Assassins - Ultimate CD Games Collection 1

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Text File | 1994-09-06 | 394KB | 8,618 lines

ACTOFWAR - The game is played over a series of missions, three of which are included with the program. Noteable game features include: * 1 or 2 players * Sampled sound * Completely extendable! * 3 difficulty levels * Optional line-of-sight feature * Squad arming sequence * Explosive scenery * Keyboard and / or mouse controlled * Halfway-decent user interface * Revolutionary new ICASS AI system (see later) The three missions included in this release are as follows: * Informant - An ex-director of your shady corporation is ready to spill your industrial secrets to a rival company. There's only one way to stop him - break into his sprawling mansion and take him out! (Obviously, negotiation comes a long way down the list with these people). * Escape - Taken prisoner by a corrupt Planetary Security Force for your part in the above escapade, you and two companions have been jailed in an orbital maximum-security prison. Initially armed with only a little smuggled-in plastic explosive, you must break out of your cell, somehow obtain a weapon, free your comrades and escape to a passing PSF shuttle to secure your freedom. * Terminator! - Soon after you make it back to your base after escaping captivity, a Terminator droid from a rival corporation stages an assault! Backed up by a squad of combat droids, it will attempt to kill you all... Gameplay ~~~~~~~~ I know, I know, you just want to know how to play! The front end: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ * The first thing you have to do is load a mission in. Select "Load Mission" from the menu. The disk will grind a bit, and a list of the available missions will come up. Choose the one you want, again using the mouse. * Select the difficulty level you want. Easy gives you a lot of cash for the arming sequence (see below). Medium gives you less cash and introduces the line-of-sight feature, where you can only see enemy units that are in your line of sight. Hard keeps line-of-sight and gives you the least cash. * Choose a 1 or 2 player game. The AI is not brilliant, but I think it's good enough to be called "not bad". It even has its own acronym, which is obviously essential for any program these days. So, when you play a 1-player game of AoW, you are experiencing ICASS - the Intellectually Challenged Artificial Stupidity System (tm). Now, don't you feel proud? Arming: ~~~~~~~ * Next comes the arming sequence. A total amount of cash is shown, and you can either accept the default weapons (use the "Next Unit" icon, which looks like a tick, to see each unit's weapons) or choose to buy your own. To keep the defaults, click the "Quit" icon; to buy weapons, click either of the two "Buy" buttons. * The squad's default weapons are usually round about what you could buy at the Medium level of difficulty. The amount of cash you get at each level is as follows: Easy 250 per unit Medium 200 per unit Hard 175 per unit * If you do buy new weapons, the first button is "Buy Weapon", the next is "Buy Ammo", the two arrow icons let you see the weapons and the "Next Unit" button is used when you've finished arming that unit. You can always go back to it, until you quit the arming. * The cash shown is a total for your whole squad, try to divide weapons fairly equally. It's always better to have, say, four men with Pulse rifles rather than one man with a Plasma Cannon and tons of ammo. * Click on the Quit button (bottom right) when you've finished. The game: ~~~~~~~~~ * The screen is divided into four windows: 1) The largest window, at the top left, is the view window. This is where the action happens. 2) Directly below this is the message window. Always keep half an eye on this for reports and updates. 3) At the top left is the status window. Here you can see the stats of the current unit. 4) The final window at the bottom right is the mini-map window. Apart from giving you an idea of the overall shape of the map, you can keep track of your units here via the flashing dots which show their positions. * Player 1 always moves first. You begin the game fully armed and ready. * There are several ways of moving around the map. You can use the cursor keys or the joystick to move the cursor around. You can click with the left mouse button on the view window to place the cursor directly onto a square. You can click on the mini-map to jump directly to another area. * To select a character, press the joystick fire button or the space key when the cursor is over a unit. You can also click the right button on a unit to select it. You are now in move mode, where believe it or not you get to move the unit around. * To move a unit, use either the cursor keys, the keypad or the joystick. The keypad allows movement in 8 directions, using the keys: 7 8 9 4 6 1 2 3 * To deselect a character, use the space key, the joystick fire button or the right mouse button at any time. * If you are playing on Easy level, you'll be able to see all the enemy units as you look around the map. This takes a lot of the fun out of the game, so the default difficulty level is Medium. Here, you can only see an enemy if they are in a direct line-of-sight. This allows them to hide around corners and jump out at you, wait behind doors etc. Remember, you can see through windows. * If you find a scenario too tough on Medium, or you don't like the hidden movement, go to Easy. Otherwise, I'd recommend you stay on Medium or Hard. So now you know how to move around the map, and select characters (by the way - I use the words "character" and "unit" interchangeably, they both mean the same). Now things get a little bit more complicated! Nearly every action in the game can be carried out by the mouse or the keyboard. If you prefer to use a keyboard, you can play the whole game without having to take your hands away from it. However, I prefer a mix of the mouse and keyboard. It's up to you though. You'll have noticed (assuming you've actually played the game yet) six buttons by the mini-map window. I'll go through these and any sub-menus that they lead to. First, a word about actions. Everything you do in the game requires a certain amount of actions to carry out, and you have a set number of actions per unit, per turn. For instance, moving across a normal square uses 2 actions, but moving over rubble and debris takes 3. Picking something up takes 5 actions, teleporting takes 20. As I explain each option, the number of actions it needs is shown alongside. If a character's health is reduced to 1/3 of his (or her!) maximum, they are said to be injured and their actions are reduced by half. You can tell when a character is injured - their health and actions show up red in the status window. MOVE Keyboard: SPACE (when in FIRE mode) ~~~~ The first button, with the four outwardly-pointing arrows, is the MOVE button. When a unit is in FIRE mode, this button exits and returns it to the default MOVE mode. FIRE Keyboard: F ~~~~ The gunsight icon begins FIRE mode if a unit is selected. This changes the cursor to a gunsight, and brings up a sub-menu in the mini-map window (all the sub-menus appear here). The cursor can be moved in the same way that characters are moved around. When you've moved it over a target, select a type of shot from the menu, using the mouse, or one of the keyboard short-cuts: Aimed shot Keyboard: A Actions needed: varies ~~~~~~~~~~ Fires an aimed shot towards the gunsight. The number of action points needed is shown. Fast shot Keyboard: F Actions needed: varies ~~~~~~~~~ Fires a fast shot towards the gunsight. Actions needed vary according to the weapon you're using. A Fast shot requires only 2/3 of the action points needed for an Aimed shot, but has only 2/3 the chance of being accurate. This doesn't sound very inaccurate, but in practice you'll find it's more than enough to miss rather a lot! Throw Grenade Keyboard : G Actions needed: 6 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ If a character has a grenade, throw one toward the cursor. The cost is always 6 actions. Grenades have several special properties. Naturally, they are explosive, but where a shot will be stopped by a window, a grenade will continue through it. Where a shot will hit a desk or other piece of furniture, a grenade can be chucked over it. Where a shot will hit a character between you and your target, a grenade can be thrown past them. Grenades will always head towards where you threw them - there is no such thing as an off-target grenade. There is a downside to this. Grenades are not the Ultimate Weapon! A grenade can only be thrown a finite distance, unlike the other weapons which have no maximum range. A very strong character, such as a Battle Droid, can throw one maybe 15 squares (think of this as about 30 metres). An average human can manage about 10 squares. They are also expensive for a one shot weapon. Load Weapon Keyboard: L Actions needed: varies ~~~~~~~~~~~ Assuming you have any ammo, this loads your current weapon. Actions needed vary according to the weapon you have. Weapons are divided into 2 basic categories: explosive and non-explosive. Explosive weapons kill outright, unless the target is incredibly tough. They also affect the environment around the target, eg. walls may be knocked down, windows smashed, other units injured, volatile substances ignited etc. They are very powerful, and you'll probably find that they're priced accordingly! Non-explosive weapons, the majority, simply damage characters. Armour worn by a character affects how much damage they sustain. Beware of firing any type of weapon near things like oil drums, petrol tanks, ammo crates etc. Even non-explosive weapons set them off! Windows, too, can be smashed by any type of weapon. Hand-to-hand weapons are also available, though the only one available in the three included scenarios is the Laser Knife. These are used purely for hand-to-hand combat. This type of combat is initiated during a character's movement, by walking into an enemy unit. The attacker always has the advantage, but if the enemy is strong and skilful, it is possible for the aggressor to be injured rather than his target. You always have to be careful during hand-to-hand combat! If possible, make sure your enemy is less suited to it than you. CENTRE VIEW Keyboard: C ~~~~~~~~~~~ This button centres the view screen on the square currently occupied by the cursor. You can recognise it by its four inwardly-pointing arrows. OPTIONS MENU ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Brings up a sub-menu in the mini-map screen. Which menu you get depends on whether you have a character currently selected or not. If you don't, you get the standard menu: Next Unit Keyboard: N ~~~~~~~~~ Moves the view to the next selectable unit. Success Rate Keyboard: P ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Each game is won on the destruction of all enemy units, or the accumulation of success points. You are always told when your success rating goes up, and in the documentation for each individual mission you should be told exactly what gets your success up. It can be reaching a particular place, or blowing it up, or killing a particular enemy. The game is won when you or your opponent has a 100% success rating. Anyway! This option shows your current rate in the message window. Turns Left Keyboard: T ~~~~~~~~~~ Some missions have a time limit. Selecting this option shows you how long you've got left, or tells you "Unlimited time available". Save Game Keyboard: Shift-S ~~~~~~~~~ This brings up a file selector. Choose the name you want to save the game as, and press RETURN or choose OK with the mouse. Each save game is approximately 10-12k long. A few notes on the AMOS file requestor: at first glance, it appears to have no buttons for "Parent" or to bring up a list of active drives and assigns. Actually, it can do both things, in its own cute but slightly eccentric way. To get to the parent of a directory, click on the tiny circle icon in the top-leftish corner, above the two microscopic arrows. To get a list of active drives, use the right mouse button. Load Game Keyboard: Shift-L ~~~~~~~~~ Loads a game, via the same requestor as above. Quit Game Keyboard: Shift-Q ~~~~~~~~~ Quits a game. There's no "Sure?" type warning, so make sure you really want to quit before you choose this! The other menu is called up when you have a character selected. It is from this menu that most of the interesting actions in the game can be accessed from. Inventory Keyboard: I ~~~~~~~~~ Brings up a display of the items in your inventory. Space or selecting CANCEL quits (note: you can't select CANCEL if you called the inventory up via the keyboard. If you start an option with the keyboard, you can't use the mouse with it. This applies to all the options). Success Rate Keyboard: P ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Shows your current success rate in the message window. Pick Up Keyboard: G Actions needed: 4 ~~~~~~~ Pick up something from the ground. When you've shot and killed an enemy, you can, if you like, stand over his body and unashamedly loot it. This is often an essential tactic! All's fair in love and war (although it's often considered rude if you kill someone and loot the corpse if love is concerned). Objects can also be lying around - they are usually well marked on the map by a chest, locker, load of objects scattered around etc. Just seeing what is in a square costs nothing. It's only if you actually get something that your actions are lowered. Drop Keyboard: D Actions needed: 4 ~~~~ Lets you drop an object from your inventory. Note: any weapon you drop will have its ammo reduced to 0. This is NOT a bug, it is a "feature". Although I admit, it's a pretty bloody stupid feature. Load Weapon Keyboard: L Actions needed: varies ~~~~~~~~~~~ Loads your weapon, if you have any spare ammo. Change Weapon Keyboard: W Actions needed: 5 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ If you have a weapon, this swaps your current weapon for one in your inventory (you choose it, of course). If you have no weapon, you choose one to use. Note: grenades and plastic explosives don't need to be held as weapons to be used, they just need to be in your inventory. Next ~~~~ Flips to the next option screen. Open Door Keyboard: O Actions needed: 2 ~~~~~~~~~ Opens a door adjacent to you. If there is more than one, you can choose the correct one by clicking on the arrow pointing to the door. If you have to click on an arrow, you can use the keyboard instead: the keypad keys work like this: 7 8 9 4 6 1 2 3 If you have an A600 without the keypad, you can use the normal number keys with the same effect. This technique works with all the menus with arrows to click on, such as Shut Door and Use Explosive (see later). If you're going to walk through a door, there's no need to open it first. Just walk into it, it'll open for you. Shut Door Keyboard: S Actions needed: 2 ~~~~~~~~~ Operates identically to "Open Door", except in one vital respect (it closes them). Teleport Keyboard: T Actions needed: 20 ~~~~~~~~ If you stand on a teleport, this option operates it. It uses a large amount of actions, as it's a bit draining to be split up into your component molecules and stuck back together several hundred metres away. Or so I've been told. Use Medikit Keyboard: M Actions needed: 8 ~~~~~~~~~~~ Medikits restore a unit to full health. If a character is injured, the injury is healed also. Of course, you need to possess a medikit to be able to use one. Prime Explosive Keyboard: X Actions needed: 6 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ If you have any plastic explosive, this option allows you to set the timer on it. 1 turn means detonation at the end of this turn, 2 means at the end of the enemies' turn, 3 means at the end of your next turn, 4 means at the end of the enemies' next turn but one etc. Click on Increase or use the "+" key to increase, Decrease or the "-" key to reduce the time. The SPACE key or selecting OK finishes. Make sure you have enough actions to get rid of the explosive once you've set it! Use Explosive Keyboard: U Actions needed: 6 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Plants one bit of explosive you have primed. Click on an arrow to place it. Placing more explosive in one area does not increase the size of the explosion. Previous ~~~~~~~~ Click on this to go back to the first option screen. REDRAW MAP ~~~~~~~~~~ After you've finished with the Options menu, you may want to see the map again. This button carries this out. END TURN ~~~~~~~~ The final button ends your turn, allowing the computer or Player 2 to have their go. ARCTURUS - What is The Secret of Arcturus? The Secret of Arcturus is a kind of adventure boardgame. It has drawn influences mostly from the boardgame The Star of Africa (by Kari Mannerla) and the Macintosh PD game Scarab of Ra, whose author's name escapes me. In The Secret of Arcturus, it is the player's task to explore the mysterious solar system of Arcturus. The player's primary task is to survive long enough to get back to Earth, and the secondary task is to achieve lots of prestige and money. How to play The Secret of Arcturus Having loaded the game, you are first presented with the front end screen. This includes the game's name, an information text window, and a set of buttons. Firstly, you should click on the empty text area to the right of the "Character Name" text, as this allows you to type in a name for yourself. Then, take a look on the buttons. Pressing "New" will create a character for you, starting at level Alpha with the bare minimum of equipment. Pressing "Load" will load a character from disk, providing a character file exists. Pressing "Delete" will delete a character file from disk. Pressing "Quit" will, as is obvious, quit the game. There is one more button in this screen, which is called "Hall of Fame". (That is, the button is called that, not the screen.) We will deal with this later on. The actual game After creating / loading a character, you are presented with the main screen. From here, you can explore the levels of the game. There are a lot of buttons on this screen. The eight arrowed buttons move your character around the screen. The central button calls up a chewing gum selection screen, of which more later. The six buttons on the right of the arrowed buttons are the control buttons. We will now discuss these. The top row consists of two buttons, one with a nice picture of a landscape and the other with a not so nice picture of a skull. These are the "quit" buttons, one is used to retire, the other to commit suicide. The central row consists also of two buttons. The one with a question mark is the "status" button, which calls up a status window. The one with an eye calls up a map. The bottom row has two disk buttons. These are used to save and load character files. Below these buttons, there is a square with a smaller square inside it. This is mostly empty, but sometimes a picture appears on it. Pressing the picture will access various functions. Exploring the levels You can move around with the arrowed buttons. Either press them once to move at single steps, or hold the mouse button for repeated movement. There are many different types of terrain features in the levels. Here's an overview of them. Normal floor. Does absolutely nothing. Weak floor. Symbolised by a pattern of black dots, this collapses as you step off it. Radiation. Symbolised by a pattern of cyan dots, this has a bit of a two-way function. If you have got a certain piece of equipment, you'll survive this. If not, then... Walls. These are brown and red and behave in a very wall-like way. Space. This looks like, space! You cannot step on it. Locks. These look like keyholes, with a coloured light inside them. You cannot pass locks unless you have a key. (Surprising, isn't it?) Teleports. Purple dots on the floor. Tread on one, and you are whisked away somewhere else on the level. If you have got a certain piece of equipment, you have a degree of control over the teleportation. Caches. Red boxes with a light blue light inside them. As you step on one, a picture appears in the square-square. Pressing it will reveal the cache's contests. After using a cache, its light turns dark blue and you cannot use it again. Cities. Purple boxes with "CITY" written on them. Step on one, press the picture, and you enter the City Equipment Store, of which more later. Take notice, every time you move, your oxygen level depletes. Allow it to reach zero and it's curtains for you. The caches A cache can contain fourteen different things. Here's an overview of them. Empty: Yawn. Treasure: Can range from Rock (cheap) to Sapphire (expensive). The Eye: This is the Eye of Arcturus, a very important object, as it, and only it, allows you to proceed to the next level. Trap: Boo! This depletes your prestige level. Robber: At first he tries to steal your money. If he fails that, he will try to steal a jewel from you. If he fails that, he will shoot at you. Alien: These bite at you, causing damage Caches can be pro-examined with a certain piece of equipment, which tells you whether a cache contains an unwanted item and allows you to cancel the procedure. This equipment isn't completely right in its guesses. Owning a weapon will allow you to have a go at shooting robbers and aliens. The City Equipment Store Once you are in the Store, you can do many things! Explanation follows: Buying / Selling oxygen and armour: Click on the oxygen and armour pictures. The left mouse button buys, the right one sells. Buying / Selling equipment: Click on the desired piece of equipment. Left for buy, right for sell. Buying / Selling keys: Click on the desired triplet of keys. Keys are always bought and sold in triplets, that is to say groups of three. Selling treasures: Click on "Sell Treasures" and you instantly hand in all your treasures and gain money. Trading in chewing gums: Click on "Trade in Chewing Gums" and you are presented with a selection screen. Click on the chewing gums to buy or sell them. Then press OK or Cancel. Exit: Click on "Exit this Screen". Proceed to next level: Click on "Go to Next Level". You can only do this if you have the Eye of Arcturus. If you haven't, the button will go flat to remind you. Chewing gums There are twenty five different flavours of chewing gums in this game. Each of them has a special effect. The effects are chosen randomly. Just click on the chewing gum button, choose your flavour and press "OK". If you decide to chicken out, press "Cancel". The only way to have some idea of a chewing gum's effect beforehand is with a certain piece of equipment, which isn't completely right always. The Hall of Fame If you quit playing, or press the Hall of Fame button, you enter the Hall of Fame. This hall holds records of the sixteen most prestigeful players ever. Just click on someone's name and you'll be given information about him/her/it. Press "Exit Hall" to leave. The Hall of Fame is saved to disk. If the program cannot find a Hall file, it'll create one. BATTLE_O_BRITAIN - Battle of Britain is a 2 player strategy game based on the infamous World War 2 battle. The computer can play the roles of the German and/or British players. HOW TO WIN The game consists of 5 days. The German player wins if more than 15 targets have been completely destroyed at the end of any day, the British player wins if less than 11 targets have been destroyed at the end of the game, else it is a draw. Partially destroyed targets count towards victory conditions. In the limited version, the game only goes for two days. The Germans win if more than 6 targets have been completely destroyed else the British player wins. This version is likely to be less balanced than the full version. THE MAP The map consists of a square grid representing parts of southern England and northern France. Radar stations are represented by triangles, cities by black circles, British bases by orange circles and German bases by solid orange circles. THE UNITS Planes represented are spitfires, messherschimtts and heinkels. All types of German planes are represented by black crosses while British planes are represented by orange, blue and white circles. AA GUN DEPLOYMENT The British player distributes the 2000 available anti aircraft guns amongst the radar stations airbases and cities. They are only deployed once per game and cannot be moved. Simply type in the number, then press return, for each location. The location is highlighted by a black border. AIRCRAFT DEPLOYMENT Aircraft are deployed at the start of each day. Aircraft are divided up amongst the units in any way the player wishes. AUTO DEPLOYMENT Each player has the option of auto-deploying his units, in which case the computer will deploy for him. This speeds up play but has the disadvantage of the loss of flexibility in deployment. BOMBER DESTINATIONS At the start of a day, each bomber is given a single destination. The German player chooses a destination by clicking on a base, city or radar station. A screen will then appear showing the approximate damage to the target (if any) and the number of bombers already plotted there (if any). You may change your choice by selecting NO. A bomber unit will automatically move towards its destination then return to its original base. THE TURN A game consists of up to 5 days. Each day consists of a maximum of 10 turns. The game ends at the end of the fifth day, or earlier if the German player has won. Each player can see game information by choosing OBS, INFO or MAP before clicking on MOVE. OBS This shows the current numbers, destination etc. of each unit of the current player. INFO This displays information about the planes of both sides, including the total number of aircraft of each type, available at the start of the day. MAP This gives damage level, aa-guns etc. of British cities, airbases and radar stations. Germans recieve distorted information. MOVEMENT Bombers move automatically towards their target and return to their original base after they have bombed. Bombers move 1 or 2 squares a turn. The fighter unit whose turn it is to move is highlighted by an orange border. Fighter units are moved by clicking on the map. Fighters have a maximum move of 3 squares in any direction, including diagonally. Any number of units (of both sides) can be in the same square. RADAR Undestroyed radar stations detect German aircraft within 3 squares in any direction. Radar gives an estimation of the total number (not types) of German aircraft in a square, plus or minus 10%. Only German units within radar range are actually displayed on the map during the British players turn. COMBAT Combat occurs whenever opposing aircraft move into the same square. If there are both German bombers and German fighters in the same square, the British player has the option of which type to attack first. German fighters then counterattack, then bombers use their defensive fire (if attacked). The square of the current combat is highlighted by a black border. Rarely, the attacking force will not find the defending force. AAGUNS AA guns fire at bombers in the same square before they bomb. AA guns are never destroyed. BOMBING Each surviving bomber does 1 point of damage (2 against a radar station). A target is destroyed when it has recieved 100 or more damage points. Destroyed targets cannot be used. FUEL Bombers have unlimited fuel. Fighters have a limited number of turns in the air. German fighters not arriving at a German base by the time their fuel runs out are destroyed. British fighters need to get to any square in Britain. Fighters at an airbase can refuel and take off again. Fighters can take off on any turn they wish. REINFORCEMENTS At the start of each day each player recieves reinforcements which are added to their force pool. German reinforcements are a constant, while British reinforcements depend on bombing to cities. TIPS Both sides have different problems. The German player has to decide which target he will concentrate on first. Bombing cities reduce British production, bombing radar stations will restrict their ability to respond while bombing airbases will limit their ability to deploy effectively. Small units (e.g. one aircraft) of either side, can confuse the opponent. AA guns are not very effective, but concentrated may surprise the Germans and in any case may be sufficient to reduce bombing below 100% effectiveness. The German player has to be careful not to undersize his bomber forces. German fighters are equal to British fighters in combat strength, but the British player has the tactical advantage of attacking first. Bombers are fairly weak in defensive fire, but a large group of bombers has a fair amount of defensive power. All aircraft of the same type in the same square are combined for combat purposes. The German player can hope to ambush the British player with large numbers of fighters, as he can never force combat. The British player with have to decide whether to concentrate his fighters (much more effective in combat) or to attack at the first opportunity. A very important decision is whether to attack bombers first or attack the fighter escort first. The former will destroy more bombers but lose more British fighters. The decision will depend on both the current tactical and strategic position. Allowing fighters to run out of fuel is a great way to lose fighters! Late in the game the situation will become very critical. BOX_ADVENTURE - Box is an interactive adventure novel in which you guide the main character, making his decisions and interacting with the world about him. Interaction is achieved through an advanced text-only interface which can understand plain(ish) English sentences entered by the user. This document file contains all the information nessecary to start playing the game, as well as various technical details about the program itself. Playing the game As described at the start of each game, you control a young man from a gods-fearing village beside a lake. You have decided to undertake a challenge which only a few have ever dared try, a challenge set out by the Gods of Everything who rule the world. If you succeed you may be granted a place in the high palace, and even become a god yourself. If you die you will fail, and if you fail you will die. At all times the gods will be watching you, and at the end of the game you are required to attend a trial which will decide whether or not you deserve the honour of succeeding. Everything you have done up until that point will be taken into account, and your moral conduct will be scrutinised. Philosophy behind playing Box is a world. Characters live in it. You are a character. Rules of playing A typical screen set-up would look like this: Flimsy bridge. You are standing on a rather flimsy looking bridge. The swollen river tumbles beneath you. Notable objects include a bright blue key and a large tasty orange. A fat hamster called Colin is here. What now?_ You are now expected to input a sentence following the rules of the parser as outlined below. A number of special commands detailed in a later section are also available. The first part of the description -Flimsy bridge- is a brief description of your surroundings, and will be the only thing displayed next time you enter that particular location. Of course, typing LOOK reveals the complete description. Next follows a small paragraph of text describing the location in more detail. Anything which appears in the Notable Objects section is an object, and follows the normal object rules. Some objects will be takeable, while others will be too heavy. The fat hamster called Colin is a character, and his presence will always be described in this way. The parser The parser in box is quite sophisticated, and should be able to understand most of your requests. It works on the assumption that every sentence contains a verb, and possibly a noun and a second object. This means that the following sentences are all valid: SLEEP TAKE ROPE TAKE THE ROPE TAKE THE ROPE FROM THE BOX Note that simply typing TAKE ROPE is acceptable, although the parser does tend to prefer more verbose sentences. The bottom example demonstrates the requirement that in order to take an object from inside another object, that other object must be specified in the command. Simply typing TAKE THE ROPE in this case would not suffice. The order in which parts of the sentence appear need not follow the above guidelines. The following are all acceptable: DROP THE MOUSE DOWN INTO THE HOLE INTO THE HOLE DROP THE MOUSE DROP INTO THE HOLE THE MOUSE Adverbs are also understood, so the following may be used: QUICKLY DROP THE MOUSE INTO THE HOLE INTO THE HOLE DROP THE MOUSE QUICKLY etc etc Sentences may be strung together in the following fashion: KILL THE WOLF AND THEN RUN NORTH UNLOCK THE DOOR WITH THE KEY AND EAT THE CAKE Multiple nouns may also be specified if separated with AND THE: TAKE THE COIN AND THE WALLET HIT THE TROLL AND THE WHALE WITH THE SAUSAGE Certain verbs such as take may also take the ALL or EVERYTHING nouns: TAKE EVERYTHING OUT OF THE CUPBOARD The word IT is also understood, so after taking the food, typing EAT IT would be perfectly legal. Here are a couple of other examples: UNLOCK THE DOOR WITH THE KEY AND OPEN IT WITH THE BOTTLE HIT THE GUARD AND THEN OPEN IT Please note that IT can only specify a single object, and the following sentence can therefore not be used: CLOSE THE RED BOTTLE AND THE BAG AND DROP THEM Each object in the game has two adjectives describing it (eg The small cuddly teddy). On most occasions it is acceptable to simply refer to it using a single noun, but on occasions when there are many similar objects around you may be asked to be more specific. For example: User - TAKE THE BOTTLE Response - Which bottle do you wish to take? User - TAKE THE RED BOTTLE A singal case which should be remembered is the situation of pouring a liquid from one container to another. Typing POUR THE WATER FROM THE SMALL JUG INTO THE TEAPOT involves too many objects in one phrase, so the user must instead enter: POUR THE SMALL JUG INTO THE TEAPOT It sounds a bit unusual, but is really the neatest way of getting around the problem. This game uses a shared parser system, in which the actions of every character in the game are handled by exactly the same pieces of program. This means that everything is fair as everybody (including yourself) runs under the same set of rules. For example, when a character wishes to open a door, it sends the sentence "OPEN THE DOOR" to the parser, just as you would. It is then handled in the same way. This system allows great flexibility in character control, such as providing the possibility of asking other characters to do things, or even taking over their bodies completely. See the technical details section at the end of this documentation for more information. - Special commands and useful verbs A number of special commands exist which do not relate directly to performable actions. These are: LOAD/SAVE - Loads or saves the current game position. This may be done at any time. A file requester will appear with the default filename, Current.game already selected. Click on a name or enter a new one, then click OK. AGAIN - Performs the last action again. Your default character is the only person who can do this. TIME - Displays the Adventure Standard Time. STRENGTH/ENERGY - Reports on your current physical health. QUIT - Quits the current game. Also option to quit the program. AUTHOR - Displays the author's name and contact address. SCRIPT - Turns on printer output. Anything normally printed onto the screen is now also sent to PRT: UNSCRIPT - Turns off printer output. SHOP - Calls up the Adventure Supplies store. Details of this facility are available elsewhere in this file. Characters The world in which Box is set is inhabited by a large number of characters, each free to roam around and interact with their environment. You control one of these characters. What this means is that you are treated in exactly the same way as everybody else, obeying the same physical laws and being just as vulnerable. It follows from this that each character is capable of performing the same wide range of actions as you are. Some characters are much stronger than you, while others may be weaker. This means that the help of other stronger characters may be useful for lifting heavy objects or other activities which require large amounts of strength. Particular characters may be able to help you in other ways, but only if you keep on their good side. It should also be remembered that each character has opinions about every other character which he/she/it has come into contact with, so approaching certain characters through other people is often helpful. Because of the complex character control system used by Box, talking to other characters is quite easy. If you wish to give another character an instruction, simply enter the character's name followed by a comma, then the command. For example, if we wanted to tell somebody called Bob to take the hammer and go north, just type: Bob, take the hammer and go north It's that simple. Any sentence which can be recognised by the main parser (see 2.2.0) can be understood by a character, with words such as 'your' being translated in the process. The only two things that should be remembered when communicating with characters are: 1) If a character does not understand your instruction, or is unable to comply, that character will give you no response. 2) It is entirely up to a particular character whether or not they are going to do what you have asked. Their decision is based on how much they like you and whether they have a personal reason for not doing what you have said. For instance, it is no good trying to ask a mother to attack her own children; she just isn't going to do it. Another method of communicating with other characters is by asking them simple questions, which usually take the form, ASK name ABOUT THE subject. For example, ASK THE GIRL ABOUT THE HORSE-SHOE. If a character has some special information about what you are asking they will tell you, and if they don't then they will say so. Rules of being a character Each character in the game, including yourself has to work in accordance with the following physical laws: 1. Every character has its own level of strength which varies throughout the game. Activities which drain strength include fighting and walking with heavy objects. Once a character has exhausted its strength, it dies. Ways of replenishing strength include eating, drinking and sleeping. Sleeping must be done once every day, or dying of exhaustion is likely. When a character (including yourself) sleeps, all of the other characters are still going about their business, so it is wise to find a safe place to sleep. Time spent sleeping varies depending on how tired a particular character is, and what the time actually is (each character has a body-clock). Also, when you sleep, beware of dreams! 2. The objects which a character manipulates can take a variety of forms, including pervious and impervious containers, edible foodstuffs, liquids and items of clothing. Each object has its own endurance strength, and will break under suitable strain. Some objects can be used effectively as weapons, increasing a character's chances in a combat situation. Some objects may be contained inside other objects, which in turn may have to be unlocked or opened to get inside. Each object has its own size, so many small objects can be stored inside a large box, while only one or two objects of a greater size will fit. Some objects such as ropes may be tied to other objects. 