How to play Treasure Below online
- Move the boat, then the diver: arrow keys (press down to dive into the water)
- Strike with the knife: Space bar
- Start a game: Space bar or F12 (the console’s Reset switch)
- Choose a starting level (1–4): F11 (the console’s Select switch); hold it down to cycle through the levels
- Pause: F9 sets the right difficulty switch to B to pause; press it again to continue
Gameplay
You start in the boat at the top of the screen. Steer it left or right, then pull down to send the diver into the water. On the way down, a seahorse, a jellyfish and an octopus come after you, and you fend them off with your knife. Swim over a gold bar on the sea bed to pick it up automatically, then get back to the boat to bank the points.
Each level hides six gold bars spread over three areas of sea. To move to another area, swim to the left or right edge of the screen. The game speeds up as you collect more gold and drive off more creatures. Bring up all six bars without being caught and you earn a bonus life. Two numbers at the bottom of the screen show your score and the current level.
| Level | Per creature driven off | Per gold bar brought to the boat |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 10 | 50 |
| 2 | 20 | 100 |
| 3 | 30 | 200 |
| 4 | 40 | 300 |
The score counter only has four digits. Once you pass 9,999 it rolls over to zero, so add 10,000 to what you see. The manual rates 3,000 points as poor, 5,000 as good, 10,000 as excellent and 15,000 as great. The high score stays on screen between games until the console is switched off.
Tips
- Look before you dive. The manual’s own hint: look for the gold bars while you are still in the boat, so you know where to swim before you enter the water.
- Fight only when you must. Creatures give far fewer points than gold, and every one you drive off also makes the game faster.
- Start on a higher level for points. Gold is worth six times as much on level 4 as on level 1, if you can handle the speed.
About Video Gems
Video Gems released five Atari 2600 cartridges in 1983, all in PAL format for Europe: Missile Control, Mission Survive, Steeplechase, Surfer’s Paradise and Treasure Below, which carries the catalogue number VG-05. The manual gives the company’s address as a post office box in Hong Kong. This page runs the original European PAL version; the homebrew programmer Thomas Jentzsch later made an NTSC conversion for American televisions.
