Startup Menu

Before every game, a menu appears to allow you to set up the game as you prefer. Use the cursor keys (up/down to move between options left/right to change the option) to select the mode (difficulty level).

Controller and preferred shot type - inertia or no inertia, shots fired with inertia have your speed of motion forward, backward, left and right imparted to them, shots without inertia will fly straight forward.

The Graphics mode and sound selections can also be made here. The choice is yours. Players who have never played Vaxine before can use PRACTICE mode. Here, the enemy cells never attack your bases, so there is no time pressure. Use this mode to practice moving and firing until you are skilled enough to try the main game. Players who have mastered the first few rounds may prefer to select ADVANCED mode which starts the game off at level 10.

Playing the Game:
Vaxine starts on a checkerboard grid, upon which the whole game takes place. It is easiest to move around this grid using a mouse, but you can use a joystick or keyboard if you prefer.

The object of the game is to survive each level by destroying all enemy cells which appear, before they bond together and destroy all of your base cells which appear as half domes on the floor of the grid. The game ends if all of your bases are destroyed, or if one of your three ammo streams reaches zero.

To destroy enemy cells, shoot at them using the left mouse/fire button; BUT - you will only destroy a cell if you hit it with a shot of the SAME COLOR.

How do you know which color shot you are about to fire? Look at the ammo readout at the top of the screen: it shows how many shots of the currently selected color you have left. It changes color by clicking the RIGHT mouse button or pressing the SPACE BAR. You have three different shot colors to choose from.

STATUS LINE:

At the top of the screen are a number of items that provide essential information. On the top left is your score, in the center is the ammo bar described above and to the right are two numbers. THe first of these shows the number of enemy cells in the currently selected color which are on the grid. The second shows the total number (all three colors) of bases remaining (you begin with nine).

AMMO RECHARGING:

If you shoot any enemy cell with the wrong color shot, it will not be destroyed and will continue its evil business. However, the resulting energy reaction creates a star which bounces on the spot three times before disappearing. If you shoot this star you will gain more ammo - 8 shots if shot with the SAME color cell, only 3 shots if shot with a DIFFERENT color cell. Nothing comes free though; if the star disappears without being shot you will lose five shots of that color. If you fall low on ammo in the middle of a level you MUST recharge your ammo levels in this way; if any one of your ammo levels fall to zero, then you cannot possibly defend your bases properly and the game is automatically over.

THE STAR TREE:

To make life slightly easier on the ammo front, there is a short "grace" period at the start of every level. This is shown by a timer at the top right of the screen counting down to zero.

Immediately in front of you is a star tree - a source of free ammo to help you through the level.

Just pick off the stars one by one. Stars shot with the same color scores 80 points and yields 8 extra shots of ammo. Stars hit with a different color shot scores 30 points and 3 extra shots.

Remember that as soon as the timer reaches zero, the "grace" period is over and the bad guys will start to appear.

THE ENEMY CELLS:

Nasty, evil things with only one aim in life: to bond together in groups of three or more, seek out one of your perfectly innocent base cells and suck the life from them to make more of their own kind.

Try to destroy enemy cells before they even join together: they are harder to hit when they're joined by strings and even harder to hit when bouncing around one of your bases just prior to destroying it.

To help you know what they are up to behind your back, we've included sampled sound effects to warn you whenever they: Materialize Rising siren sound Join together Slurp sound Attack one of your bases Low resonance sweep sound

In addition to the normal enemy cells, later levels feature two additional species:

HATCHERS appear as three differently colored cells bonded together. When any one of them is shot, the Hatcher splits up into a whole mess of individual cells. Worse still, if you haven't located and destroyed a Hatcher after a period of time, it explodes of its own accord and makes even more cells than if it had been shot.

SPITTERS will also appear if you take too long finishing a level. Spitters look like flattened balls that roam around on the floor of the play area and can only be shot by positioning yourself so that one of your shots lands on top of the spitter. Sounds easy, but wait till you try it! No sneaky waiting until continuously making stars. Spitters, as the name suggests, rome the grid, spitting out new enemy cells from time to time. The longer you take, the more spitters appear and the more enemy cells each one of them will produce.