3. Fighting occurs when two characters who less than like each other meet or have a disagreement. When one character hits another, the other is most likely to respond. Attacks can be made either with bare hands or with a weapon. Most characters will automatically use the most effective weapon that they are carrying. Fighting drains the strength of characters depending on the fitness of the attacker and the effectiveness of the weapon. Note that characters other than yourself may get into fights while not in your presence, so do not be surprised to find dead bodies lying around on your travels. The shop By entering the command SHOP at any time during play, time is frozen and you are given access to the Adventure Standard Supplies Store, which sells food, weaponry and a variety of other goods. To make an order, simply follow the on-screen instructions, specifying which items you wish to purchase, and finally entering your name and the address to which you would like the goods delivered. A file will then be output onto a blank disk (which you just happen to have handy). This disk can then be mailed to the author's address (given in the program by typing AUTHOR) along with the appropriate payment. The game position stored on the disk will then be updated and promptly returned with the requested objects in your inventory. BULL RUN - is a simple wargame that recreates the battle of First Bull Run, the first major battle of the American Civil War. You can take the side of either the Confederacy or the Union, and the computer will direct the opposing forces. STARTING THE GAME Double click the BullRun Drawer, and then double-click the BullRun icon. The program will start and you will see the game's title screen. CHOOSING A SIDE Decide which side you want to play, and then click on the appropriately-labeled flag. UNDERSTANDING THE DISPLAY The screen shows a map of the battlefield divided into squares. The green patches represent woods, blue lines are rivers, and black dots are towns. Bull Run is the large river that divides the map in half. It is only crossable at fords, denoted by black lines crossing the river. Your playing pieces are the red (Confederate) or blue (Union) squares, each marked with a two-letter identity code. Enemy units are the unmarked flags. The current game time is displayed at the top of the screen. Each turn represents half an hour of real time. HOW TO WIN The object of the game is to capture an enemy town. The town must be occupied throughout a turn to win. The Union player has only one town to defend -- Centreville, in the northeast corner of the map. The Confederates have two towns -- Manassas to the south and New Market to the west. If neither player wins by the 7:00 PM turn, the game ends and the computer decides who wins, based on relative casualties and how close each side came to their objective. PLAYING THE GAME To get more information on your units, move the pointer over a unit and click the left mouse button. The title bar will show the full name of the unit's commander, the unit's "mode" and the current/original number of men in the unit. If you hold the button down, you will notice that the pointer changes to a "target." To give a unit orders to move, you -- move the pointer to the unit -- hold down the left mouse button (the pointer will change to a target) -- move the target to the square that you want to set as the destination for the unit -- release the left mouse button. You can give movement orders to each of your units every turn. Orders stay in effect until the unit reaches its destination or it is given other orders. You can always cancel a unit's orders by clicking on the unit and then choosing "Cancel Move" from the ORDERS menu (or, equivalently, pressing function key F6). In addition to movement orders, you can also set the "mode" of the unit by clicking on the unit and then using the MODES menu. There are five different modes: Charge, Attack, Skirmish, Defend, and Withdraw, with Charge being the most aggressive and Withdraw being the least. The mode of a unit affects how it will perform in combat: units with more aggressive modes will have a better chance of forcing the enemy to retreat, but will take more casualties than units with less aggressive modes. When you are finished giving orders to your units, choose Execute Turn from the ORDERS menu. The computer will then begin moving the armies based on your orders. Notice that enemy units may move also; the computer is directing the enemy forces and is giving orders to the enemy at the same time as you. ZONES OF CONTROL No unit may move from one square adjacent to an enemy unit directly to another square adjacent to the SAME enemy unit. For experienced wargamers, note that this is a variation on the usual ZOC rule. SIGHTING Not all of enemy units will be visible at all times -- they must be "sighted" by friendly forces. Units on ford squares, or units on the enemy side of the river, are ALWAYS sighted. Otherwise, to sight the enemy you must have a unit on the same side of the river (or on a ford) and within three squares of the enemy. Unsighted units do not appear on the map, but sighting is checked whenever a unit moves, not just at the end of a turn. COMBAT Combat is caused by a unit trying to move into an enemy-occupied square. A window will appear, telling you which units are involved and what casualties are sustained. A blinking arrow on the map will appear, showing exactly which unit is attacking and the direction of the attack. The size of the arrow shows the aggressiveness of the attack. When you are done seeing the combat results, hit any key or click the left mouse button to continue. SHATTERED UNITS Units which take too many casualties can become "shattered." A shattered unit is marked with an asterisk in the title bar when you click on it. Shattered units cannot be in any mode other than Defend or Withdraw. ROUTED UNITS If a unit takes excessive casualties, it may be "routed." Routed units are removed from the map and take no further part in the game. REINFORCEMENTS At the beginning of the 11:00 AM turn, the Confederate player receives the "Smith" unit at the town of Manassas, unless the town is enemy occupied. Once the Smith unit appears on the map, it is treated as any other unit and may immediately be put to use by the Confederate player. CAPITALS_OF_AMERICA - States and Capitals provides a challenge for one or two players. Compete with your friends or children! While you brush up on your state capitals, the map provides a mini geography lesson. PROJECTOR CAPITALS All state capitals must be spelled correctly (including capitalization!). There are 2 options, players and "mode". Toggle between one and two player with a mouse click on the selection bar on the left. On the right is the "mode" selector. Study mode provides the correct answer after an incorrect response. Test mode does not. During the game, you may stop to view the map, change options or quit. The program will wait until your responses are complete before acting on your mouse clicks, i.e., after your input and after you have responded to "hit any key". You will be shown the map after each correct answer. If you want to view the map at any other time, click on the map selector (lower right). Below the map selector is the START/QUIT/SETUP selector. Clicking on the selector during game play will allow you to change your setup or quit. After changing your setup, click here to restart. All previous scores are cleared. Quit the game by clicking this box a second time, without changing your setup. CASTLE - If you have never tried to solve a puzzle of this sort, there are a few things you must do to get started. First, CASTLE uses a simple verb-noun parser (for the most part) which means that most commands should be expressed in that format. Example: "CUT ROPE", "DRINK WATER", etc. Objects that you can manipulate are given in the text description, but will not necessarily be shown in the graphics. It is best to "EXAMINE" everything when you first enter a room. The parser is very simplistic, so if you have no luck with a command, a similiar command may work. Example: "LIFT CHAIR" may have no effect, but "TAKE CHAIR" or "MOVE CHAIR" may work just fine. Making a map is a good idea. When talking to a character, remember that you must get his attention first; and using interrogatives ("WHO, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE, TELL ME ABOUT...") are a good way to begin questions. The icons in the small window can be used to move about. "INVENTORY" is a useful command to see what you have in your possession. Some commands, such as "TIE ROPE" will bring a response such as "To What?" This question must be answered by a noun such as, "RING", meaning that is the object to which the rope will be tied. To keep things simple, most objects are considered to be usable if you have them in your posession. Example: if you have a sword, you can give a command "CUT" without the need to "DRAW SWORD" or "GRAB SWORD". If you keep in mind that this is really designed as a demo for programmers more than a commercial-quality adventure you can accept some simplicity, and still (hopefully) have some fun. The first puzzle to solve is the way to enter the castle. We left lots of hints, but you must be persistent. That is another hint! With all that, we trust you can enter "merrie olde England" and the days of Robin Hood, solve the puzzles, find the treasure, and emerge a hero! Programmers who want to duplicate this kind of game should know that the graphics routines are derived from the disk provided by Commodore, using the "EA IFF 85" standard. CATACOMB - is a graphic adventure game set on a small island in the middle of the land of EXOUSIA. Your quest is to discover the secrets and treasures of this underground maze while staying alive. The rest of the setting is presented in the introduction. SETUP: To play CATACOMB simply click on the CATACOMB icon OR CD to the catacomb directory and type "PROJ2 CATACOMB" from CLI. CATACOMB is very happy running from a HD. simply copy the entire catacomb directory to the HD. names are not important but the files must be in the same directory. CATACOMB looks for the "run" command in the c: directory. it must be there to play the game. Hope this is not a problem, but is was unavoidable. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- CATACOMB is very easy to interact with. You simply point and click on the different controls displayed on the stone wall. There are also optional keyboard commands that can be used entirely or in conjunction with the mouse. The commands are as follows: ICON COMMAND KEY EXPLANATION --------------------------------------------------------------------------- EYE LOOK, -L- THIS COMMAND WILL GIVE YOU A BRIEF EXAMINE DESCRIPTION OF WHAT IS IN A ROOM. LIGHT THINK -T- THIS COMMAND PUTS YOU INTO THE BULB MIND OF A TRUE ADVENTURER... UPSTAIRS GO UP -U- ASCEND IF POSSIBLE. HAMMER USE -SPACE- THIS ALLOWS YOU TO THEN SELECT WITH THE MOUSE THE OBJECT YOU WISH TO MANIPULATE CHEST OPEN -O- THIS WILL OPEN ANY OBJECT ON THE SCREEN THAT CAN BE OPENED DOWNSTAIRS GO DOWN -D- DESCEND IF POSSIBLE UP ARROW NORTH -8- MOVE NORTH IF POSSIBLE DOWN ARROW SOUTH -2- MOVE SOUTH IF POSSIBLE LEFT ARROW WEST -4- MOVE WEST IF POSSIBLE RIGHT EAST -6- MOVE EAST IF POSSIBLE ARROW TO PICK UP AN OBJECT SIMPLY CLICK ON IT WITH THE MOUSE. IT WILL THEN BE ADDED TO YOUR INVENTORY. AN EXPLANATION OF THE MOVEMENT METHOD IS NECCESSARY. THE FOUR ARROW BUTTONS REPRESENT THE FOUR COMPASS DIRECTIONS. THE ARROW POINTING UP IS ALWAYS NORTH, DOWN IS ALWAYS SOUTH, ETC. THE DIRECTION YOU ARE CURRENTLY FACING IS DISPLAYED IN THE COMPASS BELOW THE OPTION BUTTONS. THE AVAILABLE DIRECTIONS FOR MOVEMENT ARE SHOWN BY SILVER DIRECTIONAL DISKS PLACED ON AVAILABLE DIRECTION BUTTONS. THIS WILL BECOME QUITE CLEAR AS YOU PLAY THE GAME. KEEP IN MIND THAT THE ROOM PICTURE MAY SHOW A PATH OR DOORWAY DIRECTLY AHEAD OF YOU, BUT IF YOU ARE FACING EAST, THE "UP" (NORTH) ARROW WILL ACTUALLY LEAD YOU THROUGH THE DOOR TO THE LEFT. IN OTHER WORDS, THE DIRECTION BUTTONS ARE CONSTANT, BUT THE DIRECTION YOU FACE IS NOT. PAY CLOSE ATTENTION TO THE COMPASS. I'M SORRY IF THIS IS CONFUSING, AND IT WILL BE IMPROVED ON VERSION 2. TO QUIT OR RESTART HIT THE -ESC- KEY. COLUMNS - Welcome to Amiga Columns! This game is similar in some respects to Tetris(tm). In this game, a set of three blocks fall from the top of the screen. These pieces fall towards the bottom of the screen. Unlike Tetris, the pieces can only be rotated vertically, that is to say that only the order of the pieces may be changed. The object of the game is to match three or more of the same pieces horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. There are a couple of twists thrown in to make the game interesting, more on that later. Once pieces are removed, those blocks that are left floating succumb to gravity, also unlike Tetris. In this way, a chain reaction can be started. One set of blocks can knock out many other blocks! Columns is supposedly based upon a game which was originally developed for X-windows. I've never seen that version, so I can't attest to the similarity between my version and that one. This one is most closely related to a version on the Apple IIgs called (oddly enough) Columns GS. The Blocks ---------- There are five regular blocks and two special blocks. Lets discuss the special blocks, since the regular blocks need little attention. The two special blocks are the Magic, or Rainbow, block and the Evil block. As the names suggest, one is good and one is bad. The Evil blocks always come in pairs accompanied by one of the other regular blocks. Evil blocks cannot be removed by any means excluding the Magic block. Fortunately, these blocks only appear two percent of the time. The Magic blocks always come as a set of three. These blocks will remove all of the blocks which match the block upon which it falls. In other words, if the Magic block falls on an Evil block, all Evil blocks will be removed from the board. The Magic block is very useful for removing a large portion of the screen all at once. The magic blocks appear one percent of the time. The regular blocks always come in groups of three, as mentioned above. The assortment of blocks is completely random. You could get three different blocks, two of the same block, or even three of the same block (although, due to some quirk in the random number function, I have never seen this happen). The Scoring ----------- Scoring is based upon the number of blocks removed. One point is awarded for each block removed. Also, for each block simultaneously removed above three, another point is rewarded. Therefore, if five blocks were removed at one time, the score for that move would be seven. Additionally, a bonus of two points is awarded for each chain reaction started. In addition to the score, the number of blocks removed is displayed at the bottom of the screen. Each one hundred blocks removed causes the game to speed up. The Keys -------- The controls for Amiga Columns are very simple. By default, the 'j' key moves the blocks to the left, the 'l' key moves them to the right, and the 'k' key rotates the blocks. In addition to this, the space bar quickly drops the block. Once you've pressed the space-bar, you cannot control the blocks movement until it hits something. The 'q' key is used to quit the current game. Pressing the 'q' key while not playing the game will exit the game. Pressing the 'm' key will toggle music on and off. The Menus --------- The menus are pretty self-explanatory. The file menu contains About and Quit. The game menu contains "New Game". There are keyboard equivalents for all three. (Right Amiga-A, Right Amiga-Q, and Right Amiga-N respectively). The Music --------- The music uses the medplayer library which hopefully you have relocated to your libs: directory. If you do not wish to have music, you can omit this step or remove the songs from the directory in which the game is installed. There is one song for each level. The song titled 'song.0' is the intro song. The rest of the songs are of the form: 'song.x', where x is the level to which the song belongs. I don't suspect that more than nine songs will be required. However if you are that dexterous, you may need more songs. To use any available sountracker / noisetracker modules, you will first need to convert them to MEDPlayer modules by loading them into MED3.00(or higher) and saving them as modules. See the documentation accompanying MED for more information on converting modules. You can, of course, also write your own music. If you write some music that you think should be included with later releases of columns, send me a copy of it and I will consider it. As mentioned above, music can be toggled on/off using the 'm' key. The music included with the game was found on bulletin boards and other information services. The songs that come with this distribution are as follows: song.0 was Teijo Kinnunen's "SynthSound Example" included with MED3.00 song.1 was MOD.Hallucination - Unknown Author song.2 was MOD.Chicago - "Chicago Song" - Unknown Author song.3 was MOD.Ten - "Tennis" - Unknown Author song.4 was MOD.Ecstacy by Dr. Awesome of the Crusaders song.5 was MOD.Ingame - Unknown Author song.6 was MOD.Quantum - Quantum-x by Ice88 song.7 was MOD.Big - "Rhythm Theme" - Unknown Author song.8 was MOD.Approach - Unknown Author I have not contacted any of the authors. If there is any problems regarding the distribution of these songs, please contact me and they will be removed from later releases. The Demo -------- If the game is left idle for a while, it will begin playing by itself. Press any key (except 'M', which still controls the music) to abort the demo and start playing. Although the computer is reasonably good at picking the right place, this is one area the game could really improve in. CROSSWORDS - A crossword puzzle time-waster by Mike Epting, Cupertino, CA. I can't imagine that you really need any documentation to use this program with the puzzles provided, but it is possible that you could have trouble getting started. There are four possible ways to successfully run CWP: 1. Click on a puzzle file icon, hold down the shift key, and double click on the CWP icon. The selected puzzle will appear. 2. Double click on a puzzle icon. This approach works if the icon's tool type is CWP, as with the puzzles provided. 3. Double click the CWP icon and choose a puzzle file by using the ARP file requestor. This method is available to you only if you have arp.library installed in your LIBS: directory. If this makes no sense, forget it or get ARP somewhere. 4. From the CLI, use "CWP filename". You don't need to type the ".cwp" part of the filename. Note that if you omit the filename and have arp.library, the arp file requestor will appear. You'll note that small puzzles open up on the Workbench screen, but larger ones get a custom interlaced screen. I'm sorry about the crummy colors on the latter -- I don't have a flicker-fixer and these colors are tolerable on my Amiga. Once you have a puzzle, just type your guesses. You can move the cursor around by using the keyboard cursor controls or by pointing and clicking. You can get a single letter hint or check your solution at any time by using the menu or keyboard substitutes (right-Amiga-H or -C). If you wish to save a partial solution, use the menu or right-Amiga S. Later, you can bring up the blank puzzle and use Restore to get back to where you left off. I wrote the program (it's my first C project -- I hope you can't tell), but the puzzles are from here and there. As the author, I guess I have the right to make the program public domain, so use it any way you please. You can enter your own puzzles using any text editor, but I'm real picky about format. Take a look at any of the provided puzzle files to see how yours needs to look. The first line is the height and width of the puzzle, in squares, separated by a comma (e.g. 13, 13). The next lines are the puzzle solution. You can use either upper or lower case letters, but be careful about spaces. To make this thing square you probably need spaces at the ends of some lines. After the solution, you need a line that says only: Across: Next are the coordinates and text of the across clues. First enter the horizontal and vertical coordinates; for example, the upper left hand square is 1,1. The fifth square from the left, four down is 5,4. The clue itself may include any text you wish, but must fit on one line. The total line must look like: x,y,Here is the across clue for square x,y. After all the across clues you need a line with just: Down: Then enter the down clues in the same format as the across clues. After you enter a puzzle file, you need to carefully debug it by running CWP, positioning the cursor on each square, and checking that the proper across and down clues are displayed. Check especially for blank clues, because they suggest that you made a mistake on the coordinates. I admit that I have not thoroughly tested CWP with every kind of possible error in puzzle files, so you might meet the Guru if you are careless with your puzzle entry. Note that if you want to use method 2, above, you need to either copy my puzzle icon for your file or edit your icon's tool type. CUBE - The Electronic Cube is an animated Rubik's Cube simulator, solver and tutorial, for anyone interested in learning the workings of the Rubik's cube. It contains two solving algorithms; the one that I and most people use for solving; plus another using more processes than most people can possibly remember just to see how few moves it will take to solve any cube. Typing "u","f","b","r","l","d" will cause any of the six sides; up, front, back, right, left, down to turn in a clockwise direction. Prefixing with an "a" will cause an anticlockwise turn. Prefixing with a "2" causes a half turn. To orient the cube type "ol","or","ou","od","oc","oa" to orient the cube left, right, up, down, clockwise, or anticlockwise. Pressing w before starting to solve causes the solve algorithm to wait after each piece is placed for a key to be pressed. Pressing 1 before starting to solve causes the solve algorithm to wait after each move allowing you to follow along with your cube. All other keypresses are ignored by the program, except for menu shortcuts. MENU Palette: Enables you to change colors to suit your preferences. Enables you to paint each separate piece to match any scrambled cube you wish to solve. Select one of the six colors by clicking on it; then move the pointer to the cube and click again. The color will appear in that area. In order for the program to work correctly, the cube must be painted to match a real world cube. It must have the correct number of red, blue, yellow etc. squares in a pattern that a regular real cube would have. Delay sets the speed of the animation. Mouse Select: Enables turning and orienting the cube with the use of the mouse. Click on the arrow for the direction you want the cube to move. Colors are keyed to the color of the center spot on each surface. When the cube is oriented, the colors change. If you leave this window open, it greatly slows down the Best of 24 solve. Clear Screen: Clears the bottom portion of the screen. Solve: Restores the cube who's picture appears on the screen to it's store-bought condition before you got it all confused using a method I learned from a book many years ago. It takes each piece in turn, conducts a search to find out where that piece happens to be, then selects one of the strings to put that piece back in place. First the upper edges. Second the upper corners. Third the four middle layer pieces. Fourth it places the last corners. Fifth it twists the last corners. Sixth it places the last 4 edges. Seventh it twists the last 4 edges. This solution takes about 60 to 110 moves. Fast Solve: It solves the upper layer one piece at a time. It selects the cheapest first. The original program solved them in order. Selecting the cheapest first saved about 3-4 moves. Next it solves the middle layer, two at a time. It attempts to combine steps 4-7 at one time if the string is available. (There are 15,552 possible configurations of the last layer alone.) If the string is not available it combines steps 4 and 5 and sometimes 7, if that string is available. If not it solves steps 4, 5 and 6 leaving 7 for later. This method takes between 35 and 80 moves. 80 only when one of the strings is missing. Only 37 out of 456 are currently missing. Best of 24: Best of 24 is the same as Fast Solve except it solves the cube, records the number of moves, then orients and solves it again using the same method. There are 24 ways to hold a cube. Starting from a different point can dramatically reduce the number of turns required. Best of 48: There is a fourth method. I wrote a function which chooses the cheapest string for the first pair of pieces in the middle layer. Most of the time it does the same or better than Best of 24 but sometimes it is worse. You can see this method by pushing key #6 with or without the Amiga key. It just seems to take too long to wait while it solves 48 times and then selects the best on an A500; about 40 seconds. You can also see worst of 24 by pressing the 5 key. This was to help find errors. Print: The P key will print the configuration of the upper layer. It's only useful if the lower two layers are intact. Recall: Each time at the beginning of the solve, the configuration of the cube is saved in an array. Recall will get this position back. After Best of 24, Recall brings back the best starting position. DOT - Dot is a simple game in which players try to make blocks by connecting dots on a grid. Human players may compete, and a rather talented computer player is available. When the game is loaded, a screen will open containing various gadgets. The five gadgets on the left side of the screen -- Computer, Player 1, etc. -- allow you to select how many players get in the game by clicking on them to toggle the players ON and OFF. A minimum of two players is allowed. The large proportional gadget on the right of the screen allows you to select the grid size, from 5-by-5 to 30-by-30. For the first few games keep the setting at 5-by-5 to get familiar with the game. A note of caution: The larger the grid, the longer the computer player requires to calculate moves near the end of the game. I advise not to play the computer with grid sizes larger than about 15-by-15. Clicking on the gadget labeled Start begins the game, while Quit exits. After clicking on Start, there is a slight pause while the grid is drawn, along with some gadgets and a scoreboard. The player whose turn it is has his or her score highlighted with a green box. Each player in turn draws a line on the grid by connecting adjacent dots. Click on a dot, then click on another no more than one unit away. If a block is formed with this line, it is filled and the player gets one point and may play again. If no block is made, it is the next player's turn. The main object complete more filled boxes than your opponents. In this version of the game, all boxes which can be made are filled at the beginning of a player's turn. DUNGEON - Dungeon is a game of adventure, danger, and low cunning. In it you will explore some of the most amazing territory ever seen by mortal man. Hardened adventurers have run screaming from the terrors contained within. In Dungeon, the intrepid explorer delves into the forgotten secrets of a lost labyrinth deep in the bowels of the earth, searching for vast treasures long hidden from prying eyes, treasures guarded by fearsome monsters and diabolical traps! You are near a large dungeon, which is reputed to contain vast quantities of treasure. Naturally, you wish to acquire some of it. In order to do so, you must of course remove it from the dungeon. To receive full credit for it, you must deposit it safely in the trophy case in the living room of the house. In addition to valuables, the dungeon contains various objects which may or may not be useful in your attempt to get rich. You may need sources of light, since dungeons are often dark, and weapons, since dungeons often have unfriendly things wandering about. Reading material is scattered around the dungeon as well; some of it is rumored to be useful. To determine how successful you have been, a score is kept. When you find a valuable object and pick it up, you receive a certain number of points, which depends on the difficulty of finding the object. You receive extra points for transporting the treasure safely to the living room and placing it in the trophy case. In addition, some particularly interesting rooms have a value associated with visiting them. The only penalty is for getting yourself killed, which you may do only twice. Of special note is a thief (always carrying a large bag) who likes to wander around in the dungeon (he has never been seen by the light of day). He likes to take things. Since he steals for pleasure rather than profit and is somewhat sadistic, he only takes things which you have seen. Although he prefers valuables, sometimes in his haste he may take something which is worthless. From time to time, he examines his take and discards objects which he doesn't like. He may occas- ionally stop in a room you are visiting, but more often he just wanders through and rips you off (he is a skilled pickpocket). HELP ---- Useful commands: The 'BRIEF' command suppresses printing of long room descriptions for rooms which have been visited. The 'SUPERBRIEF' command suppresses printing of long room descriptions for all rooms. The 'VERBOSE' command restores long descriptions. The 'INFO' command prints information which might give some idea of what the game is about. The 'QUIT' command prints your score and asks whether you wish to continue playing. The 'SAVE' command saves the state of the game for later continuation. The 'RESTORE' command restores a saved game. The 'INVENTORY' command lists the objects in your possession. The 'LOOK' command prints a description of your surroundings. The 'SCORE' command prints your current score and ranking. The 'TIME' command tells you how long you have been playing. The 'DIAGNOSE' command reports on your injuries, if any. Command abbreviations: The 'INVENTORY' command may be abbreviated 'I'. The 'LOOK' command may be abbreviated 'L'. The 'QUIT' command may be abbreviated 'Q'. Containment: Some objects can contain other objects. Many such containers can be opened and closed. The rest are always open. They may or may not be transparent. For you to access (e.g., take) an object which is in a container, the container must be open. For you to see such an object, the container must be either open or transparent. Containers have a capacity, and objects have sizes; the number of objects which will fit therefore depends on their sizes. You may put any object you have access to (it need not be in your hands) into any other object. At some point, the program will attempt to pick it up if you don't already have it, which process may fail if you're carrying too much. Although containers can contain other containers, the program doesn't access more than one level down. Fighting: Occupants of the dungeon will, as a rule, fight back when attacked. In some cases, they may attack even if unprovoked. Useful verbs here are 'ATTACK <villain> WITH <weapon>', 'KILL', etc. Knife-throwing may or may not be useful. You have a fighting strength which varies with time. Being in a fight, getting killed, and being injured all lower this strength. Strength is regained with time. Thus, it is not a good idea to fight someone immediately after being killed. Other details should become apparent after a few melees or deaths. Command parser: A command is one line of text terminated by a carriage return. For reasons of simplicity, all words are distinguished by their first six letters. All others are ignored. For example, typing 'DISASSEMBLE THE ENCYCLOPEDIA' is not only meaningless, it also creates excess effort for your fingers. Note that this trunca- tion may produce ambiguities in the intepretation of longer words. You are dealing with a fairly stupid parser, which understands the following types of things-- Actions: Among the more obvious of these, such as TAKE, PUT, DROP, etc. Fairly general forms of these may be used, such as PICK UP, PUT DOWN, etc. Directions: NORTH, SOUTH, UP, DOWN, etc. and their various abbreviations. Other more obscure directions (LAND, CROSS) are appropriate in only certain situations. Objects: Most objects have names and can be referenced by them. Adjectives: Some adjectives are understood and required when there are two objects which can be referenced with the same 'name' (e.g., DOORs, BUTTONs). Prepositions: It may be necessary in some cases to include prepositions, but the parser attempts to handle cases which aren't ambiguous without. Thus 'GIVE CAR TO DEMON' will work, as will 'GIVE DEMON CAR'. 'GIVE CAR DEMON' probably won't do anything interesting. When a preposition is used, it should be appropriate; 'GIVE CAR WITH DEMON' won't parse. Sentences: The parser understands a reasonable number of syntactic construc- tions. In particular, multiple commands (separated by commas) can be placed on the same line. Ambiguity: The parser tries to be clever about what to do in the case of actions which require objects that are not explicitly specified. If there is only one possible object, the parser will assume that it should be used. Otherwise, the parser will ask. Most questions asked by the parser can be answered. ETERNAL_ROME - Introduction Eternal Rome is an extremely complex strategic game which simulates the most important and interesting periods of the Roman empire in numerous independent scenarios. It includes military, diplomatic, political, economic, social factors and problems. My main intention was to write a simulation which is very realistic and historically accurate and at the same time easy and fast to play. This simulation allows interested people to become familiar with a distant period of history which our modern culture and civilization owes most of its fundamentals. Most scenarios can be played by two players. The game is also well designed for solitaire play and historical and strategic studies. As almost all games of this kind, the more players are involved the more interesting and entertaining the play will be. But I also created for all scenarios, which are normally played by 3, 4 or even 5 players, one or more versions for less players. Therefore hobby-strategists, historically interested people and all human beings that enjoy the inspiring and entertaining play with others may have found "their" game. At first I will describe the basic control elements of the computer simulation. Eternal Rome uses an flexible information system which is based on windows. You can comfortably control the simulation during all phases using the mouse (except if you want to enter a new file name to save a scenario). If you click on a hexagon (in the following I will just use the common abbreviation hex/hexes), an information window is opened which tells you all about this hex. Since the intelligence of a player into the military affairs of his enemies is strictly limited to hexes where both have units or both have fleets, you will be informed about the position of an enemy unit but not about its strength. By mutual agreement this restriction can be disabled by using the 'Intelligence'-item in the 'Options'-menu. Every information window can be closed by clicking on the close gadget at the left top edge. If a window waits for further input or output, it can not be closed. If you close the map window, a requester asks you if you really want to quit. If you affirm, the simulation immediately ends. You can close all information windows by selecting the 'Clear display' menu item in the 'Utilities'-menu. Information text is normally printed in white. But in most windows there is also text in blue. If you click on this you receive information concerning the subject the text represents. You will soon understand this very tricky information system. After starting the game you see a geographical map which contains all regions of Europe, Asia and Africa which ever belonged to the Roman Empire (Imperium Romanum) and all regions of its most threatening enemies. The title line displays important information in the following order: the name of the current phase, the name of the power which is to play, the current date and the status of communication. If a '*' precedes the date, it is winter time and movement costs are higher than normal. There are some provinces where winters are so warm that they do not make movements more difficult. From May to October it is always summer, from December to March it is always winter, April and November may be summer or winter months (computer determines whether it is winter or summer by using a random generator). The last information in the title line (status of communication) is very important as the computer displays here what it is waiting for, e.g.: If the status is "Select two fleets", the computer is waiting for the user to open an information window about the fleet the user wants to select (if not already opened) and to activate this window by clicking into it (avoid to click on text printed in blue because you will receive information you probably do not want). Activated and unactivated windows are distinguished by intuition as follows: an activated window has a normal (i.e. easily readable) title line, while the title line of an unactivated window is 'ghosted'. But let's return to the example given. If you select a fleet, the status text will change to 'Select one fleet' and you have to select a second fleet as described above. You can always quit an action and clear the status text in the window title by selecting the 'Quit action' item of the 'Utilities' menu. The computer will not change the status text, although you have selected an object of the requested type, if the selected object can not be used for the current operation. In most cases you will immediately understand why your input is not accepted (e.g. it is quite reasonable that the computer does not let you change the position or composition of enemy armies or fleets and things like that), but in some cases you will have to take a look at this documentation in order to understand it. The computer always tries to reject inputs which make no sense or are not allowed. The map is divided into provinces. The borders between provinces are painted in white. Every province consists of several hexes. A hex has an average width of 70 km. The colour and sometimes also the pattern of the hex show the dominating type of terrain. To identify the different terrains, take a look at the following table: Colour Terrain Colour Terrain white clear brown wild, mountainous green forest blue coast dark green marsh dark blue deep sea yellow desert The first five types can only be entered by land whereas the last two can only be entered by sea. But there are also mixed hexes since the coast line of the Mediterranean is far from being a hexagonical one. Mixed hexes are horizontally striped using the bright blue (representing shallow water) and the colour of the predominating type of terrain. Principally you can move from every hex in six directions. But if you move by sea the hex must be passable by sea, and if you move by land the hex must be passable by land. As all rules you should know this rule but never mind if you forget it, because the computer will never allow anyone to break a rule. Therefore the computer will help you to avoid great problems and disputes due to ignoring rules (un)intentionally. There are some paths between hexes which should be passable according to this general rule but which are not. The border between hexes where no path between them exists is painted in black. In most cases they represent mountains which can not be passed by an army. Between some hexes which represent land and sea there is no path, because they are not connected by land or by sea directly. The map does not mark paths which are not passable by sea. You can not enter provinces which are assigned to no power at the beginning of the scenario. There are seven straits which can be passed without using fleets at an additional cost: the Bosporus and the Hellespont for 4, the Straits of Gibraltar for 12, the English Channel for 16, the Strait of Messina for 4, the Gulf of Patras for 8 and the strait between the Black Sea and the Asowian Sea for 4 additional points. You can change the position and the scale of the map by using the three proportional gadgets at the right and at the bottom of the map window. The right vertical gadget moves the visible part of the map up (north) and down (south), the upper horizontal gadget moves it to the left (west) and to the right (east). The lower horizontal gadget changes the scale of the map. If you move the knob to the left, the hexes become smaller (zoom out), if you move to the right the hexes, become bigger (zoom in). The computer always zooms relatively to the middle of the map. The map shows the names (or the beginning of the names) of the most important cities (at the most one per hex; if the name of a city changed during the covered period of time (e.g. Byzantium - Constantinopolis), the most famous ancient name is used). Most provinces have several cities and one capital city. The names of capitals are capitalized. The existence and importance of a city can change from one scenario to another. This reflects the historical development in the ancient urban life which was one of the main aspects of the Roman empire. Therefore the possession of a province depends upon the possession of its cities. A power controls a province as long as it controls its capital. A power gains control of a province if it controls the capital and at least one half of the remaining cities. I mentioned the term "power" in the last paragraph - here is the explanation: A power is a political fraction which is simulated in a scenario. A power can control cities and provinces, move and recruit land units and fleets, tax provinces and do much more described below. Each player controls one or more powers and tries to succeed in fulfilling the victory conditions, which you can read if you select the 'Victory info' item in the 'Diplomacy' menu. The computer also reports in this info window which conditions are fulfilled and which are not. There are seven different types of powers depending upon whether it is a major or minor, a civilized or a barbarian, a neutral or a client state: 1. Roman power (always a major and civilized power) 2. Major civilized power (but not a Roman one) 3. Major barbarian power 4. Minor civilized neutral power 5. Minor barbarian neutral power 6. Minor civilized client state 7. Minor barbarian client state Major powers always have their own game turn while minor powers never have. If a player controls more than one major power in a scenario, this is mentioned in the introduction to the scenario ('About scenario' in the 'Utilities' menu) and/or the victory conditions info (see below) mentions conditions for more than one major power and how many powers must fulfil their victory conditions. If players declare themselves to be allied, all allied players have only one game turn during the last occuring game turn of the allied players. Minor powers can be active or inactive client states or active or inactive neutrals. If a minor power is a client state, the power which is its patron (always a major power) does all actions for it during its own game turn. Units of the patron power may move through the provinces of the client state and in combat they are considered to be allied. But a major power normally does not receive taxes from the provinces of its client states. If the client state is inactive, its troops may neither move nor attack. An inactive power (neutral or client state) always becomes active, if it is invaded by an enemy. An inactive neutral does not influence the game, until it is activated. Then it is controlled by the power whose interests are at least connected with those of the neutral state. This power is the major power whose provinces and land units are farthest from those of the neutral state. Each month during the tax phase the controlling power is determined by the computer. Each power can control units. One unit is a certain number of soldiers of one type. There are eleven types of units: Name Land Sea Mov. Sta. Number Legion I 24 12 20 4 (4000) strength values Legion II 20 10 20 4 (4000) for legions are Legion III 16 8 20 4 (4000) halved after 290 A.D. Civilized Infantry I 20 10 18 4 (4000) Civilized Infantry II 16 8 18 4 (4000) Barbarian Infantry 20 10 16 4 (4000) Light Infantry 4 4 24 1 (1200) Archers 4 4 24 1 (1200) Heavy Cavalry 30 0 32 8 (1000 + 1000 horses) Light Cavalry 6 0 32 2 (1500 + 1500 horses) Horse Archers 6 0 32 2 (1500 + 1500 horses) Leader 32 0 The person of the leader and his staff. The numbers following the name of the unit type represent its strength on land, strength at sea, movement allowance and its stacking value (indicates the amount of place the unit needs - important for transporting on fleets). One army is a number of units which do all actions together. An army can be accompanied by one or more leaders. Each leader has a quality value for land movement and combat and a quality value for sea movement and combat. Both values are often equal but in some special cases of extraordinary abilities at sea or on land (e.g. Agrippa) they differ. The quality values are important for combat and interception. One fleet unit is an unit of 50 single ships. Fleet units can be stacked together to one fleet and then can be commanded as one unit. Every fleet can transport one army. Taxation Phase This phase is the very first phase in every month. At first the activation conditions for inactive neutral powers (use 'Activation info' item in the 'Diplomacy' menu to read them) are checked. In some cases you have to roll a die: you can roll a real die and enter the result by clicking on the rolled number or you can click on 'R' (for 'Random') and have the computer use a random generator to produce a number between 1 and 6. If the minor power activates, the control over it will be assigned to the power mentioned in the power info or to the farthest power. You can determine the farthest power (exact definition: see I.) by selecting the 'Farthest power' item in the 'Diplomacy' menu. The controlling power must dislocate the units for the power it controls by selecting 'Set up units' in the 'Army' menu. Then he must select one hex within the activated power's provinces where units should be placed. Using a special window (described below in chapter III.) the controller can select which units are placed in this hex. The controlling player repeats this procedure until all units are set up. During the taxation phase all civilized major powers receive taxes from their provinces. The tax incomes are displayed in an information window. Every power has its own taxation phase before the first power plays the remaining phases. The taxes are collected in the treasury. The tax value of a province changes from scenario to scenario reflecting the historical change of wealth of provinces. During the taxation