                                Archipelagos

Typed in by THE TWINS/DEFCON. Edited by PARASITE.


They thought therefore they were...
 Sit inside a space and think, "What is this place I'm sitting in?".
Picture an island of palm and tropical sea, that's where it is you'd like
to be. And if you wonder what's behind that beach, just a little out of
reach, just float there and you'll know. You could create an Archipelago!

Floating... Disembodied...
 In Archipelagos you are floating just a metre above the ground, as if dis-
embodied, amongst a group of islands known as an Archipelago. Scattered a-
round the Archipelago are stones, and somewhere there is one special stone
- the Obelisk. Embodied in the Obelisk, is the power that cleansed the
Archipelago of humans in Ancient Times. And the blood of the ancient peo-
ples still comes to stain the land surface. To remove the power you must
destroy the Obelisk. The Obelisk receives its power from the stones of the
Archipelago, so each of the stones needs to be destroyed in turn by being
drained of it's energy. Before you can absorb the energy from a stone how-
ever, you must first join it by a continuous land path (not neccessarily a
straight one!) to the Obelisk -sometimes you will even have to build vast
landbridges from island to island- and only then can you absorb the energy
of a stone. Once the energy from all of the stones has been successfully
absorbed, the Obelisk will become vulnerable for ninety seconds. During
this time, you must return to the Obelisk and absorb it's energy. Failing
to do this in time will result in the Obelisk destroying you. This is
Archipelago in theory, now lets get some practice...

THE FIRST ARCHIPELAGO...
 Once you have loaded the game you will be presented with a screen saying:

'ARCHIPELAGO 1'
'SPACE BAR TO CONTINUE'
'RETURN TO SELECT ANOTHER ARCHIPELAGO'

Don't worry about the coloured 'splodges' behind the text for the time
being. Press Space Bar and the computer will say:

'CREATING ARCHIPELAGO 1'

 After a short time, a chequered landscape will appear on the screen
stretching off into the distance. If you look closely you should be able to
see the sea in the distance. The giant structure in front of you is the
Obelisk. It looks a bit like 'Cleopatra's Needle' in London or the 'Wahing-
ton Monument' in Washington D.C.

 Each square of the chequered ground pattern has a colour to represent it.
The colours vary according to the computer that you are playing the game
on:

 Using an Amiga the colors are; Green squares represent land. Yellow squa-
res represent sand. Red squares represent infected land. Brown squares re-
present infected sand. Blue squares represent sea.

 To either side of the Obelisk you will see a tree. The tree to the left
does not move and is merely an obstruction. The tree to the right is an ar-
boreal tree and is deadly. These trees spin whilst moving upwards and down-
wards. Every time an arboreal tree reaches the floor, it moves towards you
-  the further it is from you, the greater the movement the tree will make
toward you. As an arboreal tree advances, it infects the land around it.
Infected land comes from the blood of the ancients and if you rest on a
square that is infected, you will die. You will also die if you ever rest
on a sea or sand square. More on this later.

 Okay, now press the 'F2' key. The landscape will disappear and a map of
the Archipelago will appear on screen. The game is now paused so take as
long as you want to study this screen.

 To the left is an overall map of the Archipelago. Archipelago 1 is very
small Archipelago with only one island and is designed to be easily solved.
To the right of the overall map is a 'zoom' window of the area immediately
about yourself. The black 'dot' in this window is yourself. Notice the red/
purple infection in a cross shape - this has been caused by the arboreal
tree that you were looking at earlier. Note that stones and the Obelisk are
not shown on either map. It is your job to find them!

 Now press the 'F2' key again and the landscape will appear back on screen.
If you try using the movement keys or your mouse you will see a crosshair/
cursor moving about the screen. Try moving the crosshair off of the right
hand side of the screen. You will see the landscape pan to the left. This
isn't a very fast method of panning so press the pan/cursor mode toggle
button and the crosshair will disappear. Now you can pan much more quickly.
Make a full 360 degree turn to the right so that you can see the full land-
scape about you and finally see the Obelisk in the middle of the screen a-
gain. Did you notice the planet in the sky as you turned? The planet is al-
ways to the north so that you should never get lost.

 Okay. By now  the arboreal tree is probably getting a little bit too close
to you. Time to get out of here! Pan to the right just slightly and you
should see a small stone slightly in the distance. Press  the pan/cursor
mode toggle button and the crosshair will re-appear. You can move to any
square that the crosshair ca point to - note that the height that the
crosshair can reach is limited so that you can't move too far in the di-
stance. Place the crosshair on a square halfway between yourself and the
stone (about three squares in front of the stone). Now press the action
button and you will move to the square that the crosshair was placed on.
If the stone goes off to one side of the screen then pan round so that it
is in the centre of the screen. When you move in this manner, you are
floating so the only square that can affect you is the one that you come to
rest on. This is very useful because it means that you can take giant
'strides' over deadly squares like sea, sand or infected land. Also if you
try to move to a deadly square then the computer will 'bleep' at you to in-
dicate that you can't move there.

