Mankind, in the process of development is facing an inexplicable phenomenon - the destruction of the normal sequences of time from the past to the future. Time channels are forming in the Earth's atmosphere, and these channels are leading to different periods of social development.
Through these channels, the most aggressive creatures start to penetrate from both the past and present, and from the future. You are the soldier of the special commando unit with the mission to locate, pin-point, and finally destroy the time channels and eliminate all alien life forms. While migrating along time channels, all living creatures are undergoing irreversible mutations that are making them wild and agressive.
+------------------------+
| 2. System Requirements |
+------------------------+
The minimum system requirements to play Chasm are:
486 DX4-100 (Pentium processor recommended).
VGA or SVGA video card (VESA compatible recommended).
16M RAM
75 MB of free hard drive space.
MS-DOS 5.0 and higher or Windows 95 DOS box.
Double Speed CD-ROM drive.
+--------------------+
| 3. Getting started |
+--------------------+
3.1. Installation of Chasm: The Rift:
Chasm will not run from your CD-ROM directly, so you should install it to your hard drive first. To do so, place the Chasm CD into your CD-ROM drive and run the SETUP program. It will copy the game to your hard drive.
3.2. Starting a game
To start Chasm: The Rift change directory to the one that contains game files, type CHASM in the DOS prompt and press enter (see Command line parameters chapter for more info). To start Chasm under Windows 95, open the appropriate folder and simply doubleclick on the Chasm icon. The game will start in a demo playing mode. To play game, press Esc and choose NEW from the menu.
The Windows 95 version also creates a program group in the Start Menu from which you may also run the game.
+----------------------------+
| 4. Playing Chasm: The Rift |
+----------------------------+
4.1. Menu
To pop up the main menu press the Esc key. In the single play menu, the Esc key will pause the game. Pressing Esc again will bring you back to the game or to the main menu from a submenu. Use the Up and Down arrows to highlight selections through the menu. Press the Enter to select the option you wish to choose. Options available in Chasm are:
NEW
=====
Starts a new game and ends the current running game.
NETWORK
=========
MPLAYER AND MODEM PLAY COMING SOON!
Visit CHASM and gaming websites for updates and patches.
http://www.chasm3d.com
http://www.chasmaction.com
http://www.megamedia.com
CHASM supports network multiplayer game by using an IPX protocol with up to
8 players in one network game and a Serial link with up to two players.
To enable netplay under DOS, you should load an IPX.COM driver provided by Novell. If you play Chasm in a Win95 DOS box, be sure that the IPX protocol is installed.
To run the multiplayer game, you must select one machine (preferably the fastest one) to work in the SERVER mode.
SERVER - the machine in the network game that controls all game processes
and passes calculated data to other computers (CLIENTs) in network.
CLIENT - all other computers in a network game.
*NOTE* TCP/IP is provided by an emulation process that is supported by Kali and Mplayer. We apologize for any confusion.
Please contact our technical support team if you have any questions regarding TCP/IP support.
Specific questions about Kali and Mplayer can be answered by Kali and Mplayer technical support.
KALI Instructions for Chasm: The Rift
To make CHASM playable over KALI or any other ipx-internet emulators, run chasm.exe with parameter "-kalirateXX", where XX specifies maximum send speed (packets/second) and tells CHASM to use little packets. XX must be in 06..20, for example:
chasm.exe -kalirate10 will set the send speed to 10 packets/second.
First off, make sure you have the most up-to-date version of KALI which can be found at http://www.kali.net.
Also, having a membership (which costs $20) is needed to play for more than 15 minutes.
