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A modest and forgotten Windows-based arcade classic about a large anti-submarine ship Depth Charge. This British game is quite simple in appearance (16 VGA colors, MIDI music, Sound Blaster sound effects), and in its inner world, not too different from the standards of the subgenre: of course, this is not at all a disadvantage, because everything is done very decent and fun. In the upper part of the screen, our BOD moves along the sea smooth surface, controlled with the help of the left and right arrows, and also, of course, the space gap, which allows dropping mines to enemy submarines sailing below in the water column. The latter differ both in the direction of travel, and in speed, and in size, but they are the same in their unlawful striving to make us a dirty trick: periodically torpedoes are emitted from the ship, which should be dodged in every possible way. The information panel is located on the right side of the screen: first of all, here you can monitor your score, comparing it with the current global record. Points are awarded for the destruction of submarines in accordance with their tactical and technical characteristics - ranging from 300 for large, slow and close to the surface to 2800 for small, nimble and deep. At the same time, you can earn a fine: every mistake, that is, a mine that peacefully reached the seabed, takes twenty points from us (note that, traditionally for the subgenre, you can release no more than five charges at the same time); In addition, the unintentional injury of one of the whales, occasionally swimming by, for some reason, including at a considerable depth, is punishable by a -1000 points. In addition to regular torpedoes, some very generous submarines, dying, send us farewell gifts - useful bonuses displayed in the form of relatively large balls. Those are strongly recommended to catch: in an unexpected package, you can hide both extra points (a random number in the range from 1000 to 5000 - or even a fixed jackpot of 10 thousand), as well as replenishment to “health” (about which below) or an extra “smart” bomb". The latter is an additional, extremely powerful type of our weapons, the stock of which is displayed on the information panel below the points counter. Initially, we have three of them, - during the game, the supply of charges can be replenished up to eight inclusive. Such bombs are used by pressing the "S" key, instantly destroying all the submarines on the screen. Below the window with cells of “smart bombs” the name and scale of the current enemy attack wave are visible: as we succeed in hitting the targets, the red bar decreases from right to left. As soon as the required number of conventional submarines is destroyed, a kind of “boss” will appear, proudly referred to here as “end-level guard”. It represents a particularly large, fast and aggressive flagship submarine, continuously shooting at us with torpedoes and sinking not from one, like all the others, but from several hits. “Smart bombs” also do not completely destroy the guards, although they inflict damage on them much more tangible than ordinary mines, but on the other hand, bonuses from such a formidable enemy arrive in greater numbers (although it’s not easy to catch them between torpedoes ). Under the name of the enemy, on the panel on the right, there is a less pleasant indicator - the level of damage to our vessel, clearly displayed in the form of the same red bar, but already arriving in the direction from left to right. After three or four hits of enemy torpedoes into our ship, the latter begins to sink - be sure that sooner or later this sad event will happen, alas. But the game does not end there yet: we are given a limited amount of time to save our crew. The “test tube” at the bottom right slowly fills with water, counting out the precious last seconds allocated to the ship, while the five lights to the left symbolize the five lifeboats that need to be launched into the water by pressing the “A” key and using the arrow keys bring to the right edge of the screen, avoiding enemy torpedoes . A flashing light means the currently active part of the evacuees, while the burning ones - safely saved. After that, the final result is shown to us: for each boat that successfully left the screen, we get 2500 points; In addition, depending on the accuracy - that is, the percentage of mines that have avoided a banal fall to the bottom - we also get the corresponding bonus additive (for example, with perfect accuracy of 100% hits, our current score doubles). |
