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Fall Guy Instructions


Ikrananka

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I don't believe I've ever seen instructions for the Fall Guy (prototype) readily available anywhere before.  Time to rectify that.  Somehow, many years ago, I ended up with a shrunk down photocopy of a typed sheet of instructions for the game.  No idea who wrote this.  Been meaning to post a scan of the sheet here for a long time but have only now got round to it.  There, that's my bucket list complete ?

 

Hope this helps.  Attached in both png and pdf formats (complete with spelling mistakes).

 

Fall Guy Instructions.png

Fall Guy Instructions.pdf

Edited by Ikrananka
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9 hours ago, Supergun said:

Much appreciated!

I’ve never known where to go or what to do in this game so every time I play it I just drive around aimlessly and get frustrated.

Glad it's of help.  When you know what to do it's not a bad game, however the platforming sections are very hard although with practice I'm sure they're beatable.

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As a follow-up to these instructions I have created a map for the driving part of the game (attached).  While driving around the game to create this map I discovered a few additions/corrections to the instructions included in the first post:

  • There is only ever ONE pickup truck (criminal in residence) on the map.
  • The location (warehouse) of the criminal appears to be randomised every time the game starts.  So lots of driving involved to find which warehouse he is in.
  • The two ramps have different speeds to take off and land safely.  However, looking at the map these ramps can easily be avoided.
  • The dirt roads (they are not "flaming roads") can be safely driven at 55mph, but the bends on the dirt roads cannot be taken safely above 30mph, otherwise you crash and pay lots for repairs.
  • Speeding and getting caught by the police (unavoidable – you can’t outrun them) results in a speeding fine.  This fine is either random or based on the amount over the speed limit you were going – not sure about this one yet.
  • U-turns must be done at or below 30mph, otherwise you crash and lose a lot of money for repairs.
  • Regardless of speed, do not do a U-turn on a bend in the road.  If you do you crash and lose a lot of money for repairs.

Fall Guy Map v1.0.pdf

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It's hard to know if it's complete as I'm struggling to capture my first criminal - see here.

 

It's a bit devoid of content, excitement and challenge other than the brutal and unforgiving collision detection and horrible difficulty in turning corners in the driving section.  There's definitely something lacking in the gameplay but that doesn't mean it's incomplete and it is only a 16KB game.  All of the elements seem to be in place for a complete game including sound effects which I imagine would have been one of the last things to add during development.

 

I must say that the driving section is technically impressive, what with the mountains moving as you turn corners, the rear view mirror and especially the ramp jumps.

 

What I'd like to know is (i) can a criminal really be caught in the platforming section, and (ii) if so what happens next?  Answering the latter question would certainly tell us if the game is complete or not.

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Well kudos to @Falonn, who figured out how to get past the middle level of the warehouse.  Once you eventually land next to the criminal he is automatically captured, you receive a bounty, and are simply dumped back in your truck at the starting location of the driving section of the game.  However, the next time you find a warehouse with a criminal inside I was totally surprised to find that it has a completely different layout with windows that you have to summersault through (screenshots attached of both the first and second warehouse levels).  Once you capture that criminal it's back on the road for another adventure.  After driving more to find another criminal the warehouse layout reverts back to the original one with crates, but this time the criminal at the bottom is firing his gun horizontally to the right at regular intervals.  So you have to really time your summersaults carefully to avoid the bullets.  I'll continue on in the game to see what else happens.

 

So, I would say that this game is most certainly complete and has surprising variety and depth to it.  It is much more than it appears to be on the surface.  I've also discovered some aspects of the game which affect the map I put together so will revise that and post it here again.

 

I'm going to put together a playthrough/walkthrough video of this game now that I'm a lot more familiar with it.

image001.png

image002.png

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It’s looking and sounding like this game is ramping up for an official cart release! I’m certain that between or among all of the publishers and contributors around here, this could happen (if sufficient interest were raised). 
 

I’m already envisioning a nice layout for the instructions. Some creative input could be used for manual and box art. We can extrapolate from the Atari 2600 releases.

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I've also discovered that the platforming sections introduce another aspect to make them more difficult once you've got past the warehouses with criminals that shoot at you.  Made me laugh out loud when I saw it and shows that the game has even further depth than I imagined.  I'll save it as a surprise for my upcoming video on the game.

 

I really do believe this game was more than 90% finished.  Although I have seen a graphical glitch or two and so it likely hadn't been (fully) tested.  The binary is 16K and is basically full (only 17 bytes free at then end).  While the addition of music would have been nice I doubt that was possible as that would have pushed it into needing an addition PROM for the carts.

 

A nice boxed release with a proper manual and map would be very cool.

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6 hours ago, phattyboombatty said:

It’s looking and sounding like this game is ramping up for an official cart release! I’m certain that between or among all of the publishers and contributors around here, this could happen (if sufficient interest were raised). 
 

I’m already envisioning a nice layout for the instructions. Some creative input could be used for manual and box art. We can extrapolate from the Atari 2600 releases.

Sorry, I disagree. Why put all the time and effort into that, when there are so many other (done from scratch) projects which could be a better use of that time any energy? For example, where's Dino Eggs?!!

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On 8/9/2021 at 2:59 PM, phattyboombatty said:

It’s looking and sounding like this game is ramping up for an official cart release! I’m certain that between or among all of the publishers and contributors around here, this could happen (if sufficient interest were raised). 
 

I’m already envisioning a nice layout for the instructions. Some creative input could be used for manual and box art. We can extrapolate from the Atari 2600 releases.

 

Fall Guy - #01.jpg

Fall Guy - #02.jpg

cbs - fallguy2.jpg

cbs - fallguy3.jpg

Fall Guy - Cartridge #01.jpg

Fall Guy - Box & Cart.jpg

Fall Guy - Cart & Manual.jpg

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Definitely a big thanks here for the additional research and resulting information! This game really was much further along then initially thought. The craziest thing is that not only did Fox Video Games put so much time and effort into an unreleased game, but the fact that they did it 4 times! It’s just crazy to me. How is it even possible that they developed 4 ColecoVision games (and all of them to a fully playable state) and yet not a single one made it to market? Surely something must have happened here?

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1 hour ago, Pixelboy said:

Pretty much.  They got into Colecovision development late and the market crashed before they got anything out.  I do find it interesting that they were developing some original games for the CV rather than just porting existing games.
 

I'd love to hear from one of the people who did CV development for TCF.  Do we know who did any of the games?

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3 hours ago, Tempest said:

Pretty much.  They got into Colecovision development late and the market crashed before they got anything out.  I do find it interesting that they were developing some original games for the CV rather than just porting existing games.
 

I'd love to hear from one of the people who did CV development for TCF.  Do we know who did any of the games?

Yes, and the same thing happened with Philips Magnavox (being a third party for CV releases), but they did get one out the door. 

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