NAME

       Domino-Chain - Rearrange dominoes on different platforms to start a chain reaction.

SYNOPSIS

       domino-chain

DESCRIPTION

       Domino-Chain  is  a  puzzle  game  where you have to rearrange dominoes on different platforms to start a
       chain reaction that makes all dominoes topple over. There are many strange types of dominoes, such as the
       Ascender which will rise to the ceiling when pushed, or the Exploder which will blast  a  hole  into  the
       platform it stands on.

       Domino-Chain  is  a  faithful  reincarnation  of the game Pushover originally published by Ocean in 1992.
       Compared to Pushover, Domino-Chain has some new levels, some additional domino types, better graphics  in
       higher  resolution and high-quality music. On top of that, you can load and play the original levels from
       Pushover if you have a copy of it.

       This game is free software and created by volunteers. Even though it is in a pretty good state, there  is
       a  lot  to  improve.  If  you  like  Domino-Chain,  please  consider  to  join  the team and to help with
       translations, levels, graphics and more.

USAGE

   Rules
       You control a figure that can walk along platforms which are connected with ladders. On  those  platforms
       there  are  dominoes that will fall according to certain rules. Your task is to rearrange the dominoes so
       you can start a chain reaction that makes all dominoes topple over. The rules are:

       Domino types:
              There are many different dominoes that behave differently when pushed. Some fall, some  not,  some
              wait a bit before they fall, some raise, some topple until they meet an obstacle.

       All fall, no crash:
              All dominoes (except for the blocker) must fall and none must crash into another. They are allowed
              to fall off the screen, though.

       Trigger and exit door:
              The trigger domino must fall as last domino. Only then it triggers the exit door to open. When you
              enter the exit door the level has been completed.

       Disallowed moves:
              You  may  rearrange  as  many  dominoes  as  you  want, except for the trigger. You must not place
              dominoes in front of the doors, except for the vanishing domino.

       One push:
              You may push only once to start a chain reaction with the dominoes leading to the fall of  all  of
              them.

       Time limit:
              All this has to be done within a time limit. This limit is usually generous, but not always.

       There is an in-game help as well as and introductory levels that show how all the dominoes work.

   Dominoes
       The following types of dominoes exist:

       Standard, completely yellow:
              There is nothing special with this stone, it behaves like a regular domino and falls when pushed.

       Blocker, completely red:
              This  domino  can't fall over, so it is the only kind of stone that may still be standing when the
              level is solved. Dominoes falling against this stone will bounce back, if possible.

       Tumbler, big red stripe:
              This domino will stand up again after falling and  will  continue  to  tumble  until  it  hits  an
              obstacle or rests against another stone.

       Delay stone, diagonally divided:
              This  domino  will take some time until it falls, when it is pushed. Dominoes falling against this
              stone will bounce back and later this stone will fall.

       Splitter, horizontally divided:
              This stone will split into two stones, one falling to the left and the other falling to the right.
              The splitter can't be pushed. It must be split by a stone falling onto it from above.  A  pile  of
              rubbish falling into it also activates this domino.

       Exploder, vertically divided:
              This  stone  will blast a gap into the platform it is standing on, when it is pushed.  Neither the
              figure nor the pushing domino are harmed by that, the pushing domino will fall into the gap.

       Bridger, 1 horizontal strip:
              The bridger will try to connect the edge it is standing on with the next  edge,  if  it  is  close
              enough, if not it will simply fall into the gap.

       Vanisher, 2 horizontal strips:
              The  Vanisher will disappear as soon as it lies flat on the ground. This is the only stone you may
              place in front of doors.

       Trigger, 3 horizontal strips:
              This stone will open the exit door, as soon as it lies completely flat and  all  other  conditions
              are met (see above). This is the only stone that you are not allowed to move around.

       Ascender, vertical strip:
              This  stone  will  start  to rise as soon as it is pushed. It will rise until is hits the ceiling,
              then it will start to flip into the direction it was initially pushed. When you fall  into  a  gap
              while holding this stone it will also rise and stay at the ceiling until pushed.

       Quantum, diagonally divided:
              All  dominoes  of  this  type  will fall together as if they were quantum entangled. There are two
              types of quantum dominoes with inverted color markings. Those of the same type will fall into  the
              same  direction,  the others will fall into the opposite direction. This is a new type of dominoes
              not present in the original Pushover game.

   Controls
       The figure is controlled using the cursor keys and space. Use the space key to pick up the domino  behind
       the figure or to place it down where you are currently standing. To push press first up to let the figure
       enter  the row of dominoes. Then simultaneously press space and either left or right cursor key depending
       on whether you want to push the domino to your left or your right.

