Push 'n' Shove by Digi Tallis [web]
And as is usual with a Digi Tallis game, you get the
novella in front of the instructions. So here we go. Strap your
selves in tight and don't stand up when we reach the top of the
hill. (What on earth?)
It was a cool day in Laket, which in itself was rather
strange, and Caraol Hunemaker stepped out of the daylight into
the darkness of 'M. Taylir Tailors'. After his eyes had
accustomed themselves to the dark he stepped up to the counter
and pressed the bell.
'Fohp'
He waited. Then after he'd waited some more he pressed the bell
again.
'Fohp'
Still nothing happened. He pressed the bell harder.
'Fohp bloody Fohp'
Caraol bent over and looked at whatever he had mistaken for the
bell. He saw a small metal pole. When he looked harder he saw
that a small Grunting-Jack had been bound securely to the pole. H
pressed the pole. A small hammer appeared under the Grunting-Jack
and crashed straight into its ankles.
'Fohp.'
A beaded curtain at the back of the shop opened and out walked
M. Taylir
'Good day sir. How may I help you?'
'I need a cape. And a skirt. And they need to be black.'
'Certainly sir. Any specific material?'
'Its got to be black. And silky.'
'Silk would seem to be a sensible option sir.'
No reply
'Would sir like to step over here so I can get sir's
dimensions?'
We don't need to go into great detail about what happens
next. But after a short while M. Taylir stopped his
'dimensioning', put his 'dimentape (TM)' away and dissapeared
behind the beaded curtain. After a few minutes he reappeared.
'Would sir like to pick that up next week?'
'Fine. What time?'
'About 3 O'clock on the Tuesday'
'I'll see you then Taylir. I bid you a good day.'
M. Taylir waited until Caraol had left the shop before he spoke
again.
'Bloody weirdo.'
Life stood still. Then when it'd caught its breath it
carried on.
Suddenly Captain Waylt looked around and went back to smoking
his pipe.
'Boo!'
Captain Waylt slumped to the floor with a very suprised look on
his face. And after shaking his legs once or twice and folding
one arm across his chest, he died. (Its customary for a Captain
of SECURITY to be found dead slumped on the floor with his legs
spread slightly and one arm folded across his chest. And the
Ex-Captain Waylt didn't want to break tradition)
Soaffey Keeper walked towards the library with her head
held high. She'd actually done it, and she'd done it well. She
was going to be the first woman to be allowed to attempt the
trials, which would allow her into SECURITY. (Always to be
written and spoken in uppercase, it's a job which demands it.
And if you don't, it'll come round to your house in the early
hours of the morning and beat you senseless with a stick made of
rubber.)
And now, before she started the trials, she was going to read up
on them.
As she stepped into the library she felt something
pushed into her side.
'Give us your money.'
'No.'
'Oh. Never mind then.'
Soaffey, the daughter of someone, was strikingly
beautiful. (If you met her and you didn't say she was beautiful,
she would punch you hard in the face, hence she was allways
refered to as strikingly beautiful.) And clearly the men who
were sat slumped in the library chairs reading the books from
the 'warm' section thought so too. Heads turned, mouths gaped
and eyes bulged, unfortunatley Soaffey didn't have time to
notice this otherwise whe would have seen Caraol Hunemaker
looking at her from behind his paper. (This however is just
coincidence and has nothing to do with the plot whatsoever.)
Soaffey was in a hurry, and so was the man she barged
into when she turned a corner. Books flew (Sat on the roof and
made white streaks and then returned), cries of 'Oof' and other
expletives were uttered. Soaffey looked up. The man she had
walked into looked up. The librarians looked up, looked down
their noses and tutted to themselves.
'Dreadfully sorry, it was my fault', said the man.
'Yes, it was.', replied Soaffey.
'Oh, yes, yes, dreadfully sorry.'
Soaffey had allready had too much of this man and
decided it would be best if she left. She stepped over the
stooped figure and walked away with her head held high.
A week passed in Laket without anything out of the
ordinary happening (If you count a small colony of white whales
walking up the high street a normal occurance.)
It was Tuesday and it was about 3 O'clock in the afternoon. It
was time for Caraol to collect the garments he had ordered.
He rang the bell.
'Fohp.'
'Ah. Mr Hunemaker, your garmets are ready and waiting, Sir.'
'Good, and how much will they cost?'
