MINESTORM
© 1982, GCE Vectrex

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.

Documentation converted to HTML by Parabellum