* Neverball *
Tilt the floor to roll a ball through an obstacle course within the
given time. If the ball falls or time expires, a ball is lost.
Collect coins to unlock the exit and earn extra balls. Red coins are
worth 5. Blue coins are worth 10. A ball is awarded for 100 coins.
* INSTRUCTIONS
Click Play to begin. Mouse motion tilts the floor. Mouse buttons
rotate the viewpoint. The following keyboard controls are defined by
default; most of them can be changed in a configuration file. See
below for details.
ESC Pause and resume / Exit
SHIFT Fast camera rotation
F1 Chase Camera (default)
F2 Lazy Camera
F3 Manual Camera
F6 Hide HUD
F8 Toggle nice mode
F9 Toggle frame counter
F10 Snap a screenshot
UP Tilt the floor forward
DOWN Tilt the floor backward
LEFT Tilt the floor left
RIGHT Tilt the floor right
D Rotate the view right
S Rotate the view left
R Restart the current level
TAB Cycle through scores in high-score table
* LEVEL PROGRESSION
Neverball levels are grouped in level sets. All sets are immediately
accessible to the player, and track of progress is kept separately for
each set. The player starts out at the first level and must complete
each level in turn to unlock subsequent levels until all levels in the
set are completed. A level is "unlocked" by completing the previous
level in the progression or if it is the first level of the set. A
level is "completed" by collecing the required amount of coins to
activate the goal in the level and reaching said goal.
There are two game modes or ways of progressing through levels in
Neverball. Each mode is essentially a subset of the single way of
playing present in Neverball 1.4.0.
In 1.4.0, the game keeps track of "lives" or balls, preventing a level
from being retried once the balls run out, however, unlocked/completed
levels remain accessible in the menu at all times. As a special case,
1.4.0 also records a set high-score (see below for information on
high-scores) when all levels of a set are played through in one
attempt, with the condition that no successfully-completed level be
restarted during the run.
To address some of the problems with this mode of playing, in
Neverball 1.5.0 it was split into two separate modes: the "normal"
mode and the challenge mode.
In the normal mode, no track of balls is kept. Each
unlocked/completed level is immediately accessible and can be retried
and restarted mid-game as often as desired.
In the challenge mode, the player is given a limited number of balls
and starts out at the first level of the set with all other levels
locked. The game ends once the balls run out or all levels in the set
are completed. A set score is recorded for a successful run. Levels
cannot be restarted, but can be retried.
In addition to regular 1.4.0-style levels, Neverball 1.5.0 introduces
bonus levels: extra levels awarded for playing challenge mode. Bonus
levels can only be unlocked by completing all the levels before them
in challenge mode, however, bonus levels themselves are skipped in
challenge mode; after they have been unlocked, they can be played in
the normal mode as any regular level.
* USER DATA FILES
Neverball creates a directory in which it stores user data files.
These files include high scores, replays, and configurations.
Under Unix, Linux, and OSX this directory is called ".neverball" and
is created in the user's home directory, specifically, the directory
set in the HOME environment variable.
Under Windows it is called "Neverball" and is created in the user's
application data directory, the location of which is obtained by
inspecting the APPDATA environment variable. An easy way to access
this directory is by typing %APPDATA% in the Windows Explorer address
bar. If the location could not be determined, it is assumed that the
user has permission to write to the game directory, and the user data
directory is created within.
* HIGH SCORES
The top three fastest times through each level, the top three coin
scores and the top three fastest unlock scores for each level are
stored in the Scores directory within user data directory.
The top three fastest times and most coins scores for each set of
levels are also stored. To achieve a set score, the player must play
through all levels of a set in challenge mode.
The total set time will include time spent during both successful and
unsuccesful level plays, thus time-outs and fall-outs count against
the total time.
The total set coin count will include only coins collected on
successful level plays. This prevents unbounded coin scores from
being collected on levels with more than 100 coins.
* REPLAYS
Neverball includes a mechanism for recording and replaying levels.
The player may enter a name for each replay at the end of the level.
By default, the most recent unsaved level will be saved to the replay
file named "Last.nbr".
Replay files are stored in the Replays directory within the user data
directory. They may be copied freely. To view a replay you have
downloaded, simply move it to the Replays directory and it will appear
in the Replay menu in-game.
