Gem Drop 

           by Bill Kendrick
          New Breed Software
       August & September, 1997

       kendrick@zippy.sonoma.edu
http://zippy.sonoma.edu/kendrick/nbs/


Welcome to "Gem Drop," a fast-paced
puzzle game for the Atari 8-bit
from New Breed Software!

If you want to dive right in to the
game, feel free to skim over the
controls listed below and try out
the game!  It's simple enough to
figure out yourself!

TITLE/MENU CONTROLS:

 [START]  - Begin game
 Fire     - Begin game
 [SELECT] - Choose starting level
 [OPTION] - Toggle controller type
            (Atari or Sega)
 [ESC]    - Quit to DOS


GAME CONTROLS:

Joystick:

  Left / Right - Move
  Down / Fire  - Grab gem/object
  Up           - Throw carried obj's

Sega Genesis 3-button Controller:

  Left / Right - Move
  Down / BFire - Grab gem/object
  Up   / CFire - Throw carried obj's

Keyboard: (arrow keys, w/o [CONTROL])

  Left / Right - Move
  Down         - Grab gem/object
  Up           - Throw carried obj's

Other key controls:

  START   - Abort
  SELECT  - Abort
  OPTION  - Abort
  [ESC]   - Abort
  [SPACE] - Pause


OBJECT:

3-In-A-Row:

The point of the game is to grab
gems (which are appearing at the
top of the screen) and then throw
them back up to get three or more
in a vertical column.  When you
grab a gem, you will also pick up
any gems of the same type that
are directly above it.  This means
you sometimes can't take just one
gem...

You can tell how many gems you
are carrying by looking at the
little guy at the bottom of the
screen.  If you carry none, you'll
see none.  If you carry 1 or 2,
you'll see gems on one or both
sides of him.  If you carry 3 or
more, you'll just see a collection
of gems.  (Knowing if you have more
than 3 doesn't matter, since it will
definitely be a match anyway.)

Getting a match of three or more
gets rid of that column of matching
gems, as well as any matching
gems adjacent to the column, and
gems adjacent to those gems, and
so on.  This makes for neat chain
reactions!

Scoring:

The more gems in a match, the higher
score you get for that match.
Be warned... if you always match
three in a row, you'll finish the
level more quickly, but... if
you always match three in a row,
you won't get as high a score!
You'll have to decide when it's
more important to get rid of lots
of GEMS or lots of MATCHES.

Winning:

When you get enough matches ("lines")
you advance to the next level.
The number of lines you've made
so far, and the number of lines
you need to make to complete the
current level are listed on the
left side of the screen, below your
current score.

There are 20 unique levels total.
Levels 15 through 20 become harder
because you have twice as many
different gems to deal with, making
getting matches that much more
difficult!  (You'll especially
hate one of the pieces I've created!)

Note: When you first start playing
Gem Drop, only levels 1 through 5
are available.  As you advance
through higher levels, you will then
be able to select them later.
(ie, if you've beaten EVERY level,
you will then be able to select
any level.)

Dying:

As time goes on, more gems appear
at the top, pushing the rest down.
You'll know whe this is about to
happen because the screen shakes
and you'll hear a rumbling noise.

If the screen fills up (the gems
go beyond the bottom of the screen)
the game ends.

When you return to the title
screen, the level you were just one
will be pre-selected, so you can
keep trying.  But, of course,
your score will be reset to 0.

Special Objects:

There are also a number of non-gem
objects.  To "activate" them,
you must throw two or more of the
same gem onto them.

Note: You CANNOT grab and carry
these special objects!

  Bomb - explodes, destroying any
         gems directly above, below,
         and to either side of it.

  Wildcard - it will match any
             gems next to it or
             above it, often causing
             nice chain-reactions!

  Clock - this freezes the game for
          a moment.  You still
          get to play, but no more
          new pieces will appear
          for a few seconds. (You'll
          hear a clicking sound
          until the clock stops.)
          This gives you some
          breathing room!

ABOUT GEM DROP:

Gem Drop is loosely based on the
SNK Neo-Geo game "Magical Drop III."

Gem Drop was written in OSS's Action!
programming language and compiled
with a stripped-down version of the
Public Domain runtime library.
(RTSCAN.COM was used to determine
which runtime functions were
necessary.)

Gem Drop uses a special software-
based graphics mode to produce the
high amount of colors see on the
screen: one 20x24 5-colored text
mode with one set of 5 colors and
two character set fonts, which are
toggled at every vertical blank.
(This means NTSC machines (at 60
cycles) will look better than PAL
machines (at the slower 50 cycles).)

The fonts were created using my
own simple font editor in BASIC.
(Amazingly, I was able to create
these 4-pixel, 2-bits-per-pixel
graphics using an 8-pixel, 1-bpp
editor!  It was pain-staking!)

THE END!

Please tell me what you think of
this game!  Thanks!

New Breed Software
c/o Bill Kendrick
7673 Melody Drive
Rohnert Park CA 94928 USA
+1-707-795-1234 ext. 2

kendrick@zippy.sonoma.edu
http://zippy.sonoma.edu/kendrick/nbs/