man Games::FrozenBubble (3): THIS IS A BETA VERSION

TIPS

During net/lan game choose, there is a chat system. Here are the available keys and tips:

just type and hit enter to send a message

page up and page down allow you to view history as in IRC programs

arrow up and down allow you to recall previous messages you've sent

the TAB key triggers nick completion on listening players

in the pre-game chat, the following commands are available:

    /me <action>: sends an action message instead of sending a regular message
    /nick <new_nick>: change your nick
    /server: query the name of the server you're connected to
    /fs: toggle fullscreen
    /list: view list of listening players
    /geolocate: geolocate yourself again
    /autokick <nick> [<text>]: add/remove that nick to autokick list

in the in-game chat, the following commands are available:

    /kick <nick> [<text>]: kick a joiner from your game (if you're
                           creator), optionally with an explanatory text

During a game, the following default key shortcuts are available:

TAB: next playlist music (if sound available and when playlist is used)
F11: toggle music
F12: toggle sound
Keypad Minus: lower music/sound volume
Keypad Plus: raise music/sound volume

When in multiplayer with 3+ players:

F1: send malus to top left player
F2: send malus to top right player
F3: send malus to bottom left player
F4: send malus to bottom right player
F10: send malus to all opponents

Notice: you can see who you attack because the F1..F4 little text next to the player turns white - you can see who is attacking by the presence of the small pinguins of the opponent on the left of your igloo.

TROUBLESHOOTING

Having problems running Frozen Bubble?

If you are colourblind, we already have what you're looking for: please use the "-cb"commandline parameter, and bubbles will be printed with little geometrical symbols inside.

Fix your problems

Most of the problems you can encounter with Frozen-Bubble don't require contacting us directly, and actually we can't fix most of them.

First, please notice that we have developed this software on the GNU/Linux platform. There are ports to other operating systems, but we can't and don't want to support them. If you happen to be using Frozen-Bubble on FreeBSD, NetBSD, Windows or Mac OS X, please contact the authors of this ``port'' if you have trouble installing/running/whatever. Thank you.

Then, if you use Linux and installed a package provided by your distribution, you have to contact the guys of your distribution. We don't know the intrinsics of every Linux distributions and neither the patches they have applied to Frozen-Bubble when packaging.

Troubleshoot most common problems on GNU/Linux

First, please notice that we are not a GNU/Linux vendor, we are not Debian, Red Hat, Ubuntu, Mandriva or Gentoo. So if you can't install it with apt-get, emerge, urpmi, yum or whatever, or if you managed to install it but it won't start or won't run properly, there are much higher chances this is a problem with your vendor, not with us. Try to think before contacting us: is your problem really with our software? or with how your vendor compiled/integrated it with the system?

Now, to ease your life, we provide links to common problems you may encounter.

"...cannot handle TLS data..." message at startup

It seems this is related with buggy or badly installed nvidia drivers. Debian has a bugreport and a fix (<http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=223096>) for this one.

"Can't locate SDL.pm in @INC..." message at startup

Either you didn't install sdlperl, or you installed it at the wrong location. Check where the file SDL.pm was installed on your system and what is the @INC search path of perl, there are chances they don't match.

    perl -e 'print join("\n", @INC)

crash with a "SIGILL" when trying to start a new game

You're probably using buggy "SDL-1.2.6" on an Intel processor; please update to "SDL-1.2.7" or more recent.

"Not a HASH reference at /usr/games/frozen-bubble line 310" message at startup

It seems that you're using an incompatible (too recent) version of perl-SDL on FB1. Either downgrade or apply this patch. <http://www.frozen-bubble.org/perl-SDL.patch>

If you have more to add, you may want to contact us: "contact2 X frozen-bubble.org", <http://sdlperl.ath.cx/projects/SDLPerl/query?component=FrozenBubble>

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Help! I am unable to download Frozen-Bubble from your website!

Uh, the downloads page (<http://www.frozen-bubble.org/downloads/>) should be fairly understandableX

If you're using Windows, or Mac OS X, read the Ports section of the downloads page (<http://www.frozen-bubble.org/downloads/#Ports>)! man, you can do it, I am sure you can, don't quit trying so fast!

