DOOMSDAY CASTLE - FANTASY SOFTWARE

It is common knowledge that in the deepest recesses of time there
existed a race of strange diminutive creatures often referred to as
elves who had amazing magical powers. For some obscure reason these
creatures took it upon themselves to cast magical rings and things in
which they invested awesome powers. You'd have thought that they would
have looked after these rings pretty well but oh no, the elves managed
to lose them all at one time or another with the result that the
entire Universe is strewn with the things, usually in the daftest of
places; the craters of volcanoes, bottoms of swamps etc. All this has
caused no end of trouble since although intended for doing good their
power inevitably ends up in the hands of some evil so-and-so out to do
no good at all.

Just for a change one day, obviously fed up with casting magic rings
to lose, the elves collected 6 large stones in which they invested the
power to influence the mind.

As a safeguard against misuse they introduced a destruct mechanism
whereby if the stones are in close proximity in a confined space their
combined power would be too great, causing a chain reaction and in
seconds, total annihilation.

The elves, of course, lost the six stones and we find them some
millions of years later turning up in the hands of the infinitely evil
Scarthax ('infinitely evil' is perhaps a slight exaggeration but he
really is a nasty piece of work and no other adjective seemed to fit
as well!). Scarthax discovered the destruct mechanism and built
Doomsday Castle to house them safely apart but close enough to use
their power and radiate it throughout the cosmos to corrupt and bring
every creature in the Universe within his influence.

Fortunately for us, there is an enormous waiting list of budding
super-heroes all eager to do battle with the forces of evil (this is
really quite surprising since the survival rate among new recruits is
pitifully low). Of these super-heroes, Ziggy is a legend in his own
lifetime, a super-hero to end all super-heroes and it is his role that
you have the privilege of taking in this game. For those of you who
have bought 'THE PYRAMID' Ziggy will need no further introduction. For
those of you who haven't, I suggest you go out and buy it immediately
and find out all about him.

Before revealing the details of the game it is worth giving you some
information about the various creatures you will be doing battle with
and the capability of your exploratory capsule.


URKS

Urks are perhaps the most unusual creatures in the entire Universe.
They have the obscurest reproductive system of any creature yet
catalogued in the Encyclopaedia Galactica which devotes a whole volume
to the amazingly intricate mechanism. Unfortunately, due to its
extreme complexity the process often goes wrong with the result that
Urks take on some very peculiar forms and are highly unstable.
Scarthax has recruited a whole army of Urks to defend Doomsday Castle.
Due to their instability Urks are highly dangerous creatures as they
will atomize on contact with foreign objects releasing a large burst
of theta radiation. Consequently, Urks have a very restricted social
life. You will meet Urks descending on you from the tops of both the
Halls and the Passages.


GARTHROGS

Garthrogs are singularly unintelligent. Once told to do something they
will continue to do it until some indeterminate time in the future
when they will suddenly forget what it is they were supposed to be
doing. Garthrogs tend to be taken advantage of and usually end up
doing jobs that no one else could consider fit to do. It is a fact
that whenever someone has had the misguided goodwill to give a
Garthrog a task of some responsibility, it has forgotten the task at
the very most inopportune moment. Garthrogs are therefore destined for
a life of total servitude. This is really just as well since they are
virtually indestructible and could reek havoc throughout the Universe
did they have a mind to. They appear to have a continual smirk on
their face which can turn to a frown should you upset them by shooting
them or something, but this exceptional show of emotion doesn't last
long and they soon get back on with the job in hand. Scarthax has
Positioned Garthrogs on lifts in each Hall and told them to shoot at
any intruder. You will not be surprised to learn that the Garthrog's
aim is rather poor and he is more likely to hit you by accident than
by design.


