Club Amiga de Montreal

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Text File | 1990-12-03 | 13.4 KB | 276 lines

Zombie Mall Rules Background A mysterious force has afflicted the earth, causing the dead to rise up and attack the living. The more they kill, the more the numbers of the undead are increased by their victims. The zombies do not retain their living personalities nor do they have any recollection of their previous lives; instead they are almost mindless, unable to perform even simple tasks such as opening a door. However, what they lack in mental capacity they make up for with their inability to feel pain or fatigue, and their relentless hunger for living human flesh. The only way a zombie can be stopped is to destroy its brain. Before an effective defense can be mounted to combat the growing menace, all organized resistance is swept away. Small groups of survivors are forced to flee populated areas to escape the wandering hordes of undead. One such group, consisting of three men and a woman, chance upon a deserted shopping mall and decide to take it over. Their plan is to seal the mall to prevent any more zombies from entering it and to destroy all those trapped inside. Having secured the mall, they hope to be able to stay alive long enough to be rescued. You command these brave individuals in their desparate attempt to control Zombie Mall. Beginning the Game To start the game, simply double-click on the Zombie icon and the game will commence. There will be a few minutes delay as it loads the sound and graphics files. This delay can be lessened by transferring the game files to either a hard disk or ram disk and assigning the volume name zombie: to that device or directory. After the title screen is displayed, the game screen will appear. In the top left of this screen you will see the floor plan of the mall. The dark brown lines represent brick walls, the blue lines are glass walls, and the apertures represent open doors. The upper right area of the screen contains the characters' status boxes. Below the character's name are displayed his or her available movement (M) and shots (S) per turn. The format for these values is two numbers separated by a slash. The number before the slash represents the number of movement points (shots) used up this turn, and the number after the slash is the total number of movement points (shots) the character can make use of in a turn. Below these statistics is an indication of what type of weapon the character is carrying (W) and the character's health (initially OK). In the bottom left of the screen is a small area in which messages appear describing events occurring in the game. Occasionally, questions will appear to which the user is expected to respond either yes or no. In the bottom right of the screen are gadgets used to control the characters' actions and to display the help screens and the score. They will be described in a later section. When the game has finished loading, you will be asked if you want shopping music. Press either 'y' or 'n' to choose. Throughout the game you can use the 'm' key to toggle music on or off. Winning the Game As the leader of the group of humans, your job is to gain control of the shopping mall by destroying all of the zombies inside and closing the outer doors of the mall to prevent any more zombies from entering. When these objectives are accomplished, you will win the game. If all of your characters are killed or become zombies, you will lose. There are objects in the mall which the characters can pick up and use to help you on your mission. Sequence of Play The game is played as a sequence of alternating human and zombie turns. The computer controls the zombies, you control the humans. The human turn is conducted by selecting a character or group of characters who are together and then moving them and shooting at zombies. When human movement and shooting is complete, select the "DONE" button and the zombie turn will commnece. The zombies will move toward any character which moved in the last human turn, if they saw the movement. If any zombie ends its movement on the same square as a character, it will attack the character(s) with whom it shares the square. When these attacks, if any, are complete, it becomes the human turn once again. Human Movement You must first choose which character or characters to move. This can be done in two ways: either click the mouse on the desired character's status box, or click on the human figure (the ones with guns) in the map display. If more than one character is in the same square, all of their status boxes will turn blue to indicate that the character or characters are active. When a character or characters become active, all zombies within their field of vision become visible. You can click on each of the characters' boxes in turn to check their positions before selecting one to move. Once you begin to move or fire a character or group you are committed to moving only it that turn. Any characters that have moved in the previous turn may not move in the next turn (ie. they cannot move two turns in a row). You may still select characters who moved in the previous turn to check their position and situation, but if you try to move them they will become unselected. After a group is selected, you can choose to split the group up by clicking on the status boxes of those characters you wish to leave behind. Once you begin to move the group, it cannot be split. To move the character group, use either the arrow gadgets at the bottom of the display or the numeric key pad. As they move, you will notice that the movement number to the left of the slash in their status boxes will increment to indicate how many movement points they have used up. It costs one movement point to enter a square. Characters may not pass through an open door diagonally or through a closed door at all. The cost to open or close an interior door is two movement points. Closing an exterior door requires a full turn. Entering a zombie-occupied square