MIRRORSOFT

CRACK IT! TOWERS! For puzzle fans of any age


VISITORS' GUIDE BOOK.

A MESSAGE FROM THE OWNER

Good day, my friends,

It appears that you are under the misguided impression that you can
crack the secret of Crack It! Towers. Well, I think we should get one
or two things straight before we start.

Crack It's the name, and evil's my game - so beware the curse of Count
Crack It!

You wouldn't want to cross me, now would you...?

If you really think you can claim all seven golden keys and steal the
secret of my powers from the innermost reaches of the Towers, you had
better read this guidebook thoroughly...or you won't have a bat's
chance in hell...! I can take on all sorts of different disguises, and
my pets will be out to get you too. You'd better be able to swim, too,
as if you fail a single challenge, you'll be in the moat before you
can say SPLASH! You need seven golden keys to even attempt entry to
the last secret room. My pets will grab every opportunity to steal
them from you, but you can win bonus keys in the Maze of Skulls.

You'll find all the practical help for taking up the challenge on your
computer on the back of the inlay card. What follows here is the
theory - you just have to trust that I'm not misleading you...

IMPORTANT NOTE

Before you can enter any of the rooms, you have to pass my manic
mental arithmetic tests - thinking caps on now!


ROOM 1

This is the home of the first of my pets - Oswald the Rubber-Necked
Duck. You must guess what he wants for his dinner today, and if you
get it right, Oswald will gobble up the word (instead of you, heh,
heh, heh).

Try different letters, one at a time, until you can complete the word.
Each time you press a letter that is in the word, it will appear in
its correct place. Letters that are not in the word appear in a
'reject; line at the bottom of the screen. You have nine tries to get
it right, and if you use a letter twice, you'll automatically fail.

HINT: Try the commonest letters of the alphabet first - you should be
able to make an educated guess once you've got some of the letters
right.


ROOM 2

My second pets are not very pretty to look at - but neither am I, so
we get along fine! However, they are rather stupid, as they keep
asking you to shoot them - but watch out, because they've trapped you
in their ranks, too.

The maximum number of shots you can have each time is given at the top
of the screen. Choose a number to shoot and type it in. They start
disappearing from the right-hand end. Now it's my turn to get rid of a
few of the ugly little blighters. You are at the left-hand end, and if
you manage to avoid shooting yourself, you'll win a golden key.

HINT: Work out a plan of action quickly before you start playing and
you should manage to survive.


ROOM 3

This is where I keep my nocturnal friends, the black bats. They won't
like you and your laser gun one bit, and will use their radar-guided
sonar bombs to get you out of their hideaway as quickly as they can.
To survive, you must fire on them and keep yourself out of their
firing line.(Page 4)

You can avoid the bombs by pressing X and Z to move your laser left or
right - but if it's hit, you'll fail the challenge. At the bottom of
the screen, you'll see a take-away sum, and at the top different
numbers will appear in quick succession. Press SPACE when you spot the
right answer - if you're right, your automatic gun will knock one out.
Then a different sum appears. You must knock out five bats before you
get to win your key.

HINT: If you miss the right answer, it will come round again, but
you'll have lost valuable time.


ROOM 4

This is my swimming pool, where young Jim the Jellyfish has his daily
work-out. Unfortunately for him, I also let my sharks exercise here at
the same time. (I have to keep him on his multitudinous toes somehow!)

Start by typing in the number of the lane Jim is to swim down. He'll
move there and start swimming down from the top automatically, and
you'll get you key when he reaches the finish line. But beware! A
warning will sound when a shark is near, and he'll poke his nose out
right in Jim's way, and a sequence of numbers will appear at the
bottom of the screen. Work out the next number in the sequence, type
it in and press RETURN or ENTER. If you get it right, Jim will swallow
the shark whole. But if the shark wins, you'll find yourself in the
moat.

HINT: One of the lanes is completely free of sharks - but I'm
certainly not going to tell you which one. It changes every time you
play, anyway.


ROOM 5

This room's not for the squeamish - it's my spiders' playroom. Today,
they're all dangling off the ceiling, ready to drop on you at any
minute. But if you're clever, you can make them drop on your stick of
dynamite instead.

At the centre left of the screen is a multiplication sum. Work out the
answer, type it in and press RETURN or ENTER, and one of the spiders
will start sliding down towards you. By pressing the X and Z keys to
move the dynamite left and right, manoeuvre it to the point where the
spider will land, so he will self-destruct on impact. Then a new sum
will appear. You need to hit three spiders before you can claim your
key.

HINT: There's no cheating allowed either - you can't hit two spiders
at the same time.


ROOM 6

This is where my extraterrestrial playmate, Albert the Alien, lives.
For reasons best known to himself, he feels most at home in a
minefield. If you can guide him right across the minefield, he'll let
you take the golden key.

