tt.6

.TH TT 6 "5 June 1989" "Public Domain"
.SH NAME
tt \- a hoopy real-time puzzle game.
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B tt
[
.B \-s
[
.I num
]
] [
.B \-b
] [
.B \-g
] [
.B \-N
] [
.B \-3|4|5|7
] [
.B \-l
.I level
] [
.B \-m
.I num
]
.SH DESCRIPTION
.B tt
is an implementation of the well-known game
.B tetris.
Quadominoes (groups of four squares joined orthogonally together) fall
slowly down the screen, accumulating at the bottom, and when the pile
reaches the top of the screen the game is over.  The pieces may be
moved to the left or right, and rotated as they fall, with the aim of
making them tessellate with the pieces already at the bottom of the
game area.  The height of the stack of pieces can be reduced by
filling a complete row of ten squares, at which point that row will
disappear, and those above will fall down into its place.  It is
possible (and desirable) to destroy multiple rows at once.
.LP
The keys with which these operations can be accomplished are displayed
on the screen during play.  The game also recognises suspend, redraw
and quit keys.
.LP
In between games, when the program is waiting for a keypress before
restarting, pressing the "n" or "q" key will end the session, and
pressing the "s" key will list the top ten entries of the high-score
table.
.LP
The high-score table stores only a single score for each user at any
game-level.  Thus a user exceeding his own level-zero high-score would
have his old entry in the high-score table (if any) replaced with the
new score.  However, a single user may have multiple high-score table
entries for different game-levels.
.SH OPTIONS
.TP
.BR \-s " [ \fInum\fP ]"
.\" Yeeuuuch!
Causes
.B tt
to print the top
.I num
entries in the high-score table.  Currently, a maximum of one hundred
high-scores are maintained.  If
.I num
is not specified, the top ten scores are listed.
.TP
.B \-b
Causes pieces to rotate backwards (ie. clockwise).
.TP
.BI \-g
Causes "ghost" pieces to be displayed.  These curious apparitions show where the piece would be if you dropped it right this instant.
.TP
.BI \-N
You will see the box telling you what the Next piece will be.
.TP
.BI \-3|4|5|7
These are different types of games.  4 is the default, vanilla tetris.  3
contains pieces that have only 3 squares.  5 has 5-square pieces.  7 has both
pieces from 3 and 4.
.TP
.BI \-l " level"
Causes
.B tt
to play on level
.IR level ,
which must be between \-10 and 20.  Each level of play starts at the
same speed, and increases in speed at the same rate.  They are
differentiated only by the fact that non-zero levels drop a number of
pieces, equal to the absolute value of the level onto the screen
before the game starts.  Negative levels drop pieces down the middle
of the screen, positive levels place them randomly.  The author
recommends that the optimal game-levels are 0, 10 and \-6.  The
default level is 0.
.TP
.BI \-m " num"
If non-zero, don't use all pieces.
.SH ENVIRONMENT
If the environment variable
.B TTKEYS
is set, it contains the keys which will be used for the operations,
respectively, move left, move right, rotate piece, drop piece, suspend
game, and quit game.  The keys ^L (redraw screen) and s (print the
high-score table, when pressed between games) cannot be rebound.
.LP
If the environment variable
.B TTNAME
is set, it contains the name which will be used in the high-score
table if a good enough score is obtained to merit inclusion.  If this
variable is not set,
.B tt
will use the environment variable
.B NAME
and if this is also not set, the account-name will be used.
.SH FILES
/ssl/mirk/lib/ttscores \- high-score table.
.br
/ssl/mirk/lib/junk/ttlock \- lock file for high-score table.
.SH AUTHOR
The program
.B tt
was written by Mike Taylor (mirk@uk.co.ssl), based on the
original
.B tetris
idea, by a frustratingly anonymous "Russian Researcher".
.SH BUGS
None known \- Please report any bugs to the author.