About The Author...
By profession a theoretical research oceanographer - and an occasional anthropologist and magician - Peter Killworth fell in love with adventures when he discovered 'Colossal Cave'. His own first attempt at this new art form (PHILSOPHER'S QUEST, originally published by Acornsoft) sold 25,000 copies.

GAME SIZE: Medium.
RATING: Medium.

DOOMAWANGAKA. Abbr: Doom. Climate: Varies dramatically from desert to jungle, glacier to swamp. Atmosphere intensely volatile; explorers must guard against rapid corrosion of equipment and spaceship alike. Dangers: Atmosphere, as above. Automatic defence system. Also the Ruins, reputed to have been the home, aeons ago, of The Ancients; none who has entered them has ever returned. Special features: The large number of crashed spaceships littering its surface, many of which had been carrying treasure from one planet to another, make Doom a potentially lucrative source of income for that special breed of Explorer known as Adventurer...

- Extract from INTERGALACTIC TIMES, Vol. 3, Sec. 7, pp 167

You set off from Earth in your one-man ship, and are soon orbiting Doom.

Before you can contemplate a landing, however, your ship comes under a violent attack from Doom's automatic defence system. "No wonder most ships never come back!" you tell yourself as your ship tumbles out of control towards Doom's surface with you playing the controls like the expert you are.

Nothing you can do can prevent the crash-landing, however, and your ship hits the ground with a force that would have killed you had you not jumped at the last moment to absorb some of the momentum...

You pick yourself up and survey the wreckage, knowing that your ship will corrode away in a mere 400 Time Units. Repair it by then or you'll be stuck on the planet forever. Doomed, in fact...

To function properly, your ship needs certain items (see below).

1. DILITHIUM CRYSTALS (for power - very dangerous to handle)
2. a MOTOR UNIT
3. a NAVIGATION UNIT BOX
4. a LIFE SUPPORT SYSTEM
5. a MEDIKIT
6. a NUCLEAR REACTOR

But remember - the corrosion clock is ticking away...

Countdown To Doom comes with on-line help which you can get into by typing HELP (RETURN). The program will halt and wait for you to type in a number so that it knows which 'hint' you want. You therefore need to know which numbers refer to which hints.

Pages 2-4 of this Help Sheet contain a series of questions that players typically ask, like 'How do I get out of the spaceship?'

Various 'key words' have been deleted from these questions - making it harder to accidentally see the solutions to other questions - and are reproduced below. The numbers alongside the words refer to the questions. The number that follows each question is the number to key for that particular hint. Good luck!

 ALLODILE          11     FLICKERING        45     POWER             13
 ARTEFACT     2,14,28     GLACIER           32     PRESENT           24
 BEAM              47     HALL              21     ROBOT              9
 BLOB              39     HELMET             1     ROOF               1
 BLOWN              8     ICE               44     SCREEN            45
 CABINET           15     ICICLE            42     SEESAW            29
 CHEST              7     IGLOO             38     SKATES            38
 COMPONENTS        51     JUNGLE         19,26     SLUGS             43
 COMPUTER       12,24     LASER             47     SPACESHIP          4
                27,50     LIGHT             34     SWAMP        6,20,34
 CORRIDOR           2     METATERMITES      22     SWITCHES          30
 CRYSTALS       16,33     MONSTER           33     THOUGHT           49
 DECAPODS          35     MOTOR             48     TIME              40
 DESERT         17,18     MYSELF            25     TRAP              19
 DISCS             50     OBJECT            46     TREASURE          10
 DOOR              21     PAN               23     TUBES             37
 DOORS             49     PHASER             5     UNIT              48
 EATING            22     PIT                3     UP              8,31
 ENTRANCE          28     PLATFORM          13     VOLCANO        31,41
 EXPLOSIVE         36     PNEUMATIC         37

                                                                   Hint
 1   How do I get the ****** onto the ****?                          43
 2   How can I get out of the curving ******** in the ********?       6
 3   How do I avoid dying in the ***?                                27
 4   How do I get out of the ********?                                1
 5   How can I stop the ****** killing me?                           11
 6   How do I avoid dying after sinking safely to the bottom of the
        *****?                                                       22
 7   How can I stay alive opening the *****?                         38
 8   How do I stop myself getting ***** **?                           2
 9   How can I stop the ***** taking all my objects?                 26
10   How do I locate ********?                                       48
11   How do I get across the ********?                               25
12   How do I avoid dying when I leave the ******** room?            34
13   How can I stop the ******** running out of ***** in the wrong 
        place?                                                       14
14   How can I not be killed when I enter the ******** from the NE?   4
15   How can I stay alive opening the *******?                       38
16   How can I stop the ******** killing me?                         17
17   How can I get back from beyond the ******?                       9
18   How can I survive in the ******?                                 7
19   How can I get across the *** in the ******?                     46
20   How do I stay alive in the ****?                                18
21   How do I get through the large **** in the ***?                 45
22   How do I stop the ************ ****** everything?               42
23   How can I stay alive opening the ***?                           38
24   How do I avoid getting killed going through doors after getting
        the ******* from the ********?                               37
25   What should I give ******?                                      21
26   How do I avoid getting lost in the ******?                      12
27   How do I stop the ******** telling me off for killing?          36
28   How can I get into the ******** through the SW ********?         5
29   How do I use the ******?                                         8
30   How can I get all the ******** turned to ON?                    19
31   How do I avoid dying going ** the *******?                      30
32   How do I avoid dying of cold on the *******?                    10
33   How can I stop the ******* killing me when I try to go past or 
        take the ********?                                           16
34   How do I get ***** below the *****?                             29
35   How do I stop the ******** getting me?                          24
36   How do I get out once I've used the *****?                       3
37   How can I avoid getting lost in the ********* ***** maze?       23
38   How do I get the ****** out of the *****?                       31
39   How can I stop the **** killing me when I pick it up?           15
40   How can I achieve anything when I'm forward in ****?            20
41   How do I avoid dying going down the *******?                    41
42   How can I get the ******?                                       39
43   How do I stop the ***** killing me?                             40
44   How can I stay alive crossing the *** rink?                     32
45   How can I stop the ********** ****** killing me?                28
46   How do I enquire about the use of any ******?                   47
47   How do I stop the ***** **** killing me?                        33
48   How do I get the ***** ****?                                    13
49   How do I get past the *******-sensing *****?                    44
50   How do I make the ******** accept the *****?                    35
51   How do I locate spaceship **********?                           48