Hi there! And welcome to The Gibbage Manual. On this page, you’ll find all sorts of exciting useful information with which to aid your enjoyment of Gibbage. It’s probably well worth reading, because otherwise you might miss out on something and, after years and years of playing Gibbage, suddenly stumble across it and think ‘Oh, I didn’t know you could do that’.
The Rules:
Gibbage is an incredibly simple concept. Each player is spawned from their Power Booth, with a perpetually-draining Power Level of 200. Your ultimate goal is to reduce your opponent’s Power Level to zero, thereby winning control of the arena.
To do this, you run around collecting the randomly spawned Power Cubes (up to three at a time), and returning them to your Power Booth. Doing so increases your Power Level, and reduces your opponent’s.
Naturally, as the Power Cubes are in short supply you’ll have to stop the other team getting there first. This is where the ‘gib’ part of Gibbage comes in — you’ll need your wits about you as you leap and swing about the arena trying to kill your opponent with well-timed bombs or your itchy trigger-finger. Your standard weapon is called the Gibber, and it’s what you’ll be using most of the time. It’s your friend. Why not give it a name? Mine is called ‘Gibber’.
Use the directional controls to move your clone around the map. Up and Down allow you to climb or descend ladders, Action allows you to jump and pull off special moves, Fire shoots your weapon and Bomb lays a bomb. Laying a bomb costs you Power Points, so be sure to use them sparingly. You’ll also need to press Down to pick up Power Cubes and Power-ups.
All controls are customisable from the Options Menu.
Need a wee? No problem — simply press “P” (pun intended) to pause the game. Joypad pause buttons should work too. Hopefully.
It sounds obvious, and in fact it is obvious, but try to not die. It’ll cost you Power Points and add 35 points to your opponent’s total score when the level is finished. Also — when you die, you’ll need to wait for your next clone to respawn. This takes a while, and will allow your opponent to run about picking up Power Cubes and generally taking advantage. It also makes a terrible mess of the local area. As such, it’s best to not die. Obviously.
Power-ups:
There are twelve Power-ups available in total; in order to collect one, press Down when standing over the randomly-spawned Power-up icon. It’s green and purple and emits lightning and swirly bits. You can’t really miss it. When someone has picked up a power-up, you can see what it was by looking at the monitor in your base. You can’t pick up a Power-up when the other person’s dead: you can either risk waiting by it, or run about collecting more cubes. It’s up to you.
ZapZap 3000- this is a gun upgrade. It gives you 6 shots of plasma that will do twice as much damage to your opponent upon impact as standard Gibber bullets. Duck and fire to remove kickback from this weapon.
Homers- this gun upgrade will give you 8 homing rockets. Please note the missiles are made out of extremely cheap parts, and as such can be temperamental.
BulletTime- this slows your opponent (and their bullets) down considerably. You can tell when they’ve got BulletTime, because they’ll turn black and white, just like in other more professional, more expensive games. Duration: 20 seconds.
Speedy Boots- makes you run at near-sonic speed, and also speeds your bullets up. You can hold down the fire button while you’ve got speedy boots to fire at maximum rate automatically. Duration: 20 seconds.
One Hit Wonder- reduces your opponent’s heath so much that they’d probably die even if they only fell over and grazed their knee a little bit. You should know that there’s no way to regain health in Gibbage. No magic medipacks kicking about the place, no machines that shout ‘Fixxxx’ at you mounted to the wall. If you don’t want to die, don’t get shot. Just like in real life. It’s that simple.
No Arms- This removes your opponent’s arms. Entirely. They’ll be unable to shoot at you, lay bombs or WallGrab until it’s worn off. Duration: 12 seconds.
Cryo- this freezes your opponent where they stand. You can’t kill them in this state, so the best advice is to take advantage and clear up as many power cubes as you can. Duration: 12 seconds.
Magno- This attracts all power cubes towards you, and they’re repelled by your opponent. This makes it dead easy for you to get them, and tricksy to say the least for your opponent. Duration: 20 seconds.
Mumm-Ra Thruster- This one-shot meaty weapon attaches itself to your opponent and slams them into the edge of the arena, killing them instantly. Brilliantly hilarious, but difficult to pull off!
MoonRaker- This weapon only does extremely low levels of damage, but can fire through walls and other obstacles. It also stuns you a teeny bit if you get hit by it, which is most disconcerting to say the least.
Mines- These are brilliant. You get four proximity-sensitive mines to place wherever you like. The fuse length is random. You can’t set them off, only your opponent can. However, an explosion is an explosion, and will hurt you no matter what. So be somewhere else when they get set off.
Who’s/ Woo- gives you a second Gibber, which fires at a different angle to the first (like in old Amiga games). You’ve got unlimited ammo, so they last until you die or you pick up a new gun.
Special Moves:
Using various key combinations, you can pull off special moves. These are vital for your survival, and it’s recommended that you learn them as soon as possible. Otherwise, you’ll probably just end up as a bloody pulp on the floor.