GOOGLY BIRDS

Googly Birds are phenomenally nasty but very sleepy. Googly Birds in
fact spend 99% of their extremely long life-span asleep and object
very strongly to being woken up. Undisturbed, a Googly Bird has been
known to nod off for over a thousand years. When an intruder is
present in a Hall the Urks have the unenviable task of keeping the
Googly Bird on the job by landing on top of its head and waking it
up. Once awake, the Googly Bird takes off for a short fly, on the way
up releasing a highly destructive thread which flies around the Hall
at amazing speed bouncing off everything in sight. The thread is
highly energised and will absorb a large amount of shield power. After
his fly the Googly Bird settles down and immediately nods off
again. You will soon realise that it is VERY important to prevent the
Urks from waking up the Googly Bird.


NEUCLOIDS

Neucloids are among the most primitive of creatures, consisting of a
nucleus and a surrounding nebulous radioactive plasma. Neucloids can
only be destroyed by hitting the nucleus, requiring a very accurate
aim. It is important to keep destroying the Neucloids as they are
released to prevent them from building up in numbers. For creatures of
their size Neucloids multiply at a startling rate, cell division
taking place every microsecond. This amazing rate of development has
evolved in response to their dramatically small life-expectancy. In
short, Neucloids are the most persecuted entities in the Universe. For
some reason other creatures, of whatever disposition, good, bad or
indifferent, find it extremely satisfying to blow innocent Neucloids
to smithereens. If Neucloids could feel emotion they would not be very
happy.


ORPHACS

Orphacs are programmed robotic bodies which fly using a rotary
mechanism and carry an energetic charge which is released on contact
with any intruder in a Passage. The program, unfortunately for
Scarthax, fortunately for you, was written by an Urk and consequently
is rather simple. Once released, on Orphac will fly a continuous path,
bouncing off any walls in its way until it meets an intruder.


THE EXPLORATORY CAPSULE

Your Capsule is manually operated with a computer override to prevent
you hitting walls etc, should you lose concentration. The computer
will also stop you doing silly things like flying into the Googly Bird
while he's asleep! You have a mini-missile launcher with which you can
destroy Urks, Neucloids, Orphacs and blast through doors. To protect
yourself you have a state of the art defensive shield with which you
can protect yourself against almost anything thrown at you. The shield
is powered by Heliconium Crystals from which energy is drawn on every
alien contact. When the Crystals are completely discharged you become
totally vulnerable to attack and will very soon get splatted all over
the screen. You enter Doomsday Castle with 1000 units of shield power
and the current value is continuously updated on the bottom of the
screen.


THE GAME

Doomsday Castle consists of a labyrinth of 25 Halls complexly
connected by a total of 49 Passages. Each Hall has 4 exits or
entrances which are secured by doors which can be either red or
blue. All doors are red initially but are sealed blue once they have
been passed through and are then totally impregnable.  You can shoot
the red doors out using your missile launcher and supercharging your
missiles by an automatic blast of theta radiation at the precise
moment of contact. After 16 door blasts your theta radiation supply
will be discharged which is indicated by the Capsule colour changing
from White to Yellow You can recharge it by destroying Urks with
missiles and absorbing their own theta radiation. You need to destroy
8 Urks to recharge which is indicated by the Capsule colour returning
to White. Once a door has been shot through sufficiently your Capsule
will be sucked out as soon as it passes within range and in line with
the exit. Care must be taken if you don't want to leave immediately.

Each Hall contains an ante-chamber which may contain a Crystal or one
of the six ancient stones. Access to an ante-chamber is by one of two
doors which are identical to the four exit doors. Once a door has been
shot out sufficiently the ante-chamber can be entered by moving into
it and the Crystal or stone is picked up automatically.

The Crystals are made of Heliconium, the very source of power for your
defensive shield and are therefore well worth collecting. The Crystals
may be red, magenta, green or cyan giving you an extra 200, 300, 400
or 500 units of shield power respectively.

