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Elk Attack - the video game.
Copyright 1996 Mark R. Hahn
Elk Attack was written in 1987 as a last gasp attempt to sell a 2600
cartridge before the VCS market completely disappeared. The name Elk Attack
is an inside joke, way inside. Elk Attack was never released. What you are
playing is an almost finished prototype game. It has a few rough edges, but
is playable. Please don't send me complaints about bugs in the game, there
are several.
Elk Attack is shareware. You are free to copy the binary file and give
copies to friends, just please include this file which explains the rules. You
are not allowed to charge for copies of Elk Attack. If you wish to charge for
the distribution of Elk Attack, either in its binary form, or in a cartridge
please contact me about purchasing production rights to the game.
The rules below were written assuming you were using a cartridge.
Descriptions of using the joystick, etc. will not be right if you are running
Elk Attack on a 2600 emulator.
I can be reached by email at:
hahndo@teleport.com or hahntronix@aol.com
Rules for ELK ATTACK
Insert the ELK ATTACK cartridge in your ATARI 2600 Video Computer
System (VCS). Turn the VCS on.
Plug a joystick into the left controller jack for a one player game,
insert another joystick into the right controller jack for a two player game.
Press the left joystick fire button to view the GAME OPTIONS screen.
Press the SELECT switch to choose a 1 PLAYER or a 2 PLAYER game. Use the
joystick to change the round number (1 is easiest, 10 is hardest). Push the
joystick up to increase the round number, pull it back to decrease the round
number.
Press the left joystick fire button to start the game. During the game
you may press RESET or SELECT to return to the game options screen.
THE ROLLER
Your player is called the ROLLER. You start the game with 5 lives.
You loose lives by running into ELK (but not always). You gain an extra life
for every 20000 points you score. You score points by eating the blocks on the
screen. You eat a block by moving your joystick in the direction of a block.
The ROLLER will shoot a beam at the nearest block in that direction, it will
then roll into and eat that block. If not block is present in the direction
selected, the ROLLER will move one unit in that direction (the screen is 11
units wide by 8 units high, thus the maximum number of blocks on a screen is
88). The current round is over when you eat all the blocks on the screen.
ENERGY BLOCKS
On every screen, there are some special blocks called ENERGY blocks.
ENERGY blocks make the ROLLER invulnerable to ELK collisions. Normally when
you collide with an ELK, you die. If you have eaten an ENERGY block, you
become energized and can roll over ELK, stunning them (you also score 500
points for this). While you are energized, your ROLLER will be changing
colors, and there will be a background sound. Eventually the energy you get
from an ENERGY block runs out. As your energy runs down, the ROLLER's color
changing will slow down, and the background sound will lower in pitch.
NOTE:
For now you remain energized for about eight seconds. The color
changes do not slow down as your energy runs down.
THOSE DEADLY KILLER ELK
Your opponent in this game are heavily mutated killer ELK (they don't
even have antlers and feet anymore). As you move from round to round, the ELK
get faster and smarter. At higher levels they can sense when you are energized
and move away from you. As they become more intelligent, they hang around
remaining blocks, making it harder for you to remove all blocks from the
screen.
NOTE:
The ELK do not currently behave completely as described above. They
are pretty stupid and their speeds need to be changed (it's too easy at the
beginning).
SCORING
You score points in two ways. When you eat a block, you send out a
beam at it first. The longer the beam, the more points you get (it is takes
more nerve to shoot a long beam, because you are vulnerable to ELK attack
while rolling up to the selected block). You get 10 points for a beam up to 2
units long. You get 20 points for a beam up to 4 units long. You get 40 points
for a beam up to 8 units long. You get 80 points for all beams over 8 units
long. You also score points by rolling over ELK (500 points). Rolling over ELK
is a nervy way to score points, as you must be sure not to run out of energy,
else you die.
ROUND OVER SCREEN
When a player completes a round, the ROUND OVER screen is displayed.
The player is shown his score and the number of the round he is about to start.
To start the next round, the player presses his fire button or moves his
joystick.
DEAD ROLLER SCREEN
When a player has a fatal ROLLER-ELK collision, the DEAD ROLLER screen
is displayed. The player is shown his current round and is told he is next. If
the game is in two player mode, the other player will be shown his round
number and told to go next. The player resumes play by pressing the fire
button.
GAME OVER SCREEN
Alas we all come to this screen sooner or later. High scores are
displayed here. If the player presses his fire button, he is returned to the
GAME OPTIONS screen. The round displayed will be the number of the highest
round the player finished. The player may thus continue playing at higher
levels of difficulty without having to mess with the easy early rounds.
NOTE:
There should be some extra reward for starting at a higher round
number, say 1000 points per round number. The player would collect this
reward after finishing his first selected round (e.g. if the player selects
round 10 and finishes it without blowing all his lives, he gets an extra 10000
points added to his score and some appropriate message is shown on the ROUND
OVER screen).
TWO PLAYER MODE
In two player mode, players alternate each time one of them loses a
ROLLER life.
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