Double Jump- Press the Action button twice (like double-clicking a mouse). It’ll make your clone jump that little bit higher.
Wall Jump- This one will take some practice. Jump (remembering to let go of the action button) into a wall. Press and hold the Action button to grab the wall. Then press the direction you want to jump (presumably away from the wall) to spring away. If you’re in a tight passage, you can then grab onto the opposite wall and repeat the process. Just like Spiderman would.
Sliding- You need to get a run up, hold Down (while still running) and tap the Action key. You’ll be invulnerable to Gibber bullets, and will look pretty damned cool to boot.
Back Jump- duck, (by holding Down) and press Action. You’ll jump in the direction you were facing, but facing the opposite way. This is great for confusing your opponent and getting a few crafty shots into their back. You’ll be invulnerable to their Gibber bullets as well, which is a tasty bonus.
Ladder Jump- this was implemented as a way of stopping people camping at the tops of ladders. On your way up the ladder, stop when your head is level with the floor. Press the Action button to leap way up into the air. For a brief second you’ll be invulnerable to enemy Gibber bullets, and able to shoot them in their confused, curmudgeonly face.
Getting Started; The Menu Screen:
There are five options on the Menu Screen:
Play, Teams, Options, Credits, and Quit
Play
This option will only be available to you when you have created a team and selevted it as Player One. To create a team, see the Teams section. Although, it’s all relatively self-explanatory, to be honest.
The Play screen displays the maps you have unlocked, and lets you set various parameters for the game you’re about to play. You can opt to play a random map out of the ones you’ve unlocked by clicking directly on the Random square (top left), or you can play a specific map by clicking directly on the thumbnail. You will then be taken to an Information screen, where you’ll be able to study the layout of the map ahead, as well as read up on any environmental hazards etc. Click Info to toggle Information as on or off. Click Play to start the level, or Back to Title to restart the whole ‘picking a map’ process! Hover the mouse over the thumbnails to display a map’s name.
Most maps are locked to you when you first play the game, and the only map you’ll be able to play will be Capital Punishment. However, unlocking new maps is dead easy; all you have to do is play an arena against a real life human being, or win an arena if you’re playing against the AI. Then the next map will be available to you when you next visit the Play screen.
Above the map thumbnails, you’ll see your currently selected tea name (and Player Two’s team name, should one be selected). You can cycle through your available teams by clicking the up and down arrows next to the Team Name. You can look at your stats by clicking directly on your Team Name.
Underneath the map thubmnails are various options:
Click on PLAYER 2: HUMAND to toggle it to PLAYER 2: CPU if you want to play against an artificially ‘intelligent’ computer instead of a real person.
You don’t need to have a second team set up to play against a real person, but their stats will be lost into the ether, which would be a shame. You might as well pick out a team name, even if it doesn’t sound cool. My mum’s team is called ‘Mum Team’.
If you’re playing against the CPU, the option below, AI COMPETENCE will become available to you. He has three levels of difficulty, from one to three. Click on the left arrow to reduce his competence, and the right arrow to increase it.
A CPU-controlled player on level one will have difficulty understanding that it’s a good idea to avoid bullets. He’ll also have a spot more bother identifying and collecting Power Cubes and Power-ups.
A level three bot will be much harder to beat. He’ll know how to evade bullets, he’ll hunt out Power Cubes with ruthless efficiency and he’ll use tricks like the Ladder Jump where applicable.
You should understand, though, that a bot goes agains Gibbage’s very ethos of old-school ‘huddled around a monitor’ fun. If you’re only playing against the AI, you’re really missing out. Gibbage is a thousand times better when played against a real human opponent: Tickling and nudging become valid ‘tactics’. It’s insanely more enjoyable, and well worth making a new friend for.
From the PLAY Menu, you can also select a GAME LENGTH from one to five. This is the number of ’bouts’ you’ll be pitted against your opponent for. If you only want to fight in a single arena, reduce it to level one by clicking on the left arrow.. If you want to wage a battle set across five random arenas (assuming you’ve unlocked enough maps), set it to five by clicking on the right arrow. At a Game Length of greater than one, the option to select a map will be unavailable to you, instead opening up a big ‘GO’ button. Click this to begin the war.
Clicking Back will return you to the Menu Screen
Teams:
From the Teams Menu, you can create, delete and view stats for the various teams on your computer. Click on Create Team to type in a name for a new team. Please note that only standard alphabetical letters are allowed in Team Names. Click OK when you’re happy with the name you’ve chosen, and your team will be added to the Team List.
From the Team List, select your team to bring up your stats. This shows how many games your team has Won, Lost or Drawn, plus information on how many clones you’ve killed, and how many times you’ve died. You’ll also see what your average total score per game is.
All of this information is collated using a top-secret formula to issue you with a rank Percentage. This is the big figure down the bottom right of the stats screen. It reflects how good your team is: 0% being completely rubbish and 100% being brilliant. You should consider anything under 100% a slur on your character and gaming abilities, and work to achieve your maximum potential. My mum’s team has a score of 100%. So should yours.
