NAME

xfish - fish-zapping game program

SYNOPSIS

xfish [number]

OPTION

The only option available is the number of fish displayed, from 1 to 100. The default is 20.

DESCRIPTION

Xfish is a demonstration and game program that opens a window that appears to be a root window except that the screen is populated by small fish "swimming" around within it.

The game is a highly simplified variant of video arcade games such as Centipede. That is, you attempt to hit each moving target fish by leading it with the mouse cursor, then pressing the right-hand mouse button. If you are successful, the system beeps at you and the fish disappears.

As each fish is removed, the remainder move all the faster. This means you must "take a bigger lead" in order to zap them. That last fish is extremely difficult to eradicate.

xfish keeps track of the ratio of the number of shots you take to the number of seconds you play the game. If you manage to dispose of the last fish, the entire window in which the fish were displayed disappears. In the window from which you began the program, the following message is then displayed:

You used [# of shots] to hit [#] fish. (in [# of] seconds)
For an accuracy ratio of: [#]

BUGS

xfish slows down your system considerably. The more fish you specify, the slower the X Window System behaves. If you attempt to quit the program by using the mouse to display the pop-up menu of choices, it may take quite a few seconds for this menu to display.

xfish tends to paint its window at the bottom of the screen. While the window can be dragged, this dragging is only partially successful. In fact, once the system reacts to the mouse cursor, it tends to expand the entire window rather than simply move it cleanly.

The left-hand mouse button is supposed to reverse the direction of the fish. This feature does not always appear to be operational.

xfish -root -rv [optional args] will not execute or dies prematurely when the X server is run.