xpuyopuyo(6)

NAME

xpuyopuyo - A tetris-like puzzle game for X11.

SYNOPSIS

xpuyopuyo
xpuyopuyo [options]
xpuyopuyo --help

DESCRIPTION

This manpage documents version 0.9.5 of xpuyopuyo.

Xpuyopuyo is a Tetris-like puzzle game where you strive to

match up four ``blobs'' of the same color. Each match gives you

points, and also dumps gray rocks on your opponent which are ir

ritating and troublesome to get rid of. Multiple matches at one

time score more points, and result in more rocks being dumped on

the opponent (much to their dismay). First person to fill up

their screen with puyopuyo blobs loses.

The game features an AI, and is capable of single-player,

human-human play, human-AI gameplay, or AI-AI gameplay (demo

mode). It will keep track of the total number of matches each

player recieves, and the number of single-matches, double-match

es, triple-matches, etc. as well.

We ported it overnight to Linux, so we could play whenever

we felt like. The AI's evolved more slowly; the original imple

mentation took a week to develop. The current implementation is

evolved using genetic algorithms; more documentation on this is

available in the distribution. I always welcome new AI rules, or

suggestions to improve the AI.

This version is modelled on several other versions we have

seen around; the original (which I have not had the opportunity

to play) is made by Compile, http://www.compile.co.jp./.

I release this so others may enjoy it. If this game causes

someone out their to flame/flunk out of college, then apologies

but it's the game's fault, not mine :). Additional information,

documentation is available in the distribution.

GAMEPLAY

The idea is to match up colored blobs together. A match

is any chain of 4 or more blobs of the same color, that are adja

cent to each other (up, down, right, or left). The game gives

you a playing piece with two colored blobs, which you can move

around the playing field and rotate as it falls to the ground.

In gameplay, it is similar to Tetris.

You get points for completing a match, and all blobs in

volved in the match will disappear. Larger matches (matches of

more than 4 blobs) and multiple matches at the same time score

much more points.

Also, if you are in a 2-player game, then several rocks

will be dumped on your opponent when you complete a match. Rocks

have no color; a chain of rocks does not complete a match. How

ever, any rock adjacent to a match will be eliminated. Again,

larger matches and multiple matches at the same time will cause

more rocks to be dumped onto the opponent.

(The truly unfortunate may discover the indestructible

rock or other forms of evil rocks. You are truly fortunate if

you survive such an encounter.)

The game ends when you fill up your playing field. So try

to keep the playing field as low as possible. See the options

below for some of the features of the game you can enable.

COMMAND SWITCHES

Many of xpuyopuyo's options may be configured by the com

mand line. A summary and description of available options is be

low. Note, that some options might not be available, depending

on how you built xpuyopuyo. To see a list of supported options,

run xpuyopuyo --help. Options are processed in the order they

are read; later options can clobber earlier options, so it's good

to make the difficulty option the first one.

General options:

-h, --help

Display a summary of the options available.

--insanity

This is insanity, Max! Or what if it's genius?

-1, --oneplayer

Select one player game. No rocks in this version.

Either player's controls will work in this mode.

-2, --twoplayer

Select two player game, human versus human. Player

1's controls are on the keyboard, and player 2's are in the nu

meric keypad (this may be configured, however).

-a, --aiplayer

Select two player game, human versus computer. Ei

ther player's controls will work for the human player.

-d, --demo

Select two player game, computer versus computer.

Fun to setup two different AI's against each other and watch them

go (the current longest running demo game I've seen was 57 hours

long, and that was only ended by a bug in the timer code which

caused one of the AI's to pause. By the time I noticed what had

happened, the other AI had racked up an unbelievable 6,000 rocks

against his frozen opponent ...).

-e, --easy

Easy gameplay. Enables options for easier gameplay.

This option is currently equivalent to --noaidrop -number=4

--nullify --noindestructibles.

-m, --medium

Medium gameplay. Enables more difficult round.

Currently, this is equivalent to the following: --aidrop

-number=5 --nullify --indestructibles.

-H, --hard

Hard gameplay. Enables the most difficult of game

play. Currently, this is equivalent to the following: --aidrop

-number=6 --nonullify --indestructibles. Later options can over

ride the options set by -e, -m, or -H.

