This demo offers a glimpse of our ground-breaking 3D Real Time Strategy Game, Myth: The Fallen Lords. This playable demo includes a Training Map, two levels from the game, plus one network map. Some of the networking features have been disabled for the demo.
THE FULL VERSION INCLUDES:
• The complete 25 level scenario with animated cut-scenes.
• All 10 unique network only maps, with unrestricted netplay.
• Many more unit types, magic, landscapes, and carnage galore.
• Net games like Capture the Flag, King of the Hill, Territories, Flag Rally, Steal the Bacon, and more.
• Free access to bungie.net (You must have your own Internet connection)
HOW TO BUY MYTH: THE FALLEN LORDS
Myth: The Fallen Lords is available through software resellers, mail order companies, or direct from Bungie! Call (1-800-295-0060) or visit <http://www.bungie.com> to place your order.
Bungie Software Products Corporation
P.O. Box 7877
Chicago, IL 60680-7877
Orders: (800) 295-0060
Fax: (312) 563-0545
e-mail: info@bungie.com
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
- MacOS 7.5 or later
- Power Macintosh Computer
- 16 MB of FREE RAM (32 MB recommended)
- 16-bit color at 640 X 480
- 4X CD-ROM drive
- supports 3Dfx cards
MAIN MENU
After the introductory animation, Myth's title screen and main menu will appear. To choose an option from the menu, move the cursor over it and click the mouse button.
New Game - Launches a new single-player game.
Multiplayer Game - allows you to play competitively or cooperatively with other people across via modem or local area network. Only appears if your machine is capable of playing network games.
Continue Saved Game - Allows you to return to a saved game. Only appears if you have one or more saved games.
Replay Saved Film - allows you to select and view a previously saved replay. Only appears if you have saved replays on your hard disk.
Preferences - Allows you to modify various game settings and functions.
Quit - Quit Myth: The Fallen Lords and return to your desktop.
THE INTERFACE
Myth's interface is minimal but extremely powerful, and players who learn the intricacies of the interface will have a distinct advantage over players who just jump in. So before you log on to bungie.net and embarrass yourself, read this section and join the ranks of the Enlightened.
The Status Bar
When you select a single unit, the name and type of that unit are displayed in the Status bar, along with a brief description of that unit.
When multiple units are selected, the names, types, and quantity of units will appear in the status bar. The brief paragraph of descriptive text will not appear.
If no units are selected, the Status Bar will provide details of your mission. In a network game, it lists the rules of whatever net game scenario you are playing.
On the right edge of the status bar is the Option button. If you click this button, you will pause the game and be given a chance to revert to a saved game, restart the current level, resume the current game or quit entirely. The Escape key does the same thing.
Also at the right edge of the Status bar is a small triangular button. This controls the overhead map. For more information about the overhead map, see below.
The Game Area
This window consists of everything underneath the status bar. This is your window to the battlefield, and you can look at different parts of the battlefield by moving the camera. The Game Area is where all the actual combat takes place.
The Overhead Map
To the right of the Option button in the status bar is a small triangular wedge. Clicking this wedge toggles the overhead map on and off. You can also toggle the map by hitting your Tab key.
The overhead map appears in the upper right corner of the Game Area. It is a transparent, top-down view of the entire battlefield. Your units appear as green dots. Enemy units appear as red dots. Friendly units (civilians, or team members in team network games) appear as blue dots. A yellow trapezoid denotes your current camera position.
Clicking a spot on the overhead map will instantly move your camera to that spot in the Game Area. Note that you cannot move troops by selecting them and then clicking a spot on the overhead map; you can only move units in the Game Area.
Keys
Please note that you can change the commands assigned to the keyboard in the Preferences menu. The keyboard commands mentioned in this section are just the default settings; we like them, but you're free to change them.
Camera
The camera is your point of view. Myth's advanced 3D engine allows you to move the camera independently of your units. The wily player will exploit this feature to see as much of the landscape - and the enemy's forces - as possible.
Back/Forward
Simply put, these keys move your camera back and forth in a straight line. The default Back key is S. The default Forward key is W.
