# Nibbles Manual

Nibbles is a worm game for GNOME. The player controls a 2D worm while trying to get food. Getting food gives points, but hitting anything causes a loss of points. When all points are lost, the player loses.

2000
Kevin Breit
2009
Philip Withnall (philip@tecnocode.co.uk)
GNOME Documentation Project

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Kevin
Breit
GNOME Documentation Project

     battery841@mypad.com

Nibbles Manual V2.20
May 2007

Kevin Breit battery841@mypad.com

GNOME Documentation Project

This manual describes version 2.20 of Nibbles.

## Feedback

To report a bug or make a suggestion regarding the Nibbles application or this manual, follow the directions in the GNOME Feedback Page.

## Introduction

Nibbles is a game where the user controls a worm. The worm moves around the board, eating diamonds while avoiding the walls placed around it.

To run Nibbles, select Games Nibbles from the Applications menu, or type `gnibbles` on the command line.

Nibbles is included in the `gnome-games` package, which is part of the GNOME desktop environment. This document describes version 2.20 of Nibbles.

## Nibbles Objective

The objective of Nibbles is quite simple. You control the worm and if the worm runs into a wall or runs into itself, you die. You get ten lives before your game is over. You win by either beating your own high score (or a friend's) or by completing all the levels. It is also possible to play against worms with artificial intelligence.

Nibbles also features multiplayer support with up to six competing human players in hotseat or network mode.

## Using Nibbles

Nibbles is a simple game to play. The only keys that are needed are the arrow keys.

### Basic usage

Starting Nibbles opens the main window shown below.

#### Nibbles Introduction Window

Nibbles Introduction Window.

To start the game, select Game New Game.

When the game starts, the worm will come out of the left side of the screen. You use the up arrow to make the direction of the worm go up. Use the right arrow to turn the worm right, left arrow to turn the worm left, and down arrow to turn the worm down.

#### Nibbles During Gameplay

Nibbles During Gameplay.

### Menus

The menu bar, located at the top of the Main Window, contains the following menus:

Game

  This menu contains:

  - Ctrl N New Game This starts a new game of Nibbles.

  - Ctrl G Network Game This starts a network multiplayer game using GGZ Gaming Zone.

  - Scores This shows the high scores.

  - Pause game This will pause your game. Click on the Pause Game menu option to resume game.

  - End Game End the current game and return to the title screen.

  - Ctrl Q Exit This quits the application.

View

  This menu contains:

  - Fullscreen This toggles your game window to be fullscreen.

Settings

  This menu contains:

  - Preferences This opens your window to edit preferences.

Help

  This menu contains:

  - F1 Contents Display this manual.

    About This opens the About dialogue which shows basic information about Nibbles, such as the author's name, the version number of the game.

### Diamonds

Nibbles has numerous different diamonds to eat. They are each a different colour and serve a different function. Only the pale purple diamond is guaranteed to be around long enough for you to eat it (in fact, you have to eat them to finish the level). The other diamonds are all bonuses, but they only stick around for a short time. We'll leave it up to you to discover just what the bonus each colour gives, but they all affect either the score, the length of the worm, or both. Be careful when going for these bonus diamonds, don't cut yourself off from the ordinary diamonds that you need to finish the level.

## Customisation

To change the application settings, select Settings Preferences. This opens the Preferences dialogue. All preferences are automatically saved and applied as you change them.

### Game Preferences Tab

Game Preferences Tab.

The properties in the Game tab are:

Speed

  This controls the speed of the worm.

Play levels in random order

  Selecting this causes the level advancement to happen in random order.

Enable fake bonuses

  When enabled, this allows for two blue diamonds on the screen at a time. One diamond makes you shrink instead of grow when eaten.

Enable sounds

  Controls the use of sound in the game.

Starting level

  Which level to start with. Use this if you want to jump immediately to a challenging level.

Number of human players

  There is room for up to six players.

Number of AI players

  There is room for up to six AI players. Note that the total number of human and AI players must be less than or equal to six.

### Worm Preferences Tab

Worm Preferences Tab. The properties in the Worm 1 through Worm 6 tabs let you set individual preferences for the different worms.

Keyboard controls

  This list let you change the keyboard controls for the given worm. To change a control, double-click on the appropriate entry and then press the key you want to use for that control.

Use relative motion

  Rather than left sending your worm toward the left of the screen, right toward the right and so on, the left and right keys make the worm perform a left or right turn. For example, if the worm is moving to the left and you press the left control it turns to head toward the bottom of the screen.

Worm colour

  Customise the colour of your worm so you can tell it from your opponent's worm in multiplayer mode.

## Network Games

Nibbles supports networked multiplayer games, provided by GGZ Gaming Zone. By connecting to a Nibbles server on the Internet, you can challenge other players in multiplayer games. For news, updates and a list of servers to connect to, see the gnome-games website.

To start a multiplayer game of Nibbles, select Game Network Game on the Nibbles menu.

### Connecting to a Nibbles network server

The Nibbles connection dialogue is shown initially when starting a new network game. This dialogue allows you to select a server to connect to, and the username that you will have while connected to that server.

It is possible to connect to a server with either a guest account or a normal registered account. Guest accounts allows you to log in anonymously, while a normal login account allows you to reserve your own username which is protected by the password that you choose.

The Guest Login option should be selected if you want an anonymous guest account. If you want to create a new login account, then select the First-time Login option, with the username, password and e-mail address of your choice. If you have already created your account, you can connect by selecting the Normal Login option, and enter the username and password that you have chosen.

To connect to a server, click on the Connect button.

#### The Nibbles network connection dialogue.

The Nibbles network connection dialogue.

### Joining a game room

Once you have successfully connected to a server, you can choose which game room to join. To play a multiplayer game of Nibbles, select the Nibbles room. If you want to host your own game, then click on the Launch button. This creates a new table where other players can participate in a game against you. If there are any other games already started, then you can double-click on an existing game table to join it. The list of game tables on the right shows you the number of available seats, which means the number of players that can join the game table.

#### This Nibbles network dialogue allows you to join a game room to find other players.

This Nibbles network dialogue allows you to join a game room to find other players.

When creating a new table for Nibbles games, a preferences dialogue is displayed which allows you to customise the game, such as set the minimum number of players for the game. Once the total number of seats have been taken, then no more players are allowed to join that game table.

It is possible to chat with other players in network games. Ask for advice or help playing the games, but please be polite with other players.

### Waiting for other players to join the game

Once you have successfully joined a game table, then you have to wait until enough players have joined the table. The Players List menu item allows you to see a list of the players who have joined the game. The game will begin immediately when the total number of players in the the game have been reached.

### Playing multiplayer Nibbles games

Multiplayer Nibbles games have pretty much the same rules as normal Nibbles games, except that you are now playing against human players. This means that other strategies might possibly be better than when playing against AI players.

Once a player has won, the game ends and you can return to the initial network game screen. Then you can play yet another game of addictive Nibbles multiplayer!

## Authors

Nibbles was written by Sean MacIsaac sjm@acm.org and Ian Peters itp@gnu.org. This manual was written by Kevin Breit battery841@mypad.com. Nibbles was updated with network support by Andreas Røsdal andreasr@gnome.org. To report a bug or make a suggestion regarding this application or this manual, follow the directions in this document.

## Licence

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public Licence as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the Licence, 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 Licence for more details.

A copy of the GNU General Public Licence is included as an appendix to the GNOME Users Guide. You may also obtain a copy of the GNU General Public Licence 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