Ubuntu Manpage: gfpoken - Recreate a grid of mirrors from clues

NAME

       gfpoken - Recreate a grid of mirrors from clues

SYNOPSIS

       gfpoken

INTRODUCTION

       Suddenly,  you  attain  consciousness.   You  are faced by a grid of tiny squares, all alike, and a sign,
       which reads as follows:

       ACHTUNG!  ALLES LOOKENSPEEPERS!  Das rollenballenmachine ist nicht fuer  gefingerpoken  und  widgetmoven.
       Ist  easy  flippen  der  mirrorwerk,  losenballen  und  shovenmirroren mit slippensliden.  Ist nicht fuer
       gewerken bei das dumpkopfen.  Das rubbernecken sichtseeren keepen das cotten-pickenen hans in das pockets
       muss; relaxen und watchen das rollenballen.

       Unable to decipher it, you begin rolling balls at the grid, having nothing better to do. And thus  begins
       your pathetic adventure deep into the bowels of Nihilism.

DESCRIPTION

The idea for this game comes from a Windows game called "Marble," by Analogue Software. GFingerPoken is
basically Marble, rewritten from scratch for GTK.

The game starts with the configuration dialog. Here you can set the relative abundance of the different
mirror types, the size of the grid, the amount of mirrors in it, and how much the mirror density should
vary.

In the top left, there are load and save buttons to load and save existing games. The save button is not
visible if no game is in progress. Press OK when you're happy with the settings to start the actual
game.

You can throw balls into the grid by clicking around the edges. There are 4 of them, but they all work
the same way. You'll see your ball roll through the empty corridor, then you'll see a white in arrow and
an out arrow. Your job is to drag the mirrors from the side into the maze and set up your maze to be the
same as the output indicates, i.e., so your ball always goes out where the arrow says it should. You
have to use all of the mirrors on the side. If an item has a some arrows in the center, it is flippable;
click on it, and it will change between its states. Furthermore, every time these items are hit within
the maze, either yours or the computer's, they will be flipped also. So your maze must be synchronized
with the invisible one. When you think that your maze perfectly matches the output, click the check
button and see if you were right.

If you right-click on a grid square, you will cycle through a picture that appears in the corner: a
circle, a triangle, a square, and nothing. These symbols do nothing, but you can use them to indicate
what you think may be in the square. For example, a circle could mean you think nothing is there, a
triangle something is there, and a square that you're pretty sure whatever's there is right.

The button in the top left lets you abort the current game and start a new one. This is what you should
do if you want to save the game. If you want to continue playing after saving, cancel the creation of
the new game.

MIRROR TYPES

       Simple mirrors
              The  ball  rolls  toward  it.   The  ball hits it.  The ball rolls in a different direction.  Very
              simple.  They are shaped / and  .

       Flipping mirrors
              The ball hits it and rolls in a different direction, but then the mirror changes  shape  according
              to  its  little  indicator.   There are two cycle mirrors which go between / and  shapes, and four
              cycle mirrors which cycle this way: / o  o .  (The little "o" representing a box, coming up next.)

              This is where the game begins to get devious.  Your setup must  match  the  functionality  of  the
              invisible  one  exactly.   Meaning  you  have to get the alignment of these precisely perfect.  To
              change the alignment of one, click on it.

       Box and sink
              Basically they are opposites.  A box will repel the ball in the opposite direction  that  it  came
              from, and a sink will "eat" the ball, resulting in NO output arrow.

       Axial mirrors
              They  will  let  the ball come through on one axis (i.e. vertically or horizontally) but bounce it
              back on the other.  There are both simple and flipping axial mirrors for your amusement.

       Rotators
              These are quite similar to normal mirrors, only they redirect the ball in a different sort of way.
              There are clockwise and counterclockwise varieties as well as a flipper.

       One Way Mirrors
              Only one order away from pure evil, one way mirrors will boggle the mind  for  centuries  if  used
              liberally.   They  are just like normal static mirrors, except they only let the ball travel right
              through it in two (perpendicular) directions and bounce it off in the other two.  These can  cause
              an  infinite  loop if used wrecklessly, which the random computer is fairly likely to do.  In that
              case, there is no output arrow, just like when the ball falls into a sink.

       PURE EVIL
              There are two varieties: fllipping one way mirrors, and moving mirrors.  Flipping one way  mirrors
              can  flip  in  either  a  clockwise or counterclockwise direction.  Moving mirrors, when hit, will
              travel one square in the direction they were hit, after being hit, so your ball will travel as  if
              a simple mirror had been where the mirror was just sitting.

NETWORK GAME

Network games work a lot like single player games. To setup a network game, you must be in the game
window (so create a game, the settings don't matter). Then click the "start network game" button. That
opens a new dialog window. You can leave the type at "Auto" unless you've picked out who you want to be
client and server. Auto will try client first, and if it doesn't work it will go to server. Server gets
to choose the level layout and also gets to go first, so you could give it to your opponent if you want
to be nice. Going first isn't really an advantage though, as you'll soon find out. You should probably
leave the port unless it's used so it can become a defacto standard. If you are server, the address
restricts connections to only ones originating from this address; if you are client, it will connect to
this address. Similarly, server sets the port to listen on and client connects to this port.

Also, you'll have to choose the game type. The server overrides whatever the client has. With "Shared
board," both players manipulate the same board and both see changes made immediately. (It's graphically
much cooler.) Players take turns manipulating the board. With "Individual boards," each player has his
own board and cannot see the other player's board. Players each perform one manipulation to their board
simultaneously. Otherwise, the games are similar.

A manipulation consists of these steps:

1) Rearrange the pieces however you'd like. (This includes moving them in and out of the sidebar.) This
may be zero rearrangements.

2) Perform exactly one test (i.e. click along the border to toss in a ball)

3) Again perform as many rearrangements as you'd like.

4) Click on the right arrow to indicate that you're done.

Either before or after a manipulation, if the board is potentially solvable, you may click the check
button if you think it's solved. If you're right, you win; if you're wrong, you lose.

Note that you *must* perform a manipulation during each of your turns, which should discourage a standoff
in shared board mode.

Finally, the half balls that appear next to the board are your history. The whole reason for the 4
different ball colors is to differentiate your last 4 moves in the history. So the black in arrow
superimposed atop the purple ball half should have a corresponding black out arrow also superimposed atop
a purple ball half. If not, that part of the history must have been erased because another out move went
on top of it, or perhaps because the ball was eaten somehow and thus never came out.

AUTHOR

       This manual page was written by Bas Wijnen <wijnen@debian.org>, based on documentation by Martin Hock.

                                                                                                      GFPOKEN(6)