MONTY PYTHON'S FLYING CIRCUS LEVEL ONE: Always try to kill enemies as you see them. If you simply rush past, you may find that you miss an exit to a bonus screen or some cheese and remember the locations of bonus (gumby-spring) screens. Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition, but should you come up against Cardinal Ximinez and his cohorts, here is what to do: Position yourself underneath the arc of the flying cushions and open fire with your fish.(there is a Safe spot). If you want a maxi-maximum score, you can also knock out the pillows (they take six hits and are worth 400 points each) Dead parrots don't do much, they are dead, after all, but they can give Gumby grief if he is not careful. Please note that they appear from the top if you are at the bottom half of the screen and from the bottom if you are at the top. Feet move very in a predictable pattern and do not fire bullets. All you have to do is find a safe place to sit and come up every now and them to shoot them. Hamsters are easily shot down, but it is often necessary to fly past them instead. This is not easy as they fire up or down depending on your relative position. Note that they always fire bullets at the same point across he screen which means you can get past them with a bit of careful timing. Piggy banks always travel from right to left and are predictable in their movements. However, they are prone to fire up or down depending on your position but unlike the hamsters, the point at which they fire is not predictable. Keep Left Signs travel vertically, firing bullets that are easy enough to dodge but a nuisance when you want to find that elusive SPAM tin. The signs appear in gangs of three; it is best to destroy each whole group before progressing. Thankfully, there is only one 17th Century European Monarch to deal with but it has to be killed quickly. Move ahead of his anti-clockwise path around the screen (thus drawing his fire) and when you see the change, turn and get a few shots in. In this way, it is quite possible to destroy him without getting hurt. Patience and anticipation is the key. LEVEL TWO: Take your time with level two. Every cheese block can be destroyed and every Spam tin collected, no matter how mush it looks like it can't be done. In most cases it is a matter if not shooting away these cheese blocks without thinking about if they can be used as platforms to jump on to get Gumby to other block or bonuses' first. Level two also conceals exits to bonus screens, not only in the form of the standard exits, such as the mysterious black holes in the background, but in the form of pull-down exits which can be activated by pulling the joystick while Gumby is standing in certain pieces of background scenery. Explore the level and find them. 16 ton weights are invincible. You can not kill them, so stay clear. They only understand two things - acceleration due to gravity and causing physical harm, neither of which are terrible helpful to Gumby. Sill Walk Ministers appear in groups from the top of the screen, so try to dispatch the entire group before moving on. Disembodied limps simply move vertically, up or down. To get past them, chuck a fish at them. It is worth nothing that on the skeleton section that features them in conjunction with some snapping teeth, they enter the screen the same way the dead parrots on level one - from the top if Gumby is in the bottom half of the screen and vice versa. Confused cats can not be hurt by fish. The only way to get points is by setting off a trap. These stationary felines explode should Gumby get too close to them. Cheese blocks shot from beneath them will make the cats fall and this can sometimes be used to get them out of harms way. For most confused cats, it is best to walk up close to make them explode and jump to dodge the fragments. Big Toes usually drop off bits of landscape and fly to the left. Some may be set off to destroy other aliens that get in their way (particularly the Spanish Inquisition) but all of them hurt. Toes can be shot if Gumby is quick enough, but this is only for the danger freaks among you) This is the first - no - second unexpected appearance of the Spanish Inquisitors. This time they have taken to the air and will follow Gumby at the top of the screen, dropping bombs. Their balloons can be burst at the end of the section in which they appear by setting the Big Toe Trap at the top right of the last screen of the section. This produces a SPAM Bonus. Snapping teeth start firing horizontal bullets at regular intervals when Gumby gets too close. It is best to try and shoot them from a distance before they fire, otherwise it's a question of timing between the bullets and hurling the fish at them when you can. Squelchy Heads are invincible. The easy way to get past one is to time running beneath the arc that they jump in. Then, jump left, then right, so getting past should be no problem if you are patient enough. Walking hands patrol left and right for a limited distance. They are no problem unless they are patrolling an area that is too restrictive for Gumby to enter. In these cases, it is worth studying the landscape and using something else to kill them. Warts are invincible as with the fists, timing is the key. Bombs are invincible. They are produced from the top of the giant hands in the later part of the level. They roll left, stop and then explode. Without giving too much away about the puzzles in this section, when the bombs explode they blow up any aliens that get caught in the explosion. As a result, they are idea to use to get rid of those awkwardly placed aliens that are difficult to hit with a fish. The Toe-Nose Elephant is hard. The method to use with this end of level beast is simple: run beneath its firing nose so that it fires as it leaps to the left, take a hit in the noseless elephant, and jump back to the right before the elephant fires its nose again. The elephant then jumps back to the right before starting its movement pattern again ` LEVEL THREE: On level three it is back to blasting, but here the timing is rather important considering the number of adversaries Gumby faces. Search every conceivable exit off screen to get to hidden bonus screens. Try to take out every block of cheese for end level bonuses. Take advantage of the Lupins - they remove many creatures and generate plenty of food bonuses. The Gumby-Bird control is very similar to that of Gumby-Fish, only the bird drifts slowly down the screen. Cherubs come in almost unlimited numbers, so blasting your way through them is about your best bet. They enter the screen vertically and then turn and fly off horizontally depending on which side of them Gumby is at the time they change direction. You may also find it useful to occasionally make space by setting off the 16 ton weights that fall out of the