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THE CAFFEINE-FREE DIET SHOOT'EM UP
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THE PLOT:

When the human race took to the stars, it wasn't long before they
made first contact with an extra-terrestial species. Further
communication proved them to be an intelligent, cultured,
peace-loving race, with an advanced civilization. Of course, this
sort of obnoxiousness really got up the collective nose of
the fairly dense, uncultured, uncivilized, war-mongering Humans
and so it was decided that the only sensible move was to
declare war on the aliens and wipe them out.

The war raged for years, with neither side gaining advantage.
Finally, in an unprecedented show of international unity, the Humans
decided to launch an all-or-nothing strike against the alien home
planet. Two options were available to them: Firstly, an all-out
offensive by the combined earth attack fleet. This was judged as having
a very good chance of success, but would cost a horrendous amount of
money. The second option was to send a single lightly armed experimental
prototype fighter in to attack. This would be practically a suicide
mission with very little chance of success and would probably lead to
the destruction of the entire Human species, but it would save a few
bucks.

The choice was obvious. Only one problem remained: where to find a pilot
stupid enough to volunteer for such an obviously suicidal mission.

                       This is where you come in.

THE INSTRUCTIONS:

Fly along, shoot bad dudes, collect bonuses. Easy.

Either joystick or keyboard controls may be used - The choice is made
by the way you start the game from the title screen. If you press
the Fire button to start, joystick control is used. If the space
bar was pressed, then the keyboard is deemed the input device of
choice. The keyboard controls are:

  A     - up
  Z     - down
  O     - left
  P     - right
  SPACE - fire

You can figure out the joystick controls for yourself (<- insert your
favourite smiley here!).
Pressing ESC on the title screen will exit the game.

Hitting bad dudes will deplete your shield energy (displayed as a white bar).
Zero shield = zero life expectancy.

The bad dudes come at you in attack waves. If you manage to destroy the
entire wave, a bonus icon will be dropped. There are five bonuses to
collect, each one having a different effect and duration. The bonuses are:

  Hot Shots       -  Increase the damage your shots inflict
  Speed up        -  Increases your speed/acceleration
  AntiGrav        -  Stops gravity dragging you down
  Shield Recharge -  Restores some of your lost shield energy
  Smiley Bonus    -  Increases your score


THE CREDITS:

Ben Campbell (Programming, Graphics)
JS Hong      (Graphics)

This game was written entirely in Blitz Basic II, from Acid Software.

I, (Ben) can be contacted:

a) via Internet at my EMail address:

  Ben@l42south.equinox.gen.nz

b) more conventionally:

  Ben Campbell
  8 Montana Ave
  Christchurch 4
  New Zealand

Comments, critisisms etc are welcome.