THE SPECTRUM GAMES DATABASE SKOOLDAZE PUBLISHER Microsphere AUTHOR Unknown, but a husband and wife team of ex-teachers. YEAR 1984 CATEGORY Odd. Kind of an arcade adventure. DESCRIPTION Run around the school, attending lessons and fighting with your mates whilst trying to prise the combination for the school safe out of the teachers in order to steal you report card! CONTROLS Best played from keyboard as there are loads of keys, but it also supports Kempston, Sinclair and Cursor joysticks for movement only. Q - Up A - Down O - Left P - Right (Holding CAPS SHIFT with any of these makes Eric run, alternatively you can use the cursor keys for the same effect). M or 0 - Fire catapult H - Hit S - Sit/Stand J - Jump INSTRUCTIONS You are Eric, a troublesome schoolboy, and your task is to steal your report card out of the school safe in the staff room so that you don't get into trouble! To do this, you must collect the combination letters for the safe and write them on a blackboard - not such an easy task seeing as one letter of the four letter combination is held by each of the teachers in the school. In order to get them to tell you their letter, you must make all of the shield scattered around the school flash by hitting them or firing your catapult at them. Once all the shields are flashing, knocking the teachers over with your catapult will cause them to tell you their letter of the combination. All except old Mr Creak, that is, who is so old he cannot be trusted to remember his letter. It has been hypnotically implanted in his mind and he will only remember it when he sees the number of the year that he was born! To make things even harder, the school is teaming with kids and teachers and you are expected to attend lessons! Einstein is a swot and will tell on you if you do anything naughty, Angelface is a bully and will try and get you into trouble, and Boy Wander is a harmless rogue who loves to write on blackboards! Do anything wrong or be in the wrong place at the wrong time and you will be given lines! Collect over 10000 lines and you will be expelled from school! Some shields are easy to reach, but others will require you to invent more ingenious methods of making them flash. Once you have your report, the chase isn't over as the flashing shields attract the attention of the teacher's to your crime! This means that you must then turn them all off again in order to complete the year! And then there's next year....! INLAY CARD TEXT In the role of our hero, Eric (or any other name you decide to call him and the rest of the cast), you know that inside the staffroom safe are kept the school reports. And, being Eric, you realise that you must at all costs remove your report before it comes to the attention of the Headmaster. The combination to the safe consists of four letters, each master knowing one letter and the Headmaster's letter always coming first. To get hold of the combination, you first have to hit all the shields hanging on the school walls. Trouble is, this isn't as easy as it looks. Some of them can be hit by jumping up. Others are more difficult. You could try and hit a shield by bouncing a pellet off a master's head whilst he is sitting on the ground. Or, being Eric, you may decide to knock over one of t he boys and, whilst he's flattened, clamber up on him so that you can jump higher. OK. So all the shields are flashing wildly, disorientating the poor masters. Knock them over now and, before they can stop themselves, they'll reveal their letter of the code. All except for the history master, of course, who because of his great age and poor eyesight can't be trusted to remember. His letter has been implanted into his mind hypnotically. To make him reveal it, you must find out the year he was born (which, in case you were wondering, changes each game). Then, creep into a room before he gets there and, if the board is clean, write it on the blackboard. When he goes into that room and sees his birthdate he will, as if by post-hypnotic suggestion, give away his letter. Now that you know all the letters of the combination, all you have to do is work out which order they go in. You know that the Headmaster's letter is always first, but as for the other three .... you'll just have to try the various possibilities. Find a clean blackboard and write out a combination. Rush back to the staffroom and jump up to reach the safe with your hand. If nothing happens, then the combination must be wrong, so you'd better find another clean blackboard and try a different one. With the safe open, your troubles still aren't over, as the flashing shields are rather a giveaway. To stop them flashing, you now have to hit all of them again. Done it? Congratulations! You are now allowed, along with all your friends, to move on to the next class at school. But remember, there will be reports at the end of this term ..... School Rules ----------- Boys shall attend lessons as shown in the timetable at the bottom of the screen. (Remember that because you cheated in the exams last year, you always go to the same lessons as the swot.) Boys do not score points by attending lessons, but may be given lines if caught in the wrong place. Boys who acquire over 10,000 lines shall be expelled immediately from the school. Boys are not allowed to enter the staffroom or the Headmaster's study. Take care. At playtime, boys are supposed to be playing and not in any of the classrooms. Boys shall not hit their schoolmates. Boys shall not fire catapults. Boys are expected to walk quietly in the corridors - they are not for running or sitting in. School dinners are compulsory. Boys will be neat and polite at all times. The Keys -------- O or 5 - left P or 8 - right Q or 7- upstairs in the direction you are moving A or 6- downstairs in the direction you are moving (If CAPS SHIFT (SHIFT on most modern keyboards) is pressed at the same time as O, P, Q or A, this will result in fast movement in that direction.) Other keys to perform specific actions are: S - sit/stand H - hit W - write (on blackboard) J or L - jump or leap 0 or F - fire catapult