 Back to the stone. It is already connected to the Obelisk by land (they're
on the same island together!) so all that you need to do is place the
crosshair anywhere on the square that the stone is sitting on and press the
action button. The stone will collapse in front of you, your energy bar at
the bottom of the screen will grow and one of the two stones in the bottom-
right hand corner will crack. The stone indicator is there to show you how
many stones exist on the archipelago and how many have been 'collapsed'.

 So why do we have energy? The energy bar shows you how much energy you
have left for creating new land and 'disinfecting' infected land. You need
energy to create landpaths from stones to Obelisks. Move the crosshair up
to the edge of the island and press the actio button so that you are near
to the sand and the sea. Now place the crosshair somewhere in the middle of
the sea and press the 'F1' key. A sand square appears and your energy drops
slightly. Press the 'F1' key again and the  sand square will turn into a
land square which will be surrounded by sand.

 Press the 'F3' key so that you effectively turn around and look behind
you. Place the crosshair on an infected square near the arboreal tree ad
press 'F1'. The infected square will be disinfected. This is particularly
useful when you need to be able to move to a location that has been infec-
ted. By the way, if you need to get more energy place the crosshair on any
square occupied by a spore pod and press the action button - your eergy bar
will rise a little.

 In the distance you should now see the other stone on this archipelago.
Once again we're very lucky because the stone is already connected to the
Obelisk by land - this is a very easy archipelago! Move towards the stone
until it is i range of your crosshair - but don't come closer than three
squares from the stone or the Obelisk as we don't want to be close to them.
Now collapse the stone in exactly the same way that you did the last one.
The stone indicator will now disappear and a long bar should be occupying
the bottom of the screen. This is a timer bar and it will count down the
ninety seconds that you have to destroy the Obelisk. If you don't destroy
the Obelisk in time then the Obelisk will destroy you.

 Fortunately on this archipelago it will be easy to destry the Obelisk.
Just enter pa mode and pan to the right until the Obelisk is in your sight.
It should be close enough to place your crosshair on the square that the
Obelisk is on - if it isn't the move a bit closer. Now press the action
button and the Obelisk will be destroyed - the computer will show you a map
for the game end and tell you how long you took to complete the archipela-
go! Well. that's the first archipelago completed - only 9,998 to go!

YOUR SOUL CAST INTO ETERNAL TORMENT...
 So how do you die in Archipelagos? Well, if an arboreal tree comes too
close to you it will infect the land that you are resting on and your soul
will be cast into eternal torment. Also if you don't destroy the Obelisk
within ninety seconds of collapsing all the stones the Obelisk itself will
destroy you. Altogether everything seems too simple, but there are things
that we have not told you about...

TWISTED FORMS OF THE NECROMANCER...
 The necromancer frist appears on Archipelago Thirteen. A ghost of the
twisted and mutilated bodies of the Ancients, the Necromancer rises from
the ground and wanders along the shores of islands, taking with him the
land of the Ancients - piece by piece. Beware that a Necromancer does not
claim a piece of land near you for then the land that you rest upon will
turn to sand and you will sink and join the mutated Necromancer.

BLOOD EGGS...
 The Eggs of Blood first appear on Archipelago twenty. When an egg is ready
to hatch, the sky will grow darker and with a mighty clap of thunder and
lightning an Egg will hatch. Eggs can spaw one of two monstrosities. From
the first kind of egg will pour forth the poisoned blood of the Ancients,
spreading like fire until it has covered the whole of an island. The other
kind of egg will eat away at the island itself, spreading outwards until it
has consumed the whole of an island.

THE ISLAND OF LOST SOULS...
 The Lost Souls first appear on Archipelago twenty-five. The Lost Souls of
the Ancients manifest themselves in the form of a whirlwind and roam the
archipelago in search of nourishment - your soul! Any kind of contact with
one will result in your soul being pulled into the Lost Soul for all eter-
nity.

FAMOUS ARCHIPELAGOS OF OUR TIME...
 Every fifth archipelago in the first one hundred is bitmapped - that means
that it is pre-drawn by us and has to be loaded off your game disk. Of
course, each of these is worth a visit but we think the Logotron Turtle on
archipelago thirty-five and Europe on archipelago twenty-five are especial-
ly good.

CONTROLS
F1    -    Create Land/Disinfect land.
F2    -    Map (any mouse button or any key to leave this mode).
F3    -    U-turn.

F6    -    Toggle mouse left/right control.
F7    -    Toggle music on/off.
HELP  -    Quit game.

Return or right mouse button  -   Toggle Pan/Cursor mode.
Space or left mouse button    -   Action button.