1. After having installed KALI to your disk, load up KALI.
2. To setup Chasm: The Rift under KALI :
A. Go to the 'Games' menu and then go to 'Configure Menu...'.
B. Choose 'Game 1' tab.
C. For 'Menu Title' type in Chasm: The Rift, for 'Program' type in
C:\CHASM\chasm.exe, for 'Arguments' type in -kalirate10,
for 'Directory' type in 'C:\CHASM\' . (i.e. "C:\CHASM\chasm.exe -kalirate10")
D. Check the boxes that specify 'Allow KALI to drop packets to speed up game' and 'Drop packets that are out of order'.
E. Under the 'Icon' sub-menu, go to 'Name' and type in C:\CHASM\chasm.ico
F. Click 'OK' to exit this menu and you now have the Chasm: The Rift icon in the Game Toolbar.
2. Find the server with the lowest ping in the list of servers, and connect to this server.
3. You are now in KALI chat. Find someone that would like to play Chasm: The Rift.
4. Decide which person will start the game, usually the person with the best PC should start the game.
5. If you are the one to start the game, click on the Chasm: The Rift icon in the Game Toolbar of KALI.
After Chasm: The Rift has loaded, press ESC to bring up the main menu and choose NETWORK, and then choose OPTIONS to configure your name and color of armor. Then choose 'Accept'. Press ESC to bring up the menu and choose NETWORK, then choose START. Configure the game to your liking, then choose 'Start Game'. Make sure that CONNECTION is set to IPX.
6. If you are the one to join a started game, click on the Chasm: The Rift icon in the Game Toolbar of KALI. After Chasm: The Rift has loaded, press ESC to bring up the menu and choose NETWORK, and then choose OPTIONS to configure your name and color of armor. Then choose 'Accept'. Press ESC to bring up the menu and choose NETWORK. Then choose JOIN. Make sure that CONNECTION is set to IPX.
7. Have fun playing Chasm: The Rift over KALI!
START
=======
Brings up a submenu that allows you to choose the desired game mode(Deathmatch, Deathmatch with monsters or cooperative); enables or disables teamplay; and selects the difficulty (easy, normal or hard), the level of game you want to play on and the type of connection(IPX or serial link, com port and its baud rate).
JOIN
======
A submenu appears allowing you to choose the connection type (IPX or serial link)and connect to a running server. If no server is running at the time you try to join a game, you will not be able to connect.
Note: You should START multiplayer game only on one PC (SERVER). Others
(CLIENTS) should just JOIN a game.
OPTIONS
=========
In this submenu you can choose the desired color of your shirt and enter your name. If teamplay in enabled, players of same color will not hurt each other when shooting.
MONITOR
=========
The network monitor is a mode of the multiplayer game that can be activated on the SERVER machine and allows two main features:
1. View the action of up to 4 players in different windows.
2. Make the SERVER machine work in dedicated mode.
If you have a VESA compatible video card and your computer runs in the SERVER
Mode, you will see a monitor screen. The SERVER can not play the game while the Monitor is active. The Monitor screen consists of four windows showing you directly what other players see on their screens. The Control Panel is visible in left-down of screen. The list of players with their kill counts is located in the right part of the screen.
Press Esc to switch between the Control Panel and Monitor windows. If you are in the windows mode, the current window is highlighted with a border. To move selection, use the arrow keys. At the start, the first window is assigned to the first player, the second window to the second player etc. You can reassign any window to any player by simply pressing the number of player ("1".."7") when the desired window is highlighted. To disable the active window, press "0". If all windows are disabled, the SERVER switches to DEDICATED mode. This mode is the best mode for multiplayer game. The SERVER will not show anything on the screen and will only control the game. This provides the smoother action for all the other players in network.
To return to the normal game mode, select BACK TO GAME in the Control Panel's local menu and press ENTER. You will return to the same position you were at before starting the Network Monitor.
SAVE
======
Allows you to save up to ten games.
LOAD
======
Loads previously a saved game. A list of all available saved games appears showing the level number and the health counts a player had before he made a save.
OPTIONS
=========
Pops up a submenu giving a list of Chasm options. They are:
- Setup controls - allows you to set your own control keys
- Video modes - Chasm supports variety of video modes depending on the available video card and the VESA version. Standard mode is 320x200 which is supported on all video cards.
