User Guide

As for every game, here is a manual with the rules and the way to play to the game.

Executing the game

To start the game, simply launch the file Kasbrik.exe. Make sure to have all the data files (wav, lvl, jpg and x folders).

The game then asks for full-screen or windowed mode (see Figure 8). Click YES for full-screen (640x480 32 bits)[1] and NO for windowed (640x480 in the current bit depth).

If you executes the game from a write-protected media (protected disc or CD-Rom), the hi-scores will be lost when you will quit the game.

 

Figure 8 - Message box for the full-screen or windowed mode

Menu

Description

Here is a detail and a description of the items of the main menu (see Figure 9):

• New Game: Start a new game.
• Resume Game: Resume the current game. If no game has been started yet, this option does not work.
• Options: Go to the options menu (see below).
• Hi-scores: Display the hi-scores.
• About: Display information about the game.
• Quit: Quit the game.

 

Here is now a description of the option menu (see Figure 9):

•  Lighting: Enable or disable the lighting effect made by the ball(s).
• Camera: Change the camera type (standard or paddle) (see also “Moving the camera”).
• Special effects: Enable or disable the special effects (ball trail, explosions and glow effect around pick-ups).
• Background: Enable or disable the background.
• Music: Change music or disable music. As the music files are very big (around 40 Megabytes each), the game works without these files and the music is automatically disabled.
• Sound effects: Enable or disable the sound effects.

 

        

Figure 9 - The menus of the game

Controls

Moving in the menus

To make your selection in the menu, you simply have to move the highlighted item with the UP and DOWN arrows and select it with ENTER.

Moving the camera

When you’re in the menus and if the camera mode is STANDARD, you can move the camera to any position of the world. The camera is moved with the mouse or the keyboard, here is how to do it:

Mouse:

• When in the menus press the left mouse button and move the mouse to rotate the camera around the centre of the world.
• When in the menus press the right mouse button and move the mouse to zoom in and out the camera.

Keyboard:

When in the menus, press A and Q to translate the camera vertically, W and S to translate the camera horizontally, and E and D to zoom in and out.

Game

Let’s see now more precisely how works the game.

Goal

The goal of the game is to break all the bricks of each level. There are 10 levels in this version of the game. You can move the paddle on the bottom of the screen to catch the ball and to break the bricks with that ball.

Controls

Here are the controls of the game.

You move the paddle with the mouse. If you go left, the paddle goes left, and if you go right, the paddle goes right.

At the beginning of the game or if you have taken some special pick-ups, the ball is stuck on the paddle. You can launch the ball by pressing the left mouse button.

If you want to pause or quit the game, you can press ESC to return to the menu.

Bricks

There are two different types of bricks.

First, there are all the standard bricks:      . These bricks are bricks that the ball can break. Once broken, they disappear and can give a pick-up (see below).

Then, there is one type of brick that is unbreakable: . When the ball hits this kind of brick, nothing happens, the ball simply bounces on it. They of course do not need to be broken to finish the level.

Pick-ups

In the game, when the ball breaks a brick, a pick-up can fall from it. Here is a description of the pick-ups of the game:

: increase the speed of the ball.

: slow down the speed of the ball.

: shrink the paddle.

: enlarge the paddle

: the ball(s) become larger

: the ball(s) become smaller

: extra life

: a new ball is added in the game. There can be up to three balls at the same time.

: Glued paddle. When a ball hits the paddle, it stays on it until you launch it.

Score

Here is how is set up the score.

Each time you take a pick-up, you get 100 points.

Each time you hit a brick, you get points too. But the number of points depends on the current state of the game. For example, if the speed is high, you get more points because it is more difficult.

Here are the points:

• The minimum score you can get when you break a brick is 3 points.
• You get 1 point more if you have NOT the glue.
• You get 1 point more if you are in standard speed and 4 points more if you are in fast speed.
• You get one point more if the ball is small.
• You get 3 points more if the paddle is small.

So the maximum score you can get by breaking a brick is 12 (fast speed, small ball and small paddle).