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.