'About 3 Hundred Shkenik Sir.'
'Thats more than I expected.'
'They are made from silk Sir.'
'True, I will pay, but not without pain.'
M. Taylir looked puzzled before he continued his talk.
'Please wait here whilst I fetch your garments Sir.'
M. Taylir went behind the beaded curtain and dissapeared, this
gave Caraol the oportunity to actually look at the shop. He
noticed it was a small place with not enough room to swing a
rat, never mind a cat. He also noticed that once you were inside
the shop you couldn't actually see the street. He wondered why
this was so. A small sound heralded the return of M. Taylir.
'Your garmets Sir. That will be 3 Hundred Shkenik.'
Caraol took out his purse and place 3 One Hundred Shkenik coins
on the counter. It looked as though his purse held more of these
coins. M. Taylir was again puzzled by the man.
'Would you like them in a bag Sir?'
'Certainly.'
M. Taylir produced one of his companys bags. (It was an ordinary
brown paper bag but somebody had been allowed to write on it
with red pen the words. 'M. Taylir Tailors, we certify a good
fit.') He folded the garments and slid them into the bag the way
that people who work in the clothing industry can.
'Your garments Sir. Call again soon.'
And with that M. Taylir dissapeared behind his beaded curtain,
leaving Caraol alone in the shop.
The new acting Captian of SECURITY walked into Davad's
office. (Davad was the recruitment man of SECURITY and had more
clout in the business than a dead wet halibut slapped across the
face by a large ape.)
'Reporting for duty SAH.'
'Excellent, right on time.'
'SAH.'
'Well go on then, report for duty.'
'Reporting for duty SAH.'
'Relax.'
'Yes SAH.'
'And why do you keep saying 'SAH'?'
'I'm not SAH.'
'Yes you are.'
'I'm saying 'Sah' SAH.'
'No, you were only saying it once.'
'SAH?'
'Oh. Never mind, sit down.'
'Yes SAH.'
Davad leaned over his desk, arched his fingers and
looked straight into the eyes of the new acting Captain.
'What do you know about women?'
'SAH?'
'I said, what do you know about women?'
The acting Captain looked puzzled, why would Davad be asking him
this question? Was it a final test before he was allowed onto
duty? He decided to play it safe.
'They are not men SAH.'
'Very helpful. What else?'
'They have bumps SAH.'
'Bumps?'
'Bumps SAH.', said the new acting Captian, as if to force his
point home. The room seemed to be getting warm.
'What else?'
'Er..'
'Well say it man.'
'Er...they have nice hair.'
'Nice hair!? Nice hair?!?'
'Yes SAH.'
'BUT ARE THEY STRONG???'
'I don't know SAH.'
'Would you think that we could have a female member of
SECURITY?'
'I don't see why not SAH.'
'Of couse we would have to install new shower rooms.'
'Why SAH?'
'Because of her 'bumps' and so that the other men didn't ojjle
at her.'
'Ojjle SAH?'
'Yes. Ojjle.'
'Don't you mean OGLE?'
'No. I mean Ojjle.'
'Of course SAH.'
'Thats it. You can leave now.'
'YES SAH. And SAH? Was that a final test?'
'Er.. Of course, and you passed with flying colours.'
The new acting Captain stood up and left the room.
'Women in SECURITY, thats a good one. He nearly had me fooled
then,' he thought to himself as he closed the door,
'women in SECURITY....'
Somewhere in the darker parts of town (Which could be
anywhere) two people met.
'I hear they are thinking of allowing women into SECURITY.'
'Nah, get away.'
The other figure vanished.
The Acting Captian of SECURITY was walking along an
alleyway when he felt something pressed into his side.
'Give us your money.'
'Why?'
'Because you want it and I don't.'
'Well, if you don't want it, I might as well keep it.'
'Oh. Bugger.'
The figure vanished.
Caraol Hunemaker was also walking along the very same
alleyway and heard the conversation between the two figures.
'Good, keeping up tradition', he mumbled to himself (Which was
quite fortunate because there was nobody else around that could
hear him.)
He paused a while, turned swiftly on his heels (Which was a
trick he had spent many long hours learning.) and he walked
towards a small door.
'Open up.'
'Why?'
'Its me you fool.'
'Who's me?'
'Me.'
'Okey dokey, be with you in a minute. Er...before I do, whats
the password?'