phase every power can also mobilize new units and fleets in its provinces. You can only mobilize two units and two fleets per hex. If the mobilizing power is civilized and controlled cities at the beginning of the game, it can only recruit units in unbesieged friendly cities. Fleets can obviously only be built in ports. Their construction takes three months. If the owner of the port where the fleets are built changes during the construction, so does the owner of the new fleets. To recruit units ('Recruit units' item in the 'Army' menu) in a hex first click on this hex, then click on the names of the unit types to be recruited. New units have only one half of the strength of old, seasoned units, but they can be seasoned after land combat. There are three ways of recruiting units: a) By expending talents If the scenario assigns to the mobilizing power this way of recruiting (used by Roman powers), the power must expend as many talents as printed in the mobilization windows. The number of new units of each unit type which can be recruited in a province per year is limited. These limits are shown in the mobilization window and in information windows about provinces. b) By expending talents and replacement points Using this way (often used by non-Roman civilized states) in addition to a) the power must expend as many replacement points as the stacking value of the unit type. A power receives every tax phase as many replacement points as the replacement rate in the power info indicates. c) By expending replacement points Using this way (used by minor and barbarian powers) the power need not expend talents. In addition to b) it can only rebuild eliminated units and only receives replacement points if there are units to rebuild. During the tax phase each power can transfer talents to allied powers by selecting the 'Transfer talents' item in the 'Diplomacy' menu. Then you must select the power, from whose treasury the talents should be subtracted, and the power, to whose treasury the talents should be added. The number of talents are determined by using a proportional gadget. Allied powers attack and defend together and can accept siege in every allied city or anchor in every allied port. An alliance is declared by selecting the 'Declare alliance' item in the 'Diplomay' menu. Then you have to select two major powers which want to declare an alliance. An alliance always includes the client states (if any) of the major powers. During the tax phase an alliance can be terminated by every allied major power and the old type of relationship (in most cases not friendly) is restored. Naval Phase During the naval phase all actions concerning fleets are allowed. Only in this phase information windows about fleets are extended by six rectangles which contain the numbers of the hexes which are adjacent to the hex where the fleet is at the momemt. If the number is printed in blue the fleet can be ordered to move in this hex by clicking on this gadget, if printed in white it can not, because both hexes are not connected by sea. If a fleet moves it must expend movement points. In information windows about hexes the number of movement points, which must be expended to move from this hex in a possible direction, follow the name of terrain. If there are two lists of numbers, the first is for land, the second for naval movement. A fleet can use 30 movement points per month. During winter naval movement costs are doubled. To move longer distances using the shortest way (measured in movement points) you can use the 'Distance' menu: First select the right menu item ('By sea at winter time' or 'By sea at summer time'). You now have to select at least two hexes. If you do not want to select any more hexes, just click again into the last selected hex window or select the 'Quit action' item in the 'Utilities' menu. Only in the first case the user can immediately select a fleet which follows the calculated track if possible. In a special window the minimum number of movement points which are needed to move from one hex to the next will be displayed below the numbers of these hexes. If no connection exists a dash is displayed. At the right you always see the total amount of movement points which are needed to move from the very first hex to the very last. So you can describe a way by selecting two or more hexes. The determined way is marked in the map with '*'. If you enable the 'Show path' option in the 'Options' menu, the path will be displayed after every redrawing of the map. If the computer has successfully calculated a connection between two hexes, you can use this connection by selecting the 'Follow track' item in the 'Distance' menu. If the season of computation is equal to that of reality, you can select a fleet which has enough movement points to go the determined distance. This fleet must not be blockaded. A fleet is blockaded, if it is in a blockaded port, i.e. there are more enemy fleets besieging the port than besieged fleets in the port. A fleet can not enter nor leave a blockaded port. One fleet unit can transport units up to a stacking value of 4 points. You can embark units on a fleet by selecting the 'Embark units' item in the 'Fleet' menu and selecting the fleet which is to carry units. Then you see a box in which armies of the same power and in the same hex as the selected fleet are displayed. You can select one by clicking on it. Then a window is displayed in which you can move units from land to the fleet (and vice versa) by moving the proportional gadgets to the right (or left). If you want to move a leader from one side to the other, you must click on his name. The strength values of each army (strength on land/strength at sea/stacking value is the standard order of strength values) are shown in the first line and are changed if you move units. There are many situations which require a very similar input. If during embarking the colour of the strength values of the embarked army turns from green to white, the fleet carrying the army is overloaded and you have to correct this error by moving units back to the other side. If you click on 'OK' the changes will be valid, if you click on 'Quit' they will not. If you embark in a hex which contains a friendly unblockaded port, the computer considers the fleet to embark in this port for 2 instead of 6 movement points. You can disembark units in a friendly port, even if it is besieged unless it is blockaded, for 2 movement points ('Disembark to port') or disembark at the coast for 6 movement points ('Disembark units'). If the coast hex used for disembarking is not a friendly one, you need a leader who has a naval quality value of 2 on the fleet, as invading an enemy province by sea is very difficult. Since only some leaders in few scenarios have a quality value of 2, you can extend this rule to leaders which have a naval quality value of 1 ('Amphibic invasion' item in the 'Options' menu) in order to make the simulation faster and more interesting. The movement allowance of the disembarked army for the current month is reduced in proportion to the expended movement points of the fleet, e.g.: if the fleet uses 12 out of 30 movement points, the normal movement allowance of an army consisting of legions (20) will be reduced by (12/30)*20=8 to 12. A fleet needs enough movement points to embark, disembark or move. A fleet can be splitted ('Split fleet'), or units/fleets can be exchanged between two fleets, which belong to the same player, are in the same hex and have the same status, ('Exchange fleets') or all fleets, which belong to the same player, are in the same hex and have the same status, can be stacked together ('Concentrate'). But you can never overload a fleet. Every fleet must anchor in a port at the end of every second month. If a fleet does not fulfil this condition, it is considered to be drowned. If a fleet is reduced, so are the embarked units down to the stacking value the remaining fleet can carry. A fleet besieging a port ('Lay siege' item in the 'Fleet' menu) need not meet this condition. If at the end of the siege phase a fleet is in a hex containing a friendly unbesieged port, it will anchor in this port. A fleet can attack an enemy fleet ('Attack fleet' item in the 'Fleet' menu). The attacker must select the attacking and the defending fleet. The calculation of the strength values is printed in a special window. The quality value (the naval one) of the best attacking leader is added to one die-roll, while the quality value of the best defending leader is subtracted from it. Therefore it would not be bad for the attacking power, if it rolls a high number. As the morale of the soldiers is very important, 1 is added/subtracted for each 50 points of difference in the morale value. I will not present the algorithm for calculating the result of battles, because you should experience the conditions under which you can risk a decisive battle. The power which lost more fleets than its enemy is the loser and has to retreat to a friendly unblockaded port, which is not more than 10 movement points away from the hex where naval combat occurred. Possible ports are presented to the loser's choice. If there is no possibility to retreat, the losing force must lose an additional fleet and remains in the hex where it was beaten. A fleet can engage in naval combat only once per month. The morale values of the concerned powers are changed. If a power loses a unit, it loses as many morale points as the stacking value of the lost unit; if a power eliminates an enemy unit, it receives as many morale points as the stacking value of the eliminated unit. The morale value of a leader who has only the name of his power plus an identification number is 1 plus his quality value on land. The morale value for individually named leaders is doubled, for imperators even multiplied by 10. If a power's morale value reaches zero, the power dissolves. A minor power becomes an inactive client state of the power which caused its dissolution (if any), otherwise it becomes a minor neutral power and its units are moved in its own provinces. If a non-Roman major power dissolves, it becomes an inactive neutral minor power. If a Roman power dissolves, its Imperator (if still in play) must resign. Each of its provinces defects to the Roman power, which has the greatest force in the province or controls the nearest province. A single city defects to the controller of the capital of the province it belongs to, or to the power which controls the greatest number of cities in this province. If any calculation is a tie, the power with the highest morale value gains control. Armies and fleet units are halved and defect to the power which controls the province or the nearest province. The sole possibility to react to the current player's actions is to intercept moving armies or fleets. If you try to intercept a fleet ('Intercept fleet' item in the 'Fleet' menu), you must select the fleet which is to be intercepted. This enemy fleet must be in shallow sea, as in deep sea operations are very difficult and the correct position of a fleet can not be determined in such a huge area of water. After you have selected a fleet, all fleets which are in friendly unbesieged ports and not more than 6 movement points away from the fleet, which is to be intercepted, are printed in a window. The owner of these fleets can order them to try interception by clicking on them. But interception is only successful if the die-roll is higher or equal to the distance between the intercepting and the intercepted fleet. Therefore the maximum interception range is 6. If no more fleets want to try to intercept the moving fleet and at least one fleet successfully intercepted the moving fleet, naval combat immediately occurs, in which the intercepted fleet is considered to be the defender. An intercepted fleet may not move any further. Land Movement Phase Land movement is very similar to naval movement. A moving army can be intercepted ('Intercept army' item in the 'Army' menu), unless it is in a city, or on a fleet, or in a desert hex. If you choose this menu item and the army you want to intercept, all armies which can intercept (i.e. which are inside the largest possible interception range and have a leader) are printed in a window (cf. naval phase). The interception range of an army is 6 (the highest possible die-roll) plus the highest land quality value of its leaders. If only cavalry tries to intercept, this range is increased by 3. The player which tries to intercept must roll a die. If the die-roll plus the above mentioned modifications is higher or equal to the movement points between the two armies, interception is successful and the intercepted army may not move any further and is considered to be the defender in the land combat, which will be automatically started during the following phase. An army can overrun unbesieged enemy units ('Overrun' item in the 'Army menu), if the strength of the attacking heavy cavalry is 5 times greater than the total strength of the defenders. After a successful overrun all enemy units are eliminated. If the attacked units have a friendly city in this hex, they are considered to retreat to this city immediately and can not be eliminated. Land Combat Phase At the beginning of this phase all combats resulting from interception are simulated. Then you can order one of your armies to attack ('Attack' item in the 'Army' menu). After you have selected the attacking army, all enemy armies in the same hex are printed in a window. If there is an enemy city in the hex, it is also displayed. Then you must select the army or city, which should be attacked. If the power of a defending army has a friendly unbesieged city in this hex, it may retreat to this city and at the same time accept siege. The defending army can also try to retreat to an adjacent hex, unless the strength of enemy units in this hex plus the strength of enemy units, which have attacked from this hex, is at least one fourth of the strength of the retreating army. If a power retreats, its morale value is decreased by 5. If there are still enemy units in the hex, land combat occurs. The computer calculates the total strength values. Strength values of units in a city are doubled. If the city is attacked by barbarians or if the city is in a province, where wood is seldom and therefore building siege machines is nearly impossible, strength values are even tripled. The fortification level of an attacked city is also added. The highest quality value (the one for land operations) of the attacking leaders is added to the value of one die-roll, while the highest quality value of the defending leaders is subtracted from it. Further modifications are displayed in the information window (cf. naval combat). The computer determines the losses, the losing side and chooses by random those units which are removed from play. If all units of an army are removed the leaders of this army are considered to be captured. This can be the surprising end of a power if the imperator/rex is taken prisoner. If there are any possible successors, they succeed in the order, which the number after the quality values in the army info indicates; if there is no successor for the Imperator of a Roman power, the morale value reaches zero and the power dissolves. The morale values of the involved powers are changed as described above in the paragraph about naval combat. If unseasoned units participate in land combat, as many strength points as the opposing force had can be declared to be seasoned and their strength values are doubled. Siege Phase During the siege phase every city, which the current power has been besieging for at least one month, is checked, whether one besieged unit is removed because of the duration and the circumstances of the siege or not. Every city has a siege value which expresses how hard the siege worked on its ability to defend. This value is equal to the number of months the siege lasts, but never greater than 6. If it is winter or if the city is surrounded by desert or if the province, which the city belongs to, is plundered, this value is increased by 2, if the province, which the city belongs to, is not civilized, this value is increased by 1. Unblockaded ports can subtract 2, since ports can much easier be supplied as long as they can be entered by sea. All these modifications are added to the siege value by the computer. The besieging power rolls one die and if this die-roll is less than the siege value, one unit is removed from the besieged armies/fleets. The computer removes one unit according to the following priority list: heavy cavalry, light cavalry, fleet units, heavy infantry and at last light infantry. If there are no units left to remove, the fortification value of the city is decreased by one (this change is only temporary and the original fortification value is restored when the siege ends). If the fortification value of the besieged city reaches zero, the besieger succeeds and the city will obey him. If the strength of the besieging units is less than one fourth of the unmodified strength of the besieged units, the siege ends and the besiegers failed to win the control over the besieged city. During the siege phase a power can plunder a province, if it controls its unbesieged capital with heavy infantry or heavy cavalry ('Plunder' item in the 'Army' menu). It receives 10 times the normal tax income. For six months no one may tax the province or recruit units in it, and the intrinsic defense value of cities in plundered provinces is temporarily reduced to zero. In addition if a power plundered one of the provinces it controlled from the beginning, it may never recruit again in this province and only receives 50% of the normal tax income from the plundered province after these six months. Barbarian powers gain as many morale points as the tax value of the province, they plundered. The morale value of the power, which controlled the province at the beginning of the scenario, is reduced by 50% of the province's tax value. GALACTIC_STRUGGLE - GAME BACKGROUND Galactic Struggle is a space combat game between two sides. You control one of the ships on your side. The computer controls all of the other ships in your fleet, as well as the enemy fleet. Even though you are limited to only flying one ship at a time, you may switch to another ship at any time during the game, giving you a great deal of control over the outcome of the game. For more information on switching ships, see "GAME COMMANDS". OBJECTIVE(S) In the first version there is only one real objective -- Destroy your opponent. This may seem simple at first, but there are many underlying objectives as well. Mineral mining is an essential part of the game. II. WEAPONS & COMBAT -------------------- SYSTEMS Every ship is equipped with a weapon system of some sort. Every ship is the same in how the weapons operate, but not in what weapons are available. 1. Targeting --------- Every weapon, except mines, requires a target. To target a ship you must be close enough to do so. Once close enough, use [T] to target the enemy ship. You will know what target is selected because it will be high-lighted yellow. -------------- | BE CAREFUL | -------------- The targeting system is used for more than just combat and weapon systems. Therefore, it is very flexible and allows targeting of friendly ships. If your friendly ship is targeted you can destroy it. 2. Weapon Selection ---------------- If you are piloting a ship other than a scout you will have multiple weapons to choose from. To select a current weapon system YOU MUST HAVE a valid ship targeted. If a ship is targeted you may use [RETURN] to switch between weapon systems. The weapon systems are indicated at the bottom left of the screen. 3. Firing ------ Firing is easy. Just press [SPACE]. If your ship doesn't fire it is because of one of the following has occurred: 1. No target is selected. 2. You maybe out of ammunition if you are using torpedoes or seekers. 3. You have just fired and your ship has not recharged. Note that after you fired you must wait a BRIEF moment before your ship fires again. 4. You have fired the maximum number of shots at a time. Currently the limit is 3 projectiles may be fired from a single ship at one time. You must wait for the projectiles to explode before you can fire again. 4. Canceling --------- Once you fired a projectile it is sometimes necessary to cancel the current projectiles and launch new ones. If you missed your target and the projectiles are still "alive" or you fired the wrong type or whatever, you have the option to destroy what you have just fired. To cancel all current projectiles, press [C] and the projectiles will be destroyed. Note: To cancel mines use [X]. 5. Ammo swapping ------------- As a strategy measure you are allowed to transfer ammunition between ships. Carriers provide very good support for this. Carriers have special abilities to create ammunition and can provide good support in and attack. [,] = Give ammunition to the targeted ship [.] = Get ammunition from the targeted ship This is a relatively new feature, and it is not known how useful this will be yet. WEAPON TYPES 1. Phaser bolts ------------ All ships are equipped with phaser bolt capability. Phaser bolts are balls of energy created out of ship fuel. They do not require any ammunition as all they consist of is energy. Every shot takes a certain amount of energy. The damage caused by a bolt is dependent on the class of the ship launching the bolt, and how long ago the bolt was launched. In other words, the higher class of a ship the more powerful a bolt and the further away the less damage the bolt will do. This weapon is a single directional weapon. The bolts only go straight forward or backward. 2. Torpedo bolts ------------- Fighters, Battleships, and Carriers may carrier these weapons. Scouts are too small to have such capabilities. These are much like phaser bolts except that they are more powerful. Essentially torpedo bolts are phaser bolts encased in a torpedo "shell". Because of this, ammunition in the form of torpedo shells must be purchased at a space station. The ammo requires resources to produce. This weapon is a single directional weapon. The bolts only go straight forward or backward. 3. Seeker bolts ------------ Seekers, like torpedoes, are not available to scouts as they are too small a ship. Created as an enhancement to torpedo bolts, these are the deadliest offensive weapons around. They do a significant amount of damage (depending on the ship type of course) and have a homing device. These too are encased in torpedo shells. These will seek out their target and destroy it. Ammunition for these cost a bit more than for normal torpedo tubes. 4. Mines ----- Only found on battleships and carriers these are the most destructive of all weaponry. They do not have any "thrust" to them and can have the thrust replaced with more destructive power. These are often used to put a "shield" of some sort around a planet, worm-hole, space station, or other vital resources. They do not require ammunition as they are made with a revolutionary energy harnessing technique. This technique allows for slow deterioration and doesn't require any "shell". The mines do deteriorate eventually, but it takes time. Be careful around these!! NOTE: The usefulness of mines is somewhat in question. I think that this weapon will probably evolve into a "defensive decoy" designed to make the "seekers" attack the decoy. III. SHIPS ---------- SCOUTS These are the smallest available ships in the game. They are the weakest, but are also the fastest. For a good exploring or escort ship it isn't too bad. The typically use phaser bolts, which do not require ammunition as they feed off the power supply. Type: Scout Maximum fuel : 20000 units Maximum Hull Points : 300 Shield Maximum : 300 Weapons: Phaser Bolts (Fuel) Special: None Mineral requirements for construction: Gromide - 150 Klogen - 100 FIGHTERS This is the best "all purpose" ship. It has fair size cargo holds, good fire power, and not too bad for speed. It is made to destroy. It is best used for attacks and guarding. Picking off scouts, destroying other fighters and close support are their best role in life... Even though one-on-one they do not match up to a battleship, two of these ships would be a formidable opponent. Type: Fighter Maximum fuel : 50000 units Maximum Hull Points : 500 Shield Maximum: 400 Weapon Possibilities: Phaser Bolts (Fuel) Torpedos (Fuel & Ammo) Seekers (Fuel & Ammo) Special: None Mineral requirements for construction: Gromide - 150 Klogen - 300 Zentrium - 100 BATTLE SHIPS These are, perhaps, the most destructive force in Galactic Struggle. They are still somewhat fast and have weapons of great destruction. They can take out scouts and fighters with relative ease. They are good for launching attacks on base stations. Type: Battleship Maximum fuel : 75000 units Maximum Hull Points : 700 Shield Maximum: 500 Weapon Possibilities: Phaser Bolts (Fuel) Torpedos (Fuel & Ammo) Seekers (Fuel & Ammo) Mines (Fuel) Special: None Mineral requirements for construction: Gromide - 150 Klogen - 300 Zentrium- 800 Prodnium- 100 CARRIERS These ships have massive weapons. However they are large and aren't as fast or maneuverable. It has a special purpose of providing support to attacking fleets as it can carry extra cargo for ships to use. Carriers have virtually unlimited ammunition capacity and they also have the ability to make their own ammunition. They can also repair ships. Note that with all these abilities, they must use minerals. These minerals must be available or the carrier can't create ammo or repair ships. Type: Carrier Maximum fuel : 100000 units Maximum Hull Points : 900 Shield Maximum: 600 Weapon Possibilities: Phaser Bolts (Fuel) Torpedos (Fuel & Ammo) Seekers (Fuel & Ammo) Mines (Fuel) Special: May hold additional ammunition Creates own ammunition Mineral requirements for construction: Gromide - 150 Klogen - 300 Zentrium - 800 Promidium- 800 BASE STATIONS This is the heart of your fleet. Guard this with your life! Your base station in the center for all your ship construction and the source for a lot of your ammunition. They have powerful defenses. They can take MANY hits on the shield and hull. They have self repairing mechanisms (providing minerals are available). As well as good defenses, base stations have strong offensive weapons as well. The seekers fly at substantially fast rates. It takes a bit of fuel to out run them. Best suggestion for hanging around an enemy base station: DON'T!! (Unless you plan on destroying it!) Note that once your base is destroyed you may still continue playing but you probably won't win. Your shields can't regenerate anymore and you cannot create other ships. Unless the enemy is without base you are doomed! (Note: This may not be the case in future versions.) IV. MINERALS ------------ OVERVIEW Minerals are the essence of Galactic Struggle. They make the universe go around! You need minerals to create ammunition, make ships, repair ships, and other various tasks of importance. Minerals can be found only on planets. Certain planets have certain minerals. MINERAL TYPES Prodnium: This mineral is the most precious in the universe. It is the strongest substance known and one of the lightest. It can only be found on "Class A" planets and is necessary in building many of the higher ships as well as some ammunition. Zentrium: A somewhat more abundant mineral than prodnium, but still rare, this mineral provides necessary structure to many ships. It is found on "Class A and B" planets only. Klogen: This precious metal is found on "Class A, B, and C" planets and is also another commonly used metal. Gromide: This energy producing mineral is abundant throughout the galaxy. It can be found on all planets. As abundant as it may be it is needed in every aspect of construction as it provides the necessary "skeleton" for all ships. NOTE: Gromide is also necessary in the creation of ammunition at your base station. MINERALS & MONEY Certain actions in the game require credits. Credits are obtained by selling minerals to "traders". Traders are orbiting stations existing only for the purpose of buying minerals. They are cylindrical objects in space that may be orbited with the 'U' command (if found). Prodnium is the most valuable and Gromide is the least valuable. V. SPACE OBJECTS ---------------- PLANETS Planets are the most abundant of the objects floating around in space. They are the source of all minerals. Class A planets are the most valuable because they produce all types of minerals. Class D planets are the least valuable, because only Gromide can be found there. Besides minerals, planets are also valuable as SHIPS CAN REFUEL FASTER WHILE ORBITING PLANETS. WORM HOLES One of the great mysteries of the universe, these provide excellent transportation throughout the universe. After stars burn out, certain ones explode. This explosion sometimes creates a "worm hole" through which ships may travel. Some worm holes are one way, some are two. Use with caution, because who knows where they may lead! Most ships will stay clear of these, however you may use them at a small cost! DEBRIS Left over from the destruction of a ship, debris may be picked up by passing ships. Debris usually consists of minerals, but who knows... VI. GAME CONTROLS ----------------- NAVIGATION Speed ----- Every ship is equipped with some sort of hyperdrive. Certain ships can go faster than others. Scouts can go a maximum of warp 4, battle ships and fighters warp 3, carriers - warp 2. The up and down arrow control acceleration and deceleration. Direction --------- The left and right arrows control direction. When they are pressed any previously set autopilot is turned off. Scanners -------- F2 and F3 are the commands to bring up the ships' scanning systems. Short-range scan long-range scan both have their disadvantages and advantages. Short range scan(F2): The main advantage of short range scan is that it picks up enemy ships. Long range scan does not. Long range scan(F3): The main advantage of long range scan is that it scans a larger area (obviously).. The only disadvantage is that it doesn't pick up enemy ships. [F5] - Switch to Targeted Ship ------------------------------ This is how you change to another ship. Using the combat system you target a friendly ship with [T]. After you have selected the friendly ship you wish to trade places with press [F5] and you will be given control of that ship. Your old ship will be controlled by the computer. Search Keys ----------- Certain keys allow your ship to automatically search, or dock with something. After you press these keys you will essentially be putting the ship on "auto-pilot". [O] - Orbit nearest friendly space station [P] - Orbit nearest friendly planet [U] - Orbit nearest friendly trader [W] - Enter nearest worm hole If your ship cannot pick up the object you wish to search for you will just fly normally.. [I] - Cloaking -------------- Learn this, it will save your life! Cloaking is turned on and off with the [I] key. If you fire while cloaked you will become visible. Note that cloaking uses fuel. If you are too low on fuel you will be unable to cloak. [D] - Debris Salvage -------------------- After you have destroyed a ship you may salvage what remains with the [D] command to pick up left over ammo and/or minerals. [F8] - Universe Map ------------------- This displays a map of the universe. The bases are red dots and your ship is a blue-green dot. The enemy won't appear unless the enemy base has been found. COMBAT [T] - Select Target ------------------- This allows you to target a ship close by (either friend or foe). The targeted ship will become yellow on your display. You use the [T] key along with some other action (hostile or friendly). [RETURN] - Select Weapon ------------------------ This allows you to choose the weapon currently selected. The weapons your ship has available are displayed at the bottom of the screen. When you use "select weapon", a different one will become highlighted and the old one "un-done" (unless of course you only have 1 weapon). [SPACE] - Fire forward ---------------------- This allows you to fire the currently selected projectile in the forward direction of your ship. [A] - Fire Reverse ------------------ Same as [SPACE] except it fires reverse. [.],[,] - Get/Give ammo ----------------------- [.] gets ammunition from the selected target. It is good when you need additional ammo but don't want to go back to your base. Carriers can regenerate ammo, so they may be used to get ammo from in an attack.. [,] gives ammunition to another ship. Use it as you will.. If you are playing the role of the carrier, then use it to assist others.. [C] - Cancel Projectile(s) -------------------------- All active projectiles (except mines) will be destroyed upon execution of this command. It is useful when you have fired several rounds and they have missed and you need to fire again quickly. [X] - Cancel Mine(s) -------------------- This is just like [C] except it destroys only mines. STATUS [F1] - Ship Status ------------------ This gives updated REAL-TIME status of your current ship. Hull status, minerals, etc... It is updated as events occur. It is very useful. [F4] - Station Status --------------------- Version 1.0 of Galactic Struggle only allows one base station. Thus, this command give the status of the base station. It is NOT REAL-TIME and if you want an updated display, you must press F4 again. [F6] - Target Status -------------------- Gives the same information that your "ship status" gives but for the targeted ship instead of your own ship. Note that this command is NOT REAL-TIME and your target must be scanned (F6) every time you want updated information on it. [F7] - Fleet Status ------------------- Gives information on your fleet and the enemy fleet. The ships in your fleet are listed sequentially. The "*" beside them indicates their alert status. It is either red, green or yellow. Red indicated they are in danger, combat or about to be destroyed! Green means their ok. Yellow means there is an enemy near them. [TAB] - Alert Siren Off ----------------------- If you have a weak hull or your base is in trouble an alert will go off and you will be notified. The alarm gets rather annoying after a while so this turns it off. AUTO-PILOT CONTROLS These are similar to the "Search" commands described above except they can be a bit more extensive. You may cancel these, or the "search" commands at any time by using the direction controls (left and right arrows). [0] - Auto speed on/off ----------------------- This is a toggle switch to turn your automatic speed controls on or off. This only applies to when your ship is under "auto-pilot". If your ship is being controlled by the computer then this will determine if the speed is to be controlled by you or the computer. [1] - Refuel ------------ This will send your ship to the nearest planet for refuel and return control when fueled. [2] - Rearm ----------- This sends your ship to the nearest friendly space station and gets ammunition. It then returns control. [3] - Explore ------------- This sets your ship to seeking out all "undiscovered" space objects. It returns control when everything is found. [4] - NOT USED FLEET CONTROLS These controls apply to the entire fleet. [5] - Recall Ships ------------------ This sends all ships back to base for protection... [6] - Base Attack ----------------- No matter what the ships are doing, this sends everybody to the enemies' base. [7] - Full Fleet Attack ----------------------- Similar to base attack except ships go for enemy ships. It is not wise to use [6] or [7] unless your fleet is fairly strong. [8] - Reset Fleet ----------------- This gives all computer controlled ships in both fleets new orders. Essentially "resetting" the ships. If a ship is doing something it's not supposed to (an endless orbit around a planet, for example) then this will reset it. Generally it shouldn't be needed, but it is provided for you in case you need it. [DEL] - Self Destruct --------------------- If all is lost, press the delete key. This will destroy your ship with no questions asked!! BE CAREFUL!! KNIGHTS - is a two-player game of brave knights who wander deep in the dangerous dungeons pursuing their goal. It includes: * Almost 250 dungeon floorplan bases which allows almost infinite number of different dungeons * Excellent sound effects and nice violence * Corpses and gore that does not vanish * Flexible quest customization * Creatures with nice sounds and fancy tactics Game requires two players and at least one joystick ******************************************************************* * NOTE: * * TO FULLY ENJOY THIS GAME YOU SHOULD CREATE FROM BOARD * * OR BOOKS A SCREEN DIVIDER BETWEEN EACH HALF OF THE * * SCREEN SO THAT NEITHER PLAYER CAN SEE HIS OPPONENTS * * HALF OF THE SCREEN * ******************************************************************* Player #1 (left-side) can only be controlled with joystick #1 (left port) Player #2 (right-side) can be controlled with joystick #0 (mouse-port) and/or with cursor keys and right shift During game Esc is used to return to game menu and Caps Lock to pause game ------------------------------------------------- Game Menu (Dungeon Enviroment Customization Menu) ------------------------------------------------- In this menu players can select various aspects of the games. Up/Down moves cursor and Right/Left changes value Fire is used to gain additional information, or mark ready status at 'continue' line Quest: ------ There are several predetermined quests, which you can select. They are only made to ease dungeon configuration, and do not include anything that could not be made manually. So, if you select some quest and then change, for example, number of gems, game is identical to selected quest except there are more gems. If you then reduce gems to original, quest name is still 'Custom' but it is completely identical to that previously selected Mission Specification: ---------------------- Main goal in the game. Requirements in each mission: -Escape from the Dungeon- Find the required number of gems (see below) and exit, and you are winner -Duel to the Death- There is no escape from the dungeon, and because lives are unlimited the only way to win is to secure all entry points with wand (see below) -Retrieve Wand and Escape- You must find wand from the dungeon and escape with it. In addition, you might need to retrieve some gems (see below) -Retrieve Book and Escape- You must find book from the dungeon and escape with it. Again, there might be some gems which must be collected, too. -Destroy book with wand- You must find book, and then bring it to the special pentagram at the top of stairs (very special place, it is easily distinguished from normal pentagrams) Then you must find wand and required number of gems and hit that book in penta Type of Book: ------------- If you have selected mission with book, there is one hidden into the dungeon. Book is heavy and fighting with book in hands is impossible, so care should be taken when carrying it. -Lost Book of Ashur- General book with no special place or special effects. -Necronomicon- Book of Dark Magic is always in conjurer's room behind locked iron doors. When it is taken powers are unleashed and many corpses near book are raised as zombies. In addition, when book is carried Zombie activity is automatically at its maximum... -Tome of Gnomes- Book of Gnome Wisdom is always located behind clever traps or mechanical riddles -Ancient Book of Knowledge- Book is somewhere, and automatically grants map to its carrier. Alas, enemy is always aware of your location if you carry it. Type of Wand: ------------- If there is any wands in dungeon they are all of same kind. Wands are carried like any other (melee) weapons and are used like them, too. When used, areas are filled with magical light. All targets must be physically hit with wand. -Wand of Destruction- Destroys any creature or wooden, breakable object -Wand of Undeath- Nasty wand which destroys zombies and turns enemy knight into one. In addition, no zombie will attack wearer of this wand. -Wand of Open Ways- Opens target, be it locked door or creature (*grin*) -Wand of Securing- Wand is used to 'secure' entry points so that enemy can use them no more. After all entry points are secured and enemy dies, he have no way to enter dungeon and have lost the game. Securing door does not prevent securer from entering from that point (unless other knight has already secured that location...) Number of Wands: ---------------- This needs no clarification? Some missions require that there is at least one wand in dungeon Number of Gems: --------------- Total number of gems in dungeon. Gems are almost every time in chests but might be found from tables, too. Gems Needed: ------------ How many gems must knight carry in addition to any other mission requirements before he can win. Dungeon Type: ------------- General layout of the dungeon. If selected type is too 'small' for mission creation, it is automatically enlarged. Snake dungeons are like very board corridors Premapped: ---------- Option to have dungeon automatically mapped before game Entry Point: ------------ Where shall knight enter dungeon. Entry point will keep same unless it is secured by enemy with wand of securing, when new is randomized. Starting Gear: -------------- Knights may have additional equipment at the start of the game. The amouunt of extra stuff will decrease at each death. Exit Point: ----------- Where is located that place from where knight can exit dungeon. If knight arrives at this location before collecting all required stuff he will be told what does he still need. Number of Keys: --------------- How many different keys (and locks) there are. In addition to these keys, there is always at least one lock pick which can be used to open any locked door, if time is no problem... Pretrapped Chests: ------------------ Some chests might be pretrapped with poison needle or blade spring if this option is selected. Amount of Stuff: ---------------- How much varying stuff (see below) there are lying in floor and tables. Zombie Activity: ---------------- How quickly dead bodies will transform into the corpses and then raise to walk on Earth... Vampire Bats: ------------- How much vampire killer bats there are in the dungeon. ------------- Screen layout ------------- Your game screen is divided into two parts. Upper part consists of view of room where your knight currently is. Lower part includes information (from left to right) like: -Skulls- Skulls tell you how many times you have died. Fortunately lives are unlimited. -Bottle- Bottle tells you your life status and if any special magical effect is currently affecting you. Colors are told in equipment part (chapter 8). If level of the liquid have lowered you should find healing potion or visit your entry point -Equipment- Any small equipment stuffed to your pouches is shown here. -Map- Dungeon map is drawn here. Knight automatically maps any room where he enters if there are no enemies to stop him. In addition, you may get map-scroll, or dungeon might be premapped, when borders for rooms not yet entered are drawn already. There is also a scroll named 'Wipe Map'. No need to tell how nasty it is. You are shown as a blinking dot in your map if are able to map your current room. In addition, there are scrolls that tell you your opponent's location. He is also shown as blinking