Originalna navodila
* The Legends of the Land
Okay, this is the only 'real' spectrum game I ever made (written in code,
worked on for more than a year etc...). I was just starting secondary
school then, and my english then was still rather distorted :-), so there
are typos and some strange grammar forms all over the place, but I don't
think anyone is going to play this anyway (I never succeded in publishing
this game, though I am still convinced that it is a rather good one, even
without taking in consideration my age then (I was 15 or something). That
is why I am sending it out now, to complete the circle :)).
This is a mixture of RPG and strategy games. I think you'll be able to
figure most of it yourself, but I'll give you a few hints about the story,
the commands and such.
* First, the story.
There were six folks in the Land of Gwalir, each one ruled
by its own lord: the Wizards, the Brents and the Warriors were humans, and
there were also the Dragons, the Giants and the Villins (or elves). The six
lords together ruled the whole land, and were protected by the ten Knights,
the strongest of the Warriors. Of course, there is an eternal threat to this
peaceful settings: the abominable Grocks of the north whose only desire is
to destroy everything alive and different from themselves. The borderland,
called Khalmir, is also the playground in this game; there are many legends
about this place, but only two of them could be important in the game: about
Iridon Lord of Warriors who built a great wall of protection there (you'll
discover it soon in the map :)) and then died in the hands of an enormous
Grock, and about Taor his son and successor, who also died in Khalmir and
now rests under a statue in the forests... There are some rumors about
Iridon's Dungrim sword, a very powerful weapon, but not much is known of it.
The current lords of Gwalir are:
Enor Lord of Wizards
Aon Lord of Villins
Soora Lord of Giants
Analon Lord of Dragons
Evelyn Lord of Brents
Tar'el Lord of Warriors
The knights are:
Atok, Syril, Kyr, Egarth, Sorg, Erick, Lioneye, Tiogor, Dhamur and
Tenorys.
Okay... So now, for reasons unknown, Lord Enor decides to become evil and
using his enormous magical power pacts with the Grocks, whom he always
secretly believed to be a superior living form. Under the promise of a
peace treaty with Grocks, the rest of the Lords gather in his Khalmir palace...
suspecting nothing, of course... and get extremely surprised by hundreds of
Grocks suddenly breaking into the dining room after their lunch. Treason!
There's some luck, however... Aon the Lord of Villins escapes. Enor, enraged,
casts a spell over Khalmir so that noone can leave its borders. However,
Aon knows of a secret passage that is so old that no magic can touch it. He
finds the way to his old friend's hut in the south of Khalmir, and here the
adventure starts. (btw, Enor also cast his dark spells on the Knights of
Gwalir, and they are your worst enemies in this game... oh, ok... there
*are* worse... ;))
The goal is: rescue the other four imprisoned lords, kill Enor and escape
through the Rohnir tunnels. You have to do that in a year's time, or else...
* Gameplay
You will start by entering the level of difficulty. There are four
difficulty settings: first, the strength of the enemies (Level 1, from 0-11,
where 0 means fairly easy, and 11 extremely difficult), then the number of
enemies (Level 2, from 0-10), their intelligence (from 0-10) and the special
level (0-1... If 0, the enemies only move around during the day, otherwise
at night too). To control the numbers, use keys "1"-"2" to change the left
digit, and "9" and "0" to change the right digit. "ENTER" is confirmation.
As I already said, this is a mixture of RPG and strategy. Moving around is
like in the Lords of Midnight or Sorderon's Shadow, but you also have a map
where you can move. The map is 35 x 35 squares, but only the inner 25 x 25
are useful (remember Enor's spell ;)). The coordinate system origin is at
N0 E0, which is the location most to the south/west (or bottom/left).
You start the game with four characters: Aon (this is you), Thaon and Irith,
your Villin companions that were staying at Dorbrent's hut, and Dorbrent
himself, your Brentish friend, and old and skillful man. The hut is where
you start (the only difference is when you set Level-2 to 10, in which case
Thaon will start in Brent's Deep). There are some very useful objects here,
so take them all.
Here are the keyboard commands that you'll need:
"1" get the list of people in your location.
"2" get the status/character sheet of the character you're
currently controlling (current character).
"3" make the current character go to sleep (you'll have to
pick another one from the list, or you can press "0"
to wait. Specify the number of hours to wait and press
"ENTER". Pressing "SPACE" finishes waiting (you'll do
that often after receiving messages about your characters).