PSYCHIC RADAR:

Another useful way of locating enemy cells is with the radar function. Periodically you will see a word appear on the grid ahead of you. This message is an indicator of the direction - (ahead, back, left, or right) of the closest cell whose color matches the shot type you are using. This particular radar system also assumes that there are times when you won't want to be bothered with it, for example when you are battling with an eight- ball cluster. So, it only shows up when it thinks you are lost. It decides this by seeing how long it's been since you last moved the mouse, joystick, or pressed a key, so if you need any help wait for a second or so and it will appear.

THE PORTAL:

When moving around the grid, every so often you will see solid black slabs emerge from the ground (or retract back into the ground). These are portals. If you move through a portal, when you emerge on the other side everything will have frozen. You can move around the grid freely, but all the enemy cells, stars, fragments of explosion and so on, are suspended in mid-air. This state of affairs continues until either the timer reached zero or you fire a shot. This is so that if things are going terribly wrong somehwere, you can use a portal to suspend action until you've located the trouble spot. Naturally there's a price to be paid for this. Everytime you use the portal the enemy cells get meaner, as if the action had been shifted up a level. So if you use a portal twice on level three, the aggrestion of the enemy cells will be that of level five.

DNA STRINGS:

Another weapon which can be used in the fight against disease and destruction is the DNA STRAND. To fire a DNA strand using a mouse hold down the right button and press the left button, using a joystick press and hold down the fire button. With every press, a shot is fired attached by elastic to the previous one. If you pause too long, or let go of the right button the string of cells you have fired will be released and wander off around the grid. The advantage of these strands is that they appear to the enemy as "one of their own." Every time an enemy cell bonds to the string it is destroyed along with the leader cell until the string is used up.

There are two disadvantages to using DNA strings:
1) They cost FIVE TIMES as much as normal shots (ie. five units gone from the ammo readout).

2) They have no intelligence of their own: they merely wait to be approached by an enemy cell. So you must decide when it is worth launching them.

SAVED AGAIN:

Through the miracles of modern science, your job has been made slightly easier by virtue of the fact that at the beginning of every fifth level, all of your bases are restored and you will have the opportunity to increase your ammo levels in the "Shooting Stars" sequence. In this bonus level dozens of ammo-storing stars swirl onto the screen in front of you. Get as many of them as you can (with the same color shot preferably, for maximum ammo top-up) and then continue on.....

CONTROL SUMMARY:

CONTROL FIRE CHANGE AMMO FIRE DNA

MOUSE: LEFT BUTTON RIGHT BUTTON Hold down RIGHT BUTTON press LEFT BUTTON

JOYSTICK: BUTTON A BUTTON B Press and hold down OR SPACE BAR FIRE BUTTON

KEYBOARD: ENTER SPACE BAR A Prolonged Press of the RETURN key.

In addition: press "P": to pause, SPACEBAR to continue: Press ESC to quit game back to title screen. Press F10 while in the game or at the title screen to return to DOS.

SCORING:

Each enemy cell: 250 points Each cell in cluster: 500 points Star shot with same color: 80 points and 8 extra shots Star shot with different color: 30 points and 3 extra shots Hatcher: 1000 points Spitter: 2000 points Bonus for each remaining base after every level: 100 points per base

PLAYING TIPS:

- Levels one and two are relatively easy because there are only a few enemy cells - not enough to attack your bases. The Spitters will not appear for a long time. Use these levels to practice moving around the grid and shooting accurately.

- Spitters are very difficult to shoot because they stay on the ground and in the time it takes to line one up and destroy it, several cells could have been released. On the higher levels they appear more quick and in greater numbers. Time is of the essence.

- When enemy cells attack a base, you have a few seconds to try and destroy them. You have only got to hit one of them, and all the others disperse back onto the grid as individual cells.

- Further into the game your ammo levels will become crucial, so on the early levels it is worth amassing as much ammo as possible.

- A level will not end until your last shot has dissapeared. This feature can be exploited to shoot any stars remaining on the star tree at the end of a level.