AFTERLIFE (THE CHEESY DEMO VERSION) README Section 1. What is Afterlife? ----------------------------- Afterlife is the first (and only) sim game where you, the player, get to build Heaven and Hell. In this tiny, cheesy, demo, you'll get to do some primitive Rewarding and Punishing, and play with the basic vehicles of reincarnation. There's a pull-down tutorial in the demo itself, and we heartily recommend checking it out. Section 2. Starting the demo ---------------------------- Before starting any of the demos, we recommend that you shut down all other applications. This process will ensure that the demos have the maximum amount of memory that your machine can offer. After you have watched the Chrysler Virtual Mall demo program, you may launch the Afterlife demo directly from that program. If you wish, you may later launch the demo by using Windows 95's Explorer and following these instructions. 1) Left click the Start button. Select Programs -> Windows Explorer to start Explorer. 2) Your window will now be divided into two sections, one on the left titled "All Folders" and one on the right probably titled "Contents of '[C:]'". Under the "All Folders" heading, left click on plus sign (+) next to the icon representing your CD drive. It should be called "Virtmall" and be followed by the drive letter for your CD drive, (usually "D:"). 3) Left click on the plus sign next to the Lecdemos folder, then left click on the Alfdemo folder. 4) Once the folder is open, you can left double click on the Alfdemo.exe icon (on the right under "Contents of 'Alfdemo'") to start the game. 5) The Alfdemo icon is the one with a black background, and a red and blue plane, with a green line going through it. (Don't use the ones named Alfdemo.000 or Alfdemo.ini- they won't work.) 6) Enjoy your deity-like powers of creation and destruction. (NOTE: The final game version of Afterlife will include a DOS version of the game. This demo, however, only supports Windows 95.) Section 3. What kind of machine will I need? --------------------------------------------- You'll definitely need: 486DX2/66 or faster 8 MB RAM Double-Speed CD-ROM drive Windows 95 Mouse Super VGA-256 colors at 640X480 or greater PCI or VLB video card recommended If you're on the bottom end of these requirements, you should probably run the demo at a screen resolution no higher than 640x480. To check your screen resolution, go to Settings off your Start menu and select Control Panel. Then select Display Properties and select the Settings tab. You can then adjust your screen resolution. Since the Afterlife Demo uses virtual memory, we recommend that you reserve at least 8 Megs of free hard drive space for Afterlife to use. You won't see anything installed there, but the game will use it if virtual memory is turned on. (This is the default setting for Windows 95, and virtual memory should be turned on if you haven't turned it off. To check, again go to the Control Panel as described above and this time select System . Then click on the Performance tab and the Virtual Memory button.) Section 4. The INI file contents (aka advanced technical blather) ----------------------------------------------------------------- There are three settings that can be modified in the Afterlife demo by changing the INI file. To make any changes to the INI file, create an ALFDEMO directory on your hard drive, then copy the executable (ALFDEMO.EXE) to the ALFDEMO directory on your hard drive. Now open the ALFDEMO.INI file on your CD, and make the necessary changes, making sure the Resource file path drive designation is correct (see below). Then save the changes as ALFDEMO.INI in the ALFDEMO directory on your hard drive, and launch the game from the executable on your hard drive. The settings that can be changed are-- Resolution = The field has the format [width]x[height] e.g. 640x480. This field sets the window size for the game. If you choose a resolution that is the same size as the video display, then the game will run as a full-screen application. You can, instead of using the WxH format, set the field to 'MAX' (without the single quotes) which will set the window size to the maximum possible (this is the default). If you choose a resolution that is smaller that the main display, then the game will run in a standard non-resizing window that can be moved around the screen in a normal fashion. Resource file = The path field is a standard path e.g. D:\lecdemos\alfdemo\alfdemo.000 This tells the game which resource file to use and where to find it. This is set by default to 'ALFDEMO.000' with no path as it is in the current directory. If you are going to make changes, use the above example as the resource path. Window name = The text field is used when the game is running in a window. This text is displayed on the title bar of the window. You can change this to anything you want. By default this text will read 'Chrysler Afterlife Demo.' Save games = C:\afterlif This setting is irrelevant for the demo, because you can't save your game in the demo. You will be able to save to your heart's content in the final version. Section 5. Troubleshooting: ----------------------------------------------------------------------- If you experience any problems with the demo, we recommend that you shut down and restart Windows 95, then run Afterlife as the first application you run. This process will ensure that Afterlife has the maximum amount of memory your machine can offer. If you experience extremely long load times, you may increase the supplemental cache size through your Windows 95 Control Panel. First, click on the START button on your Windows 95 taskbar. Then, select SETTINGS, then CONTROL PANEL. From the folder that appears, double-click on System. Then, select Performance from the top, then File System, then CD-ROM. Look for the "Supplemental cache size" and increase it as you like. Also make sure that Optimize access pattern is set for your CD drive's speed. This will use more memory for CD caching, but speed up CD load times. Afterlife TM and © 1996 LucasArts Entertainment Company. All Rights Reserved. Used Under Authorization. The LucasArts logo is a registered trademark of LucasArts Entertainment Company.