Mermaid Madness

MERMAID MADNESS

Electric Dreams



[Entitled simply "MERMAID" on the inside inlay and the cassette label,]

[but "MERMAID MADNESS" on the outside inlay. JimG]



Programmed by Richard Kay

Graphics by Wayne Blake

Music by Fred Gray

Produced by Richard Chapelle





CONTROLS



This program supports the Kempston joystick

interface, or use the following keys:

A = Left

S = Right

. = Down

Space = Collect or Drop Objects, Drink Bottles of Stout.





GAMEPLAY



Swim Myrtle down to rescue Gormless Gordon. You will

need to avoid sea creatures that attack you if you touch them.

You will need to drink stout to keep up your energy. There

are also some useful objects which will need to be collected

and used.

At the top of the screen going from left to right there are:

1) Score and High Score. Beneath these the object you are

currently carrying is listed.

2) Gordon's air bottles. The meter is slowly ticking down.

You have to rescue Gordon before the needle reaches the red zone.

3) Myrtle's heart which pulses faster the closer she is to Gordon.

4) A bottle of stout which shows how much energy Myrtle has.





SEA DREAMS



"I want a man," cries Myrtle, "a husband, a fellah; someone

to eat oysters with while the sun sinks down over the heaving

sea." Myrtle watches from the Candy Stall on the pier and

consumes another two sticks of rock (simultaneously), she

burps and the echoes shake the counter as a wet flip flapping

sound flops up to her stall.



The flip flapping is Gormless Gordon, a diver of little repute

and even littler brain (you could count his active brain cells

to be exact).



"Good God," shouts Gordon in shocked surprise, for

Myrtle's comely features (as comely as any 112 year old who

spent half her life soaking in salt water and the other half

pulling ugly faces in a side show for a living) have struck him

to the core and now he is going to be sick. "Oooaaahh, help

urgle urgle," gargles Gordon as he tumbles over the end of

the pier and into the briney deep.



Myrtle's heart swells on seeing Gordon and beats with a

ferocity unequalled since the home coming of the troops in

1918 when she wooed the gallant lads with a belly dance she

had learned from a squid.



"My love, my dear, my darling," she coos with a voice like a

fog horn, "you must be mine to have, to hold, to hold and to

have until the end of our days. Wait, wait don't be coy I'm

coming," and with a whoop she leaps over the Candy counter

throwing off her clothes with gay abandon as she charges

after Gordon like a romantic hippo after a mate; her golden

locks streaming out behind her as she plummets towards the

sea, which seems to cringe away from the imminent impact.



On entering the water Myrtle's legs metamorphose into a

handy fish tail which she uses to propel herself into the

rippling depths in search of her heart's desire (the rest of her

body is pretty keen on Gordon too). Meanwhile Gordon has

remembered that he has to breath bottled air when he is

under water and is now secreting himself in a tangle of metal

within a wreck.



"Mmmmmnnnnmmmnnn," he sings to himself to calm his

nerves (the mouth piece inhibiting his pronunciation a

little). Calmer now he looks around and finds he cannot move

for he has corkscrewed himself clockwise into an

anti-clockwise tangle and is well and truly trapped.

Fortunately Gormless Gordon forgets that he cannot breath

under water and settles down for a snooze, waiting for Myrtle

to go away, oblivious of the danger he is in. His air supply

starts to slip down, bubble by bubble by bubble, Gordon's in

serious trouble.



Myrtle heads for the rescue powered by bottles of stout

fortuitously scattered about the sea bed during an ocean liner

wreck (women, children and stout first over the side). With

the stout coursing round her blood stream she swims to the

bottom and as she nears her man that undefinable magic that

is love causes her heart to beat faster.

"I'm coming my dear, do not fear, do not be afraid, I'm not

in the tragical history trade. We'll have a happy ending quite

soon, if I can get you before I swoon." She swigs at another

bottle of the brown nectar while dodging a rock lobster ...





Cover written by Mark Eyles.

Copyright Mark Eyles May 1986.