Left/Right
These keys move your camera sideways while keeping it pointed straight ahead. The default Left key is Z. The default Right key is X.
Orbit Left/Orbit Right
These keys keep your camera trained on a single spot while making a full 360-degree circle around it. The default Orbit Left key is Q. The default Orbit Right key is E. Lazy players don't use the orbit keys, and they tend to lose net games. Using the orbit keys is an absolute necessity.
Pan Left/Pan Right
When using these keys, your camera remains in the same spot but your point of view moves sideways across the landscape. (Stand in one spot and turn your head from side to side for an idea of how this looks.) The default Pan Left key is A. The default Pan Right key is D.
Zoom In/Zoom Out
You can zoom the camera in to get a better look at the bloody remains of your enemies or find objects hidden in the debris, and zoom back out to get a look at the battlefield around you. The default Zoom In key is C. The default Zoom Out key is V.
Center
You can center the camera over a selected group of units by hitting H.
The Mouse
You can also move the mouse to move the camera back, forward, left and right. Using the mouse, move your cursor to one of the four edges of the screen; the camera will move in that direction. Don't rely too heavily on this; you will need to master ALL of the camera's movements.
Units
While playing Myth, you will command a wide variety of units. A complete description of all units, including their individual attacks and special powers, can be found in section VI. This section concentrates on the commands you will use to manage these units.
Selecting Units
Before you can give your forces any orders, you must learn how to select them.
To select a single unit, click it once. A yellow box will appear around this unit; while the yellow box is visible, this unit will actively respond to your commands.
To select all visible units of a given type (for example, all of your archers), double-click on one unit of that type. While these units are selected, they will respond as a group to any commands you give them.
You can select multiple units of different types (for example, one Dwarf and two Warriors) by Shift-clicking: hold down the Shift key and click on each individual unit to select them. You can also de-select a selected unit by Shift-clicking on it.
Deselect all units by hitting the Deselect key. The default Deselect key is the backquote/Tilde key (~).
You can also select multiple units with a technique known as "band selection." Click and hold the mouse button on a piece of ground, then drag the cursor across the screen. A yellow box will appear onscreen, growing and shrinking as it follows the cursor's movement. When you release the mouse button, any of your units within that yellow box will be selected.
You can select all of your units by hitting the Select All key. The default Select All key is Enter/Return. Hit Return again to deselect all units.
To immediately stop a selected unit, hit the Stop key. The default Stop key is the Spacebar.
Presets
Myth allows you to easily create custom preset groups of mixed types (i.e. 2 Archer, 2 Dwarves and 6 Berserks). Select the units and hit Command on Macs and one of the ten number keys to create a custom preset. Make sure you hold the Command and number keys for a second or two for the preset to "set." From that point on, you can select all units in that preset by hitting Command and the number you assigned to it. You can cycle through presents using the F key, and clear them using the Delete key.
FUNCTION KEYS
The function keys at the top of your keyboard have the ability to modify some of Myth's preferences on the fly, while you are playing the game.
F1 - Slows game down
F2 - Speeds game up
F3 - Lowers sound volume
F4 - Increases sound volume
F5 - Toggles between high-resolution and low-resolution.
F6 - Toggles toolbar on/off
F7 - Brings up netgame stats
F8 - Brings up list of keys and their functions
F9 - Decreases Gamma
F10- Increases Gamma
F11- Toggles landscape filtering on/off
F12- Turns on Auto Camera
COMMANDING UNITS
Moving
Select a unit, then click on a spot of ground. A yellow circle will appear on the ground, showing the unit's eventual destination. The unit will move to that spot and await further instructions.
Attacking
Select a unit, then click on an enemy unit. Your unit will attack the enemy unit until he is killed, the enemy is killed, or you give it other instructions.
Units that use projectile attacks, such as dwarves or archers, may actually need to move back if their target is too close. If you order your dwarf to attack and he runs in the other direction, he's not flaking out; he's just trying to give himself some room.
