STORYLINE You’re Joe, the leader of a jolly good band. Tonight is your next show, but your band mates have been lost in town! Some are in real trouble, and won’t get out without your help. Your job is to find them before 10pm, in order to play the concert. But watch out! Your supporting act, the deadly ninja band, being jealous of your headliner status, will try to prevent you from succeeding. You may encounter further trouble on your quest, like police patrols, girls falling in love with you, puritan 12-tone street musicians and other dangers. You will face various puzzles and stunts while trying to find and - if necessary - free your fellows. After a successful concert you travel to the next town (i.e. the next level). Unfortunately your hopeless band mates get themselves into trouble again, and you’ll have to fight through a couple more towns, which keep getting more difficult. The game ends, if you don’t manage to find all your band mates before 10pm, or if you get beaten up three times by the ninja band guys. A typical screenshot: a scrolling display with Joe in the center. All the buildings, i.e. bars, shoe shops, police stations etc., can be entered. If a building to the south of Joe would occlude him, its upper floors are removed from the graphical display, so that only the ground floor and its interior design can be seen. That way Joe is always visible. MISSION You have to look for your buddies by searching the streets and special locations, like bars, police stations, or apartments. Some band members can be “freed” by just meeting up with them, without any further action, while others find themselves at locations, which require you to solve a puzzle or perform a special task or move. Usually they are guarded by another character who must be distracted or lured away. A common situation: Jim, your bass player is guarded by a dog. Your first task will be to lure the dog away from him. Once you have figured out how, you’ll have to convince Jim to play the gig tonight. The first time you encounter a character, he or she will talk to you about some more or less important things. Usually those dialogs will give you a hint about what to do next. In this case e.g., you’ll have to find out what exactly Jim needs in order to style his hair. Watch out! The members of the deadly ninja band will try to catch you and knock you out with their instruments. If they manage to do so three times, you’re sent to the hospital and have to quit the game. So the most important thing is to keep clear of those guys. Once you have liberated one of the band mates, you don’t have to take care of him anymore, he will walk by himself to the center place of the town, where you’re supposed to play your concert. After having freed all of them, you can play the gig. After the show, you go to sleep in your tour bus, where you will have some evil dreams. Actually you will be able to play a very short “nightmare level”, in which you have to meet up with all the friendly characters before the ninja band guys wake up at 6 o’clock in the morning! The nightmare level. Every night you dream of your friends captured in a bizarre world made of blue tiles! This level is very short (less than a minute) and lets you relax before the next day’s hard work. Then you move on to the next town, where your buddies get themselves into trouble again. In advanced levels, the band members will start losing their instruments somewhere in town, which means that you have to take care of those too! INVENTORY A lot of items lie around in the streets or buildings and can be picked up by Joe just by running over them. The inventory holds all the items Joe has collected so far. If he is standing next to a highlighted character (indicated by an animated green arrow above the person) or item (e.g. a broken antenna), Joe can try to use use one of his items on the highlighted person or item. Joe uses the wrench from the inventory to fix the antenna on a roof top. The red arrows beside the greyed-out girls indicate that they are on lower floors. If Joe is not standing immediately next to someone, selecting an item in the inventory just drops it on the floor. Dropping an item however may cause someone nearby to react. The inventory also allows you to perform actions like whistling.