swCHIP 1991 January/swCHIP_95-1.bin/hry/goud/gpdoc.txt

Text File | 1995-12-09 | 10KB | 197 lines

GOLD-PUSHER
by Erich Friedman, Daniδl Vree and Willem Vree.

GoldPusher is a game with a mixture of puzzles, strategy and action.

Features:

- *104* rooms with action, strategy and difficult puzzles.
- 5 monster-types, each with different behaviour and intelligence.
- choose your own order to complete the puzzle- and arcade rooms.
- save feature remembers which rooms you have completed
- snapshot feature can take you back into the middle of a puzzle
- topscore
- fast color animation
- lots of sound effects

GoldPusher requires MSWindows 3.1, consumes 900 kB of RAM,
Graphics in 256 colours. 8-bit Soundeffects.

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ShareWare:

In the unregistered version you can play the first 20 rooms.
The first 16 rooms are educational. They teach you how to play
GoldPusher. The real challenge starts at room 17.
Send $10, your full name and address to:

    Willem Vree
    PObox 1188
    1200 BD Hilversum
    Holland

and I'll send you the regsitration code that unlocks all 104 rooms
with new monsters, action and fascinating puzzles.
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Short guide to the game:

- goal
In the game you are the "gold pusher", a funny little man who, for
some reason, wants to push a pot of gold on top of a small "rain bow".
When goldpusher succeeds in pushing the pot of gold on the rainbow,
the puzzle is solved, you get a bonus and you move on to the next
room.
However reaching the rainbow may be extremely problematic. There are
voracious monsters hunting for goldpusher and the pot might get easily
stuck by all kind of obstacles.

- pushing rocks and balloons
To help GoldPusher to complete his job there are rocks and balloons,
which can also be pushed around. They can flatten the road to the
rainbow or they can kill monsters. There is a kind of gravity, which
only affects the rocks. When a rock falls down and a monster happens
to be in the way it gets killed. The balloons do not fall, they rise,
and again, when a monster is hit by a rising balloon it dies.

- lifting the gold pot
Also Goldpusher is killed by a falling rock, or when he tries to lift
a rock. Actually, he manages to lift the rock a little bit but then
his force yields and he is crushed by the full weight of the rock.
Remarkably enough, GoldPusher is not killed by a rising balloon. He
can force a balloon down. He can even lift the gold pot (or a rock) by
pushing it on a balloon (or pushing the balloon under the pot) and
then pushing the pot upwards. He manages again to lift the pot a
little bit, but now, immediately, the balloon comes to his aid and
prevents the pot from falling back on GoldPusher and killing him.

- crushing rocks and balloons.
GoldPusher is quite strong. When he pushes a rock which can't move any
further (against a wall for instance) the rock falls to pieces and
vanishes. The same happens of course when GoldPusher pushes a balloon
which can't move. GoldPusher cannot break the iron rocks and the gold
pot.

- using the spades (space bar or zero-key on numeric key pad)
Another help for GoldPusher in some rooms are the "spades". He can
pick up spades and throw them in the direction his nose is pointing.
When a spade touches a monster, it freezes the monster for some time,
so it can't move and hurt GoldPusher. Another use of the spades is in
filling holes, so that the gold pot can be moved across the holes,
where it would otherwise get stuck. Also spades can be used to capture
monsters by blocking their way in e.g. a corridor. A monster cannot
pass a way which is blocked by spades or rocks.

- monster intelligence
There are five kind of monsters in the game: snails, orcs, spiders,
icebears and rock-piercers. The snails are slow and move in straight
lines. Only when they find their way blocked, they try other
directions, with a strong preference (75%) for a turn into the
direction where you (GoldPusher) are standing. So when a snail is
moving freely and you are standing next to it, but not in its way, it
won't attack you.
The orcs move like the snails but much faster. Icebears move like orcs
but they can also push rocks and balloons! The rock-piercer moves like
a snail, but it crushes all rocks and balloons it comes across.
Finally spiders are the most intelligent monsters. They constanly look
where you are and try to find you. When they find their way blocked
they will try all kind of possibilities to get around the obstacle.