Guarding
When you move a unit to a certain area, he will stay there and await further instructions - unless he is attacked, in which case he will chase down his attacker. If you would like a unit to move to a spot and remain there as a guard no matter what, use the Guarding function. That unit will attack any enemy that moves within range, but will stay put. Select a unit, click the spot you want it to guard, then hit the Guard key. The default Guard key is G.
Control-Click
Sometimes it's useful to have a projectile unit attack a piece of ground - for example, if enemy forces are storming right over the carpet of satchel charges you dropped earlier. To direct a unit to attack the ground, select the unit, hold down the Control key and click the spot on the ground you wish to attack. A red X will appear on the spot the unit will attack.
Gesture-Click
It's important to control the direction your units face. Formations are oriented by the direction in which characters are facing, and units looking the wrong way will be among the first to die. For this reason, you can control the direction your units face using the "Gesture-click." Select a group. Right-click (Option-click on Macs) on a nearby spot of ground you want them to move to and continue holding down the mouse button. (A cluster of yellow circles will appear on the ground. As you release the button, flick the mouse in any direction. When the group gets to the appointed spot, they will turn to face the direction of your mouse-flick. If the units were given a formation, it will be oriented in that direction. You can turn units in place by simply right-clicking (or Option-clicking) on them and flicking the mouse in the desired direction.
The gesture click takes a little practice, but is important to playing well (especially against someone who doesn't do it). It means your troops will face the way you want them to, which vastly decreases the chaos of a dynamic battlefield situation.
Formations
Formations are incredibly important in Myth: The Fallen Lords. Orienting your troops in different formations allows you to strike effectively, rather than as a mob. You will need to learn how to use formations if you expect to hold your own in a network game.
To place units in formation, select a group of units, select a formation with one of the ten number keys at the top of your keyboard, and click on the spot you want the formation to move to. Yellow circles will appear on that spot, showing the orientation of the formation.
There are ten preset formations which correspond to the ten number keys at the top of your keyboard. Below is a list of formations and a description of each.
1 - Short Line: Units in this formation will line up four abreast.
2 - Long Line: Units in this formation will line up eight abreast.
3 - Loose Line: Units in this formation will line up four abreast, but spaced widely.
4 - Staggered Line: Units in this formation assume a staggered line.
5 - Box: Units in this formation move in a perfect square.
6 - Rabble: Units in this formation are in a random pattern.
7 - Shallow Encirclement: Units in this formation are in a wide, shallow arc.
8 - Deep Encirclement: A tighter, smaller arc.
9 - Vanguard: A V-shaped formation.
0 - Circle: Duh.....
Scatter
It is often useful to scatter a tightly clustered group of units when they come under attack from dwarves or other enemies with massive destruction potential. To scatter a group of units, select them and hit your Scatter key. The default Scatter key is B.
Retreat
Sometimes fighting to the death is not an option...not a smart option anyway. Select a unit or group of units and hit your Retreat key; they will retreat from the nearest enemy. The default Retreat key is R.
Special Actions
Certain units have special abilities in addition to their standard attacks, or may acquire special weapons during the course of the game. To use a unit's special ability, select the unit and hit your special action key. The default Special Action key is T. In certain cases, you will also need to click on another unit, object or piece of ground. A description of each unit's special ability can be found in section VI.
Health
When a unit is selected, a vertical bar appears to the right of the yellow box. This bar measures the strength of that unit. A full green bar signifies a healthy unit. As these units are attacked, this bar will shrink and turn yellow (moderately damaged) or red (heavily damaged). When the bar disappears, the unit dies.
Journeymen have a Special Ability which can restore strength to damaged units. See the description of the Journeyman in Section VI to learn how this is done.
You can also check the health of enemy units by clicking on them.
Keep an eye on the health bars of your various units. Relying on badly-damaged units is a recipe for disaster.
Experience
Individual units gain experience for every enemy unit they kill. When an experienced unit is selected, every kill that unit has made will be represented in the Status bar by a shield (or a skull, if the unit belongs to the Dark). Experienced units attack more rapidly and with greater accuracy.
Weather and Its Effect on Battle
As you progress through the game, you'll be forced to fight in what might politely be termed "adverse conditions." Sometimes there is no choice but to fight in rain or snow, and these conditions will have a powerful effect on your chances of survival.
