------------------------------------------------------------------------------- KISS Psycho Circus: The Nightmare Child Readme ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This text file contains instructions for setting up and running The Nightmare Child and also contains last-minute notes on bugs and omissions that have not yet been addressed. Please read through this file before playing the game to get an overview of the current status of the game state and the story behind it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Background Story ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Elder Are Broken In an epic battle, The Four Who Are One defeats the Nightmare King, never suspecting that, from the jaws of his own annihilation, their archenemy has played one last treacherous card. Seizing upon the broken oath of the Elder, the Destroyer summons the last fragment of his once awesome strength to pull the spirits of the Elder down with him, trapping them in the void beyond. Although the Elder do not perish, they are left powerless until their spirits can return to their realms. A Seed of Evil is Planted Before vanishing forever, the Nightmare King's final action is to take the essence of his own powers and with them plant a seed of evil. Thus, in the most desolate corner of the cosmos, a child is being born - one shaped from corruption absolute, its dark conscience ever growing, still unaware of its own tainted core. With its birth, the child will invade the space left vacant by the Elder's absence, so that no creature may challenge its dominance. The Destroyer thereby seeks rebirth from his own death that he may return to the world in a new and even more terrible shape. So it is that the circus the Elder once vowed to protect lies broken, drifting through the abyss, carrying the sole remnant of the Destroyer's taint. The Four Who Are One, their shapes now splinters scattered across the realms, linger in a helpless state of limbo in the cosmos' darkest hour. One Hope Remains Only one mortal can devise a means of calling back the Elder. Her name is Madam Raven, the clairvoyant matriarch of the Psycho Circus. She must recruit four proxies to collect the shards of the Elder's forms, to give the new avatars the necessary power to enter the Womb Of Hell, the dark rift where the Nightmare Child stirs. But who will take this suicidal path? Will anyone dare to oppose the seed of a new God? Feverishly, her blind eyes scan the orb in front of her. There will be no rest for the sorceress this night. An Invitation to the Circus On a bleak and misty night, four friends arrive at The Coventry, a beaten-down roadhouse on the outskirts of town. As the members of Wicked Jester - Pablo Ramirez, Patrick Scott, Andy "Spades" Chang and Gabriel Gordo - step out of their van, they notice, much to their dismay, that there's no crowd waiting, no flashing lights, no staff members. "What the hell?" murmurs Patrick. "This is Friday night, isn't it?" "This place should have been packed an hour ago." Gabe replies. "And where is the staff? There's not a single soul here!" "A grave insult, indeed." comes a voice from the shadows. "I am certainly here." Madam Raven steps forward, her face concealed by the rapid fall of night. Startled, the band turns to face the woman, and Patrick speaks "Lady, don't be jumping out of the shadows like that!" Pablo nods in greeting, then address the newcomer "Where did everyone go?" "They're at the circus... I'm quite sure of it." The old woman replies. " Perhaps you too, would like to visit?" She extends a withered hand to reveal four tickets. "Accept them," says the woman, "and you will be just in time for the grand finale. Tonight's the closing act, a show not to be missed. Will you stand vigil on this grand event?" The Hall of Mirrors "This place is dead," sighs Gabe, "we might as well". He looks to the others. Andy shrugs "I could use a good fortune telling." Pablo agrees "Nothing to lose..." Patrick "Well I'm not staying here by myself. Let's go." As the tickets find their owners, Madame Raven's deal has been sealed. Time seems to stop and the room spins into blackness. Only the soft glow of the gypsy's crystal ball remains. Stunned and confused, the four friends watch as mirrored walls emerge around them, draped in blood-red cloth, surrounding them on all sides. From beyond the looking glass a voice calls out to them. It is Madame Raven. "Welcome," she says. "You have been favored." Gabe spins around "What trick is this? What have you done woman?" Raven answers "I have done nothing but make your options clear to you. There is no escape from the path you have chosen. Listen closely to my words, for all our lives depend upon it..." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Installing the Game ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Place the Nightmare Child CD in your CD ROM drive. If you have AutoPlay enabled, the setup program will start automatically. If the setup program does not start, go to your CD ROM drive in Windows Explorer and double-click the Setup.exe program there. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Running the Game ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- During the installation, a shortcut to the game launcher will be placed in your Start Menu. If you did not change any options in setup, you will find the the shortcut in Start Menu\Programs\Games\KISS Psycho Circus. If this is the first time you have run the game, please select "Display" so that Psycho Circus can enumerate the available video devices. From the "Display" dialog, choose the graphics card you wish to KISS Psycho Circus to use. Also see end of this text file for a list of graphics cards that are supported and any known problems. Once you have enumerated the display devices for the first time, you can select the "Play" button to start the game. When the game first comes up you will be at the Profiles menu. This menu allows several people to use a single install of KISS Psycho Circus without having their settings conflict. If this is the first time you have run the game, you will see "New User Profile" under the "Choose User Profile" text. Hit the "Enter" key and you will be able to edit the "Player" name that appears to the name you wish to use for your profile. Each time the game is exited it will remember the profile that was used last and start with that profile the next time the game is run. After changing your profile name, hit "Enter" again and you will be taken to the main menu. From the main menu you can access all the options available for KISS Psycho Circus using either the mouse or by using the arrow and enter keys. Please not that some options are intentionally disabled for this demo. