Mongoose

A snake is trapped within the confines of an apple orchard. (Which varies from
frame to frame.)  You must keep the snake moving and eat as many winfalls as
possible to increase its length because close on it's tail is a Mongoose which
given half a chance will bite a chunk out of the snakes tail. Thus the game
requires considerable concentration and dexterity to achieve a good score.

A copy of 'Mongoose' is recorded on each side of the cassette, and both copies
have been VERIFIED to ensure they will LOAD. The program has been given the name
"mongoose" so to LOAD and RUN type;

    LOAD "mongoose" and press 'ENTER'

then start the tape recorder PLAYING. When it has LOADED stop the tape and then
rewind as leaving a tape in the middle could cause stretching and thus you would
lose your program.

The game will start up with a summary of the instructions, and pressing any key
will give the next page.

When you play the game it will draw a set pattern depending on the frame you are
on, with random additions to the pattern, to give a different orchard each time.
It will then fill the orchard with an initial amount of apples which continue to
fall randomly during the play.

The head of the snake flashes and its direction of movement can be controlled
using the arrow keys.

The scoring system is slightly unusual in that it provides three values;

  (i) The TOTAL of the scores from previous frames. 

 (ii) The TIME remaining which is less each frame.

(iii) The SCORE for the current frame. This starts off negative (more so on each
subsequent frame). You must make this positive by eating the apples before the
TIME runs out to pass onto the next frame. Any positive score is added to your
TOTAL.

    MAY THE APPLES BE WITH YOU!

Please note that the overall speed of the game is controlled by the loop at line
250. Changing the number multiplying 'di' will affect the speed. For the fastest
game delete the line, or change di at line 1240 to a 0.