ftp.wwiv.com/ftp.wwiv.com.zip/ftp.wwiv.com/pub/DOOR/DREAD26.ZIP/GAME.ZIP/HELP.TXT

Text File | 1995-03-20 | 14KB | 316 lines

WHO IS DR. DREAD?

In the year 2011, a genius won the Nobel Peace prize for his work
in chemistry, robotics, and electrical sound waves. It is rumored
that 2 years ago, in 2023, a lab worker spilled a deadly mixture
of gases, killing himself, and rendering the genius totally insane.
Since then, he has gone by the name, Dr. Dread, and seeks to
destroy the world as we know it in order to take over the planet.

It is your mission to ultimately stop him. You will be up against
Dr. Dread's powerful Electro Droids. You will be sent on missions
which will require that you make your way past these Droids
in order to rescue hostages, find secret papers, stop chemical
disasters, and many other acts of bravery.

COMMAND CENTER

You will begin your assignment in the Command Center. You will be
given a Zapper, some Wave Blasts (ammo) and some Life Capsules.

You may do many things in the Command Center, such as visiting
the Teller Machine to deposit and withdraw gleckles. You may go to
the Gymnasium to work out and Chat with other Agents. You may go
to the Message Center to leave a message to a particular agent.

You may quit by pressing "Q". You may also view the high scores
by pressing "S" and your inventory by pressing "N". For this help
file, press "?".

ZONES

When you exit the Command Center through the South Door, you will
enter the first zone. You are given a quota of 30 gleckles to start
with and as you deactivate droids or challenge players, your quota
will be increased with each triumph. The gleckles are scattered at
random throughout the zones. You must find the gleckles before
Dr. Dread's dreaded Electro Droids find you!

The value of the gleckles increases with each zone you are in. But
beware, the cost of obtaining the most valuable gleckles is great --
the Droids are more powerful in each zone farther away from the
Command Center. It is best to stay in the first 3-4 Zones until
you can afford to purchase Protective Gear from the Command Center.

HINT: If you have 30 gleckles in Zone 1 and move to Zone 2, you will
have the same 30 gleckle quota. Don't feel you have to pick up all
your gleckles in Zone 1 because you might lose them, the same 30
gleckle quota will be in Zone 2, 3, 4 or whatever. And will be more
valuable in the higher Zone difficulty levels.

KEY QUESTS AND COLORED DOORS IN THE ZONES
Many zones now have shortcuts to and from other zones which can only be
entered via the colored doors. To enter through the colored doors, you
must go on a key quest. By trying to enter a colored door, you will be
told how you can obtain the colored key for that door. Once you have
that color of key, you may enter freely through all the doors of that
color. Key quests are only available upon obtaining permission by trying
to enter a colored door and only while the Droids are actively roaming
the zones. (While you have battles left for the day.) You must pick up the
keys in a certain order and will be told the order as you go.

MULTIPLE PLAYERS IN THE ZONES:
If you are on a multi-node or single-node BBS you can now see the other
players that are in the zones. If the other player is on line while you
are on line, you will see their movement only as you move. If that player
is transported to a mission, battle or trap, they will disappear from
the zone while they are away.

As you pass over the spot where the other player is sitting, you will
be told who that player is and offered a chance to challenge them to a
friendly battle.

If a player is off-line, their color will be white. If on-line they will
have a color.

BATTLES

Your mission when encountering an Electro Droid is to deactivate
it so that it may be transported back to the Command Center
Laboratory for further study. Electro Droids are deactivated by
blasting a wave at it with your zapper. Electro Droids are
deactivated in different ways depending upon their difficulty
level. Droid Levels are indicated by different colors. When you
have zapped through a color, it will change to another color.
When the color is a blinking black, that indicates you have disabled
that area of the droid.

The farther away from the Command Center you travel, the more
difficult the droids are to deactivate. If you do not have enough
Waves to finish a battle, or if the Droid is too powerful and has
zapped most of your Life, simply "Y" yell for transport and you will
be transported away from the Droid.