dot in your map. ----------------------------------- Controlling your Knight during game ----------------------------------- Knight is controlled with joystick (or right sided alternatively with cursors and right shift) Shift+Alt is used to make suicide, if need to (never happened, but might be possible) Use keys on your side to suicide Moving ------- Move your knight to desired direction by pushing joystick to that direction Fast item manipulating ----------------------- Press fire with direction to use your item in hands: Sword and Maul are used to strike Axe is throwed or is used to strike depending of your situation Wand is zapped Loaded crossbow is fired Unloaded crossbow, staff or book is dropped Crossbow is automatically reloaded if you do nothing and have quarrels with you Parrying -------- Your knight will automatically try to parry strikes coming from front, if he has sword, axe or staff in his hands, and no controller is touched. Parrying with staff is easier than parrying with sword which is easier than parrying with axe. Maul or X-bow are too clumsy and wand too fragile to used as parrying weapon Item manipulation in same square -------------------------------- By pressing fire for a while you are presented with action menu as long as you keep fire pressed. By pushing joystick to correct direction action shown by icon is performed. Menu will remain as long as you keep fire button pressed. Action menu is used to pick up items, drop gems and other stuff,to set bear traps and to pick locks. NOTE: You get default action simply by pressing fire for a very short period. Default action is picking and dropping items in square. Menu must be used when gems are dropped, daggers are thrown or bear trap is set. Item manipulation in square front of knight ------------------------------------------- By first approaching adjacent square and then pressing fire (without releasing direction) you are presented with 'approaching' menu, which is used at the same way as action menu, except actions are different. In this menu you can set traps, pick locks and put to or take items from chests or tables. NOTE: Again, you may use short click for default action. Default action is opening, item taking and closing. Menu must be used when you want to pick lock or set traps. NOTE 2: Actions like opening and closing may be done in either menu. NOTE 3: Menus are normally only used when setting traps/picking locks/throwing daggers, because short click is far more easier and faster ------------------ Dungeon Enviroment ------------------ Dungeon is hostile place with magical items and special places... Entry Point ----------- Place where your knight enters game. If you are damaged visiting your entry point will heal your damage - slowly. If enemy uses wand of securing against your entry point, you will be given new entry point, which is then used for healing and re-entry. Exit Point ---------- Place, which you must find to win (excluding Duel to the death and book destroying) Normally it is same as your entry point but it might be same as your enemies entry or even any unknown. If you must escape the dungeon with some items which you currently does not have, you will be told what are you missing. Pits ---- There are bottomless pits. Do not enter. Switches -------- Some switches open doors or close pits. Some drops portucullis to your back. Some triggers crossbows inside skulls and walls. Pentagrams ---------- Some pentagrams are harmless. Others are not, and include powerful conjurations which may transfer your knight invisible, invulnerable or even teleport you near your enemy. Alas, sometimes you change into the zombie. Crystal Balls ------------- There are crystal balls in some dungeons. Looking into one (approach it) will tell you where your opponent is in your map. Doors and Chests ---------------- All doors and chests are closed at the start of the game. In addition, they might be locked. In that case, you must find suitable key or lock picks or simple smash the door or chest. Unfortunately there are also iron doors which cannot be breaked, only opened with keys or lock picks ----------------- Stuff in Dungeons ----------------- Floor and tables are filled with varying stuff... Sword ----- Your knight always have his sword. If you take something big, he puts it to scabbard till you drop that new item. Sword is best weapon in melee, but cannot be thrown (Why?! Cries our Conan-clone) and is hopelessly bad at breaking things Big items --------- There are some items that are so big that knight can carry only one with him at the time. -Axe- Axe is acceptable melee weapon, which can also be thrown. In addition, it is far more better than sword when you need to destroy wooden objects -Maul- Maul is mighty weapon - against inanimate objects. No wooden, breakable object can resist its force. In contrast, is it very bad melee weapon. -Staff- Staff cannot be used in melee in efficient way, because it is too light to cause any damage against armored knights. Instead, it is used to disarm traps. If you open a door or chest with staff in your hands, no trap will strike you. (NOTE: Because staff is so bad melee weapon it is automatically dropped if you press fire with direction (in open) If you really want to strike something with it, you must use menu) -Crossbow- Crossbow is powerful weapon - if it is loaded. To load a crossbow, you must have quarrels and patience. Knight will automatically load crossbow if you have quarrels and stay in place. If loading is aborted (by moving, for example) it must be started from start again. -Bear Traps- Bear traps in floor are armed or unarmed. Unarmed are harmless and can be picked up or walked over without fear. Armed beartraps are open. If knight walks into one he is damaged and stuck for a while. After that bear trap is unarmed. Armed traps may be 'fired' by striking them with some item. That will not harm item. Bear traps may be carried and dropped or set to certain, strategic places. In addition to slowing down your enemy they are quite useful 'audible alarms' because firing one will cause enough noise to alarm you. -Other- Book and Wands are big items, too. About their special uses read part 4 Small items ----------- Some items can be taken and carried with your knight -Gems- Some dungeons include gems, which must be at least partially retrieved. Gems are carried like other small items, but they can be dropped, too. (Why to drop gems? If you have many gems and your enemy kills you he gets them all and will easily win. By hiding some of them you know that he will not win if he just kills you...) -Quarrels- Quarrels are needed with crossbow. Either is useless without other. -Daggers- Daggers can be thrown from menu. Thay are quite harmless but not completely useless, and might prove very dangerous when combined with magical quickness and large quantites. -Keys- Keys are needed to open locked doors (well, at least if it is of iron). Fourth key is lock pick, which can be used to open any lock, given time. -Poison Needles- Poison needles are traps that kill knight which tries to open item trapped with them unless he has poison immunity or invulnerability (or is equipped with staff) -Spring Blade- Set spring blade fires toward direction where it was put into the object if someone opens or strikes the object. It is as dangerous as crossbow, and can only be disabled with staff (or by coming from different direction) Potions ------- There are magical potions in the dungeon, which can be drinked by picking them up. Effects from them are unpredictable but mostly helpful. Here is list of different effects and their colors (in your life force potion) Healing (none) Heals your knight to uninjured state Poison immunity (flashing white) Gives immunity against poison Poison (dark green) Kills you! Paralyzation (green) Paralyzes you for a while Strength* (blue) Gives you superior strength Quickness* (violet) Gives you superior speed Regeneration* (orange) Gives you regeneration (auto-healing) Invisiblity* (black) Makes you invisible Super* (multicolored) Makes you strong, fast and regenerating (* only one of these may be in effect at the same time) All effects (except healing) are temporary Scrolls ------- In addition to potions, there are magical scrolls, too, which are read by picking them up. They effects are might be similar to potions, but they also have many different, like: Map Map of the dungeon Teleport Teleports you near your enemy or him to you Sensing Gives you and/or your enemy knowledge of others location Treasury Sense Gives you places of any gems, wands or books in area which you have already mapped Invulnerabilty Makes you invincible Map Wipe You lose your map! Necromancy You turn into a zombie! (*UAAAAAA*) -------- Critters -------- Dungeons may include some nasty creatures... Vampire bats ------------ Blood-sucking bats with razor-sharp fangs which can pierce even plate armor. They are quite easily killed but can easily kill panicked knight. In addition, their sonar cannot be fooled with invisiblity. Zombies ------- Evil magic will cause corpses to turn into zombies. Zombies only exist to kill living knights, they do not disrupt bats. Zombies are tough and can break down doors and tables, so they can easily wander around dungeon... LARN - If you've played Larn under UN*X or some other environment, you won't have any trouble with this version. Many of the commands are the same. Even if you haven't, however, you can use the menus in AMIGA LARN. Just hold down the right menu button and select the command. After you get to know the commands, you will be able to use the keyboard commands. The keyboard command equivalent for each menu selection is listed next to the selection. Three commands you will want to know are HELP, '/', and ALT-click. Pressing the HELP or '?' key gets you into the online help system. The '/' command displays all graphics characters used in the game. Finally, to identify a particular graphics character on the screen, point the mouse at a character, hold the ALT key, and click on the monster or object you want identified. Before you play, you might want to print out the file '.larn.help'. This is the file displayed with the HELP key. You can use all the standard 'vi' style keys to move your player character around in Larn. This is the way I prefer to play the game because it keeps my fingers in the same place I need them for entering commands and answering prompts. For your convenience, however, you can also use the arrow and keypad keys. In addition, you can control your character three ways with the mouse. First, if you just click the mouse anywhere in the playing area, the character will try to move in that direction. Second, you can click on your character and drag it wherever you want. This is called 'mouse tracking'. Third, to make your character stay where it he is, just click on the character and release. This is equivilent to the '.' command. All this is explained in the online help. NOTE: For your safety, Larn will not allow you to move over known traps and pits with the mouse. Also, if a monster takes a swipe at you while you are under mouse tracking, the tracking will be dropped. In case you're interested, when you are moving the player character with the mouse, Larn tries to move into one of the three cells next to the current player position that are closest to the mouse. It tries them in order of increasing distance. If all three are blocked, it gives up and does not move the player (a cell is considered blocked if there is a wall or a visible trap there). There is a special case if the player is right next to the mouse position but for some reason it can't move to that spot (for example, if the mouse was over a wall or pit). If that happens, Larn gives up immediately. Otherwise, it would probably thrash back and forth between adjacent squares and waste lots of time. This is because when mouse tracking is on, Larn tries constantly to keep the player directly under the mouse. If the mouse for some reason gets ahead of the player, Larn will move the player multiple times to let him catch up. Wizard mode under Larn allows you to play with almost complete invulnerability. It is there to allow you to learn some of the finer points of Larn (and to help the me debug the program!). To get into wizard mode, you must first make sure you are using the player name of "Wizard" in your .larnopts file: name: "Wizard" This is not enough since you can play a perfectly normal game using this player name. You must get into Larn and type the '_' command. Larn will prompt for a password which happens to be 'amiga' (no quotes or carriage return). This mode gives you a +25 lance of death, a +50 ring of protection, 25 levels of experience, and one of everthing in the game. It is useful for learning the game or for working off frustration (much better than kicking the stairs). Once you are in, there is no way out of wizard mode! One caveat: wizard mode will not allow you to save high scores (that would be cheating, wouldn't it?) LEGEND_OF_LOTHIAN - "Legend of Lothian" is a fantasy-adventure game set in the mythical kingdom of Mercia. In this game, you assume the role of a poor shepherd who has been chosen to save the king of Mercia. For some reason, King Lothian won't wake from his sleep, and, in his absence, chaos has befallen the land of Mercia. It's up to you to find a way to revive King Lothian and restore Mercia to its former tranquility. In "Legend of Lothian", you must explore the large continent of Mercia and beyond. Along your journey, you will talk with many different people, battle fierce monsters, and solve strange puzzles, all in the hopes of saving King Lothian. Your success or failure in this quest will determine the fate of the whole land of Mercia. Your well-being in "Legend of Lothian" is determined by two attributes; health and stamina. Health is an indication of how physically fit you are, while stamina indicates how well-fed you are. Stamina diminishes whenever you run out of food, while health can be diminished through combat, and by starving, after your stamina level reaches 0. If your health level ever reaches 0, you will be dead. Since the fall of King Lothian, the Mercian army has become disorganized and has been unable to check the advances of the monsters of the land of Mercia. In your travels, you will undoubtedly encounter many of these horrible monsters and will be forced to fight them. Collecting the treasure from vanquished monsters is also your only source of income, so combatting them is a necessity. Killing monsters also gives you experience points; after acquiring enough experience points, you will advance to a new combat level, thereby becoming a better fighter and acquiring higher health and stamina levels. But beware! As you becomes progressively better at fighting, the monsters of Mercia also increase in difficulty! The monsters of Mercia can do much damage to you, and therefore, healing yourself is very important. You can be healed in a variety of ways. Whenever you have food, by simply walking around, you will eat food and your health and stamina levels will increase, if either are below their maximum level. As long as you have food, you will heal. This process usually takes a while, which is fine for small damage, but if you are seriously wounded, healing by this method will take a long time, and waste a lot of food. You may also rent a room in one of the inns located in many of the towns of Mercia. Although this costs a small amount of gold, no food is lost while sleeping, and this method is a lot quicker than consuming food to regain your health and stamina, especially when you're badly hurt. Finally, you may choose to visit one of the several mystic healers found in a few of the towns and castles in Mercia. As can be expected, healers charge for their powerful magic, but no food is lost, and this is the fastest and easiest way to get healed. Talking with people is one of the most important elements of "Legend of Lothian". Valuable information can be learned from the inhabitants of Mercia, so talk to everyone you meet. Also, some people may help you by giving you tools that are needed in your quest. There are many puzzles that you'll need to solve in your quest. Overcome these puzzles and you'll be on the right track to saving King Lothian! The game screen is divided into six separate windows. The map window is in the upper-left corner of the screen and represents the area immediately surrounding you. In the center of the map window is your character icon. Directly beneath the map window is the location window. The name of your current location will be displayed in this window. For example, if you enter a town, the name of the town will be displayed here. Beneath the location window is the icons window. Two rows of icons are here for mouse control of the game. From left to right, the top row of icons consists of the talk icon, the get icon, the open door icon, the climb ladder icon, the board ship icon, the attack icon, the save game icon, and the restart game icon, while the bottom row of icons, from left to right, consists of the use tool icon, the info icon, the pray icon, the sleep icon, the disembark from ship icon, the flee from combat icon, the load game icon, and the quit game icon. By simply moving the mouse pointer to the appropriate icon and clicking either mouse button, that command will be activated, if it is valid at that point in the game. In the upper right corner of the screen lies the text window. This window provides all text information from the game and shows the past history of most-recent commands. A purple cursor indicates the current position for your input. Below the text window is the combat/talk/use window. Here is where the monsters you fight in combat are shown, where the person and their speech is shown when you talk to someone, and where you select what tool you want to use. This window will remain blank until one of these functions occurs. Finally, beneath the text window is the information window. Displayed here is all the information on you in "Legend of Lothian". Your current health and stamina levels are shown here in two ways; by bar graphs on the left side of the window and the numerical form showing the current and maximum (in the format "current/maximum") health and stamina levels on the right side. Here you will also find the amount of gold and food you have, your experience points, your current combat level, along with the weapon and armour you have, if any. All of the information in this window will be automatically updated when changed. You may control the actions of your character in "Legend of Lothian" by using the keyboard, the mouse, or a combination of both devices. The mouse may be used to do everything in the game, with the exception of three tasks: inputing your name at the beginning of the game, specifying how much food you wish to purchase at food stores, and typing in a chant that you want to pray upon. Action is specified via the mouse by selecting one of the icons in the lower-left hand corner of the game screen and pressing either mouse button. If that command is valid at that time, that command will be executed. Each icon also has a keyboard equivalent. Simply press the corresponding key for the action you wish to perform. Valid keyboard commands are as follows (the notes that follow most commands also apply when these commands are executed via the mouse): A = ATTACK! (valid only in combat). B = BOARD a ship (player icon must be on ship). C = CLIMB ladder (player icon must be on ladder). D = DISEMBARK from ship (ship icon must be on beach). E = ENTER a town, castle, etc. (player icon must be on object). F = FLEE! (valid only in combat). G = GET item (player icon must be adjacent to item). I = INFO (gives information to player). O = OPEN door (player icon must be adjacent to door). P = PRAY (to meditate upon a chant). Q = QUIT game. S = SLEEP (player must have rented an inn room and be present in the room). T = TALK (player icon must be adjacent to a person or a merchant). U = USE tool (used to solve puzzles). ESC = Quit game. F8 = Restart game. F9 = Load old game position from disk. F10 = Save current game position to disk. Movement in "Legend of Lothian" is accomplished by using the arrow keys on the keyboard, or by positioning the mouse pointer in the map window, in the direction where you wish to move (i.e., above your character icon for north, below your character icon for south, to the right of it for east, and to the left of it for west). When the mouse pointer is in the map window, the mouse pointer turns into an arrow indicating the direction you will go when the mouse button is pressed. If you're standing on on object that can be entered, such as a towne, castle, etc., then by position the mouse pointer on your character icon, the pointer will turn into an "in-ward arrow", and by pressing the mouse button, you will enter that object (the same as using the E key). Also, if you're on a ladder, then positioning the mouse pointer on your character icon will turn the pointer into an "up and down arrows" pointer, and pressing the mouse button will climb the ladder. One of the most important commands is the Info command, accessed by the I key on the keyboard or the ? icon. After executing this command, the mouse pointer will change into a question mark. By placing this pointer on anything in the game screen, you will be told what that object is. This is especially useful for knowing what the graphics in the map screen are supposed to represent. The talk, open door, and get commands (whether accessed by the mouse or through the keyboard) will automatically check to see if there is only one person, door, or object adjacent to you. If there is, then that is the object that is acted upon. However if there are two or more people, doors, or objects adjacent to the player, the game requests you to "Select dir:" (specify direction) that you wish to act in. For the majority of the time, you will never need to specify the direction, but there are a few places where you will. At various points in the game, you will prompted for input, such as a yes or no question, whether you wish to be male or female, or the number of the weapon or armour you wish to buy. You may use the keyboard, or move the mouse pointer to the response desired and press either button. For example, when you want to buy a weapon or armour, a "Select: (0/1/2/3/4/5)" prompt appears below the price list of weapons/armour. By pressing the appropriate number key, or by moving the mouse pointer to any number on this prompt (not to the names of the weapons/armour!) and pressing either button, you indicate which weapon/armour you want to purchase. MATHS_ADVENTURE - The maths adventure is a very simple game. You the young adventurer must try to escape the kings MATHS ADVENTURE. To do this you must pass through a series of rooms. You start at room 1 and finish at room 10 (If you get that far). The 10 rooms look something like this, 2 5 / \ / \ 1 4 7-8-9-10 \ / \ / 3 6 You start in room 1 and progress towards room 10. Once you have completed room 1 succsessfully you can either enter room 2 or 3. From there you can only enter room 4. From room 4 you can either enter room 5 or 6 etc.... In each room you will presented with a problem. Either by a person situated in that room or through something you find, like an inscription on a wall etc... If you answer this problem correctly you will be allowed to enter the next room. As you progress from room to room, the problems become more involved and much more difficult (Well I tried to make it that way)! Each room dosen't contain one problem, there are numerous problems in each room and they are randomly picked. So unless you are incredibly stupid or you play this game hundreds of times you'll most likely never get the same sequence of questions twice. MICROMART - Playing the game itself is very simple. First, you will, after the game has loaded, be presented with a menu. This is the Main Menu Screen. This consists of the following items:- ALTER NUMBER OF PLAYERS - Well, if you can't work this one out ,then .... OPTIONS - This allows you to select either human or computer players once you have decided how many players you want ( see above. Got it yet ?!). You can also enter the player names at this stage ( PLEASE NOTE : Player names will be set to " Player 1 ", " Player 2 " and so on, if no names are entered. Also, the default setting is two players , one human and one computer.) READ CREDITS - By selecting this item, you will be able to read all about all about the wonderful people who put this crap together, you lucky, lucky people!! Needless to say, this is not a game requirement, but we all need our little moments of self congratulation so humour us a bit and read them. Go on ! Its not long and it won't hurt THAT much. Please ?! EXIT TO DOS - Again, pretty self-explanitary so if you still can't get the jist of this one, I suggest you forget your application to Mensa and go and weave some baskets. PLAY GAME - Nuff said , really ( see above as I am too lazy to write it all out again.) The Game Object of the Game The object of this game is to get very rich indeed. ( pity the same can't be said of the poor impoverished programmers who put this game together with sweat, blood, tears and herbal tea ... ) Buying and selling shares in the six companies listed will enable you to amass a great fortune or a credit blacklisting depending on how good, bad or lucky you are, although the spawney git with no idea of any strategy will not get very far, we promise you! First of all, the computer will ask you which share you wish to trade in. Click left on number one to six on the keypad at the bottom of the screen. Then, using the same method, type in the number of shares you wish to buy. If you click on the full amount key, the computer will automaticaly buy (or sell) the maximum permittable number of shares. Selling the shares is done in much the same way, click on the share you wish to sell and enter the amount, then click on go (the green one) or click on the full amount key. Should you make a mistake, click on the backspace key (at the bottom right of the display). This will delete the character you entered last. If you click to trade on the wrong company then click on the CANCEL key and this will return you to the beginnning of your turn. The system can also be controlled by the numeric keypad (unless you were one of those sad deluded people who bought an A600, ha ha !), use "-" to sell, "+" to buy, "*" to cancel, "/" for full amount, ")" miss a turn and "(" for backspace. Also the go key (that is the enter key) is enter. The game works on 4 rounds, at the end of which the players will have their pockets filled by the companies dividend payouts. These consist of a percentage payment per share owned. The rounds are displayed at the top left and top right of the screen, and increase as each person takes one turn. At the end of the first round, you will be presented with a newsflash. This will tell you significant things which have happened on the market. This may not affect you, but there again, it just may send you bankrupt. At the end of round 3 the computer gives each player a simple wealth evaluation. It works out how much you are worth, then tells you in the nicest possible way that you're skint. The state of the economy can also change, this may bankrupt you if you do not know exactly how to deal with the situation. You will understand this the more you play the game. I think thats it, apart from to tell you that it has a highly complicated mechanism which fluctuates share prices, and gives news reports and stuff. I will leave it up to you to work out what the P/E and YIELD mean. I'd tell you only it would make the game too easy - well easier at least, so sod it. Rounds Summary End Of Round 1 - A Newsflash. End Of Round 2 - Wealth Evaluation Screen. End Of Round 3 - Nothing Much Happens, To Be Honest. End Of Round 4 - Companies Pay A Dividend On The Amount Of Shares You Own Keyboard Summary As explained above, it was desingned to be done from the numeric keypad, and so the keys are as follows :- ( - Backspace ) - Miss A Turn / = Full Amount * - Cancel - (minus sign) - Sell + - Buy and enter is enter. MORIA - 1. Introduction The game of moria is a single player dungeon simulation. A player may choose from a number of races and classes when creat- ing a character, and then `run' that character over a period of days, weeks, even months, attempting to win the game by defeating the Balrog which lurks in the deeper levels. The player will begin his adventure on the town level where he may acquire supplies, weapons, armor, and magical devices by bar- tering with various shop owners. After preparing for his adven- ture, the player can descend into the dungeons of moria where fantastic adventures await his coming! Before beginning your first adventure, you should read this docu- ment carefully. The game of moria is a complicated game, and will require a dedicated player to win. 2. The Character All characters have six main attributes which modify their basic abilities. These six attributes, called stats, are strength, intelligence, wisdom, dexterity, constitution, and charisma. Stats may vary from a minimum of 3 to a maximum of 18. At the highest level, stats are further qualified by a number from zero to one hundred, so that the highest value is actually 18/100. A value of 18/100 can be thought of as equivalent to 19, and 18/00 (not actually used) is equivalent to 18. Because adventurers of interest tend to be better than average characters, moria stats will average about 13, and are further adjusted by race and class. Some races are just naturally better at being certain classes, as will be shown later. In addition to the more visible stats, each character has certain abilities which are mainly determined by his race, class, and level, but are also modified by his stats. The abilities are fighting, throwing/bows, saving throw, stealth, disarming, magi- cal devices, perception, searching, and infravision. Characters will be assigned an early history, with money and a social class based on that history. Starting money is assigned The Dungeons of Moria Page 2 based on history, charisma, and somewhat upon the average of a character's stats. A character with below average stats will receive extra money to help him survive the first adventure. Each character will also have physical attributes such as race, height, weight, sex, and a physical description. None of these, except weight, play any part in the game other than to give the player a "feeling" for his character. Weight is used for comput- ing carrying capacity and also for bashing. Finally, each character is assigned hit points based on their race, class, and constitution. Spell casters will also receive mana which is expended when casting spells. Mana is based on Wisdom for Priests and Intelligence for Mages. 2.1. Character Stats Strength Strength is important in fighting with weapons and hand to hand combat. A high strength can improve your chances of hitting, and the amount of damage done with each hit. Char- acters with low strengths may receive penalties. Strength is also useful in tunneling, body and shield bashing, and in carrying heavy items. Intelligence Intelligence is the prime stat of a mage, or magician. A high intelligence increases a mage's chances of learning spells, and it also increases the amount of mana a mage has. No spell may be learned by mages with intelligences under 8. Intelligence also modifies a character's chance of disarming traps, picking locks, and using magic devices. Wisdom Wisdom is the prime stat of a priest. A high wisdom increases the chance of receiving new spells from a priest's deity, and it also increases the amount of mana a priest has. No spell may be learned by priests with wisdom under 8. Wisdom also modifies a character's chance of resisting magical spells cast upon his person. Dexterity Dexterity is a combination of agility and quickness. A high dexterity may allow a character to get multiple blows with lighter weapons, thus greatly increasing his kill power, and may increase his chances of hitting with any weapon and dodging blows from enemies. Dexterity is also useful in picking locks, disarming traps, and protecting yourself from pick pockets. Constitution Constitution is a character's ability to resist damage to his body, and to recover from damage received. Therefore a The Dungeons of Moria Page 3 character with a high constitution will receive more hit points, and be more resistant to poisons. Charisma Charisma represents a character's personality, as well as physical looks. A character with a high charisma will receive better prices from store owners, whereas a character with a very low charisma will be robbed blind. A high charisma will also mean more starting money for the charac- ter. 2.2. Character Sex You may choose to be either a male or a female character. Only height and weight are affected by a character's sex. Female characters tend to be somewhat smaller and lighter than their male counterparts. No adjustments to stats or abilities are made because of the sex of a character. Female characters start out with slightly more money than male characters to help offset the weight penalty. 2.3. Character Abilities Characters possess nine different abilities which can help them to survive. The starting abilities of a character are based upon race and class. Abilities may be adjusted by high or low stats, and may increase with the level of the character. Fighting Fighting is the ability to hit and do damage with weapons or fists. Normally a character gets a single blow from any weapon, but if his dexterity and strength are high enough, he may receive more blows per round with lighter weapons. Strength and dexterity both modify the ability to hit an opponent. This skill increases with the level of the char- acter. Throwing/Bows Using ranged missile weapons and throwing objects is included in this skill. Different stats apply to different weapons, but this ability may modify the distance an object is thrown/fired, the amount of damage done, and the ability to hit a creature. This skill increases with the level of the character. Saving Throw A Saving Throw is the ability of a character to resist the effects of a spell cast on him by another person/creature. This does not include spells cast on the player by his own stupidity, such as quaffing a nasty potion. This ability increases with the level of the character, but then most high level creatures are better at casting spells, so it The Dungeons of Moria Page 4 tends to even out. A high wisdom also increases this abil- ity. Stealth The ability to move silently about is very useful. Charac- ters with good stealth can usually surprise their opponents, gaining the first blow. Also, creatures may fail to notice a stealthy character entirely, allowing a player to avoid certain fights. This skill is based entirely upon race and class, and will never improve unless magically enhanced. Disarming Disarming is the ability to remove traps (safely), and includes picking locks on traps and doors. A successful disarming will gain the character some experience. A trap must be found before it can be disarmed. Dexterity and intelligence both modify the ability to disarm, and this ability increases with the level of the character. Using Magical Devices Using a magical device such as a wand or staff requires experience and knowledge. Spell users such as mages and priests are therefore much better at using a magical device than say a warrior. This skill is modified by intelligence, and increases with the level of the character. Perception Perception is the ability to notice something without actively seeking it out. This skill is based entirely upon race and class, and will never improve unless magically enhanced. Searching To search is to actively look for secret doors, floor traps, and traps on chests. Rogues are the best at searching, but mages, rangers, and priests are also good at it. This skill is based entirely upon race and class, and will never improve unless magically enhanced. Infravision Infravision is the ability to see heat sources. Since most of the dungeon is cool or cold, infravision will not allow the player to see walls and objects. Infravision will allow a character to see any warm-blooded creatures up to a cer- tain distance. This ability works equally well with or with out a light source. The majority of moria's creatures are cold-blooded, and will not be detected unless lit up by a light source. All non human races have innate infravision ability. Human can gain infravision only if it is magically enhanced. The Dungeons of Moria Page 5 2.4. Choosing A Race There are eight different races that you can choose from in moria. Some races are restricted as to what profession they may be, and each race has its own adjustments to a character's stats and abilities. Human The human is the base character, all other races are com- pared to him. Humans can choose any class, and are average at everything. Humans tend to go up levels faster than any other race, because of their shorter life spans. No racial adjustments occur to characters choosing human. Half-Elf Half-elves tend to be smarter and faster than a human, but not as strong. Half-elves are slightly better at searching, disarming, perception, stealth, and magic, but they are not as good at hand weapons. Half-elves may choose any class. Elf Elves are better magicians then humans, but not as good at fighting. They tend to be smarter and faster than either humans or half-elves, and also have better wisdom. Elves are better at searching, disarming, perception, stealth, and magic, but they are not as good at hand weapons. Elves may choose any class except Paladin. Halfling Halflings, or Hobbits, are very good at bows, throwing, and have good saving throws. They also are very good at search- ing, disarming, perception, and stealth; so they make excel- lent thieves (but prefer to be called burglars...). They will be much weaker than humans, and no good at bashing. Halflings have fair infravision, so they can detect warm creatures at a distance. Halflings can choose between being a warrior, mage, or rogue. Gnome Gnomes are smaller than dwarfs, but larger than halflings. They, like the halflings, live in the earth in burrow-like homes. Gnomes are practical jokers, so if they can kill something in a humorous way, so much the better. Gnomes make excellent mages, and have very good saving throws. They are good at searching, disarming, perception, and stealth. They have lower strength than humans so they are not very good at fighting with hand weapons. Gnomes have fair infravision, so they can detect warm creatures at a distance. A gnome may choose between being a warrior, mage, priest, or rogue. Dwarf Dwarves are the headstrong miners and fighters of legend. Since dungeons are the natural home of a dwarf, they are The Dungeons of Moria Page 6 excellent choices for a warrior or priest. Dwarves tend to be stronger and have higher constitutions, but are slower and less intelligent than humans. Because they are so head- strong and are somewhat wise, they resist spells which are cast on them. Dwarves also have good infravision because they live underground. They do have one big drawback though. Dwarves are loudmouthed and proud, singing in loud voices, arguing with themselves for no good reason, scream- ing out challenges at imagined foes. In other words, dwarves have a miserable stealth. Half-Orc Half-Orcs make excellent warriors, and decent priests, but are terrible at magic. They are as bad as dwarves at stealth, and horrible at searching, disarming, and percep- tion. Half-Orcs are, let's face it, ugly. They tend to pay more for goods in town. Half-Orcs do make good priests and rogues, for the simple reason that Half-Orcs tend to have great constitutions and lots of hit points. Half-Troll Half-Trolls are incredibly strong, and have the highest hit points of any character race. They are also very stupid and slow. They will make great warriors and iffy priests. They are bad at searching, disarming, perception, and stealth. They are so ugly that a Half-Orc grimaces in their presence. They also happen to be fun to run... 2.4.1. Race Versus Skills and Stats Stat, hit dice, and experience points per level modifications due to race are listed in the following table. Str Int Wis Dex Con Chr Hit Dice Rqd Exp/level Human 0 0 0 0 0 0 10 +0% Half-Elf -1 +1 0 +1 -1 +1 9 +10% Elf -1 +2 +1 +1 -2 +1 8 +20% Halfling -2 +2 +1 +3 +1 +1 6 +10% Gnome -1 +2 0 +2 +1 -2 7 +25% Dwarf +2 -3 +1 -2 +2 -3 9 +20% Half-Orc +2 -1 0 0 +1 -4 10 +10% Half-Troll +4 -4 -2 -4 +3 -6 12 +20% Racial abilities as compared to each other, with 1 the lowest, or worst, and 10 the highest, or best, are listed in the following table. The Dungeons of Moria Page 7 Disarm Search Stealth Percep Fight Bows Save Infra Human 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 None Half-Elf 6 7 7 6 4 6 6 20 feet Elf 8 9 7 7 3 9 7 30 feet Halfling 10 10 10 10 1 10 10 40 feet Gnome 9 7 9 9 2 8 9 30 feet Dwarf 6 8 3 5 9 5 8 50 feet Half-Orc 3 5 3 2 8 3 3 30 feet Half-Troll 1 1 1 1 10 1 1 30 feet 2.5. Choosing A Class Once a race has been chosen, you will need to pick a class. Some classes will not be available to certain races, for instance, a Half-Troll cannot become a Paladin. For the first few adventures it is suggested that you run a warrior or rogue. Spell casting generally requires a more experienced player that is familiar with survival techniques. Warrior A Warrior is a hack-and-slash character, who solves most of his problems by cutting them to pieces, but will occasion- ally fall back on the help of a magical device. His prime stats are Strength and Constitution, and a good Dexterity can really help at times. A Warrior will be good at Fight- ing and Throwing/Bows, but bad at most other skills. Mage A Mage must live by his wits. He cannot hope to simply hack his way through the dungeon, and so must therefore use his magic to defeat, deceive, confuse, and escape. A mage is not really complete without an assortment of magical devices to use in addition to his spells. He can master the higher level magical devices far easier than anyone else, and has the best saving throw to resist effects of spells cast at him. Intelligence and Dexterity are his primary stats. There is no rule that says a mage cannot become a good fighter, but spells are his true realm. Priest A Priest is a character of holy devotion. They explore the dungeon only to destroy the evil that lurks within, and if treasure just happens to fall into their packs, well, so much more to the glory of their church! Priests receive their spells from a deity, and therefore do not choose which spells they will learn. They are familiar with magical dev- ices, preferring to call them instruments of god, but are not as good as a mage in their use. Priests have good sav- ing throws, and make decent fighters, preferring blunt weapons over edged ones. Wisdom and Charisma are the The Dungeons of Moria Page 8 priest's primary stats. Rogue A Rogue is a character that prefers to live by his cunning, but is capable of fighting his way out of a tight spot. He is the master of traps and locks, no device being impossible for him to overcome. A rogue has a high stealth allowing him to sneak around many creatures without having to fight, or sneak up and get the first blow. A rogue's perception is higher than any other class, and many times he will notice a trap or secret door before having to search. A rogue is better than warriors or paladins with magical devices, but still can not rely on their performance. Rogues can also learn a few spells, but not the powerful offensive spells mages can use. A rogue's primary stats are Intelligence and Dexterity. Ranger A Ranger is a warrior/mage. He is a good fighter, and the best of the classes with a missile weapon such as a bow. The ranger learns spells much more slowly than a mage, but is capable of learning all but the most powerful spell. Because a ranger is really a dual class character, more experience is required for him to advance. A ranger has a good stealth, good perception, good searching, a good saving throw, and is good with magical devices. His primary stats are Intelligence and Dexterity. Paladin A Paladin is a warrior/priest. He is a very good fighter, second only to the warrior class, but not very good at mis- sile weapons. He receives prayers at a slower pace then the priest, and can receive all but the most powerful prayer. Because a paladin is really a dual class character, it requires more experience to advance him. A paladin lacks much in the way of abilities. He is poor at stealth, per- ception, searching, and magical devices. He has a decent saving throw due to his divine alliance. His primary stats are Strength and Charisma. 