Introduction

Out beyond the starfield of Orion lies a vast stargate that leads to planet Earth. To mark its position in the darkness of space, the Elders of Earth set an avenue of pyramids at its entrance so that the ships of Earthfleet could find their way home. Now, in the second century of the Great Galactic Way, an Andromedan starfleet is attempting to use the stargate and prevent the Andromedan fleet from passing through. Above all, you must destroy their Dragon class starcruisers which carry their battle commanders - if you fail to do this, all may be lost!

Playing The Game

1. Earthfleet Interceptor class starcruiser - your ship!

2. X-bombs. The number of bombs you still have left appear down the left hand edge of the screen just below the battle area.

3. Andromedan Meteos class droneship. Scores 100-700 points depending on distance. Ships further into the screen score higher points. Size of meteor indicates depth.

4. Andromedan Tornado class starcruiser. Scores 10,000 points.

5. Andromedan Shark class starcruiser. Scores 3,000 points.

6. Andromedan Spider class starcruiser. Scores 2,000 points.

7. Andromedan Dragon class starcruiser. Scores 1,000 points but if you let it reach the left hand edge of the screen so that it can disappear through the stargate, the game will end. You must destroy all these to continue playing.

You control your Earthfleet Interceptor which guards the left hand edge of the screen, where the entrance to the stargate lies. You can move it up and down but you can also move it into and out of the screen! It is equipped with a powerful laser beam but to hit an enemy ship, your interceptor must be at the same depth as the enemy ship when you fire.

If the enemy ship is far back into the screen, so must your ship be. If your laser just clips the edge of a ship that's moving up or down, it may not destroy it. To be sure of a hit, you must hit the ship dead centre.

To cope with desperate situations, your ship is also equipped with four exterminator bombs or X-bombs for short. When you use an X-bomb it simply wipes out all the enemy ships on the screen, wherever they are - very useful in a tight spot.

The game can end in two ways. First, it ends if you crash into an enemy ship. Ships further in or further out of the screen will pass harmlessly by. Second, the game ends if you allow a Dragon class ship to reach the left hand edge of the screen. Dragon ships travel at any depth so you'll have to do some swift manoeuvring to zap these!

Andromedan battle tactics are very straightforward. First they send in a wave of cheap Meteor class drone-ships in the hope that you might crash into one of them. The meteors, however, are easy to hit because their size is also a clue to their depth - the smaller the ship, the further into the screen it's flying. Gradually, more and more meteors appear until, eventually, the Andromedans send in their second wave their battle-ready starcruisers.

These are all equipped with image-distorters so that their apparent size gives no clue to their depth. The only way you can gauge their depth is by the 3-D stereoscopic effect itself. However, if you reach this stage, your warm-up on the meteors will have given you some valuable training!

More and more starcruisers will appear, all at different depths until finally the Andromedans send in a further wave of meteors, then another wave of star- cruisers and so on. For each new wave of meteors you get to, you gain an extra X-bomb - and you'll probably need it!

There's only one drawback - your ship can only carry seven X-bombs at a time. However, it's unlikely that you'll ever reach that limit! It's always best to save your X-bombs for the Dragon class ship - if you have more than three dragons on the screen at once, you're probably going to have to use an X-bomb to survive!

Stereoscopic Effect

The stereoscopic effect comes across best in a shady room which casts no sight reflections on the screen. The picture needs to have as pure a red and green as possible. The red images are seen through the red left-eye lens and the green images through the blue right-eye lens of your 3D glasses.

The colour control on your TV should therefore be turned up to maximum. The brilliance colour should be turned to minimum, making the green as dull as possible. The contrast control should then be adjusted while looking through the 3D glasses.

By looking at the screen through one eye at a time, adjust the contrast so that you only see red through the red lens and only see green through the blue lens. Anything in yellow, you should see through both lenses. If it is not possible to do this perfectly, make the second coolour as faint as possible - for example, if you are still seeing some green through the red lens, try to make the green as dim as possible by adjusting the contrast accordingly.

Usually, a fairly dull picture is best, but the picture will appear brighter with the glasses on than with the glasses off. This is because the eyes merge the red and green images into single yellow images, effectively doubling the brightness. The best viewing distance will vary according to the size of your TV screen but somewhere between 4 and 8 feet should be ideal. Also, you should be sitting directly in front of the screen to achieve the maximum effect.

When you first put the 3D glasses on, it may take your eyes a minute or two to adjust themselves, so while the first test game is running, just sit and look at the 3D stereo display. After a while, the two red and green images will merge into a single yellow stereoscopic image. Once you are seeing the ships on the screen as single images, a little experiment will convince you that you're really seeing stereoscopic 3D.

Shift your head a few inches from side to side while looking at the screen. Objects in the foreground will appear to stay where they already are, but the position of objects in the background will apparently change! You'll get a similar effect if you gradually move your eyes closer to the screen.

Once you are seeing single stereoscopic images, you can then press 0 and prepare yourself for an incredible journey into the depths of space!

Game Controls

Z/X - Move Out Of/Into Screen, : - Up, ? - Down, ] = Fire laser, RETURN - Explode X-bomb

S - Start New Game

Loading

LOAD"" (ENTER)

The program loads in two parts. Wait for the message "Press 0 To Start Game" to appear on screen.