# The &klickety; Handbook

Thomas
Davey
thomas.davey@gmail.com
&Philip.Rodrigues; &Philip.Rodrigues.mail;
2005
Thomas Davey
&FDLNotice;
2006-01-21
3.5

&klickety; is a strategy game for &kde;, an adaption of the Clickomania game.

KDE
kdegames

## Introduction

The objective of &klickety; is to clear the game board of all the colored blocks in the least possible time (although having a short time is only a secondary objective). The overall aim is to get the lowest score possible. It will provide entertainment for all abilities, but a challenge in logical thought if you want to get a really low score.

## The Game Screen

This is a colored block, you click on these to play the game.

This is what was referred to in the introduction as the game board, this is where the game actually takes place.

This is the game timer, it starts the first time that you click on a removable block.

This the remaining block counter, which also doubles up the score counter. It is usually black at the start of a game, it changes to blue if the score is good enough to get onto your local highscore table, and red if it would make the top spot.

## Playing the game

When you start the program you will get a screen that looks something like the screenshot in the previous section. The idea of the game is to remove blocks, which you do by clicking on them.

However, you can only remove a block if it is adjacent to one or more other blocks of the same color on one or more of its sides. Diagonal connections do not count. You get a random board every time you start a new game.

If you click on a block which is connected as described, it will disappear. Any adjacent blocks of the same color will also disappear, along with all of the same color adjacent to them, and so on. Any blocks above them drop down to fill the gaps left by the disappeared pieces. If you clear an entire column, all the columns to the right move across to fill the gap.

The game ends when there are no blocks adjacent to other blocks of the same colour

## Scoring

Scoring is very simple. Your score is the number of remaining blocks when the game ends. In the case of having two high scores of the same score, the one completed in the shortest time is listed in the higher position.

## Menu Reference

### The Game Menu

Game New Game (&Ctrl;N )

  Starts a new game before the previous one has finished (once you end a game, a button appears on the game board labeled 'start' which does the same thing).

Game Pause (P )

  Not yet implemented.

Game Show Highscores (&Ctrl;H )

  Shows the Highscore Table for checking a target or for bragging purposes. (This is the same highscore table as is displayed if you get a new highscore at the end of a game.) There are also tabs for seeing all the players who have turned in scores and for looking at some statistical analysis of the performance of individual players. There are also links to the worldwide highscore and player lists on the web.

Game Quit (&Ctrl;Q )

  Ends the program.

### The View Menu

View Zoom In (&Ctrl;+ )

  Zooms the game board in, increases the window size as necessary.

View Zoom Out (&Ctrl;- )

  Zooms the game board out. Window size will decrease around it.

### The Settings Menu

Settings Hide Menu Bar (&Ctrl;M )

  Hides the menu bar. It can be brought back with the right-click menu or by pressing &Ctrl;M .

Settings Configure Shortcuts...

  Allows you to change the shortcut keys listed above.

Settings Configure Notifications...

  Allows you to change the notifications for Game over and the removal of a column (listed as Line removed), such as playing a sound when you remove a column, or starting your favorite IRC client when you finish the game so that you can tell all your friends about your &klickety; skills.

Settings Configure Highscores...

  Displays the highscores configuration dialog, which has two tabs:

  On the Main tab, you can change the default nickname that is entered onto the highscore table if you get a highscore, add a comment to go with your entry on the players tab of the highscore table. You can also activate the World-wide highscores enabled feature so that you can compare scores with players from around the globe. If you are connected to the Internet, &klickety; will send your score automatically at the end of the game to the highscore web server (klickety.sf.net).

  The Advanced tab displays your Registration Data on klickety.sf.net. If worldwide highscores have been activated, this tab shows the Nickname: from the Main tab with which you are registered and the cryptographic Key: used to prevent any attempts at cheating. This key was generated when you registered on klickety.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.

Settings Configure &klickety;...

  Brings up the main configuration dialog, this will be dealt with in the next chapter.

### The Help Menu

&help.menu.documentation;

## Configuring &klickety;

Each page of the &klickety; configuration dialog has buttons labeled Help and Defaults.The Help button brings up this handbook, and the Defaults button restores all the settings to their default values.

The individual options are as follows:

### The Appearance tab

Enable Animations

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

Background

  Allows you to change the background color and change its opacity. Trivia: if it has some transparency it doesn't actually show what's directly beneath &klickety;, but rather it shows the desktop wallpaper.

### The Colors tab

Colors #1 through #5 Allow you to change the colors of the colored blocks. For an extra challenge, make them all the same color. N.B. You must restart &klickety; for these changes to take effect.

## Tips

- Try to remove sets of two blocks to allow single blocks to join up with other ones of the same color, it's your only way to get rid of them.

- Spend time thinking about your move: you primarily get higher places on the highscore table by getting rid of more pieces than doing it quickly.

## Credits and License

&klickety; Program Copyright 1995 Eirik Eng and 1996-2004 Nicolas Hadacek

&klickety; is based on clickomania.

The &klickety; website can be found at http://klickety.sourceforge.net.

First version of documentation by Thomas Davey, Copyright 2005.

Reviewed by &Philip.Rodrigues; &Philip.Rodrigues.mail;.

Further markup and reviewing by &Francis.Giannaros; &Francis.Giannaros.mail;.

&underFDL;

&underGPL;

## Installation

### How to obtain &klickety;

&install.intro.documentation;

### Compilation and Installation

&install.compile.documentation;

&documentation.index;