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Controls ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- While Psycho Circus will start up with a default keyboard configuration, you will probably want to change the control setup to something that suits you. To do this, choose the "Setup" button at the left edge of the the main menu and choose "Keyboard" to set up buttons and "Mouse" to set up mouse controls. If you notice that you are having "floaty" or "choppy" mouse control you should go to the mouse setup menu and adjust the "Input Rate" slider. Pulling this slider all the way to the left makes for tighter, but choppier mouse control. while pulling the "Input Rate" slider all the way to the right will make for smoother, but less-responsive mouse control. Somewhere in the middle you should be able to find a setting that works well for your system. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Singleplayer Games ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To begin a single player game, choose the "Game" button at the left edge of main menu. From here, choose "New Game". Next you will see a list of the five available skill levels, arranged from easiest to hardest. The skill levels are: "Lullaby", "Daydream", "Sleepless", "Cold Sweat" and "Nightmare". Choose one of the skill levels to proceed to the avatar menu. In the avatar menu you must choose the "avatar" with whom you wish to begin the game by using the arrow keys to switch between avatars and using the Enter key to choose the currently selected avatar. It is recommended that you start with the "Starbearer" avatar the first you play, since Psycho Circus was designed to provide the most engrossing play experience when the avatars are played in a specific order. If you choose one of the other avatars, you will be warned and asked if you really wish to break the intended sequence of the game. NOTE: Because the game was designed to be played in a specific order, the later realms (those of the Beast King, Celestial and Demon) get progressively harder. If you are new to this type of game and start with the Demon character, you will likely find it very hard, even on the easier difficulty levels. If you find this to be the case, try starting with the Starbearer, as his episode was designed to ease newer players into the game. Upon choosing an avatar, you will be taken to that avatar's realm to begin your journey there. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Multiplayer Games ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To start a multiplayer game, choose the Game menu and then choose Player Setup. The first thing you should do is make sure that your connection rate is correct for the type of connection you have to the internet. If you have a modem and choose too high a connection rate, your modem will probably not be able to keep up with the data flow. You should also set your player name and title in this menu, and choose the character you wish to play with, and the team (for teamplay games) that you wish to play on. After setting up your character, choose either Join Game or Host Game. If you are connecting to an exsiting game, choose Join Game. If you wish to start a game, choose Host Game. There is currently no dedicated server available for The Nightmare Child, but we are working on getting this out either at the same time the game hits the shelves, or shortly thereafter. Please check http://www.thirdlaw.com for updates. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Localization Issues ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This is the United States version of KISS Psycho Circus: The Nightmare Child. This means that Windows systems that are not using U.S. English as their default language may experience problems with keyboard input. This will most likely show itself in the keyboard configuration menus but may also affect other areas of the game. All of the text in the game is currently in English. If you have severe difficulties related to keyboard input, try running on a system configured for English or U.S English. Non-English versions (French, German and Italian) are on the way. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Frequently Asked Questions ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q: The game is running REALLY slow and there are no textures on anything. What's the deal? A: The only instance in which this is known to occur is when DirectX 7 has not been installed. Please try installing DirectX 7 and then starting the game again. Q: Why am getting this horrible hissing sound when the game first starts? A: During our tests, this was found to be due to a driver conflict and can be fixed by either re-installing the latest DirectX 7 compatible drivers for your sound card or by reinstalling Windows completely. Q: Why aren't my settings saved when I exit the game? A: They should be. Make sure that none of the files in the Psycho\Profiles directory have the Read Only file attribute set (select the file with the mouse and hit Alt-Enter to check this). Also make sure the the file Psycho\autoexec.cfg does not have the read only attribute set. Q: My mouse control sucks! It's all floaty! (ie. when I move the mouse the view seems to lag behind the movement). - OR - My mouse control sucks! It's all choppy! (ie. when I move the mouse the view seems to jump in increments of several pixels). How do I fix this? A: Please read the "Controls" section above. You should be able to fix this by changing the "Input Rate" slider in the mouse setup menu. It is also possible that you are using a USB mouse. Sine USB mice have been reported to cause control problems. We are looking into this. Q: So and so map is running slowly!! What gives? A: Make sure you have the correct detail settings for your computer. If you are playing on a computer that is slower than a Pentium II 450, you may want to try going to the Setup->Preferences->Detail menu and try turning off some of the options, or choosing one of the default detail settings. Q: Sometimes I when I press a key or mouse button I get no response and sometimes the key sticks. Are you guys complete idiots? A: You are using Windows 2000. Stop it. Seriously, though, Win2000 has a bug in DirectInput that causes this to happen when a program does not request exclusive access to a device, which is how LithTech operates. Microsoft is addressing this issue in Service Pack 1 for Windows 2000. At last check this was due out in July of 2000 -- right when we ship. Q: My screen is too dark. What do I do? A: There are two possibilities: 1) you may just need to go to the Setup->Video menu and adjust the gamma there. 2) You may be using an older graphics card such as a Voodoo 2 that does not support a specific blending mode that is used on some levels. If this is the case, try upping the gamme in the Setup->Video menu. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Supported Graphics Cards ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- KISS Psycho Circus supports all of the major graphics cards on the market today through DirectX. A 3D accelerator is required to play KISS Psycho Circus. The following is a list of the supported accelerators and any known problems that may occur with them. If you experience any graphics-related problems, first make sure you have the most recent drivers from the manufacturer of your card. If possible, try installing the reference drivers from the manufacturer of your graphics chipset, since these are often more reliable than those that are made by the card vendor. NVidia TNT, TNT2, TNT Ultra and GeForce 256 Based Accelerators -------------------------------------------------------------- The only known problem occurs with TNT2 M64 based accelerators (MaxiGamer Cougar is an example of a card that contains this chip). These cards experience some problems in the pamphlet view and load/save menus which causes some graphics to appear is if they are skipping every other column and which causes the framerate to drop dramatically. We have not been able to find an TNT2 M64 driver that fixes this problem as the only drivers that seem to work the TNT2 M64 cards are the very latest Detonator 2 drivers. No other NVidia cards have any known problems when using the most recent NVidia Detonator drivers (version 3.68 at the time of this writing) or Detonator 2 drivers. Older NVidia drivers prior to the detonator series (dated 1999 and before) may causes graphics in the menu system to draw 1 pixel off, or cause frequent Matrox G400 ----------- No known problems. Matrox G200 ----------- No known problems. Voodoo 4 and 5 Accelerators --------------------------- With the latest drivers, Voodoo 4 and 5 performance may degrade over time. If this does occur, look for newer drivers, and or try saving your game, exiting it and reloading from where you were. We expect that any performance issues with Voodoo 4 and 5 accelerators will go away with newer driver releases. Voodoo 3 Accelerators --------------------- Voodoo 3 users may experience various graphical anomalies, or none at all. All these problems appear to be driver related. We have had the best results when using 3Dfx's latest beta drivers for the Voodoo 3. All Voodoo 3 problems have gone away with the knewest drivers available at http://www.3dfx.com Voodoo 2 Based Accelerators --------------------------- Voodoo 2's are now considered the low-end of 3D hardware accelerators. Currently, Psycho Circus tends to use more texture memory than a Voodoo 2 card has on board, which can cause unwanted texture uploading. This can be remedied by going to the Setup menu in the game, selecting Preferences, then Detail and setting Texture Detail to medium or low and then restarting the game. The most important thing to do if playing with a Voodoo 2 is to have the MOST RECENT DIRECT X DRIVERS. Older drivers have ALL SORTS OF PROBLEMS, including, but not limited to, screen flickering. The drivers we have found to work best is the Voodoo2 D3D Driver Build Number: 4.12.01.1151. These can be found at http://www.3dfx.com and are named v2-w9x-3.02.02.exe. Even with these drivers there will be a white box behind the mouse cursor in the menu, but that is the only known problem. Riva 128 -------- These cards may experience slow-downs due to texture swapping (see Voodoo 2 section for details). Riva 128's also do not support some of the blend modes used in KISS Psycho Circus (additive blending) so some of the effects may not appear as pretty as they would on other cards. S3 Savage 2000 Based Accelerators --------------------------------- The drivers for these boards appear to be very quirky, and while the card performs well the latest drivers produce erratic results, including menu surfaces being over-smoothed and drawing 1 pixel off. The most noticable is caused when mirrors are being drawn -- when the mirror is on the screen only the mirror view is drawn and the rest of the screen will go dark. If you still experience this problem with the newest Savage 2000 drivers, go to the Setup->Preferences->Detail menu and deselect the "Draw Mirrors" option. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Online Support ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For more information, updates and patches, go to: http://www.kisspsychocircus.com/support or http://www.thirdlaw.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Doc History ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This doc was created on: 4/18/2000 This doc was last modified on: 7/07/2000