"4" Tells you the number of wood logs you have in your inventory.
"5","6","7","8"
Look west, south, north, east
"9" Display or hide landscape view.
"0" Wait till dawn.
"SPACE" Move forward. You'll see the time of travelling (in hours)
countdown in a small window.
"SYM_SHIFT" + "S": Ram-Save
"SYM_SHIFT" + "J": Ram-Load
"ENTER" Enter main menu.
Controlling the menu:
"ENTER"-Choose option
"SPACE"-Next page of the menu (try this often, or
you won't see the important commands).
"0" -Cancel
Any other key: select next option.
* The screen:
---------- ------------------------------
[ ] [ ]
[current ] [ Landscape. You'll ]
[char ] [ also see if there ]
---------- [ are any characters in ]
[location] [ the location you're ]
[room typ] [ looking at. ]
[looking ] [ ]
---------- [____________________________]
[status ]
[ ] The location description
[ ] (special, riddle objects) <------ non pickable objects
[ ]
---------- -I-C-O-N-S-
ICONS:
Shield: there is another person in this location
Sword: there are objects in this location that can be picked up.
Cross: a dead body
Star: there's a fire burning here
Key: You're in a locked building
* The menu
All the options in the main menu are (some have descriptions, the rest of
them you'll have to figure out yourself).
SPECIAL
MOUNT/DISMOUNT: (not for Giants and Dragons)
Ride a horse (faster, can also wade across shallower waters)
LIGHT LANTERN:
Enables you to walk around in the night and dark locations.
You need a lantern and matches for that.
CHOP WOOD
MAKE FIRE
LOCK DOOR/UNLOCK DOOR
You need a key for this, and you can only do this in huts
and towers, but it's useful because enemies cannot enter.
Enemies cannot enter your citadels either, as you cannot enter
theirs unless you're a flying dragon or invisible. You only
have one citadel in the beginning, which is in Brent's deep
(a village encircled by mountains in the southeast of the
Khalmir... All characters in this village and the citadel
are friendly, so this should be your first goal: go to Brent's
deep and get people there to join you as fast as you can,
otherwise enemies will get them before you do and kill them.
There's also plenty of supplies in the Brent's Deep citadel,
and the food and water and other 'exhaustable' objects
reincarnate in this citadel after running short. Water (or Wine
or Mead, it's all the same) and food are neccessary in this
game, you won't come far without them. You don't need to
equip everyone with his/her own supply of food; people will
eat from other people's supplies if they're in the same
location, or from supplies that lie on the shelves (like in
the Citadel of Brent).
FIND:
Choose the person that you wish your character to find.
The effect is similar to choosing a destination for a char.
BREAK SPELL:
Only if you're invisible... You become visible again.
CURE:
This heals your wounds if you're in a temple.
ENTER:
For special occasions, like trapdoors in locations and such.
DIG:
You need a spade for that.
CARRY/LEAVE: (Dragons and Giants only)
Carry a person around. Can only pick up friendly persons.
HIDE/STOP HIDING: (Villins only)
The character becomes much slower, but is almost invisible.
TAKE OFF/LAND: (Dragons only)
SHOOT: (Villins only)
Shoot persons in location you're looking at.
BURN: (Dragons only)
Doesn't work in the mountains or in the citadels. The dragon
becomes extremely thirsty after this, and will die very soon
if you don't find some water. This is a very effective weapon,
and it also turns the location into desert.
CAST A SPELL: (Wizards only)
You need a spell to cast it, and spells are more or less
like other objects (preceded by a star character). Some of
the spells are necessary to finish the game, others just
make it easier. BTW: there is not just one way to complete
this game, rather, there are almost endless possibilities.
Okay, there's a limited number of riddles, but you don't have
to solve them all if you want to complete the game, and you
don't have to solve the same ones in every game. Also, in many
cases, you can use a spell instead of solving a riddle to
achieve the same goal. :)
BEHEAD: (Warriors only)
Behead a dead enemy.
LOOK AT MAP
Shield icon on a map is your character or a group of characters.
Black shield on a white square is your current character, white
shields on black squares are the other characters in your army.
Press "SPACE" on a shield to find out who's there.
SET DESTINATION
Press "ENTER" on the location where you want your character to go.
