First Start Installation Network Play Configuration FAQ Redistribution

First Start

WARNING: (READ IT! it's NOT legalese, I mean it!)

Some people react on flashing lights in a very unpleasant manner: they experience epileptic seizures. Even if you did never have such a seizure, you may still be affected by those induced seizures. Since Armagetron Experimental contains rhythmic flashing lights (the grid you race over...), there is a higher risk of induced seizures than in normal computer games. FOR YOUR OWN SAFETY, do NOT play Armagetron Experimental on a wide TV screen or in a dark room and always keep a good eye distance to your monitor. WE DO NOT FEEL RESPONSIBLE for anything that might happen to you while playing Armagetron Experimental, even if you do respect these advises (See legal stuff below).

How to play

The rules are simple: you ride a lightcycle, a kind of motorbike that can only turn 90 degrees at a time, leaves a wall behind and cannot be stopped. Avoid running into a wall while trying to make your opponent run into a wall. Just in case you do not know: this idea is best known from the Disney movie "Tron" from 1982. However, that's not the origin of the game idea: The earliest arcade game of that type was Blockade from 1976, the first known home versions SNAFU on the Intellivision from 1981 and Surround for the Atari 2600.

Acceleration is possible by driving close to player walls, be it your own wall or the wall of your enemy. Every time you make a turn, you lose a little bit of your speed, so don't be too nervous; speed is your only resource against other players!

Quick start

First, you'll be confronted with the selection of your favourite language. Use CURSOR UP/DOWN to select, then ENTER/RETURN to accept. Next, there is a quick and simplified setup screen. use CURSOR UP/DOWN to navigate the entries, CURSOR LEFT/RIGHT to make changes to selection items and use standard editing controls to change your name. If you're happy with the choices, press ENTER on any of the two 'Accept' menu items. You will be tossed into a training match against a single AI opponent with reduced speed where you can learn the keybindings.

Reading this, you probably already went through those steps. You can repeat the simplified setup in the menu "System Setup"/"Misc Stuff"/"Redo First Setup" and pick different languages in "System Setup"/"Misc Stuff"/"Language Settings".

Additional keyboard layout

show scores : TAB
scroll message console : page up/down
toggle fullscreen : n
pauses/unpauses the game: p
quit to the game menu: q/ESC

SHIFT-ESC is the "boss key" and quits Armagetron Experimental as fast as possible.

Menu navigation:

Move up one itemcursor up
Move down one itemcursor down
Change itemcursor left/right
Enter Submenu/Activate itemreturn/enter/space
Leave MenuESC

change controls (in "Player Menu"/"Player x"/"(Camera) Input Configuration" and "System Setup"/"Misc Stuff"/"Global Keyboard Configuration"):

Press enter or space on the control you wish to change, then press the key/mousebutton you want to assign to that control. Moving the mouse also works.
Press delete or backspace to reset the control binds for the selected functions.

After your first matches, you should go into the "Player Menu", set your name, your keyboard and mouse configuration. Then, get some friends together and try the multiplayer modes!

Feedback, support, keeping up to date:

Visit the main webpage for up to date information about Armagetron Experimental and the latest stable builds. Check out the Forums for keeping in touch with current development and venting your anger that we broke your favorite feature in the current release. Check the Wiki for community maintained documentation, the pages you're reading right now only scratch the surface. Visit the SourceForge project page to get informed by email or RSS when a new release is out. Most of our current development is managed on Launchpad. Get the latest snapshot builds in various flavors from the SourceForge file release system.

Credits:

Directly from the AUTHORS file:
The AA-DevTeam currently consists of (alphabetic username order):

+------------------+--+---------------+---------------------------------------+
| Real name           | SF username   | Forum name (empty if same as SF name) |
+=====================+===============+=======================================+
| Dave Fancella       | davidfancella | Lucifer                               |
+---------------------+---------------+---------------------------------------+
| epsy                | epsy          |                                       |
+---------------------+---------------+---------------------------------------+
| Fred                | guru3         | Tank Program                          |
+---------------------+---------------+---------------------------------------+
| Jochen Darley       | yarrt         | joda.bot                              |
+---------------------+---------------+---------------------------------------+
| Luke-Jr             | luke-jr       |                                       |
+---------------------+---------------+---------------------------------------+
| Daniel Harple       | dlh3          |                                       |
+---------------------+---------------+---------------------------------------+
| Mathias Plichta     | wrtlprnft     |                                       |
+---------------------+---------------+---------------------------------------+
| Manuel Moos         | z-man         |                                       |
+---------------------+---------------+---------------------------------------+

E-Mail addresses can be generated by taking the SF username and appending
"@users.sf.net". The forum is at https://forums3.armagetronad.net.

guru3, z-man and davidfancella are the Administrators, any spam goes to them.

Honored former members
======================

Alex E. Kelly
    former Project Administrator

? ? subby
    can be seen on the forums from time to time

Kurt Johnson (k_at_work, K )
Peter ? ( klaxnek, klax )
Philippe Villeneuve ( philippeqc )
fman23                   : Console commands

Additional contributions from
=============================

Belenus
    OpenBSD support sniplets

Ben Hines
    first working Mac OS X port

Christian Reitwiessner
    contributed name rendering above cycles

Edd Keefe
    contributed Mac OS X icon and the title screen

Emmanuel Rollet (voodoo)
    clipping and basic movement for the overhead map, camview widget
    SDL2 support, touch controls
    
Fabrice Holbe
    original Moviepack and font

hang3r
    skeleton for more accurate timer on Windows

hoop
    Zone rendering settings

brandesign (Jip on the forums)
    Server browser name filter
    GID mate filter
    Tab completion for colored names

Jonathan
    Headlight (needs activation) and overhead map

Meriton
    Replacement for the old buggy Lag-O-Meter and new camera glancing code

clime
    Tweaks to that glancing code

mygal
    French translation (part)

Oscilloscope/Louven
    Most default instant chats

pavelo
    extension to the tab completion code

Pippijn van Steenhoven
    Map rotation optimization

Rafal Cieslak
    Polish translation

tang322
    French translation (part)

Tomas Birraux
    french accents in font

Tru
    Russian translation

Vitty
    Function to randomise teams (SCRAMBLE), and other titbits

Word
    0.4 German translation

Vertex
    /report player reporting

<|tux (ubuntu_dpg)
    POSIX Thread improvements

External code merged in from
============================

ID Software
    first version of the low level networking code

David McAllister
    particle system API

Aladdin Enterprises
    MD5 Hashsum implementation

Yan Olliver
    Mathematical expression parser

Nemanja Trifunovic
    UTF-8 library

External resources
==================

Bitstream
    default font file

Additional thanks go out to:

Legal stuff: license and warranty

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, version 2.

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.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA.


This document was created by Manuel Moos

Last modification: 2024-02-10

First Start Installation Network Play Configuration FAQ Redistribution