'We don't have a password.'
'Yes we do.'
'Since when?'
'Since...er..I'm not really sure on that.'
'Well open the damn door.'
'Right.'
The door swung open to reveal a small person.
'Oh, it IS you.'
'Who else would it be?'
'Not too sure on that either, it could have been anybody.'
'I suppose it could, but it wasn't.'
'Well you better come on in then.'
'I allready am.'
'Oh aye, so you are, now thats a bit clever.'
'Not really.'
'Ah, your being modest. Go on, admit it.'
'No.'
Caraol stepped away from the man and climbed the stairs
into his rather small office. He groaned when he saw the amount
of paper work on his desk. He sat in his chair and opened the
mail. The first letter read as such :
'To : Mr. C. Hunemaker (President of the Allied Mugging
Corporation (A.M.C.))
From : Master R. Davad. (President of SECURITY Recruitment)
Dear Caraol,
As you have probably heard, we are currently
thinking of allowing women into the job. As a friend I would
value your opinion of this. Please reply soon. Thanks.
Onto more lighter things. How are you and the cats
keeping? Good I hope..
Lets get the boys in for a game of cards sometime, my lads
against yours. We could even make it a charity match.'
And so the letter went on. Caraol leaned back in his
chair and pondered about the situation, and when he had pondered
enough he called for the door servant.
'How does the idea of cards grab you?'
'By the balls.'
'What?'
'It grabs me by the balls.'
'No. Not 'Where' but 'How''
'Who against?'
'SECURITY.'
'Not very nicely.'
'Oh come on, they can't play cards to save the city, you know
that.'
'Is it for a good cause?'
'It might be. Why?'
'I'm not really sure. Can I go now?'
'Why?'
'Because somebody might have knocked whilst I have been away
from my post.'
'Yes, dismissed.'
Caraol picked up his pen, some headed paper and started
to write a letter to R. Davad.
A few days passed and Davad was currently looking
through the mail. He couldn't find anything from C. Hunemaker at
all. He sat down and waited.
A few more days passed and Caraol decided it was about
time he posted the letter to Davad. (You know how it is. Get the
stamps, wait a week, write the letter, wait a week, write the
envelope, wait a week, finally get round to folding the letter
etc..)
All in all, a week passed before Caraols letter arrived
on Davads desk. Davad opened it without pausing to take the
stamp off to add to his collection. The letter said :
'Good idea, both of them. I say yes.'
Davad eased himself back into his chair and rested.
************************** THE GAME!!! ******************
The idea of the game is thus. YOU (Yes you) play the
part of Soaffey Keeper. Here is the basic idea.
To become part of SECURITY you must pass all of the trials. The
trials are held in a special building far out of town and they
consist of :
Walls (Made of brick)
Blocks (Any moveable object)
Holes (As they say)
Arrows (Drawn on the floor)
Conveyor belts (Also drawn on the floor, but drawn in an age old
magical ink (Which can be obtained from The School of Magic in
Forhamenlaket for a small fee))
To complete one trial you must push the blocks into their
corresponding holes. Sounds simple?
Here are a few rules which make life very hard.
A) Blocks can be different shapes.
B) Holes can be different shapes.
C) You can only travel in the direction the arrow is pointing
(If you are currently standing on one)
D) You cannot push blocks onto conveyor belts. (The blocks don't
like the magical ink, something to do with a bad night out eons
ago...Things have never been the same since...)
And thats the rules over and done with. Simple rules make for an
annoying game.
This game is the freebie that you receive if you paid up for
PLOP. (Game titles are not our strong point!)
If you have paid then THANK YOU! WE SEND OUT A THOUSAND
GREETINGS!!!!!
If you haven't then : COUGH UP YOU STINGY BUGGER! SHAREWARE
WON'T WORK IF YOU DON'T PAY! Now format this disk. (As if you
would..hahaha)
As this game is free, you don't have to do diddley squat about
it apart from play it! Now isn't that good of us?
You could send us bug reports, encouragement, thanks etc. to us
if you wish, but that is entirely up to you.
This game took longer to develope than PLOP. This is mainly
because of a few reasons.
A) I'm a lazy sonofabitch.
B) The levels took bloody ages to design.
C) I bought a modem.
D) I've been coding some stuff for a demo we are guesting on
(TEKNOFEAR by THE MEGA FOUR. Look out for it soon!)
