XorCurses is a puzzle game set inside a series of mazes. It is a remake of XOR by Astral Software, a game published in 1987 and released on the popular home computers of the day including the Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, Atari ST, and Amiga. XOR is a pure puzzle game with no random or arcade elements.
In some respects, XorCurses is a regression from the graphics of the old 8 bit computers as it uses even more simplistic graphics, with coloured ASCII characters instead of pixel based graphics.
XorCurses attempts to faithfully recreate that game for Linux, with particular attention placed on the behaviour of the objects within the original game.
The basic premise of Xor is to roam around a series of mazes collecting all of the blue masks and then finding the exit. You have two player-shields to aid you and you can use either one at any time and switch between them. The first few levels are easy to progress, but the rest are progressively harder to solve. A particularly challenging and difficult puzzle game that will keep you engaged for hours.
Features include:
- Levels 1 – 15 from original Xor game.
- Colour ASCII for console and terminals.
- Gracefully handles window resizing of host terminal.
- Very little system footprint.
- Varying wall colours and wall patterns.
- Fish, Chickens, Bombs, Dolls, Teleports, and Sad Masks.
- Map entry animation.
- Reward animation for completion of a map.
- Score tracking.
- Replays.
- Nine replay speeds changeable by keypress during replay.
- Hyper replay speed to get to breakpoints fast.
- Single stepping replay mode for intensive scrutiny.
- Save replays.
- Load replays.
- Continue playing from any point in replay.
- Saved replays of completed levels disallow arbitrary game play.
- Set breakpoints in replay.
- Help on controls, replays, tips, objects.
- Easily navigable menus and options via keyboard.
- Three different scrolling settings, including traditional and keep-player-central – changeable during play by simple key presses.
- Confoundedly difficult levels.
- “Oldschool” difficulty setting for emulating original game frustration, disallows game play commencing from replay.
Website: github.com/jwm-art-net/XorCurses
Support:
Developer: James W. Morris
License: GNU General Public License
XorCurses is written in C. Learn C with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
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