1,000 Games

home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search

/ 1,000 Games / Disc1.iso / ADVEN / DG / DG.TXT < prev next >

Wrap

Text File | 1994-10-04 | 38.1 KB | 741 lines

Instructions for "The Dungeon Game." Published by Computer Generated Dreams Written by Justin Love type "dg4p" at DOS prompt to run program. OVERVIEW "The Dungeon Game" is an action oriented, dungeon theme, game for one to four players. Yes, the graphics, sound, and such are simplistic at best, but after hours of testing I'm not sick of it yet, so it must be at least some fun. There is no real plot the game, but the background goes something like this. A long time ago, a pyramid-shaped dungeon was found underground. Many legendary heros of the time tried to conquer the dungeons, but as fewer and fewer returned, even the strong ones began to fear the dungeons. Now only the poor, who have nothing to lose and everything to gain from the treasures within, dare enter the dungeons. Over time a town has sprung up to support the adventurers. FIRST TIME WALK-THROUGH This is a quick, one-player, guide to your first game. After viewing the logo and opening screen, press any key. Now press 'c' to create a new character data file, and you will go to the main menu. The default keys appear later in these instructions, and you should use those until you get an idea of what each key does. For now, just press '1' to go to the game menu, and then press '1' to add a new character to the list. Instead of trying to explain this in general terms, I'm going to use an example character, just follow this example until you get the hang of things. You will now be prompted for a name, type "Bobby the Brave" and press [Enter]. Now you will be prompted for the sex of your character, I'll leave this one up to you. You will now see a screen with a large number of classes and the attributes associated with them. You can look over the attributes, keeping in mind that low is good, but choose the "Gnome" class so we're all talking about the same thing later. Now you should be at the character modification screen. There is a list of attributes and a short definition for each. Below that is how much experience you have (you begin with 2000, as you can see) followed by another list of attributes, the experience cost for each, and your current values, which should all be 0. You will also see a '<' pointer at strength. Press the spacebar once, and 50 experience will be subtracted from you total, and your strength will become one. Press the spacebar four more times to get a total experience of five. Now fill out the rest of the attributes so they look like this: Strength 5 Magic 1 Stamina 5 Guard 3 Perception 2 Luck 1 Dexterity 2 Charisma 0 Morality 0 You should now have 1000 experience left. Sure, you could get a lot more attributes, but a level up will do you a lot of good. You may have noticed that this character class starts with 15 HP's (hit points), and 15 MP's (magic points). These are the maximum amount of these you can have until you affect these values. choosing the "Level Up" item will improve these values by a random amount based on your attributes (I ended up with 23 HP / 17 MP on my example character). Now that all of you experience is gone, choose the "Done" option to leave. When you return to the game menu you should now see your characters name in the list at the top. Choose option '3' to see how your level up turned out, and see other information about your character. Feel free to look at the other options, but when your done, choose '7', "Start Game". You will now be asked how deep you want to go. Press '1' for level 1, the easiest. Now the elevator operator will ask you who will go down first. You only have one character, so press '0' to use it. You are now in the game proper. If the sound effects bother you or you need to adjust the speed for your machine, press ESC and refer to "PAUSE FUNCTIONS", under "PLAYING THE GAME" for complete instructions. The screen should be black except for the upper left quadrant. This section is also divided into two windows, one for status and one for viewing the action. I don't want to take the time to describe everything in the status window, and most of it should be fairly obvious. It may take a little imagination to see anything in the action window. Your character is the '0' flashing with an arrow. The number is your character number, and the arrow indicates the direction you are facing. Now try moving around with just the basic directions until you are comfortable with them, but the square to your immediate left is the elevator, so don't walk into it unless you want to leave. After you get used to these, press your right hand key, 'w' for the default keys. You should see a brown half square, which represents you hand. If there was an item on the square you punched, you would have also picked it up. The left hand key is currently assigned to "Air Shall Erupt", a basic magic spell which Bobby can't use yet. Once your comfortable with random punching, press 'e', the menu key, to change the status window to