INTRODUCTION Great fun for two Inspiring single combat This mixture of sports game and realistic simulation offers big fun. Two players fight against eachother for victory which is only achieved with a lot of skill, proper tactics and fortune. a furious action game for two opponents. An inspiring mixture of galactic sports game and real simulation: 'Ballbooster' - great fun for two. You outwit your opponent with constantly new tactics and a lot of skill. With full enthusiasm you sit with a friend at the computer holding the joystick in the already slightly perspiring hand. Tension, joyful screaming and laughter alternate with each other. The game gets you downright addicted and challenges you again and again. That's the way it also happened to our editors. Ballbooster is a game which does not attract by explicit graphics or sound effects but rather by the realistic simulation of physical coherences. Two players fight for a ball which has to be slung at the backwall of the opponent's area. For the present this sounds easy but the computer calculates acceleration, elasticity and inertia power. Hence adroitness is required and the players get a feeling for legitmacies which in physics lessons are often taught in form of dull formulas only. But game fun is always well to the fore. Until now 'Ballbooster-fever' caught everyone who had started the program. Your abilities increase with the game hour by hour. You always find new variants to play off the opponent's both figures or successfully stop an attack. Ballbooster runs on the C64 with disk drive or tape recorder. Furthermore two joysticks are required. After typing-in (only 2KBytes code length) the program is loaded from disk by LOAD"BALLBOOSTER",8 and started by the command RUN. The authout was not able to impart the innumerable tactical variants of the game to the computer. For this reason Ballbooster is exclusively played by two players which in our opinion is much more fun. Already after a short time to get into your stride the in the beginning unusual control sinks into your memory and you too will attempt to evolve the most cunning moves and to defeat the best opponent. HOW TO PLAY After starting the program the game scenario is built up. At the bottom the entire game area, subdivided into a light blue, a grey and a light green field, appears. In the upper screen section the surround of the ball, which it is all about, is displayed magnified. Nevertheless orientation should always take place in the lower part. At the top the current situation close by the ball may be checked now and then. Below the ball is displayed as white dot. In the beginning there are two further small dots for each player left and right in the green respectively the blue field. They mark the four game figures' positions. For the sake of better contrast the green side's figures are displayed in grey in the survey (bottom), those of the blue side in black. One of the figures of each player blinks: In this moment this is the one which os controlled with the joystick. You can change to the other figure by pressing fire button (joystick in middle position). The regular game figure's speed and direction are also altered with the joystick. The figures perform an accelerated motion, each alteration of speed happens with a certain inertia. That is also valid for changes of the movemnt direction. Before you rush into game pleasure you should become familiar with this sort of steering. By this your chance to win rises rapidly. As mentioned the ball is in the centre of game happenings. It must be played against the opponent's cushion meaning the opposite end of the area. For that purpose the ball must be picked up by a figure and then be dragged into the opponent's direction to finally let it off shortly before reaching the opponent's field. To pick up the ball you simply move to the immediate proximity of the ball In the upper screen part the ball takes on the corresponding colour. Now it is attached to the figure like to an elastic. By pressing fire button you untie this contact. Here it becomes really interesting for the professional Ballbooster as the at present with the ball connected figure acts self-willed, because everything is due to the laws of physics and the motions of the ball have influence on the game figure. Yet for example the ball may be put into oscillation on purpose and be moved into the direction of the opponent's cushion. In the proprt moment the ball is let loose by pressing fire button. At any rate the ball may also untie on its own as contacts to the figure breaks when over-stretching the 'spring'. THE MOST IMPORTANT RULE: OFFSIDE The most important game rule says: In the field of the opponent's colour the ball may neither be coupled to the own game figure nor picked up by it. Therefore we called this rule 'the offside rule'. Consequently the ball is always to be let loose before entering the opponent's field. The fire button should then be kept pressed as long as you are in the opponent's field. It is the best to prevent picking up by mistake. However if contact isn't untied in time a siren resounds and the ball is thrown in new. The opponent must try to intercept the ball before it reaches the cushion in order to start a counter attack. If the ball reaches the left or right border wall of the game area a signal resounds. The score display is updated and the ball is thrown in from the middle a new. You are able to intercept an attack prematurely too: if two figures are near by the ball always the figure which is nearest takes it. Each successful attack results in one point. As soon as a player has nine points the game ends. After (RUN/STOP RESTORE) it may be started again with 'RUN'. This became necessary to make the program as short as possible. A little hint: it could be very useful to 'swing up' the ball on purpose by rhythmical motions until it swings around the game figure vigorously. If you let loose in the moment when it has got the highest speed (when it just swings high by the figure) then the ball speed could raise considerably. Then the opponent is hardly or not at all able to catch the ball. Positions of both game figures are important too for vicory. You are even able to skillfully pass the ball to the second game figure. Try out for yourself once. In any case Ballboostering was a lot of fun for us.