If you have 1.x VESA compatible card with no additional drivers loaded you will get two additional modes: 640x400 and 640x480, but only with BANKED access to video memory. Against FLAT/LINEAR access this can be extremely slow. In this case we recommend that you use any VESA 2.0 compatible driver. The good choice is UniVBE designed by SciTech. It provides support of VESA 2.0 for a variety of video adapters. Currently the latest video cards have a built in VESA 2.0 compatible BIOS, so you don't need to load any TSR drivers.
If you use UniVBE, be sure that:
VBE 2.0 support is ON
Linear framebuffer support is ON
To increase the frame rate, VESA 2.0 provides a wider list of available video modes such as 400x300 and 512x384, that make a good compromise between speed and graphics quality. We do not recommend set modes with YResolution higher then XResolution (320x400, 360x480).
Proportional modes always give better quality for its decrease of frame-rate.
You can set video mode, using "Video Mode..." in the Option menu. In the command line, use command -vmodeN, where N is the desired video mode number in the video modes list.
If you set a video mode that makes your monitor crash and you can't return to the normal video mode, then restart Chasm with "-safe" command (it will set 320x200 mode at start).
- Display - gives you an opportunity to change the display settings like contrast, color and brightness.
- Difficulty - allows you to change the game difficulty (Easy, Normal and Hard). You don't need to restart the current game to change the game difficulty.
- Always run - enables or disables permanent acceleration.
- Crosshair - Enables the crosshair.
- Reverse mouse - Inverts the direction of mouse look.
- Weapon reset - Enables reset weapons and inventory at beginning of each episode.
- FX volume - increases or decreases the sound effects volume.
- CD volume - increases or decreases the CD output volume.
- Mouse sensitivity - increases or decreases the mouse sensitivity.
- Load defaults - changes all the settings to their default values.
QUIT
======
Quits to the DOS prompt while saving current configuration.
4.2. Command line parameters
You can use these options when launching CHASM from DOS command line:
"-safe" : sets a safe loading mode, recommended if you have
any problems while loading Chasm.
"-vmode N" : N=1..MaxModeNumber, sets the video mode
"-nosound" : disables the sound.
"-warp <#level>" : warps to the map of the designated level.
"-addon:DIRNAME" : runs CHASM with additional levels, placed in
specified directory. CHASM Level editor works
with USERMAP\ directory, so start Chasm with
-addon:USERMAP to include your levels in the game.
"-nomonsters" : runs Chasm without any monsters.
"-chojin" : starts Chasm in god mode.
"-nodemo" : starts Chasm without playing any demo.
"-monitor" : starts Chasm in the network monitor mode.
"-kalirateXX" : specifies the maximum send speed(packets/second) and
tells Chasm to use little packets. XX must be within
the range 06..20.
"-skill N" : sets skill level. N can be in range 0..2. 0 is for
easy.
"-color N" : sets player's shirt color 1..8.
"-nocd" : disables CD audio.
4.3. Control panel.
The Control Panel provides control of the game modes and parameters and is designed for experienced users. Use the <BackSpace> key to toggle the Control Panel. The Control Panel is divided in two parts: Local Menu and Console. Use the <TAB> key for switching between Local Menu and Console.
* Local Menu contains following options:
NEW - the same as NEW in Main Menu.
MONITOR - starts a network monitor.
DISPLAY - changes the display settings: contrast, color and brightness.
QUIT - quits to DOS.
*Console consist of a Command line and a Message display. The Command line intended for entering Console commands. The Message display shows the results of executed commands and special internal system messages. The Console has a command history. Pressing the up and down arrows in the Console will change to the last command entered.
Here are the list of main Console commands:
NEW - starts new game.
RESTART - restarts current level.
QUIT - quits to DOS.
CHOJIN - gives invulnerability.
AMMO - restores ammo for all weapons.
KEYS - gives all keys.
WEAPON - gives all weapons to player.