At the top of the screen, you'll see the word DIRECTION. Choose which
direction you want Albert to move - N(orth), S(outh), E(ast), or
W(est), and type it in. Then STEPS will appear. Choose how far he
should move and type it in. Then STEPS will appear. Choose how far he
should move and type in a number between 1 and 9. Albert will then
move, following your instructions (someone really should tell him
who's boss round here - he seems to follow anyone around). Landing on
a mine means instant death for both of you.

HINT: Try to plan one move ahead as you go - you only have a limited
time to complete the journey.


ROOM 7

Things are getting pretty spooky up here - this is the Haunted Tower
and only my spectral friends from 'the other side' (ghosts to you) can
stand the creepy atmosphere.

Once the tower has materialised, you'll see a row of letters jumbling
around at the bottom of the screen. Work out what the word is and type
in the first letter as quickly as you can. If you're right, you must
then type the rest of the word in correctly. Press RETURN or ENTER and
hey presto! you win another golden key. But like everything else at
Crack It! Towers, nothing's quite as simple as it looks. As soon as
the letters start jumbling, my ghosts will start drifting across the
screen, one at a time, to bite large chunks out of the tower. If all
five make it to the other side before you've solved the problem, the
tower will collapse, and you'll be in the moat again!

HINT: Plan your strategy carefully, as you can't press a key while
there's a ghost on the move.


ROOM 8

Come on! You didn't really think I was going to give you any clues at
this stage, did you?


BONUS KEYS

Each time you successfully complete a challenge and gain a key, I'm
generous enough to offer you the chance of winning a bonus key in the
mysterious Maze of Skulls.

You can explore the maze in the helicopter I've provided using Z and X
to go left and right, and P and L to go up and down through the gaps
between the fences. Seventeen identical white skulls will appear in
the maze at random. Fourteen are quite harmless - you can fly right up
to them (you must be going forwards), press SPACE, and they'll
disappear. Two of the skulls are deadly - if you get too close to
them, they'll turn green and blow you up. But there is one skull which
hides a golden key - if you're lucky enough to find it, the skull will
transform itself.

HINT: Although this is a game of chance, I will give you one clue.
There's a number at the top of the screen which is something to do
with screen coordinates - but you'll have to work out what!


OTHER PROBLEMS IN STORE...

WHEN YOU FALL IN THE MOAT

Whenever you fail to complete one of my little tasks, you'll get a
ducking in the moat. However, as you will have realised by now, there
will be more than cute little ducklings swimming around in there.

My pernicious piranha fish have a taste for golden keys as well as
human flesh. You'll survive if you have no keys, but if you do have
any, watch out! The minute you hit the water, all three of them will
start heading towards you, and a question will appear at the top of
the screen. You must answer it before they get to you, or I won't be
responsible for the consequences!

THE GREEN SPIDER

As soon as you have at least one key, you're vulnerable. He will
appear from nowhere and eat your key...unless you hit SPACE first.
He'll go away then - for now.


THE BLUE SKULL

Once you have at least three keys, watch out for this one in the
castle doorway. You must hit SPACE before he can whizz out and swallow
up one of your keys.


THE UGLY BUG

When you've amassed four keys, he'll pop up on the left-hand side of
the screen and scuttle swiftly towards your hard-won hoard. Press
space as soon as he appears to block his path.


THE BLACK BAT

Just when you've chosen the next room to challenge, he'll glide out
through a window and hover longingly around your key score. A
three-letter word will appear at the top of the screen - but with one
letter missing. You have just ten seconds to select the right letter
to complete the word. Beware - there's usually more than one option,
but only one right answer!


THE WHITE GHOSTS

The first white ghost can jump out on you whenever he feels like it -
but he's not interested in your keys. His purpose in life is to
transport you to my dungeons and keep you there till you answer his
questions correctly - or his spiders will get you!

His sibling, the second white ghost, can only catch you when you've
amassed six keys (and you thought you were nearly there, didn't you?).
You must guess his age, or he'll steal a key. Be careful, you only
have a certain number of tries at this.


POWER FAILURE

Because Crack It! Towers is in the middle of nowhere, we sometimes get
power failures - just when they're least expected. You'll hear a big
bang when the generator blows, and everything will go black. To
restore the power, watch out for the word that will appear on the
screen - you must concentrate as it's only there for a few seconds.
Then type it in correctly, and bingo! the lights will come on again.
If you're wrong, one of my friends will creep up under cover of
darkness and steal one of you keys - but you won't be able to stop
him!

Well, that's all the help you're going to get from me - I think I've
told you far too much anyway, but the people who wrote the program
said I had to be reasonable, otherwise you wouldn't even bother to try
and breach the walls of my fortress.

I'd say 'Good Luck' if I were a nice person, but, as you know, that's
one thing I'm not!

Signed

Count Crack It!
Crack It! Towers
November 1985.
