DIAMOND DIGGER
by Dave Pierce 'davepierce07' & Jim Grimwood 'Battle Bunny'
© 2014

Instructions

The aim is to collect the 50 blue diamonds and the 5 keys on each of the 20 levels. There are 10 types of object in the game:

Digger (1, the player's character)
Spiders(max.3, green)
Robots (max.8, magenta or cyan)
Walls  (variable)
Doors  (5)
Keys   (5)
Rocks  (50)
Sand   (variable)
Bombs  (max.7, red or blue)
Power-ups (11, white)

The controls are explained on the starting screen.

The coloured keys open the correspondingly coloured doors.

Spiders can go anywhere that Digger can go, whereas Robots are restricted to their starting tracks. If a track is damaged then the Robots on it can decamp into the surrounding area as Spiders. If a Robot is damaged then it becomes a Spider and can move as such. (The Robots are actually mechanical guards with Spiders inside.) Spiders & Robots are implacable enemies of Digger.



* The 11 Power-ups are: Bulldozer, Crossbow, Dynamite, Freeze, Hourglass, Invulnerability, Punch, Rod, Speed, Teleport, Wand. You can carry more than one but only use one at a time and they're all single use. The available ones display underneath the title at the bottom.

* Power-ups are activated by pressing the select key '1', then selecting one of the letters BCDFHIPRSTW. Pressing '1' is a toggle, it both starts & stops the power-up selection (so a power-up can be stopped before it's finished or the selection skipped if the key was pressed accidentally).

* A power-up can be picked up at any time; it doesn't have to be used straight away.

* When activated, all ranged power-ups work in the direction you're facing at the time (check the heading arrow in the program title line); all timed power-ups work for a random interval.

* Ranged power-ups can be stopped before they reach their limit by pressing any key other than 5/6/7/8.

* The active power-up symbol will flash on the status line while it's in effect.

* A new power-up remains on-screen indefinitely until it's collected. As long as it's on-screen it blocks the appearance of any further power-ups.

* Offensive power-ups (Bulldozer, Crossbow, Dynamite, Freeze, Punch, Wand) will detonate any intervening bomb/mine in the line/radius of fire; this also applies to bombs/mines.



* Bulldozer: drives through anything (except diamonds, keys & doors, but including monsters) until it runs out of fuel or hits a screen edge or hits a diamond or key. (See below for further instructions on using Bulldozer.)

* Crossbow: shoots a monster; needs a clear line-of-sight.

* Dynamite: explodes once fuse burns down; length of fuse & blast radius are both random, so you might blow yourself up.

* Freeze: freezes a monster for a time; needs a clear line-of-sight.

* Hourglass: stops the timer for a time.

* Invulnerability: survive one monster, rock, explosion; monster, rock destroyed (not automatic, has to be selected like the others).

* Punch: punch out an adjacent wall or rock square.

* Rod: pick up nearest key or diamond, regardless of obstructions.

* Speed: double speed (ie. halves speed of timer)

* Teleport: jumps to a random diamond, or key if you've got all diamonds, or the exit if you've got all keys & diamonds.

* Wand: zaps the nearest monster, regardless of obstructions.



To operate the Bulldozer, once it's been picked up:

* Press '1' to activate the power-up selection.

* When the options are flashing, press 'B' for Bulldozer (CAPS is already set).

* Press 5,6,7,8 to move it around (it displays as a direction arrow as do the other ranged power-ups).

The Bulldozer is the only power-up where you have control over its movement after it's been selected.


Program Notes:
* The .BAS files are encoded for loading with TXT2Emu. Any characters appearing in the form "{XX}" are the hex codes for, eg. graphics, UDGs, tokens.
(see http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~jg27paw4/pourri/txt2emu.zip)
* On quitting the program all the variables will appear to have disappeared. This is because the VARS area is pre-declared for optimum size & speed and is protected on quitting (error reports are trapped). It can be restored with "GO SUB 9902". It should be re-protected with "GO SUB 6122" before RUN, otherwise the program will re-load it from the TAP file.[/quote]