Mailstrom

Picture an English town at the dawn of the 21st century. Oil from the North Sea ran dry years before; leading to riots and revolution. A coup took place resulting in major criminal figures governing the country. From the debris of this anarchy emerged a familiar yet unexpected sight; a bright red post van.

This was, however, no ordinary van: Bristling with weaponry and equipped with a highspeed propulsion unit, the van stood as an ironic reminder of the way things used to be.

At the heart of this armoured postal delivery vehicle is the latest Special Knowledge and Information Terminal (S.K.I.T.), a sophisticated computer system which controls the vans surveylance, weapons and propulsion systems.

The driver of this formidable machine is postman Michael Nasty: Rooted in better times, he continues to deliver the post, nothing and no-one will be allowed to stand in his way. "The mail must get through"!

Playing The Game

You are Michael Nasty and your objective is to maintain the last outpost of a formerly proud postal service in a crumbling society.

Collect letters from the "OUT" chute in the sorting office, this will cause several numbers at the bottom of the screen to light up. These numbers correspond to the numbers of houses to which you must deliver letters.

Open post boxes (by any means at your disposal) to find sacks which must be stored in your van for later. when a sorting office appears deposit the sacks (stored in the back of your van) in the 'IN' section.

At any sorting office the number of sacks you deposit in the 'IN' chute will determine the number of sorted letters you can retrieve from the 'OUT' chute, of that office on the following day. At the end of each day you will be told how many sacks you must store in the sorting offices on the next day in order to continue the game. If you fail to deposit at least that number of sacks, the game will end.

Game Controls

Q - Up, A - Down, X - Left, C - Right, 0 - Fire

Mailstrom may be controlled by either joystick or keyboard.

Pressing Fire when touching an object in the road will cause Michael to pick up that object and drop any object he might already have been carrying.

Pressing Fire when touching the van will cause the main Icon window in S.K.I.T. to open. Control is now transferred to the Icon cursor.

Joystick:
Use Kempston compatible ioystick interface. Normal joystick movements apply.

Press any key to start and the joystick is detected automatically.

From pause mode:
Fire - continues game, Q - returns to title page

Note:
Use 'UP', 'DOWN', 'LEFT' and 'RIGHT' controls to position the cursor over the desired Icon. Press "FIRE" to select. S.K.I.T. will explain the function of each Icon as it is selected.

N.B. Experimentation with the Icon is recommended in order to become familiar with their operation.

Hints And Tips

1. Avoid delivery to the wrong house.
2. Points are substracted at the end of the day for undelivered letters.
3. It pays to deposit as many sacks as you can.
4. The minimum number of sacks allowed for the first day is one.

Key

1. BOV (Back Of Van)
   To store an item you have collected. While in this mode, and after collecting a case, press FIRE to discover what weapon or device you have just collected. If you have collected either armoury or Super Pursuit mode device then the below will apply.
2. ARM
   This allows you to select the weapon at your disposal.
3. SPM
   Allows your van to reach great speeds.
4. PAWS (PAUSE)
   Allows you to pause the game. While in pause mode you can quit the game by pressing O.
5. DAMAGE
   Gives you report on damage sustained plus the number of sacks collected.
6. POSTMAN
   Exit mail van.
7. VAN
   Enter mail van.
8. OUT
   Exit icon menu.

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