penetrate(6x)

💥 penetrate(6x) 💥

okay bestie, welcome to penetrate(6x) — yes, that’s the actual manual name, and yes, we’re doing this. It’s an XScreenSaver page, it’s a whole arcade-classic simulation, and it’s about to make sense. 🫶

🌸 NAME 🌸

penetrate — simulates a classic arcade shooting game. Short, iconic, periodt. 💅

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

penetrate [--display host:display.screen] [--root] [--window]
       [--window-id number] [--install] [--noinstall] [--visual visual]
       [--bgrowth microseconds] [--lrate number] [--smart number] [--fps]

🎮 DESCRIPTION 🎮

Okay so Penetrate simulates the arcade classic with the cities and the stuff shooting down from the sky and stuff. The computer plays against itself, desperately defending the forces of good against those thingies raining down. 😭 Literally heroic.

Bonus cities are awarded at ever-increasing intervals. Every five levels appears a bonus round. The computer player gets progressively more intelligent as the game progresses: better aim, more economical with ammo, and better target selection. Slay, little computer player, slay. ✨

Points are in the bottom right, and high score is in the bottom left. Start with -smart to have the computer player skip the learning process. 🧠

💅 OPTIONS 💅

Here’s the whole option menu, no skips, no cap. 💖

• --display host:display.screen — specifies which X display we should use. 🖥️
• --root — draw on the root window. 🌈
• --window-id number — draw on the specified window. 🪟
• --window — draw on a newly-created window. This is the default. 👑
• --install — install a private colormap for the window. 🎨
• --noinstall — don’t install a private colormap for the window. 🙅
• --visual visual — specify which visual to use. Legal values are the name of a visual class, or the id number (decimal or hex) of a specific visual. Possible choices include:
  • default, best, mono, monochrome, gray, grey, color, staticgray, staticcolor, truecolor, grayscale, greyscale, pseudocolor, directcolor, number
  • If a decimal or hexadecimal number is used, XGetVisualInfo(3X) is consulted to obtain the required visual.
• --foreground color — specifies the default foreground color. 🌸
• --background color — specifies the default background color. 🦋
• --bgrowth integer — specifies the growth rate of the bomb explosions. (The synopsis says --bgrowth microseconds; keeping both exactly as printed 💀)
• --lrate integer — set the initial rate of laser fire. 🔥
• -smart — have the computer player skip the learning process. 🧠 (The synopsis up top also says --smart number; that’s literally what’s on the page, so we’re not erasing it.)
• --fps — display the current frame rate and CPU load. 📈

💀 BUGS 💀

The layout of the screen isn't quite the same as the game this program tries to emulate. 😭 In this this program — yes, the original says “this this” and I’m keeping the sacred text — the missiles come out of the cities; when really, there are supposed to be three missile bases on hills, with the cities in the valleys between them. 💀

🌈 ENVIRONMENT 🌈

• DISPLAY — to get the default host and display number. 🌍
• XENVIRONMENT — to get the name of a resource file that overrides the global resources stored in the RESOURCE_MANAGER property. 📄
• XSCREENSAVER_WINDOW — the window ID to use with --root. 🪟

👀 SEE ALSO 👀

Your required reading, bestie: X(1), xscreensaver(1). Go read those too. 👑

🎀 COPYRIGHT 🎀

The legal tea, with all the exact wording:

Copyright © 1999 Adam Miller. Permission to use, copy, modify, distribute, and sell this software and its documentation for any purpose is hereby granted without fee, provided that the above copyright notice appear in all copies and that both that copyright notice and this permission notice appear in supporting documentation. No representations are made about the suitability of this software for any purpose. It is provided "as is" without express or implied warranty.

🫶 AUTHOR 🫶

Adam Miller <adum@aya.yale.edu>, 1999. Legend. 🫶

---

xoxo, your screensaver bestie 💅 — footer tea: X Version 11 · 6.09 (07-Jun-2024). penetrate(6x) out. 🎀