Loadstar 128 #39/q39.d81/t.blockheads

Text File | 1993-01-01 | 7.9 KB | 203 lines

                            B L O C K H E A D S

                  Program and Text by K. and Ron Slaminko


"The blockheads have taken over the brickyard. Your job - get rid of 'em."

 BLOCKHEADS: THE GAME
 --------------------

    This is a "falling blocks" game, but it's not TETRIS. It's a lot more.
There are 100+ screens (or levels) in this game, each 16 spaces wide by 19
high. To finish a screen, eliminate all the blockheads. At the beginning of
each level, you are presented with a menu of options:

 S - save current game to disk
 L - load a saved game from disk
 J - jump to any level
 Q - quit
 RETURN or joystick FIRE button - start current level

 SAVE - saves the current game status (last level completed and score)  to
disk. Filename is pre-pended with "bhsav." so the entered name is limited
to 10 characters.

 LOAD - presents a list of saved games on the disk. Use the CRSR UP/DOWN
keys to highlight the desired file and press RETURN or use the joystick
UP/DOWN to highlight and press the FIRE button to load.

 JUMP - lets you jump directly to any level for practice.

 QUIT - ends the game after an "are you sure" prompt. If you've made a top
10 score, enter your initials at the prompt.


 PLAYING A LEVEL
 ---------------

    Blockheads are the funny looking guys with the square heads and bad
hair. There are four blockhead colors: red, blue, green, and purple. To
eliminate a blockhead, drop 3 (or 4) squareblocks (outlined, solid squares)
of the same color on his head. Blocks of various types fall 2 at a time
from the top of the screen. When a block lands on something, its companion
immediately falls straight down as far as possible (except "sticky" blocks
-- see below).

    Use these controls to maneuver the blocks:

                  KEYBOARD       JOYSTICK PORT 2
                  --------       ---------------
 Move left      cursor left          left
 Move right     cursor right         right
 Move down      cursor down          down
 Rotate cw      cursor up            up
 Drop           SPACE bar            button
 Pause          p                    (use keyboard)

 Press any key or the FIRE button to resume a paused game.

     In addition to blockheads and square blocks, several other types of
blocks may appear on each screen: obstacles, weapons, and others.

 Obstacles: you can't get rid of these by stacking them up.

 Bricks - (look like the playing field outline except gray) the most common
obstacle.

 Glass - (doesn't look like anything) just like bricks but invisible - you
won't know it's there until you land on it.

 Steel - (in I-beam form) stronger than bricks - impervious to bombs.

 Diamond - (shaped like, well, a diamond) harder than glass - impervious to
bombs and acid.

 Kudzu - (ugly brown plant) a fast growing weed. Only a blockhead would
plant kudzu.

 Weapons: use these to clear things out of the way.

 Bombs - (round things with fuses) destroys whatever it lands on except
blockheads (They wear armor), steel, or diamonds.

 Nukes - (red missile-like things) destroys a 3x3 area around itself, but
won't harm blockheads (It's really good armor).

 Acid - (green stuff in a flask) eats through everything below it (down to
the bottom of the screen), even blockheads, but is stopped by diamonds.

 Miscellaneous:

 Transformer - (the question marks) these change into whatever they land
on. If one lands on a blockhead, it changes into a squareblock of the same
color.

 Bonus - (the big yellow $ signs) score extra points or get other good
stuff by stacking 4 or 5 of these. The first bonus completed in a level
turns on the look-ahead feature. The second displays level parameters (how
many bombs, what speed, stuff like that). Subsequent bonuses could be any
of the following:

 \  kill all kudzu
 \  make the background visible
 \  turn off sticky blocks
 \  make next pair acid/nuke
 \  make next pair 2 transformers
 \  400 points.

    Other variables:

 Background - may be visible or clear. A visible background makes it easier
to see where you are.

 Sticky blocks - if turned on, blocks don't fall when their companion
lands. This can make space utilization tricky. In some levels, only some of
the blocks are stuck together.

 Speed - falling speed of blocks is different from level to level and may
vary within a level.

 Vanish - Sometimes, the falling blocks will disappear from the screen for
a brief period.


 SCORING
 -------

    You get 100 points for eliminating a blockhead (without using acid),
400 (sometimes) for a bonus stack, and 200 for finishing a level. You also
get 1 point for each empty square in the brickyard when you finish a level,
so neatness counts. If you die on a level (there's no room for new blocks),
you lose all points earned that level and 200 more as a penalty.


 BONUS LEVELS
 ------------

    There are 100 designed levels in this game. All are solvable (some
require a bit of luck). If you complete all 100 levels, an infinite number
of extra levels will be randomly generated. Random levels may not be
solvable, and will be different each time you play the game.


 PLAYING TIPS
 ------------

 \ You can get rid of some unwanted blocks (like the wrong color on a
blockhead) by building a stack of 4 or 5 matching blocks, or with bombs,
nukes, or acid. Not every level will include weapons, however, so stash
junk wisely!

 \ Acid will destroy blockheads, but you don't get points that way.

 \ Destroy, or at least contain, kudzu as quickly as possible.


 FENDER'S POSTMUMBLE: I wish you could have been here at the Tower when I
first booted up this game. Starting with the on-screen instructions, then
moving swiftly into the game itself, and actually solving the first level,
I was transformed from my usual dour, curmudgeon-like self into a raving
madman running down the halls shouting about a fantastic new submission
that works and looks like LOADSTAR at its best, and takes up a bunch of
blocks!

 BLOCKHEADS is truly the most "ready-to-go" program submission I've ever
received...and it's not from a regular contributing programmer. It's Ron
Slaminko's first C-128 program. I had to do NOTHING to the game code. So I
called him and thanked him profusely for sending it to me, and begged him
to come up with a couple more programs of this quality this year. If I were
you, I'd stick around to find out if he does.

 I've seen several games like this on the PC but this is by far the best
version I've seen for the C-128 (or C-64 for that matter). It's a variation
of the TETRIS-falling blocks theme, but with all of the obstacles, weapons
and other miscellaneous gadgets you'll encounter, it's really a lot more
fun. And what I really liked is that the lower levels are pretty easy to
"solve", while the higher levels are so tough that only true BLOCKHEADs
will be able to solve them. With 100 levels built in, and an infinity of
random levels, this is a game that will never end for you. Plus, you can
Jump to any level you want, even the ones you aren't really ready for yet.

 The program that you play is compiled with the Abacus compiler, but since
there's room on this issue, I've included the BASIC source code,
"bhsource". I have no plans of trying to improve or add to Ron's great
game, but if any ambitious programmer out there has some ideas for new
obstacles, weapons or features, you have the code. If ever a game didn't
NEED improvement, BLOCKHEADS is that game, but just in case, the source
code is there. Of course, since Ron Slaminko wrote the original code, and
LOADSTAR owns the copyright, I expect any new version of it to be sent to
me for publication on LOADSTAR. If you do a bangup job, I'll see that you
are compensated for it.

 By the way, I found the game to be a little too swift at 20 MHz so I
turned the SuperCPU's speed to normal in the boot file (the instructions
file). If you have a SuperCPU V2 and want to see for yourself, just load
"blockheads" and REM out line 57.

 Enough of this chatter. Get into BLOCKHEADS.

                 \\\\\ R - Run   RETURN - Menu \\\\\