* CONFIGURATION
Game settings are stored in the file neverballrc in the user data
directory. This file is created when the game exits. It consists of
key / value pairs. Some of these values are configurable using the
in-game options screen. Other meaningful keys and their default
values follow.
width 800
height 600
These keys determine the effective display resolution. If for
any reason the resolution you're looking for isn't available
in the in-game settings, you can modify these values instead.
mouse_sense 300
This key controls mouse sensitivity. The value gives the
number of screen pixels the mouse pointer must move to rotate
the floor through its entire range. A smaller number means
more sensitive.
mouse_invert 0
This key inverts the vertical mouse axis if set to 1.
key_camera_1 f1
key_camera_2 f2
key_camera_3 f3
key_camera_l d
key_camera_r s
key_camera_toggle e
These keys define keyboard mappings for camera selection and
rotation. Key names are specified using SDL's canonical
key naming convention (for a mostly-complete list of
non-single-letter key names, see share/keynames.c in the
source archive). The three camera behaviors are as follows:
1 - Chase camera stays behind the ball by cueing off of the
velocity of the ball. It is very responsive, but sometimes
confusing.
2 - Lazy camera chases a point a set distance from the ball.
It is seldom surprising, but at times it is not sufficiently
responsive.
3 - Manual camera does not rotate except by player command.
key_camera_toggle toggles camera behaviour between 1 and 3.
mouse_camera_1 none
mouse_camera_2 none
mouse_camera_3 none
mouse_camera_l left
mouse_camera_r right
mouse_camera_toggle none
These keys match the respective key_camera_* options.
Accepted values are: "none" (for no mapping), "left", "right",
"wheelup", "middle", "wheeldown" or a numeric mouse button
index.
key_forward up
key_backward down
key_left left
key_right right
These keys define keyboard mappings for tilt control.
key_pause escape
This key defines a keyboard mapping for pause activation.
Before version 1.5.0, this mapping was hard-coded to the space
bar and Escape key was used to immediately exit the game. To
restore this behaviour, set key_pause to "space" (without
quotes).
key_restart r
This key defines a keyboard mapping for a mid-game restart of
the current level. Handy when trying to record a new
high-score, this function isn't available in challenge mode.
key_score_next tab
This key defines a keyboard mapping for cycling through Most
Coins / Best Times / Fast Unlock score tabs in the high-score
board.
view_fov 50
view_dp 75
view_dc 25
view_dz 200
These keys define the view of the ball. They give the field
of view in degrees, the height of the view point, the height
of the view center, and the horizontal distance from the ball
in centimeters, respectively. (The ball is 50 centimeters in
diameter in most levels.)
The default values for these keys changed with version 1.2.6.
Some players may be interested in using the old values. They
were as follows:
view_fov 40
view_dp 400
view_dc 0
view_dz 600
rotate_fast 300
rotate_slow 150
These keys control the rate of camera rotation. Roughly, they
give the rate of lateral camera motion in centimeters per
seconds, so the actual rotation rate depends upon view_dz,
above. The fast rate is used when the Shift key is held down.
fps 0
This key enables an on-screen frames-per-second counter. Press
F9 to toggle this flag in-game.
nice 0
This key enables a delay function after each frame is
rendered, forcing a context switch and ensuring that the game
does not utilize 100% of the CPU. 0 is off, 1 is on.
If the frame rate is not fast enough for you, or you simply
want to test the performance of the game on your hardware,
disable it.
Press F8 to toggle this flag in-game.
ball_file ball/basic-ball/basic-ball
This key determines the model used for the ball.
replay_name %s-%l
This key specifies the format of the default replay name
generated when saving replays.
The value of replay_name can include regular characters and
special character sequences which act as place-holders for
certain "dynamic" text. These sequences are recognised:
%s current set identifier (such as "easy" or "mym")
%l current level identifier (such as "03" or "IV")
%% single percentage sign
Any other sequence starting with % will be reported as an
error and skipped.
The resulting replay name is also suffixed by an underscore
and a unique 2-digit number to avoid name collisions with
existing replays.
stats 0
This key enables print-out (to standard output) of running
statistics of the current frame time and frames-per-second,
averaged over 250 milliseconds. Most people won't need this.
uniform 0
This key controls the frequency of graphical updates with
respect to physics updates.
