Blind Justice readme.txt Instruction manual and technical information Version 1.4 -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Welcome to the Blind Justice playable demo! This demo lets you explore the initial scenes of Blind Justice - a new sci-fi fantasy role-playing game from R.A.W. Entertainment and Illymani Designs. Have fun! Table of Contents I. Game description (general plot - we don't wanna give too much away!) II. Unpacking the demo files (distribution information) III. Customizing the game (SETUP.EXE) IV. Using IDENTIFY.EXE V. Starting the game / Using the game interface VI. Character stats and using the windowing interface VII. Talking to people VIII. Fighting with evil up-to-no-good types... IX. Advanced techniques X. Hints and tips Appendix A - Ordering information Appendix B - Virtual Memory Appendix C - Technical support Q/A Appendix D - Customizing the game Appendix E - Release version amendments -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Game information Release date : August 15th, 1995 Game-type : Post-modern RPG Time : Mid-23rd century Setting: Post nuclear disaster I. Game Description: You awake in a cold cell. A madman leans over you, running his hands along your weak body. A compassionate warmth fills his eyes, accompanied by a sinister grin. Before long, he leaves the room, signaling only for but a moment to the guards. The large men grab you. They push you. Then, they throw you down into the depths of a pure hell. The subterranean Chrysalis. A breeding ground for genetic experiments. Only the strong survive down here. If you are lucky, you won't be devoured by their natural food chain. You must fend for your life among people whose minds have been reverted to nothing short of cannibalistic. ** NOTE: The following paragraphs describe the full game of Blind Justice. ** ** Although it is not explicit in details and hints, it might give away ** ** a little bit of the demo... ** However, you do manage to learn some things. You are a shapeshifter. Somehow, you have been given this ability to alter your form. With each new form, you find yourself with new capabilities. Better fighting abilities. More agility. Time to teach a few people some lessons... After solving a few puzzles, you manage to escape from the Chrysalis, only become integrated within a greater hell. Topside - the world above. What has the government and the war done to these people? It's been almost three years since the first nuclear warhead was fired. A barrage of radiation lit up the sky so bright that the world became blind. It completely devastated the populace. Famine. Disease. Pain. But, the war efforts have not ceased. Your friends disappear. They have the one thing that the government truly needs. Functional bodies. Attack units. Mindless drones, programmed with the sole purpose of defeating the enemy. Scientific technology and the government have become one. They have replaced the common soldier with biogenetically altered hunter-killers. They fight without pain and without remorse. A great schism has divided the people into two classes: The oppressive and the oppressed. You, having escaped from the Chrysalis, must lead the underworld in an attempt to restore humanity. Somehow, you must revert this terrible and unholy thing that has happened to the human soul. The fate of society rests on your shoulder. But it won't be easy. Of course, it comes to your attention that, having escaped, the government wants you back! The Bourne-agains have been assembled and programmed to hunt you down. You must constantly stay on your feet. An outlaw. Move quickly and don't stay in one place too long. This world isn't kind. Blind Justice is a post-modern fantasy role-playing game. You are a shapeshifter - a genetic experiment which has managed to escape an "induced artificial selection" test. During the game, you unveil the religious system which underlies your ability to shapeshift. With each new form, your soul reverts back into a previous form - into a life that hadn't been fulfilled. Initially, the government suspects that you were the leader of the resistance in a previous life. In an attempt to salvage information, you are given the ability to shapeshift. Your escape gives the government every motivation for hunting you down. System Requirements: Minimal installation... 386DX-33 Megahertz with disk cache program. 4 Megabytes of RAM 17 Megabytes of Hard Disk space (5 Megabyte free while playing). Preferred installation... 486DX-33 Megahertz 4 megabytes of RAM 17 Megabytes of Hard Disk space (1 Megabyte free while playing). * Mouse recommended but not required. Game features: * Tall-res XVGA graphics that are fully compatible with the standard VGA card .. 