Rain has a way of putting out fire - especially the fires that make your dwarves' grenades work. If you're caught in a snowstorm, you'll find that gusts of wind have a tendency to blow your archers' arrows off-course. You'll need to take into account the possible effects of severe weather if you expect to survive.
Names
Each unit has a name, which you can change by selecting the unit and hitting the N key.
Playing the Training Map
We have included a training map which allows you to acclimate yourself to the controls without the tension of a normal Myth game. To play the raining map, click New Game, select "Training Map" and click OK. From that point on, all you need to do is follow the directions that appear at the bottom of your screen.
Note that the instructions you are given in the training map are based on the default keyboard settings. If you change these settings in the Preferences menu, you will need to use the keys you have chosen, not the ones mentioned in the Training Map instructions.
Saving and Viewing Replays
At the end of a game, when you return to the main menu you will have the option to View a replay. Viewing a replay allows you to move your camera around freely while a complete record of your game plays out. Replays are an excellent tool for studying the strategies your opponents have used against you. They also allow you to gloat when you destroy a segment of your opponent's army in a particularly gruesome or amusing fashion.
When you click on the Replay Saved Film option, you'll be taken to the Replay Options screen.
Saved Films: A list of all the films available for viewing.
View Film: View a replay of the selected game.
Delete Film: Deletes the film from your hard drive.
Replay Last Film: Replays the film of your most recent game.
Save Last Film: Saves the most recent film to disk under the filename of your choice.
While watching a film, you can speed up the action by hitting F2 or slow it down by hitting F1.
MULTIPLAYER
When you first launch the game, click Multiplayer Game from the main menu. This will bring up the Multiplayer Setup dialog, which allows you to configure certain basic aspects of your multiplayer game.
Player Name
Enter the name you will use during gameplay here. It doesn't have to be your real name; fanciful names like Ungar The Bloodthirsty are wholeheartedly encouraged.
Team Name
Only necessary when playing in a team game. Again, you can name your team whatever you like, and the more creative your name is, the better.
Player Icon
Each player or team has an icon which appears beside his or her name in player lists, making it somewhat easier to differentiate players. Click and hold the mouse button on the icon to bring up a menu of available player icons; highlight the icon you want and let go of the mouse button to select it.
Colors
You can choose a primary and secondary color for your forces. The clothing or flesh of your units will take on these colors, making it easy for you to see which troops on the battlefield are yours. To select a color, click that color in the color wheel. You can make the color lighter or darker by clicking on the color bar to the right of each color wheel.
If two players select the same colors, the game will automatically reassign a new color to one of those players. In a team game, players take on the primary color of the team Captain and use their own secondary colors.
NETWORK OPTIONS
You have three ways of hooking up with other players for a network game: bungie.net,, or Other (which includes LAN and Appletalk). Each of these services is described below.
Playing via bungie.net
bungie.net is a free internet-based service which allows players from around the world to gather in one central location for Myth net games. Please keep in mind that the demo version contains only one network map and scores are NOT logged into the rankings.
Update bungie.net Appearance
Checking this box will update your appearance on bungie.net if you change your player name, team name, player icon, and colors. By default, this button will automatically check itself if you change any of the above.
Logging Onto bungie.net
After logging onto bungie.net, you'll arrive in one of bungie.net’s rooms. Here you can chat with other players and define the parameters of your network games.
At the top left corner of your screen is the name of the "room" you're in. There are two numbers next to this name: the upper number is the number of players in the current room; the lower number is the number of games taking place in the current room. If you're on bungie.net, you can click the room name to switch to another room.
Beneath the room name is a list of all the players in the room. Next to each players name is an icon which denotes their ranking. Each player starts off with a dagger icon and works upwards from there.
To the right of the room name are four buttons:
Mute/Unmute
Even though everyone who plays Myth is inherently cool, sometimes you just don't want to get any messages from one of them. Select a player in the player list, then click the Mute button. You will no longer receive any messages from that player. Click the button again to Unmute the player.
