Moondust/Anleitung

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          MOONDUST

Moondust is a Whole New World
  Yes, you DO want to read the
instructions to learn how to play.
  Learning Moondust is like
learning to swim or to ride a bicycle.
Let your unconscious be the guide.

  The moondust foldout was
written, designed and drawn by
Jaron Lanier.

  The letters traced by the
moondrops were designed by
Scott Kim.

  To Start Playing Moondust
  Turn off your Commodore 64 and slip the
Moondust cartridge (with the label facing up)
into the slot behind the "on" light. Make sure
you've got a snug fit. When you turn on the
computer there should be a flash of color and
then a second or two of black before the game
begins.
  Turn off your computer whenever
you are putting in or taking out a
cartridge!

  To Get the Most
  Out of Moondust
  Turn up the color controls
on your TV set. Experiment with
different settings! If you have a
stereo system, try playing the
Moondust music through your
stereo's speakers. It's well worth
the extra effort.
 
  Choosing a Play Style
  The title page, where moondrop ships
trace out the name "Moondust", will eventually
change into a 'Choose Play Style" display. You
can also get to the "Choose Play Style" display
right away by pressing and releasing the
joystick fire button.
  To choose a play style, use the
joystick to move the triangular
pointer to the style you want and
press the fire button. The moondrop
ships and the spacewalker will burst
out of the center of the screen. The
game has started.

  Start With "Beginner"!
  The "Beginner" level is very
challenging. Don't expect to
master it immediately, but when
you have got "Beginner" licked,
"Evasive", "Freestyle" and
"Spinsanity" will be around to
keep you busy.

  To Get Out of a Game...
  Press the "Restore" key. You'll be
back at the title page.

  You Control Everybody
  (Spacewalker and Ships) at Once!
  If, for instance, you push the joystick to the left when you're playing "Beginner",
everybody will go left.
  The ships don't make sharp turns. They gradually curve around to
point in a new direction.
  When you move everybody in a new direction, the spacewalker's
head will immediately go in the direction you want, and his body will
gradually turn to catch his head.
  Also: when a ship gets very close to the edge of the screen, it gets
dizzy and goes in circles instead of obeying the joystick.
  Pressing the fire button changes the way the ships and the spacewalker
turn: clockwise instead of counter-clockwise, or vice versa. (Ships doing dizzy spins at the
edge of the screen during button press aren't affected.)

  Drop a Seed with the Button
  Once the game has started, follow the spacewalker with your eyes and try
pressing the fire button once. One of two things happened...
  A) The spacewalker left behind a blinking square: this is the seed. Also,
the circular energy field appeared in the center of the screen. This happened
because the spacewalker was far enough away from the center of the screen when you pushed the
button.
  B) Or you didn't leave a seed-square and the energy field didn't appear.
All you left was a patch of sparkles. This means you pressed the button while the
spacewalker was too near the center of the screen.
  You DO want to drop a seed,
but there is no time
pressure to do so. You can
play with the spacewalker
and the ships as long as you
like before you seed.

  The Ships Smear the Seeds
  Out Into Streams
  If a ship "runs over" the seed,
it will "draw it out", drag it, into a
stream of several seed-squares. A
ship can run over any of these new
seed-squares and draw out still
more seed squares.
  Note: The spacewalker can't smear
seeds, except, to a limited degree, in
'Spinsanity".

  The Goal of the Game is...
  Use the ships to smear the
seed-squares into the exact center,
the bullseye, of the
energy field.

  You Can Only Drag Out the Seed-Squares So Much...
  If you reach the bullseye, the energy field will start to dance (it always dances
differently!) as it swallows the seed-squares. If you use up your seed-squares without
reaching the bullseye, the squares will retrace.

  Either way the number of points you earned on the most recent seed will be shown
at the top of the screen, and the running total score will be shown at the bottom of the
screen. The score will show for a while... if you hold the fire button down, you can
"fast-forward" through the showing of the score.
  Note: After a bullseye (or a knockout), everybody will re-burst from the center of the screen.

