
                            'Scorpius'

          by SICK - the Slightly Intelligent Crazy Rosebi

                        all rights reserved
           Scorpius is copyright  1992 Arxe Systems Ltd

              coding by Conrad Hughes & Merlin Hughes
                     artwork by Kuldip Pardesi
                      music by Gregory Magee

                         18 September 1992

                      ========================
                       THIS IS THE FINAL DEMO 
                      ========================

                                -

                     It's almost a year late.
                      But it's almost here.

                               -o-

  To play this demo, I suppose you ought to know the keys.

    left  - Z
    right - X
    up    - '
    down  - /
    fire  - Return
    quit  - Q

  Hold down Ctrl to skip the intro and outro.

  On a 1Mb Archimedes Scorpius needs to reset the machine  to  get
  sufficient memory. Because of this, on a 1Mb  machine,  Scorpius
  must be run from floppy drive 0. Keep write enabled on the  disk
  so the configuration may be saved. To skip the intro on  such  a
  machine, hold down ctrl after the reset until the logo appears.

  Instructions? Use your skill and judgement to wipe out the enemy
  task force. (Press the Return key a lot). The  red  bar  on  the
  right hand side is your energy. The yellow blobs  above  it  are
  your batteries. The purple bar on the left  hand  side  is  your
  weapon charge. The other bars don't mean anything in this  demo;
  you need to buy stuff to use them.

  This demo will auto-play after a few seconds. Hit 'Q' during the
  auto-play mode to quit.

                               -o-

  Scorpius will be available this winter (1992) from

    Arxe Systems Ltd,
    Dept SD2,
    PO Box 898,
    London E7 9RG,
    England.

    tel 081 534 1198

  Please note that Scorpius is not yet for sale.

  A release date will be announced formally 1 week before launch.
  Anyone wishing to place advance orders may do so directly  with
  Arxe  Systems  Ltd, all  payments  should  be either by cheque, 
  postal order or credit  card, monies  will not be processed  or 
  debited until goods are despatched.

  All payments should be made to "Arxe Systems Ltd"

  All queries on availability, supply, POS  material  should  be
  directed to the above address or

  email :   ojagpal@cix.compulink.co.uk or Jax(#377) on Arcade
            archie@dcs.qmw.ac.uk


                               -o-

  This application is Copyright  Arxe Systems Ltd. It is licensed
  for free public use and distribution, provided *ALL*  files  are
  included and *NO* profit is made from it. This means  you  can't
  charge for it or bundle it with another product, without express
  written permission from the authors.

  In certain cases such as that  of a public domain library, a fee
  may be  charged  for the physical act of copying  this software.
  This fee may be no greater than  1.50 sterling (or equivalent),
  for the medium, copying, and postage.

  NO OTHER CHARGES MAY BE MADE.

  NO part of this product may be modified.

  All coding is Copyright  1992 Merlin & Conrad Hughes (SICK)
  All artwork is Copyright  1992 Kuldip Pardesi
  All music is Copyright  1992 Gregory Magee

                               -o-

  SICK can be contacted at

    SICK,
    Dept Rosebush Cactus,
    42 Temple Road,
    Dublin 6,
    Eire.

    tel +353-1-974900 / +353-1-976143

  Apologies  that  I  began  a  sentence  up  there  with   'but'.
  Theatrical effect you see; it was necessary. Er, oh yeah. Please
  do write to us; we are trying to make a game that will  actually
  show off the power of this machine. Any  thoughts  and  comments
  from any of ye out there will be muchly  appreciated.  Apologies
  in advance, that we'll take so long to reply, but you  know  how
  it is; insert excuse of your choice here. Write to us  directly,
  or via Arxe; either way, it will probably get through to us.

                               -o-

  Now the excuses section..  Why is this demo so bad?

  The dog ate it sir.

  And four days ago we had to design a new level, create a totally
  new set of alien formations and balance the level two-ish  setup
  (for such it is; levels zero and one happened before  this)  for
  playing with the equipment you have.  Other  problems  were  1Mb
  machines, RISC OS 3 and the A5000.  The real thing will be good. 
  Honest.

  Reasons for this might include the  10Mb  of  in-game  graphics,
  Motion Sickness movies containing over 20Mb of compressed  sound
  and graphics, four soundtracks (yes we don't like sound),  Noise
  Pollution in-game sound effects will be  vastly  improved  (this
  version is a little over  eighteen  hours  old),  seven  million
  weapon combinations selected from over forty different  armament
  upgrades, improved sound and graphics for users with more memory
  or faster processors, multi-lingual and total gameplay ten times
  as long as this demo (six levels in all)..

  Apologies for the delay at the skull; we were asked to keep disk
  usage down, so had to do some nasty  colour  processing  at  run
  time. Don't blame us, we'd prefer to waste 22k.

  All information will hopefully be correct at time of release.

     Merlin & Conrad Hughes,
              SICK
