Tombstone City: 21st Century

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about the TI-99/4A game. For the Arizona city, see Tombstone, Arizona.

Tombstone City: 21st Century is a one-player video game designed in 1981 exclusively for the Texas Instruments TI-99/4A home computer.

1 Object
2 Gameplay
3 Strategy
4 External links

[edit] Object

The object of the game is quite simple. The player controls a schooner, shooting aliens (called Morgs) and tumbleweeds in order to woo people back to live in an abandoned city somewhere in the Southwestern United States. The score is listed as Population.

The game is basically never-ending, meaning the only way the game will end is when all schooners are gone.

[edit] Gameplay

The player's schooner starts out in the middle of sixteen blocks. These are used as shelter as the Morgs cannot enter this area. The player must venture out to shoot either tumbleweeds (100 points each) or, more importantly, the Morgs (150 points each).

The Morgs are produced via one of the cacti out in the field. They can only appear from a cactus that is touching another cactus. The goal is to leave only cacti standing individually, so that no more Morgs can appear.

[edit] Strategy

The Morgs can only appear from a cactus that is immediately next to another cactus, and whenever a Morg is shot and killed, it turns into another cactus. One useful strategy is to try to shoot a Morg against two cacti, because all three cacti will disappear and become another Morg that, if shot immediately, will turn into a stand-alone cactus.

The day ends when all cacti are standing alone and not up against one another. (The day number, indicating the game level, is located at the bottom left hand corner of the screen.) A new day starts with the cacti in new positions, and the player receives a bonus schooner.

Tumbleweeds are simply replenished after the last one is eliminated.

The sixteen blocks in the center of the screen are used as base and shelter for the schooner. Any time a schooner is killed by a Morg, the new schooner starts in the middle. If a Morg is killed right next to one of the exits, a cactus is placed there and the exit is blocked off for the day. When all exits are blocked off, the schooner is automatically moved to somewhere outside. If the schooner is killed at this point, the new schooner appears somewhere else on the board. Usually by the time it is located by the player, the Morg(s) have already decended upon it.