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Text File | 1985-02-13 | 10.6 KB | 331 lines

3 - D e m o n A Chase And Be Chased Game in 3D by John D. Price and Rick Richardson 1. GETTING STARTED 3-Demon requires an IBM Personal Computer with at least 128 kilobytes of memory, one single-sided disk drive, a color graphics adapter, and a black and white, or a color monitor. To start 3-Demon, simply type 3-Demon at the DOS command prompt. After a few seconds, you will be asked what type of display you have. Press the "b" key if you have a black and white display, or press the "c" key if you have a color display. You will then be in the 3-Demon "attract" mode until you select a game level. To return from 3-Demon to PC-DOS, first finish playing any game in progress (or end the game by pressing the "Esc" key). Then press the "Esc" key to return to PC-DOS. 2. GAME PLAY The object of 3-Demon is to descend through the various mazes without being eaten by the ghouls. The measure of your success is the number of points you accumulate before all of your lives are devoured. In 3-Demon you are not simply a voyeur, watching from a safe perch above the action. You are the main character, running through the hallways and fleeing from the ghouls. The ghouls in 3-Demon chase you through the various mazes. You must attempt to avoid them in your search for the food dots. The power pills allow you to turn the tables on the ghouls, chasing and eating them. Be careful. Your power does not last forever. When you have eaten most of the food in a maze, you will fall down to the next lower maze. The radar display aids you in avoiding the ghouls. It allows you to see around corners, giving you a slight advantage over the ghouls who do not possess such advanced technology. 3. USING THE KEYBOARD Your movements are controlled using the keyboard. These are the meanings of the keys that are used: Up Cursor Move forward, down the hall. You cannot walk through walls. If you hold this key down, you will move forward as far and as fast as you can, until you hit a wall. -> Turn to the right. To turn down a hallway, you must be next to the doorway. Otherwise, you will turn and face a wall. <- Turn to the left. 5 Turn around, facing where you came from. Good to check for trailing ghouls, and to change direction in a hurry. Down Cursor Go down to the next maze. This only works if you have eaten half the food in that maze. Good for quick escapes. Esc Give up and exit that game. Wimp. Num Lock Quiet. Good for late night or you-really- should-be-working games. Press Num Lock again and the hallways become noisy places to wander. Scroll Lock Pause. Take a break. Press Scroll Lock again to resume play. H Help! What key do I hit to get that break? Large + key Display the maze floor plan. Where am I? The maze plan is always displayed so that travelling forward would move you towards the top of the screen. 4. THE SCREEN The 3-Demon display screen is divided into two major areas as depicted below: +-------------------------------+---------------+ | | 3-Demon | | | LEVEL LL | | | hh:mm:ss | | | fd% score | | | lives | | 3D Display of Maze | | | 2D Maze Map | +---------+ | | | | | | | | n| o | | | | | radar | | | | +---------+ | | | | +-------------------------------+---------------+ The left side of the screen usually displays a three dimensional (3D) view of the maze as it appears to you, standing in a hallway. When the large plus key has been pressed, this display switches to a conventional map of the maze and play is paused. There is a slight penalty in going to the 2D maze map, so use of this mode is recom- mended only for finding those last few food dots. The mazes are not very difficult, and you will soon learn them by playing 3-Demon. The right hand side of the screen contains several indica- tions of how well you are doing. "score" is your accumu- lated score. "LL" is your descent level in the 3-Demon mazes. "hh:mm:ss" is the elapsed time since you began playing. "fd" is the percent of food dots you have eaten. You do not have to eat all of the food dots to descend to the next level. When this number reaches 100%, you will automatically descend to the next level. "lives" indicates how many lives you have remaining. Each remaining life is indicated by a smiling face on the display. Below the status indicators are two instrument displays. When you became trapped in the 3-Demon mazes, you weren't left empty handed. You have a compass and a radar to detect nearby objects. The compass is a small arrow (marked "n" above) which always points towards true north. It is useful for making your way to a specific part of the maze. The on screen "radar" display is useful to avoid becoming trapped by a ghoul. Your position is always centered in the display and marked by an open square ("o" in the diagram above). Ghouls appear on the display as filled in squares, and floating stars appear as 'x'. The radar display is always oriented so that travelling forward moves you toward the top of the radar display (top of screen). The radar has a limited range and capability, and will not show you the location of far away ghouls, walls, power pills, or food. 5. LEVELS OF PLAY There are ten levels of play, 0-9. Level 0 is for learning only, with no monsters to distract you. Levels 1-9 are gradual increases in difficulty. As play levels increase you move faster, the mazes become more difficult and the ghouls are smarter and quicker. Start out at a low play level. 6. SCORING Since the final objective of the game is to get the highest score, an understanding of the scoring weights is important to develop a good strategy. Here are the scores: Food Dots 10 Power Pills 50 First Ghoul 200 Second Ghoul 400 Third Ghoul 800 Fourth Ghoul 1600 Floating Star At least 250 Finishing a Maze 80 * Depth In addition, as your score passes 5000 you will gain another life. After that, you will receive extra lives at increasing intervals (greater that 5000 points). 7. HIGH SCORE LISTS Your 3-Demon disk will store the ten highest scores for each play level. If you are skilled enough to be among the top ten scorers at that play level, you will be given a chance to enter you name in the list. Just type in your name or nickname, and be immortalized. 8. TACTICS Here are a few tips to help you get on the honor role: 1. Finish off the maze instead of using the down key. You do not get points when using the down key. 2. Turn often when being chased by ghouls. If they cannot see you down the hallway they soon forget you. 3. Be careful when you get to lower depths; the ghouls move faster. 4. Learn to recognize the sounds. They can tip you off to important events. 5. Use the radar screen. It allows you to "see" around corners and avoid nearby ghouls. 6. Play at level 0 for a while to get the feel of the three dimensional display. Use the maze map to help you learn the floor plan of the maze. 7. Once you get proficient at using the keys, you will find that the fastest way to move around the maze is to hold the Up Arrow (forward) key down. To turn and keep moving, simply time your press of the right or left arrow keys so that you press them at the same time as you reach a hallway. You do not need to release the Up Arrow key to make a turn.