OPQA vs. QAOP: The Final Battle

It all started as a joke. But as it usually happens in human history, everything went mad. A choice has to be made: only one combination of keys was the right one to play games. People who played with WASD, cursors and other marginal factions went down in history and now only eight people left in the two warring factions. It’s your choice: OPQA or QAOP?

Loading instructions

You can play in a real Amstrad CPC machine or in an emulator such as Retro Virtual Machine.

Tape

Amstrad CPC 464 / 464 Plus

Insert the tape, rewind it, type RUN" and press ENTER (RETURN).

Amstrad CPC 664 / 6128 / 6128 Plus

Connect a tape player, insert the tape and rewind it. Execute |TAPE, and then type RUN” followed by ENTER (RETURN).

Disk

Amstrad CPC 464 / 464 Plus

Connect a disk drive and insert the disk. Execute |DISK and then type RUN"opqa followed by ENTER (RETURN).

Amstrad CPC 664 / 6128 / 6128 Plus

Insert the disk in the built-in drive and then type RUN”opqa followed by ENTER (RETURN).

How to play

Game mechanics are similar as the ones in other popular puzle games. The main objective is to form groups of pieces of the same colour -four at least- in order tosend “trash” to the other player, so their board is filled and so the rival is defeated. Pieces doesn’t have to be in line, they can be joined arbitrarily. It’s also important to know that when you make a combination of four or more pieces, every piece of trash around them also dissapears.

In order to send more trash to the rival, you have to make “combos”: making combinations one after another. You have to pay attention to the arrangement of the pieces so that when you eliminate a colour group you can make another combination after the pieces fall in place. Maybe it sounds a little tricky but you’ll get the hang of it in a few plays. But you should keep in mind that the more combos you make the faster the blocks will fall...

The special pieces (the purple ones with a golden circle in the center) are important too. When they fall in the board, they eliminate all the pieces of the same colour as the one below.

Finally, pay attention to the letters of the pieces. If your player is from Team OPQA and you form this combination of letters in a combo (either vertically or horizontally), you’ll be rewarded with 1000 extra points and you’ll send a doubleattack of trash to the rival. But forming QAOP with the pieces will reset your score back to zero and you’ll get a double attack from your opponent. Obviously, this happens the other way around for the characters of the QAOP team. 

Controls are easy: you can move the block to the left (◀), to the right (▶), make an instant fall (▲), fall it quickly (▼), turn it clockwise (Button 1) or counter clockwise (Button 2).

By default, all actions are mapped to the joysticks, but they can be reconfigured using the option Redefine Keys in the main menu.

Credits

Code, graphics and sound: Manuel Sagra de Diego

Dedicated with love to Livi and my children Javi and Carol for enduring the hours that I dedicated to make this game.

Special thanks:

• To Fran Gallego for creating CPCtelera and for its technical and moral support.
• To the authors of essential tools such as WinApe, Retro Virtual Machine, Arkos Tracker, SDCC, Visual Studio Code or Gimp.
• To Miguel Ángel Montejo (Radastan), Fede Álvarez, Ángel Lo (Anjuel), Atila Merino, my cousin Octavio and many others that supported me with advices and kind words.
• To Igor Errazking for the new loading screen and to Alejandro Valdezate for his suggestions to improve the game.