A math game for kids with tux
"Tux, of Math Command" ("TuxMath," for short) is an educational arcade game starring Tux, the Linux mascot! Based on the classic arcade game "Missile Command," Tux must defend his cities. In this case, though, he must do it by solving math problems.
Use the number keys on the keyboard to answer math equations, and then hit the space bar or enter. If you don't answer a comet's math equation before it hits one of your igloos, the igloo will be damaged. If an igloo is hit twice, the penguin inside walks away. When you lose all of your igloos, the game ends.
There is also a "factoroids" game in which a ship destroys asteroids if you type a valid factor of the number for a particular asteroid. Use the number keys to steer.
Note: most settings are now stored in a config file named 'options' in a hidden directory named './tuxmath' within the user's home directory. The file consists of simple name/value pairs. It is much easier to edit this file to set game parameters than to use the command-line arguments listed below. Also, many options are not selectable from the command line. The config file contains extensive comments detailing how to configure the behavior of Tuxmath.
--help
Display help for the command
--version
Display version and author information
--homedir dirname
seek for user home director(ies) in the specified location, rather than the user's actual home directory. You can set up a user directory tree in this location (see README). This option is especially useful for schools where all students log in with a single user name.
--optionfile filename
read config settings from named file. The locations searched for a file with a matching name are the current working directory, the absolute path of the filename, tuxmath's missions directory, the user's tuxmath directory, and the user's home.
--playthroughlist
to ask each question only once, allowing player to win game if all questions successfully answered
--answersfirst
to ask questions in format: ? + num2 = num3 instead of default format: num1 + num2 = ?
--answersmiddle
to ask questions in format: num1 + ? = num3 instead of default format: num1 + num2 = ?
--nosound
to disable sound/music
--nobackground
to disable background photos (for slower systems)
--fullscreen
to run in fullscreen, if possible (vs. windowed)
--windowed
to run in a window rather than fullscreen
--keypad
to enable the on-sceen numeric keypad
--demo
to run the program as a cycling demonstration
--speed S
set initial speed of the game (S may be fractional, default is 1.0)
--allownegatives
to allow answers to be less than zero
--debug-X
prints debug information on command line. X may be one of the following:
setup: debug messages only during initialization
fileops: file operations (loading and saving data)
loaders: loading of mulitmedia (images and sounds)
titlescreen
menu: most operations dealing with menus
menu-parser: subset of operations dealing with menus
game: the comets game
factoroids: the factoroids game
lan: anything dealing with networking
mathcards: generation of math problems
sdl: the general graphical system
lessons: parsing pre-prepared lessons
highscore: loading and saving high scores
options: loading and saving options files
text-and-intl: text and internationalization
all: everything!
2013-07-29: Updated for version 2.0.3 by Dmitry Smirnov.
2004-12-17: First version of this manual page.
This manual page was written by Fabio Brito <[email protected]> for the Debian GNU system (but may be used by others).