Card Games

Because of the lack of graphics, the following games are not as successful as the character-based word games.

Canfield

Type canfield at the command prompt. This is a version of solitaire. A man page is available by typing man canfield. This game does not have the time-wasting potential of graphics and mouse-based solitaire games.

Cribbage

Type cribbage at the command prompt. If you’re a cribbage fan, this game is for you. A man page is available by typing man cribbage.

Go Fish

Type fish at the command prompt. It’s you against the computer at Go Fish. A man page is available by typing man fish. One confusing aspect is that sometimes several actions are displayed all together on the screen (for instance, you have to go fish, the computer has to go fish, and it’s back to you, all in one block).

Board Games

These are character-based versions of board games. The play quality is variable; backgammon is probably the best of the lot.

Backgammon

Type backgammon at the command prompt; or, for an easy-to-follow tutorial on how to play backgammon, type teachgammon. These games don’t suffer from a lack of graphics, but the lack of a pointing device such as a mouse means that specifying your moves is a cumbersome task, requiring entries such as 8-12,4-5. Typing ? at the game prompt gives you help on entering your moves.

Typing man backgammon gives you the manual entry for both Backgammon and Teachgammon.

Chess

Several chess and chess-related programs come in the gnuchess package. Type gnuchess at the prompt to play chess against the computer. There is an analysis program, gnuan. The game utility prints the chessboard position to a PostScript printer or file.

Enter your moves using standard algebraic notation—for instance, e2-4.

This is an elaborate package; you should start by reading the man page.

Mille Miglia

Type mille at the command prompt. This is the Linux version of a Parker Brothers racing game. You should read the man page before starting because the game’s commands are not very intuitive. To see the man page, type man mille.

Monopoly

Type monop at the command prompt. This is a character-based version of the Parker Brothers game Monopoly. The computer does not actually play; it simply keeps track of who owns what and how much money each player has. You can play by yourself, but it’s pretty obvious that you will, eventually, win! Unfortunately, the board is not displayed in any form, making it quite difficult to keep track of what’s happening. This is an interesting effort, but the play is poor. A man page is available.

Simulations

The following games let you try your hand at being in charge. They are open-ended in that each game is different and does not follow a canned plot. They combine character graphics such as a radar display with text readouts and text-based commands.

Air Traffic Control

Type atc at the command prompt. Type man atc and read the man page first; otherwise, you will be responsible for one or more air tragedies! This game runs in real time. A good supply of caffeine will probably help you do well.

Sail

Type sail at the command prompt. You have a choice of over 20 scenarios, mainly historical battles involving sailing ships. You are the captain and determine what course to sail and which weapons to use. A man page is available by typing man sail; it’s worth reading beforehand because some commands are obscure or confusing.

Trek

Type trek at the command prompt. You can “go where no one has gone before,” hunt (and be hunted by) Klingons, and so on. A man page is available by typing man trek; read it before playing to avoid being a disgrace to the Federation.

”Video” Games

The following games all rely on a full-screen display, although all graphics are assembled from the standard character set.

Robots

Type robots at the command prompt. Robots on the screen pursue you; your only hope is to make two robots collide, at which point the robots explode. The resulting junk heap destroys any robots that run into it. You move about the screen using the hjkl keys, as used by the vi editor (diagonal movement is allowed, using yubn). Moves are simultaneous: each time you move, so do the robots. Sometimes, though, you have to teleport to get out of an impossible situation. You die if a robot touches you; otherwise, after clearing the screen, you go on to a bigger and better wave of robots. A man page is available by typing man robots.

Some Linux distributions may include a version of Robots that has been hacked or modified so that you can’t make a misstep that brings you in contact with a robot (thus leading to your demise). This takes away from the challenge of the game.

Snake

Type snake at the command prompt. Use the hjkl keys to move around, picking up money (the $) while avoiding the snake (made up, appropriately, of s characters). The snake gets hungrier as you get richer. Escape the room by running to the # character or be eaten by the snake! You can also type w in an emergency to warp to a random location. A man page is available by typing man snake.

Tetris

Type tetris at the command prompt. The Tetris play screen is drawn with clever use of various characters. Ironically, although it does not look anywhere near as professional as Xtetris or other full-graphics versions, it plays very well—especially if you’re used to the arcade version of Tetris. The movement keys consist of , to move left, / to move right, and . to rotate (counterclockwise!). The spacebar drops the piece. You can vary the control keys by using options with the tetris command. See the man page (type man tetris) for details.

Worm

Type worm at the command prompt. You are a worm, moving about the screen and eating numbers. As you eat the numbers, you grow in length. Do not run into yourself or into the wall! How long can you get before you (inevitably) run into something? Note that you still slowly crawl forward, even if you don’t enter a move command.

A man page is available by typing man worm.