320 by 240 and 320 by 400. * Every object in the game can be analyzed. Complete item descriptions. * Simple-to-use interface featuring a complete windowing system. * Complete automapping ability allowing you to keep track of your location while you play the game (windows can be overlapped onto the gaming screen while you play) * Supports a party of up to 6 people. * 150+ people to interact with! Each with intricate conversations, allowing you to talk back and forth, allowing you to make careful decisions regarding your approach. * A detailed world featuring over 8 megabytes of pure maps. * Full sound support : Sound Blaster, Sound Blaster Pro, Sound Blaster 16, Pro Audio Spectrum, Pro Audio Spectrum +, Pro Audio Spectrum 16, and, of course, Gravis Ultrasound. * A complete sci-fi musical score. * Stunning sound effects. * A complex combat system, allowing for a terrific level of diversity. Features realistic weapons, ranging from sticks and stones to hand grenades and rocket launchers, all full screen and animated. * The assured quality that you expect from R.A.W. and Illymani Designs. II. Demo files and components This demo is distributed within 2 separate files. The first file, BJDEMO.ZIP, contains everything you need to play through the demo. The second file, BJSOUND.ZIP, contains all of the sound information and allows you to play the game with sound. Both of these files must be extracted in the same directory. To do this, copy both files into an empty directory. After pk-unzipping BJDEMO.ZIP, type "INSTALL" (without quotes) and the batch file will automatically extract everything for you and you will be set to go. If you want to add sound at a later date, copy the BJSOUND.ZIP file into the Blind Justice directory (i.e. C:\BLIND) and pkunzip the file with the "-d" option. Example: PKUNZIP BJSOUND.ZIP -d This will automatically extract all the sound, and you'll be set to go. III. Customizing the game Once the game has been extracted, you should type "SETUP" (without quotes) and press enter. This will bring up the customization program. Use the arrow keys to move between options and press enter to select an option. Sound card info - Specify your sound card data with this option. If you need further information about your card, look ahead to the section on IDENTIFY.EXE or consult your sound card manuals for further information Difficulty level - This option lets you change the combat attributes of the opponents that you "inevitably" meet during the course of the game. A easier level means that the opponents will be easier to defeat. Processor Type - This option has no effect in the demo, but can be setup so that the final version, which installs over this demo, will automatically know which optimized version of the game to install. Virtual memory - If you have a 2-4 Megabytes RAM computer, you will need to specify this option. Please see the section below of virtual memory. IV. IDENTIFY.EXE This program is included in the JUSTICE3.EXE portion of the demo files. It's purpose is to automatically identify your sound hardware and, if it cannot, to provide you with the tools necessary for identifying your card. To perform an autodetection, simply type "IDENTIFY" and press Enter. Use the number keys to select between musical tracks and sound effects. Press +/- to change the volume of the music and to change the volume of the sound effects. Press ESCAPE to leave. Type "IDENTIFY /?" to pull up the listing of command line parameters. By entering these values, you can force the identify program to find your soundcard. If this succeeds, enter the same values into the SETUP program, and then begin the game! V. Starting the game / Using the interface Type "JUSTICE" at the DOS prompt to begin the game. You will start off with a generic character whose name will be (USER). Read the text in the information window and click with the mouse button to get it to go away. Then, press F7 to rename your character. Now then, let's learn about the interface... Using the mouse, press the right button to flip between mouse icons. Each mouse icon means something. Once you select a mouse icon, you can use that icon by pressing the left button. Here is a list of the five mouse icons. # Icon name Picture Command (left button) - --------- ------- --------------------- 1 Walk-Talk Feet/Head Single-click: Walk to this place Double-click: Talk to this person 2 Glance-Look Question mark Single-click: Glance at this thing. Double-click: Learn about this thing. 3 Grab-Use Palm of hand Single-click: Pick up this thing Double-click: Use this thing 4 Left hand Big left hand Single-click: Attack with left hand 5 Right hand Big right hand Single-click: Attack with right hand Using the keyboard's keypad, 0 / Insert = the left mouse button, single click . / Delete = the left mouse button, double click ENTER = the right mouse button Keyboard macros: Please refer to appendix D to see how to define keyboard macros that allow you to quickly flip between icons and windows Special things: To peek at your character's statistics, which is a very important thing, place the mouse icon over your character (with any icon) and click the right button. If you "learn about" a dead person, you can inspect their inventories and, quite possibly, find something useful. To Quit the game, press ALT-X. The final screen