The Flintstones: Yabba-Dabba-Doo/Walkthrough

You will first have to connect your Sinclair ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, or Commodore 64 and cassette recorder to your television, then switch all three of them on; once you've placed the cassette of Quicksilva's Taskset-developed 1985 action game, The Flintstones: Yabba-Dabba-Doo into the cassette recorder, rewound it (unless it is your first time playing it), started it, typed LOAD "" (without leaving a space between the quotation marks), and pressed Enter to load the program into the console, you have to press either 1, 2 or 3 to select keyboard, Kempston joystick or Sinclair joystick control, and 4 to change the amount of lives Fred starts with (the default is 5). If you wait long enough the following text scrolls left to right on the start screen:

''...FRED MUST BUILD HIS HOUSE AND FIND WILMA. CLEAR THE SITE OF LITTLE ROCKS BY FLINGING THEM DOWN THE TIP, THEN USE BIG ROCKS TO BUILD THE HOUSE. FRED CAN CLIMB ON A DYNO-SAUR TO BUILD THE ROOF AND CHIMNEY...BUT HE'LL NEED MONEY TO RENT ONE. WILMA IS SOMEWHERE IN BEDROCK CITY. IF FRED MEETS HER OFTEN ENOUGH, SHE MAY FOLLOW HIM TO HIS NEW HOUSE. GAIN EXTRA POINTS FOR BUILDING THE FIRST HOUSE IN BEDROCK CITY. © 1985 Quicksilva...''

Fred starts the game on the fifth screen of the third row of the map shown above (with the "HOME" arrow on it); he must first, as the introductory text on the start screen implies, clear the site of little rocks by picking them up and throwing them into the "tip" on the sixth screen (you will receive 15 points for each rock thrown into it). Snorkasauruses, hopperoos and turtles will also try to get in Fred's way (which further enforces the theory that the game is set before 1960, as he had one of the first as a pet in the show) while pterodactyls shall try to drop rocks on him - and contact with the first three (along with the rocks the pterodactyls drop) shall cause the woodpeckers at the top of the screen (that represent Fred's energy level) to peck away at their ropes (if they get to the end of their ropes, Fred will fall down, and one of the tally marks which represent his lives will disappear). When Fred puts a large rock in a right place on the site, a piece of the house will appear (and you shall receive 200 points for each piece of the house that is built); while he is building, his neighbours (who included the Rubbles and the Rockheads in the show), will start building houses in some of the other empty screens as well, and if Fred comes across that car on the third screen of the fourth row, he can get into it, drive around to find more rocks, get out and pick them up, take them back to the site, and put them in the right places on it. It takes twenty-five rocks for him to build the house completely (except for the roof!) - and to build the roof, he shall have to go and work at the Rock Quarry, on the seventh screen of the fifth row, to earn enough money to hire a dinosaur (a dollar sign shall appear on the screen, once he has done it), then go to the office of Dino-Hire on the seventh screen of the second row, ride the dinosaur Fred has hired to find more rocks, get off to pick them up, take them back to the site, then put them in the right places on it (it takes seven more rocks to build the roof and chimney and you shall receive a 5000-point bonus if you finish building the house before any of Fred's neighbours finish building theirs). When Fred comes across Wilma, you will also receive a 1500-point bonus (she can be found at the Burger Bar, Bronto Gas Station, Health Club, Bowls Alley, or Drive-In Cinema), and his energy will get restored to full (indicated by the pumping heart in the corner of the screen); the harder the heart pumps, the more chance of success Fred has in getting Wilma to fall for him. Once Fred has finished building the house, and if he has had enough encounters with Wilma, she shall be won over and follow him back "home" - and the game will then go into "high-score" mode. Your score will most likely be the highest on the console to date so you should enter your initials at the top of the table with pride; once you've done so, the game will go back to the start screen.