Molecule Man

Lost in a maze with 256 locations, fight against time and lethal radiation to survive and teleport to safety. Also included on this tape is a unique, easy to use Maze Designer. This will allow you to edit the existing game or create a completely new version.

Molecule Man - The infernal survival game. Joystick or Keyboard. By Robin Thompson.

The Aim Of The Game

The radiation gnaws away at you, draining your precious energy resources - sapping your life force. The multi-perspective 3D maze is hiding the very life pills that can bring you salvation. You are Molecule Man: Your purpose is to survive.

Lost in the middle of the enormous maze with time and radiation as your enemies, escape via the teleporter would be easy but for the fact that it can only be activated by the insertion of 16 circuits; these must be found and collected first.

In this cruel world, extra life time can be bought - with cash! However, once you have found a coin you must make the decision of either buying life pills or bombs. The bombs will destroy parts of the maze which would otherwise be impassable.

MOLECULE MAN - THE INFERNAL SURVIVAL GAME!

Game Controls

I - Left, P - Right, Q - Up, Z - Down, B - Buy (bombs/pills), G - Pick up (coins/circuits), D- Throw bomb, A - Abort game

Keys are redefinable. The game can also be played with a Kempston or Sinclair joystick.

SPACE - Toggle Pause

The Maze Designer

The Maze Designer is a separate program that follows after the game. To load it stop the tape after loading Molecule Man, reset the computer and follow the normal loading instructions.

The Designer will allow you to change the game completely. Once it has loaded you'll see a blank cyan window in the top right- hand corner of the screen, a yellow window running down the left-hand side containing some of the objects to be found in the maze, a box labelled 'CURRENT', two indicators labelled 'X' and 'Y' and a list of keyboard options. The cyan window is used to display each of the 256 locations in the maze.

To see this in action press 'L' (to load a saved maze) and re-start the tape, as a saved copy of the maze follows directly after the program. Once it has loaded, you will see the top left-hand location of the maze displayed in the window, although not in 3D; its purpose is to show the layout of passages and the positions of objects, etc. Using the cursor keys or a joystick (Kempston) you can move the window to display any location, the X and Y indicators giving the position of the window within the maze. To view the entire maze at any time press 'V'. Everything is marked except for the starting position of Molecule Man.

The screen can be dumped to a ZX printer or alternatively it can be saved to tape so that it can be re-loaded later and dumped to a full size printer.

Editing The Maze

To edit the maze, you must first select the object you want to place in it. Press 'O', Space or Fire on the joystick and one of the characters in the yellow window will be displayed. Move the cursor over the object you wish to use and press 'O', Space or Fire again - it will then be displayed on the screen in the box labelled 'CURRENT'.

Not all of the objects that you can choose from will be displayed on the screen together; to choose from a different set move the cursor down to the bottom or to the top of the yellow window and another set will appear. There are three sets altogether containing 42 objects.

To place your chosen object within the maze press 'E' and a cursor will appear in the top left-hand corner of the cyan window. To move to the next location move the cursor off the screen, in any direction (unless you are at the edge of the maze) and it will appear in the cyan window. You can set the program to automatically change every object in the maze to your chosen 'CURRENT' object by pressing 'L'; once an object has been changed it can be restored to its original form by pressing 'C'.

You can place any object anywhere in the maze and as many times as you like. However, you must have 16 circuits when you step onto the teleport square to complete the game. The only exception to this rule is Molecule Man himself; if you try to place him twice he will be erased from his old position before being place in his new one.

Saving Your Maze

Once you have finished editing your maze, save it to tape by following these simple instructions:

1. Insert a blank tape into your cassette deck, ensure that it is wound on past the coloured leader tape.
2. Take out the leads plugged into the EAR sockets and plug them into the MIC sockets.
3. Press PLAY and RECORD on the cassette deck.
4. Press 'S' on the keyboard.

The new maze will now save to tape.

Loading Your Maze

1. Load in Molecule Man.
2. Press option '5'.
3. Insert your own tape.
4. Press PLAY.

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