COLORS
by CHUCK POLK
Colors is an action/strategy game for the Amiga. In Colors, you use the keyboard to control falling groups of blocks. Each rectangular block is made up of three colored squares stacked vertically. You can move the block left, right, or down. In addition, you can rotate the colors within the block. The object of the game is to play as long as possible by lining up the squares into vertical, horizontal, or diagonal lines of color. When you've lined up three or more squares, those squares disappear and the squares above cascade down to fill their slots.
Getting Started
To run Colors from the Workbench, simply double-click on the Colors icon. You'll find Colors in the Colors directory on this issue's companion disk. Colors can also be run from the CLI.
The Colors game board is a grid of 6 × 18 squares. During the game, blocks drop from the top one at a time. Each block is made up of 3 squares, each of which is one of six colors. The dropping blocks can be manipulated with the following keys on the numeric keypad.
| Key | Function |
| 4 | Move the block left |
| 6 | Move the block right |
| 2 | Move the block down (the space bar can also be used) |
| 5 | Rotate the colored squares within the block |
| Other keys control gameplay. |
| Key | Function |
| Q | Quit the game |
| N | End current game |
| R | Reset the Hall of Fame |
| P | Pause (press any key to resume the game) |
| S | Turn sound effects on or off |
| 8 | Increase the game's difficulty level by 1 |
Colors has two pull-down menus that let you perform some of the above keyboard commands. The menus also have an About option, which displays the game's copyright information, and a Show/Hide Title bar option.
Fast Levels and High Scores
Colors has ten difficulty levels; the higher the level, the faster the blocks fall. You choose the starting level at the beginning of each game. If you start at level 0 (the easiest), the level will increase by one for every 50 squares you remove. If you start at a higher level, the difficulty will remain the same until the appropriate number of boxes have been removed. For example, if you start at level 2, the level number will not increase until 150 boxes have been removed.
When three or more identically colored squares are aligned, those squares explode, and your score increases. The scoring is determined by the number of blocks exploded, the current level of difficulty, and the distance that the block was dropped. The game ends when there is no more room for other blocks to fall into the playing area. If your score is high enough when the game ends, you can enter your name into the Colors Hall of Fame, which is displayed prominently at the beginning of each game.