-n, --number=n

Specify the number of colors to use. This value

can range from 4 to 6. The default is set by the difficulty lev

el.

-t, --restart

This is a toggle option. Automatically restart af

ter a ``Game Over''. Useful when combined with the -d flag. The

inversion of this flag is -/t, --norestart.

-T, --tutorial

This is a toggle option. Enable tutorial mode. In

tutorial mode, an AI will assist you by choosing a move it thinks

is appropriate. You may still control the piece with the player

controls. The inversion of this flag is -/T, --notutorial.

--theme name

Select a theme to use on startup. The default is

``default''.

--tooltips

This is a toggle option. When set, tooltips are

displayed. The default is for this flag to be set. To turn off

tooltips, use --notooltips.

--quiet

This is a toggle option. When set, no output is

printed to stdout. The default is for this flag to be cleared.

To turn off quiet use --noquiet.

Sound Options:

-S, --sound

This is a toggle option that enables music and

sound effects. The inversion of this flag is -/S, --nosound.

--hqmixer

This is a toggle option that enables use of the

high quality mixer provided by mikmod. Depending on your sound

card, this may have no effect. Defaults to off, to turn off high

quality mixing use --nohqmixer.

--effects

This is a toggle option that enables sound effects.

Defaults to on when sound is supported. To turn off sound ef

fects use --noeffects.

Advanced Options:

--width=n

Specify the width of the playing field. The de

fault is 6.

--height=n

Specify the height of the playing field. The de

fault is 14.

--match=n

Specify the number of blobs in a chain required for

a match. The default is 4. For more difficult gameplay, in

crease this value.

-U, --nullify

This is a toggle option. When on, your rocks can

nullify the opponents rocks. During the game, when you complete

a match rocks are sent to the opponent, but they do not fall un

til their playing piece lands. In the meantime, if they accumu

late any rocks against you, the rocks may instead be used to nul

lify the rocks accumulated against them. If this option is off,

then all rocks that are sent will fall on the opponent -- eventu

ally. This option is on in easier gameplay; the inversion of

this flag is -/U, --nonullify.

-I, --indestructibles

This is a toggle option. When on, "indestructible"

blocks are allowed in the game. If a player accumulates a large

number of matches at once (a quintuple-match is usually enough),

then in addition to several rows of rocks being dumped on the op

ponent, an indestructible block will also fall on the opponent.

This rock cannot be destroyed, and the best the opponent can do

is try to get it down to the bottom of the screen where it is at

least out of the way. This mode of gameplay can make life very

interesting, indeed. This is only enabled by default on hard

difficulty; the inverwsion of this flag is -/I,

--noindestructibles.

Player Options:

-s, --speed=n

Set the speed for falling blocks for the player, in

milliseconds per drop. The default is determined by difficulty

level. A typical value is 350.

-A, --accel=n

Set the acceleration of the speed over time, in

percentage of time lost per minute. This speeds the game up over

time. An acceleration is only enabled on the harder difficulty

levels. The acceleration is a floating-point value between 0 and

1.

AI Options:

-r, --airule2=n

Select the AI rule for the right player. This op

tion is better set in the user interface, under the AI menu. n

must be an integer value. If n is random then a random AI is

chosen.

-R, --airule1=n

Select the AI rule for the left player. This op

tion is better set in the user interface, under the AI menu. n

must be an integer value. If n is random then a random AI is

chosen.

-c, --aiscore

This is a toggle option. This is a debug option,

and is better left turned off. If set, the "AI score" is dis

played instead of the next piece in the main game. The AI score

is the ranking for the current move; higher scores mean the AI

judged a particular move to be "better". Note that since each AI

has its own ideas on what makes a good move, this score is highly

dependent on the mindset of the selected AI. There's not even

any attempt to normalise the AI score with scores from its peers.

So this number cannot be meaningfully compared with scores for

other AI's. The inversion of this option is -/c, --noaiscore.

-i, --aidrop

This is a toggle option. If set, the AI is allowed

to drop pieces when the human opponent drops a piece. This al

lows the AI to keep up with human players, and makes for a more

challenging game. This option is on by default on higher diffi

culty levels; the inversion of this is -/i, --noaidrop.

Network Options:

--server

This starts a new server. The server has the ad

vantage of being able to set the game options. It will wait for

a connection from a client, then the game may begin. The server

will listen on the default port unless --port is also given.

