Quad
by Pete Goodliffe

Quad is a challenging puzzle game in which you have to bring order to a grid
of coloured blocks against the clock. The object of Quad is to arrange all
the blocks on the screen into columns corresponding to their colour. You do
this by rotating four blocks at a time in a square either clockwise or
anti-clockwise.


Playing Quad
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To start playing, click over Start in the main Quad menu. At the beginning of
each level you will be shown a passcode that you can use to return to that
point the next time you play. Click the mouse, and the level starts. You will
be presented by a grid of blocks, and along the bottom of this the key to
which colours should be arranged in which columns. The clock starts.

You will see a red square by the mouse pointer which holds four blocks. This
square constantly follows the pointer. As long as none of the blocks held by
the square are blank, the group can be rotated. Use the left mouse button to
rotate blocks clockwise and the right mouse button to rotate blocks
anticlockwise.

When you have successfully put all the blocks into columns the level
disappears and your score is is increased according to how far you are into
the game and how much time you took. You are then taken to the next level.
There are fifty levels of Quad for you to work through. If you don't complete
a level within its time limit, don't despair! You are given the option to
continue, but if you do so your score will be reset to zero. If you wish to
quit a game and return to the menu in the middle of a level, just press the
middle mouse button. After doing this, you can continue the game if you want
to, but your score will be reset to zero.

Every tenth level is a bonus 'picture level'. In this, rather than arrange
the coloured blocks into columns you must unscramble a picture. You are shown
a smaller version of it before the level begins so that you know what you are
aiming for. Don't worry, they're not quite as difficult as they look.

Just to complicate matters further, on later levels there are special blocks.
Those with a small red square in their top left corners are immovable, and
stop rotation from taking place. Blocks with blue squares in their corners
are called 'gates'. If you have only one of them within your square they act
just like immovable blocks. But if you have two of them inside your square
you can rotate as normal. In effect they must always rotate together, and
pivot around one point.

There is one other kind of special block, but it would be heartless to tell
you what it is and ruin your fun.


The Quad menu
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From the main menu you can choose to start a game from scratch, by clicking
over the Start option, or to start a game from any level whose passcode you
know by clicking over Passcode. You can view the high scores by clicking over
Scores. By clicking over Quit you exit the game entirely, saving the high
score table if it has been updated.

When on the main menu, you can turn the sound off or on with keys F1 and F2
respectively. The clock will tick if you turn the sound on. You can also
reset the high score table by pressing F3.

Copyright  RISC User 1999