Joysticks --------- Joysticks can also be used. With a joystick, the directions and firing of the catapult are selected from the joystick, but the keyboard must still be used for the other actions. You select the type of joystick at the same time as giving names to the cast. So, when you see the prompt "Do you want to change names?" reply Y, and when the list of options appears, reply: N - to use the keyboard K - for Kempston I - for Sinclair Interface 2 C - for cursor keys type joystick Scoring ------- Hitting the shields - score depends on difficulty Hitting all 15 shields - scores a bonus Opening the safe after getting the combination - scores a bonus Hitting the shields after opening the safe - score depends on difficulty Lines given to the swot or bully - their lines add to your score Hitting the bully by punching him or with a catapult - if you dare! CHEATS To get maximum fun out of this you shouldn't really cheat, but here are some tips that I've worked out after many (MANY) years of playing! Battles - you need these to find the last combination letter. They are - 1066 Hastings 1265 Evesham 1314 Bannockburn 1346 Crecy 1356 Poitiers 1403 Shrewsbury 1415 Agincourt 1485 Bosworth 1513 Flodden 1571 Lepanto 1014 Clontarf 1685 Sedgemoor 1746 Culloden 1775 Lexington 1781 York town 1805 Trafalgar 1815 Waterloo 1812 Borodino 1836 San Jacinto 1863 Gettysburg 1854 Balaclava General Tips - When told to go to REVISION, you should be in the area where the bookcases are - next to the reading room. At DINNER, you should be in front of the benches on the ground floor, where you start the game. At PLAYTIME, you can be anywhere apart from inside a classroom or office. When you have a lesson in the map room, sit in a chair near the door. As the teacher comes past you, stand up and walk slowly forwards with him towards the map. Make sure you never walk past him. When he turns around to face the class, keep walking until you are behind him. You can now turn around and fire catapults at the class without being seen and given lines! The shields in the exam room can be reached by bashing kinds and jumping on top of them. The two nearest the blackboard are easier to get by bouncing catapult pellets off the teacher's head. The shields on the lower level can only be hit by bouncing pellets off the heads of the teachers, apart from the far left and far right shields which can be shot from half way up the stairs. If you get a special (a little kid comes up to you and tells you something which you must press U to understand), follow this guide. ANGELFACE HAS MUMPS: Hide in the exam room, near the blackboard until break is over. Angelface never comes in here. EINSTEIN IS GOING TO TELL ON YOU: Einstein hangs around on the fire escape at the upper far right of the map until the little kid finishes speaking. As soon as the kid says "press U if you understand", press U and leg it to the fire escape. Stop Einstein from getting to the head's office before the end of break by hitting him or getting him with the catapult repeatedly so that he falls down. It's better to get a few lines this way than the 5000 you get if he makes it! PEASHOOTER ON THE FIRE ESCAPE: Mr Wacker starts at his office (the upper far left room) and works his way to the fire escape. Do the same as above, press U and quickly run to the office. As Wacker starts off, keep a little behind him and repeatedly shoot him with the catapult, knocking him down. You should be able to delay him until the end of break. ANY OF THESE: If you CAN'T stop any of these happening, try to put as much distance between yourself and Mr Wacker as possible. Shooting him to the ground makes him unable to catch you and you can then run past him. Always run, as Wacker moves much more quickly when he's chasing you! If you manage to survive until the end of break without being given lines, Mr Wacker will magically forget all about it! To find out the last digit of the combination lock, you must find out what year Mr Creak was born. Do this by attending his history lessons and listening to the questions and answers that he and Einstein give. Once you know what happened in the year he was born, you can use the table above to work out the year. Write this on a CLEAN blackboard and when he next enters the room and sees it he will reveal his combination letter. Note that you MUST be there to see it, if you aren't he'll just clean the board. Once you have all four letters of the combination, you must write them on a CLEAN(!!!) blackboard. The headmaster's letter always comes first, but the other three could be in any combination. Once written, go and jump at the safe in the staffroom. If nothing happens, you'll have to find another clean board and try again with a different combination. If after all this you really feel like you MUST cheat, use the multiface to enter POKE 30464,201 to stop you being expelled once you have over 10000 lines. But it'll spoil the game. :) SEQUELS/PREQUELS Back to Skool, also by Microsphere. Just as good, if not better than Skooldaze. Contact Sam Cruise was in a similar style, although not strictly a sequel. SCORES RECEIVED Don't know offhand, but very high! Both Skooldaze and Back to Skool are regarded as all-time classic Spectrum games. URL Skooldaze can be found at ftp://ftp.dcc.uchile.cl:/pub/OS/sinclair/snapshots/s/skooldaz.zip and Back to Skool can be found at ftp://ftp.dcc.uchile.cl:/pub/OS/sinclair/snapshots/s/skool2.zip ftp://akira.uc3m.es/pub/sinclair/games/s/skooldaze.zip ftp://ftp.gui.uva.es/pub/sinclair/games/s/skooldaze.zip GENERAL FACTS Both Skool games were written by teachers, and it shows! Both games also feature a novel idea - you can change the names of all the characters. Ideal for using the names of your own school friends and teachers. NOTES Even today, there are no other games quite like Skooldaze and Back to Skool. Skooldaze is fast and addictive, and has stood up well against the test of time. Playing it today in 1996, it seems just as original and fun as it did in 1984. Even the graphics are still great! A truly classic piece of Speccy game history!