Running The Citadel

How to Play

1. Download The Citadel disk image.
2. Download the Atari800Win Plus emulator.
3. You will need an Atari XL/XE OS ROM which can be found inside a ZIP package on Sourceforge.
4. Open Atari800Win.
5. Input->Joysticks. Select “Controller (XBOX 360 For Windows)” or “Arrows + RCtrl as fire” as the joystick. Disable Autofire.
6. Atari->Options->Disable BASIC.
7. Atari->ROM images. Set up the XL/XE ROM as the ATARIXL.ROM file you downloaded.
8. Atari->Machine Type. Select XL/XE.
9. Atari->Video System. Choose PAL as I have noticed flickering on NTSC.
10. File->Autoboot Image. Select The Citadel disk image.
11. You’re good to go! The START, SELECT and OPTION keys are F2, F3 and F4.
12. If you don’t want to read the instructions (why would you) the most important thing you won’t know is that you press START (F2) to quit your current attempt if you’ve got into an impossible situation.

Game Instructions

Taken from New Atari User #74 (Oct/Nov 1995)

Why is someone running around with an explosive strapped to their back trying to escape an old mountain fortress filled with teleporters and bombs? Because it’s good television, that’s why. Week after week, contestants brave the twenty-six rooms of the Citadel only to discover that it’s a lot easier to lose that healthy complexion than gain the title of Citadel Champion with all the prestige and (less importantly of course) money it brings.

In the auditions all you had said was, “I’d rather be Citadel Champion than win the lottery!” After that the TV producers decided that they had found this week’s contestant. When they approached you with a large backpack and said it contained high explosives you started to lose your enthusiasm a little. You are sure the phrase ‘second thoughts’ refers to the fact that such thoughts come a second too late. Ah, well. Such is life.

THE GAME

The idea is simple. In each room, you have to reach the exit (using the joystick within a specified time limit otherwise the backpack, which cannot be removed, will explode. Don’t be too disheartened because you have three attempts to solve each room before you really go up in smoke. At the foot of the display you will see the room number, the number of attempts remaining (listed as white crosses) and the time remaining.

The obstacles in your way can be listed as follows.

• Blocks: These are fairly light and you can push a number of these at once.
• Boulders: Quite heavy; you can only push one of these at a time.
• Pits: There are square pits and round pits. Blocks fill up square pits just as boulders fill up round pits. If you attempt to push a block onto a round pit or boulder onto a square pit then the block/boulder will get stuck and cannot be pushed any further.
• Teleporters: If you enter a teleporter you will emerge out of another. You cannot tell where a teleporter leads to without entering it yourself. You cannot push anything into a teleporter.
• Bombs & Detonators: There are plenty of bombs lying around. They are just as heavy as boulders and so you can only push one at a time. Every bomb in a room will explode if you step onto a detonator so be sure you are not next to any bombs when you do this.

OPTIONS

On the title screen, you can change the speed by pressing SELECT. This is so you can adjust the game control to suit yourself (it is not intended as a difficulty setting). Pressing OPTION will bring up a key displaying all of the objects in the game. Also, every room has an associated password and this can be entered, via the keyboard, on the title screen.

Finally, you may get a situation during the game where you cannot get out of a room without restarting. Pressing START will abort the current attempt while OPTION will end the game altogether and return you to the title screen.

I wish you luck inside the Citadel. Every room has a solution – nothing is impossible, not even rooms 25 and 26! I’ll tune into the show tonight to see if you make it through. If not, there’s always next week’s contestant…

[Thanks to Neil Ottaway for originally agreeing to release The Citadel through Tiger Developments.]

Passwords

1. (no password)
2. SPACE
3. CLOUD
4. ALPHA
5. KAPPA
6. IMAGE
7. SUPER
8. PANIC
9. MAGIC
10. ZEBRA
11. DREAD
12. BLAST
13. SWORD
14. CYBER
15. RINGS
16. PLUTO
17. GENIE
18. STORM
19. SOLAR
20. TRITT
21. TIGER
22. VIDEO
23. HYDRA
24. EARTH
25. TOUGH
26. (no password)