costs one movement point, but exiting the square can cost between two and twelve movement points, depending on the strength of the zombie unit. The active characters' movement amount is determined by the character with the least number of movement points. So if Shane and Leo are moving together, they will be limited to twelve movement points per turn for every turn they are together. Every movement turn the characters get their full movement allowance back, so there is no accumulation of movement points between turns. Doors and Objects Characters may open and close interior doors at any time during their turn at the cost of two movement points. Since zombies are too brain-dead to operate a door knob, this is an effective way of limiting their freedom of movement and protecting your characters. The outer doors of the mall require much more effort to close. To close an outer door, the character must end its movement adjacent to the outer door. On that character's next turn it may close the door by expending all of its movement points. The method of operating a door is as follows: click on the gadget with a picture of a door (or press 'd'). The message will appear, "Which direction?", and you must select the direction of the door in relation to the active character. The direction may be selected by clicking on an arrow gadget or using the numeric keypad. It can also be selected by clicking on the square on the opposite side of the door in question from the active character. There are two types of objects in the game which characters may pick up: rifles and serum. Only Leo and Lana may pick up rifles since Burl and Shane already have rifles. Any character may pick up serum. The rifles will give Leo and Lana double the offensive power that they have when carrying pistols. The serum will cure any infected player (infection will be described later). The serum will always be found in Columbia Drugs and the rifles will always be found in Guns 'R' Us, but the locations of these stores will change from game to game. To discover the names of shops, use the mouse while moving to click on empty (or occcupied) squares and their names will appear in the message area. Shooting Each character carries a weapon and can use it to destroy zombies. Leo and Lana carry pistols, which are only half as effective as the rifles carried by Shane and Burl. There is, however, a sporting goods store where rifles may be obtained to replace the pistols. Shooting zombies when their is only one active character (count the blue status boxes) consists of selecting the "FIRE" button and then a target. The right mouse button performs the same function as the fire button. When you choose "FIRE" the mouse pointer turns into a crosshair, which you then place over your intended target and click the left mouse button to fire. When there is more than one active character, you must choose the characters who are to fire (the "shooters") before selecting the target. For example, say Shane, Leo and Lana are active and there is a zombie they wish to terminate. Select fire by clicking the right mouse button; a message appears saying, "Choose shooter(s)", at which point you may choose one or two (never more than two) characters to fire. Select Shane and Lana to fire by clicking on their status boxes (messages appear saying "Shane takes aim",etc.) and then click with the left mouse button on the zombie. There will be two shots fired and both characters will have their shot counts incremented by one. Needless to say, two characters firing at the same target have a better chance of destroying their target than one does. The closer a character is to its target, the better the chance it will have of destroying the target. A character may fire at a target in its own square, but runs the risk of panicking and losing the opportunity to fire. The best place to shoot from is from an square adjacent to the target. Characters also get an opportunity at "self-defense fire" when they are attacked by zombies during the zombie turn. Before the zombie attack is resolved, the players get one free shot at their attacker, but it does not count towards the characters' limit for the turn. This fire occurs automatically, so you do not have to conduct it yourself. Zombies Zombies are very stupid and slow moving. They usually just stand around not doing much of anything, but they are attracted to movement and can sense when food (you) is nearby. When a character moves through the field of vision of a zombie, the zombie will move one square towards the character which moved. Occasionally, zombies can become extremely excited and will go berserk, even smashing through glass walls to get at their prey. Berserk zombies can be identified by a flashing yellow outline. If one of the characters is bitten by a zombie, it will become infected with the zombie disease. Once infected, it is only a matter of time before the unfortunate character becomes a zombie too. This new zombie can be identified by a flashing outline and a letter 'S' on its chest. It is like any other zombie, except that it is scarier, so characters trying to shoot it will experience a greater chance of panicking. There is one possible reprieve for an infected character: find the serum located in the mall drug store and use it. If another character has the serum, the infected character should join that character, and in the next turn, it will get the chance of using the serum and being cured. The other possible outcome of tangling with a zombie is being stunned. A stunned character can neither move nor fire, and will remain that way until another character enters its square. If the stunned character already shares its square with an unstunned character at the time of stunning, that unstunned character will have to exit the square and re-enter it in order to revive the stunned character. Game Credits Hobie Orris Game Design and Implementation, Rules Derek Grime Pictures and Zombie Deaths Edgar LeBel Shopping Muzak David Pengelly Serum Idea Anne Ostrom Much Playtesting