Keep an eye on your Life. If you allow the Droid to zap all of your
Life, he will take half of your gleckles AND the Command Center will
demote your experience! You will be transported to the Zone 1 Hospital.
It is better to 'Y'ell for Transport, than to allow a Droid to totally
Zap your Life. You CANNOT replenish Life during a Battle.

MISSIONS

In the employ of the Command Center, missions will
indicate how brave you are. In each mission, it is
your task to find the floppy disk, deactivate the computer, and
rescue the hostage. You must avoid the Electro Droids (moving
and blinking items) as you travel on each mission. (Use your
NumLock and arrow keys to move throughout the game.)

As you travel, you may freely pick up the  diamonds.
The  diamonds are worth 75 gleckles each and will provide you
with currency to purchase things in the Supply Store.

You begin each mission with 3  Life Capsules and if you
get zapped during the mission, you may replenish your Life by
picking up the  Life Capsules lying on the ground. You cannot
have more than 3  Life Capsules during a mission. (These Life
Capsules are different than the ones you purchase in the Supply
Store. Those are used in Battles while in the Zones.)

If you pick up the letters to the secret code word, in order,
you will be given a bonus.

MISSION ASSIGNMENT INSTRUCTIONS

When transported to a mission sight, you are in Dr. Dread's
territory and your purchased life capsules, zappers, and protective
gear will be useless. You only have your wits to aid you.

You must avoid Dr. Dread's dreaded electro droids.
 = The Sizzler is perhaps the easiest droid to outwit.
The Sizzler does not move and when he is not blinking, you may
walk through him. Move into him when he is blinking.

* = The Zinger moves around, and if you bump into this droid, look out!
o = Beware the Boppers -- don't bump into this droid, or else!
 = Beware the Squishers.

░▒ = Missions will vary, but on your mission you may find computers.

 = Freely pick up any gleckles you find.
 = If you lose life, you may pick up any life capsules scattered about.

/ = The Electro Droids will only be active while you are in a room or
in a doorway between 2 rooms. (Use the 5 key to stand still.)
Gain experience by collecting code letters & finishing the mission.

In some missions, your goal will be to rescue a hostage.
You will be returned to the spot you left in the Zone upon completion.

EXPERIENCE

As you battle electro droids and accomplish missions, you will
gain experience. When you have gained enough experience, you
will be advanced to a greater Rank as an agent.

SUPPLIES

You will be requisitioned a Zapper, Waves and Life when you begin
your employ as an agent. You won't need to purchase protective gear
until you have enough gleckles saved up. It is best to invest your
gleckles in more Life and Waves in your first 3 Ranks. After Rank 3,
you may wish to begin investing in protective gear.

When you are ready to upgrade to a higher deflection
value, you must first sell your current item before purchasing a
new item. The Supply Center will only pay half of the value of a
new item.

PROTECTIVE GEAR

The amount of deflection is listed next to the protective gear item
in the Supply Center. If you purchase head gear worth 2 deflection,
during a battle, you will be shown with a different color head to
indicate the amount of deflection in the item you are wearing. The
Droid will have to hit you in the head twice in order to turn it black
and gain a Life point from you.

Save your gleckles so that you can purchase protective gear! This will
aid you greatly in your battles.

ZAPPERS & WAVES

You will start out with a Sparky Stunner zapper and some Waves.
Each time you shoot a Droid, it takes one Wave. As you get more gleckles,
you can upgrade your Zapper. With each additional deflection level of the
Zapper, this shows how many Waves will hit in one Zap. For instance, the
Turbo Tazer is worth 6 in deflection, this means that it will send six
Waves at once when battling Droids. This will become very handy when
battling the higher level Droids.

PHONE (MULTI-NODE CHATTING)

Multi-node BBS's can now have players send each other messages via the
cellular phone function. Press '*' from any of the screens to invoke the
cellular phone options:

Dial: (*) All (1) Personal (2) Screen/Hold (3) Pausing (4) Rewind

You may press ** to send a message to everyone. Or press *1 to send a
message to a single agent. You will be asked to input the agent's name.

Press *2 to toggle putting messages on hold or automatically send
them to screen as they are received. To take messages off of hold,
depress *2 again.

