Grid Marshall

What happens in this game?

This game is about getting a stream of gliders arranged in a grid ready for launching. The gliders will appear on the left edge of the field and it is your job to prevent them blocking access for the following gliders. If any glider cannot find room to move on to the field the game is over.

How to play

Once a glider has chosen to move onto the field you can steer it as it moves inexorably towards the front of the grid. Use the Left/Up and Right/Down arrow keys to steer the glider. Alternatively click the Left Mouse whichever side of the glider you want it to move. When the glider reaches either the front of the grid or runs into the back of a parked glider it will stop and the next glider will appear.

You can launch gliders that have reached the front of the grid. Left Mouse click a suitable glider and the marshall will signal for a tug by standing near the glider and raising his arm. The next available tug will taxi across and perform the launch. Once the glider has been launched all the other gliders will try to shuffle up. When the marshall lowers his hands to his side then you may signal another glider to launch.

The scoreboard shows how many more gliders are yet to arrive and attempt to park. You are awarded points for successfully parking a glider anywhere on the grid and a small bonus if it manages to go straight to the front row. You are also awarded points for launching gliders.

When the grid is completely parked and launched you will be shown your current score and then a new grid will form. Sometimes this new grid will have more gliders, sometimes a tug will become unserviceable, sometimes the glider pilots will get faster.

Between grids you will also have a chance to look at the log book. This will show the pilot names and gliders, the time they arrived, the size of the queue ahead of them, the time they reached the front of the grid and the time they were launched. Each pilot's happiness is based on a good launch rate. They will have an expectation based on the size of the queue ahead when they arrived and if you park them off to one side and launch later arrivals they will not be appreciative.

New game settings

When a new game is started you can influence the initial difficulty :-

• Starting difficulty level : This sets the number of gliders that are in the first grid. Subsequent grids may have a greater number of gliders.
• Number of serviceable tugs : You can have from 1 to 7 tugs at the start of the game. Tugs may become unserviceable as the game progresses.
• Must all gliders be launched to complete the grid : If No the grid is deemed complete when you have managed to park everything, launching the gliders is optional. If Yes the then you must launch all the gliders to complete the grid.