1WHAT: 2 3 So, uh, there's a bunch of penguins on an iceberg in Antarctica. You have 4 been selected to catch them so they can be shipped to Finland, where they 5 are essential to a secret plot for world domination. 6 7 In order to trap the penguins, you'll need to break the iceberg into small 8 chunks. (They're afraid of water, for no apparent reason. Ah well. "The 9 Matrix" had more plot holes than this, and it still was a hit.) You do 10 this by melting lines in the ice with Special High-Tech GNU Tools. 11 12 If a penguin hits a line in progress, however, it vanishes with a loud 13 noise, and you lose a life. (Yes, a life. This story is really breaking 14 down, isn't it? But never fear -- I'll keep going until it's completely 15 dead.) 16 17 Once 80% or more of the iceberg is gone, the remaining chunks are small 18 enough for shipping. Of course, if you manage to get rid of more than 19 that, you'll save on postage, thus earning you exponential amounts of Geek 20 Cred (a.k.a. "score"). 21 22 After you ship off one batch of penguins, it's time to move on to the 23 next. Each subsequent 'berg will have one more penguin, and you'll have 24 one more life. This will continue until you lose, or until you exceed 25 level one hundred or so, which Ain't Gonna Happen. 26 27 Of course, this is an urgent mission, so you'll be penalized if you're 28 slow -- every second or so, your score drops down by one. But don't worry, 29 I'm not completely cruel, so any points you earn on one level are yours to 30 keep forever, no matter how long you take on subsequent icebergs. 31 32 As far as I can tell, this makes no narrative sense whatsoever, so at this 33 point, I declare the backstory / game metaphor completely collapsed. Just 34 go play. 35 36 37HOW: 38 39 The left mouse button starts drawing lines; the right (and/or middle) 40 button toggles between making vertical and horizontal lines. Note that 41 left clicking actually starts *two* lines: either up and down or left and 42 right. (This will make plenty of sense when you're actually playing.) If 43 one of these lines is hit before it reaches the edge of the iceberg, 44 you'll lose a life. If both are hit, you'll lose two lives. 45 46 As a tiny bit of grace, if you click directly on a penguin, it'll say 47 "Ouch" and nothing else will happen. 48 49 Once a line is completed, any area containing no penguins is cleared. 50 Falls into the ocean, so to speak. Once 80% has been cleared, the level is 51 complete. However, you get an exponential bonus for every percentage point 52 above that, so you want to try to make your last line suddenly clear a 53 huge chunk of ice. (Again, this will make sense once you've played for a 54 while.) Oh, and you also get a (much smaller) bonus for having lives left 55 over at the end of a level. 56 57 Taking a long time on a level doesn't affect these bonuses, but it can 58 chip away at your score, so you have to balance the time it takes to set 59 up a situation where you can clear 99% of the iceberg against the bonus 60 you'll get for doing so. 61 62 Having trouble? A hint: it's useful to make traps by intentionally letting 63 some of your lines get broken. That way, you can create smaller areas in 64 which you can catch the pesky little things easily. 65 66 67WHY: 68 69 There's a game for MS Windows called "Jezzball". You may notice that this 70 one is extremely similar. There's a reason for that. See, our main 71 computer at home runs Linux most of the time, but it has Win95 set up to 72 dual-boot if need be. (Unfortunately, it's too slow to run VMware or Wine 73 well.) Ideally, of course, the machine stays in Linux, but my wife, Karen, 74 really likes puzzle sorts of games and became highly addicted to this 75 Jezzball thing. Well, we simply couldn't have the system wasting its life 76 in Windows all that time, so I took it upon myself to create a 77 sort-of-clone. (It's not a pure clone, because I like to think that I've 78 done many things in a far superior way.) So this game can be thought of, 79 in a simultaneously dangerously geeky and dangerously mushy way, as sort 80 of a dual love-letter, to both Karen and Linux. :) 81 82 It's therefore somewhat ironic that IceBreaker now exists in a MS 83 Windows version. Ah well. I know not all of you have been converted yet, 84 and you might as well enjoy the game too. 85 86 Oh, and to answer another "Why" question, especially for my friend Lars: 87 why is this program written in C and yet uses C++ style comments? Because 88 I like C++ style comments, that's why. 89 90WHO: 91 92 This game was written by Matthew Miller <mattdm@mattdm.org>. 93 94 Recent versions have benefited immensely from the help of Enrico Tassi 95 <gareuselesinge@infinito.it>. He's responsible for getting the Win32 port 96 to work so nicely, and for a lot of fancy new features. Enrico doesn't 97 live here in Boston, but he's a huge fan of Boston band Letters To Cleo, 98 so that counts for something. 99 100 Much thanks to Karen for everything. In fact, if you really love this 101 game, check out Ten Thousand Villages <http://www.tenthousandvillages.org>, 102 the non-profit organization for which she works. And if you live near 103 Boston, MA, stop in to the store in Coolidge Corner (Brookline) and say 104 "Hi" and perhaps buy something -- they have cool stuff and it's a really 105 great organization. 106 107 Thanks also to Tae-Jin, for helping me squash a nasty bug, and to Paul for 108 testing and suggestions and proofreading this document. And to the folks 109 at the helpdesk downstairs for playing this game instead of working. 110 111 The sounds were either originally created or borrowed from freely-licensed 112 sources and modified heavily. Thanks to Wesley Crossman for his 113 contributions. I'd still like lots more cool good ones -- either 114 improvements of the existing sounds or for new themes. 115 116 The penguin image is mostly my own work, but is based on a graphic 117 from Pingus <http://dark.x.dtu.dk/~grumbel/pingus/>. 118 119 Actually, I'm quite open to accepting any help anyone wants to give. 120 121 122WHEN: 123 124 A week or two in September 2000, and then some more time in July 2001, 125 and then in May 2002, so on. 126 127 128WHERE: 129 130 Get it from: <http://www.mattdm.org/icebreaker/> 131 132 Report bugs: <mattdm@mattdm.org> 133 134 135WHICH: 136 137 (As in, "On which libraries does icebreaker depend?") 138 139 libSDL and libSDL_mixer. <http://www.libsdl.org/> 140 141 142WHITHER: 143 144 I'm now actively working on IceBreaker, and a few other people have been 145 too (most notably, Enrico Tassi). If you want to help, or are just 146 interested in what's going on, check out the development section of the 147 IceBreaker website at <http://www.mattdm.org/icebreaker/development.html>. 148 149 150------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 151Copyright (C) 2000-2002 Matthew Miller and others and released under the 152terms of the GNU General Public License. 153 154This project uses the Simple DirectMedia Layer and SDL Mixer libraries which 155are available under the GNU LGPL license. SDL and SDL_mixer source code 156should be available from wherever you got IceBreaker; if you can't find it, 157it is available at <http://www.mattdm.org/icebreaker/> or at the main SDL 158site <http://www.libsdl.org/>. 159