INVISIBLE - gives 2 minutes of invisibility.
ARMOR - gives 200% of armor.
FULLMAP - allows you to the see full map of the current level.
KILL - kills all monsters on the level.
REANIMATE - reanimates all monsters.
RESPAWN <#time> - sets the monsters' respawn time.
(#time=0 means no respawn)
REVERSE - swaps right and left sound channels.
DEPTH <number> - sets depth level.
SHADOWS <number> - sets the upper limit of shadows casted by a 3D object.
GO <#level> - warps to the specified level.
NEXT - warps to the next level.
PLAY <number> - plays the demo with the specified number.
CDPLAY <number> - plays CD track with the specified number.
CDSTOP - stops playing the CD audio.
==== Multiplayer commands =====
KILLP <pnumber> - kills the player with the specified number.
KICK <pnumber> - disconnects the player from the multiplayer game.
NICK <NEWNAME> - sets your name for multiplayer gaming.
NICK without a newname shows current name.
RESETFRAGS - available only on the SERVER machine and
sets all frags in 0 state.
AMMO <pnumber> - adds full ammo to the specified player.
WEAPON <pnumber> - adds all weapons and full ammo to the specified player.
INVISIBLE <pnumber> - Makes the specified player invisible for 2 minutes.
ARMOR <pnumber> - sets the armor level to 200% for the specified player.
SAY <message> - sends a message to all players in the multiplayer game.
* A command without a parameter returns its current state.
4.4. Keyboard commands.
Here is a list of keyboard commands that do not control the gameplay and cannot be changed in OPTIONS\SetUp Controls.
Main Menu ESC
Control Panel BackSpace
Save Game F2
Load Game F3
Options Menu F4
Multiplayer Menu F5
Quicksave F6
Quickload F9
Quit menu F10
Save screenshot F12
Get Status bar +,-
Info Bar CapsLock
Show Map Tab
Change map scale [,]
Select weapon 1..8
4.5. Sound.
Chasm automaticaly detects the type of sound card installed on your computer by checking ULTRASND variable for Gravis and BLASTER variable for Sound Blaster in AUTOEXEC.BAT. Chasm gets the PORT address, IRQ number, DMA number, and CARD TYPE from this variable.
A typical Sound Blaster setting for SB16 looks like this:
SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5 P330 T6
You have to set this variable in your autoexec.bat manually or run your Sound Blaster diagnose.exe utility to automatically set this variable. If you can't get Chasm working, try to start it with "-nosound" command in command line. It will disable all sound code.
A typical Gravis setting looks like this:
@SET ULTRASND=220,7,5,5,10
4.6. Game levels
Chasm consists of four episodes with each divided into four missions (levels).
Last mission of each Episode is a BOSS level. There you'll have to destroy the Master of the Episode. The Fourth Episode ends with the last mission of the game where you'll face the Time Judge - the main creature of Chasm.
There are six specially designed deathmatch arenas in Chasm: The Rift.
You can use GO command in console to get to the desired level. A list of all levels is given below.
