Pathological is an enriched clone of the game "Logical" by Rainbow Arts.
Awwwww, Darn! It doesn't work on Intel (Xeon) Macs running Mac OS X 10.5.4
I had a lot of fun with Ri-Li and I was looking forward to getting another cool game ...
Introduction
Pathological is an enriched clone of the game "Logical" by Rainbow Arts. To solve a level, fill each wheel with four marbles of matching color. Various board elements such as teleporters, switches, filters, etc., make the game interesting and challenging. New levels can be created using your favorite text editor.
If you like this game, please rate it on Freshmeat!
Features
* Sharp 800x600 graphics
* 50 diverse and challenging levels (more to come...)
* A cool 6-minute ambient soundtrack by an award-winning musician
Board Designs
To add your own levels to the game, edit the file all-boards in the circuits directory. Be sure to read the documentation in the comments at the top of that file.
27 boards have been contributed so far! Download them now as a ZIP file or as a plain text file. Read the comments at the top of the file for an explanation of how to try them out. Many thanks to all contributors! And please keep the contributions coming!
If you would like to contribute your board designs for a future release of Pathological, please email them to boards@gignac.org. Please don't submit boards that you haven't named. And please send only your own board designs - not the entire boards file.
I plan to assemble a panel of judges (my family and friends) to choose from among the submissions. The goal is to reach either 100 or 200 levels, depending on the number of submissions.
Credits
Thanks to the following people for their helpful support, criticisms, comments, contributions, etc.:
Carrie Bloomfield
Mike Brenneman
T. Francis Chen
Kim Gignac
Matthias Le Bidan
Steve Mills
Paul Preney
Paul Prescod
Alesh Slovak
Peter Tkacz
Dale Wick
Original Soundtrack by Matthias Le Bidan.
The Pathological logo was designed by Carrie Bloomfield.
Board designs were contributed by Mike Brenneman and Kim Gignac.
In-game graphics partially based on artwork by Mike Brenneman.
Thanks also to the creators of the amazing game Frozen Bubble! Their work inspired me to make Pathological the best that it can be.
How to Play Pathological
Pathological is a puzzle game consisting of marbles that roll along paths, and interact along the way with various devices and gadgets.
The object of each level is to "complete" all of the wheels on the board. To complete a wheel, catch four marbles of matching color in the same wheel. The marbles will vanish, and the wheel will turn dark to indicate that it has been completed. Note that this is only the usual way of completing a wheel. The exceptional cases are described in the section on Triggers and Stoplights.
To rotate a wheel, click the right mouse button on the wheel. To eject a marble from a wheel, click the left mouse button on the marble.
When the game begins, you are assigned a total of three lives. Your spare lives are depicted by small red marbles at the top of the screen. An extra life is awarded every 5000 points. A maximum of ten spare lives is enforced.
The Board Timer
The board timer is the maximum amount of time allowed to complete a level. It is depicted as a digital countdown at the top of the screen. If the countdown reaches zero, the level ends and you lose a life. If you complete the level within the available time, a bonus is awarded based on the percentage of time remaining.
The Launch Timer
The launch timer, depicted as a blue bar on the left-hand side of the screen, represents the maximum amount of time that a newly launched marble can remain in the launch area at the top of the board. Each time a marble is launched, the launch timer is reset to its full value. If the launch timer expires, the level ends and you lose a life.
The length of the launch timer is displayed numerically at the bottom of the blue bar. The number represents the number of passes that a newly launched marble can make before the timer expires. The value is different on different levels.
The Active Marble Limit
Each level has a maximum number of marbles that are allowed to be in motion at a time. As long as the maximum number of marbles are in motion, you can not eject any more marbles from wheels.
The number of currently active marbles, and the active marble limit are shown numerically at the left edge of the launch area at the top of the board.
Game Elements
Buffers
Buffers catch and hold a single marble at a time. The marble is held until another marble knocks it out, and takes its place. Note that once a marble falls into a buffer, there is no way of emptying the buffer again.
An empty buffer
A buffer holding a purple marble
Directors
Directors force all marbles to exit in the indicated direction. They are often used as one-way gates, allowing marbles to pass through in one direction but not the other.
A director
Filters
Filters only allow the indicated color of marble to pass through. Any other color of marble will simply bounce back in the direction that it came from.
An orange filter
Painters
Painters change the color of passing marbles to the indicated color.
A blue painter
Replicators
Replicators create copies of marbles. Whenever a marble enters a replicator, at least two marbles are emitted. Some replicators produce more copies than others.
The number of copies produced by a replicator may be limited by the active marbles limit.
A replicator
Shredders
Shredders simply destroy any marbles that enter into them.
A shredder
Switches
Switches, like directors, force marbles to exit in the indicated direction. But unlike directors, switches switch between two different directions. Each passing marble causes them to switch.
A switch
Teleporters
Teleporters transport passing marbles to their twin teleporter at some other location on the board. Note that a board can have several pairs of teleporters, and their pairings might not be obvious. It can be helpful to realize that teleporters can only change the location of a marble - not the direction.
A teleporter
Triggers and Stoplights
Triggers and stoplights place temporary restrictions on wheel completion.
If a board contains a stoplight, then the first three wheels to be completed must be completed, respectively, using the three colors of the stoplight in order from top to bottom. For example, if the stoplight has the colors red, yellow and green (as in the diagram), then you must first complete a wheel using four red marbles. Then the second wheel must be completed using four yellow marbles, and the third must be completed using four green marbles. After the stoplight has been fully exhausted, then the rest of the wheels on the board can be completed using any colors as per usual.
If a board contains a trigger, then the first wheel to be completed must be completed by exactly matching the marble configuration presented by the trigger. Trigger configurations are chosen randomly. After the trigger has been satisfied, the rest of the wheels on the board can be completed in the normal way. But beware! A trigger will only stay satisfied for a short time.
A board can only have at most one stoplight or trigger, but it can have one of each. If a board has both a stoplight and a trigger, you must satisfy the trigger before working toward exhausting the stoplight.
A stoplight
A trigger
A partially-exhausted stoplight
A satisfied trigger
Controls
Action Key/Button
Eject a marble from a wheel Left mouse button
Rotate a wheel Right mouse button
Abort a level ESC
Pause the game P, SPACE or PAUSE
Skip to the next level N
Skip to the previous level B
Toggle fullscreen mode F2
Toggle sound effects F3
Toggle music F4
Scoring
Action Points
Awarded
Completing a wheel 50
Satisfying a trigger 50
Exhausting one light on a stoplight 20
Completing an already-completed wheel 10
Time bonus per % time remaining 5
Bonus per % holes empty 2
Downloads
Copyright
Copyright � 2003 John-Paul Gignac
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2, as published by the Free Software Foundation.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.
Downloads
If you like this game, please rate it on Freshmeat!
Please note that version 1.1.3 is functionally identical to 1.1.2. Don't bother upgrading.
pathological-1.1.3.tar.gz - GNU Tarball (for most Unix users)
pathological-1.1.2-win.zip - Zip file for Windows users
Pathological-1.1.3.dmg - DMG file for MacOS X 10.2 or higher (Thanks to Bob Ippolito for submitting this package!) {Santa's Note: Not for Leopard?}
pathological_1.1.2_i386.deb - Debian GNU/Linux Package (* Only works with Debian Woody *)
pathological-1-1.3.i586.rpm - RPM for Mandrake 9.2, should work for other RPM-based distros (Thanks to John Murray for submitting this file!)
Pathological is also currently available through Portage for Gentoo Linux, thanks to Michael Sterrett.
A Linux Mandrake package is currently in development.
http://pathological.sourceforge.net/