Marauder

A ONE PLAYER GAME FOR THE ATARI VIDEO COMPUTER SYSTEM OR SEARS TELE-GAMES USING JOYSTICK CONTROLLERS

You've landed on an alien planet and penetrated the enemy base defended by armed attack robots. Your mission is to find your way to the heart of the base and to destroy the power center of the enemy's weapon system. Robots pursue you through halls and corridors, from room to room, as their sensors detect your presence. They fire at you from all corners. It's a race against time to find the power center as you shoot back, defending yourself against the onslaught.

INSTRUCTIONS

Use your left joystick controller with this TIGERVISION game cartridge. Hold the joystick with the red button to your upper left.

NOTE

Make sure the console unit is turned off when removing or plugging in the game cartridge.

GAME SELECTION

Turn the console unit on. The game number will be displayed at the top of the TV screen. See the game feature chart for the particular features associated with each game number. Press the game select switch to select the desired game number.

STARTING THE GAME

When you are ready to play, press the game reset switch. The Marauder will be placed at the right entrance to one of the six rooms of the enemy base. When the game reset switch is released, four enemy robots will be placed randomly in the room. They will begin to hunt you down. Be quick so they don't catch you.

JOYSTICK CONTROLLER ACTION

You can move the Marauder in eight different directions with your joystick: Up, Down, Left, Right and Diagonally. Press the red button on the joystick and the Marauder will fire a bullet in the idrection he is facing. If you press the red button again before the bullet has hit something, the Marauder will immediately recall the bullet and fire again. In this way you can produce a short range, rapid fire barrage.

GAME ACTION

BONUS GAUGE

A bonus guage is displayed at the bottom of the TV screen. You must find and destroy the power center of the enemy base before this guage runs out. When the guage is running low, warning beeps will sound. When you destroy the power center, the number of bonus points remaining in the guage will be added to your score. The Marauder will be placed at the right entrance of one of the other rooms in the base. The power center will be repaired and the bonus guage will be started again.

EXTRA MEN

You start the game with three Marauders. When your third Marauder is killed, the game is over. The number of Marauders remaining is displayed at the bottom left side of the TV screen. Every second time you find and destroy the power center, you're awarded an extra Marauder. Although you may earn many extra Marauders, a maximum of three will be displayed.

ROBOTS

When you start the game, four enemy robots will be positioned in each of the six rooms of the enemy base. The robots won't be visible when a wall lies between them and the Marauder. So be careful, you may turn a corner and find yourslef face to face with one. If you leave a particular room without killing all the robots in that room and then return later, the robots you had left will still be there, though they will have moved around. The power center room is an exception however. If you leave this room and then return, new robots will be called in if necessary so there will always be four of them to defend the power center.

MAGIC ARMOR

In some of the rooms you may find a flashing suit of magic armor. Like the robots, it won't be visible to the Marauder if it's behind a wall, so you'll have to search for it. The armor is impervious to the robots' bullets and with the armor on, the Marauder can even crash into the robots and kill them. The magic armor only lasts a few seconds though, then the Marauder will be vulnerable again.

GAME DIFFICULTY

There are four difficulty levels which determine the speed at which the robots shoot and maneuver. Each leveel starts with four robots per room. When you destroy the power center the first time, you play at the same level but with five robots per room. When you destroy the power center a second time, you play with six robots per room. The next time, you advance to the next difficulty level with four robots per room. Then five robots, then six. This provides 12 combinations of difficulty based on the robot speed and numbers.

SCORING

The score is displayed at the upper left side of the TV screen, killing each robot adds 50 points to your score. The bonus guage starts at 3200 points and ocunts down at 20 points per "TICK". When you destroy the power center, the number of points remaining in the bonus guage will be added to your score. At the end of each game, the score for that game is displayed alternately with the highest score achieved during any previous game.

NOTE:

The two difficulty of player skill switches are not used in this game. Game difficulty is selected by using the game select switch. Also, the color/B&W switch is no used. The colors used in the game were selected for good contrast when viewed on a B&W TV.

GAME FEATURE CHART

GAME NUMBER	1	2	3	4
ROBOTS PER ROOM	4 5 6	4 5 6	4 5 6	4 5 6
ROBOT SPEED	SLOW	MEDIUM	FAST	EXTRA FAST

MARAUDER