Before you can play a game, a team must be selected as Player One (Green). In order to do this, simply highlight your team, and click ‘Select as Player One’. The border around your team should turn Green. If there’s a second player, select their team and click ‘Select as Player Two’.
You can also Delete a team by highlighting it, and clicking Delete Team.
Return to the Menu Screen from the Teams Menu by clicking ‘Back’.
From the Team menu, you can also take the Tutorial. This is a walkthrough of the various elements of Gibbage, and should get you acquainted with the rules of play. Your goal here is to collect each of the 12 Power-up icons in order to see what each one does. Until you’ve done this, the CPU-controlled bot won’t be able to harm you. Once you’ve collected the Who’s/ Woo powerup (two guns), you’ll need to win or lose the game to end the tutorial. The results of this game are not recorded to your team’s stats. You can quit the tutorial at any time by pressing Escape and selecting the Back to Title option.
Options:
Click to change the detail level. It’ll toggle between LOW DETAIL, MEDIUM DETAIL and HIGH DETAIL. Gibbage isn’t particularly demanding of the modern PC, so the only real reason to scale back the detail depends on what your monitor can cope with. HIGH DETAIL demands a resolution of 1600×1200. I know this is high, but it’s the resolution Gibbage was crafted in, and looks really really really sweet. If your monitor can cope with it, I recommend you run Gibbage in High Detail. If your monitor can’t cope with it, I recommend you upgrade your monitor as promptly as possible so you can enjoy Gibbage in 1600×1200. It’s worth it.
Alternatively, you could run the game in LOW or MEDIUM DETAIL, which are resolutions of 800×600 and 1280×1024 respectively. However, on these settings, the graphics are a little bit squidged together and look more ‘gaaaargh’. If you can, avoid 800×600, as it may make text difficult to read. Gibbage professionals, kings and winners use HIGH DETAIL, so you should too.
Click the Music bit to toggle between MUSIC ON and MUSIC OFF. This toggles the in-game music. Quite why anyone would want to toggle off Mike Watts’ excellent soundtrack is beyond me, but there you have it.
If you want to add your own tracks to Gibbage’s playlist, simply convert them to .ogg format (there are free applications online that will allow you to do this, such as Audacity — there are probably others, but Audacity worked for me) and copy them into the same directory as Gibbage.exe. The game will automatically scan through them, and it’ll play a random song at the start of each arena. I’m quite proud of that bit of code. It seems really grown up and professional, which is unusual for me.
You can change the default keys and joypad buttons from the Options menu. Simply click the key you want to change, and press the appropriate button on the keyboard/ joypad.
To reset the Options menu to Default, click the default button.
To reduce the interference/ static of the menu screens, scroll your mouse’s middle button down. Likewise, if you’re crazy and want to make it worse, you can scroll it up. If you don’t have a middle mouse button, I’m afraid you’re stuck with it. Life’s unfair like that.
Oh, alright. If you don’t have a middle mouse button and desperately want to remove the interference effects, you can open gibSetup.cfg and set TitleWobble to 0. But life is unfair, and you should probably try and get used to it all the same.
If you want to reset things to default resolution and key setup, delete gibSetup.cfg. A new one will get created with factory settings when you next start the game. I don’t live in a factory, though.
Return to the Menu Screen by clicking ‘Back’.
Credits:
The Credits menu displays all the people who have helped out one way or another during the creation of Gibbage. There’s also a hidden mini-game there called Gibbage: Bug Crushing which will unlock when you’ve played through all the maps in the main game. But I’m not going to tell you how to play it; you’ll have to work that out for yourself.
It isn’t tricky, though.
Quit:
This option allows you to QUIT the game. You’ll be asked if you’re absolutely sure whether or not you really want to quit the game, and the options Y/ N will become available to you. The letter ‘Y’ represents the word ‘YES’ and the letter ‘N’ represents the word ‘NO’. Should you wish to exit the game, you can confirm this by pressing the ‘Y’ key on your keyboard, or indeed by clicking on the letter itself by directing the mouse towards it and pressing the left button downwards briefly. This will then close the game, and (after a short but informative nugget of advice from me) will return you to the desktop. If you have decided that you don’t wish to exit the game after all, and that prompting the QUIT screen was a horrible horrible error on your part, you can rectify your decision by either pressing the ‘N’ key on your keyboard or, should that particular button be defective for some reason, clicking on the ‘N’ image on the screen. This will return you to the previous menu, and you will be at liberty to continue your game of Gibbage without returning to the desktop. You can always opt to quit the game again at a later time by clicking QUIT from the menu screen, or indeed by pressing the ESCAPE key at most points throughout the game. If you need more information about quitting, or indeed not quitting Gibbage, please email me at dan@zombie-cow.com, and I’ll be happy to advise in any way I can.
