GAMES(1) GAMES(1)
NAME
4s, 5s, festoon, juggle, life, mahjongg, memo, sokoban,
sudoku - time wasters
SYNOPSIS
games/4s
games/5s
games/festoon [ -pet ] [ sentences [ percent-invented-nouns
] ]
games/juggle [ -d delay ] [ -h hands ] [ start ] pattern
games/life startfile
games/mahjongg [ -c ] [ -f ] [ -b background ] [ -t tileset
] [ -l layout ]
games/memo [ -h ]
games/sokoban [ level ]
games/sudoku
DESCRIPTION
There are a few games in /bin/games:
4s, 5s Try to fill complete rows using 4-square or 5-
square tiles. Move tiles left or right by moving
the mouse. Rotate tiles with buttons 1 and 3.
Drop tiles for more points with button 2 or the
space bar. Keys `a' and `j' move left, `s' and
`k' rotate left, `d' and `l' rotate right, `f' and
`;' move right. `z', `p' and `Esc' toggle
suspend/resume. `q', `Del' and `control-D' quit.
festoon Generate an official-looking but utterly nonsensi-
cal bureaucratic report as `pic | eqn | tbl |
troff -mm' input. Options -p, -e and -t add gib-
berish diagrams, equations and tables.
juggle Display the juggling pattern using the optional
initial start pattern. The number of hands
involved (default 2) can be specified with -h, and
delay can be used to speed up or slow down the
action (default is 20). Try the pattern
333333441333333 or 333353505151512333333 or
YWUSQOMKIGECA (see
http://seehuhn.de/jong/theory.html).
life Play the game of Life, given an initial position.
There is a library of interesting initial posi-
tions; the library is consulted if startfile can-
not be found.
mahjongg Remove all tiles from the board. Click on tiles
Page 1 Plan 9 (printed 12/21/24)
GAMES(1) GAMES(1)
with the same face that are not blocked by others.
A blocked tile is one that is partially or fully
covered on top or has neighbouring tiles to the
left and right. The game finishes when either all
tiles are gone or there are no more moves left.
The arguments are for changing background (-b),
tile (-t) and layout (-l) images; -c selects a
true-color buffer image, for use with drawterm or
in case selecting a tile obscures it completely;
-f causes mahjongg to indicate non-blocked tiles
on mouse-over. The `N' key will generate a new
level, `R' restarts the current one. `Q' and `Del'
quit, `H' gives a hint, either trying to match the
currently selected tile, or if no tile is selected
finding out the first available tile. `U' and
`Bksp' undo the last move, `C' tries to solve the
level.
memo Remove all tiles from the board. At first, pic-
tures of various Bell Labs employees, Lucent Tech-
nologies' logo, and Glenda will appear. Memorize
the sequence, then click to hide them and begin.
Use the mouse to select two tiles. If they are
the same, the tiles will disappear, otherwise the
tiles will flip back and you will get a chance to
try again. Button 3 generates a memu allowing you
to restart, switch between easy and hard modes,
and exit. The -h option sets the game to hard
mode. Once the game has been completed, a message
pops up with how long it took to win. Use the
button 3 menu to choose a mode, or click to play
again.
sokoban Guide Glenda through a room full of walls, pebbles
and holes to put the pebbles in. Your goal is to
arrange all pebbles into holes by pushing them
around, but you can only push a pebble if there is
no wall or another pebble blocking the way. Arrow
keys move Glenda up-down-left-right. `N' and `P'
keys switch between the next and previous levels,
`R' restarts the current level. `Del' and `Q'
quit. Button 3 invokes a menu to restart the cur-
rent level, load different level sets, and en- and
disable animation of multi-step moves. Button 2
lets you change between levels. Button 1 lets you
do multi-step moves and pushes, by clicking it on
the destination where you want Glenda to go.
Glenda will only move if it can reach the destina-
tion. For a multi-step push the pebble must be
next to Glenda, the destination must be on the
same row or column, and there must be a free place
next to the destination where the pebble can be
Page 2 Plan 9 (printed 12/21/24)
GAMES(1) GAMES(1)
pushed to. Otherwise, if possible, Glenda will
walk to the destination without pushing the peb-
ble. Sokoban accepts a level file as its argu-
ment.
sudoku Sudoku is a puzzle game from Japan. The goal of
the game is to fill the numbers 1 to 9 in all
squares of the 9x9 board following a few simple
rules: no digit should repeat on the same row and
column, and no digit should repeat in the same 3x3
boxes outlined with thicker lines. The board is
initially filled with a partial solution which can
be used for inferring digits for the empty
squares. The top row of the board contains the
digits 1 through 9, clicking on one of those dig-
its selects that number for placement on the
board, clicking it again will deselect that digit.
Clicking on an empty square will then affix the
square with the selected digit or, if no digit is
selected empty the square.
Button 3 presents a menu with the following
options:
New autogenerate a new, random board
Check mark in red any digits not placed accord-
ing to the rules
Solve present the board's solution
Clear clear the board to its starting (or last
loaded) state
Save save the current board to
/tmp/sudoku-save
Load load the last saved board from
/tmp/sudoku-save
Print print the current board and solution in a
format suitable for addition in the
sudoku library to /tmp/sudoku-board
Offline pretty-print the board for off-line solv-
ing to /tmp/sudoku-print
Exit quit the game
Button 2 presents a list of sudoku boards of vary-
ing degrees of difficulty from
/sys/games/lib/sudoku/boards.
Page 3 Plan 9 (printed 12/21/24)
GAMES(1) GAMES(1)
Pressing the Q key quits sudoku.
FILES
/sys/games/lib/[45]scores score files of 4s and 5s
/sys/games/lib/life/* interesting starting positions
/sys/games/lib/mahjongg/* image sprites, levels and back-
grounds used by mahjongg
/lib/face/* tiles for memo
/sys/games/lib/sokoban/* image sprites and levels used by
sokoban
/sys/games/lib/sudoku/* images and boards used by sudoku
SOURCE
/sys/src/games
BUGS
In 4s and 5s, mouse warping (when the game is resumed, and
when a new tile appears) does not happen when the mouse cur-
sor is outside the game window. Those who prefer to use the
keyboard without the mouse cursor blocking the view (or
being warped all the time) may consider this a feature.
Page 4 Plan 9 (printed 12/21/24)