POTHOLE 2!
Three cheers for Pothole 2! 20 levels
to play for everyone else!
Pothole 2 is a twenty level game (As
you may have already guessed) based on
those classic games like 'Boulderdash'
that were around years ago.
The basic idea, and it is pretty basic,
is to 'tunnel' through the very bowels
of the Earth in a desperate bid to
'collect' all of the diamonds on a
level and then head for the exit.
Your reward for this is to get to do it
all over again on the next level!
BUT...
As well as diamonds to 'collect' there
are also extra goodies that boost your
score (Like Smiley Faces) and others
that help you along your way (Like
Killer balls that kill the nasties).
WHAT NASTIES?
Oh yeah, there are some nasties in the
game. These comes in two packages:
1) Butterflies - These are the basic
'run about aimlessly' type of
things. Best thing to do with them
is to leave them alone or to drop
heavy 'things' on their heads.
2) Robo-heads - These evil things are
slightly more intelligent and will
chase you about the screen if they
get a chance, so don't give them
one. Deal with as above, only more
so.
OKAY, SO WHY 'BOULDERDASH'?
Well, it was called Boulderdash because
of the boulders which fell on your head
if you didn't dash away from them. And
so, in this game as well, you can not
only 'tunnel' and 'collect' but you
must also 'dash', 'kill' and
'teleport'.
'TELEPORT'?
Yes, by walking onto the blocks that
have been marked with a 'T' you can be
zoomed across the level to somewhere
that you possibly didn't even know that
you wanted to be in.
OKAY, HOW?
Right, boot up the POTHOLE2.PRG file
from wherever it is and it will all
start happening from there.
First of all we come to an intro
sequence which will tell you what is
what, but not necessarily why. Simply
press FIRE on the joystick that you
thoughtfully plugged in and you can
stop it in its tracks.
Now you get to choose what sex you
would like to be. This is so that you
can really 'get into' your character,
or so that you can indulge your
fantasies.
Next is the level selecter. You wont
have any codes to start with so just
press enter (Or move the stick left or
right until a brown 'E for ENTER'
appears and press FIRE).
Now you can 'tunnel', 'collect' and
'dash' safe in the knowledge that you
wont have to do any 'kill'ing or
'teleport'ing until a few levels later.
HEY! I'VE WON A PRIZE!
Every couple of levels you will get the
chance to win back a life if you have
lost one. This will look uncannily like
a fruit machine and to stop the reels
you just press FIRE at an appropriate
moment in time. Get the same thing on
all four reels and you win it. Simple.
BUT I DON'T UNDERSTAND!
Stop moaning and play the game, it
should all become clear after a while.
And you'll soon discover all the things
that I have forgotten to write about
here.
LIKE THE CONTROLS?
Yes, I did forget to mention the
controls, didn't I? Yes.
Well, the stick does the usual UP,
LEFT, RIGHT and DOWN sort of things
while pressing FIRE does nothing. That
is unless you then move the stick in
any direction while still pressing FIRE
when you will be able to push boulders,
collect items or make a bit of a
tunnel, all WITHOUT MOVING!
If you get stuck on a level then you
can kill your self by pressing 'S'
(Please note that this only works in
the game world and not in the Real).
'P' will pause the game (FIRE
continues), 'M' will show you a map of
the level (Once again, press FIRE to
continue) and 'Q' will quit you back to
the intro screens if you realy are
having a bad game.
F1 and F2 turn the 'sound' on and off
while F2 and F3 are used for the sole
purpose of setting the monitor scan
rate to 50hz or 60hz, but only if your
monitor can cope, you hear?
ANY MORE?
And I also haven't even mentioned that
you can catch items when you are
holding down FIRE, or that boulders can
be destroyed when they are dropped onto
fires let alone the fact that the
little clocks stop the nasties from
moving for a short time or....
WHERE IS IT?
So, I hear you all asking via the
wonders of modern technology, 'Where is
Pothole 1?'. Well, it's on a disk
somewhere under a pile of other stuff.
Best Place for it.
SHAREWARE!
Yes, this program is Shareware! This
basically means that if you like the
program, then you send me a donation
(About œ5 sounds good to me) and I get
happy and write some more stuff. If you
don't like the game then you don't pay,
It's so simple it's brilliant!
However, Shareware only works if the
program gets distributed, so please
copy this folder about as much as you
like and give it to as many beings as
you see fit - But do copy both files
(POTHOLE2.PRG and POTHOLE2.TXT) across
otherwise it don't work properly.
And if you ever wondered what happened
to Pothole 1 then send me a disk with
your donation and you'll discover
(Probably to your horror...).
FANK YOU VERY MUCH...
Indeed. Fank you very much to lots of
people, particularly HiSoft for their
brilliant Assembler and also to
everyone who came round my house and
said "Paul, you should do something
with that game!". I guess that means
that it's all their fault. Or perhaps
they didn't mean for me to release it?
Oh well...
AND GOODBYE
If you would like to send a Shareware
donation, give me some comments or
perhaps even suggest what I should do
next then please drop me a line at...
Paul Grenfell,
8 Denshire Drive,
Storrington,
West Sussex.
RH20 4PX
That is all.