INTRODUCTION Experience the thrill of river running without getting wet in this exciting, arcade-style game for the Commodore 64. Joystick required. There's nothing like it, '' they said. Definitely a challenge, but you can handle it. As you drift toward your first set of rapids, you're beginning to have some doubts. After all, there's nothing between you and those boulders ahead but a flimsy rubber raft. Rafting, especially in a powerful river, is a dangerous adventure. But with White Water, you can enjoy river running in the safety of your own home. In this game, you must guide your raft down eight rocky rivers. But beware - you're not alond. Crocodiles and Hovercarft share these waterways. To start the game, load the program just as if it were written in BASIC. Plug a joystick into port 2 and type RUN. Then press the fire button to begin. TAKE THE PLUNGE As the game begins, you're in the multicolored raft on the left of the screen. Your goal is to maneuver this raft through an eight-level course as quickly as you can while avoiding the various obstacles - the rocks, crocodiles, and Hovercraft - that appear before you in the river. Each time you hit an obstacle, you lose a raft. Fortunately, you're given two replacement rafts. To control the raft, use the joystick. Push the joystick up and down to move the raft across the river. To increase the raft's speed, push the joystick to the right; to decrease the raft's speed, push the joystick to the left. Your score is updated and shown at the top of the screen. The faster you go downstream, the more points you score. Also, whenever you pass a crocodile or Hovercraft, you're awarded 100 points. Once you've completed a level, a message will appear informing you that you're about to advance to the next level. If you find this message lingers too long, just press the fire button to continue. When you've completed all eight levels, the game starts again from the beginning. EIGHT PATTERNS After you've played White Water for a while, you'll begin to notice repeating rock formations in the river. This is because there are only eight screen patterns, and each level consists of various combinations of these basic formations. In order to shorten the program, the eight screen patterns have been compacted to half their normal size. This was achieved by using only four bits to store a character. Thus, one byte contains information for two characters. The disadvantage in using this technique is that only sixteen characters can be represented on the screen at once.