your inventory, and transfer your control to that window. The left and right direction keys won't do anything here until you get at least two columns of items. The up and down keys move up and down through the list of items. Press the down key until you reach the search item, and press 'w' to assign it to your right hand. now press 'e' to return to the game. Press 'w' a few times to search the room. You may not find anything, either because there is nothing secret in the room or because your perception is still fairly low. Now return to your inventory ('e') and assign the torch to your right hand ('w') and the tinder box to your left hand ('q'), and press the inventory key again. Notice that you may now use your right hand to swing the torch like a club (don't use the tinder box just yet). Now look around at he walls (the darker patterns around the edge). If one of the walls is a brown or yellow color, or one of the walls has something in the center of it, you have found a door. If you don't see any doors, either go and walk into the center of the walls, hit the same spots with your torch, or search again until you find something (don't forget to change back to the torch when your done). Walk over to a door (choose one that is brown or yellow in color if you can, these tend to be easier to open, and avoid doors with an 'î' locked symbol for now), and walk into it or hit it with your torch until it opens. Now press the left hand key to light the torch, and step through the door. There should be a few monsters in this room, when there is one next to you, face it and press the right hand key to hit it with your torch, until it is dead. Once all the nearby monsters are gone, look for the room torch in the center of the room (a brown square with a black square in the center). Go over to the room torch, face it and press the left hand key to light it with the tinder box. The inner square of the room torch should now be flashing, indicating that it is lit. This room will now be lit until you leave the dungeon. Will all this free light, you might want to conserve your torch, go into your inventory and choose something other than the torch for your right hand to put it out, and then reselect the torch if you still have some monster bashing to do in this room. If not, select search and search the room thoroughly. Now look for any chests (lightgray '╫'s over brown, or green if moss is growing on it). Walk over to a chest, if there is one, and walk into it (unless it is green), or hit it with a weapon to open it. Next, pick up any objects on the floor with "Punch/Get" - yellow '$'s (money), flashing ''s (adds a few MP's), and black '■'s (an item). If you picked up any items that are too heavy for you, go into the inventory and put the pointer on the offending item. Now press the drop/change casting key, 's' and the pointer will change to a 'D', and press it again to drop that item. That should cover the basics, play at least a few more rooms with Bobby until you get the basic idea, and then create your own character, preferably after reading all of these instructions. MAIN MENU After viewing the logo and the opening screen, you will find yourself in the main menu. If this is your first time playing, you will be notified that the computer could not find a character data file. Press 'c' to create a new file. (If your ever want to scrap all of your characters, you can just delete charstat.dat and create a new file in this manner. Keep in mind the keys and password defaults will be saved in this file also.) 1. ENTERING THE GAME MENU Press '1' to enter the game menu, explained below. 2. SAVE The game's data file is automatically loaded when you start the program and you will be asked if you want to save when you quit. However, you may wish to save your progress, just in case. 3. LOAD This loads the previous data file, if you lost some ground since then. 4. SAVEING ONE CHARACTER If all the characters are automatically saved all the time, why would you need to save just 1? Well, if you spent weeks building up a god character, and so has your friend on his copy, you can't venture into the dungeon together because you characters are saved in seperate files. Use this option to save your super character on a disk and take it to your friends house. When you select it, you will be promted for the number of the character you want to save, and given a list of the available numbers. Choose the number you want and you will be shown that characters name so you are sure that is the one you want. Next you will be asked for a save slot. Since you may want to move more than one character, up to 8 may be saved, in files char0.dat- char7.dat. The numbers are arbitary and you may choose whichever one you want, just choose the same number when you load. 5. LOADING ONE CHARACTER This Process is similar to above. You will first be prompted to enter the number of an empty character slot, and you will be shown a list of available slots. Then you will be asked for the save file number that was used to save the character. If it is successuful, you will be shown the characters name and the slot number you entered. 