Neppis is an outdoor toy car sport from Finland where you and your friends take turns pushing your small plastic car on a track built on sand. 

Kuusneppis brings this joy to your Commodore 64, allowing up to six players to compete together simultaneously. Each player gathers around one C64 unit and uses one button on the joystick or keyboard to play.

Credits:

• Code: jab / Artline Designs
• Graphics: Sulevi / Extend
• Music: Flotsam / Pretzel Logic

Instructions

Controller selection

After loading the game, you are presented with a player/controller registration screen. Each player who wants to compete should press their control button once to register for the next race. Ensure each player gets comfortable and can easily reach their control button.

There are two modes of setups for controls:

• 6-player mode: Control buttons are the four keys in each corner of the keyboard (Arrow left, C= key, F1 and F7) and the fire buttons of joysticks in port 2 and port 3 (the first port of an additional joystick adapter connected to the C64's user port).
• 4-player mode: All players use joysticks: Joysticks in ports 1 and 2, and two ports on the additional joystick adapter in the user port.
  Press X on the registration screen to toggle between the two modes. The best mode depends on how many joysticks you have, whether you have a user port adapter, and each player's preference to play using the keyboard or a joystick.

When the players have registered, hit Return to start the race.

Notes on the controller configurations

• Joystick port 1 unfortunately can't be used in the 6-player mode, because it would conflict with the keyboard controls.
• For the additional joysticks, the user port adapter should be compatible with the Protovision / Classical Games (CGA) multiplayer interface. This is probably the most common type of such adapter.
• If using the VICE emulator, choose "CGA user port joy adapter" from the peripherals menu to emulate the user port adapter.

Gameplay

In Neppis, you bump your car forward using your hand. This is called "nepping", or making a "nep". In Kuusneppis, you advance your hand towards the car by pressing and holding your control button. When you get near the car, your nep power indicator shows up. Release the button and then, when the power indicator value is as high as possible, press the button again to nep. If you nep with maximum power, the car will go the furthest, and it will also fly over any mud that would otherwise slow it down.

Activity drains your stamina, as indicated by the indicator on the left side of the screen. When you're out of stamina, you get tired and your neps are poor and powerless. To recover, you need to let go of your button for a while. This also takes your hand away from your car, so get back to action as soon you have your full stamina back.

The first cars on the finish line get to climb on the podium! Happy nepping! And remember, winners don't break their C-64s.