eek(6) eek survival guide eek(6) NAME eek - a turbo-charged robots chase game with all sorts of extra goodies SYNOPSIS eek [-c] [-h|?] [-l level] [-m] [-M] [-n name] [-t] [-T] [-v] DESCRIPTION [From the eek history menu...] LONG AGO, IN A GALAXY FAR AWAY, before Fluke and Ham Salad even, there lived a peaceful, agrarian race known as the Sitzbathz. The Sitzbathz had populated most of the known universe at the time via teleportation. After many eons of leafcrunching, though, they met up with the Betastreps, a violent, obnoxious race of life-force vampires not unlike the marketing droids developed in the death vats of the dreaded Duns. The BS quickly consumed the minds of the entire Sitzbath population, but in the process, the BS' minds also began to vegetate, so the Sitzbathz became as mindless robots, although they still appeared to be the same crystalline life-forms they had always been. Very unfortunately, they did not lose the Betastrep propensity to seek out and destroy carbon-based life forms, such as yourself. eek is a complete rewrite of the original robots game, with all sorts of extra dangers and twists thrown in, along with a Zork-like, text-based history, nethack style help, menus, hints, and hidden surprises. It's not like battling the Death Star in real life, but it should hold your interest a lot longer than robots. OPTIONS -c : show copyright & warranty information In addition to the copyright and warranty informa- tion, this option provides author contact informa- tion and insight into the author's intent behind all the legalese. -h or -? : help on command line These provide the usual, brief summary of the com- mand line syntax. Roadkills-R-Us 1999-May-14 1 eek(6) eek survival guide eek(6) -l level : level to start at (sets Testing flag) This allows you to start at higher levels. It was originally intended just for testing, but does give you a flavor of what the game is like farter on. -m : no menu (start game) This bypasses the usual, initial menu. -M : Madman (self-test mode) Another testing option that stayed in, this basi- cally acts as if you were continually pressing the "teleport" key. Especially interesting in conjunc- tion with the training ("-t") option. -n name : name of player (for scorefile) This option lets you provide an alternate name for the score file. By default, your login is used. Only the first 8 characters are used. -t : training mode (can't be killed) This mode lets you learn the game. It lets you take chances, and play as long without stopping as you want, somewhat like nethack's game wizard mode. When used with Madman mode ("-M"), the game runs continuously, if somewhat pointlessly. Think of it as "marquis attention grabbing mode". It does include plenty of sleep time so the game doesn't consume your system (unless it's a really week one!) -T : testing mode (no score saved, extra info dis- played) This is meant mainly for debugging. But if some game behavior is bugging you, this might help you figure it out. Alternatively, it might bore you to death. -v : version Basic version and copyright info. Roadkills-R-Us 1999-May-14 2 eek(6) eek survival guide eek(6) USER INTERFACE Unless one of the command line options bypasses it, the initial screen is a menu: Do you wish to: see eek history (H), see eek objects (O), see eek notes (N), review strategy (S), review tactics (T), play eek (E), or quit (Q)? Enter H, O, N, S, T, E, or Q History explains how you ended up in the situation you are in. Objects gives some detail about everything you might see on the playing field. Notes is a fast intro to what you will see and a brief explanation of what to expect. Strategy and tactics are just what they sound like - they can help give you a headstart on dealing with this new world you find yourself in. MAIN GAME WINDOWS Once inside the game, you will see two main windows. The larger window, on the left, with a border, is the playing field. On the right, you will see a small area with basic information you need to play the game. below that is the scoring window. The layout is like this: +------------------------------------------+ MOVES | = | y u i 7 8 9 | = | \|/ \|/ | | h-j-k 4-5-6 | # | /|\ /|\ | = | n m , 1 2 3 | | | = | COMMANDS | = = # | t - teleport | = ^ # I | s . last stand | * | q quit | = | ? help | # # | ^L redraw | X | | | KEY | = | I You # Fence | = | = Robot @ Junk | | X Berserker | . = | ^ Berserker Trap | = | * Juggernaut | | . Black Hole | = | | = | L 4 M 0 +------------------------------------------+ S 903 0 Roadkills-R-Us 1999-May-14 3 eek(6) eek survival guide eek(6) The numbers in the scoring area are Level (L), Moves so far on this level (M), Score (S), and Lives Used (the num- ber on the lower right). INPUT The numeric keypad is the easiest way to handle most game play. The numbers handle the usual directions, with 5 being "rest for 1 turn". For terminals with no keypads, or on systems without keypad support in the curses library, the standard directional game keys are also pro- vided. All of these are shown in the information window. The HELP key ("?") has two functions. When you first press it, you are presented with the following choice: Enter symbol [or '?' (more help) or ENTER (done)] At this point, entering another "?" takes you to a menu- based help, while pressing any other key gives you a bit more info about that symbol if it ever appears on the playing field. In some cases this is the same as provided in the informational window, in some cases it's a bit more. This is especially useful when playing with a very small screen (see LIMITATIONS). The help menus available at this point are a subset of those in the initial help menu, with one addition: a detailed object list. This will tell you almost every- thing you need to know about each object to play the game. DETAILS OF PLAY With each level, the number of enemies tends to increase. Level 1 just contains Sitzbath robots. Later levels may include any or all of the other opponents. Some Berserk- ers are faster than others, and Black holes and Worm Holes come in various sizes. You progress to the next level when all of your enemies have been vanquished on the current level. At this time, your level bonus is determined. The bonus is based on how many moves you took to get rid of your current set of foes; the number and type of foes is taken into account. Bonuses can be huge in later levels. By level 10, the game is fairly difficult. Somewhere between level 25 and 30 it becomes nearly impossible. While rankings are sorted by score, level attained is an equally valid ranking criteria. Roadkills-R-Us 1999-May-14 4 eek(6) eek survival guide eek(6) LIMITATIONS eek requires .I curses support and a terminal window of at least 24 characters in height and 44 in width. For narrow windows, the information screen is not shown. Larger ter- minal windows up to 66 height by 132 width are supported. There is no "real-time" option at this point. SIGNALS eek tries to handle signals in a rational way. If it can catch them, and it makes sense to deal with the signal, it will. The main ones you might ever care about are: SIGHUP redraws screen SIGINT die gracefully (as if you typed "q" in the game) SIQUIT die immediately with minimal cleanup (same as ESC key in the game) Other signals may result in one of these, or may be han- dled by the default OS signal handler. I have never seen eek in a state requiring the use of SIGKILL . FILES The eek-related files, such as the help files, may be installed anywhere the builder wishes, but by default end up in /usr/local/lib/games/eek/ . eek_help, eek_history, eek_obj_long, eek_strategy, eek_tactics, eek_what, SEE ALSO robots(6) BUGS This software should be 100% Bug-Free [tm]. AUTHOR Miles O'Neal http://www.rru.com/~meo/ Leander, TX TESTERS Esther O'Neal, Josiah O'Neal Roadkills-R-Us 1999-May-14 5