6. PASSWORD PROTECTION If you don't want your little brother (or whomever) "accidently" getting any of your characters killed, you can make the program request a password at the title screen. When you chose this option, you will be asked if you want password protection. If you respond 'y' (for yes), you will be prompted to enter the password you want. Entering The Password The case (uppercase or lowercase) IS checked when the program asks for the password at the beginning of the program. If you are unable to enter the correct password, you can type 'quit' to exit the program. 7. DEFINING KEYS The program saves four, user definable, 8-key sets, one for each player. The eight keys are: up, down, right, left, right hand, left hand, menu, and drop/change casting. (See "CONTROLLING YOUR CHARACTER" under "PLAYING THE GAME" for an explanation of how they are used.) When you chose this item, you will be asked if you what to define the keys for player 1, then for the other three players. If you respond 'y', you will immediately be prompted for each of the eight keys. Press the key you want for that action. The default keys are as follows. (lowercase) Player 1 [e] [s] [r] menu drop/change casting up [d] [f] [q] [w] left right left hand right hand [c] down Player 2 [m] [j] [o] menu drop/change casting up [k] [l] [b] [n] left right left hand right hand [,] down Player 3 ['] []] [up arrow] menu drop/change casting up [left arrow] [right arrow] [p] [[] left right left hand right hand [down arrow] down Player 4 [7] [9] [8] menu drop/change casting up [4] [6] [1] [0] left right left hand right hand [2] down 8. QUITTING Press '8' to quit the program. Character data, the keys, the password and the game speed are automatically saved. GAME MENU THE HALL OF CHARACTERS At the top of game menu will be a list all the current characters. You can save up to eight characters, unused slots will have a "XXXX DEAD XXXX" in place of the name (all slots will be like this the first time you play). the total number of living characters appears after the title "Game Menu." 1. ADDING A CHARACTER Press '1' to create a new character. Throughout the game characters are referred to by their numbers. The program will automatically assign you new character the first available number and tell you what it is (if you forget, just look at the hall of characters.) (If your change your mind about a menu selection, you can enter '9' for the character number to abort.) You will now be prompted to enter a name for your new character. When you are finished, you will be prompted for the sex and then for a class for your character. The class determines how much experience is required to advance a particular attribute, you begin with 2000 experience to create your character. HP's are health points and MP's are magic points. Use the up and down arrows to make a selection, and the spacebar to chose a class. You will now go to create your character, which is the same as modifiying a caharacter, explained in the next section. 2. MODIFYING A CHARACTER Chose this second option to apply the experience you've earned towards your attributes. Use the up and down arrows to move the pointer, and the spacebar to make a selection. The costs depends on your class. Chose the 'Done' option when finished. You can also improve your level, which increases your HP's and MP's based on you attributes. Here is a list of the attributes and what they do; a similar list appears on the character modification screen. Strength: determines how much damage you can do using physical attacks, which weapons you can use, and also helps in knocking down doors. Magic: determines how much damage you can do using magic attacks and which magical spells you can use. Stamina: determines how much weight you can carry without being slowed down; if you exceed stamina * 10, your character may not respond to all of your commands. Guard: your ability to avoid enemy attacks. Intelligence: determines chance of finding hidden doors, moss, and chests. Luck: it affects a great many things in positive ways. Dexterity: all it determines is lockpicking ability, but it is darn near impossible to open locked doors or chests without a key, strong weapon, or high dexterity. Charisma: you can either talk monsters into standing still or scare them away; this determines how easy it is to do this. Morality: The Sword of Justice and the Magic Cloak can only be used by the pure of heart (30 morality.) 3. VIEWING A CHARACTER Option '3' displays your character's number, name, money, max HP, max MP, sex, class, experience, weight, attributes, and if you have been cursed. You can also view a character from within the game, using the pause menu. 4. KILLING A CHARACTER If your want to replace a character, you must first kill the old one. Press '4' and then enter the number of the character you want to kill. You will be shown the character's name and asked if you are positive you want to kill that character. 