And E) I'm a lazy sonofabitch.
The main game code took about three days to get working, that
should give you an example on how long the levels took to
design. (Its a right swine designing levels, you design one,
test it, discover a bug, correct it, discover another bug etc.
It just doesn't stop!!)
A few more rules :
You MUST complete all levels in ONE go to complete the trials.
You cannot use any password system. (I didn't code one for
starters..) This is so that it would comply to any rules that
SECURITY had. (If it existed) I mean, you would hardly go in, do
six levels and then say to the main dude 'I'll finish them off
next week', it just wouldn't happen! If you don't like this,
then complain to your local M.P. (Not that it will do you much
good.)
But, you can restart a level as many times as you like. So for
instance, if you really screw up all you have to do is wallop
the UNDO key to undo your mistakes! (Thats what the keys for!)
Thats about all you need to know apart from its controlled by
joystick, its written by Digi Tallis, and the main sprite is
meant to be a sort of multi-coloured doughnut sphere type thing.
(It was meant to have animation, but I didn't like what I came
up with!)
A HANDY HINTS ?? :-
If you have the music on the game will jerk and flash the screen
occasionally. DON'T WORRY! Everything is fine. Its just STOS' way
of telling you not to use a palette split routine and digi drum
music at the same time. This can be a bit annoying so thats why
the game boots up with the music option OFF. If however it does
crash, then please report the bug to MANDARIN and tell em STOS is
a wee bit dodgy. You may think 'why the hell do you use it
then?'. Well, that can be answered easily. Its nice and basic.
Maybe the next game will be in 68000? Who knows...
The game will jerk with the music off, this is due to the MOVES
counter. Nothing can be done about it. Sorry. You'll just havle
to put up with it. It isn't that much of a hassle. You don't have
a time limit like we were thinking of doing!
Oh by the way, the music and Logo and 'UNDO' piccy were all done
by Maguay. A thousand cheers to him. And bloody good they are
too...
You would have had sampled sound effects too. But we ran right
out of memory on a half meg. Large music files and pictures. Two
screens to work with etc.. This was a bit annoying as we had to
drop one tune and its corresponding picture! Such is life I
suppose. Why didn't we do it for One Meg machines only? Easy. We
don't have them. This way we know our stuff works on ANY ST
setup.
WE NEED IDEAS!
If YOU have a really good idea for a game, and can't program it
yourself and you insane enough to want us to program it then
send it to us. We will look at it, evaluate it, figure out what
routines will need to be written, how many graphics etc. And
then we will write back. If we say NO, then we will destroy our
copy of the letter you sent us and forget the idea ever existed.
(You can't be any fairer than that!)
If we DO decide to write it then we have full say apart from a
few small things (Like what style graphics to use, how fast it
runs etc.)
WE WILL TAKE A CUT OF THE PROFITS (Which we decide with you)
I personally will NOT do a shootemup type game, like SALAMANDER,
or R-TYPE etc. But I don't know about the other members of Digi
Tallis. (Its because I had problems with a fire routine once,
now, if I see one within four miles I have the screaming
ab-dabs....)
You know who we are, and you know where we live (Providing you
kept your copy of the PLOP .doc file that is.)
(Oh, and we know where you live too...)
If you don't, then here is our address.
Mr. S. M. Hall
37 Stornaway Square
Spring Cottage Estate
Hull
HU8 9LJ
England.
Or
Mr J. M. Lewis (Hey wow, thats me!)
30 Wembley Park Avenue
Ings Road
Hull
HU8 OND
England.
I (Orm) say thanks for reading, and hey, come back real soon,
y'all hear?
P.S. Heres the cheat for PLOP if you don't allready know it.
Go to NORMAL GAME.
Go to ENTER NAMES.
Enter WELOVEMUNGO as player ones name.
You will see the cheat screen being activated.
Then enter new names.
Start the game.
Press the RIGHT MOUSE KEY
Go to RESTART
Go to TOURNAMENT
Play the game.
AT ANY POINT IN THE GAME PRESS 'ENTER' ON THE NUMERIC PAD TO
ENTER THE CHEAT MENU.
The Cheat Menu is ONLY ACTIVE IN TOURNAMENT. Hence the palava in
getting it active.
WELOVEMUNGO!!!!!
[ back to the prod ]