This will bring up 'Change control' menu.
CHANGE CONTROL
Switch the current character for another one.
WAIT
Wait for N hours.
STATUS
Get the status/character sheet of any of you characters.
SET / RESET PROTECTION
Make the current character 'protected' which means the other
characters in group will fight instead of him in battles. This
is important for some weak characters that are crucial in the
game (like Aon and the rest of the lords) and *must* *not* *get*
*killed* (you get instant game over).
FOLLOW
There's a bug in this version of the game that I am now unable
to locate (all the source code is gone), which occasionally
disrupts the 'follow' flag of a character. You've been warned :)
Otherwise, this is almost the only way of creating character
groups in this game. An original way of making groups is simple to
order some character (that are currently in the same location) to
go to the same place. As the speed of characters is almost always
the same (unless if you're hiding, you're riding a horse, or you're
a flying dragon) and the algorithm for going places is non-random,
they'll stay together, share their food and lanterns, and fight
their battles together. To simplify the thing, I added 'follow'
command. Whenever you SET DESTINATION to a character, all other
characters that are following him/her will copy the order and
do the same.
SEARCH
If there's a riddle object in the description of the location,
you can search it to get additional info.
OBJECTS
GET: pick up an object
DROP: drop an object
LOOK: examine an object in the location
EXAMINE:examine an object in your current character's inventory
USE: use an object. Usualy when solving riddles.
PERSONS
EXAMINE:examine a person in the current location
TALK: talk to a person in the location. Some tell interesting stuff,
and some even give you quests.
BRIBE: If a person is CALM or FRIENDLY, you can give him/her some
money to make them join your army. If you don't give enough
the first time, give more.
GIVE: Choose an object in inventory, then to whom you want to give
it. You'll use this when bringing back quest items and such.
PAY: Give all your coins to another person in your location (only
to a friendly person, a person in your army, so he can then
go around and buy(bribe) more characters. The max number of
coins a person can carry around is 90.
JOIN: If a person is LOYAL, he'll join your army of characters
immediately.
* Spells
The existing spells are:
* Magic of Shadow
Kills any person in the game except Enor.
* Spell of Invision
Makes you invisible
* Crystal of Air
Teleport spell
* Scroll to Unlock
Unlocks any building
* Scroll to Conquest
Conquest an enemy's citadel in front of you (the
only way of doing it!)
* + eight more of them that I won't tell you about :)
* Battle
Is nothing special, you just see two lists of characters, yours
and enemies, and see them vanishing one after another ;) However,
the character statistics and weapons are very important for the
outcome of the battles. Make your character groups big and strong,
or small and stealthy (like one hiding villin, or an invisible wizard
etc.) There'll be many battles in the game, but that depends on
setting the levels too.
* Strategy
What can I tell you? There's only one fairly strict rule here:
go to Brent's Deep immediately. On the highest Level 2, Thaon is
already there so he can recruit people... As I already said, if you're
not fast enough, the enemy will reach them before you do. Then, start
searching the southern Khalmir (south of the big dark forest in the
middle) to recruit more people, find objects, solve puzzles etc.
Check all the buildings in particular, and whenever you recruit
someone, check his inventory - there are people in Brent's Deep that
carry very important objects for solving the game. If they get killed,
you can still go there and pick the objects. Then, start with the
dark forest. I recommend saving the game here often, because there are
magical traps in there that immediately kill anyone entering. Their
locations are fixed though, for all games, so once you get them,
they're yours for good. Carry lanterns and matches all the time, or
you'll get definitely stuck in dark areas (where even the days are
so dark that you cannot move without another light source). Search
the forest good, there are important objects and spells there (their
location is also fixed for all games). You don't have to find all
objects/characters/spells to finish the game, so you don't have to
search it inch by inch. Also, while you're waiting or moving around
with a chosen character, you'll get messages when your other characters
find objects or special locations. This should help. The northern parts,
especially those behind Iridon's wall are the hardest. Sometimes, it
is good to see the darkness of the night... Stars are important.
Some mountains are too high and steep to pass. You'll have to find
another way.
* Have fun,
Matija Kostevc, 1997.
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You can copy this game for free and all that, just include this *.txt file
with it, don't modify anything unless you have to, and don't sell it ;)
Send any comments to matija@sinistersystems.com, I'd really like to know
what'd you think about it :)
Matija
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