5. BUYING ITEMS There are three shops in the town outside the dungeon, the armory (with sperate sections for weapons and armor), the general store which sells a variety of item, and the magic shop where the witch will teach you a number of spells for her generally high prices. If you go to the magic shop with a curse on you, the witch will offer you an in house cure for $10. If you don't have enough money, she will take pity on you and take what money you have, even if that is nothing. All of the items available for sale in a particular shop will be listed with a number of their stats. The stats are: cost, weight, rating (for most weapons (including spells), rating is multiplied times strength or magic to get potential damage), the level you need to use it (strength for weapons, magic for spells, etc.), and the MP's the item uses (if it use any). At the bottom of the screen is the money you have as well as your weight. The shopkeepers are not very good judges of character and will sell you items you cannot use. Use the up and down arrows to move the pointer, the spacebar to select, and the ESC key to leave that shop. 6. SELLING INVENTORY If your manage to return from the dungeons alive, you can sell any items you collected for %10 of thier value. You can sell items by using the up and down arrow keys to move the pointer and the space bar to sell one item (the list will scroll if you have more than 23 items.) Your weight and money is shown at the bottom of the screen. 7. STARTING THE GAME Choose '7' when you are ready to enter the dungeon. The elevator operator will ask you to which level you want to go. The levels are numbered 1 - 100, 100 being the deepest and hardest. You will then be asked who will go down first (up to three other characters can come down later). If your character has no possessions, the elevator operator will take pity and give you a tinder box and torch so you can see. See "PLAYING THE GAME" for what happens next. 8. LEAVING THE GAME MENU Press '8' to return to the main menu. PLAYING THE GAME THE GAME SCREEN The screen is split by a horizonal bar which displays the names of the characters in the dungeon and the dungeon's name. The top half of the screen has two playing windows and the bottom half has two more. When there is more than one player, each player can have their own window. The left portion of each playing window is the action window. The dungeons are organized as grid interconnected rooms, and the action window shows exactly one room. The remainder of each playing window shows either a wide variety of information or your inventory. The information on the main screen is: HP's, MP's, money, weight, experience, the curses you are bearing, the last item you found, which character or monster you are casting on, the control type of the character, what is in your right hand, what is in your left hand, how many monsters there are, what type they are, what level they have, which one you most recently interacted with, that monsters HP, and the intelligence of the monster. OBJECTS IN THE ACTION WINDOW In the action window objects appear as follows. The floor is a darkgray pattern on lightgray. Water is a light blue pattern on blue. Fire is a flashing pattern on black. Walls are a darkgray pattern on black. Wooden doors are brown lines over lightgray, stone doors are a yellow pattern on brown, steel grate doors are a black '#' on lightgray, and solid steel doors are a darkgray line on lightgray. Locked doors are an 'î'. A room torch is a brown square with a black square if unlit and a flashing square if lit. Chests are a lightgray '╫' on brown or green. Moss is a green square. Objects on the floor are yellow '$' for money, flashing diamonds for magic and black squares for items. You are a white number flashing with a yellow arrow over black. Other characters are lightgray numbers flashing with brown arrows over black. Dead characters are darkgray numbers flashing with red X's over black. Monsters are numbers over a red background, with the forground color indicating thier aproximate hit points remaining. Projectiles take a variety of forms. CONTROLLING YOUR CHARACTER THE GAME When directly controlling your character the controls operate as follows. Pressing a direction key makes your character face that direction, press a key in the same direction as your character is facing moves that direction (you can only move and face in the four basic directions.). Pressing the right or left hand key uses that item (if it can be used.) Pressing the drop/change casting advances the monster or character you are casting on by one. Pressing the menu key switchs to the inventory screen. HANDLING INVENTORY When in the inventory screen the game does NOT pause (rummaging around in you backpack takes time, plus the other players might not appreciate having their games frequently interrupted.) The keys operate in this manner. The direction keys move the pointer, the complete stats for the item the pointer is on are displayed at the top of inventory screen. The pointer will wrap around from top to bottom and left to right. Only one of the six columns of items is shown at a