On leaving a Hall you will pass through a narrow corridor where you
will be able to see your current status in the game before entering a
larger Passage where you will face a battle for survival. Once you
have entered the Passage the door closes permanently behind you. The
Exit Door on the far side cannot be shot out but is timelocked and
will open after a preset interval. Basically, you have to survive in
the Passage losing as little of your precious Shield Power as
possible. It is here that you meet the Neucloids and the Orphacs as
well, of course, as the omnipresent Urks. On passing through the exit
door you will enter directly into the next Hall where battle commences
again.

As you will probably already appreciate, the number of possible routes
through Doomsday Castle is mind-blowingly enormous, even to someone of
Ziggy's amazing mental capacity and herein lies the crux of the
game. Although the principal object is to score points by collecting
stones, this will only be best achieved by means of many
reconnaissance missions into the Castle gradually revealing the layout
and interconnections. This will enable you to plan the optimum route
to collect the stones and reach the Exit Hall.

The Exit Hall is distinctive in not having a Crystal or a stone in the
ante-chamber. If you enter the ante-chamber while carrying all six
stones they will be released and their presence together in this
confined space will spark off a chain reaction which will destroy the
stones and the Castle for eternity You have just a few seconds to
escape before the cataclysmic explosion. The Castle Exit Door is the
top right door in the Exit Hall and when passed through at any time
will result in the end of the game. (N.B. It's really not worth
rushing for the Exit Door because you won't see the very colourful
explosion, I'd hate you to miss it!)

The following four joystick options are available:

1. FULLER 2. KEMPSTON 3. CURSOR MAPPED 4. SINCLAIR

There are three keyboard options available and these are detailed on
the opening page when the game starts. The selected option stays in
force for the duration of the game.

The game an be held at any time by pressing "ENTER" on the
keyboard. It can be restarted in the same way.


SCORING

Doomsday Castle combines features of both Arcade and Adventure games
and consequently the scoring system is a little different to
usual. Points are ONLY gained for collecting stones; 10,000 for the
Blue, 20,000 for the Red, 30,000 for the Magenta, 40,000 for the
Green, 50,000 for the Cyan, and 70,000 for the White. A bonus of
50,000 is awarded for completing the mission, saving the Universe, and
emerging alive. All the time you spend in the Halls the points are
ticking away so speed is important in achieving the highest possible
score and planning the most effective route will be the best way of
saving time.

Each new high score in a game will be coded. Send your score and code
to us and you may earn a place in our ranking list of the top 1000
scorers published every 6 months. You may send as many scores as you
wish.

We hope you have many absorbing hours exploring and playing Doomsday
Castle and enjoy meeting all the various Urks of which there are 50 in
all to see. We can almost certainly guarantee that you will very soon
develop an extreme dislike for the Googly Bird but please remember, it
really only wants to be left alone to sleep!

This program may not be copied, hired out, lent, printed or broadcast by any 
means without prior written permission of Fantasy Software Ltd.

COPYRIGHT © FANTASY SOFTWARE LTD. 1983

(They're the official words but really you guys, play the game and
keep this game to yourself. By all means make a back-up copy for your
own use but if a friend wants a copy tell him to go buy one
himself-does he realise the amount of effort that goes into producing
a game like this-does he realise that software houses can only afford
to produce high quality games if the public is prepared to pay for
them. Your co-operation will result in the standards continuing to
increase as we can afford to put more time and effort into each game
-anyway it's illegal and we might just send Ziggy around!)

DOOMSDAY CASTLE was designed and written by Bob Hamilton.

Many thanks are due to Darren Hamilton, Ian Hamilton, Jane Claricoates
and Marion Butler for help with graphics and to Ann Scott for
supplying much essential tea and testing.

Do not hesitate to send us your scores and codes printing your name
and address in BLOCK CAPITALS please. You will receive the current
newsletter of the Fantasy Micro Club by return post. Please quote your
membership number if you already have one.

FANTASY SOFTWARE,
FAUCONBERG LODGE,
27A ST.GEORGES ROAD,
CHELTENHAM,
GLOS GL50 3DT.

[ Converted to ASCII text format for WOS archive by David J Corbett,
  07-jan-2005 ]
