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EagleAliens

(for Macintosh)

James Gips and William Ames

Boston College

August 2012

The EagleAliens program is a simple video-game used to calibrate the user and develop control

of EagleEyes. It has been the first video-game that many EagleEyes users have ever played, and

is often played at the start of sessions.

Generally you start up the game using the mouse. When this initial screen is reached, the mouse

pointer becomes a red crosshair. Switch control of the mouse over to the user. Wait until the

user has sufficient control with EagleEyes. Then you can press the Spacebar (Space key) and the

game is begun.

When the Spacebar is pressed an alien invader appears. The user must use EagleEyes (or the

mouse) to move the crosshair on top of the alien within the time limit, which causes the alien to

explode. (If you don’t want the child to blow up aliens, feel free to skip this game.) No mouse

click is needed. The grey bar at the top of the screen displays the time left for the current alien,

and the current score.

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After each wave of 10 aliens, the user’s score and average time appears. To start another game,

press the Spacebar.

To customize the game to a specific user one can adjust the time limit, the level of difficulty,

sound, and picture of the alien. These options are explained in the following menu-bar

descriptions.

We generally consider a user to have proficiency with EagleEyes if the person can shoot down 9

or 10 aliens consistently.

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Menu Items

EagleAliens

About EagleAliens Display message About EagleAliens

Quit EagleAliens Exit the EagleAliens program

Game

New Game Abandon current game and start a new game

Time

5, 10, 15 Set time limit to 5, 10 or 15 seconds. This is how long you have to

shoot down the alien before the program goes on to the next alien.

Enter Time Limit Enter any number of seconds as time limit

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Difficulty

Easy Large-sized stationary aliens

Medium Medium-sized slowly-moving aliens

Hard Small-sized moving aliens

Options

Sound If this option is checked, sound is enabled

If unchecked, sound is disabled

Change Alien Open a window that allows one to select a new

image to be used in place of the default alien. EagleAliens

automatically will adjust the size of the picture on the screen. A

popular choice is a brother or sister.

Restore Default Alien Change the alien back to the original alien image

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Help

Manual Display this Manual. We hope it is helpful.

Distribution

The program and this manual are both Copyright © 2012 Trustees of Boston College.

Both the program and the manual may be distributed freely.

For more information please email james.gips@bc.edu

Thank you for using EagleAliens.