CHOMP!
By: Robert T. Bonifacio

INTRODUCTION

In an unidentified pet shop, somewhere, a struggle is taking place. A 
life ort death struggle.
Within a small fishbowl, on a little-noticed shelf in the corner, a 
very special goldfish decided he's "had it" with his tiny world. And, 
he wants to escape.
He sees a window, way over on the other side of the pet shop. That's 
his goal... to reach that window, jump out of it and into the freedom
of the river below. 
You are that fish, and this is... CHOMP!
You begin by eating up flake food and the ever-quick brine shrimp, which
mysteriously make you grow bigger at a fantastic rate. When you feel 
you're big enough to tangle with the dangers ahead, you jump from your
quiet bowl to the aquarium next to it. Immediately you are faced with
the perils of the "Amazon Rivers". Always hungry Piranhas swiftly swim
up to you and chase you, their bulldog-like jaws snapping furiously.
Think this is tough? Wait 'till you get to the other levels, like 
"Deepsea Danger", "Arctic Seas", "Swamp", and... well, you'll just have
to see them yourself to believe... if you can get that far! (Heh, heh!)

One more note. There was a cat loose somewhere in the pet shop, and it
just loves goldfish. JUST goldfish... isn't that odd? Also, there's a
monkey with a fish net who also has the same exclusive tastes. Oh, and
I almost forgot, Crabs, Sea Anemone and, well, you'll find out, won't
you?

All is not lost, however; for, if you're quick enough, and small enough,
you can always hide in those logs. Or, you can get tough and eat enough
food to make you so big that you can eat the predators. Wouldn't that
be nice? Well, read on.

LOADING

To load the game, type LOAD"*",8,1. The program will automatically load
and run.

GAME SCREEN LAYOUT

On screen you will see a fishbowl on a shelf. Inside the fishbowl, there
is a goldfish. That's you. You control the fish with a joystick plugged
into port #2. At the top of the bowl, there are some pieces of flake
food moving back and forth. In the bowl, swimming around, there are
brine shrimp. Also there are some bubble coming out of that castle. 

At the botton of the screen there is the NUMBER OF FISH you have left,
HIGH SCORE, your CURRENT SCORE, and the CURRENT SHELF you are on. 

Note that usually the bottom of the screen is black; however, it will 
turn red if special fish bonus points are activated. It will also flash
when you should continue on to the next level. 

GAME OBJECTIVE

Your goal is to make it through all the shelves of CHOMP! and jump out
of the window and into the river at the end. You can also accumulate
as many points as possible before you die. 

You start out with a preset number of fish "lives" that are displayed
at the bottom of the screen. When you run out of "lives", the game is
over. You lose "lives" by being eaten, falling on the counter, being
grabbed by the cat or monkey net, and by not moving around enough 
(you'll turn green before you die from lack of oxygen).

FISH CONTROL

MOVING: Using a joystik plugged into port #2, you can move your fish
LEFT, RIGHT, UP, DOWN, etc. By pushing the stick in the direction you'd
like to go and holding it, you will gradually speed up. If you hit the
bowl walls, or any type of wall, you will automatically turn around. If
you don't keep moving, you will suffocate and die. When you are 
suffocating you'll turn green. 

JUMPING: If you want to jump out of a tank, just angle the joystick 
up-left or up-right and hold it there until you are moving against the
top of the water in the tank. Then press the fire button when you'd 
like to jump. You will jump based upon your speed and direction. Keep
in mind that you can land between tanks and lose a "life". There are 
also covers on the tanks, and if you land on them, you will slide along
until you either fall off the tank or fall through an opening and into
the tank.

EATING: To eat flake food, brine shrimp or that magical waterbug, just 
get your fishmouth over the tidbit and you will automatically eat it. 
If you don't eat any food for an extended period of time, you will 
shrink. If you are small and do not eat, you will begin to turn yellow.
If you remain hungry while yellow, you will eventually starve to death.

SHELVES AND DIFFICULTY LEVELS

Each shelf has a name, e.g. "Amazon Rivers", "Deepsea Danger", "Arctic
Seas", "Swamp", etc.

When you read the last shelf and jump out of the window, then you will
have the opportunity to attempt to escape the pet shop at a higher 
difficulty level. This progression will happen automatically and the
points scored will continue to accumulate. 

When you have completed any shelf (e.g. "Amazon Rivers") the bottom of
the screen will flash. At that time you may choose to jump to the right
or to the left. (This means jumping off over the leftmost wall of the 
shelf or over the rightmost wall of the shelf). Jumping off the shelf
to the right will place you on a different level than if you jump off
the shelf to the left. 