time, and each one will only appear if there is someing in it, use the left and right keys to move from column to column. The right and left hand keys select the item to be used for that hand, and the right hand key selects armor or rings to be worn (you can still carry these items in your left hand, but they cannot be used in any way). Press the Drop/Change Casting key once and the cursor will change to a 'D'. Press it again to remove all of that item from your inventory. Press any other key instead to exit the drop mode without doing anything. The menu key takes you back to game control. "CASTING" SPELLS The casting term mentioned several times in this documentation affects items with a '*' before their names. Casting controls which monster or character the item will affect. For instance, if you casting is on monster 0, and you use "*Reason", you will talk to monster 0, attempting to reason it into standing still. THE ELEVATOR The elevator is where you enter each dungeon and where you MUST exit to escape alive. You can identify the elevator by the shaft of light which shines down from above and always illuminates this room. Walk into the elevator to leave the dungeon. LIGHT SOURCES There are at least five ways to illuminate a room. You can carry a lantern or torch with you, light a room torch if there is one, create a room torch with the "Light of Glory" spell, or be in the elevator room. You will not be able to see anything in the action window without a light source. ENEMIES BASICS Each dungeon is inhabited by five kinds of monsters, and these kinds vary for each dungeon. Each kind of monster has a level, HP, speed, type, and intelligence. When a monster is killed, you will receive experience equal to it's level and it will drop one item. Some monsters wander the dungeons, they may be in rooms you have already cleared or come into your room. If you trap a monster in one space they will explode in flame. TYPES There are six types of monsters in addition to the basic monster. Giant monsters have twice the HP and twice the level. Werebeasts can be harmed by any weapon, but can only be killed by a silver weapon. Young monsters have half the level and half the HP, but the highest possible speed, and although usually easily dispatched, can be often be on you before you can react. Undead monsters cannot be killed, but can be hacked to pieces (they have a very high HP) or killed by "*Life is Finite." Skeletal monsters are similar to undead monsters, but they have more HP, half the level, a slower speed, and since curses reside in the flesh, they cannot be cursed. They can also be killed by "*Life is Finite." The last type of monster is dark. Dark monsters have five times the level. INTELLIGENCES All monsters are one of six intelligence levels. The levels are formed by a combination of the attributes which follow. Some monsters wander aimlessly, and attack randomly. They will however attack you if they the are in range. Other monsters, classified as stupid, seek towards you barging through moss and simply stopping at obstacles. Monsters classified as smart(er) are similar to stupid, but they avoid moss, attempt to find their way around obstacles, and often step to the side when hit. Punching monsters use a simple short range attack. Magic monsters use a spell similar to Air Shall Erupt. Casting monsters use a punching attack, but can also cure their themselves of curses and cast curses on you or other players. DOORS Doors, graphically mentioned before, can be one of four types, plus secret, locked, full wall, and easy or hard to open. You can open a door by walking into it or hitting it with a weapon, the stronger the better. If doors are hard to open, wooden doors are easiest, followed by stone, grate, and steel, which are the hardest. Locked doors are easily opened by keys and often by demons orb's, but otherwise are very hard without high dexterity. Secret doors can be found by searching, by walking into walls, or by stray shots. CHESTS Up to two chests can be in a room. They are opened in similar ways to doors, including use of keys. When a chest is opened, it will disappear and the items inside will spill out. Chests can be hidden or have moss growing on them. PICKING THINGS UP You pick objects on the floor up with the "Punch/Get" action. Stand next to the item and face it, then press the key for the hand that has "Punch/Get." If the object is money or magic, they are automatically added to there respective numbers. If it is an item it will be added to your inventory and it's name will appear in "found". POISON MOSS There are no traps in the dungeons, but moss is just as annoying. It is often only found on careful examination, and will release a poisonous gas if touched, which caused damage. Moss proliferates over time. You can light moss on fire with the tinder box. FLOODED ROOMS Some rooms are flooded. You will leave a trail of muddy water where you stepped. If you use the "Punch/Get" action on a water square there is a chance you will gain a hit point. If you use it on a muddy square, you may lose one. The