FREEDROID(6)

🎀 freedroid 🎀 — a free Paradroid clone

okay so bestie, welcome to freedroid(6), from the User Manuals — section 6, main character energy, no cap. it's a whole game and i'm gonna walk you through every single flag like we're on facetime. 💖

---

✨ NAME ✨

freedroid — a free Paradroid clone 🦋

---

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

freedroid [ options ]

---

✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

so. Freedroid is a remake of the classic C64 home computer game Paradroid by Andrew Braybrook, and it also comes with various extensions. iconic behavior honestly. 👑

you play as the so-called 001 influence device, and your whole job is to clear a freighter of robots — either by shooting them or by seizing control over them. periodt.

the seizing-control thing? it's done in a small logic subgame, where you have to connect more electrical connections within 10 seconds than your opponent. it's giving competitive. it's giving stressful. slay. 💅

---

✨ OPTIONS ✨

• -v or --version — prints out Freedroid version information. the "who am i" moment fr fr.
• -q or --nosound — suppresses all sound output. super useful if you don't have your sound card configured yet, or you have literally no sound hardware at all. silent but deadly. 🤫
• -f or --fullscreen — work in full screen mode. note that fullscreen or window mode can also be toggled from within the game via the options menu. you got options bestie.
• -w or --window — start Freedroid in a window rather than using full screen mode. cozy gamer setup. 🍓
• -j or --sensitivity — control joystick sensitivity. the value must lie in between [0:32]. default is 1. don't be extra with it.
• -d LEVEL or --debug=LEVEL — control debug output of the game. debug output gets printed to stderr, i.e. in most cases to the console you started Freedroid from. the variable LEVEL controls how much debug output you'd like:
  • LEVEL 0 is the default and means (almost) no debug output.
  • LEVEL 1 prints the most important debug messages.
  • LEVEL 2 or LEVEL 3 print (almost) all debug output, which might be quite a lot. 💀

---

✨ HOW TO PLAY ✨

🧚 Moving and Firing

the influence device can be moved inside the ship by either using keyboard input or joystick directions.

keyboard control can be done by either using cursor keys or the Quake and Half-life style a-w-s-d keys combination. y2k fps energy, we love to see it.

firing can be done by either:

• using the crosshair and the left mouse button, or
• pressing a direction key and pressing space in addition, or
• holding a joystick direction and pressing a joystick button. 🔥

🛗 Entering Elevators and Consoles

the influence device can move from one deck to another deck using the elevators of the freighter. to do this, you must step onto an elevator plate, and then either press the e key, or press the middle mouse button, or press the appropriate joystick button.

entering consoles is done in a similar way. you have to stand directly in front of a console terminal and then press the e key to activate the console.

inside the console you'll have access to:

• a small scale map of the current deck,
• a side elevation of the ship, and
• the droid database of the ship.

but note — access to the droid database is achieved via the security clearance of the host you currently control. meaning: you will only be able to view droid data for droids that are lower or equal to the host you currently control. hierarchy is real. 🙈

👾 The takeover subgame (Taking control of other droids)

to take control of another robot, you must first enter transfer mode. this is done by either:

• standing still and holding the space bar pressed (and keeping the space bar pressed afterwards), or
• holding down the right mouse button, or
• holding down the appropriate joystick button.

while in takeover mode, the influence device can try to initiate takeover by touching the host it wishes to control. as soon as another robot is touched while in takeover mode, the takeover subgame will be initiated and control of the new host will be seized — provided that the takeover subgame is won. no pressure or anything. 😭

🎮 Playing the takeover subgame

after the takeover subgame was initiated, the two droids struggling for control will be presented.

then the player gets to decide which side of the takeover game they want to play:

• the player on the left side takes the yellow color,
• the player on the right side takes the magenta color. 💛💜

note that which side to choose may be the most important decision of the takeover subgame, cause one side may host strong tactical advantages over the other. choose wisely bestie.

after sides have been chosen, the takeover capsules will be placed. each droid has a limited number of capsules to place and must try to convert the central status bar to their color.

the number of capsules you have at your disposal depends on the clearance of the host you currently control.

once the takeover subgame is won, the player will have control over the new bot, while the old host is destroyed. control over the new host also means inheriting the movement properties and the weapons of this robot. glow up fr.

loss of the takeover subgame results in:

• the current host, if one is present, being destroyed, or
• the influence itself being burnt out and destroyed if no host was present. 💀💀

🔋 Notes on energy loss

the influence device depends on hosts to control. whether currently controlling a host or not, the influence device will always lose energy due to construction properties.

when taking control of a new host, the influence device will also take control of the energy this droid had left — which will be even more the higher the bot you take control of.

however, higher droids also tend to put up more resistance against the control of the influence device, resulting in faster loss of energy.

therefore it is recommended to change hosts frequently in order to keep the influence device well powered. 🔋✨

note that there are some refresh field, where some of the energy lost so far can be restored. but note also, that only energy loss due to collisions, explosions and enemy fire can be restored this way — while energy loss due to host resistance is permanently lost until the host is changed again.

---

✨ PROJECT HOME PAGE AND LATEST VERSIONS ✨

the Freedroid Classic (as opposed to the RPG spinoff) is hosted on github at https://github.com/ReinhardPrix/FreedroidClassic. go give it a star, it's the least you can do. ⭐

---

✨ FILES ✨

• ~/.freedroidClassic/highscores — the high scores file of Freedroid. your flex lives here. 👑
• ~/.freedroidClassic/config — the file containing all configuration setting of this user.

---

✨ ENVIRONMENT ✨

Freedroid does currently not care about any environment variables. it's unbothered. it's living its truth. 🦋

---

✨ DIAGNOSTICS ✨

debug output can be produced by using the -d or --debug command line options as described above.

---

✨ BUGS ✨

Freedroid can now be considered pretty stable. however we're sure that there are still some bugs here and there. 😭

if you encounter any problems or bugs, please report them on the github issue tracker at https://github.com/ReinhardPrix/FreedroidClassic/issues. the devs wanna hear from you bestie, spill. 💖

---

✨ AUTHORS ✨

Johannes Prix, Reinhard Prix, Bastian Salmela, Lanzz and others. legends, all of them. 🫶

---

✨ SEE ALSO ✨

freedroidRPG(6),

---

okay that's the whole page, no skips, no cuts, all facts intact 💅 and one last thing — this whole manual is a Linux situation, dated MARCH 2003, for freedroid(6) in the User Manuals. old but iconic, we stan a classic. bye bestie, go clear that freighter 🌈✨💖