1Luola
2http://www.luolamies.org/sofware/luola/
3---------------------------------------------------------------
4
5Luola is a simple yet addictive arcade game where you fly a little V-shaped
6ship inside caverns and try to blow up other players.
7It was inspired by V-Wing, an old Finnish caveflying game.
8
9Installation
10--------------------------------------------------------------
11See INSTALL for generic installation instructions.
12But most of the time, you just do this:
13./configure
14make
15make install
16
17By default, sounds are not compiled in. If you want to enable sound support,
18pass --enable-sound to configure.
19If you have SDL_gfx installed, by default, Luola uses it for some drawing
20operations. If you don't wan't Luola to use SDL_gfx, pass --disable-sdl-gfx to
21configure. Luola can use Truetype fonts if you have SDL_ttf installed.
22If you don't want to enabled truetype support, pass --disable-ttf to configure.
23
24'make install' puts the actual game binary in /usr/local/bin and the data
25files to /usr/local/share/luola/ .
26
27Some usage notes
28----------------------------------------------------------------
29
30Screenshots:
31 You can take a screenshot anytime by pressing F11. The screenshot will be
32 named luola_*.bmp and placed in ~./luola/ directory. The * is the number of
33 ticks that has elapsed since luola was started. This way, you can
34 take multiple screenshots and keep them in chronological order.
35
36Fullscreen:
37 To enter fullscreen mode, run luola with the --fullscreen parameter.
38 If luola runs in fullscreen mode by default and you want to run it
39 in windowed mode, use the --window paremeter. You can also switch
40 between fullscreen and windowed mode by pressing alt-enter any time
41 during the game.
42
43Playing the game:
44
45 * Players control their ships with the keys previously selected in key
46 configuration.
47
48 * Pressing Esc ends the level.
49
50 * The level ends when there is only one team remaining or a member of the
51 last surviving team lands on a base.
52
53 * Pressing Weapon1 and Down at the same time ejects the pilot. The pilot can
54 also be ejected when the ship is dead (gray) by pressing Weapon2.
55
56 * You can return to your empty ship by walking over it. You can also take over
57 empty enemy ships this way...
58
59 * When on a base, hold down Down key and press left/right to switch special
60 weapons. (Note that when switching weapons, you lose the ammo you have.
61 Water can't turn to missiles, right?)
62
63Playmodes:
64 * Normal - This is the normal playmode, nothing special
65
66 * Start outside ships - Otherwise the same as normal, but pilots start outside
67 their ships
68
69 * Start outside ships-1 - like above, but one unlucky player has no ship...
70
71 * Random criticals - Players start with random ship criticals
72
73 * Random weapons - Standard and special weapons are chosen at random
74
75Pilot controls:
76
77 * Move with Left and Right keys.
78
79 * Shoot with Weapon1 key
80
81 * Weapon2 key opens the parachute or cuts the rope
82
83 * Jump with the up key. While jumping, pressing the Up key again shoots the
84 rope in a 45 degree angle.
85
86 * While on the rope, Weapon2 drops you free. You can sling back and forth and
87 climb up and down with the arrow keys.
88
89 * Shoot the rope straight up with the Down key.
90
91 * You can lock the pilot controls by holding down Weapon2 key. When locked, the
92 pilot does not move or autoaim, so you can aim your gun manually.
93
94 * You can kick another player out of his/her ship by first attaching the ninja
95 rope to it, getting as close as possible and then pressing Down+Weap1.
96
97 * If Ship Recall is enabled, you can teleport your ship back to you by pressing
98 Weapon2 while standing on a base. If your ship is destroyed, a new one will
99 be created. If someone else has boarded your ship, it cannot be recalled.
100
101Team play:
102 Team play is just like normal game with 4 players, except some rules
103 are enforced by the game itself. All games are actually team games as far
104 as Luola is concerned, usually you just have only one player per team. The
105 game ends when all opposing teams are destroyed. Certain weapons are team-
106 aware:
107 * Homing missiles only target enemy team members
108 * Helicopters and infantry won't attack teammates
109
110Game end modes:
111 A level can end in two different ways.
112 It can end immediately after all opponents have been destroyed, or after
113 last surviving player has landed on a base. If the level does not have any
114 bases, the level ends immediately when only one player/team is left .
115
116Configuration file:
117 The configuration file contains the player key and game settings.
118 You should not need to modify it by hand as all the settings can be
119 changed from Luola's menus.
120
121Function keys:
122
123 * F11 anytime, takes a screenshot.
124 * Alt-Enter anytime, switches between fullscreen and windowed mode.
125 * F1 during gameplay, toggle radar.
126 * F5 during gameplay, decrease sound effect volume
127 * F6 during gameplay, increase sound effect volume
128 * F7 during gameplay, decrease music volume
129 * F8 during gameplay, increase music volume
130 * Pause key during gameplay, pauses/resumes the game
131
132Background music:
133 Luola can play any sound file as background music that is supported by
134 SDL_mixer, such as MP3 or OGG.
135 Put your playlist in ~/.luola/battle.pls and Luola will pick a song and
136 play it during gameplay. Supported playlist format is M3U.
137 This format is produced by many media players such as XMMS, Noatun and Winamp.
138 You can change the sound effect and music volumes during gameplay with F5-F8
139 buttons.
140
141Levels
142------------------------------------------------------------------------------
143
144Download the level packs from the luola homepage.
145The level pack contains descriptions of the levels.
146
147Luola can also use levels from pretty much any other caveflying game
148that uses palette based levels. The provided importlev utility in tools/
149subdirectory can be used to convert foreign levels to Luola format.
150Currently supported formats are V-Wing, Wings and TOU.
151See the LEVELFILE text file for more information.
152
153Level specials
154-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
155
156 Jump gates:
157 Jump-gates provide permanent wormholes between two points in the level.
158 They activate when a player flies over them. You can set the number of
159 jump-gates per level from the level settings screen.
160 Large projectiles can travel thru open wormholes.
161
162 Turrets:
163 These are automatic turrets that fire at everybody.
164 There are three types of turrets.
165 1. A normal turret, has an ordinary cannon.
166 2. Grenade launcher, fires grenade shells.
167 3. Missile launcher, fires homing missiles.
168
169 You can change the number of turrets from the level settings screen.
170
171 Critters:
172 Unlike other level specials, these don't do anything, except walk
173 (or fly or swim) around and get killed. (Technically, infantry and
174 helicopters are also critters, so some critters actually do something)
175 You can enable/disable critters from the level settings screen. You can
176 also set the number of different critter species, including per player
177 limits for infantry and helicopters.
178
179