  Scoring
  The farther away from the center
of the screen you drop a seed, the
more points you can make with that seed.
  When you drop a seed, the
maximum possible points is shown at
the bottom of the screen.
  The closer to the bullseye you
drag the seed-squares, the more
points you earn. A bullseye earns the
maximum points.

  "Knocked Out"
  Sometimes the spacewalker will get
knocked on the head by one of the moondrop
ships. When this happens, the spacewalker spins
around and turns a different color.
  If there are too many knocks on
the head, the spacewalker gets
"knocked out", and you don't get any
points for the most recent seed.
  When the spacewalker turns red, you
know that there's only one more knock before
a "knockout".
  Yellow = two knocks left
  Green  = three knocks left
  The spacewalker starts out white
at the beginning of each turn: head
knocks from the previous turn don't
count after you've started over with a
new seed. Also: knocks don't start
happening until you've seeded.
  The spacewalker is more likely to get his
head knocked when it's separated from his
body.

  How Many Seeds?
  You get three seeds per game.
  The game will tell you when
you've reached the last seed.
  Plus: You get a "Bonus Seed"
every time you get a bullseye.
  There's no limit to the number of
"Bonus Seed" you can earn.
  After you've used up your three seeds and
all of your bonus seeds, the "Game Over"
display will come up.

  "Evasive"
  In the "Evasive" mode, the first seed-square
doesn't sit right and wait for a ship to draw it
out. Instead the seed rushes for the edge of the
screen! You have to catch it with a ship before
it reaches the edge. If the seed reaches the
edge of the screen without being caught, you'll
get zero points for that seed.
  The seed moves faster than the
shps can, so you can't catch the seed
unless you position some ships, in
advance, to catch it.

  "Freestyle"
  The good news: you can't get knocked
out when you play "Freestyle".
  The challenging news: the ships
no longer follow the joystick in a
direct way. When the spacewalker
turns a certain amount, the ships turn
the same amount. The spacewalker
alone follows the joystick directly.

  "Simsanity"
  When you're not touching the joystick,
the ships folow a certain spiral pattern. Try
choosing "Spinsanity" from the "Choose Play
Style" display, and then not touching the
joystick at all: you will see an undisturbed,
repeating "Spinnsanity" spiral pattern. (The
spiral pattern changes only when the ships re-
burst from the center of the screen.)
  When you do move the joystick, the ships
respond, as they do in "Freestyle", indirectly.
You can get knocked out in "Spinnsanity" - and
you can survive only two head hits.
  Hints: Learn to make use of the
spiral pattern. Learn "Freestyle"
before you try "Spinsanity".

  For Purists...
  You might have noticed that if you press
the fire button during the title page and hold it
down, the triangular pointer will appear by
itself: the play style names only show up when
you release the button. Well, if you press the
Commodore logo key during the time that the
triangular pointer is alone on the screen, and
THEN you let up on the fire button, you can
play in the "Relaxing" mode.
  This means that there will be no
writing (scores, max points, etc.) on
the screen, and no head knocks in the
"Beginner" level. The written things
will come back when the game is over.
  Note: You can freeze the action on the
screen by pressing the Commodore logo key.
Press it again and the screen comes back to
life. When you freeze the action, the music
keeps going...

  The Moondust Music
  You are ALWAYS in control of the
harmony of the music, even during the title
page. Moving the joystick up makes the music
higher, moving it down makes the music lower.
Moving the joystick sideways changes the kind
of chord that's playing; for instance from
minor to major. Moving to the left waill make a
bigger difference (fewer notes in common) to
the chord than moving to the right. Moving
diagonally will change both the key and the
type of chord.
  As you manipulate the
spacewalker and the moondrop ships,
you'll put the music through a lot of
harmonic changes... and then
sometimes, when you get a bullseye,
for instance, you might tend to leave
the jostick alone for a while: that's
when the music will settle on a single
chord.
  When you drop the first seed-square,
there is only one note, repeating over and
over. Each time you draw out a new seed-
square, you add one note to a repeating
pattern. The streams of seed-squares are an
image of the musical pattern...
  The Moondust music is always
different, a reflection of your own
play style.

Copyright 1983