2.5.1. Race Versus Class The Dungeons of Moria Page 9 Warrior Mage Priest Rogue Ranger Paladin Human Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Half-Elf Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Elf Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No Halfling Yes Yes No Yes No No Gnome Yes Yes Yes Yes No No Dwarf Yes No Yes No No No Half-Orc Yes No Yes Yes No No Half-Troll Yes No Yes No No No 2.5.2. Class Versus Skills Class abilities as compared to each other, with 1 as the lowest, or worst, and 10 as the highest, or best are shown in the follow- ing table. Save Stea- Magic Extra Fight Bows Throw lth Disarm Device Percep Search Exp/lev Warrior 10 6 3 2 4 3 2 2 +0% Mage 2 1 10 5 6 10 8 5 +30% Priest 4 3 6 5 3 8 4 4 +20% Rogue 8 9 7 10 10 6 10 10 +0% Ranger 6 10 8 7 6 7 6 6 +40% Paladin 9 5 4 2 2 4 2 2 +35% 3. Adventuring After you have created your character, you will begin your moria adventure. Symbols appearing on your screen will represent the dungeon's walls, floor, objects, features, and creatures lurking about. In order to direct your character through his adventure, you will enter single character commands. Moria symbols and commands each have a help section devoted to them. You should review these sections before attempting an adventure. Finally, a description of the town level and some general help on adventuring are included. 4. Symbols On Your Map Symbols on your map can be broken down into three categories: Features of the dungeon such as walls, floor, doors, and traps; Objects which can be picked up such as treasure, weapons, magical devices, etc; and creatures which may or may not move about the dungeon, but are mostly harmful to your character's well being. The Dungeons of Moria Page 10 Some symbols can be in more than one category. Also note that treasure may be embedded in a wall, and the wall must be removed before the treasure can be picked up. It will not be necessary to remember all of the symbols and their meanings. A simple command, the `/', will identify any character appearing on your map. See the section on commands for further help. Features . A floor space, or hidden trap 1 Entrance to General Store # A wall 2 Entrance to Armory ' An open door 3 Entrance to Weapon Smith + A closed door 4 Entrance to Temple ^ A trap 5 Entrance to Alchemy Shop < A staircase up 6 Entrance to Magic Shop > A staircase down : Obstructing rubble ; A loose floor stone An open pit (Blank) % A mineral vein @ The character Objects ! A flask or potion ? A scroll " An amulet [ Hard armor $ Money (Can be embedded) \ A hafted weapon & A chest ] Misc. armor ( Soft armor _ A staff ) A shield { Missile (arrow, bolt, pebble) * Gems (Can be embedded) | Sword or dagger - A wand } Missile arm (Bow, X-bow, sling) / A pole-arm ~ Misc = A ring , Food s A skeleton The Dungeons of Moria Page 11 Creatures a Giant Ant A Giant Ant Lion b Giant Bat B The Balrog c Giant Centipede C Gelatinous Cube d Dragon D Ancient Dragon e Floating Eye E Elemental f Giant Frog F Fly g Golem G Ghost h Harpy H Hobgoblin i Icky-Thing I j Jackal J Jelly k Kobold K Killer Beetle l Giant Louse L Lich m Mold M Mummy n Naga N o Orc or Ogre O Ooze p Human(oid) P Giant Human(oid) q Quasit Q Quylthulg r Rodent R Reptile s Skeleton S Scorpion t Giant Tick T Troll u U Umber Hulk v V Vampire w Worm or Worm Mass W Wight or Wraith. x X Xorn y Yeek Y Yeti z Zombie Z $ Creeping Coins , Mushroom Patch 5. Commands All commands are entered by pressing a single key. Some commands are capital or control characters, which require you to hold down the shift or control key while pressing another key. As a spe- cial feature, control keys may be entered in a single stroke, or in two strokes, with a `^' character first. There are two command sets: the original command set which is the default, and the rogue like command set. The rogue like command is generally more convenient, especially if you don't have a keypad. The following tables summarize the two command sets. Certain commands may be preceded by an optional count, and certain com- mands must be followed by a direction. These conditions are indicated in the tables by `@' for an optional count, and `~' for a direction. If a particular command requires additional key strokes, then they will be prompted for. The Dungeons of Moria Page 12 Original command summary. a Aim and fire a wand @ B ~ Bash (object/creature) b Browse a book C Change name c ~ Close a door @ D ~ Disarm a trap/chest d Drop an item E Eat some food e Equipment list F Fill lamp with oil f Fire/Throw an item G Gain new magic spells i Inventory list L Locate with map @ j ~ Jam a door with spike M Map shown reduced size l ~ Look given direction @ R Rest for a period m Magic spell casting S Search Mode @ o ~ Open a door/chest @ T ~ Tunnel in a direction p Pray V View scoreboard q Quaff a potion = Set options r Read a scroll ? Command quick reference @ s Search for trap or door { Inscribe an object t Take off an item @ - ~ Move without pickup u Use a staff . ~ Run in direction v Version, credits and manual / Identify a character w Wear/Wield an item CTRL-K Quit the game x Exchange weapon @ CTRL-P Repeat the last message < Go up an up staircase CTRL-X Save character and quit > Go down a down staircase @ ~ for movement Rogue like command summary. c ~ Close a door C Character description d Drop an item @ D ~ Disarm a trap/chest e Equipment list E Eat some food @ f ~ Force/bash item/monster F Fill lamp with oil i Inventory list G Gain new magic spells m magic spell casting M Map shown reduced size @ o ~ Open a door/chest P Peruse a book p Pray Q Quit the game q Quaff a potion @ R Rest for a period r Read a scroll @ S ~ Spike a door @ s Search for trap or door T Take off an item t Throw an item V View scores v Version, and manual W Where: locate self w Wear/Wield an item X Exchange weapon x ~ Examine surroundings Z Zap a staff z Zap a wand # Search Mode = Set options < Go up an up staircase / Identify a character > Go down a down stair @ CTRL-P Previous message review { Inscribe an object @ - ~ Move without pickup ? Type this page @ CTRL ~ Tunnel in a direction CTRL-X Save game and exit @ SHFT ~ Run in direction @ ~ for movement The Dungeons of Moria Page 13 5.1. Special keys. Certain commands may be entered at any time input is accepted. The special character control-R, entered as a single key stroke, will always refresh the screen. This may be used at any prompt for input, and is otherwise ignored. If you are playing on a UNIX or similar system, then there are some additional special characters used by moria. The special character control-C will interrupt moria, and ask if you really want to die and quit the game. If you choose not to die, moria merely continues as before, except that resting, running, repeated commands, etc will be terminated. You can suspend the game with control-Z, and return to the original command shell. In this case, moria is not terminated, and may be restarted at any time from the shell. Alternatively, the special command `!' is available to run any normal shell command. When it is com- plete, moria will restart. For many input requests or queries, the special character ESCAPE will abort the command. For the "-more-" message prompts, any of SPACE, ESCAPE, RETURN (control-m), or LINEFEED (control-j) can be used to continue after pausing to read the displayed message. It is possible to give control character commands in two key stroke, by typing a `^' followed by the appropriate letter of the alphabet. This is useful when running moria in circumstances where control characters are intercepted by some external pro- cess, or by the operating system. 5.2. Direction. For the original style command set, a direction is given by a digit which is in the appropriate orientation on your keypad. For the rogue like command set, a direction is given by one of the letters `hykulnjb'. Again, the relative position of the keys on the keyboard gives a clue as to the direction. The digit `5' for the original commands, and the period `.' for rogue like com- mands, is a null direction indicator. This is only allowed in a movement command (to stay in one place) or in a look command (to look in all directions). Original Directions | / 7 8 9 - 4 6 - 1 2 3 / | The Dungeons of Moria Page 14 Rogue-like Directions | / y k u - h l - b j n / | Movement is accomplished by specifying a direction immediately. Simply press the appropriate key and you character will move one step in that direction. You can only move onto and through floor spots, and only if they contain no creatures or obstructing objects such as a closed door. Other commands that require a direction will prompt for it. Moving your character one step at a time can be time consuming and boring, so a faster method has been supplied. For the origi- nal style command set, by using the Run command `.', you may move in a direction until something interesting happens. For instance, by pressing the period key `.' followed by the direc- tion 8, your character would continue to move up the screen, only coming to a stop after at least one condition is satisfied. For the rogue like command set, typing a shifted directional letter will move you in that direction until something interesting hap- pens. The stopping conditions are described more completely in the run command description below. 5.3. Command counts. Some commands can be executed a fixed number of times by preced- ing them with a count. Counted commands will execute until the count expires, or until you type any character, or until some- thing significant happens, such as being attacked. Thus, a counted command doesn't work to attack another creature. While the command is being repeated, the number of times left to be repeated will flash by on the command line at the bottom of the screen. To give a count to a command in the rogue like mode, type the number in digits, then the command. A count of zero defaults to a count of 99. To give a count to a command in the original mode, type a `#', followed by the digits. To count a movement command (which is itself a digit), type a space after the number, and you will then be prompted for the command. Counted commands are very useful for searching or tunneling, as The Dungeons of Moria Page 15 they automatically terminate on success, or if you are attacked. You may also terminate a counted command, or a Run command, by typing any character. This character is ignored, but it is safest to use a SPACE or ESCAPE which are always ignored as com- mands. 5.4. Selection of objects. Many commands will also prompt for a particular object to be used. For example, the command to read a scroll will ask you which of the scrolls that you are carrying that you wish to read. In such cases, the selection is made by typing a letter of the alphabet. The prompt will indicate the possible letters, and will also allow you to type the key `*', which causes all of the available options to be described. The particular object may be selected by an upper case or a lower case letter. If lower case is used, the selection takes place immediately. If upper case is used, then the particular option is described, and you are given the option of confirming or retracting that choice. Upper case selection is thus safer, but requires an extra key stroke. 5.5. Command descriptions In the following command descriptions, the original style key is given. If the rogue like key for that command is different, then it will be shown inside the braces following the command name. B <Dir> - Bash. {f - force} The bash command includes breaking open doors and chests, or bashing an opponent. Your bashing ability increases with weight and strength. In addition, when bashing an opponent, you will either perform a body bash, or, if wielding a shield, perform a shield bash which is more effective. Bashing a door can throw you off balance, but this will not generally be a problem. Doors that have been jammed closed with spikes can only be opened by bashing. Locked doors may also be bashed open. Bashing a door open will permanently break it. Bashing a creature affects both you and the opponent. Depending on your dexterity, you may or may not be thrown off balance allowing free moves to your opponent. If the bash is successful, your opponent may be thrown off balance, thus giving you some free hits or a chance to run. Huge creatures such as ancient dragons will be difficult or impossible to bash successfully. A player automatically performs a shield bash instead of a body bash, if he is currently wearing a shield. A shield The Dungeons of Moria Page 16 bash adds the damage of a shield to that of the bash, so it is more effective. Size and material both affect the damage that a shield will do. You can apply a count to this command, but if you are thrown off balance, the count will be reset straight away. C - Print character (to screen or file). This command allows the player to either display his charac- ter on the terminal screen, or to print an entire character info listing to a file. The character's history, equipment, and inventory list are also included if you chose to print it to a file. D <Dir> - Disarm a trap. You can attempt to disarm floor traps, or trapped chests. If you fail to disarm a trap, there is a chance that you blunder and set it off. You can only disarm a trap on a chest after finding it with the search command. This com- mand can have a count. E - Eat some food. A character must eat occasionally to remain effective. As a character grows hungry, a message will appear at the bottom of the screen saying "Hungry". If a character remains hungry long enough, he will become weak and eventually start fainting. Eventually, you will die of starvation if you do not eat. F - Fill a lamp or lantern with oil. If your character is currently using a lamp for light, and if he has a flask of oil in inventory, he may refill the lamp by using this command. A lamp is capable of a maximum of 15000 turns of light, and each flask has 7500 turns of oil contained in it. G - Gain new spells. To actually learn new spells, you must use this command. When you are able to learn some spells, the word "Study" will appear on the status line at the bottom of the screen. Mages, rogues, and rangers must have the magic books con- taining new spells to be able to learn them. Priests and Paladins are given their prayers by their gods, and hence do not need a holy book before learning the spells in it. L - Location on map. {W - where} The location command allows you to look at all parts of the current dungeon level. The displayed view of the dungeon is shifted to bring your current position as close to the center as possible. You may then shift the displayed map in any of the eight possible directions. Each shift moves your view point by one half screen. The top line displays a map section number, each map section having a height and width one half that of the display, and indicates the direction of The Dungeons of Moria Page 17 the display from your current position. If you exit this command while you are not on the display, then the display is centered again. M - Map shown reduced size. This command will show the entire map, reduced by a factor of nine, on the screen. Since nine places map into every character on the screen, only the major dungeon features will be visible. This is especially useful for finding where the stairs are in relation to your current position. It is also useful for identifying unexplored areas. R - Rest for a number of turns. You may rest one turn with the null movement command. Rest- ing for longer periods of time is accomplished by using the Rest command, followed by the number of turns you want to rest your character. Resting will continue until the speci- fied duration has expired, or something to wake the charac- ter happens, such as a creature wandering by, or getting hungry, or some disability like blindness expiring. It is sometimes a good idea to rest a beat up character until he regains some of his hit points, but be sure to have plenty of food if you rest often. If you have accidentally entered in a rest period too large, or change your mind about the resting period, you may wake your character up by typing any character. Space is best, since if the rest ends just before the character is typed, the space is ignored as a command. It is also possible to rest by typing the count first, and using either the Rest or the null movement command. If you type `*' for the rest count, your character will rest until both hp and mana reach their maximum values. As above, you will immediately stop resting if anything interesting happens. S - Search mode toggle. {#} The Searching toggle will take you into and out of search mode. When first pressed, the message "Searching" will appear at the bottom of the screen. You are now taking two turns for each command, one for the command and one turn to search. This means that you are taking twice the time to move about the dungeon, and therefore twice the food. If a creature should happen by or attack you, search mode will automatically shut off. You may also turn off search mode by again pressing the `S' {or #} key. T <Dir> - Tunnel through rock. {control-<Dir>} Tunneling (Mining) is a very useful art. There are four kinds of rock present in the dungeons of moria: Permanent Rock, Granite Rock, Magma Intrusion, and Quartz Veins. Per- manent Rock is exactly that, permanent. Granite is very The Dungeons of Moria Page 18 hard, therefore hard to dig through, and contains no valu- able metals. Magma and Quartz veins are softer and some- times bear valuable metals and gems, shown as a `$' or a `*' character. You can tell if the metal or gems are embedded into the wall by trying to move onto them. If you can't move over them, you'll have to dig them out. There is an option which causes magma and quartz to be displayed dif- ferently than other rock types. Tunneling can be VERY difficult by hand, so when you dig be sure to wield either a shovel or a pick. Magical shovels and picks can be found which allow the wielder to dig much faster than normal, and a good strength also helps. Tunneling can have a count. V - View scoreboard. This command will display the contents of the score board on the screen. On a multiuser system, typing `V' again will show only those scores from the score board that are yours. a <Dir> - Aim a wand. {z - zap} Wands must be aimed in a direction to be used. Wands are magical devices and therefore use the Magical Devices abil- ity of the player. They will either affect the first object/creature encountered, or affect anything in a given direction, depending upon the wand. An obstruction such as door or wall will generally stop the effects of a wand from traveling further. b - Browse a book. {P - peruse} You can only read a book if you are of its realm. Therefore a magic user could read a magic book, but not a holy book. Warriors will not be able to read either kind of book. When the browse command is used, all of the spells or prayers contained therein are displayed, along with information such as their level, the amount of mana used up in casting them, and whether or not you know the spell or prayer. There are a total of 31 different magical spells in four books, and 31 different prayers in four books. c <Dir> - Close a door. Nonintelligent and certain other creatures will not be able to open a door. Therefore shutting doors can be a life saver. You must be adjacent to an open door, and you cannot close broken doors. Bashing a door open will break it. d - Drop an object from your inventory. You can drop an object onto the floor beneath you if that floor spot does not already contain an object. Doors and traps are considered objects in this sense. If you have several objects of the same kind, you will be prompted for dropping one or all of them. It is possible to directly drop things which you are wielding or wearing. The Dungeons of Moria Page 19 e - Display a list of equipment being used. Use the Equipment command to display a list of objects currently being used by your character. Each object has a specific place where it is placed, and that only one object of each type may be used at any one time, excepting rings of which two can be worn, one on each hand. f <Dir> - Fire/Throw an object/use a missile weapon. {t - throw} You may throw any object carried by your character. Depend- ing upon the weight of an object, it may travel across a room or drop down beside you. If you throw an object such as an arrow, only one will be used at a time. If you throw at a creature, your chance of hitting the creature is determined by your pluses to hit, your ability at throwing, and the object's pluses to hit. Once the creature is hit, the object may or may not do any actual damage to it. Certain objects in the dungeon can do great amounts of damage when thrown, but it's for you to figure out the obscure ones. Oil flasks are considered to be lit before thrown, therefore they will do fire damage to a creature if they hit it. To use a bow with arrows, simply wield the bow and throw the arrows. Extra pluses to damage and hitting are gained by wielding the proper weapon and throwing the corresponding ammo. A heavy crossbow with bolts for example, is a killer... i - Display a list of objects being carried. This command displays a list of all objects being carried, but not currently in use. You may carry up to 22 different kinds of objects, not including those in your equipment list. Depending upon your strength, you will be able carry many identical objects before hitting your weight limit. j <Dir> - Jam a door with an iron spike. {S - spike} Most humanoid and many intelligent creatures can simply open a closed door, and can eventually get through a locked door. Therefore you may spike a door in order to jam it. Each spike used on a door will increase its strength, although the more spikes you add, the less effect each additional spike has. It is very easy to jam a door so much as to make it impossible for your character to bash it down, so spike doors wisely. The bigger a creature is, the easier it can bash a door down. Therefore twenty or more spikes might be necessary to slow down a dragon, where one spike would slow down a kobold. This command can be counted. l <Dir> - Look in a direction. {x - examine} The Look command is useful in identifying the exact type of object or creature shown on the screen. Also, if a creature is on top of an object, the look command will describe both. You can see creatures and objects up to 200 feet away (20 The Dungeons of Moria Page 20 spaces). You may freely use the Look command without the creatures getting a move on you. Looking in a particular direction sees everything within a cone of vision which just overlaps the cones of the two adjacent directions. Looking with the null direction `5' (or `.') sees everything which there is to be seen. You are also able to access you monster memories with this command. If you see a creature, you are prompted to ask if you wish to see a short paragraph of information about your experiences with that creature. See also the section on being attacked. m - Cast a magic spell. To cast a spell, a character must have previously learned it, and must also have in the inventory a magical book from which the spell may be read. Each spell has a chance of failure which starts out fairly large but decreases as a character gains levels. If a character does not have enough mana, the chance of failure is greatly increased, and he gambles on losing a point of constitution. You will be prompted for confirmation before trying to cast a spell when you don't have enough mana. Since a character must read the spell from a book, he cannot be blind or confused when cast- ing a spell, and there must be some light present. o <Dir> - Open a door, chest, or lock. To open an object such as a door or chest you must use the Open command. If the object is locked, the Open command will attempt to pick the lock, based on your ability at disarming. If an object is trapped and you open it, the trap will be set off. This command can be counted, you may need several tries to get it open. p - Read a prayer. To pay effectively, a character must have learned the prayer, and must also have in the inventory a holy book from which the prayer may be read. Each prayer has a chance of being ignored which starts out fairly large but decreases as a character gains levels. If a character does not have enough mana, the chance of failure is greatly increased, and he gambles on losing a point of constitution. You will be prompted for confirmation before trying to pray when you don't have enough mana. Since a character must read the prayer from a book, he cannot be blind or confused when praying, and there must be some light present. q - Quaff a potion. To drink a potion use the Quaff command. A potion affects the player in some manner. The effects of the potion may be immediately noticed, or they may be subtle and unnoticed. r - Read a scroll. The Dungeons of Moria Page 21 To read a scroll use the Read command. A scroll spell has an area affect, except in a few cases such as identify scrolls which act on other objects. Two scrolls, the iden- tify scroll and the recharge scroll, have titles which can be read without setting them off, and by pressing ESCAPE can be saved for future use. s - Search general area one turn. The Search command can be used to locate hidden traps and secret doors about the player. More than a single turn of searching will be required in most cases. You should always search a chest before trying to open it because they are generally trapped. This command can be counted, which is useful if you are really sure of finding something eventu- ally. A counted search ends as soon as anything is found. t - Take off a piece of equipment. {T} Use the Take Off command to remove an object from use, and return it to your inventory. Occasionally you will run into a cursed item which cannot be removed. Cursed items are always bad, and can only be taken off after removing the curse. u - Use a staff. {Z - Zap} The Use command will activate a staff. Like scrolls, most staffs have an area affect. Because staffs are generally more powerful than most other items, they are also harder to use correctly. v - Display current version of game. The Version command displays the credits for the current version of moria. w - Wear or wield an item being carried. To wear or wield an object in your inventory, use the Wear/Wield command. If an object is already in use for the same function, it is automatically removed first. An object's bonuses cannot be gained until it is worn or wielded. x - Exchange primary and secondary weapons. {X} A secondary weapon is any weapon which may be needed often. Instead of searching through your inventory, you may use the exchange command to keep the weapon ready. For instance, if you wanted to use your bow most of the time, but needed a sword for close combat, you could wield your sword, use the exchange command to make it the secondary weapon, then wield your bow. If the sword was suddenly needed, simply use the exchange command to switch between the bow and the sword. / - Identify a character shown on screen. Use the identify command to find out what a character displayed on the screen stands for. For instance, by press- ing `/.', you can find out that the `.' stands for a floor The Dungeons of Moria Page 22 spot. When used with a creature, the identify command will tell you only what class of creature the symbol stands for, not the specific creature, therefore use the look command for this information. If you identify the character for a creature in your monster memory, you are also prompted to ask if you wish to see a paragraph of information on those creatures identified by the given character. Several creatures may be identified in this way. Typing ESCAPE after the paragraph for any creature will abort back to command level. See also the section on being attacked. ? - Display a list of commands. The ? command displays a quick reference help page on the screen. - - Move without pickup. This is followed by a move command, and causes you to move over any object without picking it up. You can associate a count with this command. = - Set options. This is a free move, to set various moria options. The available options are: (1) Cut known corners when running. This is on by default, and the only reason for switching it off would be if you had the search flag on and wished to look for doors in the extremity of every corner. (2) Examine potential corners when running. This is on by default, and allows you to run along an unknown curving cor- ridor. If, however, you are running from a creature, and wish to stop at an unknown corner to make a considered deci- sion, then you may wish to switch this option off. (3) Print self during a run. This is off by default, which gives faster screen updating. (4) Stop when map sector changes. This is off by default, but can be switched on if you wish to stop running whenever a new part of the dungeon appears in view. (5) Treat open doors as empty space while running. This is off by default, in which case you stop when ever you run up to an open door. (6) Prompt to pick up objects. This is off by default, in which case stepping over an object automatically causes you to pick it up. With the option on, you get prompted in all such cases with a description of the object to see if you really want to take it. The Dungeons of Moria Page 23 (7) Rogue like command set. This option controls the command set in use. It is off by default. (8) Show weights in inventory. This is off by default: switch- ing it on causes the inventory and equipment listings to include the weight of all objects. This may be useful to know if your pack is getting too heavy. (9) Highlight mineral seams. This is off by default. Switching it on causes quartz and magma to be displayed as `%' instead of `#'. This is handy when mining. Setting this option does not immediately highlight all minerals, but only those which are subsequently displayed. To display all minerals, just move the map around a bit with the `Where' (or `Locate') command. (10)Beep for invalid character. This is on by default. When on, the program will beep for most invalid characters, such as trying to choose a spell that you haven't learned yet. When off, there are no such beeps. (11)Display rest/repeat counts. This is on by default. When on, the program will progessively display the remaining turns left while resting, and for repeated commands. For those trying to play over a 2400 bps or less connection, or for those playing on very slow microcomputers, turning this off will make resting and repeated commands work much fas- ter. The setting of all these options persist in your savefile, even after you die. ^P - Previous message. The Control-P command will redisplay the last message printed on the message line at the top of your screen. A second such command will display all of the saved messages. You may also give this command a count to specify the number of previous messages to display. At present, only 22 mes- sages are saved. ^K - Quit the game without saving. {Q} To exit the game without saving your character (i.e. kill him/her) use the Control-K command. Once exited in this manner, your character is nonrecoverable. ^X - Save your character and exit the game. To save your game so that it can be restarted later, use the Control-X command. Save files will also be generated if the game crashes due to a system error. When you die, a reduced save file is produced containing only your monster memory, and your option settings. { - Inscribe an object. This command can be used to inscribe any short string on an The Dungeons of Moria Page 24 object. Inscriptions are limited to twelve characters. The inscription applies only to the particular object, it is not automatically transferred to all similar objects. Under certain circumstances, moria will itself inscribe objects: if they have been discovered to be cursed or enchanted, or if they have been sampled without being identified. In this last case, moria does in fact carefully inscribe every such item. ! - Shell out of game. Use the Shell command `!' to temporarily exit the game to execute UNIX or MSDOS commands. You may reenter the game by typing exit to end the spawned process. This is not imple- mented in the Macintosh version. < - Go up an up staircase. If you move onto an up staircase you may use the `<' command to go up one level. There is always one staircase going up on every level except for the town level (this does not mean it's easy to find). Going up a staircase will always take you to a new dungeon area except for the town level, which remains the same for the duration of your character. > - Go down a down staircase. If you are on top of a down staircase you may use the `>' command to go down one level. There are always two or three staircases going down on each level, except the town level which has only one. Going down will always take you to a new dungeon area. . <Dir> - Move in direction. {shift<Dir>} The Run command will move you in the indicated direction until either you have to make a choice as between two direc- tions, or something interesting happens. There are options which determine behaviour at corners, and at screen boun- daries. More precisely, the conditions which stop a run are as follows: (1) A creature appears on the screen, one already on the screen moves, or a creature attacks you or casts a spell at you. (2) You move next to an object, or a feature such as a door or trap. (3) You come to the end of open space, or the end of a passage, or a junction of passages, or a hole in a wall. (4) Corners are more complex. A corner allows a choice between adjacent rectangular and diagonal directions. If you can see walls which ensure that the diagonal gives a faster traversal, then action is determined by the "cut corners" options. If it is set, then you move diagonally through the corner. This gives you maximum speed (as is nice if you are fleeing a hidden creature). On the other hand, this option The Dungeons of Moria Page 25 should not be set if you want more careful coverage (as when you are searching) so that you take two moves through the corner. (5) At a potential corner, where walls are not yet visible ahead of the rectangular direction, the "examine corners" option is considered. If set, you will move straight into the corner, which will light up all the corner and so determine where you can go from there. This allows you to follow corners in new passages. If the option is not set, you stop. This allows highly cautious running where you want to stop at all potential choice points. (6) If you move off the screen while running, then a new section of the dungeon is display and the run continues. However, if the "stop when map changes" option is set, you will stop. Again, this is an option for nervous players, after all, there may be a dragon on the new screen. (7) Anything typed during a run causes the run to stop. The character causing this to occur is ignored. It is best to use a space, which is ignored as a command, just in case the run stops just before you type the character. (8) Various changes of state, such as recovery from fear or loss of heroism, will stop a run. 6. The Town Level The town level is where you will begin your adventure. The town consists of six buildings each with an entrance, some towns peo- ple, and a wall which surrounds the town. The first time you are in town it will be daytime, but you may return to find that dark- ness has fallen. (Note that some spells may act differently in the town level.) 6.1. Townspeople The town contains many different kinds of people. There are the street urchins, young children who will mob an adventurer for money, and seem to come out of the woodwork when excited. Blubbering Idiots are a constant annoyance, but not harmful. Public drunks wander about the town singing, and are of no threat to anyone. Sneaky rogues hang about watching for a likely victim to mug. And finally, what town would be complete without a swarm of half drunk warriors, who take offense or become annoyed just for the fun of it. Most of the towns people should be avoided by the largest possi- ble distance when you wander from store to store. Fights will break out though, so be prepared. Since your character grew up in this world of intrigue, no experience is awarded for killing on the town level. The Dungeons of Moria Page 26 6.2. Supplies Your character will begin his adventure with some supplies already on him. Use the Inventory `i' command to check what these supplies are. It will be necessary to buy other supplies before continuing into the dungeon, however, so be sure to enter each of the stores. 6.3. Town Buildings You may enter any of the stores, if they are open, and barter with the owner for items you can afford. When bartering, you enter prices you will pay (or accept) for some object. You can either enter the absolute amount, or precede a number with a plus or minus sign to give a positive or negative increment on your previous offer. If you have previously given an increment or decrement amount, you can just type RETURN, and the program will use the last increment amount that you typed. But be warned that the owners can easily be insulted, and may even throw you out for a while if you insult them too often. To enter a store, simply move onto the entrance represented by the numbers 1 through 6. If you consistently bargain well in a store, that is, you reach the final offer much more often than not, then the store owner will eventually recognize that you are a superb haggler, and will go directly to the final offer instead of haggling with you. Items which cost less than 10 gold pieces do not count, as hag- gling well with these items is usually either very easy or almost impossible. Also, the store owner will always haggle for items costing more than 1000 gold pieces, because of the amount of money involved. Once inside a store, the store inventory will appear on the screen along with a set of options for your character. You may browse the store's inventory if it takes more than one page to display, and you may sell to, or purchase items from, his inven- tory. You can execute your inventory and equipment commands to see what you are carrying. Not shown with the options are the wear, take off, and exchange commands which will also work, but were excluded to keep the options simple. Stores do not always have everything in stock. As the game progresses, they may get new items so check from time to time. Also, if you sell them an item, it may get sold to a customer while you are adventuring, so don't always expect to be able to get back everything you have sold. Store owners will not buy harmful or useless items. If an object is unidentified, they will pay you some base price for it. Once they have bought it they will immediately identify the object. If it is a good object, they will add it to their inventory. If it was a bad bargain, they simply throw the item away. In any case, you may receive some knowledge of the item if another is The Dungeons of Moria Page 27 encountered. The General Store The General Store sells foods, drinks, some clothing, torches, lamps, oil, shovels, picks, and spikes. All of these items, and some others, can be sold back to the Gen- eral store for money. The entrance to the General Store is a `1'. The Armory The Armory is where the town's armor is fashioned. All sorts of protective gear may be bought and sold here. The entrance to the Armory is a `2'. The Weaponsmith's Shop The Weaponsmith's Shop is where the town's weapons are fashioned. Hand and missile weapons may be purchased and sold here, along with arrows, bolts, and shots. The entrance to the Weaponsmith's is a `3'. The Temple The Temple deals in healing and restoration potions, as well as bless scrolls, word of recall scrolls, some approved pri- estly weapons, etc. The entrance to the Temple is a `4'. The Alchemy shop The Alchemy Shop deals in all manner of potions and scrolls. The entrance to the Alchemy Shop is a `5'. The Magic User's Shop The Magic User's Shop is the most expensive of all the stores. It deals in all sorts of rings, wands, amulets, and staves. The entrance to the Magic Shop is a `6'. 7. Within The Dungeon Once your character is adequately supplied with food, light, armor, and weapons, he is ready to enter the dungeon. Move on top of the `>' symbol and use the down `>' command. Your charac- ter enters a maze of interconnecting staircases and finally passes through a one-way door. He is now on the first level of the dungeon (50 feet), and must survive many horrible and chal- lenging encounters to find the treasure lying about. There are two sources for light once inside the dungeon. Per- manent light which has been magically placed within rooms, and a light source carried by the player. If neither is present, the character will be unable to map or see any attackers. Lack of light will also affect searching, picking locks, and disarming. A character must wield a torch or lamp in order to supply his own light. Once a torch or lamp has only 50 or less turns left before burning out, the message "Your light is growing faint" The Dungeons of Moria Page 28 will be displayed at random intervals. Once a torch is burnt out, it is useless and can be dropped. A lamp or lantern can be refilled with oil by using the Fill `F' command. You must of course be carrying extra oil to refill a lantern. 