of the game contains some interesting statistics about play-value. To be sure that these statistics are accurate, make sure you play for more than 20 minutes. :) VI. Character statistics and the windowing interface Once you "peak at your character's statistics" (from above), you will be presented with a picture of your character. While the release version of Blind Justice will feature 6 person parties, this demo only lets you toy with the main character. He hasn't yet discovered his morphing powers, so he's really all ya got, but let's see how we can look at what he's got. Note: The windowing interface can be generalized as follows: Right-clicking on something will learn about that thing. Left-clicking on something will activate that thing. - Click on the upper-left hand blue square to close the window. You will see, listed top to bottom, several of your character's attributes. Each of these attributes has a small [GO] button next to them. Right click on the [GO] button to learn about the attribute, or left-click to use the attribute. On the left hand-side of the window you will see four icons, the top-most of which is a book. Click on this to bring up the SKILLS menu. To learn about the skill, right-click on [GO]. To use the skill, left-click on [GO]. Note on using skills and attributes: These skills will tell you when they can be used directly and indirectly. An indirect skill automatically kicks into gear when it is needed. A direct skill must be activated by opting to use it (with the [GO]) button. For instance, the ability to drive might be an indirect skill, while the ability to "vanish" might be something that you'd need to invoke directly. The next icon, below the book, is the bag. Click on this to bring up another window, this being your inventory window. To learn about an object in your inventory (ye' chicken bone), right-click on it. To pick up the object, left-click on it. Click somewhere back on the statistics window to get back to where you were. The next icon, below the bag, is the scroll. Click on this to bring up the automap. It's nice, it's pretty, it's big, so close it by clicking on the left-hand blue square. The final icon, below the scroll, is the disk. Click on this to bring up the options menu. Click on the squares to activate and deactivate things. Most importantly, you can opt to save and load games. Games that are saved in the demo can be continued in the release version. To instantaneously close all of the open windows, press ESCAPE. VII. Talking to people To talk to someone, select the walk-talk mouse icon and double left- click on them. Click on any button to advance the conversation, a paragraph at a time. At some point, you will be met with a screen at which you can select what to say next. Click on the box next to the text to select the appropriate option. Each box will contain either SAY or FIGHT, and obviously, each box leads to a very different outcome! Be careful when talking to people, especially in the Chrysalis - they aren't as friendly as one would be led to believe. VIII. Fighting with people Two mouse icons (left hand and right hand) are dedicated to fighting. Each hand, unless it's a two handed-weapon, can hold a separate weapon. Simply click on the enemy you wish to attack and, if you are in range, you will begin to fight. Since each enemy you fight maintains very different combat strategies, you will want to move quickly and diligently while in combat. That, or you'll want to find a really cool weapon! To quit combat once your enemy is defeated, press ESCAPE. IX. Advanced technique explanations One of the mouse icons, grab-use, allows you to use an object by clicking on it. Likewise, you can use one object on another by first holding the object (by picking it up from your inventory or the world) and the using something. For instance, I might single-click to pick up a key. Then, I'd double-click on a lock to use the key in the lock. This is different from simply double- clicking on the lock without anything in my hand, in which case, I'd be pushing the lock. Some items in the game, such as torches on walls, cannot simply be picked up. They must, in fact, be USED (double click) to rip them off the wall. Likewise, you can combine things to create new thing. By picking up a stick using it on a suitable rock, I might be able to create an axe. Using an item that has information, such as a book or a map, allows you to MEMORIZE that item. This is useful in learning skills and/or other methods of survival. X. Hints and tips * Take time to explore the world of the Chrysalis. It's not as pretty or "fun" as Topside (in the release version!) but it's pretty cool. * You'll find a lot of people who are really ready to fight. If it's unavoidable, fight them, but otherwise, maintain your cool until you're pretty sure there is little else to do. * Save often. * Play with IDENTIFY.EXE a bit, it's pretty cool. * Dylan, much like a bad computer language, is a pretty bad kid. Don't hold back too much. Appendix A - Ordering