DRELBS
Once upon a time there was a kingdom that was very small. It was so small in fact that no one larger than a flea ever gave it much thought.
In this tiniest of places there lived a race of peaceful hippety, hoppity creatures called DRELBS.
One day a shadow fell over this happy land. It was invaded by trollaboars, evil looking gnomes of squarish stature who, because they were not very large, coveted this miniature land for their own. They came with screwhead tanks to destroy the drelbs, and hunted drelbs just for fun.
Although the drelbs were tiny they weren’t short on smarts. They led the trollaboars to the atomic flip grid in the centre of the city and there decided to make their stand.
Your task, if you’ve the courage of a friendly drelb, is to defeat the trollaboars on the atomic flip grid. You must be fast and cunning to avoid the hunters and save the drelbs from extinction. And above all you must have heart! Happy blinking, drelb lover!
In the many ages since the beginning of all things, in the time of sorcerers and unicorns, magic rules all kingdoms. Drelbs happily came and went as they pleased and hardly a cloud passed through their unhurried lives.
Then the trollaboars came. They brought with them evil schemes and sought to enslave all men and drelbs, and to rule the worlds of love and light.
One by one they caught the hapless drelbs and trapped them in worlds where the light never came. It is into these dark places that you, as the last of the drelbs, must venture in order to save your comrades and restore love to its rightful place.
You first appear on the atomic flip grid in the centre of the drelbish kingdom. You will notice that as you hop around the grid your movement causes gates to shift position 90 degrees.
Your object is to close off as many of the squares as possible by flipping shut gates of ¾ completed squares (this may sound far more complicated than it really is). When a ¾ sealed box is closed by a gate flip it will turn into a pulsing square. In each round you must secure all of the squares possible on the grid.
The trollaboars also can flip gates, however they cannot complete squares of their own (the trollaboars are not builders – they are mean and nasty destroyers).
You can also trap the evil trollaboars inside of the squares that you complete. This immobilises them only for a short time, whereupon they break free and escape. When you have completed all squares possible on the grid, the squares will begin to fill up with gorgolytes and drelbish windows (see below). Wait patiently and jump through the drelbish window into the dark corridor.
There are eight rounds to complete the game.
When this window opens you must hurry as quickly as your drelbish legs can hop you there, and leap through the window into the land of the gorgolytes, cousins of the trollaboars, and slave masters to the drelbs.
Then quickly, ever so quickly, you can free every drelb that you touch. But go carefully into that dark place for the gorgolytes will perceive your presence and hunt you relentlessly until you are tossed back onto the grid.
If, however, you are successful in freeing all of the enslaved drelbs then you will be transported to the bonus screen, and there your points will be entered towards the goal of freeing all drelbs from their awful state.
After a certain time, hearts will appear along the corridors of the flip grid. You must pursue these for they are magical indeed.
When you run over a heart it will freeze the trollaboars for five seconds during which you can hop quickly and trap them in a square.
You will enter the bonus screen either by kissing the lady that appears in the gorgolyte boxes or by completing a round of the dark corridor. You will be awarded a bonus equivalent of 250 times the number of completed squares on the atomic flip grid. Then, automatically, you will be transported back to the flip grid to begin the next round.
The gorgolytes will try to pop into the flip grid. You will see their ugly faces haunting you. Don’t let them intimidate you. While they are deadly in the dark corridor they cannot harm you on the grid. However, they will destroy the boxes in which they appear, and be a general nuisance.
Whenever this beautiful face appears in one of the gorgolyte squares, hop quickly to the square and steal a kiss from this fair damsel for she is sad and confused in a gorgolyte prison. If you are successful in stealing a kiss, you will jump to the bonus screen. After all the enslaved drelbs are freed, you will discover the secret of the mystery lady!
Occasionally, a magical diamond will appear somewhere on the flip grid. Hurry, hop quickly to the diamond, (for it will quickly disappear) and pass over it. This will open a drelbish window into the dark corridor.
The screwhead tanks control the perimeter of the atomic flip grid. They fire dreadful bullets that ricochet off the gates of the grid. Be careful to avoid both the tanks and their bullets, otherwise it’s goodbye drelb.
These ugly square heads hunt drelbs just for fun. Stay far away from them if you know what is good for you.
You have 5 drelbish lives to complete your mission.
At the title screen, press H to see the high scores or press SPACEBAR to start a new game.
You control the movement of your drelb with the UP, DOWN, LEFT and RIGHT arrow keys.
If you score enough points to get on the high score table, you can enter your name with a maximum of 10 letters/numbers.
There really isn’t much more to say; only drelbish valour can save the day.
All drelbs, everywhere, are counting on you.
DRELBS was originally released in 1983, programmed by Kelly Jones and published by Synapse Software on the Atari 400/800 home computer.
A version for the Commodore 64 home computer was released in 1984, programmed by Kelly Jones and designed for C64 by Miriam Nathan and William Mandel, published by Synapse Software.
The above story description was taken from the original instructions which you can find here: http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-400-800-xl-xe-drelbs_1737.html
This version came about as I wanted to learn how to program in Actionscript, the language behind Adobe FLASH, and decided the best way to do that was to write a game. I didn’t want to do anything too complicated and thought back to my old Atari 8-bit favorites. I had fond memories of DRELBS, couldn’t find an existing Flash version on the Internet anywhere, and so set about writing one.
This version has all the features (I think!) of the original, but nothing extra other than a high score table. The processing power, display resolution and number of colours is vastly superior to the old Atari 8-bit and the graphics would look even better if designed by a proper graphics artist. I tried to make the game play a little easier than the original but I am not sure whether it does or not.
An Adobe AIR version of Drelbs is also available if you would prefer to install the game on your computer so that you can play it without an Internet connection. The two versions are identical except that the FLASH version stores the high scores on a server; the AIR version stores them in a file on your computer.
You will need the Adobe AIR runtime installed on your computer. If it is not already installed then click the get adobe air link and follow the instructions. To install Drelbs click the standalone air application link, select open and follow the instructions.
Paul Lay