2.11BSD#431 - /usr/man/cat6/warp.0

WARP(6)             UNIX Programmer's Manual		  WARP(6)


NAME
     warp - a real-time space war game

SYNOPSIS
     warp [options]

DESCRIPTION
     Warp is a real-time space war game that requires skill and
     quick thinking.  "Real-time" in this context means that the
     enemies keep moving (and shooting) even if you don't.  A
     unique feature of warp is that blast propagates; it is
     unhealthy to remain near things that are in the process of
     blowing up.  If a given universe is above a critical density
     it may chain react.  Scoring is like many popular arcade
     games--there are multiple waves which get harder and harder
     as you go along.  Nobody has ever maxed out the scoreboard
     without cheating.

     Unlike many space-war games, warp is not simply a shooting
     gallery.  Along with phasers and photon torpedoes, you have
     tractor beams and a cloaking device.  Skill in navigation is
     important.  It helps to be schizophrenic, because you must
     manage an Enterprise and a Base simultaneously.  And enemies
     do not simply shoot back.	You can get tailed, absorbed,
     snuck up upon, hemmed in, rammed, loved to death, repri-
     manded for destroying civilized life, dragged around,
     robbed, damaged and eaten.  And if you should happen to get
     bored by the enemies (a trifle unlikely), you can always
     watch the interesting star patterns.  In fact, you'll have
     to, since your tactics will depend upon what kind of
     universe you find yourself in.

     Warp is played in a double wraparound universe, i.e. the
     bottom is connected to the top, and the right is connected
     to the left.  You need a crt with random cursor addressing
     and at least 24 lines by 80 columns.  For more information
     about about how to play, simply run warp and say "y" when it
     asks if you want to see the instructions.	There is also a
     single-page command summary that you can get while playing
     by typing a "?".

     Command line options include:

     -b   Put warp into beginner mode.	Makes the difficulty
	  increase more slowly, but penalizes you for it.

     -d<n>
	  Sets the initial difficulty to n.

     -l   Play a low-speed game.  Changes the basic cycle time
	  from 1 second to 2 seconds.  This switch is automati-
	  cally set at baud rates below 2400.  You may want to


Printed 11/26/99						1


WARP(6)             UNIX Programmer's Manual		  WARP(6)


	  set it at higher speeds if your terminal cannot keep up
	  with the output.  (This should never happen on BSD sys-
	  tems, which have an IOCTL call to determine output
	  queue length.) Because this makes the game easier, a
	  separate scoreboard is kept for low-speed games.

     -m   Terminal has a meta key which turns on the eighth bit.
	  Ordinarily the eighth bit is stripped in order to
	  ignore parity.  Metacharacters will appear to the key-
	  map as prefixed with a ^A, and will subsequently have
	  the same effect as a control character, unless other-
	  wise mapped.

     -s   Just prints out the scoreboards and saved games and
	  then exits.

     -v   Prints out the version number.

     -x   Play an experimental game.  This causes warp to ignore
	  any saved game, and disables the ability to save the
	  current game.  Thus you can play around with something
	  or show warp to someone without jeopardizing a
	  currently saved game.

ENVIRONMENT
     WARPMACRO
	  If defined, names a file containing keyboard mappings
	  and macros.  If not defined, the value %X/Kbmap.%{TERM}
	  is assumed.  The macro file contains lines of the fol-
	  lowing form:

	  <keystroke-sequence> <whitespace> <canonical-
	  keystroke-sequence>

	  You may use certain % interpolations and ^<letter> con-
	  trol characters.  For possible % interpolations see
	  warp.h.  Sequences in the canonical-keystroke-sequence
	  bounded by ^(...^) are subject to reinterpretation via
	  the keymap.  This file has two major uses.  First, you
	  can set up your commands to use any kind of prefix key
	  your terminal might have, or change the key bindings in
	  any other way you choose.  Second, you can define arbi-
	  trary macros, such as this:

	  # define Corbamite maneuver =    DDllllll

AUTHOR
     Larry Wall <lwall@sdcrdcf.UUCP>

FILES
     ~/.fullname, if full names aren't in /etc/passwd


Printed 11/26/99						2


WARP(6)             UNIX Programmer's Manual		  WARP(6)


DIAGNOSTICS
     Generally self-documenting, as they say.

BUGS
     Addicting.  At the end of a wave, all you have to do to keep
     going is hit a space.  You see the message "Hit space to
     continue" and automatically hit space.  About 2 seconds
     later you remember you wanted to go home, but by then it's
     too late to escape without penalty.

     You can't kill a backgrounded warp process directly, because
     it is running setuid.  You have to use the killer built in
     to warp.

     Now that there is a space amoeba, there ought to be trib-
     bles.  But it might be too much trouble...


Printed 11/26/99						3