GETTING STARTED Thank you for choosing Hockey Mania, Many hours of happy gaming awaits you, either in the 2 or the 4-player mode. For the 4-player mode, you will require the 4-player Interface from Protovision. To start up Hockey Mania, put your disk into the drive and type LOAD":*",X,1 and confirm with RETURN. Replace the X by the number of your drive. This game runs flawlessly from any drive number, it is not bound to drive number 8 alone. After loading, the cursor reappears. Type RUN and confirm with RETURN. The following drives are supported by Hockey Mania: 1541, 1571, 1581, FD-2000, FD-4000, RAMlink, CMD-HD. Hardware-speeder like JiffyDOS, which considerably increases the loading time. THE MAIN MENU Short after the title screen has faded, you will see the Hockey Mania main menu. You can choose between the following options: 2 PLAYER: 2 field players + 2 computer controlled goal keepers. 4 PLAYER: 4 field players + 2 computer controlled goal keepers. EXIT GAMES: Ends the game immediately. THE GAME After you have set your options you arrive in the Hockey Arena where two opposing teams face each other; a blue and a red team. The aim of the game is to get the puck (similar to a football) into the opponent's goal. It's as easy as that: with your joystick you can control the players on the field, although they will slide on the icy surface - so, winning the puck will take some skill. The indolence can be reduced throughout the game, because you can enhance your player with various upgrades. Therefore you need to collect as many stars as possible. Those appear in the Arena intermittently. A maximum of nine stars can be colllected per round. Every additional star is not counted, but it taken away from your opponent! Stars appear only in the first two of the three rounds. In order to get hold of the puck, you have to steer your player's stick very close to it. Once you're close enough, a confirmation sound will play. One press of the fire button shoots the puck away in the direction your player is facing. The pace of the puck is determined by holding the fire button. Keeping it pressed for a longer period of time will seed up the puck when launched. This is visualised in the display. But beware! The harder you shoot the puck, the harder it will become to score a goal with it. Too much power makes the puck unpredictable. This effect can be very useful, though. The goal keepers are controlled entirely by the computer and do their best to avoid goals from the opponents. The start and end of each game is introduced with a signalling sound. Once a goal is scored, the game stops for a while (so you can party a little). This is underlayed by various sound-fx that are randomly chosen. The game ends when the timer runs out. If any of the players have collected a star, the upgrade menu will appear. Otherwise there is just a short message and off we go to the next round. All in all, there are three round to play, exactly like in real Ice Hockey games. After those three rounds, the competition ends and the team with the most goals is declared the winner. THE UPGRADE MENU In the upgrade menu you can exchange the collected stars for upgrades (skills). You can choose between the following upgrades: FASTER TURNS: The player can change direction more rapidly. MORE SPEED: The player achieves a higher speed. BETTER GRIP: When letting go of the joystick, the player slides less. Up to nine enhancement stages are possible for each skill. If a star is used on a fully upgraded skill, it will be lost. Once all stars are exchanged for upgrades, you are returned to the main game. After three rounds, the final results are shown. Pressing one of the fire buttons brings back the Hockey Mania main menu. The game will only need to load more data if you change the options, otherwise you're ready to play again without reloading. TIPS FOR GOAL SHOTS Last but not least we have gathered a couple of tips, which help you while playing: + Shoot from a short distance. + Shooting diagonally towards the goal increases the chance of scoring. + Straight shots to the goal keeper should be at full power. When the puck reaches a certain height, the goal keeper has no chance of stopping it. However, if the puck goes too high, it will hit the upper bar of the goal.