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Dark Pearl 1.0 (c) 1992 Dave Munsie 09/92 PUBLIC DOMAIN SOFTWARE
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First off a short legal note:
This game did not and WILL not appear on the cover disk of
ATARI ST REVIEW MAGAZINE. I apologize for not being able to change
the title screen and de-compression headers to reflect this. This version
of DARK PEARL is freely public domain. Copy and give away to your hearts
content as long as you include this .DOC file and insure that all files
are un-altered.
Dark Pearl requires a joystick / color monitor and a 1 meg ST/Ste.
NOTE: In case of an error...a short message will be displayed. This is
normal. You should maintain control of the machine without having to turn
it off and on again.
Step 1: Installing and loading Dark Pearl
First make sure you have a folder created on the root directory of your
disk or hard drive called . Do not create this folder within
another folder. After doing so please move the PEARL.TOS program into this
folder along with this .DOC file. (Note: These steps might already be
taken care of...)
You must be in low resolution to run Dark Pearl. Simply double click your
mouse inside the folder on the file PEARL.TOS. After a few whirls
of the storage media the program should greet you with a copyright notice
and a data loading message. When the program is first run it looks for a
data file called PEARL.DAT. If this file is not found it will create it
for you. The next time the program is run it will not have to do this step.
After the program has loaded properly the title sequence should begin.
Note: You can bypass the title sequences by pressing the fire button.
Step 2: About the game
I was inspired to write this game after seeing something similar in my
local arcade. (Yes..I'm an over-grown video game junkie...) The original
game (I forget the name..) had wonderful scaling and rotation features.
It truly made me dizzy playing. I then looked for something currently
available on the ST's that resembled this game. After many PD and
commerical games shown to me I realized I could write something much better
than was currently out there. Well, the scaling and rotation was out of the
question so I decided on fast vertically scrolling game play along with a
novel 3-D type perspective. The end result is no where near the arcade version
but I feel anybody who has played this type of game will welcome it.
Step 3: Playing the game
The object of Dark Pearl is to traverse the vertically scrolling field
while picking up (bouncing on) the red-green-blue jewels along the way.
Various tiles will help or hinder you on the way. When you make it all the
way up to the top of the field (7 screens up) and all of the jewels are
collected you proceed to the next level! If you still have jewels left you
are sent back to the start of the field to try again. Use your joystick
to guide the pearl over the tiles. There are 10 levels in all. Levels
4 and 8 are bonus rounds.
Game tiles:
Green arrows - Small jumps
Red arrows - Bigger jumps
Yellow arrows - Biggest jumps
Windows - These break when you land on them.
Hatched tiles - These slow you down.
Point tiles - Increase your score.
x2-x5 - Score multiplexers! Bounce on these...
Question marks - These cause a random event:
1) Bonus points from 10-100
2) Send out a bee that tries to sting you. (Up to 4 at a time!!)
3) Plot down a score multiplexer.
4) Plot down a free ball tile. Land on this!!
5) Cause a heart to appear around the pearl. When the heart is active you
can land on the bees to squash them and get some big points!
Misc game hints/tips.
If you make it to the top of the field on one try without losing a pearl
or having to back down again you recieve big bonus points.
Level 4 Bonus round 1:
Simply guide the pearl around the maze to grab all the jewels and bonus
points you can without falling off. Steer the pearl with the joystick.
Ther longer you last the more points you can grab.
Level 8 Bonus round 2:
Hmmmm.. I had to put a little shoot-em-up in here somewhere!! Stay alive
as long as you can by shooting at the nastys. Big points add up here.
Guide your shooter ROBOTRON style. Press the fire button button to change
firing direction.
If you complete all 10 levels you will recieve a mega bonus based on your
score. Only bty completing all 10 levels are mega-scores (over 100000)
possible.
Practice rounds:
By pressing 1-0 from the title screen you can start at any of the 10 levels.
You won't be able to get your name in the high score table but at least you
can practice the tougher levels. (0=level 10)
That's about it! I hope you enjoy this game. As usual any comments or
suggestions are welcomed and asked for. Please send your comments to:
Dave Munsie
5601 Ammons
Haltom City, TX 76117
USA
DARK PEARL was written in GFA BASIC 3.5e with the GP_GRAPHICS ENGINE.
The GP_GRAPHICS ENGINE is (c) 1992-93 DSA. |
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