

                             Dr. Mario

                 Programmed By Blue Adept/USAlliance

                       Project Began July 5th
                     Completed July 20th  4:48pm
                  Made workable for GS/OS August 17
         Further Remoded to fix some bugz on January 27, 1992



     Dr. Mario is a game of Virus's and Pills to cure them.  The object of each level is to remove all the virus pieces from the screen.  This is accomplished by getting 4 or more Pill Pieces of 1 color in a row horizontally or vertically.  You get points for each virus you take out.  If you take out more than 1 virus at a time then you get 400+(400^number of viruses killed).  Game is won after level 20 is completed.


     Could it be Mario has settled down?  After numberous adventures in the Mario Bros. series, he's tured in his running shoes for a stethoscope.  Now he's a medical researcher at Mushroom Kingdom Hospital, experimenting in the virus lab.
     But of course, Mario is a trouble magnet.  Everywhere he goes, something is bound to happen that only quick reflexes and superhuman hand-eye coordination can fix.  So one day, just as Mario was beginning work, Nurse Toadstool came rushing in with news that something had gone horribly wrong.  One of the experimental virueses was growing out of control inside a laboratory bottle.
     Fortunately, Mario had just developed a new set of vitamins that should have been able to kill the viruses.  Unfortunately, things got complicated.  The vitamins worked, but each one was effective only against a specific virus, and only when enough of the vitamins were used.  In desperation, Mario began throwing vitamins into the laboratory bottle, trying to get enough of the right ones to the viruses they could kill.
     The idea is to line up four or more pieces of the same color, either horizontally or vertically.  By "pieces," we mean a whole capsule, or half of a capsule, or a virus.  When that happens, all of te matching pieces disappear from the screen.  If one or more of the pieces were viruses, you get points.
     One key to shaping your strategy is to keep an eye on the upper right corner of the screen, where you can see the next vitamin Dr. Mario will toss into the jar.  Although you can make the currently falling capsule fall faster by pushing down, you should probably just let it drop at its own pace. Use the tiem to look at what the next capsule will be and figure out where it will fit.
     It's also important to anticipate where broken pieces of capsules will drop.  Each capsule consists of two halves, and if one half disappears whe you match a row, the other half remains on the screen.  When this happens, the half left behind drops until something stops it.  If it happens to land somewhere to make ANOTHER matching row of four colors, that row will also disappear, and any halves left behind will also drop, and so on.
     It should be pretty obvious, therefore, that when you match a capsule to a row, you should aosl think about where the odd half will drop.  How will the leftover piece affect the piles of capsules below it?  The key to beating Dr. Mario especially at the higher more contaminated leves is getting the knack of lining up capsules so that when one half disappears, the leftover half can drop somewhere useful.
     If you drop a capsule on top of a different-colored virus, there are only three ways to clear the virus later.  The first method is to imply pile on more capsules of the same wrong color until they form a matching row and disapppear, leaving the virus uncovered.  This method is the most common, and it works, but it also takes time.  In addition, the halves left behind might cover other viruses in the process, so careful planning is essential.
     The second way to clear a virus that's buried beneath wrong-colored capsules is to match it with a horizontal row of pieces.  This is probably better than method #1, but isn't always possible.  Again, careful planning is the only way to keep those lines clear.
     The third method is even more difficult - form a vertical stack by building up matching capsules beneath the virus.  This is possible because viruses, unlike capsules, do not fall toward the bottom of the screen when there's nothing to support them.  They hang in midair, and sometimes you can slide capsules into place underneath.
     Like other tetris style games, Dr.Mario is an exercise in thinking ahead under pressure.  You can usually recover from mistakes, but it always takes time.  And the longer you take to clear a level, the faster Dr. Mario tosses in the capsules.
     Unlike other Tetris variants however, Dr. Mario has viruses and you can see them magnified in the lower left corner of the screen.  These viruses disappear as you clear all of that color virus out of each level.


Key Commands

    A - Flip Left
    S - Flip Right 

    4 - Move Left
    2 - Move Down
    6 - Move Right

    Q - Quit
    ESC - P - pause game



Press Space Bar every time you are waiting at some screen that seems to be waiting for something.

Their are also a couple secret keys that I put in to help me while programming the game.  The commands put the screen into some test modes that are pretty intersting...see if you can find em eh?  :>


     This Game was written because of the massive lack of games on the market for the Apple //gs right now.  Since I've cracked and released 183 games over the 5 years that I've been the leader of USAlliance I decided that it was time to give something really productive back.  This is the first serious game I've ever written, so its not exactly incredible quality.  Also, I wrote this game from scratch in 15 days in my spare time and the usual amount of time it takes to write an arcade game is more than 4 months.  This is the first of several games I hope to write in my spare time for the GS.  
     I am also making most of the source code to these games available to anyone who wants to see it.  Since these games are not authorized and nobody gets any cash for em then I'm not going to loose anything by other people getting ahold of this code, eh?

later
BA/USAlliance

V2.1


Final Note:  I have tested this game extensively as well as I can.  I have played it through several times and for me it always works.  If you find any bugz or problems with it them try to get word to me so I can fix the bugs as quickly as possible!!!


msg to jas0n/j0e sMaCK: deeeeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwdddddddd.......  how long did it take you to get permission to leave your state?  :>

fr0d000 MiStTEr: bagged any more young males lately?