When uniform is N, then there will be exactly N physical
updates per graphics update, regardless of the passage of real
time. So for example, if uniform is 1 then you will see every
physics update rendered exactly once. The default is 0 and
the option is disabled.
A further functionality is built atop the uniform option: if
the uniform value is negative then the game will take a
screenshot at each frame. This may be used to record
high-quality movies of replays. Set uniform to -3 and start a
replay using the --replay command line option, and you will
find a 30FPS movie written as a series of PNGs.
On an unfortunate note: audio is handled in a separate thread,
and there is no support for outputting audio synchronized with
a movie created in this fashion.
screenshot 0
This key holds the current screen-shot index. The number is
incremented every time a new screen-shot is taken (by pressing
F10 or in uniform mode) and it is appended to the image file
name.
stereo 0
This key enables quad-buffered stereo viewing for those with
the hardware to support it. 1 is on, 0 is off.
vsync 1
This key controls vertical blanking synchronization. 1 is on
(and is the default), 0 is off.
multisample 0
This key enables multisample full-screen antialiasing. Values
can be 2, 4, 8, etc., and can be overspecified; in such case
the game will search for the highest level of multisampling
supported by your hardware. (The best value eventually gets
written to the config file.)
mipmap 0
aniso 0
These keys control mipmapping and anisotropic filtering,
respectively.
With mipmapping, smaller versions of each texture are kept in
video memory, and are referenced when a texture is viewed
from a distance. This improves video cache coherence and
eliminates texture "swimming" on detailed textures when seen
from afar. To enable mipmapping, set mipmap to 1.
Related to mipmapping is anisotropic filtering. "Anisotropic"
basically means "not the same from all directions". It refers
to cases where a texture might need to be compressed more
vertically than horizontally. For example, if a texture is
applied to a flat surface and seen from far away then it
appears much wider than high. Anisotropic filtering takes
care of this. To enable it, set aniso to a small power of
two. If you have weak hardware, this feature won't do
anything.
joystick 1
This key enables joystick control. 0 is off, 1 is on. The
game may still be controlled with the mouse even while gamepad
control is enabled. However, random noise from an analog
controller at rest can disrupt normal mouse input.
joystick_device 0
This number selects which joystick to use if more than one
joystick is found. 0 is the first joystick, 1 is the second
and so on.
joystick_axis_x 0
Joystick horizontal axis number
joystick_axis_y 1
Joystick vertical axis number
joystick_axis_u 2
Joystick axis number for view rotation control
joystick_button_a 0
Joystick menu select button
joystick_button_b 1
Joystick menu cancel button
joystick_button_r 2
Joystick counter-clockwise camera rotation button
joystick_button_l 3
Joystick clockwise camera rotation button
joystick_button_exit 4
Joystick exit button
wiimote_addr
This key specifies the address of your Nintendo Wii Remote.
For more information, see the section on using Wiimote with
Neverball.
* WIIMOTE SUPPORT
For information on how to build the game with Wiimote support under
Linux, see instructions in the file INSTALL in the source archive.
To use it, first make sure you've set up all the Bluetooth mumbo-jumbo
in your kernel and what-not. Once this is done, you'll need to find
out your Wiimote's address like this:
$ hcitool scan
Scanning ...
00:1B:7A:3E:45:7F Nintendo RVL-CNT-01
This hexadecimal string must go in the neverballrc file as
"wiimote_addr 00:1B:7A:3E:45:7F" so that the game knows that there's a
Wiimote to be used.
Now, when you start the game everything will proceed normally but a
background thread will place your Bluetooth device into discoverable
mode. You've got about 15 seconds to press 1 and 2 on your wiimote.
The Wiimote's LEDs will flash, and once the game makes friends with it
the Player 1 LED will be lit. If you don't activate your Wiimote then
the game will behave normally and the Bluetooth discovery will
eventually time out.
From there, the Wiimote digital pad works like a joystick for
navigating menus. A and B buttons are the A and B buttons. Home is
Pause. Plus and Minus are camera rotation controls. Also, the tilt
sensor controls the floor.
The Wiimote tilt sensor is a surprisingly noisy device, so heavy
filtering is applied to the input. For this reason, the controls may
feel sluggish. This might improve with an IR sensor bar, but has not
been tested.
Web: <http://neverball.org/>