only other effect on game play is fire prevention. MID-ROOM WALLS Some walls are solid and imobile. Other walls are crumbled and can be destroyed. Crumbling walls can also be pushed at thier weakest stage. Monsters will explode if trapped and surrounded on four sides. FIRE If you start a fire, it may die or spread. Fire will damage your or monsters if touched. It spreads quickly through adjacent moss and will not spread through water. PAUSE FUNCTIONS Pressing ESC will pause the game and offer you a list of options. GAME CONTROL Select the options with the up and down arrow keys and the spacebar. Continue returns to the game. Quit will allow you to do a quicksave or abandon the characters still in the dungeon. If you do a quicksave, you will automatically return to your place in the game when you restart. You can also adjust the game speed -- press the spacebar, use the right and left arrow keys, and press the spacebar when done; the larger the number, the slower the game will go. You can turn the sound on and off by pressing the spacebar. CHARACTER CONTROL If you select one of the four "Character: " options you will go to character menu below the dotted line. If the character slot is unused, you can add a character. If the character is active, you can change the characters control type(human 1-human 4, stand, task, follow human 1-follow human 4), or the viewing window (1-4 or 0 for none, the window numbers appear in the upper left hand corner when active). You can also remove the character, killing them if they are alive, view the character, and return to the main pause menu. Tip: if the character slot is unused, and you select the view item, you will be prompted for a character number. Use this if your not sure who you want to bring in. CHARACTER CONTROL TYPES This is an explanation of the 10 character control types mentioned above. Human 1 though human 4 are direct control by the keys for that player. A character on stand will remain stationary, attacking nearby enemies if they have a weapon in their right hand. A character on task will do various actions depending what is in their right hand. If they have a weapon, they will seek and attack enemies, if they have "Search" they will do nothing but use that, unless they are near a door, in which case they will try to open the door. If they have "Punch/Get" they will first open any chests, then pick up items. Follow 1 through follow 4 instruct the character to follow that player, attacking nearby enemies if they have a weapon in thier right hand. DEATH If a character is removed (via the pause menu) or killed and not resurrected before the living exit the dungeon (or get killed themselves), they are not necessarily dead. You can save everying but thier experience and money. ITEMS GENERALIZATIONS There are a total of 60 items, including the 6 actions which you will always have. Most items must be used by pressing the key they are assigned to. The exceptions to this are mostly armor and rings. In the case of weapons and most spells, the effectiveness is the rating times the relative attribute. The rating of armor is a percentage of damage blocked (a rating of 2 = 20% blocked.) The rating of light sources is in units of "light time." The required level of weapons and spells is strength and magic, relatively. You can only wear one ring and one type of armor at a time. INDIVIDUAL EXPLANATIONS Here are the explanation for the special features of selected items. Punch/Get -- a basic attack and pick up items. Air Shall Erupt -- the wizards basic weapon. Throw -- put the item you want to throw in the opposite hand and press the key assigned to throw to toss one item. (This is a weak projectile attack.) Search -- look for hidden doors, chests, and moss, also updates the map if you have one. *Reason -- talk monsters into standing still (they can still move a little.) *Threaten -- talk monsters into running away (DON'T get in their way as they run - frightend monsters will attack ferociously). Sword of Justice -- one of the legendary heros sold his sword before he disappeared. The unmoral are unable to pick up the blade (you need a 30 morality), and the shopkeeper will give it to whomever can remove it from his counter. It has average damage, but a 2 space reach, and inflicts the *Eternal Wound and *Foes Aim True on whomever it strikes. bows and arrows -- put the bow in one hand and the arrows you want to use in the other. Arrows are sold in quivers of 10, the quivers automatically disappear after the 10 arrows are spent. Longsword -- average damage, but has 3 space reach. Mace -- best damage, 2 space reach. *Weight of World -- curse, slows monsters to a crawl if if that; adds 500 weight if on you. *Eternal Wound -- curse, inflicts 1 damage on a regular basis. *Aim Shall Fail -- curse, the victim couldn't hit a target if their life depended on it, which it usually does. *Foe's Aim True -- curse, those attacking victim are guaranteed a hit. *Instill fear -- curse, same effect as *Threaten on monsters; acts like confusion on a character. Arctic Wind -- quick-freezes all