Noid'99

Manual for Noid'99 v1.1

Kjell Andersson
(c)2000

Summary of contents

Game play description
Brick descriptions
Frequently asked questions

Game play description

The objective of the game is to remove all the bricks from a level. This is done by moving your pad in the horizontal direction and keep the ball bouncing onto the bricks without losing it. When all bricks on a level are destroyed (except for those bricks that can't be destroyed) you will advance to the next level.
For each brick you hit you will get points. Different bricks give different amount of points. For further information about the different bricks, se brick descriptions below.

Getting the ball where I want
You move your pad left and right with the mouse. When the ball hits the pad it will bounce off upwards again. But this is not all to it. You can to some degree control which way the ball will go when it hits the pad. The further out from the center of the pad your ball hits the more to that direction it will go. But also the furter out on the pad means that the ball will go faster, so if you want to slow down the balls movement you will have to try and hit the ball in the middle of the pad.

The UFOs
Another element of the gameplay is the UFOs that hover around. You get 100 points by shooting them down, but beware! When you hit an UFO the explosion will cause the ball to change direction. This can be disasterous if you hit a UFO at low altitude. There is one aditional reward for shooting them down. For every 50:th UFO you annihilate you will get an extra life! Surely they are worth killing!

If you are lucky you will encounter a different kind of UFO than the normal ones - a girl UFO with a pink rosette. These UFOs regulary drops red hearts. Picking up one of these hearts will grant you another 10 points.

Saving an ongoing game
When you start to reach the higher levels it can take quite some time to play. It's not always that you have an hour of spare time to play. Therefore you have the option to save an ongoing game. You do this by pressing the 'ESC'-key during a game. Then press the 's' key and your game will be saved at your current position. You will then be brought back to the main menu. The next time you press the "Start Game" button on the main screen you will be given the option to load your currently saved game. If you do this you will continue your game where you saved it. Notice now that you have continued your saved game. If you die or quit the game you will no longer have a saved game. You will always have to save the game again if you want to continue at a later time.

Brick descriptions

This is the only brick in the game that you can't shoot down.
Score when destroyed: 10 points
This brick sometimes drops a falling which if you pick it up will give you an extended pad.
Score when destroyed: 10 points
This brick sometimes drops a falling which if you pick it up will give you a smaller pad.
Score when destroyed: 10 points
This brick sometimes drops a falling which if you pick it up will split one ball into two.
Score when destroyed: 10 points
This brick sometimes drops a falling which if you pick it up will make one of the balls penetrating. This means that the ball will go right through and destroy bricks in its way. The ball that become penetrating will be surrounded by a blue glow.
Score when destroyed: 10 points
This brick sometimes drops a falling which if you pick it up will be a wildcard. This means that it could be either one of the four above types. Sometimes it will drop a coin instead of a falling brick. Picking up this coin will result in a various amount of score between 20-100 points.
Score when destroyed: 25 points
Score when destroyed: 25 points
Score when destroyed: 30 points
Score when destroyed: 20 points
Score when hit the first time: 2 points
Score when destroyed: 13 points
This brick needs to be hit twice in order to be destroyed.

Frequently asked questions

Q: When I start the game I get a message that says something like: "DirectInput Error DIERR_OLDDIRECTINPUTVERSION".
A: This is because Noid'99 requires that you have DirectX 4.0 or higher installed in order to run the game. You need to download a newer version of DirectX and install. DirectX can be found on microsofts homepage at http://www.microsoft.com/directx/. From what I have heard does WindowsNT 4 only ship with DirectX 3.0 so if you are runing that OS you will have to upgrade DirectX first.

Q: When I start the game it says that I am missing DINPUT.DLL.
A: This is becuase the game can't find the required DLL-files for DirectX. Make sure you have DirectX 4.0 or higher installed on your computer.

Q: How many levels are there?
A: There are 50 different levels.

Q: How do I exit the highscore screen?
A: Press the left mousebutton.

Q: What keyboard commands are there in the game?
A: Pressing 'P' will pause the game. Pressing 'ESC' will give you the option of returning to the main menu or save the game at its current position.