DOCUMENTS TO LAW OF THE WEST
============================

SCENARIO 
--------
If you've ever wanted to strap on a six-shooter, pin a tin star to your chest and match the exploits of a Bat Masterson or Wyatt Earp, then Law of the West is your chance. 

HARDCASE GUNSLINGERS 
--------------------
You're going to need true grit, and thensome, to play it. Because as the Sheriff of Gold Gulch - as tough a Wild West town as there ever was - you'll have all you can do to survive 'til sundown. Standing in your way will be a manner of hardcase gunslingers, desperadoes and dry gulchers looking to rob the town bank, run roughshod over innocent townspeople and plant you in Boot Hill. So, like Masterson in Dodge City and Earp in Tombstone, you'll be forced to face one challenge after another, threatening both your authority and your life. As either of these great lawmen would have told you, you can't run a town by just slapping leather, nor can you do it alone. 
So, you'll have to converse with nearly a dozen of the town's most notable characters for information or cooperation as you try your darndest to maintain law and order in Gold Gulch. You'll have to think and talk just as fast as you can draw your Colt .45. You'll meet the wise-cracking saloon owner with a heart of gold and a derringer in her brassiere. Win her overand you've got the most useful eyes and ears in town working for you. 
But don't cross her, whatever you do. Same goes for the doctor, who might try just a little harder to pull that stray slug out of you if he has a hankering to. (The last Sheriff died of lead poisoning because he didn't.) Watch what you say in your showdowns with bad hombres. You know that some of them might just be faster than you are. How do you talk him out of drawing so it doesn't seem like you're backing down? 
And, as for those times when you have to stand tall, slap leather and let hot lead do the talking for you, your joystick will practically smoke after the shootout, thanks to some of the most realistic graphics - complete with music and sound effects - ever put on a computer screen. Indeed, Law of the West draws you into an animated setting so real and lifelike, you'll almost swear you see sagebrush blowing by as you stand in the street, your trigger finger twitching in anticipation. 
Your performance will be judged after each game, regardless of whether you survive or end up getting dragged off the street feet first. And, survival doesn't mean much if the bank gets robbed, the robbers get away and you accidentally shoot the schoolmarm trying to stop them. 

OBJECT OF THE GAME 
------------------
Welcome to Gold Gulch, pardner! You are the only law in these here parts and it's yer duty to protect the townsfolk while trying to survive 'til sundown. We wish ya luck! 

TO START THE GAME 
-----------------
Connect your joystick to port 2. 
When the first street scene appears, you may begin play. 

TO PLAY 
-------
Law of the West is a joystick controlled, one-player game which combines eye/hand coordination with strategic conversational interaction. The eye/hand coordination is accomplished through drawing and firing your gun, as represented in the picture at the top half of your screen. Draw your gun by pressing forward (up) on your joystick until a gunsight cursor appears on the upper portion of the screen. To aim your gun, position the gunsight cursor on the target you want to shoot. Press the fire button to shoot. 
The conversational element is represented by five lines of text at the bottom of the screen. The first line of text (red) is the "character's" comment to you. The next four lines of text are your possible responses covering a range of attitudes from apologetic to aggressive. 
To select a response, pull back (down) on the joystick until the gunsight cursor disappears from the top portion of the screen and one of your responses is highlighted. Using the joystick, select the response you wish to make and press the fire button. This will displaya new comment line from the character and another set of four response choices. There will be several such sets of line responses followed by the character's final comment and action (which will convey the results of your interaction). If you choose to draw your gun in the middle of the conversation, it might terminate the conversation and he/she might or might not draw and shoot in response. 

THE GAME 
--------
As Sheriff in Law of the West, you will have the opportunity to meet a variety of characters - from nice townspeople to nasty desperadoes. The game starts in a street scene where a character walks out and starts talking to you. The mood may be angry, happy or neutral, as indicated by the character's final comment. The game keeps track of how well you maintained your authority! 
Depending on the nature of your conversation, the character might: 
- leave 
- draw gun immediately 
- wait a few seconds, then draw 
- leave in a few seconds if not drawn upon 
- drop gun and surrender (immediately or in a few seconds) 
- if you draw upon him, may drop gun or leave 
- randomly run around and shoot at you 
- stand and shoot at you 
- start to walk away, turn and shoot 
- walk off screen, then pop out from a window or behind something and try to ambush you 
- etc. 

END OF GAME 
-----------
There will be an end-of-game evaluation upon your death or after meeting/confronting all the available characters. This will include whether you lived to see the sunset and a display of one to twelve of the following symbols representing your performance: 
- How well you maintained your authority. 
- The number of crooks you captured. 
- How well you did romantically. 
- The number of Bad Guys you shot. 
- How many times you were shot and survived or died. 
- The number of innocent people you killed. 
- The number of crimes committed. 

CREDITS 
-------
Designed by Alan Miller. 
Graphics by Mimi Doggett. 
Music by Ed Bogas. 
Copyright 1985 by Accolade, Inc. 

REMEMBER CREDITS 
----------------
Disk original and documents supplied, deprotected, shortened, levelpacked and documents typed by HOK
Cracked, trained, debugged, improved and icons implemented into the documents by JACK ALIEN

WHAT WAS DEBUGGED/IMPROVED 
* Sometimes there was a background sprite in the endscreen which did not belong there at all. 
* There was a terrible raster-flickering at the split between the graphics area and the text area. Also the last line of the graphics was missing on screen. 
* The title picture was not shown completely, because $d011 was set to #$38 instead of #$3b. 
* When you shot an opponent right before your possible answers were displayed on screen, the text area sometimes screwed up completely. 

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION 
* The leveldesqueezer and the bank robber are permanently in the memory now so there is less loading time. 
* The ingame protection built a checksum of a certain memory area and locked the game up if any byte was changed. 

...enjoy... -END-