Minestorm

Tread lightly!  The transport lanes of intergalactic space have been
seeded with mines from an alien vessel.  Use your mine destroying blaster to
blow up the mines before they annihilate you!  You may survive the floating
mines, but beware of the fireball, magnetic, and treacherous fireball-
magnetic mines... 13 fields, each one more difficult, await you!


Controls

Joystick:  Rotates your mine destroying ship.
Button 1:  Unused.
Button 2:  Escape (hyperspace).
Button 3:  Thrust.
Button 4:  Fire.


Game Play

The enemy minelayer will move through your galaxy and will seed the first
mine field.  Your ship will come into view once he disappears.  Four large
mines will suddenly become activated.

Maneuver your ship within the galaxy in an effort to destroy the mines. 
Use your joystick to rotate your ship and button 3 to thrust forward.  Button
2 allows you to mysteriously move to a new location on the screen.  Use it
cautiously... it might put you in a more difficult predicament!  As you
travel through space, use button 4 for fire at the mines.  As you destroy
them, additional mines will become activated.  Be careful... the minelayer
may reappear to seed the field, but you can blast him as well.

Once you make that part of the galaxy safe, you immediately travel to the
next mine field.  There are 13 different mine fields, each one becoming
increasingly difficult.


Getting Hit

If you are hit by a mine you will lose one ship.  The minelayer will
reseed the field you are currently in and you will have another chance to
clear out the field if you have any ships remaining.


Types of Mines

There are 4 kinds of mines which appear at different stages of the game.

Floating Mines:  [Three-pointed star]  These are "dumb" mines which simply
drift through space.

Fireball Mines:  [Four-pointed semi-square star with dot in middle]  These
mines hurl a fireball at you as soon as you hit them.  You can avoid
the fireball or destroy it with a rocket.

Magnetic Mines:  [Four-pointed "true" star]  These mines will follow you
anywhere in the galaxy you go.

Magnetic-Fireball Mines:  [Kind of a "bent" Fireball Mine]  These mines have
the traits of both Magnetic and Fireball Mines.

Each type of mine will appear in 3 sizes -- large, medium and small.


Field Types

Each of the 13 mine fields gets more difficult, but each starts with 4 large
mines.  Once a large mine is destroyed, 2 medium-sized mines are activated.
When a medium-sized mine is destroyed, 2 small mines are activated.  The
first field has 4 floating mines.  Each new field starts with harder
combinations of mines.  Will you discover the types of mines in Field 13?

If you can survive 13 mine fields, you will enter a new type of universe. 
Space dust and alien forces make this new world a difficult challenge!


Number of Ships

In each game you will start with 5 ships.  A bonus ship is awarded if you
clear out 4 fields


Scoring

Points are awarded for destroying the mines, as follows:
Types of Mine        Large   Medium  Small
------------------------------------------
Floating              100     135     200
Fireball              325     360     425
Magnetic              500     535     600
Magnetic-Fireball     750     785     850

Additionally, 110 points are earned for hitting the fireball itself and
1000 points for hitting the minelayer.

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