TOTAL ECLIPSE
Featuring Freescape ™ by Major Developments

Commodore 64

WELCOME TO EGYPT

BACKGROUND
It is written that, in the heart of ancient Egypt hundreds on years
ago, the High Priest of the day had become annoyed. His people were
revolting and refused to continue the sacrifices to Re the God of Sun.
His anger had erupted so he set an ominous curse as punishment to the
people.

A great pyramid was erected and at the topmost chamber a shrine was
built for Re the Sun-God. The curse was set. Should anything ever
block the sun's rays during daylight hours it would be destroyed.

It is now 26th October, 1930 and in just 2 hours the moon will totally
eclipse the sun, triggering the curse of Re, causing the offending
moon to explode showering the Earth with colossal meteorites thus
upsetting the ecological balance, and plunging civilisation into a
dark age of starvation and conflict.


YOUR MISSION
It is 8 o'clock, you have just landed your bi-plane next to the great
pyramid. Your mission is to reach and destroy the shrine of the
Sun-God Re, which is located at the apex of the pyramid.

TREASURE
Collect as much as possible-you're gonna be rich! First day's target
#125,000.

YOUR EQUIPMENT
A revolver          -plus an ample supply of bullets.
Your wrist watch    -the eclipse is due just before 10 o'clock.
A water bottle      -keep this topped up-it is very hot! It is not
                     healthy to be without water for long periods.
Your trusty compass -an essential item for succesful orientation.

THE SCREEN DISPLAY
Top left            -Ankhs collected.
Top middle          -Value of treasure collected.
Top right           -Current state of the eclipse.
Main window         -Freescape 3D generated view of your present
                     surroundings.
Message display     -(Under main window). This normally indicates your
                     current location plus the height of this chamber
                     above sea level shown in cubits eg. 24c=24 cubits.
                     The entrance to the shrine is at a height of 72
                     cubits.
Bottom left to right-Wrist watch, water bottle, heart beat, compass.

 

26th OCTOBER 1930, EGYPT...
After a three day journey involving most methods of transport one can
think of, and a few one would probably not like to, I arrived at
Ankh-Arah village.  It was a fairly typical North African town, with
dry dirty streets, square whitewashed houses, and a stone well in the
main square.

I jumped clumsily down from my "taxi" and payed the camel driver his
money.  Doing a quick calculation in my head I came up with the same
answer as when I started the journey-five shillings and a sixpence for
a six mile camel ride.  Captive markets such as helpless English
Archaeologists obiviously lend themselves to exploitation by the
locals... oh, well, at least I had learned the knack of getting off a
camel without landing on my head, and that probably lowered the price
by sixpence or so.

The driver unstrapped my cases and let them drop to the ground.
Without any ado he spurred his camel, turned about and was gone,
leaving me looking rather lost in a slowly setting cloud of dust.

I retrieved my cases and set off in search of somewhere to stay.

It took me twenty minutes to find the only inn in the village: a small
sandstone building like all the others, with two bedrooms, a hole in
the ground for a latrine and enough insect life to set the whole
English population scratching themselves. One of these was the owner,
who quinting into the sun I could just make out the tiniest silver of
the crescent moon, which would soon eclipse the sun.

All the other exploration work I had conducted had been very much
smaller than this, and took months of painstaking effort, researching
and training.

It was too big. I would never make it in time. The shrine that "Tiny"
had identified was right at the apex.

Skirting the base of the pyramid, I saw the door into the
ante-chamber...

=======================

Game control:

joystick up (or key arrow up) - move forward
joystick down (or key arrow down) - move backward
joystick left (or key arrow left) - turn left
joystick right (or key arrow right) - turn right
joystick fire (or key 0) - fire a pistol
key P - look up
key L - look down
key A - angle change (small,medium or big, for current angle see heiroglyphics above the watch)
key S - step size change (slow,medium or fast, see heiroglyphics for current state)
key F - face forward (useful when disorientated)
key U - U-turn
key H - height change (stand or crouch)
space key - shooting mode
key C - enable/disable crosshair
key R - rest
key I - interrupt, a pause, displays a menu which offers music/sfx change (M) and game abort (ESC)
key SELECT - changes between music and sound effects, work on title menu and in-game