1 Centipede

This is the VAX version of the well-known arcade game by the same name.

2 Instructions

This game is similar to the arcade game, CENTIPEDE.  As written, it must
be played on a VT100 video terminal.  You have a gun, which you can move
around on the bottom third of the screen (player's zone) and with  which
you  can  shoot  at  various  invading creatures.  Bullets from your gun
travel upwards until they either hit a target or the top of the  screen.
No  more  than  one  bullet  can be on the screen at a time.  Centipedes
appear at various times on the screen, consisting of  a  head  and  from
zero to eleven body segments.  Centipedes move back and forth across the
screen, descending a level when they hit a screen boundary, a  mushroom,
or  another  centipede.   When  they reach the bottom of the screen they
begin to ascend in the same manner, but remain within the player's zone.
The  object of the game is to kill these centipedes before they eat your
gun.

When you hit a centipede with a bullet, he becomes one segment  shorter.
(Thus if he only had a head, he is now completely destroyed.) If you hit
the head, the next segment becomes the new head.  If you hit  the  tail,
it  is  destroyed.   If  you  hit  anything  in between, that segment is
destroyed and the centipede becomes  two  smaller  centipedes.   In  all
cases, the segment destroyed becomes a mushroom.

A spider appears almost continuously in the player's zone.  He starts at
one  end  and moves randomly across to the other side of the screen.  He
can kill you and you can kill  him.   He  eliminates  any  mushrooms  he
contacts,  but  you  get no credit for destroying them.  To make matters
more difficult, two other creature types start appearing after you  have
reached  certain  scores.   Fleas move straight down from the top of the
screen, dropping mushrooms behind them periodically.  They can, like the
spider,  kill you or be shot by you.  Scorpions move horizontally across
the screen, and poison any mushrooms they  contact.   When  a  centipede
hits  a  poison  mushroom, it zigzags straight down to the bottom of the
player's zone and then resumes normal motion.

You fire the gun by pressing  any  alphabetic  key  or  the  space  bar.
Holding  the  pressed  key  down  will  cause rapid fire (limited to one
bullet on the screen at one time).  You move your gun  with  the  keypad
numeric keys.  There are eight directions of motion.  The 2, 4, 6, and 8
keys give you horizontal and vertical motion, and the 1,  3,  7,  and  9
keys  give  you  diagonal motion.  One push of a direction key moves you
one square.  You can hold a key down for rapid motion.  NOTE!!!  Due  to
the  nature  of  the VT100 autorepeat key feature, you cannot have rapid
motion and fire, or rapid fire and motion, at the same time.   Thus,  if
you  hold both the firing space bar and a direction key down at the same
time, nothing happens!!

You get three guns, plus a bonus  one  every  12000  points.   The  game
continues  until  you run out of guns.  The game can be put on 'hold' by
typing  a  control-S  (noscroll)  and  resumed  by  typing  a  control-Q
(noscroll).  You can end the game at any time by typing a control-C.


The scoring of the game is as follows:

each centipede head killed:          -  100 points
each centipede body segment killed:  -   10 points
each mushroom destroyed:             -    1 point 
(note that it takes 4 shots to destroy a mushroom)
each spider killed                   -  300, 600, or 900 points
(depends on how close spider is to gun)
each flea killed                     -  200 points
each scorpion killed                 - 1000 points

When a gun is killed, all damaged and poisoned mushrooms are repaired.
You get 5 points for each one.

Enjoy!!