8. Attacking and Being Attacked Attacking is simple in moria. If you move into a creature, you attack him. You can attack from a distance by firing a missile, or by magical means such as aiming a wand. Creatures attack in the same way, if they move into you, they attack you. Some creatures can also cast spells from a distance, and others can breathe fire or worse on you from a distance. Creatures moving in walls can not be attacked by wands and other magic attacks normally stopped by walls. You can attack a creature in a wall normally though by trying to move into the wall space containing the creature. However, in order to attack an invisible creature in a wall, you must tunnel into the wall containing the creature. If you just try to move into the wall, you will bump your head and look quite silly. If you are wielding a weapon, the damage for the weapon is used when you hit a creature. Otherwise you get two fist strikes. Very strong creatures can do a lot of damage with their fists... You may have a primary weapon, and a secondary weapon which is kept on your belt or shoulder for immediate use. You can switch between your primary and secondary weapons with the exchange com- mand. Be sure to wield the proper weapon when fighting. Hitting a dragon over the head with a bow will simply make him mad, and get you killed. Missile weapons, such as bows, can be wielded, and then the proper missile, in this case an arrow, can be fired across the room into a target. Missiles can be used without the proper mis- sile weapon, but used together they have a greater range and do far more damage. Hits and misses are determined by ability to hit versus armor class. A hit is a strike that does some damage; a miss may in fact reach a target, but fails to do any damage. Higher armor classes make it harder to do damage, and so lead to more misses. 8.1. Monster Memories. There are hundreds of different creatures in the mines of moria, many of which look the same on the screen. The exact species of a creature can be discovered by looking at it. It is also very difficult to keep track of the capabilities of various creatures. Rather than forcing you to keep notes, moria automatically keeps track of your experiences with a particular creature. This is called the monster memory. You monster memory recalls the The Dungeons of Moria Page 29 particular attacks of each creature (whether or not technically a monster) which you have suffered, as well as recalling if you have observed them to multiply or move erratically, or drop treasure, or many other attributes. If you have killed enough of a particular creature, or suffered enough attacks, recalling the monster memory may also provide you with information not otherwise available, such as a armor class or hit dice. These are not explained, but may be useful to give the relative danger of each creature. This memory can be passed on to a new character even after you die, by means of a reduced save file. 8.2. Your Weapon Carrying a weapon in your backpack does you no good. You must wield a weapon before it can be used in a fight. A secondary weapon can be kept by wielding it and then using the exchange command. A secondary weapon is not in use, simply ready to be switched with the current weapon if needed. Weapons have two main characteristics, their ability to hit and their ability to do damage, expressed as `(+#,+#)'. A normal weapon would be `(+0,+0)'. Many weapons in moria have magical bonuses to hit and/or do damage. Some weapons are cursed, and have penalties that hurt the player. Cursed weapons cannot be unwielded until the curse is lifted. Moria assumes that your youth in the rough environment near the dungeons has taught you the relative merits of different weapons, and displays as part of their description the damage dice which define their capabilities. The ability to damage is added to the dice roll for that weapon. The dice used for a given weapon is displayed as `#d#'. The first number indicates how many dice to roll, and the second indicates how many sides they have. A "2d6" weapon will give damage from 2 to 12, plus any damage bonus. The weight of a weapon is also a consideration. Heavy weapons may hit harder, but they are also harder to use. Depending on your strength and the weight of the weapon, you may get several hits in one turn. Missile booster weapons, such as bows, have their characteristics added to those of the missile used, if the proper weapon/missile combination is used. Also, these weapons will multiply the base damage of the missile by a number from 2 to 4, depending on the strength of the weapon. This multiplier is displayed as `(*#)'. Although you receive any magical bonuses an unidentified weapon may possess when you wield it, those bonuses will not be added in to the displayed values of to-hit and to-dam on your character sheet. You must identify the weapon before the displayed values reflect the real values used. The Dungeons of Moria Page 30 Finally, some rare weapons have special abilities. These are called ego weapons, and are feared by great and meek. An ego sword must be wielded to receive benefit of its abilities. Special weapons are denoted by the following abbreviations: DF - Defender. A magical weapon that actually helps the wielder defend him- self, thus increasing his/her armor class, and protecting him/her against damage from fire, frost, acid, lightning, and falls. This weapon also will increase your stealth, let you see invisible creatures, protect you from paralyzation attacks, and help you regenerate hit points and mana faster. As a result of the regerenation ability, you will use up food faster than normal while wielding such a weapon. FB - Frost Brand. A magical weapon of ice that delivers a cold critical to heat based creatures. It will inflict one and a half times the normal damage when used against a heat based creature. FT - Flame Tongue. A magical weapon of flame that delivers a heat critical to cold based creatures. It will inflict one and a half times the normal damage when used against cold based or inflamm- able creatures. HA - Holy Avenger. A Holy Avenger is one of the most powerful of weapons. A Holy Avenger will increase your strength and your armor class. This weapon will do extra damage when used against evil and undead creatures, and will also give you the abil- ity to see invisible creatures. SD - Slay Dragon. A Slay Dragon weapon is a special purpose weapon whose sole intent is to destroy dragon-kind. Therefore, when used against a dragon, the amount of damage done is four times the normal amount. SE - Slay Evil. A Slay Evil weapon is a special purpose weapon whose sole intent is to destroy all forms of evil. When used against an evil creature, either alive or undead, the damage done twice the normal amount. SM - Slay Animal. A Slay Animal weapon is a special purpose weapon whose sole intent is to destroy all the dangerous animals in the world. An animal is any creature natural to the world. Therefore an orc would not be an animal, but a giant snake would be. This will inflict twice the normal amount of damage when used against an animal. The Dungeons of Moria Page 31 SU - Slay Undead. A Slay Undead weapon is a special purpose weapon whose sole intent is to destroy all forms of undead. This weapon is hated and feared by the intelligent undead, for a single blow from this weapon will inflict three times the normal amount of damage. This weapon also gives you the ability to see invisible creatures, which is especially useful against undead, since many of them are normally invisible. 8.3. Body and Shield Bashes Weight is the primary factor in being able to bash something, but strength plays a role too. After bashing, a character may be off balance for several rounds depending upon his dexterity. Doors can be broken down by bashing them. Once a door is bashed open, it is forever useless and cannot be closed. Chests too may be bashed open, but be warned that the careless smashing of a chest often ruins the contents. Bashing open a chest will not disarm any traps it may contain, but does allow the strong and ignorant to see what is inside. Finally, a creature may be bashed. If a shield is currently being worn, the bash is a shield bash and will do more damage. In either case, a bash may throw an opponent off balance for a number of rounds, allowing a player to get in a free hit or more. If the player is thrown off balance, his opponent may get free hits on him. This is a risky attack. 8.4. Your Armor Class Armor class is a number that describes the amount and the quality of armor being worn. Armor class will generally run from about 0 to 60, but could become negative or greater than 60 in rare cases. The larger your armor class, the more protective it is. A nega- tive armor class would actually help get you hit. Armor protects you in three manners. One, it makes you harder to be hit for damage. A hit for no damage is the same as a miss. Two, good armor will absorb some of the damage that your character would have taken. An armor class of 30 would absorb 15% of any damage meant for him. Three, acid damage is reduced by wearing body armor. It is obvious that a high armor class is a must for sur- viving the lower levels of moria. Each piece of armor has an armor class adjustment, and a magical bonus. Armor bought in town will have these values displayed with their description. Armor that is found within the dungeon must be identified before these values will be displayed. All armor always has the base armor class displayed, to which the The Dungeons of Moria Page 32 bonus is added. It is always possible to figure this out anyway, by watching the effect it has on your displayed armor class. Armor class values are always displayed between a set of brackets as `[#]' or `[#,+#]'. The first value is the armor class of the item. The second number is the magical bonus of the item which is only displayed if known, and will always have a sign preceding the value. There are a few cases where the form `[+#]' is used, meaning the object has no armor class, only a magical armor bonus if worn. Some pieces of armor will possess special abilities denoted by the following abbreviations: RA - Resist Acid. A character using such an object will take only one third normal damage from any acid thrown upon him. In addition, armor so enchanted will resist the acid's effects and not be damaged by it. RC - Resist Cold. A character using a resist cold object will take only one third damage from frost and cold. RF - Resist Fire. A character using a resist fire object will take only one third damage from heat and fire. RL - Resist Lightning. A character using a resist lightning object will take only one third damage from electrical attacks. R - Resistance. A character wearing armor with this ability will have resis- tance to Acid, Cold, Fire, and Lightning as explained in each part above. 8.5. Crowns Some crowns also have special magical abilities that improve your chances in a battle. Crown of Might This is the great crown of the warriors. The wearer will have an increased strength, dexterity, and constituion, and will also be immune to any foe's attempt to slow or paralyze him or her. Crown of the Magi This is the great crown of the wizards. The wearer will have an increased intelligence, and will also be given resistance against fire, frost, acid, and lightning. The Dungeons of Moria Page 33 Crown of Lordliness This is the great crown of the priests. The wearer will have an increased wisdom and charisma. Crown of Seeing This is the great crown of the rogues. The wearer will be able to see even invisible creatures, and will have an increased ability to locate traps and secret doors. Crown of Regeneration This crown will help you regenerate hit points and mana more quickly than normal, allowing you to fight longer before needing to rest. You will use of food faster than normal while wearing this crown because of the regenerative effects. Crown of Beauty This crown looks impressive, and will increase your charisma, but is otherwise not useful. 9. Objects Found In The Dungeon The mines are full of objects just waiting to be picked up and used. How did they get there? Well, the main source for useful items are all the foolish adventurers that proceeded into the dungeon before you. They get killed, and the helpful creatures scatter the various treasure throughout the dungeon. Most cursed items are placed there by the joyful evil sorcerers, who enjoy a good joke when it gets you killed. You pick up objects by moving on top of them. You can carry up to 22 different items in your backpack while wearing and wielding many others. Although you are limited to 22 different items, you may be carrying several items of each kind restricted only by the amount of weight your character can carry. Your weight limit is determined by your strength. Only one object may occupy a given floor location, which may or may not also contain one creature. Doors, traps, and staircases are considered objects for this pur- pose. If you try to carry more weight than your limit, you will move more slowly than normal until you drop the extra weight. If picking up an object would take you over your weight limit, then you will be asked whether you really want to pick it up. It is a good idea to leave the object alone if you are fleeing from a monster. Many objects found within the dungeon have special commands for their use. Wands must be Aimed, staves must be Used, scrolls must be Read, and potions must be Quaffed. In any case, you must first be able to carry an object before you can use it. Some objects, such as chests, are very complex. Chests contain other objects and may be trapped, and/or locked. Read the list of The Dungeons of Moria Page 34 player commands carefully for a further understanding of chests. One item in particular will be discussed here. The scroll of "Word of Recall" can be found within the dungeon, or bought at the temple in town. It acts in two manners, depending upon your current location. If read within the dungeon, it will teleport you back to town. If read in town, it will teleport you back down to the deepest level of the dungeon one which your character has previously been. This makes the scroll very useful for get- ting back to the deeper levels of moria. Once the scroll has been read it takes a while for the spell to act, so don't expect it to save you in a crisis. The game provides some automatic inscriptions to help you keep track of your possessions. Wands and staves which are known to be empty will be inscribed with "empty". Objects which have been tried at least once, but haven't been identified yet will be inscribed with "tried". Cursed objects are inscribed with "damned". Also, occasionally you will notice that something in your inventory or equipment list seems to be magical. High level characters are much more likely to notice this than beginning characters. When you do notice this, the item in question will be inscribed with "magik". And lastly, a final warning: not all objects are what they seem. Skeletons lying peacefully about the dungeon have been known to get up... 9.1. Cursed Objects Some objects, mainly armor and weapons, have had curses laid upon them. These horrible objects will look like any other normal item, but will detract from your character's stats or abilities if worn. They will also be impossible to remove until a remove curse is done. If you wear or wield a cursed item, you will immediately feel something wrong. The item will also be inscribed "damned". 9.2. Mining Much of the treasure within the dungeon can be found only by min- ing it out of the walls. Many rich strikes exist within each level, but must be found and mined. Quartz veins are the richest, yielding the most metals and gems, but magma veins will have some hordes hidden within. Mining is virtually impossible without a pick or shovel. Picks and shovels have an additional magical ability expressed as `(+#)'. The higher the number, the better the magical digging ability of the tool. A pick or shovel also has pluses to hit and damage, and can be used as a weapon. The Dungeons of Moria Page 35 When a vein of quartz or magma is located, the character should wield his pick or shovel and begin digging out a section. When that section is removed, he should locate another section of the vein, and begin the process again. Since granite rock is much harder to dig through, it is much faster to follow the vein exactly and dig around the granite. There is an option for highlighting magma and quartz. If the character has a scroll or staff of treasure location, he can immediately locate all strikes of treasure within a vein shown on the screen. This makes mining much easier and more pro- fitable. It is sometimes possible to get a character trapped within the dungeon by using various magical spells and items. So it is a very good idea to always carry some kind of digging tool, even when you are not planning on tunneling for treasure. 9.3. Staircases, Secret Doors, Passages, and Rooms Staircases are the manner in which you get deeper, or climb out of the dungeon. The symbols for the up and down staircases are the same as the commands to use them. A `<' represents an up staircase and a `>' represents a down staircase. You must move your character over the staircase before you can use them. Each level has at least one up staircase, and at least two down staircases. There are no exceptions to this rule. You may have trouble finding some well hidden secret doors, but the stairs are there. Many secret doors are used within the dungeon to confuse and demoralize adventurers foolish enough to enter. But with some luck, and lots of concentration, you can find these secret doors. Secret doors will sometimes hide rooms or corridors, or even entire sections of that level of the dungeon. Sometimes they simply hide small empty closets or even dead ends. Creatures in the dungeon will generally know and use these secret doors. If they leave one open, you will be able to go right through it. If they close it behind them you will have to search for the catch first. Once a secret door has been discovered by you, it is drawn as a known door and no more searching will be required to use it. 10. Winning The Game Once your character has progressed into killing dragons with but a mean glance and snap of his fingers, he may be ready to take on the Balrog. The Balrog will appear on most levels after level 49, so don't go down there until you are ready for him. The Dungeons of Moria Page 36 The Balrog cannot be killed in some of the easier methods used on normal creatures. Because of the Balrog's cunning, he will teleport away to another level if a spell such as destruction is used upon him, and the Balrog cannot be polymorphed, slept, charmed, or genocided. Magical spells like coldball are effec- tive against him as are weapons, but he is difficult to kill and if allowed to escape for a time can heal himself. If you should actually survive the attempt of killing the Balrog, you will receive the status of WINNER. Since you have defeated the toughest creature alive, your character is ready to retire and cannot be saved. When you quit the game, your character receives a surprise bonus score. 11. Upon Death and Dying If your character falls below 0 hit points, he has died and can- not be restored. A tombstone showing information about your character will be displayed. You are also permitted to get a record of your character, and all your equipment (identified) either on the screen or in a file. Your character will leave behind a reduced save file, which con- tains only the monster memory and your option choices. It may be restored, in which case the new character is generated exactly as if the file was not there, but the new player will find his mon- ster memory containing all the experience of past incarnations. 12. Wizards There are rumors of moria Wizards which, if asked nicely, can explain details of the moria game that seem complicated to beginners. MOUNTDOOM - Mount Doom is a volcano, dormant for many, many generations. Now it is showing signs of doing the big firework. This has caused some distress to the tribes of Troglodytes who live in the caverns in the Mountain. In an attempt to placate the angry mountain gods, they have kidnapped the fair Princess Elena, and are planning to sacrifice her. You, brave player, assume the role of one of her many would-be rescuers. Your mission is to go in, get her, and get her out again. Easy (heheheh). At the very end of this file (after the bit about the non-PD `naughty' version) I'll include some hints on how to do well in the game, but BE WARNED - The game will be a LOT more fun if you find these out for yourself by playing it. MT DOOM is entirely mouse driven, and options are simple. Click on the arrow which points in the direction you want to go. Alternatively, click on STATUS to see how you're doing, or SEARCH to see what you can find. In combat, you can ATTACK or PARRY (HIGH or LOW), try to FLEE, or if you have any, cast a SPELL (COMBAT or HEALING). If you find yourself in an apparent trap, with no exits, don't despair. There are lots of secret passages known only to the Trogs, and if you search long enough you'll find one. 1. As I've already said, If you find yourself stuck in a location with no exits, keep searching. Either you'll find a secret passage, or someone will hit you and drag you through one. 2. THE DEMON. Usually found in a room near the northern end of the caverns, though he has been known to wander. If you meet him, he'll eat you. You'll be stone dead. Unless...unless...you can give him a wierdly glowing gem. 3. ROOMS. You can find some nice stuff by searching in rooms. Unfortunately, you can die very easily there. If your game ends in one turn, it's probably because you blundered into a room and an enchantress hit you with a spell. If this happens, you can only hope her spell backfires. Or...If you have an anti-magic gem, her spell will be reflected back at her. There are lots of traps in rooms, some involving poison! Better have some healing spells handy. Looters also loiter in rooms - If you have gold they'll relieve you of it. If you haven't, they'll kill you end of story. In short, to hang about in a room, you better have an anti- magic gem, some cash, and some healing spells. 4. POISON. REALLY BAD NEWS, unless you have a healing spell. 5. THE DRAGON. You can find some wonderful stuff in his room, but if you wake him up, you are toast. Every time you enter his room you disturb him. Searching the room disturbs him. If you walk in and search once, you'll get away with it. After that, well...you might. 6. THE PRINCESS is chained up. You'll need a key to help her. 7. COMBAT: Each type of opponent has favorite fighting tactics. Know your enemy. He's be easier to defeat. 8. Casting a spell requires a lot of adrenaline, and can only be used in the heat of combat or when poisoned. You'll start the game with between zero and 4 spells. Trying to use a spell you haven't got is bad, and causes permanent weakness. The spells available to you are: a) HEALING (obvious) b) FIREBALL or THUNDERBOLT (Blows the enemy away, no messing) c) FEAR (causes the enemy to flee in blind terror) d) WEAKNESS (Reduces their strength to 1 %) e) ANTI-MATTER (Disintegrates all non-living material - weapons, armour, scrolls, gems, the lot!) Lizard Men are immune to magic. They NEVER parry. These two facts will cause you grief. 9. FLEEING involves no shame, and can be a durn good tactic at times. When you FLEE, you run in a randon direction. If there is an exit there, you escape. If not, you may get a thump in the back of the head for your trouble. When an enemy flees, if your dexterity is higher than his, you'll get a final smack at him. 10. YOUR SCORE Score calculation is a complex business, involving whether you survived, found the princess, rescued her, how much damage you did the enemy, how many you killed, how often you were hit (negative points) or suffered at the hands of the enchantress. If scores are important to you, check your status after anything happens, and you'll get the hand of it. 11. Finding a map will give you the map co-ordinates of your present position. This will be useful in conjunction with other information you will find. 12. That's all I can think of at the moment - you're on your own! NEW_STUBB_CITY - You are cast as Beorge Gush Drug Enforcement Agent. Your mission: to rid New Stubb City of the pestulant Crack Babies which are sucking up the flow of Social dollars and raising havoc for our inner city hospitals. In their pupal stage, crack babies appear as whitish packets of crystalized hell. They come in various sizes and temperaments. Be careful. Search for them everywhere, high and low, and around corners. If you see one, don't ask questions, blast the critter! If you get them all, you will be promoted to air patrol... but that's reserved for registered users only. To move around in Virtual Reality, you use the mouse and the on screen control panal. The left mouse button is normal mode. The right mouse button will double the rate at which you travel and turn. You may find it less frustrating to use the right mouse button exclusively while turning. This way you'll turn in even 30 degree increments. To shoot, simply press the left mouse button while the crosshairs are on the playing screen. To activate, pick up, or touch somthing use the right mouse button. You may walk or crawl. Look up or down. If you get disoriented, use the straight ahead key to right your vision. Your eye level is represented by a visible sight. It will let you know if you can pass under an object. The sight may be turned off if you like. POWERWARS - A galactic struggle between the mighty forces of two opposing factions called, for simplicity, good and evil. This is a two player game in which the actual game board influences the play. The Ranks ~~~~~~~~~ Force (attack) Shield Movement (squares) Value RepairShip 1 1 1 4 Fighter 2 1 2 1 Guard 1 2 2 2 EliteFighter 3 2 3 5 EliteGuard 2 3 3 3 PowerSource -with shield 4 3 1 6 -without 5 1 2 7 RepairShips are important yet weak pieces. When they move the square they move on to will change colour one step towards their side (see colour table below). The PowerSource is equivalent to the king in chess. When it is first defeated (usually by an EliteFighter or another PowerSource) it will lose its shield - in effect it has two lives. It then becomes move powerful and more agile, yet is very vulnerable. Getting Started ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ After loading PowerWars you must tell the computer who is going to be playing. A setup screen appears. Select, by clicking with the mouse either human or computer in both the player 1 and the player 2 columns. Don't hold the mouse button down for too long, or the computer will get angry (if you don't believe me try it and see!). The computer in column one plays a slightly different game to the one in column 2. You can also alter a value called 'Flash': click on the arrows above and below the number beside 'flash' to increase/decrease this value. This affects how many times the computer will flash the square it moves from and the square it moves to - to help you see which piece it moved! When you have made your choice, click on GO!. You will then be prompted for the names of the human players (if any). If you are player one the computer will not let you call yourself `Computer 1' (similarly you can't be `Computer 2' if you are player 2) because it would then think it was playing and not you! Names are also truncated to twelve characters. When this is completed the computer comes up with a requester that asks you if everything is correct. Click on either 'Yes' or 'No' (or press 'Y' or 'N'). If you click 'No' you can re-enter the players. Gameplay ~~~~~~~~ Pieces on the screen can be identified by moving over them with the mouse (If the border of the square is flashing, it is one of your pieces). If the piece isn't identified, move the mouse onto a blank square then back again. Text appears in the upper right hand corner of the screen informing you of the piece name and its statistics: force followed by shield followed by movement. If it is your piece, select it by pressing the left mouse button. It will then be highlighted by a thick blue rectangle (to deselect simply click on the highlighted square again). Then you can move the mouse and if the square beneath the mouse is in range of that piece it will have a flashing border. Click on the square you wish to move to, and if the move is legal the ship will move there - if not you will be informed and be able to rechoose. Moves are always up, down, left or right. To move diagonally requires two movement points, for example the RepairShip can only move one square up, down left or right, whereas an EliteFighter can move one, two or three squares up, down, left or right or diagonally by combining, say, left and down (or left, down and down or left, left and down or ...). This may sound very confusing but don't worry - you really don't need to know anything about it. When you have selected your piece, move the cursor to the square you want to move to. If the move is within the move range of that piece the square will have a flashing border. By experimentation you will find that each piece has a diamond shaped area of possible moves. For example, an EliteFighter (squares in range are marker by a `*', the ship itself is a `.'): EliteFighter: * RepairShip: * * * * * . * * * * * * * * * * . * * * * * * * * * * * * Combat ~~~~~~ To attack the opposition you move a piece of yours onto a piece of theirs. Attacks are worked out as follows (this is where the colour of the game board comes into play): Firstly, taking into consideration the following square colours: White +2 Good Yellow +1 Good Orange NEUTRAL Red +1 Evil Black +2 Evil Combat is emulated as follows: If the attacker is attacking a square of its colour, its force is adjusted accordingly, either +1 or +2. If it is a square of the defender's colour, the defender's shield is adjusted accordingly, either +1 or +2. The attacker's force is then unaltered. Then the attacker's force and the defender's shield are compared. If the attacker has a greater force, then he wins and moves onto the defender's square. But if the force is less than the shield, the defender wins, and HE MOVES TO THE ATTACKER'S SQUARE (this means you can sacrifice a ship at a powerful one on its own square, and it will move to your square). The square that the winner of the fight ends up on changes colour - one step towards his side. However, is the force and shield values are equal, then the attacker's force and the defender's force are compared. If the attacker has a greater force or a lesser force he either wins or loses, with square colour changes and piece movements as above. If they are equal then one of two things can happen: 50% of the time it will be a draw: both pieces are left where they were and nothing happens. The other 50% of the time both ships will be destroyed, and no square colour changes will take place. Piece Promotion ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ If a Fighter makes it to the opposite side of the screen, it gets promoted to an EliteFighter, much the same as pawns are promoted in Chess. If a Guard makes it to the other side of the screen, it is promoted to a RepairShip. Note however that the ship mut make it itself to the other side, and is not promoted if it is 'lured' to the other side, i.e if a ship attacks it, loses, and it then moves to a square on the opposite side of the screen from where it was originally, it is NOT promoted. Quit and Restart ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ If you want to quit at any stage, simply click the close gadget in the upper-left hand corner of the screen. You will not be asked if you are sure - so only do this if you really want to quit. To restart a game, assuming there is at least one human player playing, click on the 'Restart' gadget on the right hand side of the screen. If there are no human players this gadget will not be there - instead, you can hold down the space bar briefly. You will then be asked to confirm your intent to to restart. Click on 'Yes' or 'No' ( or press 'Y' or 'N'). The game will then go back to the start, and you will be able to rechoose players, etc. Setup ~~~~~ There is also another gadget present when one or more human players are playing (if not, you can briefly hold down the 'S' key). It is on the right hand side of the screen and is labelled 'SetUp'. Clicking on this (or pressing 'S') will bring up a requestor asking you if you are sure that you want to go to setup. Click 'Yes' (or press 'Y') if you want to. The gadgets disappear and are replaced by five coloured boxes and an 'Exit' gadget. Click on the coloured boxes to select the colour of the square. The current colour is indicated by a tan rectangle around one of the coloured boxes. In the upper-right hand corner of the screen there are two lines of text, and to the left of these, two arrows. The text indicates what ship is currently selected, and for which player. Clicking on the arrows will cycle through the list of possibilities. Notice that 'Hyperspace' and 'Blank square' are also included - for placing of hyperspace squares and erasing squares. There are also two of each player's PowerSources - one with shield, one without. When you have selected your desired colour and piece, click anywhere on the game board. That square will then change to the current colour, and will contain the current piece. When you are through, click on the 'Exit' gadget. Providing each side has one (and only one) PowerSource, the game will continue where it left off. Strategy ~~~~~~~~ It is a good idea to move your RepairShips about to try and get a buffer of squares of your own colour. It will then be easier for you to win on those squares, and harder for you to be beaten. Try to knock out the other player's RepairShips if you can, as this will severely cripple him. EliteFighters can be used for an assault on the PowerSource, but they need to attack it on a square of their own colour - on a neutral square or on the opposing side's square the EliteFighter will be pulverized. Some other pieces have to attack the PowerSource on the +2 square for their side. So what if the other player is smart and leaves his PowerSource on a square of his own colour (like you should do)? This is where a sacrifice could help you win the game. Send a Fighter or a Guard up against the PowerSource, and when they lose the PowerSource is moved to the square that they attacked from. You can use this to force the opposition to move onto a square of your own colour. But remember, it will have to be a +2 square of your own colour to start with, because when the sacrificial battle is over the square changes colour one step towards the opposition. Later on in a game try to move a Fighter across to the other side of the board to get it promoted to an EliteFighter. EliteFighters are a formidable opponent and they have excellent range. Try also to get a Repairship by moving a Guard across. RepairShips are extremely valuable, and if you have a RepairShip working on the opponents side of the board you can ensure battles are more favourable for you. RepairShips are also needed to give you a +2 square to lure the enemy PowerSource onto, usually by sacrificing a piece. And last, but not least, have lots of FUN. REFLEX_TEST - This is a very simple game, which tests your skills with adding, subtracting or multiplying two numbers. Once you have loaded up this game you will be presented with a menu which asks which area of mathematics you wish to be tested on. Once you have selected this you will be presented with 40 blank rectangles and a flashing RETURN sign. Here we press RETURN to start. Once you have started, you must try to answer as many questions correctly within the shortest possible time frame. You are timed from when the first question pops up and the timing stops when you have answered the last question. In the category addition you are required to answer 40 questions. The questions start off easy and get harder. All the answers to all the questions contain 2 digits. In the category multiplication you are also required to answer 40 questions. This category will test about 80 to 85 percent of your times tables. All the answers to all the questions contain 2 digits. In the category subtraction you are again required to answer 40 questions. Like addition, the questions start of easy and get harder. All the answers to all the questions contain 2 digits. Once you have finished answering all your questions in whatever category you have selected, they will be marked. The questions you answered correctly will be stamped with a "CORRECT" and the ones you answered incorrectly will be left alone. This way you can see what questions you answered incorrectly. You will then be given a final mark based on how quickly you answered all the questions and how many questions you answered correctly. This final mark is a percentage which ranges from zero up to one-hundred. Hints and Tips -------------- Here are a few hints and tips for all players. 1) For parents with children who lack basic mathematical skills such as knowing there times tables, or simply adding two numbers together in their head can use this game as a skill builder. You, the parent can say to your child, "If you achieve a mark of 70 percent or more in Multiplication, I will give you ten dollars". This would be a big incentive to a child of around 11 years of age, and if they have the determination to win the ten dollars off you, you would probably see them at the computer trying to beat 70 percent, and in the process learning essential mathematical skills. 2) For those of you trying to score some huge score, here are a few tips on how to do this, 1) Attempt to answer more questions correctly, rather than achieving a better time. 2) Use the numeric keypad rather than the other set of numbers, and pratice playing this game WITHOUT looking at the keyboard. 3) Get someone else to read out the questions for you, while you concentrate on entering the answers. 3) This game, when played for a few hours can really build up your proficiency in located various keys on the keyboard without looking for them. STAR_TREK - Aim Of The Game: a whimpish on would. The Menu Points: Mainscreen 1 The bridge (in top view or from the command chair) In the middle are four beams. The top one shows the Impulspeed, the second one the warpspeed, the third one the energy level and the forth indicates damages to the exterior. Engineering: only be activated when warp 1 is switched on. In the middle there mare displays for the shield configuration and the damages to the ship. Communications: all at time available messages will be shown, which then can be sent with <send it>. Weapons/Defense: sides of the ship there exists one shield. Activated shields save the ship from damage during an attack. Quit/Save: you return into the game. Helmsman: eft in the Helmsman widow are the speedregulators for the impulsjets and in the middle the main steering which you will require during entrance into orbit (edge of planet) or return to the dock. Turbolift: Here you can reach different sections of the ship from the bridge (See Main Screen). Bridge: Switch over onto on look. There you have the same function like from the command chair. Navigator: ets where you have to obtaining something green, position of other ships blue and enemy forces red. Attention: Flying with warpseed (faster that light) is only useful if an aim is given. Pause: The game waits until <pause> is pressed again. Damage and repair: ting of the shields. Science and computer: Here Mr Spock has got the say. He gives different information about the relevant planets, ships attacker and anything unpredictable that might happen. With <suggest> you can sometimes also find out what might be the best to do. Status: Here are sometimes the most important data of the ship like speed, course, shields and damages indicated. Mainscreen 2 - Ships Overall View The series of small gadgets on the right give information about different decks. Bridge: Back to Mainscreen 1 Officers Lounge: he crew. One ought to keep a look on it, since a few captains got fired by their crew. Transporter: You get in the transporter room. From here you can easily move odjects or persons. The transporter requires energy for this. If there is not enough energy you will have to take a shuttle instead. you can beam. (If you encounter another ship you can, even if your own transporter is broken, use the on on the other ship, ready therefor is green.) The more intense the green is the higher the actual energy level is. Medical: From "Pill" you can find out on the right the state of the crew and your own at the moment. If the crew is very decimated, it might become a problem to lead the ship. Dr Mc Coy also gives a few good tips on th right side. Engineering: See Mainscreen 1 Cargo Bay: To find out what is loaded in the enterprise you can enter the hold. There you can have a look at the load via pointer. Landing Bay: ises. If you have a crash the shuttle requires repair. In the hanger you have to choose a new shuttle. Credits: Here you can determine the amount and the frequency of the orders and events. With <sound on/off> you can switch off the background noises. With <reset> set the game onto the start values (click twice). Hanger: Four shuttles are at your disposal which are either in repair (red) or ready to go (green). In each shuttle you can set the acceleration and the gravitation adjustment. The further on the right the controllers are the more sensitive the shuttle reacts. Single Phases-Tips: -During entrance into orbit you have to try to set your sight on the gates of the entrance, since the dock doesn't move. The flight will be stopped if the deviation is to big. -If the transporters are broken and all the shuttles in repair you have no alternative but to wait, or to get to the next dock where the transporter will be repaired quicker. -In the dock all repairs run at full speed. Also the energy will be bought up slowly to the highest level. But it takes time, if big damages are present. -During an enemy attack you should always try first to bluff the opponent. This saves energy, damages and increases the moral of the crew. -The more experience you have gathered the more difficult orders you will receive from Starfleet. Let yourself be surprised............ Mama allways told me not to look into the sun but mama, that's where the fun is...... STRIPDOTS - Strip Dots is a variation of the traditional game known as "Dots" (also known as "Boxes"). The objective of "Dots" is to take turns connecting two dots that are horizontal or vertical from each other, in an effort to create small boxes. The player who manages to collect the most boxes wins (players usually mark their boxes with an initial or something similar). The problem with the game was that you either needed graph paper, or you had to draw a board full of evenly spaced dots. Well, I wanted to do away with the pencil and paper altogether, so I decided to try creating a computer assisted version of the game. Not only did it keep track of whose turn it was, but it kept score and marked the boxes for you. You just needed to point and click! At some point later in history, my girlfriend and I were playing dots when I got the crazy idea of putting special tokens in random boxes. If you were to capture a token, you had to take off a piece of clothing. Thus, Strip Dots was born! I took the idea to the drawing board, and started typing away (my girlfriend didn't appreciate the declivity of my attention to her at first, but things later fixed themselves once the program became playable). The only drawback I've found so far is that towards the end of the game players seem to lose clothing rather quickly. However, this probably isn't a real drawback. ;) +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ |SD| INSTRUCTIONS |SD| +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ After double-clicking on the Strip Dots icon, the game will acknowledge a successful load with a chime (this is a four-channel sound test). NOTICE: If this does not happen, make sure your audio is connected or that you've met the minimum requirements of RAM. A friendly screen will begin typing out important information regarding Strip Dots and donations, and will go away momentarily. The title screen and music will follow. +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ |SD| TITLE SCREEN |SD| +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ Once you're at the title screen, you may quit by clicking in the "QUIT SD" box located in the lower-left corner, or you may begin play by clicking anywhere else. If you wait, information and instructions concerning play will begin to scroll in the upper-left corner. If you wish to read through the instructions quickly, or need to search for specific information, just hold down any of the shift keys (including [CTRL], [L.ALT], [R.ALT], [L.AMIGA] and [R.AMIGA]). The scroller will move quickly without pausing, and will pause for several seconds once you let go of the key. IMPORTANT: Pressing [L.AMIGA]-[A] will swap the game screen and the Workbench screen anytime during the game. Similarly, holding down the [CTRL], [L.ALT] and [DEL] keys will "reset" the game at ANY TIME to this screen (if you are an IBM PC or compatible user, this is easy to understand). +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ |SD| CONFIGURATION SCREEN |SD| +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ Once you've clicked the left mouse button at the title screen, a moment later you'll get the Configuration Screen. It is here where you may set up specifics about players. Game/Play Settings ------------------ 1. <PLAYERS> Select the number of players. There may be two, three or four players. 2. <LEVEL> For the Wheel of Misfortune round (discussed later), you may select the level of interaction. "Tame" sets a silly game, "Norm" sets a more tantalizing game, and "Lewd" can be all-out, well, lewd. 3. <PLAY> There are three versions of dots you can play. "Strip Dots" will allow players to choose clothing and play in the Wheel of Misfortune round, and basically plays the intended version of this game. "Plain Dots" will set up a blank board for playing a traditional game of Dots. The computer keeps track of score for you. "Quick Dots" is similar to the "Plain Dots" version, but adds random lines and bunkers to shorten game time. NOTE: SELECT THIS OPTION LAST. As soon as you click here, it will begin the game you've selected. 4. <SPIN> Selecting this allows you to go directly to the Wheel of Misfortune and it will spin for all players rather than the normal "winner to loser" selection set in "Strip Dots". 5. <EXIT> Click on this button to return to the Title Screen. Player Settings --------------- 1. <GENDER> Pick male or female for each player. The first symbol (a circle with an arrow pointed up and to the right) represents Male. The second symbol (a circle with a cross attached below) represents Female. Traditionally, the male symbol means Mars, and the female symbol means Venus. If you have a hard time remembering, just think of a warrior carrying a sword for Mars (attributed to men), and a hand mirror for Venus (attributed to women). 2. <PREFER.> Use this option to set player's sexual preference (or simply the preference for this game). To set a player to "Heterosexual", you'll need to set the symbol opposite of the player's gender. To set preference to "Homosexual", select the matching symbol. And, lastly, to set a player to "Bisexual", set both symbols. This option only affects the Wheel of Misfortune round. 3. <1234> These four switches allow you to shut off interaction between certain players. For instance, if Player 1 doesn't like Player 3, and vice versa, turn off Player 1's "3" switch, and Player 3's "1" switch. This option only affects the Wheel of Misfortune round. 4. <NAME> Click in this box, then type in the player's name, followed by [RETURN]. You may enter a name up 10 letters (numbers, punctuation, and spaces included) long. 5. <CLOCK> The clock symbol attached to the right side of the name box represents a 60-second timer that will force a play if the player takes too long to complete their turn. This switch is on by default. 6. <COMPUTER> Below the timer switch is a microchip switch. If this is switched on, that player will be played by the computer, and the matching EOM file will be loaded if it's available. +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ |SD| THE CLOTHING STORE |SD| +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ If you're playing "Strip Dots", this screen will follow the Configuration Screen. Otherwise, you won't see it. Now, you may pick the articles of clothing you're wearing. There are 25 different pieces of clothing, but they cover just about all kinds of clothes. If you can't see what you're wearing here, just pick something similar. For instance, if you have on a two-piece bikini, chose "BRA" and "UNDERWEAR" since there is no swim-suit available. Similarly, if you're wearing boxer shorts, consider them "SHORTS" or "UNDERWEAR". A few things to note: 1. You may pick up to a maximum of 20 items. Also, you may only pick up to four of any one item. 2. If you make a mistake, pressing the right mouse button will deselect an article of clothing. "CLEAR" will erase all your selections and start over. 3. When you're finished, select "DONE". 4. It doesn't matter what order you pick your clothing in because the game will tell you what you needs to come off in an appropriate order. The clothing listed on this screen is arranged in it's "removal order". "OTHER" always goes first, with "TOWEL" being the last. +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ |SD| STRIP DOTS |SD| +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ REMEMBER: The object of the game is to capture AS MANY SQUARES AS POSSIBLE without giving any to your opponents. You will benefit by this and by carefully watching where your opponent(s) place their lines. The mouse pointer's color, and the name that Annie is standing next to, indicates whose turn it is. On occasion, Annie will announce which player goes next. Player statistics are located on the right side of the game board. Here is what can be found there: 1. Player's name and associated color. 2. Tiny yellow stick figures that represent how many articles of clothing that player has remaining. It does not identify articles of clothing. 3. Two rows of ten white squares keep track of how many squares a player has captured. This resets after twenty. Once a player has captured twenty squares, he/she will gain an IMMUNITY (see below). 4. Although you cannot see any at first, below the Square Counter IMMUNITY TOKENS are kept track of. These are represented by the international symbol for "NO" (a red circle with a red slash). A player can collect up to five of these, and one is collected by capturing twenty squares. An IMMUNITY prevents you from losing an article of clothing when an opponent captures an SD TOKEN. These are automatically used when you have them. Connecting Dots --------------- In order to connect two dots, point to the area between them. If a flashing line appears, it is a legal play. Click once with the LEFT mouse button, and the line will turn color and the pointer will disappear. You may now decide if that is where you want to go. If it is, press the LEFT mouse button again to keep it. If you decide to go elsewhere, click the RIGHT mouse button to cancel your selection. REMEMBER: The object is to create squares for yourself and not set up potential squares for your opponent(s). With practice, you'll learn what kinds of areas to avoid connecting dots. If you do capture a square, GO AGAIN. The Timer --------- If the player's timer switch was on, the player has 60 seconds to play his/her turn. After 30 seconds, a timer will show up under their name. Once 5 seconds are left, the clock will flash and tick annoyingly. If a player runs out of time, the computer randomly picks connecting dots. This can be very hazardous for that player and all but the next player! The timer resets for the next player. I recommend leaving the timer on for multiple player games as it will add an extra edge for all players. NOTE: The timer is disabled for PLAIN and QUICK dot games. Captured Boxes -------------- When you've created a square, it will be captured and filled in with the player's color. THE PLAYER THEN TAKES ANOTHER TURN. This makes it possible to capture many squares (as you will see happen later in the game). NOTE: In some instances, it is possible to capture two squares in one play. Capturing SD TOKENs ------------------- If a player captures a square and there is an "SD" marker in it, ALL other players must remove an article of clothing (or lose an IMMUNITY if they have any). The game will notify who has to remove which article of clothing. Look under the player's name box to see what goes. Once everyone has removed their appropriate clothes, click the mouse button to resume play. NOTE: As mentioned above, it is possible to capture two squares in one play. Therefore, it's also possible to capture two SD TOKENs! End of Round ------------ The round will end when any player(s) lose all clothing. The game will let you know who's standing around naked. Press the LEFT mouse button to continue on to the Wheel of Misfortune round. For documentation sake, any players who ends up naked is considered a "loser", and any player who has clothing remaining is considered a "winner". Pausing the Game ---------------- In rare instances, you may need to pause the game. By pressing [P] on the keyboard, the screen will be blanked and the timer halted. You may resume play by pressing [P] a second time. +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ |SD| WHEEL OF MISFORTUNE |SD| +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ In the Wheel of Misfortune round, each "winner" must perform a randomly generated TASK on each "loser". The TASK is generated from a list of numbers, measurements, verbs and body parts. In most cases, the TASK is obvious or sensible. Other times, it may require some imagination or improvising to perform a TASK. Since there are no set definitions for the words used, the game leaves it up to the players to decide what the words mean. Use of imagination, creativity and improvisation will almost always lead to a good time! The first spin is automatically initiated. Player Turns ------------ Each "winner" is required to perform at least one task on each "loser". On the top of the screen is the turn indicator. The current "winner" is on the left side, and the current "loser" is on the right. This changes each time you spin the Wheel. Eventually, after all players have used their turn, the indicator will start over. If the Wheel of Misfortune is being played directly from the Configuration Screen, all players will get a turn. Spinning the Wheel ------------------ To spin the wheel, click in the "SPIN" box on the bottom of the screen. You may spin the Wheel as often as you wish or as needed. The Clock --------- For some TASKs, a timer might be needed. For this reason, a clock has been installed. To start/reset the clock, click in the "CLOCK" box located at the bottom of the screen. Quitting the Wheel of Misfortune -------------------------------- By clicking in the "QUIT" box at the bottom of the screen, the game will exit back to the Title screen or Configuration screen, depending on if you've played Strip Dots first or skipped to the Wheel of Misfortune initially. +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ |SD| OTHER INFO |SD| +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ Keyboard Equivalents -------------------- If you find it difficult to use the mouse while playing against multiple players, there are keyboard equivalents. These key combinations will work similar to using the mouse: Playr Mouse UP Mouse DOWN Mouse LEFT Mouse RIGHT LEFT Click RIGHT Click ===== ========== ========== ========== =========== ========== =========== 1. [W] [X] [A] [D] [TAB] [SPACEBAR] or [E] [Z] [Q] [C] 2. [O] [.] [K] [;] [9] [-] 3. [^] arrow [v] arrow [<] arrow [>] arrow [DEL] [HELP] 4. keypad [8] keypad [2] keypad [4] keypad [6] keypad [0] [ENTER] or keypad [7] keypad [3] keypad [1] keypad [9] Playing the Computer -------------------- Strip Dots is capable of automated play, and, in the tradition of adult- oriented software, it can display sequential pictures of your "opponent" when playing a TWO-PLAYER HUMAN VS. COMPUTER game. However, these pictures are not built in and can only be loaded from an EOM (External Opponent Module) file. These modules do not necessarily come with Strip Dots, but can be easily obtained by downloading them from various telecommunication services (i.e., GEnie) when they are made available. In order to use an EOM, the EOM file must be in same directory as Strip Dots when it is started. Also, the EOM file must have its original name (which means you shouldn't change 'Kristy.EOM' to 'Karen.EOM' because you might like the name more). Then, once you're at the Configuration Screen, type in the name and switch the computer on (press in the microchip swtich). If you do not have an EOM file around, you may still play the computer by turning on the computer switch. This feature can be used with any number of players (even all of them). Please keep in mind that the computer plays quickly and intelligently. It catches mistakes very quickly. However, the system has been designed NOT to be completely fool-proof and will make a mistake on occasion to prevent the no-win-scenario syndrome. It is up to you to use a careful eye to find them. SUPERLEAGUE - The game is controlled entirely with the mouse - just point and click on the option you wish to choose. Initially, you will be given three options: START NEW GAME - self explanatory, I hope. LOAD OLD GAME - again, self explanatory, but make sure you have saved an old game to reload first! ABOUT - Information about the author. To start off with, select "START NEW GAME". You will then be given a choice of 12 teams to manage. If you don't want to manage any of those 12, click on the "MORE CHOICE" gadget at the bottom of the screen to access a further 2 screens of 12 teams each. When you have picked your team to manage, you will be asked to select the skill level - Easy, Normal or Hard. Start with 'Easy' for your first game to get a feel for how the game should be played. After selecting the skill level, you will see the main menu. This has the following options: 1. LIST PLAYERS/PICK TEAM This screen will list your squad, showing the following information for each player: POSITION: Goalkeeper, Defender, Midfield or Forward. NAME: AGE: SKILL: this varies from 1 (sunday league) to 9 (International) ENERGY: this reflects the player's fitness & has a maximum of 20 STATUS: P = playing, A = available, INJ = injured. The players will be listed with the currently selected first team in white followed by the rest of the squad, in yellow. Any injured players will be listed last, and their details will be "ghosted" to indicate that they cannot be selected for the team at the present time. Clicking on the name of a player who is "available" will put him in the team, and clicking on the name of a player in the team will drop him from the team. When you have selected the best possible team, click on the "EXIT" gadget in the bottom-right corner. The "EXIT" gadget will not be available if there are more than 11 players currently selected or there is more than one goalkeeper selected! 2. SHOW LEAGUE TABLE This displays the current league table for the division you are in. Click in the box at the foot of the screen to return to the main menu. 3. TRANSFER This will take you to a second option screen where you can select "BUY", "SELL" or "SIGN APPRENTICE" (or return to the main menu.) BUY: You will be shown a list of the players that are available to buy during the current week, showing their age, skill, and the asking price. If you are interested in any of them, click on their name and you will progress to the "offer" screen. The screen will display the player's details, along with how much cash you have to spend, and your current offer for the player. The other club will probably be prepared to sell the player for less than they are asking, but how low will they go? The offer will start at the asking price, and you may decide to stick with that figure, or try to get the player for less! Adjust your offer by clicking on the white +/- gadgets underneath. When you are happy with the offer shown, click on the "MAKE BID" gadget to put your offer to the other club. They will then either accept or reject your offer depending on whether it is enough! If your offer is rejected, you may get another chance to put in a higher offer.... SELL: You will first be shown a list of your players, similar to that shown in the "LIST PLAYERS/PICK TEAM" option, but this screen will show the clubs valuation of each player. Just click on the name of the player you wish to sell The next screen will display the details for your selected player, along with an offer from another club. The offer may match your asking price, but it will probably be lower! It is up to you whether you want to sell at the price offered. Click on the appropriate gadget to accept or decline the offer. SIGN APPRENTICE: If you wish, you may sign a 16 year old apprentice to add to your squad. An apprentice will only have a skill level of '1' to start off with, but under your expert guidance he will probably be an international by the time he reaches 25! Signing an apprentice will cost you nothing, although you will have to pay his wages of course! You may only sign a limited number of apprentices per season. Dealing in the transfer market takes up a managers time, and you will only be able to consider a limited number of transfer deals between each match. Due to F.A restrictions, you will be allowed a maximum of 23 players in the squad at any one time, which means that the "BUY" and "APPRENTICE" options will be unavailable if you already have 23 players. (Okay, okay, so it's really due to the maximum number of players I could display on screen at once!!) 4. FIXTURES This screen displays the fixtures for your team for the entire season. Matches already played will be shown as "ghosted" so you will be able to see easily who your next match is against. 5.FINANCES This screen displays your current bank balance, outstanding bank loan, current loan interest payments and current wage bill. By clicking on the "ADJUST LOAN" box at the bottom you can pay a visit to the "loan arranger". (If he's busy you'll have to make do with Tonto!) From this screen, you can increase or decrease your outstanding loan from the bank in units of £10,000 or £1,000. The bank will set a maximum loan, and will decline to lend you any more money once you have reached this. Loan repayments consist of interest only. The interest payments are 1% per week. (Okay, so the bank manager's a Sicilian!) 6. COMMERCIAL OPTIONS The first two of these (build new stand and build sports hall) involve a large initial outlay in expectation of increased revenue in the future. Both options are viable long term propositions if you don't have more immediate needs for the cash.... The individual screens provide more info on costs and likely benefits - take a look, you won't be committing yourself! More important initially is the "NEGOTIATE SPONSORSHIP" option. This really is money for nothing and you should do it straight away! Various companies will offer either a lump sum or a weekly amount in exchange for your team wearing their company logo on their shirts. You will be given the choice to accept the offer currently on the table, or to wait for a better one. As with transfers, you will only have time to consider a limited number of proposals between each match. A sponsorship deal lasts for just ONE season so remember to negotiate a new one at the start of every campaign. 7. PLAY MATCH This screen will display the relative strengths of your team and your opponents. You have a last chance to change the team (re-displays the "LIST PLAYERS/PICK TEAM" screen), otherwise, click on the gadget to play the game... You will then be shown the result of the game. Click on the "Continue" box to see the other results, and again to see the cashflow for the week. CASHFLOW For home games, you will get gate money. This is your main source of income. How much gate money you get, depends on your results - if you are doing well you will get lots of fans coming to see you play, but if you are losing, you will see your crowd diminish rapidly! Money may also come in from sponsors or hire of a sports hall. At the end of each season, you will get a share of the league's revenue from TV coverage. Your outgoings are player wages and interest on your loan. The more players you have, and the better they are, the more they will cost you! 8. SAVE/LOAD GAME This will show you a second option screen, giving the choice of "save" or "load". Either option will present you with a screen asking you to select one of four "save positions" - just click on the appropriate gadget and the program will load/save the required file. There are 4 files called "save1", "save2", "save3" and "save4" provided - these need to be in the current directory for the load/save options to work. 9. QUITTING THE GAME In the unlikely event of you actually wanting to stop playing 'Superleague Manager' in order to eat/sleep/go to work etc, selecting the "Quit" option will return you to workbench. Make sure you have saved the game first if you want to continue from the same point later. PLAYING THE GAME The league structure of "Superleague Manager" has three divisions of 12 teams, a "Premier Division", "Division 1" and "Division 2". You (of course) start your career in Division 2, in charge of one of the poorer sides in the division. You start off with a limited amount of cash to spend on new players - you will need it! (In fact you may well need more - perhaps the bank can help?) Initially, you will need to make use of the transfer market rather extensively, buying reasonable players and selling the "donkeys", in order to get results. As the season progresses, you will have to watch the players' energy ratings. These will drop when the player plays a game, and increase when he is "rested". If a player's energy drops to zero, he is injured and will miss the next few games. As stated earlier, don't forget to get a sponsor. The objective of the game is of course to get promotion to the Premier Division, and to then win the championship. The league works on a "one-up, one-down" basis - you get no prizes for finishing second. PLAYERS By a strange coincidence, all players have their birthdays in the close-season! This means that they will all be one year older at the start of the next season. Younger players will increase in ability as they get older. Players in their mid/late twenties will have reached their peak, and once players turn thirty, they will start to decline. If a player drops below skill level one due to his age, he will decide to retire! These rules do NOT apply to players who are not in your squad. At each "new" season, the skill levels of all players who are available to buy are randomly "shuffled". Skill levels of these players are consistent with your divisional status. These players will also get older, but once they turn 30 they will be "reincarnated"! Players who retire from your squad are also "reincarnated" and return to the "pool" with a new age and skill. RESULTS Results will reflect the relative strengths of the teams, with a small random element. It is important to keep a balanced side - you will need a good keeper and defence to avoid conceding goals, a good forward line to score goals yourselves and a good midfield to ensure that your forwards work harder than your defence! TEMPORAL_MISPLACEMENT - The Global Science Corporation (GSC) was established in 2011 to centralise the scientific development and resources of all member nations. By the year 2020 the GSC was responsible for, amongst many other things, curing several terminal diseases, developing "environmentally-friendly" vehicles, and vastly improving global communications. They had also embarked on an ambitious project involving time travel..... In 2035, a unique meteorite fell to earth in northern Alaska. Scientists at the GSC were able to extract a previously unknown element from it and discovered that this new crystalline element generated immense energy when oscillated at a certain frequency, but was far too unstable in its original form to be of any use. After months of testing and development, the scientists found a combination of other substances which, when added to the new element, formed a crystal that was both stable and exhibited the same energy-generating characteristics of the original element. This development came just in time, as the world energy crisis had just worsened with the last known supply of natural petroleum resources being exhausted. With the banning of all nuclear and hydro power generation due to environmental restrictions, there only remained limited electrical supply from solar and wind power plants. The crystal could indefinitely supply enough energy for all planetary needs from a single location. All that was needed was a suitable power complex and a global linkage of power networks. It seemed that the energy crisis was over.... DATE: September 18, 2037 AD LOCATION: Global Science Corporation Complex, New South Wales, AUSTRALIA. An accident in one of the GSC Time-Labs has been of great consequence in an adjoining laboratory. An energy field from a temporal acceleration unit extended into the next room and generated an uncontrolled time distortion. Unfortunately the unique energy crystal was caught up in this temporal rift and with a flash of light, it vanished into the past. You have been given the task of travelling back in time to retrieve the crystal. However, you are informed that due to the unstable time rift, it is probable that the crystal has been damaged in some way and it will be up to your ingenuity to repair it. A positive Time-Lock on your location will only be established once you activate the crystal, accomplished by inducing some sort of electrical current within its crystalline structure. Using several temporal probes, the scientists are able to triangulate the approximate time-frame and resting place of the crystal. One of the temporal acceleration units is brought on-line and you step into its energy field. You feel a slight tingling sensation and immediately find yourself somewhere very unfamiliar.... DATE: November 7, 1994 AD LOCATION: Unidentified Car Park ------------------------------------------------- Intructions- Input Method: Two Word Input - VERB NOUN (eg USE BOOK) One Word Input - Some actions require only one command Example: LOOK, INVENTORY etc. Special Commands - SAVE : Save current game to disk - LOAD : Load a saved game - QUIT : Exit game - PICS : Turn pictures on/off - SFX : Turn sound effects on/off - RESTART : Reset game to beginning Command List - Short-Cuts in Brackets (NK = Numeric Keypad) LOOK (L) (F1) TALK INVENTORY (I) (F2) LOAD (F6) EXAMINE (EX) SAVE (F7) PICS (F3) EAT SFX (F4) READ QUIT (Q) (F5) LIGHT GO BURN GET USE DROP PUSH THROW GIVE OPEN RESTART (F8) NORTH (N) (NK 8) SOUTH (S) (NK 2) EAST (E) (NK 6) WEST (W) (NK 4) UP (U) (NK +) DOWN (D) (NK -) NORTHEAST (NE) (NK 9) NORTHWEST (NW) (NK 7) SOUTHEAST (SE) (NK 3) SOUTHWEST (SW) (NK 1) Notes : * You can only carry a certain weight. You might have to drop an object in order to pick another up. * If there are several objects at a location, you can use GET ALL to add them to your inventory (as long as they don't exceed your weight limit). Similarly, DROP ALL empties your inventory. * Read location descriptions carefully - note any objects pointed out to you and EXAMINE them (eg ....and there is a door to the east.) * Every object you come across is not necessarily of any use. * Talk to people - a few will give you hints. * Make a map! There are over 100 locations, some of which are very similar and you could easily get lost. * Using the Numeric Keypad to get around (sorry A600 owners!) is a lot easier than typing the direction commands. * You can recall the last entered command using the UP-ARROW. * You can erase a line using the DOWN-ARROW THE_SHEPHERD - the Shepherd; the Story. It was a zillion years ago that the gods got bored. They were floating around in the big black void they called home with nothing to do and not even a snack-bar around. At that moment the gods did what entities do as they get bored; they started to play games. First a god created an enormous firecracker and lighted the thing. This of course was great fun. At the explosion a lot of balls of mud were created and the gods soon figured out a lot of great things to do with these spheres. They played snooker, tennis, golf, cricket and bowling. After a while they were so good at predicting the course of the mud- balls that they had to come up with some sort of new game and that is what they did. One of the gods took one of the mud-balls and created some extremely simple, extremely unintelligent and extremely ugly artificial lifeforms on it. This mud- ball was the arena of the new game. In this game (the gods simply called it 'the Shepherd') two gods had to compete. Each of them would try to make his artificial lifeforms (the gods called them animals) in larger quantities than the other. The player that could destroy all the animals of the enemy was declared winner. Of course knowledge on behaviour of the life-forms was the key element to the game. The gods were really having a great time when one of the artificial life-forms (this is where you come in) wanted to compete. It was a member of the group of lifeforms that was the 3rd most intelligent on the mud-ball. Some gods called them apes V2.0 but others called them humans. Of course most of the gods wouldn't play against a human but some thought he ought to have a chance. It was decided that the human-player should play against the best 'the Shepherd'-players. If the human should beat them all (this was considered highly un- likely) the gods would promise him not only to save the mud-ball, the human lived on, from being used in a game of space-snooker after they finished playing 'the Shepherd', (This was their original plan with the mud-ball) but they would also tell the human the meaning of life, the universe and everything. Every time the human would beat a god, a small piece of knowledge would be revealed to the human. Now, human, it is time to start the challenge. Most of the rules of 'the Shepherd' are described here but tactics and strategies are for you to learn yourself. - the Shepherd; the rules. The Shepherd will run on an Amiga with at least 512k chip and a total memory of 1 Megabyte. Unfortunately the game doesn't work on a 4000 (yet). The idea of the game is to buy animals and to move them over the map so that they multiply as fast as possible. The player controls the red animals (red animals wear a red band around the neck or tail) and the Amiga controls the blue ones. Animals are grouped in flocks and an individual animal will always stay in the neighborhood of the flock-center. The flock-center is indicated by a golden pricker with a statue of the specific kind of animal on top of it. A player cannot control the individual animals but only the flock-prickers. When a pricker is moved the animals be- longing to that specific flock will start to move in the direction of the pricker until they are once again close enough. When left alone the animals will search for food and water. Well fed animals will produce young. Of course there is only a limited supply of food. The trees and bushes on the map grow and produce more bushes but as the animals get more numerous the vegetation usually gets scarce. The idea is to keep the computers' flock away from the best forests. Players can also start new forests by buying trees and placing them at the right height. (firs high, birches low) Buying animals and trees as well as unchaining natural phenomena like lightning and vulcanoes costs energy. A player gets energy for every animal he owns but of course an elephant makes more energy than a young deer. When the player gets more energy, more options will come available for him. - the Shepherd; the buttons. There are 3 ways to move the map: - By using the buttons with the arrows. - By moving the small square over the small map. - By pressing the right mouse button and moving the mouse. Buttons: O This button moves a flock. O + Press this button and move the pointer to a flock on + -> | the map.(a picture of the flock-pricker will appear | between the 8 direction arrows) Press the left mouse button. (The picture will become stable) Scroll to the desired location and press the left mouse button again. O This button splits a flock. O + O Press this button. Click on the flock-pricker and two + -> | + prickers will come into being, both containing half the | | number of animals. This will be usefull when a flock became to large for a certain food source. O This button merges two flocks. + O O Click on the first flock-pricker and then on the second. | + -> + The two flocks will become one. This only works with | | flocks of the same species. ## Purchase animal. # Animals and plants can be bought using this button. -> #### Animals can only be placed near the large golden statue # # of the Shepherd. (the computer also has such a begin- point).Plants can be placed everywhere but it is wise to place them at the right height. (In the first level the large golden shepherd statue is positioned in the middle of the field) There are many other buttons (like start rain, raise water, lower water, raise land locally, lower land locally, release virus, start lightning, scare animals(NI), earthquake, vulcano, erode mountains, carnivorous plants) but you will discover them as you play the game. -the Shepherd; level goals. Note that there are different goals in different levels. The goal for a specific level is mentioned as you start the level. There may or may not be a time limit. When the goal is to fill your manna-meter (cumulative) the manna-meter no longer reflects the amount of animals you have at that moment but the amount of animals you have ever had multiplied by the time you have had them. (Having had 1 elephant for 2 minutes is just as good as having had 2 elephants for 1 minute). -the Shepherd; Passwords. Every time you complete a level you will get a level-password. (something like 'kldoa') This password enables you to start at that level the next time you play the game. A password only works for a specific shepherd-name. The default name is 'nobody'. If you want to use another name (like 'oliebol') you'd better change the name before you begin level 1. There is no way to change the name when you are on level 2 or higher without having to start all over. On the other hand, there is nothing wrong with playing with 'nobody' as a name. -the Shepherd; Manna-meters. At any stage in a game the computer has a certain amount of manna (representing its bio-mass) and the player has a certain amount of manna. These amounts are displayed in the manna-meters of the computer and the player. These manna-meters are displayed to the left of the turn-map buttons. For the computer the manna shows up blue and for the player red/orange. The manna-meters look like a bunch of tubes with 2 sections. A section to the left spiralling upwards and a small section to the right. The left section is a fine scale and the right section is the part you will usually be looking at. This may sound very complicated and unfortunately it is. It may help however to take a look at the manna-meter while buying animals. The 2 manna-meters (computer and player) will be replaced by one manna-meter on levels where there is a time limit. Just click on the manna-meter to toggle between computer/player manna-meter. -the Shepherd; Getting started. Some people may find it useful to follow this example to get the general idea of the game and to get used to the important buttons. It may be a good idea to print this section out on paper for use while playing. (You could also memorize it) Make sure you read the explanation with the 4 buttons described above. They are very important and will be used frequently. Here we go: Start the game by pressing the icon with the Shepherd. Enjoy the 2 intro screens. When signs appear press a button to go to the selection screen. (the 'h' key will do quite nicely) You can use the 'F3' key to change the name of the shepherd. Start the game by pressing 'F1'. This will take about 20 secs. You will now see a part of the game-world in the center of the screen and a small map of the total game-world in the upper left part of the screen. Now move the small square in the upper left window to the red dot on the map. Click the left mouse button when pointing on the upper left window to move the small square. When the small square in the upper left window covers the red dot you will see a red statue of a shepherd on the large view on the center of the screen. This shepherd-statue is your begin point. Newly bought animals can only be placed near this statue. Newly bought trees can be placed all over the map. Now we are going to buy an animal. Press the 6th button from the left (the buy animal button, under the small bird). A row of animals and trees will be displayed. Choose the animal you want to buy. (Sheep would be a good idea (3rd from the left)) The next thing you have to do is to place the sheep on the map. (large map) You have to place the sheep close to the Shepherd- statue. If you try to place them too far away, nothing will happen but if everything goes well a small golden pricker with a golden sheep on top of it will appear. The 2 real sheep you just bought will stay close to their gol- den flock-pricker. Your sheep will need food so it's a good idea to move the flock- pricker to a place where there is food. Somewhat to the right of the large shepherd-statue there is a group of bushes. Use the left most button to move the sheep flock-pricker to the bushes. When you have done that, your sheep will follow their flock-pricker. They will eat from the bushes and when spring comes they will probably produce young. This might take a few miutes but you can use the >> button to speed-up time and skip a minute or so forward in the game. (This might take a second or two) THEGALLOWS - The Gallows is a Hangman type game with 3,150 words available in a file named GallowWords. Objective of the game is to fill in the blanks and guess the word. Operation of the game itself is mostly self-explanatory. Guess letters by either using the mouse and the letters across the bottom of the screen or by using the keyboard. The character graphic is hung after the seventh miss. The letter gadgets at the bottom of the screen also function as the list of available letters. If a letter is showing, it is available. New words may be added to or substituted for the ones included by listing one word per line using practically any ASCII text editor and saving the list under the name "GallowWords". The word list can have no more than 9,450 words, and each word can have no more than 20 characters. Put the word list in the same directory as the program: Gallows. THRALLBOUND - "Thrallbound" is an interactive short-story, written by Torgeir Dingsøyr, Tor-Martin Tveit and Christian Fiott for Pantheon Softworks. All input in Thrallbound should be in lowercase. This game is easy ! If you are a novice adventurer, you will probably not spend more than a couple of hours to complete it. If you are a skilled adventurer, you should be able to complete it within half an hour. Since this game is so easy, you can not save the game postition to continue later. About the parser. The parser for this game is extremely simple. The parser will, none the less, understand quite a lot of synonyms. You can for instance type 'WALK NORTH', 'GO NORTH', 'MIGRATE TO THE NORTH' or simply 'N'. The parser will not understand complex sentences like 'TAKE THE HAT AND THE SHOE' (If you type in that sentence, you would only get the hat). You can only take one step at a time. Nor can you type several sentences separated by 'THEN' or a period. When the program understands the first part of a sentence, the rest is ignored. For example, you can type 'GET THE HAT, THEN SHOVE IT UP THE TREE', and you would only take the hat. If you type 'EXAMINE THE SHOE', you can later (before examining or taking anything else) type 'TAKE IT', and you will get the shoe. The menu. The game is really not fit for using menus, but we added the menu to satisfy the hardcore intuition mouse-addicted players. You can use shortcuts for most of the functions available in the menu. Some useful words from the game's vocabulary: north (or n) south (or s) west (or w) east (or e) up (or u) take drop go give eat drink swim look examine (or l) sacrifice praise kill open close unlock lock listen colour - changes the background and text colours. exits - displays the possible exits from the current location. inventory - shows you the things you are carrying. shortcuts - gives you a list of the shortcuts available. vocabulary - displays some useful words from the game's vocabulary. Like in all other adventure games, it might be wise to make a map of the locations. You will have a time limit to complete the game within. Some hard facts: In this game, there are over 30 locations, 30 pictures, which are sized 304*100 pixels in 16 colours. The parser understands at least 370 verbs. The game is written in assembly code, using DevPac 2, and the pure code for this game takes more than 60kB. This game, however takes only about 280kB of disk space. Although it is not in our intention to cause any damage whatsoever, Pantheon Softworks will not be held responsible for any damages which might be caused by the malfunctioning of this program. TREASUREISLAND - So you think you're clever, do you? Then have a look at this. Treasure Island is a `traditional' text adventure game, which requires a little more thought than your average Amiga game nowadays. It's only small, but that doesn't mean that it's easy. No doubt seasoned adventurers will soar through it, but how will you fare? PLAYING THE GAME For those of you who don't know, basically a text adventure is an interactive storybook. The computer describes the current stage of the story and you decide what happens next by typing in commands in plain English. Only fairly simple actions can be carried out, although you'll find that Treasure Island is quite good at working out what you want to do. For example, all of the following commands will be understood: GO NORTH (can be abbreviated to just `N') GO NORTH, WEST THEN SOUTH TAKE THE DRIFTWOOD DROP EVERYTHING EXCEPT THE DRIFTWOOD REMOVE THE RUCKSACK AND REMOVE THE STRING FROM IT Here are some commands that you will find useful: N, E, W, S, NE, NW, SE, SW, IN, OUT, UP, DOWN - direction commands LOOK - describes your surroundings INVENTORY or just I - lists what you're carrying and wearing GET [OBJECT] - picks up an object DROP [OBJECT] - drops an object WEAR [OBJECT] - puts on an object EXAMINE [OBJECT] - examines an object DEFINE [OBJECT] - gives a dictionary definition of an object QUIT - leaves the game SAVE - saves your position to disk LOAD - loads back a previously saved position from disk Movement can also be achieved by clicking on the appropriate areas of the graphical compass with the left mouse button. Obviously, other commands are available to you, but you'll have to experiment to find them. If the computer doesn't understand your command, it will reply, `I don't understand' (no surprises there). Just try a different combination of words. BACKGROUND There you were, minding your own business, enjoying a luxury cruise in the Bahamas, when tradgedy struck! Someone had forgotten not to detonate a bomb somewhere in the deepest depths of the ship, and before anyone could say "Amiga-Computing-It's-The-One-For-Me", there was a hole in the hull the size of a large doughnut and the ship was sinking. "Everyone out," someone cried. "Women and children first." There was the splash of bodies landing in the sea. "No, hang on. Lifeboats first. Oh well." But the ship was still sinking. You managed to make your way to a lifeboat and rowed away from the huge liner just as it disappeared beneath the deep blue ocean, never to be seen again. For sixty-five days and nights you rowed, living off splinters of wood and sea water. The lifeboat provided little in the way of life-saving equipment - just an old rucksack, but you put it on anyway. Then the sharks came and ate your boat. You swam for your life but went under and blacked out. After that everything went a bit swimmy... ...And then you awoke. Not in the digestive system of a huge fish, but, against all probability, on the shores of an island. And that's where your adventure began... HINTS In order to complete the game, you have to use your brain. Read the location descriptions carefully. They may give clues. Always EXAMINE and DEFINE every object you meet. That always gives clues. Bear in mind that the author has a slightly deranged mind. TYPE_OR_DIE - You are "LetterMan" in a strangely familiar maze, surrounded by luscious shapes...of letters. And you can eat them all simply by typing them correctly. Meet your friends, the Wanderin' Fruit Band, but beware of the Eraser Ghosts and nasty Rex Scorpico. You better type fast...or perish! You've most likely seen games similar to Type Or Die -- I took a basic maze game format, but replaced the joystick action with the keyboard. Now you must type to move, yet watch the screen to survive. Basically, you must eat all the charcters scattered in the maze while avoiding those nasty Eraser Ghosts. You eat a letter by moving over it, and move by typing the correct character next to your hungry LetterMan. If you've ever tried to learn touch typing, but couldn't stop watching the keyboard, this game will force you to learn. To run Type Or Die, simply double-click on the TypeOrDie icon. After a short delay a charming fairy appears, and the game begins -- in prectice mode, indicated by the white border around the maze. In this mode there is no scoring and you can change various aspects of the game through menus. Press the right mouse button to see the menus at the top of the screen. Two of the menus, 'Speed' and 'Maze', work only in practice mode. 