Wednesday 23. March 1994 by Joona Palaste THE SECRET OF ARCTURUS ----playing guide----- - 1. What is The Secret of Arcturus? The Secret of Arcturus is a kind of adventure boardgame. It has drawn influences mostly from the boardgame The Star of Africa (by Kari Mannerla) and the Macintosh PD game Scarab of Ra, whose author's name escapes me. In The Secret of Arcturus, it is the player's task to explore the mysterious solar system of Arcturus. The player's primary task is to survive long enough to get back to Earth, and the secondary task is to achieve lots of prestige and money. - 2. How to play The Secret of Arcturus Having loaded the game, you are first presented with the front end screen. This includes the game's name, an information text window, and a set of buttons. Firstly, you should click on the empty text area to the right of the "Character Name" text, as this allows you to type in a name for yourself. Then, take a look on the buttons. Pressing "New" will create a character for you, starting at level Alpha with the bare minimum of equipment. Pressing "Load" will load a character from disk, providing a character file exists. Pressing "Delete" will delete a character file from disk. Pressing "Quit" will, as is obvious, quit the game. There is one more button in this screen, which is called "Hall of Fame". (That is, the button is called that, not the screen.) We will deal with this later on. - 3. The actual game After creating / loading a character, you are presented with the main screen. From here, you can explore the levels of the game. There are a lot of buttons on this screen. The eight arrowed buttons move your character around the screen. The central button calls up a chewing gum selection screen, of which more later. The six buttons on the right of the arrowed buttons are the control buttons. We will now discuss these. The top row consists of two buttons, one with a nice picture of a landscape and the other with a not so nice picture of a skull. These are the "quit" buttons, one is used to retire, the other to commit suicide. The central row consists also of two buttons. The one with a question mark is the "status" button, which calls up a status window. The one with an eye calls up a map. The bottom row has two disk buttons. These are used to save and load character files. Below these buttons, there is a square with a smaller square inside it. This is mostly empty, but sometimes a picture appears on it. Pressing the picture will access various functions. - 4. Exploring the levels You can move around with the arrowed buttons. Either press them once to move at single steps, or hold the mouse button for repeated movement. There are many different types of terrain features in the levels. Here's an overview of them. Normal floor. Does absolutely nothing. Weak floor. Symbolised by a pattern of black dots, this collapses as you step off it. Radiation. Symbolised by a pattern of cyan dots, this has a bit of a two-way function. If you have got a certain piece of equipment, you'll survive this. If not, then... Walls. These are brown and red and behave in a very wall-like way. Space. This looks like, space! You cannot step on it. Locks. These look like keyholes, with a coloured light inside them. You cannot pass locks unless you have a key. (Surprising, isn't it?) Teleports. Purple dots on the floor. Tread on one, and you are whisked away somewhere else on the level. If you have got a certain piece of equipment, you have a degree of control over the teleportation. Caches. Red boxes with a light blue light inside them. As you step on one, a picture appears in the square-square. Pressing it will reveal the cache's contests. After using a cache, its light turns dark blue and you cannot use it again. Cities. Purple boxes with "CITY" written on them. Step on one, press the picture, and you enter the City Equipment Store, of which more later. Take notice, every time you move, your oxygen level depletes. Allow it to reach zero and it's curtains for you. - 5. The caches A cache can contain fourteen different things. Here's an overview of them. Empty: Yawn. Treasure: Can range from Rock (cheap) to Sapphire (expensive). The Eye: This is the Eye of Arcturus, a very important object, as it, and only it, allows you to proceed to the next level. Trap: Boo! This depletes your prestige level. Robber: At first he tries to steal your money. If he fails that, he will try to steal a jewel from you. If he fails that, he will shoot at you. Alien: These bite at you, causing damage Caches can be pro-examined with a certain piece of equipment, which tells you whether a cache contains an unwanted item and allows you to cancel the procedure. This equipment isn't completely right in its guesses. Owning a weapon will allow you to have a go at shooting robbers and aliens. - 6. The City Equipment Store Once you are in the Store, you can do many things! Explanation follows: Buying / Selling oxygen and armour: Click on the oxygen and armour pictures. The left mouse button buys, the right one sells. Buying / Selling equipment: Click on the desired piece of equipment. Left for buy, right for sell. Buying / Selling keys: Click on the desired triplet of keys. Keys are always bought and sold in triplets, that is to say groups of three. Selling treasures: Click on "Sell Treasures" and you instantly hand in all your treasures and gain money. Trading in chewing gums: Click on "Trade in Chewing Gums" and you are presented with a selection screen. Click on the chewing gums to buy or sell them. Then press OK or Cancel. Exit: Click on "Exit this Screen". Proceed to next level: Click on "Go to Next Level". You can only do this if you have the Eye of Arcturus. If you haven't, the button will go flat to remind you. - 7. Chewing gums There are twenty five different flavours of chewing gums in this game. Each of them has a special effect. The effects are chosen randomly. Just click on the chewing gum button, choose your flavour and press "OK". If you decide to chicken out, press "Cancel". The only way to have some idea of a chewing gum's effect beforehand is with a certain piece of equipment, which isn't completely right always. - 8. The Hall of Fame If you quit playing, or press the Hall of Fame button, you enter the Hall of Fame. This hall holds records of the sixteen most prestigeful players ever. Just click on someone's name and you'll be given information about him/her/it. Press "Exit Hall" to leave. The Hall of Fame is saved to disk. If the program cannot find a Hall file, it'll create one. - 9. Technical information The Secret of Arcturus was written by me, Joona Palaste, over a period of about four months. The game was written in AMOS by François Lionet and Europress Software, and the graphics were drawn in DPaint IV by Electronic Arts. This game requires the presence of the file "ArcturusData.abk". Fail to include it and the game will not load. Upon loading, the game automatically scans the system for an assigned directory called "Arcturus:". If found, it is made the current directory. If you like the game, you can give me a donation of £1 / 10.- FIM (larger donations are also accepted, even preferred!) If you'll also include a formatted Amiga disk, I'll give you some games! (YOU pay the postage. Include stamps and/or money.) My address is: Joona Palaste Toppelundint. 3B 19 02170 ESPOO FINLAND ----THE END----