Eternity will need no introduction to many. The board game of the same name was released last year (June 1999) with the tempting reward of one million pounds to the first individual to complete it. It is a puzzle game of tremendous proportion and of tremendous possibilities, which the authors claim no code can crack. It could be assembled correctly first time or incorrectly put together for eternity before the right combination of pieces were locked in place.

The computerised version of Eternity is a new variant of the program Jigsaw [See EUG #48 - Ed] with an identical piece and board display. But it also shares many of its devious board game namesake's qualities. In all, the object is to assemble the pieces in such a way as they "fit" correctly into a defined area and the image perceived is "correct".

Players of Jigsaw will find Eternity much tougher. Not least of why is that only the correct place for one piece can be immediately determined and there is no option to view an unscrambled image. To create this image, the objective of the game, is likely to take you many weeks.

Eternity is not copy protected and you may consider first creating a backup copy of the master disk's files. This is because you will doubtless want to use the save option (detailed later) to save the state of play and the easiest means of achieving this is to have a write-enabled backup copy. However, there is no reason you cannot save to the master disk if you wish.

After the loading screen is displayed, the screen will show a jumbled up display of Eternity pieces. If you have attempted the puzzle previously (and saved the state of play to disk), these will be as they were at the conclusion of your last attempt. The first time you play, they will be in a random default position, around the border of the screen.

Move the cursor over any desired piece and pick it up. You can then drop it again in any place not occupied by another piece. By shifting pieces around the playing area, you should attempt to eventually clear the border and create the Eternity picture within the matrix one block in from each edge of the playing area.

The Eternity picture is a layout of the unusually shaped pieces of the board game. Unlike the board game, you are not manipulating individual pieces but 'blocks' with combinations of horizontal, vertical and diagonal lines drawn upon them. You will not find this difference aids or hinders any further the completion of it.

To help you get started when you are first presented with the mindboggling jumble of lines, remember that the puzzle has been created in the same way as a JIGSAW screen; the signature D in bullet holes is to be placed in the bottom right hand corner of the inner matrix. When this is placed correctly, you will notice that there is a subtle difference between horizontal and vertical lines and so should be able to rule out certain rotations of each piece.

Finally, note that there are no trick pieces, and when two pieces are correctly placed together, the combination will "look right"; i.e. there will not be any line where a pixel looks 'shifted' at the link. So if you feel a piece "looks wrong", it will be!

If you complete Eternity, copy the file ETERN (which holds the screen information) to another disk and send it to EUG HQ. Fabulous prizes to be won!

Z - Left, X - Right, * - Up, / - Down
SPACE - Pick Up Piece/Drop Piece, RETURN - Rotate Piece

As Eternity will keep you puzzling for many hours, you are likely to want to take a break from it at some point. To do so, make sure your Eternity game disk is write-enabled and then press S. The state of play will be saved to disk and immediately loaded in the next time you load Eternity.

Note that each save deletes the previous information.

Please note you can neither use the Eternity files with Jigsaw or the Jigsaw Editor.

Dave E, EUG #55