# The &knetwalk; Handbook

Fela Winkelmolen

    fela.kde@gmail.com

Eugene Trounev

    eugene.trounev@gmail.com

2007 Fela Winkelmolen
&FDLNotice;
2021-07-26
3.3.2 (KDE Gear 21.08)

&knetwalk;, a game for system administrators.

KDE kdegames game logic game knetwalk

## Introduction

Gametype:

Strategy

Number of possible players:

One

&knetwalk; is a single player logic game.

The object of the game is to start the LAN, connecting all the terminals to the server, in as few turns as possible.

## How to Play

Objective:

Connect each client with the server, without leaving wires unconnected.

&knetwalk; Game Board

The player is presented with a rectangular grid containing a server, several terminals, and pieces of wire. The object of the game is to rotate these elements until every client is connected to the server, and no wires are left unconnected. Optionally, you can try to get a high score by minimizing the number of rotations needed.

Left clicking on a square rotates it counterclockwise, while right clicking rotates it clockwise. Middle clicking on a square marks it as blocked and prevents it from being rotated unless it gets unblocked by another middle click; this can be very useful for marking squares which are known to be in the correct orientation. The status bar displays the number of clicks so far.

## Game Rules, Strategies and Tips

### Rules

- There is only one possible correct solution for every game.

- When playing the Very hard difficulty level, connections can wrap from left to right and from top to bottom.

- The game ends when every terminal and every wire is connected to the server.

- The score rewards the least number of clicks it took to complete the game. The smaller this number, better.

### Strategies and Tips

- Start seeking for squares which orientation can be easily determined.

- Once you are sure of the orientation of a square you can mark it using the &MMB;. This is particularly usefull in harder games.

- Look for I-shaped and T-shaped wires near the borders, and L-shaped wires near the edges. The position of these squares can be easily determined, unless you are playing the Very hard difficulty level.

- When playing the Very hard difficulty level a good place to start looking is near empty squares, if present, and near regions containing many terminals grouped together.

- Even when playing with the same difficulty level some games are easier than others, restart the game if you want to get a different board.

- If you want to get a good score, only do a move when you are sure.

## Interface Overview

### Menu Items

&Ctrl;N Game New

  Starts a new game. It creates a random board using the current difficulty level.

P Game Pause

  Pauses the game time. Click on the menu item again to make the game resume. Note that the board disappears when the game is paused as it would be unfair if you could search for good moves without the time pressure.

&Ctrl;H Game Show High Scores

  Shows a dialog containing the High Scores for the various difficulty levels.

&Ctrl;Q Game Quit

  Quits the program.

Move Solve

  Use it to give up a game. It shows you the solution, but the record will not be considered as a high score.

Move Unlock All

  Unlock all cells which were previously locked by the player using &Space; or automatically after checking Auto lock option on General page of Configure - &knetwalk; dialog.

Settings Difficulty

  Lets you set the difficulty level from a sub-menu.

  There are five levels of difficulty:

  - Easy: 5 rows, 5 columns, without wrapping.

  - Medium: 7 rows, 7 columns, without wrapping.

  - Hard: 9 rows, 9 columns, without wrapping.

  - Very hard: 9 rows, 9 columns, with wrapping.

  - Custom: The settings you have configured in the Configure - &knetwalk; dialog will be used.

Settings Configure &knetwalk;…

  Open Configure - &knetwalk; dialog. Please see Game Configuration for more information.

Additionally &knetwalk; has the common &kde; Settings and Help menu items, for more information read the sections about the Settings Menu and Help Menu of the &kde; Fundamentals.

### Game Configuration

To open the Configure - &knetwalk; dialog, select the Settings Configure &knetwalk;… menu item.

#### General

Using this page you can change the following game settings.

Play sounds

  If checked, &knetwalk; game sounds are played.

Auto lock

  If checked, &knetwalk; will automatically lock cell after rotation.

Reverse mouse buttons

  If checked, &knetwalk; uses the left click for the clockwise rotation and the right click for the counter-clockwise rotation.

Rotate duration:

  Here you can determine the time needed to animate a single cell rotation.

#### Theme

To select the theme you want to play, go to the Theme section. The theme is loaded by clicking on OK or Apply. The current game will be ended and a new one started. You can click on the Defaults button to restore the default theme.

#### Custom Game

This page can be used to configure custom game settings. You can choose Width: and Height: of the board and check the Wrapping if the board should be wrapped from left to right and from top to bottom.

### Shortcuts

The default shortcuts are:

Shortcuts

Start a new game | &Ctrl;N
Pause | P
Show High Scores | &Ctrl;H
Quit | &Ctrl;Q
Help | F1
What's this? help | &Shift;F1
Move left | &Left; arrow
Move right | &Right; arrow
Move up | &Up; arrow
Move down | &Down; arrow
Turn clockwise | &Enter;
Turn counterclockwise | &Ctrl;&Enter;
Toggle lock | &Space;

## Credits and License

&knetwalk;

Program copyright 2004 - 2007 by Andi Peredri, Thomas Nagy and Fela Winkelmolen fela.kde@gmail.com

Documentation copyright 2007 by Fela Winkelmolen fela.kde@gmail.com

&underFDL; &underGPL;
&documentation.index;