- choosing rooms (Alt-f-b, or item "Start At" from file menu)
In the title bar of each room you can see how many points you can
collect. Because the rooms can have very different characteristics
(arcade action, strategy or just a puzzle), you can choose freely
which ones you want to solve, according to your taste.
Once a room is completed, the player has the opportunity to choose any
other room, although the game automatically increases the room-number
and presents that one as the next puzzle. To choose another room, a
menu command is available. A completed puzzle can not be solved again,
to prevent a player to increase his score by solving the same puzzle
over and over.
When a player tries to change rooms in the middle of a puzzle in
progress, the player is punished by loosing a life. The effect is the
same as aborting the current puzzle and then choosing another room.
One can only switch puzzles without the life penalty at the beginning
of a puzzle, before the first move is made (the game is then paused
and GoldPusher is flashing).

- taking a snapshot (Alt-f-p, or item "Snapshot" from file menu)
Some rooms contain more than one difficult part. When you solved a
difficult passage, you can take a snapshot of the actual situation
before continuing. When GoldPusher dies in the next difficult part (or
when you abort in a hopeless siuation), you don't have to do the room
all over again, but you are placed at the position of the last
snapshot taken.
Once loaded that particular snapshot is gone, but you can take as many
new snapshots as you want. When you are repositioned at a snapshot,
but you want to restart from the beginning, you can use the abort
command (because the snapshot is gone, once loaded).

- scoring and screen lay-out.
The scoring follows a simple scheme. Every room completed adds a bonus
to the total score. This bonus depends on the difficulty level of the
room. Each monster killed also adds a small bonus depending on the
"intelligence" of the particular monster.
Every time when 200 bonus points are gained, you earn a new life. The
number of lifes is indicated in the top right corner of the screen.
The total score is in the top left corner. In the bottom right corner
the number of spades you picked up is counted.
The bonus points and extra lifes earned in a room only become
permanent when the room is completed succsfully. That is, if
GoldPusher is killed, you loose all bonus and extra lifes accumulated
in this room and you fall back to the situation at the beginning of
this room, minus one life. With a snapshot you loose a life but you
keep the accumulated points.

- saving and loading (Alt-f-s and Alt-f-o, file menu: save and open)
Only at the beginning of a new puzzle, thus when the previous puzzle
has been succesfully completed, you are allowed to save the game. A
dialog box is presented with four save-buttons. Each save button can
store one saved game. So up to four different games in progress can be
saved.
Loading a game can be done at any time. However, a saved game can only
be loaded once!. This has to be that way, otherwise the concept of
earning and loosing lifes has no meaning. If one could load a saved
game over and over again, one would immediately reload a saved game as
soon as one would run into a deadly situation.
The snapshot feature allows you to save a snapshot in the middle of a
room. However you can only return to the snapshot when you die or
abort. A Snapshot is not remembered when you save the game.

- keys and mouse
GoldPusher can be moved using keys: h,j,k and l. h is left, j is down,
k is up end l is right. As an alternative the numeric keypad can be
used. The arrow-keys also work. Another alternative is using the
mouse. When the item "mouse-control" in menu "help" is enabled,
GoldPusher will try to follow the mouse-cursor. I do not recommend
mouse-control because it is less accurate then key-control when fast
reactions are required.
Spades are picked up by walking over them. Hitting the spacebar throws
a spade. A mouse click or pressing 'Alt' pauses the game. Only then
the menu-bar can be used.

- hints
Many rooms have a title containing a hint how to solve the puzzle.
When you know how monsters behave, you can use this knowledge to guide
them to a place where you can trap them or kill them. E.g. you know
that a snail will turn with high probability into your direction when
it bumps into something.
Many unexpected tricks can be played in the physical reality of
GoldPusher. To find it out is part of the fun of the game. E.g. you
can throw a spade in the air just in front of a passing icebear. The
icebear is not hit by the spade, but it bumps against the flying spade
and thus changes direction. In some puzzles you have to use this trick
to guide the icebear to the right place. This trick requires precise
timing. If you throw too late the ice bear will be hit by the spade
and is lamed. If you throw too early the icebear won't bump and won't
change direction. Another trick is to use the spade as an umbrella
agains a falling rock.

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Puzzles 17-20 and 53-104: Erich Friedman
Artwork and puzzles 1-16 and 21-47: Daniδl Vree
Programming: Willem Vree
Mail comments to Internet: [e-mail]
Shareware fee: $10 to W. Vree, PObox 1188, 1200 BD Hilversum, Holland
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