Fireball Manual
February 24, 2006
Where does fire go when it dreams?
Enter the strange and wonderful world of Fireball. As a flaming hot ball of fire, you can burn and melt blocks of many different materials, and soar high above the world – before slamming down and exploding in a blast of intense heat. Nothing can hurt you, nothing can stop you.
The hotter you become, the more you can burn.
The hotter you become, the higher you can jump.
Choose your Quest
There are three Paths to choose from...
The Fun Path
Laugh and gaze in wonder at the curiosities of this entertaining and amusing path.
The Puzzle Path
The Challenge Path
Struggle to overcome the trials
of this formidable path where few have earned victory!
Choose a Quest by burning an object in the Questing Field. The Path it belongs to will be shown. Each Quest consists of six different Fields.
Tip
Your progress is automatically saved whenever you complete a Quest, or whenever you quit a Quest and return to the Questing Field.
You must have an 8MB Memory Card for PS2 inserted in the memory card slot for progress to be saved.
How to Be a Fireball
Every Field has an Exit. Reach the Exit to move to the next Field.
Here’s how you control the fireball:
Press to Jump
The fireball jumps up to its maximum height, then begins to drift
gently down towards the ground.
Then press again to Slam
The fireball crashes down to the ground rapidly, and then explodes –
igniting nearby blocks. The slam is slightly hotter than the fireball’s own
heat.
Jump and Top Down View
The fireball jumps, and the view changes to top down. Press again to
cancel top down view. (Toggles top down view).
Pause
Press to pause. From the pause screen, you can quit the current Quest by
pressing Select, or press Start to continue playing.
Restart
Because you cannot be hurt, you may sometimes have to restart the
current challenge. Hold Select briefly and you will start the current Field
again.
Slide Left
Move Sideways to the left
Slide Right
Move Sideways to the right
Alternative Controls
Find the 'Alternative Control' object in the Options part of the Questing Field and burn it to select the alternative control scheme. Jump and Slam will now be on separate controls:
Jump
Slam
Tip
Remember that you are
immortal and therefore never die. However, you may sometimes be unable to reach
the exit – especially in Challenge and Puzzle fields. When this happens, just
press Select to restart.
Getting Hotter
When you touch a block that is burning hotter than you, you instantly become hotter!
● Yellow Hot Leaf 2 Blocks High
Plastic
●●●● Blue Hot Metal 12 Blocks High
●●●●● White Hot Metal Stone 16 Blocks High
Tip
When you Slam, you can set
fire to blocks that require you to be just a little hotter.
Your Rewards
When you burn a lot of blocks together you earn a Combo.
Your total Combo across a Quest may earn you a Silver or
Gold Medal!
Burn all the blocks in a Quest to earn a Ribbon!
Become a fireball master by completing all three Paths!
Tip
Ash unlocks Quests in the
Fun Path,
Medals unlock Quests in
Challenge Path!
That one tip says to press the start button to restart. To me, "press" is synonymous with "tap" -- it would be quite frustrating to tap the start button and have nothing happen. Maybe you should just make it "hold Select briefly" like you did for the "Restart" section.
Posted by: Adam | February 24, 2006 at 02:53 PM
I think it would be useful (when possible) to have a picture of the Questing Field, with one of the items burned down revealing a path choice.
Other than that I think this is perfect - short and sweet. Not much else is required, unless we do get online capabilities... In which case a bit on that, and like you said, when multiplayer is sorted, a little on that too.
I think it would be a good idea to have a dedicated website/forum for people to chat about the game, post scores/hints/new levels (if editor is included). So if that was done, a link to that would be useful in the manual...
Posted by: Neil | February 24, 2006 at 03:34 PM
Thanks for that Adam - well spotted! I've corrected the offline version of the manual, and will change the blog entry at a later date. (Typepad sometimes screws with formating when you post/repost, so it's in my best interest to edit the content as few times as possible!)
Neil - we absolutely need a picture of the Questing Field, as you say. But as you also hint at, we don't actually have this part of the game quite yet. :)
As for a dedicated website/forum... yes, this would be good to have. It's tricky, though, as we are going to be working with several different publishers, and I don't know if we have the money to run such a site ourselves. Something to bear in mind though.
Posted by: Chris | February 24, 2006 at 04:15 PM
A tight piece of creative technical writing.
Posted by: Patrick | February 25, 2006 at 01:49 AM