Welcome to Touchdown Challenge!

This is an arcade style football game.  You are given four downs to score a touchdown, if you fail to score on fourth down the game is over.  If you do score, your down count is reset.  You can pass or run the ball. 

The game has four difficulty levels:
Practice:  The game runs at the default speed, and tackling and running out of bounds are disabled.  You can simply practice running plays and the defense will behave the same way as if you chose the standard difficulty.
Standard:  The slowest (and default) setting. 
Advanced:  A slightly faster defense.
Expert: The defense is really fast.  It's a bit unfair.

From the titlescreen, press left and right on the joystick to select your difficulty.  Push down on the joystick to select "Start Game", and press the left fire button to begin.
Once you enter the game, Press right fire to start your first play.  The action will start immediately.  You can try and run the ball in, or you can press the right fire button to pass to your receiver. 
 
When passing, there are certain defenders that can intercept the ball.  One defensive play has three defenders that can intercept.  With a little practice you'll figure out which to avoid. :)

Downs:  The referee will come out and blow the whistle if you run out of bounds, are tackled by a defender, or throw an incomplete pass. 

In some defensive plays it's easier to run the football.  The players line up the same, so you'll have to recognize quickly which play it is once they start running toward you.  The defense will always cycle through the same set of Defensive plays regardless of the difficulty you choose, however their speed is different.

Defenders will run to the bottom of the screen, then turn around.  They will always move toward the football.  Once you've passed the ball, you cannot be tackled for a down.

You get four downs to score a touchdown either by running it in with your quarterback or passing to your lone receiver.  After 4 downs the game will reset with the same difficulty you originally chose.  Hit the reset button to go back to the title screen and select a different difficulty if you'd like to change it.

In between downs, a message will display on the screen as to why the referee blew the whistle.  Press the left fire button to continue on to the next play.  There will be no pause in between plays, when you press the button the action re-starts immediately.

Your high score will save for the current play session and display on screen if you fail to score on 4th down.  It is not configured for Atarivox or Savekey saving at this point, so if you reset the game your high score will be lost.

Speech is supported with the AtariVox. The game announces "Are you ready for some football?" when it launches, it speaks "Touchdown Challenge" at the titlescreen, it says "press right fire to start" when it's paused at the beginning of a new game, and it speaks the following phrases when appropriate in-game: "Touchdown", "Out of Bounds", "Incomplete Pass", "Tackled", "Interception", and "Game Over".