   Hints
       If you don't know where to start in a level, simply push a stone and observe  what  happens.  This  helps
       very often to get a general idea how to solve a level and where the problem is.

       If  you  forgot  which domino has what kind of special property press F1 to get a short help. This window
       also displays a short hint, once the time of the level is out.

       The first levels introduce you to the dominoes. Here you can explore how the different dominoes behave in
       different situations.

CONTACT

       You can file bug reports, discuss ideas for new features and offer contributions on the

       Domino-Chain Issue Tracker
              https://gitlab.com/domino-chain/domino-chain.gitlab.io/issues

       which is the central point to get in contact with the project.  There, you'll also find links to the code
       repository, and so on. If you need to contact us privately, please contact Andreas Röver  via  roever  at
       users dot sourceforge dot net.

AUTHORS

       Andreas Röver:
              Project founder, main programming and reverse engineering.

       Volker Diels-Grabsch:
              Text-based level format, build system and code assorted bugfixes and patches.

       Roberto Lorenz:
              Music composition and arrangement.

       Harald Radke:
              Theme graphics.

FILES

       Domino-Chain places a few files on your hard-disc in everyday running. Those files will be placed in your
       home directory.

       Location on Unix systems:
              ~/.local/share/domino-chain

       The following files are saved:

       solved.txt:
              This  file  contains  checksums  of all the levels that you have successfully solved. In the level
              selection dialogue those levels contain a mark. If you loose this file those marks are gone.

       *.rec: These files contain recordings of activities within  a  level.   They  are  automatically  created
              whenever  you  solve  a level but you can also actively make a recording by pressing 'r' while you
              play a level. When you observe something strange while playing, make a recording and  send  it  to
              us.  Also when the game crashes a recording will be saved. You can delete these files whenever you
              want. You can distinguish the recordings by the prefix in their  name.  "Sol"  stands  for  solved
              levels,  "Man"  for  manually  created  recordings  and "Err" for recordings made when the program
              crashed.

NOTES

   Level Designers
       Domino-Chain will eventually get a level editor, but right now it doesn't. However, all levels are stored
       in a readable plain text format, so you can create and modify levels directly with a text editor.

       To get your levels officially included in the Domino-Chain project, you need to adhere to  the  following
       rules:

       License:
              They  need  to  be put under the GPL, or a compatible license.  Otherwise inclusion is legally not
              possible. Copyright stays with you, of course.

       Complete sets:
              Please contribute only complete sets and no single levels.  They don't need to be long, 10  levels
              is enough, but this way you can keep up a constant scheme and theme logic of the levels.

       Solutions:
              You  absolutely  must provide a recording of one possible solution to each level. That solution is
              not within the distribution, just within the source code repository. It is used to ensure that the
              solution of your level is still possible after we made changes to the program. This way  we  limit
              possible frustration.

       Non-compressed:
              Do only send non-compressed level sets. We need those for the inclusion in the source. And we need
              those for possible future updates.

       Index: Use  the  index file to reorder levels, don't rename the files. This way inserting a level becomes
              very easy.

   Graphics
       We have graphics for most themes, but not for all. Those themes do have  some  foreground  graphics,  but
       their  background  tiles  are all black. You are very much invited to create and to improve the graphics.
       Even more important, though, is the creation of a new main figure. In either case, please contact  us  if
       you are interested.

       The  backgrounds are made out of 20x13 tiles. Each tile has a size of 40x48 pixel. The reason for that is
       the non square pixel of the 320x200 resolution of the original game. For each theme there is a PNG  image
       file  containing  all  the blocks that may be used by the levels. To make it possible to place the blocks
       more freely into the PNG file a LUA file  accompanies  the  image.  This  LUA  file  contains  the  block
       positions of all the used blocks.

       It is already implemented to use transparency within the blocks. Right now  you can stack up to 8 layers,
       but if necessary this can be made dynamic.

       It  is  also  planned to have something like animated tiles, but they have to be kept at a low count. Not
       too many frames and not too many animations. They are not intended to make the background dynamic, but to
       rather be a little finishing touch to the graphics. Possibilities are trees that move from time  to  time
       in a breeze, a bird that sails through the sky from time to time, and so on.

       The  figure  is  more  complicated.  The  image figure.png contains all possible animation images for the
       figure, one animation below the other. On request we can provide an additional GIMP image  that  contains
       in  separate  layers  possible  surroundings  of  the figure in different animation frames (like ladders,
       steps, ground, a carried domino, and so on). We will happily provide that image to an interested artist.

CREDITS

       We want to thank the developers of the original game for making such a nice little game.

                                                                                                 DOMINO-CHAIN(6)