Information --------------------------------- Blind Justice is available for only $39.95 direct from : R.A.W Entertainment 957 Nasa Road One Suite #146 Houston, TX 77058-3098 plus $3.50 for priority mail shipping and handling. Texas residents add 8.25% sales tax. Blind Justice, along with all of R.A.W.'s products, comes with a 30-day money back guarantee! Available now! If you have any questions, phone or fax R.A.W. Entertainment at 1-713-286 2 386. For technical inquiries, contact R.A.W. Entertainment via mail or phone, or email muzi@earth.execpc.com on the internet. Appendix B - Virtual Memory --------------------------- If you cannot free 3.5 megabytes of free RAM, you should run the SETUP.EXE program and turn virtual memory on. This is required for most 4 megabyte setups that want to use sound. If you have a 2 megabytes RAM machine, you should turn on virtual memory and then set SOUND and MUSIC to OFF under Sound card info. This should be able to secure enough free RAM to comfortably play the game. The virtual memory option creates a 4 megabyte swap file while playing the game. Therefore, you will need to make sure that you have 4 megabytes of free hard drive space before starting the game. This is in addition to the 1 megabytes that is naturally needed by the game anyhow. Several disk cache programs, such as SMARTDRV, were tested and discovered to be problematic with the virtual memory manager. If you experience any technical problems with respect to virtual memory, try shutting down your disk cache manager. Be prepared for "some" slowdown due to virtual memory. The disk-swap access time will undoubtedly affect the demo, however, the release version may be able to optimize these problems (optimzed for processors, etc). For further assistance, see Appendix A for customer assistance. Appendix C - Technical information ---------------------------------- The following information may assist you in isolating technical problems with operating the game. The following notes have been collected as of the most recent test session. Blind Justice has been tested on the following machines... Custom Built Packard Bell 486DX50 w/8 Meg Pentium 66 w/8 Meg Sound Blaster Pro Sound Blaster 16 Microsoft Mouse Microsoft Mouse AcerAcros Custom Built 486DX2/66 w/4 Meg 486dx66 w/32 Meg Sound Blaster compatible Gravis Ultrasound Microsoft Compatible Mouse Logitech Mouse Packard Bell 486dx66 Laptop model w/8 Meg 486DX/33 w/4 Meg Parallel port Sound Blaster Pro Sound Blaster 16 Trackball drivers and Microsoft Compatible Mouse compatible mouse drivers. Leading Technology AcerAcros 386DX/25 w/2 Meg 486dx66 w/8 Meg No Sound card Sound Blaster 16 Microsoft Compatible Mouse Microsoft Compatible Mouse Packard Bell Packard Bell 486dx2/50 w/4 Meg 386sx16 w/6 Meg Pro Audio Spectrum Sound Blaster Logitech mouse Microsoft Compatible Mouse * The machines listed were used by the in-house testing team. External testing used many different configurations. Configuration information ------------------------- * When using the virtual memory option, you should consider turning off any disk caching. When both VMM and a disk cache program are running, they both try to make updates to your drive and your memory, based on how they "remember" your drive and memory to have been. Then, what happens, is one program makes a change without telling the other. Then, the latter gets upset and decides to boycott any further operations. And so, the program halts, dead in it's tracks. * To save memory, if absolutely necessary, try shutting down the sound by selecting "NO SOUND" from the setup.exe program. * Note: Testing has revealed that the minimum 'solid' configuration would require between 1200 - 1400k free RAM, no sound and virtual memory. Questions and Answers Q. My mouse doesn't want to work. If and when it does work, it doesn't seem to work correctly. A. You may need either a new mouse or a new mouse driver. Blind Justice was written for the Microsoft Mouse 9.0 standard, so please check to make sure that your mouse is 100% compatible with this standard. If so, you might be experiencing a memory problem which is conflicting with your mouse driver. Also if you have a 3 button mouse make sure it is set for 2 button mode. The only exception to this is if you are using the 3 button mouse drivers. (I.E... Logitech) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q. My video crashes on me when I try to load up. The screen comes up, but it is jarbled and useless. A. Please check to make sure that your video card is 100% compatible with the 256k VGA standard. Blind Justice uses a special Tall-Res mode that restructures the memory on your card to achieve a higher resolution. Your card must be 100% compatible. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q. I'm having trouble double-clicking. Sometimes it works - sometimes it doesn't work. A. Blind Justice lets you specify the delay time between the first click and the second click. From the SETUP.EXE file, elect to CUSTOMIZE your game, and then move down to the inquiry on double_click rate, and up the number a few hundred, until satisfactory. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q. I have 4 megs of RAM on my computer but the game insists that, somehow, I still don't have enough RAM! What gives? A. Blind Justice requires that 3.5 megabytes of FREE RAM be available. If you cannot free 3.5 megs, you will need to use Virtual Memory. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q. I keep getting DOS4GW GENERAL PROTECTION FAULT. Half a screen of odd numbers and other data comes up on the screen, and if I'm lucky, I'm back at DOS. At other times, the screen just freezes up and I can't make out a thing. A. This error occurs when the DOS4GW protected mode manager cannot properly allocate memory. Various things can lie at the root of this error - but popular sources include: * Incompatible extended memory manager - Blind Justice was written and tested with HIMEM.SYS and Quarterdeck's QEMM 7.2. Please check to make sure that your extended memory manager is 100% compatible with these, or refer to their respective reference manuals for methods of tweaking the performance. * Improper Soundcard Initialization - Consult previous portions of this file to get assistance using the soundcard identification program, included with the game. This will help pin down your sound card and, quite frankly, it's also a lot of fun. * Virtual Memory problems - Make sure that you have enough free hard drive space to support the virtual swapfile. - Your sound card and the virtual memory manager might not be 100% compatible. Try disabling the sound to see if this helps. - Reduce the size of the swap file. - If your system happens to lock up while using Blind Justice be sure that the "temporary" swap (.SWP) file is not in your root directory. After a subsequent crashes this will fill up quite a bit of harddrive space. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q. I need to squeeze some more memory into the game. Anything I can do? A. A good solution is to turn off both the music and the sound effects from the SETUP program. This will tell the game to avoid loading the sound drivers and music from the very start, saving about 200-300k. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q. When I type SETUP and press return, the Microsoft Windows setup program begins. What happened to Blind Justice's setup? A. Make sure you are in the Blind Justice directory when you try to run Blind Justice's SETUP.EXE program. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q. I am using a disk doubler (i.e. Stacker or DoubleSpace) and often, the game freezes or locks up on me. The hard drive light stops flickering and I am forced to reboot. A. While Disk compression schemes are a terrific thing to have - they are generally not too sophisticated with respect to their methods for predicting quick disk writes and reads. Although, some are much better than others. Please look through the documentation that accompanied your disk doubler for methods of resolving these conflicts. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q. I ran the Blind Justice IDENTIFY program and it told me the wrong information about my sound card. What should I do? A. The Identifier can detect only a limited amount of configurations. Therefore, it is not 100% reliable, but for most standard configurations, the Identifier will function without fail. If you can get music and sound effects output from the program, then write down the reported values for your Base, Irq and DMA. Enter these values within the SETUP program. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q. Blind Justice crashes and returns a "Parity Error" when I try to use my Sound Card. A. A parity error occurs when two pieces of hardware cannot successfully synchronize their transmissions. Most often, with sound hardware, this indicates that either the card is not configured correctly, or is failing. To figure this problem out, first try running Blind Justice without the "Sound Effects" option. If the problem continues, try turning off the "Music". If this works, then there is an incompatiblity problem with your sound hardware and Blind Justice. You might try configuring the card differently within the SETUP program. Please remember that the Blind Justice IDENTIFY program, which you might have used to identify your sound hardware, is not 100% accurate (see above). ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q. I have a sound configuration that does not fall near the "standard" configurations that most computers might have. Therefore, the IDENTIFY program cannot pick it up. What can I do? A. The SETUP program has been constructed in such a way that you can tweak your soundcard, if you like. Simply type in the values of your Base, Irq and DMA at the prompts. Quite simply, there is no "checking" of this. Blind Justice will always attempt to initiate with the values that you have specified. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q. The IDENTIFY program picks out my soundcard perfectly. But then, when I place the values into the SETUP program, the game refuses to work. What can I do? A. The IDENTIFY program makes a few assumptions that the SETUP configurations do not assume. Therefore, if the IDENTIFY program works, you can tell the game to autodetect your sound hardware right from the start. Type in the following at the DOS prompt. JUSTICE AUTODETECT This will instruct the game to autodetect your soundcard using exactly the same method as the IDENTIFY program did. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q. The screen is too dark. I can't see a thing. What's up? A. Different monitors approach screen tones differently. You can perform gamma correction by pressing F5 during the game. This will adjust the DAC values of the game and correspondingly brighten/darken your screen. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q. The volume of the music and/or sound effects are too loud. A. You can decrease/increase the volume of the sound effects by pressing F1 and F2, respectively, during the course of the game. Likewise, you can press F3 and F4 to respectively decrease and increase the volume of the music. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q. Blind Justice runs a bit slow on my machine. Is there anything I can do to speed it up? A. It is recommended that you use SMARTDRV or an equivalent disk-cache program while running Blind Justice. During testing, it was found that 384k was a good amount to allocate. Please note that you cannot use SMARTDRV, or most disk caches, while running the virtual memory management system. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q. I keep getting clobbered early on in the game. Why can't I beat anyone up? A. Although built from a roleplaying perspective, Blind Justice doesn't incorporate a lot of the superfluous hack-n-slash combat seen in modern and even traditional roleplaying games. It is much more a real-world game, where people are just as lethal as you are. Therefore, from the perspective of realism, people in the game are quite unwilling to be attacked! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q. I've noticed that certain portions of the game, such as when a lot of Windows are open on the screen or during combat, tend to slow down a lot. Why is this so? A. Blind Justice runs in "real time", meaning that everyone else in the world (any NPCs or external characters/objects) are just as life-like as you, in that their movements and decisions are made at the "same speed" as yours. Combat is a perfect example of this. Each individual person or object has an "artificial intelligence cycle" where all of their decisions are made. This cycle takes a constant amount of time for each character, and so, the more characters/objects on-screen, the longer the delays. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q. I want to back up my characters to safeguard in the event that something should go wrong. How can I do this? A. We have provided a utility called JBACK.EXE to do this for you. It is located in the SVGAME directory off of the installation path. To learn more about it, just go into the SVGAME directory and type "JBACK", without the quotes. Press Enter and a help screen will appear. This utility saves compressed versions of the saved games. Each backup that you make takes about 140k of disk space. If you are using the demo version of Blind Justice, this requirement may be substantially reduced. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q. I repeatedly get errors at startup. Everything else fails. What can I do about this? A. Most likely, one or more of the savegame files were corrupted. Using your favorite editor, open the file called "LASTSAVE.SVG" from the SVGAME directory. The number you see is the last saved game number, which should be between 0 and 4. Try changing this number to a different number, either 0,1,2 or 3, and save. If that fails, you will need to reinstall. Use the JBACK.EXE utility, mentioned above, to backup your characters before you reinstall. If, after reinstalling and restoring your characters, the problem persists, then most likely, the corrupted files exist within the saved games themselves. In this event, you will need to start over completely. Please write or call about technical assistance if this should come up, because, we don't want you to lose your game, and many of these problems can still be fixed. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q. I have a Gravis UltraSound soundcard. The music seems fine at first, but then wipes out during the game. What gives? A. Beta testing revealed that "some" versions of the Gravis Ultrasound have minor incompatibilities with our sound code. Try disabling the sound effects from within the SETUP.EXE program (SOUND OFF). ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q. How can I set everything up to work with Windows '95? A. Once you create the "Blind Justice" shortcut within Windows 95 (consult the Windows '95 documentation for assistance), right click on the "Blind Justice" icon and select the Properties attribute. From here, you will be able to specify the amount of DPMI memory. Give it as much as you can - this eliminates problems due to lack of memory. Also, you may want to let Blind Justice operate with "no" background tasks. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q. Appendix D - Customizing the game / Setting preferences ------------------------------------------------------- When you run the SETUP.EXE program, selecting "Customize Game" will allow you to change some of the internal game parameters. One can, therefore, customize the game for their system. Several areas for tweaking are offered, but the release version of Blind Justice will include many more areas, allowing one to take complete control of their gaming experience. If you select "Customize Game", and you have DOS 5.0 or later, you should be able to jump right into the DOS editor and begin making changes. However, if you do not have DOS 5.0 or later, you will need to do the following: 1) Start your favorite word processor or editor 2) Open the file "settings.dat" which is found in the DATA directory off of the main Blind Justice directory. The following is an explanation of the settings.dat file. "Specify the delay cycle time for throw projectiles. (Normal=10000)" This number represents the amount of pause time between each update of the projectile. Raising this number makes the projectile move slower. Lowering the number makes the projectile move quicker. The lowest this number should be set is 1. The highest this number should be set is 32000. "This value can be lowered to increase text speed. (Normal=100)" If text is appearing on your screen too slowly, you should lower this number. The lowest this number should be set is 1. The highest this number should be set is 32000. "This is the amount of cycles to wait for a double click. (Normal=4000)" If you are having trouble double-clicking, read on. This number dictates the amount of computer cycles to wait for a second click after the first click has been made. If you need more time to make a double-click, raise this number (in increments of 1000 is good). If you need less time, you can likewise lower this number. The lowest this number should be is 1. The highest this number should be is 32000. "Character NPC comments disappear after this many cycles. (Normal=20)" This number represents the amount of time to keep a character's text on the screen. Raising the number increases the amount of time, while, lowering the number decreases the amount of time. The lowest this number should be is 1. The highest this number should be is 32000. "Amount of time to pause between morphing frames. (Normal=0)" The demo doesn't feature the morphing that comes later in the game. This number specifies the amount of time to pause between updating morph frames. For faster computers, this number should be raised from 0. The following macros can be defined as 'hot-keys' and allow a single-keypress to substitute for a pattern of keypresses, and actions. "Macro to select the walk-talk icon. (Normal = 1)" "Macro to select the take-use icon. (Normal = 2)" "Macro to select the glance-look icon. (Normal = 3)" "Macro to select the lefthand icon. (Normal = 4)" "Macro to select the righthand icon. (Normal = 5)" "Macro to automatically jump to the Automap. (Normal = 6)" "Macro to automatically bring up character attribute window. (Normal = 7)" "Macro to open the main character's inventory. (Normal = 8)" Once you are finished editing the file, you should save it and exit. With the DOS editor, this can be performed by pressing ALT-F and then pressing X to exit. Please refer to your respective word processor's manual for methods of saving and exiting. Appendix E - Release Version amendments --------------------------------------- Some of the full paragraph descriptions that you read in the demo may be faulty. The release version will feature complete descriptions that, surely, will not feature these faulty paragraphs. The release version runs faster than the demo version due to the addition of optimized code for each of the available processor instruction code sets [386/486/586]. The release version also features a broader range of sound support with more sound cards and a larger range of sound effects and music. Miscellaneous commands ---------------------- F1 / F2 ... Decrease/Increase sound effect volume F3 / F4 ... Decrease/Increase music volume F5 ... Gamma correction F6 ... Pause game F7 ... Rename character F9 ... Summon the "help" window F10 ... Make a PCX of current screen ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pkunzip.exe is a registered trademark of PKWARE, Inc. Music by John Catney Microsoft Windows is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation. DSMI/32 sound code by Virtual Visions and Otto Chrons. Blind Justice. Copyright 1995 Illymani Designs / R.A.W Entertainment. All rights reserved. Distributed by R.A.W. Entertainment [end of file]