Episode 1 - The CondemNATION
----------------------------
level 01 - The Power Station - by Yaroslav Kravchenko
level 02 - The Military Base - by Andrey Sharanevitch
level 03 - The Underground Base - by Denis Vereschagin
level 04 - The Pit of Sarcophagus - by Yaroslav Kravchenko
Episode 2 - In Search of Inception
----------------------------------
level 05 - Dead River - by Denis Vereschagin
level 06 - Underdune - by Denis Vereschagin
level 07 - The Tomb of Death - by Denis Vereschagin
level 08 - The Curse of The Pharaohs - by Denis Vereschagin
Episode 3 - The Shadow Zone
---------------------------
level 09 - The City of Dander - by Alexey Pechenkin
level 10 - The Fortress of Desolation - by Alexey Pechenkin
level 11 - Subterranean Horror - by Alexey Pechenkin
level 12 - Phantom's Keep - by Alexey Pechenkin
Episode 4 - The Stonghold of Evil
---------------------------------
level 13 - The Weird Dimension - by Andrey Sharanevitch
level 14 - Forsaken in Time - by Andrey Sharanevitch
level 15 - Abreast With Terror - by Andrey Sharanevitch
level 16 - Beyond Reality - by Andrey Sharanevitch
Deathmatch Arenas:
------------------
level 21 - Deathmatch Arena 1 - by Alexey Pechenkin
level 22 - Deathmatch Arena 2 - by Andrey Sharanevitch
level 23 - Deathmatch Arena 3 - by Andrey Sharanevitch
level 24 - Deathmatch Arena 4 - by Oleg Slusar
level 25 - Deathmatch Arena 5 - by Alexey Pechenkin
level 26 - Deathmatch Arena 6 - by Denis Vereschagin
4.7. Weapons and artifacts
Weapons available in Chasm: The Rift:
1. Shotgun
The weakest weapon in the game with unlimited ammo.
2. Super shotgun
Slow but very powerful, especially if the enemy is close.
3. Volcano
Machine Gun.
4. BladeGun
It uses homing-circle-blades that will make monsters lose their limbs.
5. Arrow gun
Blasts energy-boosted arrows.
6. Grenader
Blows enemies and their dead bodies.
7. Land mine
It's almost invisible.
8. Dimension Detonator
The most deadly weapon in the game.
There are artifacts in Chasm that give you some advantages over your enemies. They are:
* Helmet gives you 100 armor points.
* Armor Suit gives you 200 armor points.
* DoubleHealth gives you 100 additional life points.
* Invisibility makes you almost invisible.
Monsters don't see you unless you come too close to them or shoot.
* Chojin Mask makes you immortal for a certain period of time.
* Reflector reflects some weapons such as rockets, disks and
arrows.
4.8. Your Enemies
While playing Chasm you'll be facing a variety of foes from different
time periods; from prehistoric people to alien creatures. Below is a
complete list of those.
1. Mong
2. Faust
3. Stratos
4. Scorpion
5. Turret
6. Joker
7. Skeleton
8. Punisher
9. Viking
10. Werehog
11. Gross
12. Zombie
13. Lionman
14. Alien warrior
15. Mincer
16. Alien creature
MASTERS:
17. Sarcophagus
18. Phantom
19. Sphinx
20. Time Judge
4.9. Chasm FAQ
Q: I have a Cirrus Logic video card and have problems with
video mode 640x400 and NETWORK MONITOR.
A: This problem is caused by an incorrect refresh rate for this mode.
You can correct it by using the UniVBE utility and adjusting the refresh
rate to 71Hz. (Check this address: http://scitechsoft.com/)
Q: I set a video mode that corrupts the screen and I can't return it
to the normal view.
A: Restart Chasm with the -safe parameter, it will help.
Q: I can't start Chasm at all.
A: Try to start it with the -safe parameter.
"-safe" disables the sound system, sets the video mode 320x200
and disables joystick and mouse checking.
Q: When I hit Alt-TAB to go to windows, my screen goes blank and I cannot return to my game.
A: You are probably in Hi-Res mode. Windows cannot switch your monitor back to a normal resolution.
4.A. Credits
Programming : Oleg Slusar
Artwork : Yaroslav Kravchenko
Alexey Pivtorak
Oleg Naprasniy
Characters design : Alexey Serhiy
Sound FX and CD Music: Alex Kot
Level editor
programming : Maxim Novikov
Level design : Andrey Sharanevitch
Denis Vereschagin
Alexey Pechenkin
Biz : Igor Karev
Denis Vereschagin
Voices : Strickland- Sean Spitzer
Commander- Robert Sallade
Development Support : Lamberto M. Alvaro
Special Thanks : Josh Miller, Mark Wang,
Cris Ramon, Mike Nowostawsky,
and Paul Navin
(c) 1997 Megamedia Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Chasm - The Rift is a