You will have to go through all of the shelves to reach the window, 
but the order can be changed by which direction you jump. 

The layout of the different shelves remains the same for each plane, but
it's up to you to discover it. 

SHELF / LEVEL DESIGNATION

You will begin the game on Difficulty Level 1. As you progress through
the shelves (e.g. Amazon River) a counter in the botton right corner of
the screen will tell you where you are. Difficulty level 1, Amazon 
Rivers, will appear as 1-1. 

EXAMPLE: 

		LEVEL: 1
		AMAZON RIVERS
 		     1-1
                    /   \
    Difficulty Level     Shelf number

As you progress from shelf to shelf (2, 3, 4, etc.) the number 
designation will change (1-1, 1-2, 1-3, etc.). When you've completed
all the shelves in difficulty level 1, you can begin difficulty level 2,
shelf one, and the designation will appear as 2-1. See how far can you
get, and you and your friends can compare your level progress as well
as your total points.

SHELF ADVANCEMENT

At the very left (usually left of the fishbowl) and very right (usually
right of the second fish tank) there will be visible walls that indicate
that you cannot leave the current shelf. When these walls develop an
opening, you can leave the current shelf by jumping out of the fishbowl
or tank and through the wall opening. The walls will only develop an
opening when you have eaten all of the live fish on the current shelf.
You'll know that you can go to the shelf level because the bottom of 
the screen will flash. 

To make sure you don't just hang around and eat brine shrimp to get 
points, a shark will appear in the tanks and "persuade" you to leave. 
If you're lucky enough to eat a waterbug when the shark is in your tank
you'll switch sizes with the shark. And, if you eat the shark, well...
you will just have to see. But... be fast! You'll only have a short time 
at your larger size, then it's back to your usual size (and the shark's
too). 

SCORING

You get points for eating fish as follows:

SMALL FISH .................. 100 points
MEDIUM FISH ................. 500 points
NEXT-FISH-EATEN ............ 1000 points*

*NEXT-FISH-EATEN bonus points is an extra 1000 points and is awarded
for any size fish that you eat AFTER you have already eaten a fish AND
you have not eaten any type of food (flake food, brine shrimp or 
waterbug). The special points are turned off if you change size, eat
any type of food, go to another screen shelf, or die. The bottom of the
screen will turn to RED if the special bonus points are activated. Also,
the scores 100, 500 and 1000 are shown on the screen inside of bubbles.

You get points for food as follows

FLAKE FOOD ................... 1 point
BRINE SHRIMP ................. 5 points
WATERBUG ..................... 5 points*

*If you eat the waterbug when the shark is in the same tank as you, 
you'll switch sizes with the shark, and, if you then eat the shark, 
you will be awarded 6,000 points.

You also get points for:

BITING A FISH ................. 10 points

When you bite a fish's tail, it'll turn white. Also, this will weaken
the fish a bit. So, you can cause a large fish to get smaller. They
can also do this to you, so watch out!

EXTRA "LIVES"

You get an extra fish "life" for each 50,000 points that you earn.

GROWING AND SHRINKING

By eating food, and other fish, you will grow in size. Before you will
grow, you will begin to flash red. The other fish will also flash red
when they are about to grow. 

There are three different sizes all of the fish can grow: small, medium
and large. When a fish is large, it cannot eat any larger, no matter
how much food it eats. 

If you swim around for a period of time without eating food or another
fish, you'll begin to shrink in size. You will begin to flash blue
before you are about to shrink. If you can eat something before you 
change size, you'll retain your size for a time longer. Again, the 
other fish will also flash blue if they're about to become smaller. 

If you are small and you don't eat food for a long time, you'll turn
yellow. If you remain yellow too long, you'll die of starvation.

FISH-TO-FISH "CHOMPING"

When you are the same size as another fish, and you bite it or it bites
you, the one bitten will have its tail turn white. The fish with its
tail whit will have lost a portion of its strength and could begin
flashing blue, indicating that it is about to change size. The only 
exception to this rule is, that if you and the other fish are both as
small as you can get, instead of the tail turning white, the injured
fish will be "CHOMPED". Therefore, it's best not to tangle with any
one when you're small. That's why it is very convenient to hide in one
of the logs or bottles or caves in the various tanks. Be aware that 
only when you are small can you hide in a log, bottle, etc. Also, 
other small fish can swim in after you, so watch out!

THE GAME DISK

Due to the large size of the game, its shelves and difficulty levels,
it is necessary to leave the game disk in the disk drive at all times,
and if need be, follow the disk commands on the screen, if any. 

SAVING HIGH SCORES

The computer will save the top 20 scores. Follow the instructions on
the screen when you begin the game.
