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-
- Dark Pearl 1.0 (c) 1992 Dave Munsie 09/92 PUBLIC DOMAIN SOFTWARE
- --------------------------------------------------------------------
-
- 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.
-
- <Yah..I know..bad error handling....>
-
-
- 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 <PEARL>. 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 <PEARL> 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.
-
-