enemies in the room. *Life is finite -- kills the undead or skeletal enemy casted upon. Lightning -- fires ten shots of 300 times the users magic level, NOTHING(except werebeasts) survives this if they stay put. Magic Cloak -- the other item that requires 30 morality, wear it as armor and anyone who attacks you receives *Aim Shall Fail. Light of Glory -- creates a lit room torch in the current room. Key -- stand in front of a locked door or chest, face it and press the keyboard key that is assigned to the item "Key". Lantern -- one light source, advantage over torch - 5 times the light. To light the Lantern, put it in one hand, select the oil in the other hand and use the oil, then select the Tinder Box, and use it. You will only need to use the Tinder Box (and not the oil also) to relite it until the oil runs out Torch -- one light source, advantages over lantern - lighter, frequently found in dungeon, can be used as a weapon (rating is 2 as a weapon). Tinder Box -- use to light room torches - stand next to it and face the torch and press the key. Lantern or Torch- use in opposite hand. Sweet rose -- the shopkeeper of the general store sells these from his own garden, hoping to cheer up the adventures, sales have been poor. Shield -- press the key to momentarily block all hits. Adds 1 to your armor rating if held in one hand. Food -- restores 10 HP's Diamond Ring -- believed to have magical powers, but no one knows for sure what they are. Demon's Orb -- a metal sphere filled with the devil's powder, light the string that protrudes and stand well back, for the air shall erupt in flames. (it's a bomb) Magic Potion -- replenishes all of your MP's. Map -- found only in the dungeon, press the button to view the map in the action window (the game does not pause, and you must have a light) the map is updated when you Search a room. Since it is only good for one dungeon, it is automatically sold for $10 when you leave. The red X marks your location, and the square marks the elevator, black rooms are unsearched, and lightgray rooms have been searched. Aquacontrol -- dries or floods a room at your command. *Magic Spores -- Creates a ring of poison moss around the casted upon character or monster. Use as a shield or to surround monsters. SHAMELESS PLUG Please register this product if you find it at all entertaining. It's only $5. I can't promise any benefits just yet, but I am planning to offer registered users first dibs and reduced registration on my next game, which is already well under way. (It's sort of dyslexic falling shapes, if you care. It will feature VGA graphics, but I don't plan on being able to support sound cards for a long time. I would like to do a sequel to this game using the graphics routines I've developed, but I'd like to wait until I can offer modem and/or network support, which this game is just screaming for.) HINTS Please give the game a good try before looking at these hints. The main reason this section exits is so people don't find a secret item and think it is useless. It's more fun to discover on your own if you can. GENERAL Items and chests are sometimes obscured by the room torch. Exit a tough room to heal and change weapons. Whenever possible during battles, stay in fort of the door so you can get out if there is trouble. Remember you can stop enemies with *Reason if you have trouble and decent charisma. If you exit the room and return, enemy positions will change, and the position and type of floor objects will change. The Sweet Rose makes you immune to moss if you are holding it in one of your hands. The Diamond Ring attracts monsters to your room, this is not alsways bad since it can have the positive effect of earning experience. *Reason and *Threaten are effectively *Weight of World and *Instill Fear. You may get better HP and MP increases if you increase other attributes first. Morality doesn't do any good until you reach 30, so don't spend experience on it until you want to reach that level. A warp in the center of the room is the Mystic One, enter it to trade money for experience, it disappears when you are done. SECRET ITEMS A number of items only appear in the dungeon and are very rare. Ruby Ring -- restores HP's at the same rate as *Eternal Wound subtracts them. Gold Ring -- doubles the strength of physical attacks. Silver Ring -- you lose MP's in place of HP's when you are hit. *Sleep No More -- a curse created to prevent sleep by creating a glowing fairy that follows the victim everywhere, preventing the dark for them to sleep in, but it's perfect for lighting dungeons. Emerald Ring -- restores MP's at them same rate as the Ruby ring. Topaz Ring -- makes Air Shall Erupt home in on the enemy you are casting on. Moonstone Ring -- makes curses you cast affect all the monsters in the room. Lens of Clarity -- you are guaranteed to find everything when you use it. Also, when you are holding it in one of your hands, secret items one the dungeon floor appear a diffrent color. Sapphire Ring -- prevents monsters from cursing you. Amethyst Ring -- halves your weight while you wear it.