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Cakewalk - CommaVid - Atari 2600    Manual Scan icon HTML Manual   

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Cakewalk

One Player
Uses Left Joystick

1983  CommaVid, Inc.

Something's amiss at the bakery!

The conveyers are spinning out of control! A torrent
of cakes and pies pour from the ovens. The besieged
Baker must snatch the pastries before they fall off
the end, but avoid the deadly silverware. If that's
not enough, there's a dancing gingerbread man that
tries to out-fox the Baker and a surly janitor
to sweep up the mistakes.

You must maneuver the Baker among the six conveyers.
You can stop one, but neglect it or try to stop
another conveyor and it's on the move again.
When you catch enough pastries, you'll earn a coffee
break. Rest, enjoy your coffee, and get ready for a new
onslaught of runaway goodies.

Good reflexes alone aren't enough to avoid disaster.
As the pace increases, planning time and margin of error
vanish until the bad-tempered janitor won't clean up
another spill. Can you catch all the pastries and
keep the Bakery going until the next coffee break? Test
your speed, skill, and decisiveness in Cakewalk, the 
latest video challenge from Commavid.


Getting Started

- Turn off your game console.

- Insert the Cakewalk game cartridge.

- Be sure the left joystick controller is firmly connected
to the console (this is the only controller used.)

- Turn on your game console, you will see the game
"title screen".

- Set the left difficulty switch to "B". Note: On Sears
Tele Games the difficulty switches are called 
skill switches and the "b" position os callled novice.

- To play game variation #1, the basic game, start the
game by pressing the game reset switch. The "title screen"
will disappear and after a slight pause, play will start.

- To select any one of the 16 possible game variations,
repeatedly press the game select swtich until the desired
game number appears in the score area at the top left
of the screen. Note that the "title screen" disappears
as soon as you press game select, but play will not start
until game reset is pressed.

- Consult the appropriate sections of this booklet
for a complete explanation of the game features and
play variations.


Using the joystick

- Hold the base of the joystick in your hand with the
fire button in the left corner nearest the TV. Pushing
forward and backward on the joystick moves the baker 
up and down.

- Pressing the fire button stops the belt nearest the
baker. This stopped belt will begin moving again after
about 4 seconds, or will start immediately if you stop
another belt. A stopped belt becomes red (brighter grey
on a B/W TV).
This color change will help you see quickly that you
have stopped the desired belt.

- In game variations with "belt speedup," pushing the
joystick to the right will speed up the belt nearest
the baker.

- Pushing the joystick left has no function in any game 
version.


Play Features

- Each pastry caught scores 100 points.

- The baker must not catch the knife and fork that
appear occaisionaly. These are the only objects that the
baker must avoid.

- When a pastry is dropped, the janitor will clean it up.
The number of reserve "cleanups" is shown at the top left
of the screen as a row of red blocks. At most 4 cleanups
can be kept in reserve. When a pastry is dropped ( or
a baker inhured on the knife and fork), with no cleanups
in reserve, the game ends.

- Periodically, when enough pastries have been caught, a 
coffee break is earned. Pastries stop appearing on the belts
and a steaming cup of coffee appears on the center belt. The
game pauses until the baker touches the cip of coffee, and the 
coffee will not fall off the belt. When you are ready to resume
play, move the baker to the coffee cup. He will consume it,
and a new and more difficult onsalught of pastries will start.

- An extra reserve cleanup is earned at the end of each coffee 
break when the baker drinks his coffee.

- Gingerbread men will appear on the belts from time to time.
In some game variations only gingerbread men appear. They will
dance back and forth on the belts, both when the belt is 
stopped and moving.

- At the end of the game, the "title screen" returns with
your score, visible at the top left. To the right of the
score, where the reserve clean-ups are normally displayed,
are zero to four red blocks that encode the game number 
that was played. This allows complete photographic 
documentation of your high scores.


Play Tips:

- More experienced players can start with the left difficulty
switch in the "a" (or "expert" position to begin play at
the difficulty level normally encountered after the fourth
coffee break.

- The right difficulty switch and the TV type (Color / BW)
switch have no function in Cakewalk.

- Game #11 is probably the hardest, and game #6 is
the easiest.

- If you want the fastest action possible action, play games
with the "belt speedup" feature.

- Study the Gingerbread men, they are more predicatable 
than they seem. They do act somewhat differently in the
"all gingerbread men" game versions.

- In a fast and crowded situation, if a pastry is dropped,
use the time taken by the janitor to clean up. Stop a belt and
position your baker to salvage the situation.



Game Features Chart

						1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10  11  12  13  14  15  16
Fast Baker	  			   x     x     x     x     x       x       x       x
Pause to box       		   x  x        x  x         x   x           x   x
Belt speedup            		 x  x  x  x                 x   x   x   x
All Gingerbread men                  		 x  x   x   x   x   x   x   x


Game Variations

- The "fast baker" feature allows you to move the baker faster and 
make the game easier.

- The "pause to box" feature forces the baker to remain stationary
while he turns to place the boxed cake on the outgoing belt.
This will make it slightly more difficult to handle closely spaced
bunches of cakes.

- With the "belt speedup" feature, pushing the joystick to the right
will speed up the belt nearest to the baker. If the cakes aren't
coming too fast, this can be as much of an aid to playing as the belt
stop feature.

- You can select "all gingerbread men". These games are very similar
to the regular game, but all are more difficult becaise all pastries
are erratic Gingerbread men.


-----------------------------

In Cakewalk you move a baker along the ends of six
conveyor belts carrying pasties. If a pastry moves off the end
of a belt, it falls. To prevent pastries from falling, move
the baker to touch them as they reach the end of the belt.
He will quickly catch the pastry and place it boxed on the
outgoing belt. Points are scored for all pastries caught.
If too many pastries fall, the game is over.