holes in the floor above. Little men sit and fire regular sprays of bullets at you. It is recommended that you always find ways of ducking down and out of the way of the bullets and then pop back up to throw a fish at them. This requires timing, but it is the safest way to deal with them. The more gung-ho players may favor killing Little Men with a carefully activated 16 ton weight, whatever way you kill them, you will end up with a food bonus when they expire. Hell's Grannies are invulnerable. They hand upside down from ropes and explode should Gumby get too close. Upper Class Twists move vertically only, but turn to face Gumby so there is no nipping around the back of them to get some shots in. The best tactic for these is to use cheese blocks as cover from their bullets. Lobbing the odd well- placed halibut between the gaps in the blocks. Some of the upper class twists reward you with food bonus when shot but you have to be quick to collect it before it falls off the screen. By a strange twist of program design, the flying sheep operate in virtually the same manner as the piggy banks on level one. They fire vertically in Gumby's direction, but when they fire is decided at random. The best tactic for the flying sheep is to try to get rid of them as soon as they appear. It is also helpful to let them gather in groups behind these cheese blocks so that when the block is shot away, the flock quickly goes off to the left giving Gumby a reprieve from the constant triggering of sheep. Constantly produced by the Gas Cooker at the end of the section in question, Gasmen shuffle left across the screen. However, should Gumby get in a vertical line of fire with one of them, he automatically launches himself up the screen straight at Gumby. Gasmen explode on contact with the landscape, so it is not altogether a bad idea to hide from them ensuring that there are some cheese blocks between them and Gumby. The Gas Cooker ultimately turns into a SPAM bonus. You can not exit this section without killing the Cooker. It generates Gasmen at an alarming rate along with the odd trajectory bullet. Tactics for this one are to lead its fire and Gasmen by placing Gumby to the left of it, doing your best to get a shot in at it when you can.. Then once, say, two or three Gasmen are heading towards Gumby, fly up and to the right, above the cooker and this will make the Gasmen launch up the screen. As soon as it is safe to do so, fly quickly back to the position you were in and repeat the method. The trick here is to not try to blast away the Gasmen, but to get shots in at the cooker and get rid of the Gasmen by forcing them to fly up and off the screen. The trajectory bullets should take care of themselves, but watch out for them; they still hurt. Lumberjacks always appear in the windows in the background and throw three regular sprays of pressed flowers, followed by an ax. It takes eight hits to kill a lumberjack, so it is a matter of positioning Gumby to that fish may be thrown during the time that the sprays of flowers are thrown. Keep in mind that the axes follow an unusual arc which forces Gumby out of line with the Lumberjacks. The trick here is to get back in the line as fast as possible after each ax has been thrown. Flying hands follow regular paths and do not shoot bullets. It is worth blasting these cannon fodder completely away - particularly the ones that appear before Gumby gets to the second lumberjack on the lumberjack section. As if you had not expected it, the Spanish Inquisition are back once more, hurling pillows and turning into SPAM when shot. To exit the lumberjack section, completely remove the Spanish Inquisition - a task which requires similar timing to that employed earlier with the lumberjacks themselves. Position Gumby in the line with the Spanish Inquisitor to get some shots in, allowing the feathers from the pillow cover the space Gumby occupies, so it is a good idea to learn timing, anticipate the shots and move away as quickly as possible. As with the lumberjacks, returning to your relatively safe position as quickly as possible determines how quickly you can kill them all. LEVEL FOUR: Gumby has found his body again and remains upright for the most of this level (except for the odd bonus screen). Give plenty of thought to the cheese block puzzles - as with level two, do not shoot away the cheese blocks without considering first whether it can be used as a step up to a sneakily placed SPAM bonus. Trying to pull down on the joystick when you are over the large steel pipes - some lead to bonus screens. This is the only level with conveyer belts on it. Conveyers not only affect Gumby but the adversaries too, so they must move towards Gumby against the direction of a conveyer. Oh, watch out for the falling pigs... Crushers are invulnerable. Crushers crush things, including Gumby. It is a good idea to carefully time your progress past these particularly the ones that appear around the conveyor belt sections. Spots generally get in the way, just do not do anything stupid like allow yourself to be dragged into them by a conveyer belt... The stupid Prince explodes into not only a SPAM bonus but also into a food bonus. Trajectory shoots fire from his face, so watch out for those. All movements and bullet firing is regular so it is simply a matter of taking your time leaping over bullets, using background as the cover and seven balls of whatever out of him... Killer cars all from their fixed points when Gumby closes in on them. They may be leaped over, which is tricky, or shoot as they head for Gumby. They yield a food bonus when destroyed, so the more that can be dealt with a fish, the better. If you see a Baby Gangster, take it out as quickly as possible. Baby Gangsters are produced by the end of level gangster chicken, eggs, Diamond. Position yourself at the top of their movement and let lose a couple of fish. As mentioned, Eggs Diamond is dangerous and constantly spawns a great many lethal offspring as well as a fair few bullets. This piece of not-so-paltry poultry isn't terribly difficult to kill; as long as you can maintain a position that gets hits on the Baby Gangsters as well as Eggs herself. Cheat mode: There is a rumor, published by a European magazine that says to enter "SEMPRINI" in the high score table (you need to get the high score first) to be presented with some handy new options the next time you play. The most useful one allows you to skip levels already completed, although to complete Python properly, you must start on level one. Simon's regular cheat mode name "POOKY" also gives a suitable Python-esque response. HOWEVER, the staff at Virgin U.S, have yet to be able to duplicate the cheat mode properly. If you manage to do it, please drop us a line and tell us about it at: VIRGIN GAMES, 18061 Fitch Ave, Irvine, CA 92714.