4-Get-It

1992 T.T.R. Development

Manual
INSTALLATION If you click on the "Install Program" icon, just follow the menus and instructions to install 4-Get-It wherever you wish on your hard drive. After installing the program, you need to install the font with the "Install Font" icon. This will copy the 4-Get-It font to your font directory. If you boot from any disk other than the 4-Get-It disk, you will need to have the font installed, or you must click "FontSet" to tell the program where to find the font. LOADING FROM DISK 4-Get-It will self boot if you reset the machine with the game disk in a bootable drive. You may also load from workbench by double clicking the 4-Get-It disk icon and then double-clicking the 4-Get-It program icon. LOADING FROM HARD DRIVE Just open the proper drawer (where you put 4-Get-It on the hard drive) and double-click the 4-Get-It icon. GAME OPTIONS From the title screen you may press any key on the keyboard and the Game Options screen will appear. On this screen are a number of options detailed below. Also on this screen is the current level number (the level you will be on if you start the game). PASSWORDS By pressing "E" when the Game Options screen is displayed, you can enter an 8-digit password that will start you on a pre-selected level. These passwords are given to you after you finish the tenth level, and after every five levels further. The password will start you on the level five boards back from the one that gave you the password (i.e. - on the tenth level, the password you get will let you start on the fifth level). SOUND ON/OFF By pressing "S" when the Game Options screen is displayed (or at any time during the game) you can turn the sound on or off. STARTING THE GAME Pressing the space bar at the Game Options screen will start the game at the level indicated by the Current Level number. GAME CONTROLS While the game is running, you may pause, re-start, toggle sound or quit the game. These options are detailed below. PAUSE If you press the "P" key while playing a board, you will pause the game. While paused, the high scores will be displayed. The top ten will remain stationary and the remaining 490 will scroll. Pressing any key will unpause and let you continue playing. USING A RETRY If you reach a point where you feel that you can make no further progress, press "X" and you will be allowed to restart that board. You have 2 retries at the beginning of the game and your counter is reset to 3 every five levels thereafter (unless you already have three or more, in which case a retry is added to the current number). TOGGLE SOUND Pressing "S" will toggle the sound on and off. QUITTING Hitting "ESC" while playing the game will return you to the title screen.

BASIC GAME CONCEPT You must try to remove all the tiles from the screen before the timer runs out by placing them next to matching tiles. When two or more tiles match, they will vanish. Once all tiles have vanished, you will proceed to the next (harder) level. As you proceed through the game, you will be given passwords that will allow
you to start at higher levels in the game. CURSOR MOVEMENT You control the cursor (the flashing hollow square) with the up, down, left and right keys. You may move in any direction you want, including diagonally, by pressing the appropriate keys (for diagonal, just press up and right, for example). You may move anywhere you wish on the screen, but you can only affect the tiles, not the walls or the background. SELECTING A TILE When you have positioned the cursor over the tile you want, just hit the space bar and that tile will be selected. A selected tile will rotate to indicate that you can move it. If you want to de-select the tile, just hit the space bar again. MOVING TILES Once you have selected a tile, you can move it either right or left, but not through things. If your path is blocked by a wall or tile, you will not be able to move in that direction. If you move it over a gap of any kind, it will fall until it lands on something. You can not control the direction that the tile falls, nor stop it from falling. Any tiles that were on top of the tile that is moved, will drop down to fill the gap. Remember---If you drop a tile, you cannot move it back upwards (usually...), so think carefully before moving. MATCHING TILES The goal of 4-Get-It is to match all the tiles on the screen in sets of two or more. To do so, the tiles must be adjacent to one another, either horizontally or vertically, not diagonally. When you have two or more tiles with the smae picture on them which are adjacent to each other they will vanish and you will be awarded points. You have to be careful not to match up two tiles of the same type if there is a third one on the board because you will no longer have any way to match that last tile. You can not put two tiles next to each other and then add a third, the first two will vanish as soon as they touch. Three-way matchups can be accomplished by placing two of the tiles one space apart and dropping the third one in between. There are other ways of doing three-way matches as well, but you will learn those on your own. Four way, or greater, matchup are also possible, but again, you will have to learn them on your own. Special tiles will also activate their powers when they are matched together. It is also possible to set up chain reactions by matching tiles above which could then match up, dropping the ones above those, etc. Multiple matches like this will score you a lot more points than regular match-ups and will often finish levels much more quickly. MYSTERY TILES There are several tiles and wall types that do strange and unusual things in the game. We are leaving it up to you to discover and use these, however we will hint that the board name usually warns you when one of these is used for the first time. Enjoy! SCORING You will earn points for matching tiles and for the time remaining level. The first tile in any matchup is worth 100 points and each subsequent tile is worth 100 points more than the last. You will earn points tile in a chain reaction (for example, if you match two tiles that others to match, it counts as a four-tile matchup, that's 100 plus 300 plus 400 = 1000 points!). HIGH SCORE LIST The top five hundred scores are saved to disk. If you earn enough points you will be allowed to enter your name (up to eighteen characters) which will be recorded along with the date, score and number of levels completed (only on each for EVERY cause 200 plus

