Stifflip & Co.

Console:	Sinclair ZX Spectrum
TV Standard:	Region Not Set
Developer(s):	Binary Vision, Palace
Publisher(s):	Erbe Software, S.A.
Release Date:	1987-01-01
Players:	1
Co-op:	No
ESRB:	Not Rated
Type:	Adventure

STIFFLIP & CO.
A Binary Vision Game

Back cover blurb:

Disaster looms for the bowler and brolly brigade. The contemptible
COUNT CHAMELEON, Master of Disguise and sworn enemy of the
establishment, is determined to suceed in his latest and greatest
dastardly plot. His sale of rubber goods through mail-order ads in a
civil service magazine, has led him to develop the RUBBERTRONIC RAY.
With it he threatens to neutralise the starch in wind-collars, loosen
stiff upper lips and generally relax moral standards - leading to the
collapse of The Empire. Worse still, it will radically and
unpredictably alter the bounce of a cricket ball. This bounder must
be stopped!

GRAM TELEGRAM TELEGRAM TELEGRAM TELEGRAM T
To: VISCOUNT STIFFLIP
MOST URGENT
IMPERATIVE YOU FIND COUNT CHAMELEON STOP ENTIRE BANARNIAN
RUBBER CROP MISSING - OUR ONLY CLUE STOP START NOW STOP THE
EMPIRE IS IN YOUR HANDS STOP CHOCKS AWAY! AND GOOD HUNTING
STOP REMEMBER: PLAY UP, PLAY UP, AND PLAY THE GAME STOP END

Game designed and programmed by
Paul Norris and Rupert Bowater of
Binary Vision.
Sound by Richard Joseph.
Additional graphics by Mark Eason and
Anna Williams.

Inside cover:

The time: World War I is over. As yet, no date fixed for a rematch.

The place: Darkest Surrey, England.

The setting: Britain rules a mighty empire over which the sun - like
bad jelly - never sets. How could such a small island, permanently
shrouded in fog, become a great power, and George V the world's
largest private landlord? The answer lies in cricket.

For countless years British schools have conducted a gruelling regime:
cold baths, corporal punishment and over-cooked cabbage. It is a
regime the British do not escape, even in adulthood, except through
cricket; a game which can lead to as much as 5 days absense from home
or school. Even if played at home, it acts as a powerful anaesthetic.

Whenever possible the British leave their soggy island for good, hence
their pre-eminence as a seafaring nation. far from home they yearn
for the sound of willow against leather. But their contempt for
foreign languages (on the grounds they are 'foreign') and the
difficulty of translating terms like 'silly mid off' has forced them
to colonise other countries as the only way of persuading them to take
up the game.

Now disaster looms for the bowler and brolly brigade. The
contemptible COUNT CHAMELEON, Master of Disguise* and sworn enemy of
the establishment, is determined to suceed in his latest and greatest
dastardly plot. His sale of rubber goods through mail-order ads in a
civil service magazine, has led him to develop the RUBBERTRONIC RAY.
With it he threatens to neutralise the starch in wind-collars, loosen
stiff upper lips and generally relax moral standards - leading to the
collapse of The Empire. Worse still, it will radically and
unpredictably alter the bounce of a cricket ball.

This bounder must be stopped!

*[this footnote appears in italics] The contemptible COUNT CHAMELEON,
Master of Disguise (and his trusty parrot, peccadillo)

Started young by attempting to blow up his school and was severely
reprimanded for smouldering behind the bicycle sheds. Later expelled
for over-bidding at bridge, since which time he has borne a grudge
against the establishment. Founder of the GUide-dogs for the Deaf
Association, and last seen by the Captain of the Titanic disguised as
an iceberg. A bad egg turned rotten - a man who can curdle a yoghurt
at twenty paces. He'd steal candy from a baby, he'd sell his own
grandmother, he'd even say boo to a goose. His villainy knows no
bounds...

INSTRUCTIONS

[Speech bubble icon with "!"]
CHINWAG talk to/trade with other characters

[Lightbulb icon]
DO ONE"S STUFF act

["BiF!" icon]
FISTICUFFS fight
you will meet up with Chameleon's henchmen throughout your adventure
and they will always pick a fight.

