# &app; Manual V&manrevision;

## Introduction

Gataxx, part of the GNOME-games suite of games, is a relative of other disc-flipping games such as Iagno. Gataxx, however, begins at the corners, rather than at the center of the board, and has slightly different rules for adding and moving discs.

To run Gataxx, select Gataxx from the Games submenu of the Main Menu, or type `gataxx` on the command line.

Gataxx is included in the `GNOME-games` package, which is part of the GNOME desktop environment. This document describes version &version; of Gataxx.

## Playing Gataxx

The basic rules of Gataxx are quite easy to learn, especially if you are familiar with other disc-flipping games. The object of the game is to have more discs of your color on the board than your opponent does. The game ends when the board is full or when one player has no discs at all on the board.

Although Gataxx is a two player game, one or both players can be controlled by the computer.

### Basic usage

Starting Gataxx presents you with the game board, which is seven squares on a side. You can start a game by selecting New Game from the Game menu. A new game is shown in mainwindow-fig.

#### Gataxx Main Window

### Basic Rules

A game of Gataxx begins with four pieces on the board: a dark colored piece in the upper left and lower right corners, and a light colored piece in the lower left and upper right corners. Dark moves first; by default, this player is human.

To make a move, click on one of your discs. Available moves for that disc will be outlined in white. For a disc in the middle of an unobstructed board, there are 24 possible moves, illustrated in moves-fig. Click on one of the eight squares adjacent to the disc and you will add a new disc to the board. Click on one further away, and the disc will move there, jumping any obstacles in its path. You cannot move a disc into an occupied square, nor can you remove a disc from the board.

When you move or add a disc to a position adjacent to one or more of your opponent's discs, you capture those discs. When you capture them they change color to indicate your possession, and you can move them or add discs next to them as you would any other disc in your possession. This is good for you and bad for your opponent.

This means that, strategically, an L-shaped formation of discs is bad to have, because it allows an opponent to capture more discs with a single move. The worst sort of formation would be donut-shaped, because it would allow the capture of eight pieces at once.

#### Available Moves

### Menus

The menu bar, located at the top of the game board, contains the following menus:

Game

- This menu contains three items:

  - Ctrl-N New Game Start a new game. If a game is already being played, it will end.

  - Ctrl-Z Undo Move Undoes the last move a human player made (including any intervening computer moves).

  - Ctrl-Q Exit Stops play immediately and closes the program.

Settings

- The Settings menu contains only one item:

  - Preferences , which brings up the preferences dialog box.

Help

- This menu contains:

  - F1 Contents— shows this manual.

  - About— shows basic information about Gataxx, such as the author's name and the application version number.

## Customization

To change the application settings, select Preferences… from the Settings menu. This opens the Preferences dialog, shown in preferences-fig.

### Preferences Dialog

The properties in the Players tab are:

- Dark — Select the player who will play the dark discs. You may choose from a Human player (i.e. you), or three levels of computer ability (Level one (easy) through Level three (difficult).

- Light — Select the player who will play the light discs. You have the same options. If both players are computerized, you can watch the game played for you.

- Quick Moves — If this box is checked, the computer will not pretend to think about its turn, but will make its move immediately.

The properties in the Animation tab are:

- None— If this button is checked, there will be no animation when discs change hands.

- Partial— If this button is checked, there will be some animation when discs change hands. This is only suitable for slow computers where using the Complete setting takes too many resources.

- Complete— Select this button if you want to see the discs turn over as they are captured.

- Flip final results— Click this button if you want to see the results of your game displayed in an attractive visual format: all the dark pieces on the top and all the light ones on the bottom.

- Tile Set — Choose from one of several appearances for the game. The default is "classic."

Any changes you make are saved and applied instantly.

## Known Bugs and Limitations

This application has no known bugs.

## Authors

Gataxx was written by Chris Rogers (gandalf@darkcorner.net). To find more information about Gataxx, please visit the Gataxx Web page. Please send all comments, suggestions, and bug reports to the GNOME bug tracking database. (Instructions for submitting bug reports can be found on-line.) If you are using GNOME 1.1 or later, you can also use Bug Report Tool (`bug-buddy`), available in the Utilities submenu of Main Menu, for submitting bug reports.

This manual was written by Aaron Weber (aaron@helixcode.com). Please send all comments and suggestions regarding this manual to the GNOME Documentation Project by sending an email to docs@gnome.org. You can also add your comments online by using the GNOME Documentation Status Table.

## License

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

A copy of the GNU General Public License is included as an appendix to the GNOME Users Guide. You may also obtain a copy of the GNU General Public License from the Free Software Foundation by visiting their Web site or by writing to

        Free Software Foundation, Inc.
        59 Temple Place - Suite 330
        Boston, MA 02111-1307
        USA