# The &ktron; Handbook

## Introduction

&ktron; is a simple Tron-Clone for the K Desktop Environment. You can play &ktron; against the computer or a friend.

The aim of the game is to live longer than your opponent. To do that, avoid running into a wall, your own tail and that of your opponent.

## Playing &ktron;

### Rules

Once a round is started, the players do not stop moving forward (unless the game is paused). All you have to do is avoid crashing by changing your players direction. Additionally you can try to hinder your opponent. For this it is possible to increase the velocity by pressing your accelerator key.

Pushing a direction key in the opposite direction to which you are travelling, will make you crash.

A round starts when all human players press a direction key. The initial moving direction is then in this direction.

If you want to interrupt playing, select Pause/Continue from the Game menu or hit the keyboard shortcut (see section Default Key Bindings). Additionally the game is paused when the game loses the keyboard focus, ⪚ when switching to an other window.

To continue the game, select the menu item Pause/Continue again, or the keyboard shortcut. The game will also continue if the human players press one of their direction keys. But be careful, your player switches to this direction immediately.

A game consists of several rounds, and ends if a player has at least nine points, and additionally two more points than the opponent. The current score is always displayed in the status bar.

### The Computer Player

You can let the computer be Player One, Player Two or both players. There are three difficulty levels: Beginner, Average and Expert.

- If you choose Beginner, the computer doesn't care about the opponent and just moves around. This is the same algorithm as used by xtron-1.1.

- At skill levels Average and Expert, the computer tries to hinder the opponent when he comes near.

See the Settings Menu section for information on how to configure the computer player.

### Using the keyboard

Each player has five keys. Four keys for changing the direction and one to accelerate.

The direction keys do not have to be held down. Simply press them once to change the direction of your player.

Acceleration only occurs while the acceleration key remains depressed. When you release the acceleration key, velocity returns to normal.

See section Settings Menu for information how to change the default keys.

## Command Reference

The following sections briefly describe each menu bar option.

### The Game Menu

&Ctrl;N Game New Game

- Starts a new game.

P Game Pause/Continue

- Pauses the game.

&Ctrl;Q Game Exit

- Quits.

### The Settings Menu

Settings Show Statusbar

- Shows or hides the Statusbar.

Settings Configure Shortcuts...

- Displays a standard &kde; key bindings configurator.

Settings Computerplayer

- Selects the number of computer players, and their skill level, Beginner, Average or Expert

  The computer can be Player 1, Player 2 or both players.

  Beginner ignores the opponent, and just moves randomly. Average or Expert causes the computer to actively hinder the opponent.

Settings Velocity

- Selects the speed of the game, from slow 1 to fast 10. The default velocity is 5.

Settings Appearance Drawing Style

- Selects the drawing style of the &ktron; players. The options are: 3D Line, 3D Rects, Line and Circles.

Settings Appearance Color Player 1

- Changes the color of Player 1, using a color selector

Settings Appearance Color Player 2

- Changes the color of Player 2, using a color selector.

Settings Appearance Backgroundcolor

- Changes the color of the background, using a color selector.

Settings Appearance Background image

- Allows selection of a background image, using a dialog box.

Settings Size

- Selects how large the &ktron; players are drawn, from Very Small to Very Large.

Settings Other...

- Brings up a tabbed window,with the following options:

  - The player can be given more descriptive names, other than Player 1 and Player 2.

  - Acceleration can be disabled, leaving both players travelling at a constant velocity.

  - The players colors can be changed on winning.

### The Help Menu

&help.menu.documentation;

### Default Key Bindings

The following tables show you the default key bindings.

### Player 1 Key bindings

Key Combo | Action
R | Up
F | Down
G | Right
D | Left
A | Accelerate

### Player 2 Key bindings

Key Combo | Action
Up Arrow | Up
Down Arrow | Down
Right Arrow | Right
Left Arrow | Left
+ | Accelerate

### General Key Bindings

Key Combo | Action
P | Pause Game
&Ctrl; N | New Game
&Ctrl;Q | Quit &ktron;
F1 | Help Contents
Shift F1 | What's This Help

These key bindings can be changed by selecting Settings Configure Key Bindings from the menubar.

## Credits and License

&ktron;

Program Copyright 1999 Matthias Kiefer matthias.kiefer@gmx.de

Parts of the code are from xtron-1.1 by Rhett D. Jacobs rhett@hotel.canberra.edu.au>

Documentation Copyright 1999 Matthias Kiefer matthias.kiefer@gmx.de

Documentation updated for KDE 2.0 by Fabian Dal Santo linuxgnu@yahoo.com.au

&underFDL; &underGPL;

## Installation

### How to obtain &ktron;

&install.intro.documentation;

### Requirements

In order to successfully compile &ktron;, you need &kde; 3.0 All required libraries as well as &ktron; itself can be found on ftp://ftp.kde.org/pub/kde/.

### Compilation and Installation

&install.compile.documentation;

Should you run into problems, please report them to the the author at Matthias Kiefer