Help! Frozen-Bubble doesn't work!

Easy, go to the troubleshooting page (<http://www.frozen-bubble.org/troubleshooting/>). And don't forget we don't know your system or distribution, help yourself or ask your vendor.

Hey, why not porting Frozen-Bubble to <my favorite phone or whatever>?

Simple! Because we aren't interested in this. Ask the authors of other ports, maybe they will be. But no use emailing us about it. Thanks.

I'd suggest adding mouse aiming to the game

Yes, but, see, it would not be fair to players using keyboard, because mouse aiming is analog-based, whereas keys are not. So, no mouse, sorry.

My joystick doesn't work!

If you're not using Linux, sorry we don't know and support your system.

If you're using Linux, maybe we can help. When trying to use your joystick in Frozen-Bubble, if nothing comes up, most probably your joystick isn't configured correctly (or supported in Linux), use "--joysticks-info" commandline parameter to verify that FB detects your joystick properly: if it does, information about your joystick(s) will be printed in console on startup, and you should have no problem using your joystick in FB - just trigger a direction or a button in the ``change keys'' dialog; if not, try to load the proper kernel modules etc - for example, the kernel module "joydev" is needed for all joysticks, but it is sometimes not automatically loaded when plugging in a joystick (even in modern distros and with USB joysticks) - after loading this kernel module, retry in FB.

Special keys

In the 3p/4p/5p network game, you can see F1, F2, F3 and F4 printed in the game screen - one function key per remote player. These keys allow you to aim at a particular remote player instead of everyone at the same time. Indeed, by default, when you create malus bubbles to be sent to your opponents (by exploding a larger group or when bubbles were sticked to exploding bubbles), they are distributed evenly among all of the (living) opponents. If you hit the, say, F2 key before (you can verify you did because F2 is then printed in white on the game screen), next time you will create malus bubbles, they will all be sent to the top-right opponent. This feature can allow you to team up or to aim at the strongest opponent. You can hit F10 to request back an evenly distribution. Notice that when using at least version 2.1.0, you can see who's attacking you at any time by looking at at pinguins left to your igloo (<http://www.frozen-bubble.org/data/fb2.1-attackmaterialized.png>).

The keys F11 and F12 are also useful (version 2.1.0 minimum): F11 allows one to toggle the music, and F12 allows one to toggle the sound (music plus sound effects). Additionally, keypad's minus and plus keys allow to alter sound volume.

It is a shame, I cannot toggle sound in the game!

Easy, read the ``Special keys'' FAQ item.

Why not 2 or more players on the same computer, and still a 3/4/5 player game in network?

Because in 3p/4p/5p game, there is room for only one player with full size graphics. For the other players, the graphics are smaller (<http://www.frozen-bubble.org/downloads/data/fb2-5p.png>), so more than one local player is not possible.

What are chain reactions?

When you pop some bubbles, and another bubble was being held up by the bubbles you popped, that other bubble falls and becomes a malus bubble. In chain reaction mode, that other bubble can also rise up and pop some other bubbles, if you have a pair of bubbles on your screen that are the same color as it with a free position next to it. This might, in turn, release more bubbles, which can also rise up and pop pairs of their own color, in a big chain reaction. Let's illustrate that:

1. First, you pop some bubbles of the same color, yellow in our example, which release some extra bubbles of a different color (black and purple).: <http://www.frozen-bubble.org/data/cr1-0.png>
2. The purple bubble just falls. The black bubble would fall too, but this is chain-reaction mode. So instead of falling, the black bubble sees a group of other black bubble with a free position next to it, and swoops back up to be with them.: <http://www.frozen-bubble.org/data/cr1-1.png>
3. The black bubbles pop, releasing several other bubbles. The orange bubble sees a group of other orange bubbles with a free position next to it, and swoops back up to be with them.: <http://www.frozen-bubble.org/data/cr1-2.png>
4. The orange bubbles pop, releasing a couple of other bubbles.: <http://www.frozen-bubble.org/data/cr1-3.png>
5. But there are no more groups for these bubbles, so the chain reaction is over.: <http://www.frozen-bubble.org/data/cr1-4.png>

What's single player targetting?