Five or More Manual
- 1. Introduction
- 2. Playing Five or More
- 3. Customizing the Game
- 4. How to create new themes
- 5. Authors
- 6. License
1. Introduction
Five or More, is the Gnome port of the once popular Windows game called Color Lines The game's objective is to align as often as possible five or more objects of the same color and shape causing them to disappear. Play as long as possible, and be #1 in the High Scores.
To run Five or More, select from the submenu of the , or type glines on the command line.
Five or More is included in the GNOME-games package, which is part of the GNOME desktop environment. This document describes version 2.8 of Five or More.
2. Playing Five or More
Playing Five or More is easy. At startup, you find yourself with five objects randomly positioned on the board. Each turn, you are allowed to move one object. You can move it anywhere on the board as long as there is a clear path. Afterward, the computer drops more objects at random positions (the exact number depends on the size of the game). You can preview the next objects to be dropped in the upper left corner of the game's window. If you manage to align five objects of the same shape and color, they disappear and you are given an extra move before more objects drop.
- 2.1. Basic usage
- 2.2. Playing the Game
2.1. Basic usage
Starting Five or More presents you with the game board and a new game starts. What it looks like is shown in Figure 1.
As the game progresses, the board gets more and more crowded (unless you are really good...) and making objects disappear gets harder and harder. The game is over, when the board is full.
2.2. Playing the Game
A game of Five or More begins with some random objects on the board.
To make a move, click on one of the objects. When an object is activated it starts rotating (or doing something else depending on the theme, but let us not anticipate…). You can then select its destination by clicking an empty square. If the path to the destination is clear the activated item travels there. If the destination square is occupied by another object nothing will be moved and the selection will be transferred to the new object. If the path is not clear (you cannot jump objects over obstacles!) the application prints a warning in the status bar (bottom of the window) and the original object remains active.
As objects disappear, you get points. The points you score depends on the number of objects you managed to align (see Table 1). Your score is shown in the upper right corner of the window.
| Number of objects | Score given |
|---|---|
| 5 | 10 |
| 6 | 12 |
| 7 | 18 |
| 8 | 28 |
| 9 | 42 |
| 10 | 82 |
| 11 | 108 |
| 12 | 138 |
| 13 | 172 |
| 14 | 210 |
- 2.2.1. Using the Keyboard
2.2.1. Using the Keyboard
Instead of using the mouse you can use the keyboard to play Five or More. To use the keyboard, hit an arrow key and a cursor will appear near the center of the board. The arrow keys will move the cursor. When the cursor is over the object you want to move, use the spacebar to select it. Then shift the cursor to the object's destination and hit the space bar again to move the object.
If you start using the mouse again, the cursor will disappear. The cursor will reappear if you use the arrow keys again.
3. Customizing the Game
You can configure Five or More by clicking on in the applications menu. The following dialog will appear:
You can select different object styles and background colors in the section. If you find it difficult distinguishing the colours, try the shapes theme.
The section lets you select the size of the board. Each size has a slightly different balance: larger sizes give you more space to move, but more objects arrive each turn. The parameters for each size are given in Table 2.
| Size | Width | Height | Number of Types | Objects per Turn |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Small | 7 | 7 | 5 | 3 |
| Medium | 9 | 9 | 7 | 3 |
| Large | 20 | 15 | 7 | 7 |
You can speed up the movement of the objects by checking the Use fast moves box in the preferences section.
Any changes you make are instantly applied and remembered for the next time you run Five or More.
4. How to create new themes
Each theme consists of a single PNG image file. This image consists of an array of seven rows, corresponding to the different object colors/shapes, and four columns, each of which is a frame in the animation of the object. The actual size of the image is irrelevant, it will be rescaled, but the sub-images must form a four by seven grid to get the correct effect. When using SVG remember that the image size is the page size, if your grid does not fill the page try shrinking the page size. Use an existing theme as a guide.
5. Authors
Five or More was written by Róbert Szókovács (<szo@appaloosacorp.hu>) and Szabolcs Bán (<shooby@gnome.hu>). This manual was written by Emese Kovács (<emese@gnome.hu>). For information on how to make comments, suggestions and to report bugs please see the feedback document.
6. License
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; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
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.
A copy of the GNU General Public License is included as an appendix to the GNOME Users Guide. You may also obtain a copy of the GNU General Public License from the Free Software Foundation by visiting their Web site or by writing to