U61 (v0.4.1) - Quick start




Play alone
==========


  First you must run the game 8-) that's to say:

  * Double-click on u61.exe under windows.

  * Type u61 in an Xterm under Linux.

  Then the main menu should appear on the screen. To navigate in the menus,
  you'll have to use:

  * The keyboard arrows: up/down to change the selected menu item, and
    left/right to change some settings such as sound volume.

  * The "ESC" key to go back to the previous menu. Also usefull to quit the
    game...

  * The "ENTER" key to validate your choice.

  There's no mouse support in U61 yet.

  So to play alone, just select the "Play alone" menu item by simply pressing
  "ENTER", and the game starts. You can control the falling blocks with the
  keyboard arrows.

  If you don't like the key settings or their repeat rates, please keep in mind
  that U61 is highly customizable. Indeed the "Player options" -> "Set up
  player n" -> "Key settings" -> "Advanced key settings" enables you to set up
  different repeat rates for each key.

  BTW, the "Play alone" option is here only for training since playing U61
  alone does not really make any sense. You *need* to find other gamers to play
  with, for U61 has been designed to be a multiplayer game, and you will
  completely miss the fun if you only play alone.



Start local multiplayer game
============================


  This is definitely more fun than playing alone! Up to 4 players can play on a
  single computer, however, until I add joystick support to U61, I can't really
  figure out how 4 players could fit comfortably - it's possible but not really
  easy - on a single 102 keys keyboard.

  So here's what you'll have to do:

  * First you'll have to set up keys for the different players. By default U61
    maps the same keys for all the players. This is because it's impossible to
    set key options which will fit for every situation (1,2,3 or 4 players). So
    you need to go to "Player Options" -> "Set up player n" -> "Key settings"
    menu, and set redefine the keys. To define a key, just select the action to
    bind with the up/down arrows, and press "ENTER", then the key you want to
    use for this action.

  * Once you have set up the keys, go to "Player Options" -> "Set active
    players" or "Start new game" -> "Choose players" and there you can
    enable/disable players.

  * Now go the "Start new game" and select "Local multiplayer game" and you're
    ready to play.

  Now whenever you see a weird black and white square, with a "?" in it, just
  try to make it dissappear. And see what your opponents think of it 8-) BTW,
  the game never ends, whenever a player looses, he restarts with an empty
  field. This is what some would call a "deathmatch" mode.



Start a network game
====================


  Probably the trickiest thing to do, but also one of the most powerfull
  features of U61. U61 offers much more than a single one-to-one network game.
  Currently, up to 5 computers can be connected together, and 2 players can
  play on each computer. So this makes a total of 10 simultaneous players...

  U61 uses a client/server architecture, so a computer will act as a server,
  and then others will act as clients and connect to it.

  * To start the server, simply select "Start new game" -> "Create network
    game".

  * To start the client, select "Start new game" -> "Join network game". By
    default, the client tries to connect on "127.0.0.1" which is the loopback
    network interface. You *need* to set the name or the IP address of the
    server to the correct value (which is of course the address of your
    server). To know what is the address of the server, type "ipconfig" (under
    Windows) or "ifconfig" (under Linux, must be run as root) on the server.
    Once you have set up a correct IP address, (or again the name of the
    server, but I personnally prefer using IP addresses directly) you can
    select "Join".

  If everything is OK, the client player(s) should appear on the server. Oh,
  BTW, the client should better hurry connecting to the server, for players on
  the server do not wait for the clients to start playing. This is the kind of
  methods used in games like Quake by ID Software for instance.

  By default, U61 will use port 8061 to communicate. Many firewalls won't let
  IP packets pass them if one uses this port. For instance, it might be
  impossible to play over the internet at work, if the only connexion to the
  internet you have is an access with a proxy on port 80 - which is what many
  people have. This is not U61's fault anyway... You can also have problems if
  the server is started on a machine which uses network address translation
  (NAT). If you encounter serious problems setting up an internet game, my
  advice would be to first try to set up a network game on a LAN, and then when
  you know how to make it work locally, try and launch it over the internet
  again.



Configure the game
==================


  Well, I keep on saying that U61 is "highly customizable", so I guess some of
  you will be eager to know how to do it 8-)

  There are basically 4 ways to configure U61:

  * Use the GUI/menus to change options such as key settings, sound volume...

  * Write Lua scripts to create new sets of rules. This is definitely what
    makes U61 different from any other block-based games.

  * Create or tweak the existing themes to change the look and feel of the
    game.

  * Modify the C++ core engine. You can do it since the game is GPL'ed.
    However, I do not recommend it since this kind of practice is likely to
    introduce severe - and not easy to deal with - compatibility issues.

  How to change the theme and/or change the rules is described in other
  sections, so here I'll only explain how to change the options using the
  menus. Many settings are quite self-explanatory, so I do not detail them, but
  some still require some explanations. Here's a list of usefull options and
  what they do:

  * "Game options" -> "Speed" -> "Curse delay" : the time (in seconds) after
    which the special "curse square" will automatically be moved.

  * "Game options" -> "Graphic" -> "Max frames per sec" : the max frame rate.
    Having a maximum frame rate avoids U61 taking 100% of the CPU. Increase
    this value to have a smoother display on high-end systems.

  * "Player options" -> "Set active players" : here you'll choose which players
    will be activated. Note than in a network, game, only 2 players will be
    allowed per machine.

  * "Player options" -> "Set up player n" -> "Advanced key settings" -> "[some
    key
  * ]
  * delay" : this is the time (in 1/100 sec) before the key starts repeating.
    This is a per-player settings so players can have different key sensitivity
    even if they play at the same time on the same machine.

  * "Player options" -> "Set up player n" -> "Advanced key settings" -> "[some
    key
  * ]
  * repeat" : this is the time (in 1/100 sec) used in repeating mode. It should
    be lower than the equivalent "[some key
  * ]
  * repeat
  * ]
  * " option.

  * "Player options" -> "Set up player n" -> "Anticipation mode" : allows the
    player to view where his block will land. Also called "ghost mode" in some
    other block-based games.