--client=server

This connects to the server specified. The connec

tion will be made to the default port on the server given, unless

the --port option is also given.

--port=n

This specifies an alternate port than the default,

for network games.

--networkai

Enables AI in a network game. This is intended for

debugging only. This is a toggle option; its inverse is

--nonetworkai.

Tournament Options:

The tournament options are for AI breeding mode only, and

are not well documented. They are: -z, --tournament, -Z,

--hypertournament, and -Y

In the GTK version, there will be exactly one indestruc

tible block in the About box. Curious, don't you think?

PLAYER CONTROLS

The player controls are configurable in the game. They

may be viewed and/or redefined in the Options menu. You can de

fine up to three keys per action per player. The actions are

left, right, rotate, and drop.

Note, that when you assign keys, key combinations are not

allowed, and you should probably avoid attempting to assign a

modifier key. The keys Enter, P, and Escape will restart the

current game, pause a game, and end the current game (respective

ly) unless you assign these keys to a player control. If you as

sign these keys as player controls, you can still use Ctrl-R,

Ctrl-Z, and Ctrl-P to perform the same actions.

When in single-player or human-AI mode, you may use either

player's controls to control your game field.

NETWORK GAMEPLAY

Network gameplay is much like normal 2-player gameplay,

except you must first setup a network connection between two

games. One xpuyopuyo game will act as a server, and the other

will act as a client. First, on the server side, select the

Network menu, Server and click Ok (you may change the port to

listen to, if you like). Then on the client side, select the

Network, Client Connection. Enter the machine name of the server

and the port number to use (if you changed it in the server) and

click Ok.

To begin a network game, both players must select New Game

in the Game menu. The game will wait until both players are

ready before starting the game.

AI GAMEPLAY

AI's are created using Genetic Algorithms. The flexible

formulas allow the AI to take advantage of certain scenarios, and

allow the AI to weight them accordingly. The rules are changing

constantly as the AI evolves, and suggestions on new rules are

welcome. A general list of strategies follows (not sorted in any

particular order). The AI checks every possible move with the

current piece and uses the rules it evolved to determine which is

the best move.

Distance from top of playing field

We don't want the AI to stack up all its pieces at

the top of the screen.

Hard limit to the height of structures

As much as we don't like height, we really don't

want the AI building things within the top four or so rows of the

field. This rule carries a lot of weight in all AI personali

ties.

Opportunity to complete a match

Bonus to complete several matches at once

The AI decides this by simulating what would happen

if it put the game piece in various locations.

Penalty for blocking a potential match

For example, covering a hole with three blobs of

the same color already present). Some AI's choose to break this

rule more than others; in general these AI's tend to get more

multiple-matches (often triples or quadruples).

Eliminating rocks

Some AI's consider it a small benefit to try to

eliminate as many rocks as possible. If the AI has a choice of

two matches, the deciding factor could be in which one eliminates

more rocks.

FILES

~/.xpuyopuyo/airule.*

A list of AI rules. To reset the AI rules to the

defaults, remove these files.

~/.xpuyopuyo/config

Configuration options for xpuyopuyo. All of these

options can be set from the interface, there should be no need to

edit this file directly.

~/.xpuyopuyo/highscores

High scores for xpuyopuyo.

~/.xpuyopuyo/userkeys

User-defined keys for player controls.

xpuyopuyo.txt

Manual page for xpuyopuyo. This is installed to

your local share directory, and used for the on-line help system.

copying.txt

Copy of the GPL. This is installed to your local

share directory, and used for the on-line help system.

SEE ALSO

The xpuyopuyo home page at <http://chaos2.org/xpuyopuyo>.

There is also additional documentation in the distribution, under

the doc/ directory.

AUTHORS

xpuyopuyo was written by Justin David Smith

<justins(at)chaos2.org>, and the original images were designed by

Owen Aftreth. The first GTK version was ported by Havoc Penning

ton.

This manual page written by Justin David Smith

<justins(at)chaos2.org>. Copyright(c) 2001,2000-1999 Justin

David Smith.

(Please do not list these e-mail addresses on webpages, or

list them in other packages, without contacting us first.)

Justin David Smith March 2000

xpuyopuyo(6)