levels you actually played are counted, not ones you skip using a password). When the game is paused the high score list will scroll past. The high scores may be rest at any time by deleting the file "4-Get-It.his" from the disk or the directory from which you have been running 4-Get-It. STRATEGY You should pay special attention to the title of each board, sometimes they contain valuable clues to the solution (and sometimes they don't). Also, work from the bottom of the screen to the top whenever possible. That way, if you make mistakes, they can be corrected more easily. Try to think through each level backwards. If you know you've messed up a level, do as much as you can anyways, you may learn something else which will be valuable in the next attempt! AMIGA ADDENDUM This addendum contains several useful bits of information that were left out
of the manual. For the most part, the Amiga version of 4-Get-It plays identically to the PC version. Basic game controls will remain the same, with the following additions: GAME CONTROLS In addition to the cursor buttons and space bar, you may also use the Joystick or mouse or numeric keypad to control the cursor. The mouse buttons, joystick button, return and enter all provide the same function as the space bar-selecting or de-selecting tiles. KEYBOARD CONTROLS Volume control for the game sound effects is adjusted by pressing F1-F5, music can be adjusted with F6-F10. Mouse and joystick sensitivity can be altered with the top row of buttons (` through 0). Pressing "`" makes control very sensitive, while "0" makes it sluggish. All the buttons in between provide varying degress of sensitivity. to quit the area of the game that you currently in (i.e. playfield, high score list, option screen), press "ESC". If you are on the options screen, pressing "ESC" will reset the board number 1. NEW INSTALLATION To install 4-Get-It to your hard drive, just double-click the install icon. ADDITIONAL LEVELS Included on the Amiga version of 4-Get-It are several sets of boards that can be loaded by typing the appropriate password. Just type the password in from the options screen after hitting "E" to enter a password. LOADEASY - These boards are the easiest we have, they will also teach the basic concepts of 4-Get-It gameplay, as well as showing you how special tiles work. LOADTHEM - The boards in this set are themed, using tiles of similar types and board designs that fit a given theme. Some are easy, some are hard, you'll have to try them out yourself. LOADALP - These boards can be very tricky because they give you almost no time to think. Lightning reflexes and mental processing are required to complete these. (Sorry Nemesis you won't do well!) - These are some of the hardest boards around, so hard that they removed from the final game due to overwhelming frustration. Giant piles of tiles that must be carefully sorted through one at a time before the timer runs out. Make one mistake and you have to start again. LOADORIG - These are the original boards, type this password when you want to re-load the original game boards. These are the ones automatically loaded in when you start the game. LOADTRIK - All of these boards hinge on one or more tricks that you have to figure out. They require clever use of special tiles and thinking in different directions. SPECIAL TILES

LOADBM were

These tiles, when matched up, will cause something to happen besides just having them vanish. What they do, and how it affects your game, is detailed below. Bomb Tiles - These tiles have a picture of a lit bomb on them, when you match two or more of them up, an explosion will take place. The blast will obliterate any and all surrounding blocks, but no tiles. When these tiles match up, the upper right most bomb will be the one that explodes, so watch how you position them... Wild Cards - These tiles have question marks on them, they will NOT match each other, they will only match other tiles. Wild cards will match ANY other tile, causing them to vanish or exhibit their appropriate effect. Wild cards will also make multiple matches with tiles that normally do not match each other. AntiGravity- The tiles with the picture of the two arrows, one pointing up and the other pointing down, are Reverse gravity tiles. When matched up, the gravity of the board will reverse. If the tiles had been falling downwards, now they will fall upwards and viceversa. Radiation they - These tiles look like Radiation symbols, when they match up, will turn the City tiles into Ghost City tiles. BlockMaker - These have a picture of several small squares on them, when Blockmakers are matched up, they will change into blocks. Once they have become blocks, they can no longer be moved or matched to anything. SPECIAL BLOCKS Some of the blocks that the tiles move on have special properties, these are descriptions of them and how they affect tile movement. Slimed be slid right or left onto one of these, but you will have to figure out some other way to get them off... Ice Blocks - When a tile is moved onto an Ice Block, it will continue to move in that direction until it no longer has ice under it, or it hits something. Stopping is possible, but.... - These blocks aren't really there at all and when you slide a tile onto one, it will fall through. Only by careful examination and constant vigilance will you be able to avoid - These blocks have a coating of green sticky slime. If a tile
on one, it can no longer be moved right or left. Tiles may

Mock Blocks these.

Ghost Blocks - The spirits of blocks long since gone, these are very hard to see but yet act just like normal blocks. Hover Blocks - These blocks have a large red arrow on them that will push tiles upwards when they are slid onto them. There are a great many tricks that can be done with these, so experiment! Warp Blocks that one is blocked, it will come out the next one...There are also many tricks that can be done with these, so try different things and pay attention! ADDITIONAL STRATEGY TIPS Use you ten second countdown timer to carefully study the board, make note of where the various Mock Blocks and Ghost Blocks are before you start madly sliding tiles. try to find a "path" of sorts through each level. Make sure that you have no further need for a tile before you match it up, and remember its a lot easier to make a tile go down, right or left than it is to try making it go up... --Typed by SKIDROW - These look like floating red downward-pointing arrows. When a tile drops onto one of these, it will fall out from under the upper left most Warp Block that is on the screen. If

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