[Left-facing arrow icon] BEETLE OFF move

[Thought bubble icon with ?]
STATE OF PLAY? take stock

["while..." icon]
CHANGE BATTER swap between characters

Your opponents are slow but sturdy and will regularly work up to
deliverying a bone-jarring punch. Your options are: to do a bunk; hit
below the belt (effective but underhand!) or go for a straight punch.
Keep the moving crosshair in the centre to draw the target into the
middle. Press fire to throw your punch. The closer you get to the
centre ring, the more effective your punch will be. Also, the faster
your arm swings round, the more powerful your punch.

[Screenshot of "Fisticuffs" layout:

1 3

4

2 5 6

7 8

1/ Opponents strength | Your strength
(Two back-to-back "Test Your Strength" machines)

2/ Aim Your Punch at Opponent
(Target)

3/ Power of Your Punch
(Circle with a boxing glove on a revolving "arm")

4/ Chicken Out
(White feather)

5/ Left Hook
(Fist on left)

6/ Right Upper Cut
(Fist on right)

7/ Hit Below the Belt
(Fist punching downwards)

8/ Opponents punch | You
(Boxing glove on spring aimed at your head above)]

[Poster]

STIFFLIP & Co.

An Action Back-Packed Adventure!

MISS PALMYRA PRIMBOTTOM
youngest ever troop leader in the Girl Guides and first winner of the
badge for deportment. Has travelled the world collecting rare skin
disorders and is the authoress of "The Yound Ladies Companion to
Tropical Exploration". member of the Women's Temperance League for
Clothing the Savages.

Family motto: "Godliness is next to cleanliness", and in the tropics
"Cleanliness is next to impossible". A champion embroiderer with a
part-time position as a missionary it is often said that Palmyra
Primbottom put the 'p' back into 'pith helmet'.

PROFESSOR BRAINDEATH
was declared clinically dead over a decade before the start of our
adventure. Fortunately he has kept going thanks to his
"Sonneundwindhalter" - a solar powered bowtie which can act as a
windmill during periods of extended darkness. Keen to visit the
tropics on account of "all that sun". Worked for many years on a
device to put the middle back into doughnuts, and went on to apply the
same technology to toilet seats until the bottom fell out of the
market - has since become one of our back-room boys. Founder of the
ACME Corporation, Prof Braindeath is living(?) proof that not all mad
professors are bad mad professors.

VISCOUNT SEBASTIAN STIFFLIP
Englishman, eccentric and explorer - a comic hero in every sense.
Though Captain of Cricket at school. Sebastian grew up in the shadow
of his cousin Sylvester Stuffshirt, who trod on a mine in WW!,
ensuring 3 corners of a foreign field that are forever England.
Always proud of his modesty, a flying ace in the Great War, feared by
his friends and loved by his foes and known by all as "The Yellow
Viscount". After four years of tea at 5 o'clock, bandits at 6 o'clock
and bed at 7:30, our have-a-go hero was promoted to inactive duty on
the Stifflip estate in darkest Surrey.

Favourite Colours: red, white and blue (equally).
Hobbies: Defender of the Truth, the Faith and the Empire.

COLONEL R. G. BARGIE
(G.N.T. and bar) of unkown wartime experience. Tall and dashing;
blue-blooded, yellow bellied, red-eyed and green-fingered and known to
his friends as 'RGB' on account of his colourful personality. Joined
our adventure to avoid bad tempered creditors at home and not a bit
persuaded by talk of South American riches.

Pet hates: hates pets (especially creepy-crawlies). Breeds clay
pigeons.

Favourite colour: Gold. Distinguished by an eye-patch but for little
else.

A Binary Vision Game

Out For The Count The Final Countdown
(c) 1987 Palace Software London. Unauthorised copying, lending,
hiring, broadcasting, transmission or public performance of this work
- program and/or its packaging is prohibited without the express
written permission of Palace Software, 275 Pentonville Road, London N1
9NL.

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End of the Project 64 etext of the Stifflip & Co. manual.

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