'Speed' controls the velocity of the ghosts, while 'Maze' lets you select one of the four play areas. The 'Practice' menu has a variety of options controlling the kind of characters you find in the maze. On top of the list, 'Base Row' builds a maze using only the eight base row characters, ASDFJKL; the first keys you learn in touch-typing. The remaining options can be used together -- selecting an item toggles it either on or off. For example, if you select both 'Upper Case' and 'Space', the resulting maze contains both upper case letters and space characters (indicated with an underline in the maze). A Full Spread covers numbers, spaces, returns, punctuation, and the entire alphabet, both upper and lower case. Selecting 'Play Game!' puts you in the game mode, recognizable by the yellow border. Now you must eat all the letters in order to get onto a new, even more challenging level. Every key press counts, and you only have three lives. As you progress, the ghosts pick up speed, the characters in the maze become increasingly more complex, and the maze itself changes. You begin the game typing only the base row letters, all in uppercase, but eventually you face the Full Spread of characters. This may sound difficult, but playing in game mode has its rewards. Listen for a soft and regular bouncy sound -- the signal for a Wanderin' Fruit, which you can eat for extra points. Also, watch out for Rex Scorpio. He appears once early on in each level, and again if you take too much time. (You'll soon learn what mean things he does.) None of these critters appear in practice mode. Finally, to abandon a game in progress, select one of the Practice menu items. Hints & Tips Pressing the ESCape key freezes the game. To play again, press any key. You can use this pause feature for mild cheating. But there is a better method to enable the cheat mode. In all-uppercase letters, type the title of the National Epic of Finland. Now you can use the keypad (keys 2, 4, 6, and 8) to move around the maze at incredible speeds. Press the BACKSPACE key to disable this dishonourable mode. Some characters within the maze are a bit unusual. Spaces are portrayed with underscore (_) characters, but require the SPACEBAR. Originally they were plain empty blocks, but this caused problems since you couldn't tell whether you had eaten a particular space or not. Similarly, the logical choice for RETURNs were the paragraph markers (¶). To clear the play area your pointer disappears after five seconds of disuse -- it reappears as soon as you touch the mouse again. Type Or Die multi-tasks without problems, but it uses both sound channels and hardware sprites -- running other sprite or sound applications might result in an unwanted disaster. WARGAME - Wargame is a multiplayer game. You may have up to 5 human or computer opponents. You can even create a demonstration game by setting 6 computer opponents against each other. If you wish, you can choose a player name for each player (probably only for the human players). Pressing the return key without typing anything will select the default name. Each turn represents a year. The game starts in 1901. To eliminate a player from the game capture all their territory. The last remaining player is the winner. Generally you will use the mouse to play the game, but in some cases you will need to type something, in which case you can edit your input with the backspace key and follow up by pressing the return key. MAP Wargame is played on a map loosely based on Europe, divided by a square grid. Every second row of squares is shifted one square to the left, so that each square has 6 squares adjacent to it, like a hexagonal grid. Each square is called an area. Different types of terrain are represented by different colours. These are: TYPE PROD COLOUR DEFENCE Desert 1 Yellow X1 Mountain 2 Brown X3 Forest 3 Dark green X3 Arable 4 Light green X2 City 5 Grey X3 Sea Impassable by land units UNITS There are 3 classes of units, each including 3 types of units. They are LAND Infantry Calvary Artillery AIR Fighter Bomber Airdefence SEA Navy Submarine Merchants Land units are represented on the map. Several different types may be in the same square. There is no limit to the number of units in a square. All units in a square are involved in combat in that square. There are no units at the start of the game, though each player begins with one controlled territory. The names of the different types of units will change as their TECH level increases. SYMBOLS Symbols give some indication as to which is the most numerous land unit in a square. This is basically a limited intelligence game, and you will not get any really useful information until you attack a unit. A cross represents infantry A slash represents calvary A dot represents artillery A blank square means there is no dominant type. TECHNOLOGY Each turn, each player increases their tech level by 1 point in any field they wish. This makes it possible to develop any type of army that you want. A tech level cannot exceed 6. A units combat strength is multiplied by its tech level. Note that tech levels begin at zero, hence you cannot use a unit in combat till it has a tech level of at least one. INCOME Each turn a player recieves production points based on the amount of territory and type of owned. Any merchant ships you own will add 1 production point each unless you are blockaded by an opponent's navy. The merchant ship bonus cannot exceed your territorial income. Merchant ships are not effected by bombing. Merchant ship TECH level does not effect their income. A bombing attack may have reduced your income, but by not more than half. PRODUCTION Costs to build are 1 point for each type of unit. Only the land units, infantry, calvary and artillery are represented on the map. Other units are represented abstractly offmap. You may buy as many types and numbers of units as you can afford. You may save money till a later turn, though you will generally wish to spend all your money. You do not need to build units of the type you added the TECH point to. SUBMARINE If you have any submarines, you may elect to attack an opponent's merchant fleet. Combat is attrition. These merchants have escorts! The combat strength of the merchant fleet is TECH level X merchants. If the merchant fleet TECH level is 0, then no submarines will be sunk. A merchant fleet can be attacked by any number of submarine fleets in a turn. NAVY If you have a surface fleet you may attack an opponent's surface fleet. Combat is attrition. The largest fleet may blockade another player and prevent them from using any merchant ships for that turn. A naval fleet cannot directly destroy merchant ships. FIGHTERS If you have any fighters you may attack an opponent's fighters. Any of your surviving aircraft can be used in air ground support. Fighters can be used in any number of attacks, but only against the same player. Each fighter has a strength of 5! Fighters can be attacked by any number of players in a turn. BOMBERS If you have any bombers you may bomb an opponent. After attrition with their air defences you may reduce their production by up to half. A player can be bombed by any number of players in a turn. REINFORCEMENTS To choose an arrival point for your reinforcements, click on a friendly square. Your forces will be displayed. By clicking on different squares you can see where your forces are. By clicking on a square twice you will confirm that square as your arrival point. Spaces unoccuppied at the start of a game will contain a neutral army which cannot move or attack, equal to the value of the terrain. These areas cannot be occuppied until the neutral force has been eliminated. MOVEMENT In each turn, a human player chooses where to attack by first clicking on the area to attack from and then clicking on an adjacent area. You may keep attacking as long as you are sucessful. To end your turn click on any sea area. A requester will then appear asking whether you wish to end your turn or not. An unsucessful attack will end your turn. Clicking on a non-adjacent square will display information on the type of terrain in that square. Clicking on a non-sea square more than 1 square away will display some details about that type of terrain. Clicking again will continue the game. If you have captured a territory, forces roughly equal to the value of the terrain of where you attacked from are left behind. It is possible to control a square without having any units in it at all. You may exchange friendly forces by attacking a friendly square that is adjacent. You may do this any number of times during a turn. You may not move into the sea. COMBAT Combat strength is decided as follows: attacking infantry X 2 defending infantry X 2 attacking calvary X 3 defending calvary X 1 attacking artillery X 1 defending artillery X 3 Plus the number of attacking supporting aircraft. All the above values are multiplied by their respective tech levels. If you have two types of land units involved your combat strength is doubled, while if you have three types involved your combat strength is tripled. The defender is tripled if defending in city, mountain or forest and doubled in arable. Combat is random, but effected by combat strengths. Losses are split evenly by type. Generally you do not know the composition of opponent forces in an area until you attack them. TIPS There is some chance in the combat, but as the setup is randomly determined, some setups are much worse than others, especially with many computer opponents. If you are playing solo against the computer, reduce or increase the number of opponents depending on whether you are winning or not. You might like to control several players against the computer. With several `human' players, you might like to add a couple of computer players. Computer players tend to attack whoever is winning. You begin weak, and sometimes will not be able to capture a single neutral area. If possible attack neutral desert, mountain or forest, as these are defended with fewer points. (To check the value of terrain, click on a square more than one square from your attacking force.) Within a few turns you should be able to Risk-like steamroller a few neutrals, and later in the game, you may well steamroller most of the map in a single turn. You don't always need to be in a hurry to eliminate a player, as you have more tech points to capture if you wait, particuarly if they are choosing different tech points than you. Each turn distribute your tech point carefully, you only get one! You will probably want to spend all your money and build up your land forces before you concentrate on other types. Sometimes you will not build any units of the type you have increased the tech level of. Calvary units are very strong offensively, but are highly vulnerable to counterattack. Artillery are the opposite, while infantry are good all rounders. A combination of all 3 land types is often the most effective because combat strength is multiplied by the number of type of units. It may sometimes pay to conserve strength by limiting your attacks, particuarly if you can set up strong defensive points in strategic positions. Some turns you may not wish to do any land attacks, but concentrate on using your air and sea forces. (End a turn by clicking in the sea.) Redeploy large forces by `attacking your own squares'. Very quickly you can move forces that were left behind, to the front line. (While a computer player is doing this, there may be some delay. This is shown by some flickering colours.) Merchants can greatly increase your income, but are very vulnerable to submarines. Building a navy as well as submarines allows you to hit two merchant fleets in one turn. Remember, one ship is all that is needed to blockade a merchant fleet. Bombers can greatly weaken an opponent, but are not that effective until their tech level is about 3 or more and are perhaps best built later in the game. Build air defences in anticipation of a bombing attack. A strong air defence can defeat several waves of bombers. Fighters are very powerful, but cannot occupy territory. They should help break even the toughest defence, but are perhaps best built later in the game. WASTELANDS - The on-screen icons are self explanatory apart from the two bars either side of the screen. The left bar with the 'E' underneath is your ENERGY BAR. When the red bar reaches the bottom, you die and the game will restart. The right bar indicated by the 'L' is your LASER POWER. Once depleted, your laser will no longer work, although laser power packs can be found within the base and will restore a limited amount of power. On top of the control panel is your score and a timer. The timer starts at 4000 and decreases by the second. Once zero is reached, Joshua will launch and the game will end. The two text panels on the bottom area indicate your position in the base and any messages given. Keep an eye on the message panel. There is also an indicator for the amount of cardkeys held. Pressing the directional icons with the left mouse button will make you move slowly. Use the right mouse button to speed things up. Also the left mouse button will fire the laser while the right button will activate objects within a certain distance by placing the crosshair on them. If you prefer to use the keyboard, these are the icon equivalents:- MOVE FORWARD = O ROTATE LEFT = Q TILT LEFT = N CENTRE VIEW = I MOVE BACKWARD = K ROTATE RIGHT = W TILT RIGHT = M U-TURN = U MOVE LEFT = H ROTATE UP = P MOVE UP = R ACTIVATE = A MOVE RIGHT = J ROTATE DOWN = L MOVE DOWN = F SIGHTS ON/OFF = C QUIT = ESC SAVE POSITION = 1 LOAD POSITION = 2 WIZARDWARS - Wizard Wars is a strategy game played on a hex-mapped island, each player can be human or computer controlled, and up to 5 players may participate. Each player takes the part of a wizard in a tower whose goal is to destroy the other wizards in their towers. This is accomplished by sending demons out to destroy enemy towers, enemy demons, and enemy settlements. Neutral settlements can be `recruited' and these add to the mana pool for the owning wizard. INSTRUCTIONS Wizard Wars is mostly intuitive in it's play, however there are a few features that require you to read this manual, once read though, you should have no difficulty in playing the game. SETTING UP The first thing you will be presented with is a set of boxes with the words `HUMAN', `COMPUTER', and `NOT PLAYING' in them. These are used to tell the computer how many players to expect and whether they are human or computer controlled. Another box is provided for you to name your wizard (any computer controlled wizards will be automatically named, though you may change them if required). Click on the appropriate boxes, and click `OK' when finished; the screen will change to show you a representative map of the entire island upon which play takes place. Each player will now be asked to place his tower on the board (the tower is the location of your wizard, and is also the rough starting place of each demon), placing towers is simply a matter of clicking on the required hex. Note that there are some restrictions on where you can start - you may not start in a hex already occupied by something, nor may you start adjacent to a castle, nor within 7 hexes of any other wizard's tower. Once everyone has placed their towers, each player is given the opportunity to summon up to 4 demons. A requester is displayed and, should you wish to summon a demon, click the up/down controls to give the demon the 4 attributes needed. To end select ion, leave at least one attribute blank and click `OK'. More information on summoning demons is described later on in this manual under the heading `DEMONS'. MAIN DISPLAY After setup has been finished, the screen will change to show the main display that will be used throughout the game. This is split into several sections: a) The top left section shows part of the island in closeup. It gives a more detailed view of the hexes and their occupants. This section is also used in movement, to move a demon, click the adjacent hex you want to move into. b) The bottom-left section shows two windows, one contains messages and the other an overview of the entire island. The latter is composed of small squares of varying colours that describe where things are. Water hexes are blue, land hexes are green; Wizards' towers are white, demons are red, and the villages, cities, and castles are grey. In addition the currently active demon is yellow. The object of the overview is to show you where you are in relation to everything else, so that, for instance, you can move in the correct direction. c) The third section occupies the entire right hand side of the display. It shows the current demon's attributes, and similar for any targetted demons (see spells), and also the controls for the game - 3 demon-specific spells and 6 general gadgets. The demon displayed comprises its name and owner's flag (see flags); it's strength, initiative, mana, and movement left in bar form (where a full bar indicates 20 points of strength/initiative/mana, and 10 points of movement). The 3 spells each demon has are shown and upto 4 status flags - these last show that certain things have happened to a demon - if the demon is uncontrolled (Berserk), Slept, Held (in a Net), Shielded, Barriered or Flying a flag will be placed in one of the 4 boxes. CONTROLS Apart from the 3 spell buttons, the game has 6 controls; `CREATE', `BOARD', `STATS', `TARGET', `DEMON' and `QUIT'. The `CREATE' control is used to summon a new demon. This control may be used during the movement of one of your demons, or, if you have none, at the end of everyone elses movement where you will be asked if you want to summon one. The control pulls up the requester seen during the setup phase. The `BOARD' control displays the full map of the island, as seen during setup, the section of island that is shown on the main display will be highlighted. Clicking the left mouse button will return you to play. The `STATS' control displays the full map as above, but also shows you pertinent statistics about your wizard, and the demons' attributes. Again, clicking returns you to play. The `TARGET' and `DEMON' controls are used in spell-casting by a demon. Refer to the section on spells for details. The `QUIT' control will end a current phase, when you decide to stop moving a demon, or do not wish to summon a new one when asked, click this control to continue play. DEMONS Demons are the main part of the game, they are the sole means of destroying a wizard's tower and so the game revolves around them. Demons are defined with 4 attributes; strength, initiative, mana, and movement. Each is a number between 1 and 20, (though movement can go as high as 10 only). A demon that, for whatever reason, has its strength or mana reduced to 0 is dispelled and removed from play. 0 initiative reduces the demon's effectiveness and 0 move renders the demon immobile. In addition to the 4 attributes, each demon has 3 spells, one offensive, one defensive and one miscellaneous. The 4 attributes are important depending upon your strategy. Strength is used in physical combat. When a demon attacks something, the strengths of the two are compared to determine the winner. Initiative is used to determine which demon acts first, the demon with the higher initiative gets to move and attack before all others, thus gaining an advantage. Mana is use both to cast spells and to keep the demon in play. At the end of each round each demon loses 1 point of mana. (remember 0 mana means it is dispelled). When a demon casts a spell, its mana is reduced by a preset amount (see spells). Movement determines the speed of a demon, how many hexes it may pass though in one phase. The amount of movement required to enter a hex is as follows: Mountains and Swamps: 3 MP. Forests and Hills: 2 MP. Plains 1 MP. To create a demon, you may either enter the desired stats on the requester at the start of the game, or during movement by clicking the `CREATE' button. By clicking on the up/down markers in the requester you can alter the value of the demon's attribute, clicking with the right mouse button will add or subtract 5 points instead of the 1 point the left mouse button adds or subtracts. Each point of strength, initiative, and mana you give a demon costs your wizard mana, for each point of strength, initiative or mana between 1 and 5, your wizard loses 1 point of mana. For each point between 6 and 10, 2 points; 11 and 15, 4 points; each point above 16 costs 8 points of mana. For Movement, each point between 1 and 3 costs 4 points of your wizard's mana; between 4 and 6 costs 8 points; for movement of 7 and over, each point costs 16 points of mana. You may not increase the value of any attribute beyond its maximum, nor below 0; you may not use more of your wizard's mana than he has. Trying to do any of these things has no effect. To finish creation click on the `OK' at the bottom, if your demon has values for all its attributes it will be created and placed on the island close to your tower. Should any of the attributes be 0, the demon will not be created and play will continue with no effect. COMBAT Combat is based upon a thing's strength. Everything has strength, towers start with a strength of 20, castles with 15, randomly modified, villages and cities have a small, randomly calculated strength and sorties have a random strength based upon the attacking castle's. Combat is round based, each round two random numbers between 1 and each fighter's strength are compared, the fighter with the lower loses a point of strength. This continues until one fighter has lost all its strength. MAGIC Magic is performed by demons against each other during their movement. Each demon may cast any number of these spells against any opponents, range and mana permitting. Spells may only be cast at demons within a certain range of 7 hexes, and each spel l costs a certain amount of mana. You may not use more mana to cast spells than you have. The spells and their mana costs are as follows: (the `C' column shows cost) NAME C S EFFECTS Steal Strength 2 x Removes 1d6 str from opponent, you gain half. Steal Mana 3 x as above but for mana. Steal Initiative 2 x as above but for initiative. Sleep 2 x Puts the target to sleep. It remains in that state until a roll of 2d10 is less than its initiative. Net 1 x Similar to sleep, but renders the target immobile until it rolls under its strength. Barrier 2 y Renders demon immune to physical attacks, but demon cannot move for rest of turn. Shield 2 y Similar to Barrier but immune to spells not physical attacks. Regenerate 3 y Restores a demon's strength and initiative. Wake 1 y Wakes self from Sleep spell. Remove Net 1 y Removes the effects of Net from self. Blast Hex 3 y Blasts hex occupied by self. Blasted hexes cost 3MP to enter and drain Fly 3 y Demon flies, all hexes cost 1MP to enter for rest of round. Frenzy 3 x Target goes berserk and attacks everything nearby. Effects last until it rolls under its init. Attack 1 x As Frenzy but only lasts 1 round. Teleport 1 y Demon teleports to random hex. To cast a spell upon an opponent, click the `TARGET' button until the desired demon appears in the map and on the lower demon display on the right, only demons within a 7 hex radius may be targetted, so if the desired demon doesn't appear, move close r and try again. To `zap' the selected opponent click on the appropriate spell button above the controls. There are no restrictions upon spells you may cast, (save mana) nor the number of targets, so you could continually cast the same spell upon the same demon. Clicking the `DEMON' button returns you to the demon doing the casting. You may not cast spells upon yourself unless you are displayed, and you may only cast those spells marked `S' in the table upon yourself. To continue moving you must have your demon displayed, by clicking on the `DEMON' button. When one of your demons starts its movement, it will automatically scan for targets, if it finds none within range, a message will appear to that effect, however, should it find some, a shorthand description of the targets will be displayed. This description consists of a number and a letter within square brackets, the letter is the initial letter of the wizard who owns the targetted demon, and the number is which of the demons he controls this is. ie [B2] represents the second demon of Baalal. Should your demon move, when you click `TARGET' it will scan for targets again, displaying the same shorthand description. Some spells wear off at the end of a round, ie when every demon has moved. Fly, Shield and Barrier wear off after all movement. All others; Frenzy, Attack, Sleep, and Net wear off at the beginning of a demon's movement (if the demon makes its roll). WIZARD FLAGS Wizards are sometimes referred to by their names, or by a flag. Flags for the 5 wizards are pre-set as follows: Wizard 1: (comp name: Jezekal): white background with grey centre. Wizard 2: (comp name: Baalal): chequered brown. Wizard 3: (comp name: Slargash): yellow/red/yellow stripes. Wizard 4: (comp name: Farnacht): green with 2 yellow dots. Wizard 5: (comp name: Darumogt): white and red halves. Demons always are displayed with their owner's flag. There are 2 exceptions to this, a demon that has no owner, will have a red flag. Demons that are uncontrolled (including demons with frenzy or attack cast upon them) will have a black flag. SETTLEMENTS Villages, cities and castles, the 3 different types of settlement on the island, are there to help and hinder a wizard. A castle is simply an obstacle, it sits in its hex and attacks any demon that enters an adjacent hex (the sorty). This usually saps a demon's strength but weaker demons may be destroyed by it. Sorties are weaker than castles which can provide a serious challenge to a demon's attacks. Villages and cities, once subdued by one of your demons, will add to your wizard's pool of mana, and as such, are very valuable. Once subdued they may not change hands, so a demon moving into a hex occupied by an enemy-subdued village will destroy it, not change its allegiance. Villages provide a small amount of mana, and cities a greater amount though both are calculated randomly. Villages and cities that are adjacent to castles have a sorty's strength added to their own, so these are tougher, but a demon doesn't have to fight two opponents. FULLMAP The fullmap now has a set of gadgets to help you see the things on the map, this is a recent addition, we recommend you experiment with it, though we believe the default settings are useful. The colours will flash if you alter the slider, full docs appear in Version 2. ZERG - 1) What is Zerg? ================ Zerg is a blatant would-be Ultima rip-off whose sole purpose is to serve as a emotional vent for the author's suppressed frustrations and anxieties that he's incapable of writing any sort of functional program longer than five lines or so. In Zerg, you assemble a stalwart band of adventurers comprising of yourself and nobody else, and explore a mythical world of sorcery, horrific monsters, and fabulous treasure; in short, the typical fantasy role-playing plot surrogate. The actual goal of the game varies in both difficulty and nature with the revision of the program itself. 2) How do I play Zerg? ====================== The same way I play Zerg, albeit hopefully with more patience. Simply double-click the program's icon (from the Workbench). Otherwise, from the CLI, simply type 1> Zerg ... and the program will run. Simple, eh? 3) What's the goal of the game? =============================== The object of Zerg is to slay certain monsters in a certain order as dictated by the King of Dieria (a simple sub-plot being the actual finding of the King), after which you are awarded unimaginable riches and win the game. This may not seem like much of a difference from the last version game until you realize that killing a monster can be tricky, and may require special weapons or magic. The goal and plot of the game shall increase considerably in complexity in upcoming versions, and shall possibly involve more than mindless violence. Look for some sort of dungeon in the next release, as well as a bigger landscape. 4) How do I go about accomplishing it? ====================================== First start the game, as explained in step 2. Now you'll notice a panoramic display of the crudely-drawn, low-resolution map of the world of Zerg. You may now control the actions of your adventurous alter-ego, who is always displayed at the center of the screen, as you attempt to reach whatever the current goal of the game is. There are many different commands you can use from the main map, the list of which will hope expand in future versions. Note that some commands may also be activated by use of the Intuition menus. The current commands are: (Movement) Movement in the four main cardinal directions (you know; north, south, whatever) is possible by using the numeric keypad. These keys must also be used when a direction is called for as secondary input for another command. 7 8 (North) 9 (West) 4 5 (Rest) 6 (East) 1 2 (South) 3 A) Attack + [direction] This allows you to impart physical violence unto the monster of your choice. Your strike may draw blood, or swish by without effect, depending on many factors, such as your skill at fighting and the weapon you are currently using. Have no moral qualms about laying waste to any of the horrid beasties that wander around the mainland -- without exception, they are vile, merciless, and olfactorily unpleasant minions of Evil, and deserve their gruesome fates. Upon slaying a creature, you will be awarded experience points and any treasure the monster was carrying, as appropriate. VERSION NOTES (1.0): More monster types have been added, and, as said, all creatures will now actively seek you out and attack you. They do follow you fairly tenaciously, and will even try to "un-stick" themselves if you lure them into a corner. One type of monster simply cannot be killed by physical violence, and requires some other method. (Plot ho, cap'n! Plot ho!) There's a variety of weapons and armor you can purchase, and upon slaying any creature you are now awarded with gold and experience. If you're being trampled by a monster that's particularly nasty, try running away. If you get out of the monsters's sight for a long enough period of time, chances are that it'll get bored of looking for you and wander off in pursuit of other things. C) Cast This allows your character to cast any spell that he or she knows. VERSION NOTES (1.0): The role of spells and magic in this version is very limited, but essential to victory. E) Enter This will allow you to enter a dungeon, castle, town, or other structure of that nature. You must be currently on top of whatever you wish to enter. VERSION NOTES (1.0): You can now actually explore the interiors of the Castle Ardon and town Garolin, and indeed must, if you wish to get anywhere in the game. They're nice places to visit, and house many interesting characters and stores that are necessary to the completion of your quest. There will be more towns, cities, castles, and perhaps a dungeon or two, in upcoming versions. I) Inventory This will simply display a nice list of all your character's possessions, including any armor or weaponry being used. L) Look + [direction] This will allow you to identify or examine anything lying one square in any of the allowable directions away from you. For instance, if directly to the north of you stood a towering monster, and you wished to know precisely what species of monster it was, you could type "L", then "8", and would then be told that, for example, "You see an Ogre." You can also identify terrain types this way. O) Offer + [direction] Should you wish to practice financial cajolery upon a local Zerg resident, or simply make a generous gift, select this option. You will be prompted for the amount to offer, ranging from 100 to 900 gold pieces in increments of 100. Note that monsters usually aren't terribly inclined to take bribes, if they even know what gold is. Q) Quit I must concede that it is vaguely conceivable that you may wish to interrupt your fervid Zerg-playing once every few hours to perform mundane activities, such as eating, sleeping, and other trivial fare. The Quit command will exit back to either the WorkBench, or AmigaDOS, depending upon how you started the program. VERSION NOTES (1.0): Note the spiffy Quit requester, as well as the save and load game options that help make trans-game Zerging a pleasure. R) Ready This option allows one to wield any weapon he or she possesses. Upon selecting this option, one is presented with a list of his or her weapons, if he or she possesses any, and is prompted to select which weapon he or she would like to ready. Only one weapon can be readied at a time. Thus, when a weapon is selected, it disappears from the list, and any weapon that was previously readied will re-appear on the list. Unless one has a weapon in hand, one cannot fight hostile foes, either in assault or self-defense. Thus, the unarmed adventurer is very vulnerable. Note that selecting this option when one is already using one's only weapon will automatically un-ready that weapon. S) Status This option will replace the view with a screen displaying pertinent information about your character that isn't displayed on the sidebar. It is as follows: Class: This is the class (profession) of your character. Classes include fighter, thief, wizard, etc. (See the Textfile of Lore for more details). Level: This is the experience level of your character. As you defeat more monsters, this number increases, as does the power of your character. HP Max: This shows the maximum number of hit points your character has when perfectly healthy (as opposed to his or her current hit points as displayed on the Sidebar). MP Max: Similar to HP Max, this shows the highest number of Magic Points your character can have at a given moment. Experience: This shows the number of experience points you have. If you gain enough experience, your Level may increase. Body Count: This is a measure in cadavers of just how many creatures to whom you've laid waste. It has no function in game play save the feeding of your bloodthirsty ego. Current Weapon: This informs you of whatever tool of death your character is currently using to obliterate the foul beasties of Zerg, if any. You select this weapon with the Ready command. Current Armor: This displays the type of armor you're currently wearing. You select this via the Wear command. Gold: A numerical representation of your wealth in gold pieces, the standard unit of currency in most of the kingdoms of Zerg. All adventurers start the game with 30 gp. (Note the poignant symbolism here.) T) Talk + [direction] This allows you to interact with the various inhabitants of Zerg. While few people will offer any elongated conversation, you may get a few interesting snippets hither or thither. Upon occasion, you may even be asked a simple yes or no question. Talking with a shopkeeper may allow you to purchase goods or services. You can talk over some tables and counters, as well. V) Version This will display the author's name, in case you haven't yet memorized it, as well as the current version of the game, so that you can see exactly how primitive a rendition of Zerg you're playing. It also shows a brief list of some of those selfless morons who helped make Zerg what it is today. (Whatever it is...) W) Wear This option is similar to the Ready command, save that it allows an adventurer to wear the protective armor of his or her choice, if he or she owns any. Armor makes it more difficult to be struck by an opponent's assault, and will sometimes absorb damage from a blow. Note that selecting this option when one is wearing one's only armor will automatically remove that armor. Y) Clock This will display the time, in game turns. Truth to tell, it's a pretty useless command, but I use it in debugging. The one purpose that it could serve for a player is keeping track of potential purchases; stores will refresh their inventories at set turn intervals. (Thus, if you don't see a weapon you can afford at the moment, hang around!) Keep in mind that time will not pass while you use this command. Z) Coordinates Another useless but faintly amusing debugging command, this option will display your X-Y coordinates in whatever region you happen to be. There are also some options accessible via the pull-down menus. Some are merely Intuitive equivalents of keyboard options (I know that nobody really believes that dragging a mouse across your desk is significantly more convenient than pressing "I", but let's face facts: the more menus and sub-menus a program has, the more professional it looks. So get off my back.) while others can only be selected in this manner (or their respective shortcuts). GAME MENU --------- About - This is the menu equivalent of the "Version" command. Load Game - This option allows you to continue a previously saved game. Save Game - This option allows you to save the current state of the game to disk for future play, should you opt to do that sort of thing. VERSION NOTES (1.0): I really didn't think I'd include this option in this version of the game, but it occurred to me that playing might be a real drag if you had to restart from the beginning each time a troll slit your gullet, so I threw this hack together. As you can see, it's somewhat crude; there is no file requester, as there is no selectable filename. The game will be saved to a file called "Save" in RAM: (don't worry about running out of memory... the file is extremely small). This does mean that if you want to play a saved game after re-boot, REMEMBER TO COPY IT TO DISK. It's inconvenient, but I'm a lazy programmer. The next version will have some sort of file requester, I promise. Really. Restart - This option will reset Zerg to its default configuration. It's the equivalent of re-booting the game, but more convenient. Quit - This is the Intuition equivalent of the Quit command. ACTION MENU ----------- Inventory - This is the equivalent of the "Inventory" command. Status - This is the equivalent of the "Status" command. Help - This displays an abbreviated list of commands. Redraw - Should you encounter some sort of onscreen graphics bug, this will allow you to remedy the situation by redrawing the screen's contents. 5) I don't understand the display. What are all these numbers? ============================================================== As of the current version, the display is divided into three segments. The majority of the screen is a graphic representation of your adventurer and the terrain and monsters surrounding him. As he moves around Zerg, the terrain will scroll relative to his position. The left quarter of the screen is what Infocom calls the Status Bar, and subsequently I must call the Sidebar for fear of litigation. You will see all information about your character and his attributes displayed here. These are as follows: NAME: This is pretty easy to figure out. STR: This is a numerical measure of the physical strength of your silicon protagonist, ranging from 0 (a gelatinous pile of flesh) to 99 (Rambo-like proportions). Values of above 99 are possible, but not for human beings unaided by powerful magic. WIS: This is similar to the STR value, but measures the wit and intelligence of your character. When more spells are implemented, this attribute will be important for wizards and other thaumaturgic creatures. AGL: This is a measure of your character's agility -- meaning a loose representation of physical and manual dexterity, handiness, and speed. LVL: This is a measure of your character's ability to excel in his or her profession. (IE: A level 4 fighter would generally be a more skilled warrior than a level 1 fighter.) Higher levels are achieved through earned experience points. MP: Standing for Magic Points, this is a measure of your character's magical strength, if any. Casting spells will exhaust a number of magic points proportional to the difficulty of the spell. Fighter types usually have no magical ability whatsoever. Usually. HP: This is your character's Hit Point Value, or the amount of points of Damage (imparted by monsters, traps, hostile magic, dishpan hands, etc.) your character can sustain before (gasp) death.