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 Retrocycles 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 Retrocycles 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 Retrocycles, 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 Retrocycles as fast as possible.

#### Menu navigation:

Move up one item | cursor up
Move down one item | cursor down
Change item | cursor left/right
Enter Submenu/Activate item | return/enter/space
Leave Menu | ESC

#### 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 Retrocycles 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 identical to SF name)

    Dave Fancella       davidfancella   Lucifer
    epsy                epsy
    Fred                guru3           Tank Program
    Jochen Darley       jarrt           joda.bot
    Peter               klaxnek         klax
    Kurt Johnson        k_at_work       K
    Luke-Jr             luke-jr
    Daniel Harple       dlh3
    Philippe Villeneuve philippeqc
    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     : where and when did he go?

    Additional contributions from:
    Ben Hines                : first working Mac OS X port
    Fabrice Holbe            : original Moviepack and font
    Tomas Birraux            : french accents in font
    Christian Reitwiessner   : contributed name rendering above cycles
    Edd Keefe                : contributed Mac OS X icon and the title screen
    hang3r                   : skeleton for more accurate timer on Windows
    Jonathan                 : Headlight (needs activation) and overhead map (will be in 0.3.X)
    Meriton                  : Replacement for the old buggy Lag-O-Meter
    Oscilloscope             : Most default instant chats
    Belenus                  : OpenBSD support sniplets
    hoop                     : Zone rendering settings
    fman23                   : Console commands

    Translators who aren't already cited above:
    Rafal Cieslak            : Polish
    mygal                    : French
    tang322                  : French

    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

Additional thanks go out to:

- Chaz Guarino (
  ) for extracting the sounds from the movie in high quality.
(Both the moviepack and the movie sounds are available for download separately on the old Addons page because of their size and copyright issues)
- Max Rudberg(
  ) for the Mac icon
- All the other fans that sent their suggestions and comments, especially eRVee and Andrew Macks!

### 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., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.

This document was created by Manuel Moos

Last modification: 2026-04-17

First Start | Installation | Network Play | Configuration | FAQ | Redistribution