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1991-01-02
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5KB
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118 lines
This manual and the program "Night Crawlers" are Copyrighted; nevertheless, it
is available to the general public with the following two restrictions: Any
copes made must preserve the copyright notices, and you must obtain written
permission from the author to sell the manual or program for more than the cost
of media, packaging, and postage.
"Men have died from time to time and worms have eaten them, but not for
love."
-Shakespeare, As You Like It, IV, i, 106
The Game Board consists of 400 dots arranged so each dot has six neighbors.
The board wraps around much like the asteroid game. If a worm exits form the
top of the screen it will reappear at the bottom. The game board may have
anywhere from one to four worms on it at any one time.
Worms eat there way from dot to neighboring dot leaving a trail behind them. A
worm can not follow the trail left by another worm but must strike out in a new
direction and boldly go where no worm has gone before. If a worm captures the
last trail leading from a dot it wins one point. A worm that blunders into a
dot that has all its trails filled (ie: enters on the last trail) it dies.
Worms are not stupid creatures but have a limited intelligence and the ability
to learn new patterns of behaviour. Worms come in two personality types. The
"user type" worms are spineless creatures that always want someone to tell them
what to do whenever they come to a new situation. To instruct this type of worm
on which path to take, use the left and right arrow keys to select the
appropriate coarse, and then press the return key. "Wild type" worms are a bit
on the beligerent side and do not want any one especially humans telling them
what to do. Wild worms would rather randomly pick a path they wish to embark
on. However like user worms wild worms will faithfully repeat patterns they
have previously encountered.
Multiple player game rules are as follows: Turn on one "user type" worm for
each player. set the rest of the worms to "wild type" or "off". the winner is
the player who gets the most points after all the worms have expired. Use the
"Reset All" function to start the game so that all worm memories are cleared.
(Note: this game can't be played on a monochrome system as all worms are the
same color.)
Solitaire game rules are as follows: Turn one or more "user type" worms on and
see if you can train it/them to fill the entire game board. (resulting in a
cumulative score of 400.)
Ctrl menu or control menu handles all the global functions associated with
controlling worms. the entrys in the control menu are detailed in the following
table:
Demo: Clear everything and start 4 "wild type" worms running.
New Board: Clear the game board only. All the worms' memories are left
intact.
Reset All: Clear the game board and all the worms' memories.
Quit: Leave the Night Crawlers program and go back to the desk top.
Halt: Stops the program.
Run: Restart the program. (note: using this entry is equivalent to pushing the
return key.)
Fast: Set the speed of the worms to fast.
Medium: Set the speed of the worms to normal speed.
Slow: Set the speed of the worms to slow.
Sound: Toggle the sound effects on and off.
Worm~1 through Worm~4 menus allow you to change the behaviour of individual
worms as well as turning them on and off. entrys in these menus are detailed
below.
User Mode: Switch the personality of the worm to "user type".
Reset User Mode: Switch the personality of the worm to "user type" and clear
the worm's memory.
Wild Mode: Switch the personality of the worm to "wild type".
Reset Wild Mode: Switch the personality of the worm to "wild type" and clear
the worm's memory.
Off: Turn the worm off. (note: selecting any of the above entrys turns the
worm on again)
valid keyboard entrys that you can make are described in the table below:
Left and right arrow keys: These keys allow you to select a direction for a
"user type" worm to go in. right rotates the cursor clockwise and left rotates
the cursor counter clock wise.
return and enter: These keys restart the program after it has been halted.
Undo: Exit the Night Crawlers program and return to the desk top.
Suggestions and comments can be sent to the author at:
Alan Ferguson
1235 Prospect Ave. S.W.
Calgary, Alta. Canada.
T2T-0X4
CAST is Calgary's Atari ST user group. We have a huge public domain library.
We would like to exchange programs with other groups and indivduals. Drop us a
line at:
CAST c/o box 594, postal station 'T'
Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
T2H-2H1
What does this plug for CAST have to do with Night Crawlers? Not much!