New Game/Options
Click New Game to create a new network game. It will appear in the list of available network games directly beneath the four buttons. If you'd like to change the parameters of a game you've already created, click Options. See the Multiplayer Game Options section for more information. (Note: only the player who created a game can change its parameters.)
Join Game
Select a game from the list of available games directly beneath these four buttons and click Join Game to enter that game. You can only join games that are NOT greyed out.
Chatting
The bottom half of the Game Setup screen is a chat area. To send messages to all the players in your room, simply type your message into the text field at the bottom of your screen and hit Return/Enter or click the Send button. To send a private message to an individual player, select that player's name in the Player List and type your message as usual. Private messages will appear on a red background.
Leave
Leave bungie.net and return to the main menu.
Playing via TCP/IP (Internet)
Selecting this option brings up a dialog with the following options:
Name
The name which will appear in the list of available games.
Password
If you only want certain people to join a game, type a password in this box and only give the password to the people you would like to include in your game.
Create Game
Clicking this will create a game using the Name and Password supplied.
Port
The port on which the game will be created. Unless you know what you're doing, it's usually best to leave this set to 3453.
Games on the local network
A list of multiplayer games you can join.
Join
Select a game in the list of available games and click this button to join it.
Join by address: by checking this box, you'll be able to link up over the Internet for network games with a machine that is not on your local network. Enter the host machine in the field below. Note that you must set up a connection to your ISP before launching Myth for this to work. This option my be difficult to use with dialup net connections, since many dialup accounts dynamically give you a new hostname/IP address when you sign on. If you don't know the hostname of other players, make things easy on yourself and play via bungie.net.
AppleTalk
If you pick this option a dialog will appear with the following choices:
Name
The name which will appear in the list of available games.
Password
If you only want certain people to join a game, type a password in this box and only distribute it to the people you would like to include in your game.
Create
Clicking this button will create a new game with the name given in the Name field and take you to the Game Setup screen.
Join
Joins the game selected in the list of available games, and takes you to the Game Setup screen.
Zone List
A list of available AppleTalk zones on your AppleTalk network.
Use My Zone
Click this button to restrict the list of available games to those in your own AppleTalk zone.
Use Selected Zones
Clicking this radio button restricts the list of available games to the zones selected in the Zone List. You can select multiple zones by Shift-clicking them in the Zone List.
All Zones
Clicking this radio button builds the list of available games from every AppleTalk Zone on your network.
Single Player Game Tips
• Save often, and rename saved games regularly. It can happen that you find your strategy for a level was flawed from the beginning.
• Hitting Escape will Pause the game, and give you options to Save, Quit, Restart the level, Revert to the last saved game, and Return to the game.
• You can increase the game speed by hitting F2, up to 16x normal, and lower it to normal with F1. You can only slow down the game while watching replays.
• When you have no units selected, the mission objective of the current level will appear in the Status Bar.
Multiplayer Game-Play Tips
• Myth: The Fallen Lords is a dynamic game of ebb and flow of forces on the battlefield. In general, keeping your units moving as they charge and retreat, feint, flank and flush will keep you safer than parking a group in one location and waiting for the enemy to figure out how to take them out.
• Units who do explosive damage can be as much a threat to your forces as to the enemy's. Wights are typically kept a good distance from friendly formations, and Dwarves need to be maneuvered carefully lest they throw too near your forces, or explode upon dying and cause friendly casualties.
• Keep your missile units on the highest ground possible. A line of Archers at the crest of a hill firing down have a distinct advantage over a line at the bottom of the hill, firing up.
• Use fast units like Ghôls to rush and disrupt enemy missile formations, allowing your slower units to advance in safety. Keeping missile units moving away from danger is a great way to neutralize them.
• Use Thrall as a living wall to protect units while they advance. A vanguard of Thrall makes a great protective barrier for safely moving Dwarves forward. Thrall and Wights can also be hidden under water indefinitely.
• Journeymen can heal units. Keep them near your troops so you can heal the wounded. Remember that once the Journeyman uses up his roots, he won't be able to heal troops. However, he can pick up roots from other dead Journeymen. Also remember that the Journeyman can instantly kill undead units like Thrall and Wights by "unhealing" them.
