you click the middle-button and drag left/right and up/down to move
the cross-hair left/right and away/towards...
and you click the right-button and drag to change the viewpoint.
Controlling the cross-hair... with the keyboard:
If you wish instead to use the keyboard to control the cross-hair,
use the following keys:
[Left]/[Right] - Move Left/Right
[A]/[Z] - Move Up/Down
[Up]/[Down] - Move Away/Towards
Firing AICBM Bullets:
[Space] - When you want to launch an AICBM, you press the [Space]
key.
A bullet will be launched towards the cross-hair's
position at
the time you pressed space. A small "X" will appear where
you fired, reminding you where the bullet's destination
is.
When you're trying to aim for a missile, take into consideration the
fact that the bullet takes a moment to get from the defense base, so
you may need to aim just "ahead of" (below and in front of) the
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missile
you wish to destroy.
Game-play Controls:
There are also other commands available in ICBM3D:
[P] - Pause and unpause the game. ([Space] also unpauses.)
When you pause, the word "PAUSED" will fly onto the screen
(in the same way "LEVEL 1" does when you start out).
Note that you can still affect certain things in the game
(change your viewpoint for example), but all bullets, missiles
and explosions, and your cross-hair are "frozen" until the
game
is unpaused.
[X] - Abort. This aborts your game, as if you lost the game. (Game
over.)
[Q] - Quit. This quits the program completely. The window closes.
[L] - Select Next Level. The game must be over to select the level.
(If you haven't died yet, use the [X]-Abort command.)
The next level will be selected. Press [Space] to start a new
game
at the selected level.
[K] - Select Previous Level. This is identical to [L], except it
selects
the previous level instead of the next one.
Other Viewing Controls:
[I] - Zoom In.
[O] - Zoom Out.
[T] - Targetting Lines On/Off.
By default, a dotted line is drawn between each missile and
the spot on the ground directly below it. The purpose of
this
is to let you more easily determine whether your cross-hair
is
actually lined up with a missile (or if it just looks like
it
is, due to perspective and foreshortening).
(Use your cross-hair's grey "shadow" on the ground to
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determine if
you're at the right spot, then move up or down to get to the
right altitude... and FIRE!)
Unfortunately, having lots of dotted lines on the screen can
become confusing. To overcome this, you can turn the
targetting lines off with the [T] key.
Note, however, that targetting lines DO still appear for any
missiles that are close to your crosshair. This lets you
retain the advantage of the targetting lines without
cluttering
your screen. (Note: Your height and the missile's height
are
irrelavent in this determination of "closeness.")
[F] - Toggle Fast-Draw Mode.
If you'd like the program to run a little faster, you can
switch
into "fast-draw" mode, where every other line that is
supposed
to be drawn in the window is not, every other frame. This
makes
for some potentially annoying flickering, but the program is
doing 1/2 as many 3D->2D calculations, and is drawing 1/2 as
many
lines in the window. This may make the game more playable
on
some slower machines.
Note: If you'd like this mode to be on by default whenever
you
start the game, set the value of the "#define" named
"FASTDRAW_BY_DEFAULT" to "1" in the "icbm3d.c" source code
file,
and recompile with "make". Set it to "0" if you don't want
the
game to start out in "fast-draw" mode...
[H] - Toggle Half-Frame Mode.
Similar to Fast-Draw mode, this mode draws 1/2 as often.
The frame-update-rate is cut in half (although the game is
still going the same speed).
[C] - Toggle Simple/Complex Cities.
This toggles the drawing of complex cities (the default),
which
are clusters of rectangular solids and pyramids, and simple
cities (which are drawn much more quickly), which are single
pyramids. Simple mode also has less clutter on the screen.
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Many of the above commands can have their defaults set in
"icbm3d.c".
Look for "#define"'s which contain the text "_BY_DEFAULT". Set the
values to "0" to have them off, or "1" to have them on by default,
and recompile. You can of course still use the keyboard commands to
toggle these options during a game.
The standard viewing mode is "freeview" (similar to "freeview" mode
in
my "3D Pong" game for X-Window). You can also select other viewing
modes.
I don't suggest using these much to play, as it's not as easy to
see what's going on, but they are interesting and fun to look at!
[M] - Missile View.
You are looking down at the city from just behind a missle.
[Tab] - Select Missile.
This selects which missile you're looking from. It rotates
through all active missiles.
END-OF-LEVEL BONUS ------------------
At the end of each level (after the wave of missiles has ended), you
gain bonus points for each of the following:
* Bullets - One point each.
Each Defense Base's bullet-count is counted down as
your score increases.
The Defense Base being tallied "pops" to a large size
while the score is being totalled.
* Cities - 100 points each.
Each city that's not destroyed counts for 100 points at
the end of the level.
Each city "flattens" (a la the Atari 2600 Missile
Command)
when it's score is totalled. All cities "pop" back into
shape at the beginning of the next level.
As stated earlier, if you pass the 10,000-mark at the end of the
level, and don't have all 16 of your cities, you gain one extra city.
(For example, if you started the level with 5000 points and ended it
with 11000 points, you get a city.)
Cities are randomly placed and appear when the next level begins.
GAME VARIATIONS ---------------
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Different levels of ICBM3D present different variations of the game.
* There are two variations on missiles (meaning there are a total of
four
types of missiles):
* Splitters
Some missiles split into three at a certain altitude. This means
that it's extra-important to destroy them quickly before they
become
three times as dangerous.
* Spirallers
Spirallers don't travel in straight lines. As the name suggests,
they spin around as they move downwards, which makes aiming much
harder.
Splitters occur more and more often throughout the game.
Spirallers occur more often on even-numbered levels.
* Each level of the game has more missiles to destroy.
* Missiles go faster on higher levels.
* Wind is introduced in levels 50 and beyond. This blows the
missiles'
smoke (and destroyed cities' debris) around randomly, confusing you!
CREDITS -------
ICBM3D was written by Bill Kendrick, (c) copyright "New Breed
Software," March 1998 - July 1998.
ICBM3D was based on Missile Command, by Dave Theurer, (c) copyright
Atari, 1981.
Ideas for and comments about ICBM3D were obtained from many folks, all
listed at the top of "icbm3d.c".
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