Luola
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Luola is a simple yet addictive arcade game where you fly a little V-shaped
ship inside caverns and try to blow up other players.
It was inspired by V-Wing, an old Finnish caveflying game.
Note! This game is no longer actively developed.
Installation
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See INSTALL for generic installation instructions.
But most of the time, you just do this:
./configure
make
make install
By default, sounds are not compiled in. If you want to enable sound support,
pass --enable-sound to configure.
If you have SDL_gfx installed, by default, Luola uses it for some drawing
operations. If you don't wan't Luola to use SDL_gfx, pass --disable-sdl-gfx to
configure. Luola can use Truetype fonts if you have SDL_ttf installed.
If you don't want to enabled truetype support, pass --disable-ttf to configure.
'make install' puts the actual game binary in /usr/local/bin and the data
files to /usr/local/share/luola/ .
Some usage notes
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Screenshots:
You can take a screenshot anytime by pressing F11. The screenshot will be
named luola_*.bmp and placed in ~./luola/ directory. The * is the number of
ticks that has elapsed since luola was started. This way, you can
take multiple screenshots and keep them in chronological order.
Fullscreen:
To enter fullscreen mode, run luola with the --fullscreen parameter.
If luola runs in fullscreen mode by default and you want to run it
in windowed mode, use the --window paremeter. You can also switch
between fullscreen and windowed mode by pressing alt-enter any time
during the game.
Playing the game:
* Players control their ships with the keys previously selected in key
configuration.
* Pressing Esc ends the level.
* The level ends when there is only one team remaining or a member of the
last surviving team lands on a base.
* Pressing Weapon1 and Down at the same time ejects the pilot. The pilot can
also be ejected when the ship is dead (gray) by pressing Weapon2.
* You can return to your empty ship by walking over it. You can also take over
empty enemy ships this way...
* When on a base, hold down Down key and press left/right to switch special
weapons. (Note that when switching weapons, you lose the ammo you have.
Water can't turn to missiles, right?)
Playmodes:
* Normal - This is the normal playmode, nothing special
* Start outside ships - Otherwise the same as normal, but pilots start outside
their ships
* Start outside ships-1 - like above, but one unlucky player has no ship...
* Random criticals - Players start with random ship criticals
* Random weapons - Standard and special weapons are chosen at random
Pilot controls:
* Move with Left and Right keys.
* Shoot with Weapon1 key
* Weapon2 key opens the parachute or cuts the rope
* Jump with the up key. While jumping, pressing the Up key again shoots the
rope in a 45 degree angle.
* While on the rope, Weapon2 drops you free. You can sling back and forth and
climb up and down with the arrow keys.
* Shoot the rope straight up with the Down key.
* You can lock the pilot controls by holding down Weapon2 key. When locked, the
pilot does not move or autoaim, so you can aim your gun manually.
* You can kick another player out of his/her ship by first attaching the ninja
rope to it, getting as close as possible and then pressing Down+Weap1.
* If Ship Recall is enabled, you can teleport your ship back to you by pressing
Weapon2 while standing on a base. If your ship is destroyed, a new one will
be created. If someone else has boarded your ship, it cannot be recalled.
Team play:
Team play is just like normal game with 4 players, except some rules
are enforced by the game itself. All games are actually team games as far
as Luola is concerned, usually you just have only one player per team. The
game ends when all opposing teams are destroyed. Certain weapons are team-
aware:
* Homing missiles only target enemy team members
* Helicopters and infantry won't attack teammates
Game end modes:
A level can end in two different ways.
It can end immediately after all opponents have been destroyed, or after
last surviving player has landed on a base. If the level does not have any
bases, the level ends immediately when only one player/team is left .
Configuration file:
The configuration file contains the player key and game settings.
You should not need to modify it by hand as all the settings can be
changed from Luola's menus.
Function keys:
* F11 anytime, takes a screenshot.
* Alt-Enter anytime, switches between fullscreen and windowed mode.
* F1 during gameplay, toggle radar.
* F5 during gameplay, decrease sound effect volume
* F6 during gameplay, increase sound effect volume
* F7 during gameplay, decrease music volume
* F8 during gameplay, increase music volume
* Pause key during gameplay, pauses/resumes the game
Background music:
Luola can play any sound file as background music that is supported by
SDL_mixer, such as MP3 or OGG.
Put your playlist in ~/.luola/battle.pls and Luola will pick a song and
play it during gameplay. Supported playlist format is M3U.
This format is produced by many media players such as XMMS, Noatun and Winamp.
You can change the sound effect and music volumes during gameplay with F5-F8
buttons.
Levels
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Download the level packs from the luola homepage.
The level pack contains descriptions of the levels.
Luola can also use levels from pretty much any other caveflying game
that uses palette based levels. The provided importlev utility in tools/
subdirectory can be used to convert foreign levels to Luola format.
Currently supported formats are V-Wing, Wings and TOU.
See the LEVELFILE text file for more information.
Level specials
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Jump gates:
Jump-gates provide permanent wormholes between two points in the level.
They activate when a player flies over them. You can set the number of
jump-gates per level from the level settings screen.
Large projectiles can travel thru open wormholes.
Turrets:
These are automatic turrets that fire at everybody.
There are three types of turrets.
1. A normal turret, has an ordinary cannon.
2. Grenade launcher, fires grenade shells.
3. Missile launcher, fires homing missiles.
You can change the number of turrets from the level settings screen.
Critters:
Unlike other level specials, these don't do anything, except walk
(or fly or swim) around and get killed. (Technically, infantry and
helicopters are also critters, so some critters actually do something)
You can enable/disable critters from the level settings screen. You can
also set the number of different critter species, including per player
limits for infantry and helicopters.