Press *3 to toggle pausing on and off. If pausing is on, at the
end of each message you must press 'Y' to indicate the message was read
and continue. If this is annoying, you can simply toggle pausing off
by depressing *3 and the messages will advance with each keystroke that
you make.

Press *4 to Rewind messages. If you had message pausing off and missed some
messages, you can press *4 to rewind messages from 1-9 messages. If you
wish to cancel, just depress 0.

SPLIT-SCREEN Sysop Chat

Split-screen sysop chat can be invoked by the player or the sysop by
depressing "C" from within the game. It is not functional within the
rooms of the Command Center -- only while in the Halls. Hit escape to
exit the sysop chat mode. This DOES NOT page the sysop with a beep.

RANKS & PROMOTION
Each time you are promoted a Rank, you will gain an additional 2 Life
points. To see the experience levels per Rank, go to the Personnel
office in the Command Center.

DREAD HEADS:
In the Personnel office you may view a list of Dread Heads. Those who
have battled Dr. Dread's body guard Droid and lived to capture Dr. Dread.
It lists agent names, ranks, scores, and the date of capture.

ZONEPAK: On the bottom right of the screen while in the Zones, you will
see a (Z)onepak. This is where you will store various items which you can
purchase from one of Dr. Dread's Lab technicians while in the zone.

STRANGE MAN IN GREEN LAB COAT: This is Dr. Dread's Lab Tech. He will offer
to see you certain items if you can catch him. He is a very nervous little
man and may disappear at any moment, so hurry and make your purchases and
let him get on his way.
Items he will sell:

Waves & Life: He will offer these at a cost much less than can be obtained
from the Command Center.

Bioscanner: When you walk over another agent, it will ask if you wish to
(C)hallenge or (B)ioscan the agent. Bioscan will show you their equipment
and Life so that you can decide if you really want to challenge them.

Radar Tracker: When used will show you which zone each agent is located in,
and if they are in the zone or in the command center of that zone.

Invisibility: When used, this will make you invisible to all other players
until the next day you play. If another player bumps into you, however,
s/he will still be asked if s/he wishes to Challenge or Bioscan you.
Your little guy will show to you as "invisible" to remind you that you are
invisible.

Transmitter: Allows you to send messages from the zones instead of having
to go to the command center.

Teleport Tokens: These allow you to teleport to any of the 100 zones. Using
"1" will take you to the command center in zone 1. 0 will cancel.

Map of Zones: This is a full-color map which shows all 100 zones, the doors
to each zone and the door colors. The maps wear out with use and you'll note
that the paper map is worth 2 uses, but you can purchase a heavy-duty map
which is worth more uses.

BABBETTE'S BOUTIQUE:
Find Babbette's Boutique in the Command Center. Select the name of
an agent to send a gift to, then select the gift. You will gain
romance points each time you send a gift. You will also send a card
to the agent receiving the gift. Then when they log on or check their
messages, Babbette's Messenger Service will deliver the gift to them
along with your card.

As you accumulate Romance Points, Venus will come down to you and trade
Romance Points for items of more value in your quest for Dr. Dread.

AGENTS ON LINE:
Other agents on-line are a different color so they can be differentiated
from those who are off-line.

100 ZONES: There are now 100 Zones and more Command Centers have been added.
In the first several zones there are command centers to make it easier to
move from zone to zone and still have safety while trying to increase from
rank 1 to 2.

STARDUST: When a new agent joins the force, s/he is introduced to StarDust,
who is utilized as an orienteer -- guiding each new agent with instructions
and hints until the agent reaches Rank 2. StarDust is also around in Rank 2
greater ranks, but not in a guiding capacity.


CONTACT:

If you have comments, suggestions, or wish lists about Dr. Dread --
please address them to Nannette Thacker.

You may contact me in the Fidonet Door Games echo
or the Internet BBS Doors echo OR:

Fidonet address:
1:291/60 Nannette Thacker

1:291/23 I can be reached here, if you can't reach me at /60.
Send message to Phil Watkins and ask him to please forward it.