Horace And The Spiders

Sinclair Spectrum 16K or 48K RAM

PSION with MELBOURNE HOUSE

Load and run by typing LOAD "spiders"

Horace is engaged in a hunt to rid the spider mountains of the deadly octopeds which inhabit them. He sets out with four phials of serum which protect him from the fatal bites, but when he has used these he must give up the hunt.

His task is in three stages:

• He must climb the hills to reach the mountain
• He must cross the Spider bridge
• and finally he must kill the Spiders in the cave

Horace must survive each of these stages in order to pass onto the next. If he succeeds in killing all the spiders, he returns to the first stage and is faced with steeper hills and more spiders.

Horace's movement in four directions are controlled by the following keys:

• Key Q: moves up or jumps up
• Key Z: moves down or jumps down
• Key I: moves left
• Key P: moves right
• Keys V, B, N or M: make Horace stamp (stage 3 only)

Climbing the Hills

Horace must climb the hills, jumping up to get to the next level, while avoiding the spiders. The only way that he can avoid the spiders is to jump over them.Pressing Key Q makes Horace jump and running jumps can be produced by pressing Key Q while Key P is depressed. If Horace misjudges his jumps and falls over though, he will break one of his phials of spider serum.

Crossing the Spider bridge

To cross the Spider bridge, Horace must grab hold of a spider Thread by pressing Key Q and jump from thread to thread until he reaches the other side. But the spiders, when they sense that Horace has grabbed a thread, will try to reel him in, so he must be fast. When he reaches the other side, pressing Key Z will make Horace jump down.

Killing the spiders

When Horace reaches the cave, he finds it full of spiders busily mending a giant web. Horace can move around the web with the spiders and make holes in it by stamping, (Keys V, B, N or M), until it gives way.

The spiders will try to mend the holes by hanging in the gap. In this position they are vulnerable to Horace who can kill them by stamping on them until they drop into the web below, but they will not die if there is another hole beneath for them to hang in. The same keys control Horace's movements around the web, but he only stops when stamping.

You can pause the game at any time by pressing Key S and subsequently continue by pressing any key along the bottom row. A game can be aborted and a new game started by pressing Keys G and H together.

Horace and the Spiders includes sound effects. To amplify the sound from the Spectrum.Insert the lead between the microphone sockets of the Spectrum and tape recorder. Ensure that there is no cassette in your recorder. Try setting your recorder to record, or play, and in many cases the sound from the

Spectrum will be amplified through the loudspeaker of the recorder.

©Beam Software 1983.All rights reserved. No part of this program, packaging or documentation may be reproduced in any form. Unauthorised copying, hiring, lending or sale and repurchase prohibited.