# The &ksirtet; Handbook

&Nicolas.Hadacek;
1999 2000 &Nicolas.Hadacek;
&FDLNotice;
2005-12-17
2.1.11b

&ksirtet; is a clone of the well known game Tetris. You must fit the falling pieces to form full lines.

KDE game tetris

## Introduction

&ksirtet; is a clone of the well known game Tetris. You must fit the falling pieces to form full lines. You can rotate and translate the falling piece. The game ends when no more pieces can fall, &ie; when your incomplete lines reach the top of the board.

Every time you have destroyed 10 lines, you advance to the next level and the pieces fall quicker (to be precise, the pieces fall from the top of the screen each `1/(1+level)` second).

## How to Play

### Handling the Falling Piece

You can use the keyboard to rotate, translate or drop down the falling piece. The keys are configurable via the menu item Settings Configure Shortcuts....

### Game Types

&ksirtet; supports two types of single player game: Normal and Arcade. In Normal mode, points totals are kept, and high scores recorded. Also, when advancing to the next level, play continues without clearing the gameboard. In Arcade mode, no points totals are kept, although an Elapsed time counter is shown. When you advance to the next level in Arcade mode, the gameboard is cleared of pieces.

You can choose the game mode in the Mode menu.

### How to gain Points

There are two sources of points:

- Dropping down a piece using the Down Arrow gives a small number of points which is equal to the drop height. It is not much each time but is particularly relevant in the earlier levels, when the pieces fall more slowly.

- The biggest part of the score comes from destroying full lines. It is very important to note that destroying multiple lines at the same time gives you a lot more points. A four-lines destruction is called a tetris: it gives a maximum amount of points.

  The points gained are 40 for a one-liner, 100 for two lines, 300 for three lines and 1200 for a tetris. These numbers are multiplied by the current level. For example, destroying four lines in level 10 gives 12,000 points.

### Configuring &ksirtet;

The &ksirtet; configuration is accessed from the menu item Settings Configure &ksirtet;.... The options are as follows:

#### Game Configuration

Initial level:

  Set the level which you will play at startup, from 1 (easiest) to 20 (hardest). Default is level one.

Direct drop down

  If checked, pressing the Down Arrow will cause a tile to immediately fall to the bottom of the screen. If unchecked, pressing the Down Arrow only causes the piece to fall until the key is released.

Old rotation style

  &ksirtet; has two ways of rotating each piece: Old style and New style. Each style uses a different point to rotate the piece around. Try both, and see which one you prefer.

#### Appearance Configuration

Enable animations

  If checked, pieces are shown with an animation (a small rebound effect), when they touch the bottom.

Show piece's shadow

  If checked, a shadow is placed beneath the game board showing where the piece will fall.

Show next piece

  If checked, shows the next tile that will fall onto the game board.

Show detailed "removed lines" field

  If checked, the Removed Lines counter on the left of the screen shows how many times each number of lines have been removed. If unchecked, just the total number removed is shown.

Background

  Select the color and the opacity for &ksirtet; background. An opacity of zero makes the &ksirtet; background completely transparent, and a setting of one makes the &ksirtet; background completely opaque.

#### Colors Configuration

Here you can select the colors used for the tiles in &ksirtet;.

#### A.I. Configuration

Here you can configure the A.I. in &ksirtet;.

### Configuring Highscores

The configuration is accessed from Settings Configure Highscores.... The options are as follows:

#### The Main Tab

Nickname:

  Displays your current nickname and allows you to change it.

Comment

  A comment about yourself. You choose...

World-wide highscores enabled

  If checked and if you are connected to the Internet, &ksirtet; will send your score automatically at the end of the game to the highscore web server (ksirtet.sf.net).

#### The Advanced Tab

This tab displays your Registration Data on ksirtet.sf.net:

Nickname:

  Displays your current nickname from the Main tab.

Key:

  This key was generated when you registered on ksirtet.sf.net by selecting World-wide highscores enabled the first time. The registration key is used in conjunction with the nickname to identify uniquely users, but users cannot have the same nickname. Click on the Remove button to delete you from the world highscores list.

## Multiplayer

The multiplayer option allows you to play with others players on the same computer. You can also play against an AI (artificial intelligence) player which is currently not very good.

Basically when destroying lines, a player sends garbage at the bottom of the game of his next opponent: nothing for one line destroyed, one garbage line for two lines destroyed and so on.

## Command Reference

### The Main &ksirtet; Window

#### The Game Menu

&Ctrl;N Game New

  Starts a new game.

P Game Pause

  Pauses or resumes the game

&Ctrl;H Game Show Highscores

  Opens a dialog that displays different high score tables. Clicking on the links below the tables downloads world-wide high scores. Export the high scores into a file or click on Configure to open a dialog to customize your Nickname and add a Comment.

&Ctrl;Q Game Quit

  Quits &ksirtet;

#### The View Menu

&Ctrl;+ View Zoom In

  Enlarges the game board

&Ctrl;- View Zoom Out

  Reduces the game board size

#### The Mode Menu

Mode Single Human (Normal)

  Sets the multiplayer mode to single player normal. See .

Mode Single Human (Arcade)

  Sets the multiplayer mode to single player arcade. See .

Mode Human vs Human

  Sets the multiplayer mode to two player with two human players.

Mode Human vs Computer

  Sets the multiplayer mode to two player with one human and one computer player.

Mode More...

  Displays the multiplayer options dialog.

#### The Settings Menu

&Ctrl;M Settings Show Menubar

  Shows or hides the Menubar.To return the menubar, right-click anywhere on the gameboard and select Show Menubar.

Settings Configure Shortcuts...

  Displays a standard &kde; key bindings configuration dialog to change the keyboard shortcuts for &ksirtet;.

Settings Configure Notifications...

  Displays a standard &kde; notifications configuration dialog to change the audio and visual notifications for &ksirtet;.

Settings Configure Highscores...

  Displays the high score configuration dialog, in which you can change several settings that affect how &ksirtet; treats highscores.

Settings Configure &ksirtet;...

  Opens the &ksirtet; configuration dialog, where you can change the options of the game.

#### The Help Menu

&help.menu.documentation;

## Credits and Licenses

### Developers

`Erik Eng` - Wrote the generic tetris code

&Nicolas.Hadacek; &Nicolas.Hadacek.mail;

### Authors

&Nicolas.Hadacek; &Nicolas.Hadacek.mail;

Robert Williams rwilliams@kde.org - Editor

Documentation updated for &kde; 3.2 by &Philip.Rodrigues;.

&underFDL; &underGPL;