Sentinels of Ceth is a fast paced arcade blaster. Use your ship to protect your Gems from being stolen. You will need a bit of planning to purchase the right equipment for the job. Brains and skill are the only requirements to play. Are you up to the challenge?
BACKGROUND
You are the Sentinel of Ceth. Your enemy, the Doltres race, wants to plunder the Ceth Temple and you are their only obstacle. Your task is to prevent the Doltres from stealing the 12 Gems of Ceth, the lifeblood of the temple.
As you destroy wave after wave of Doltres ships, the Goddess Ceth will bestow blessings upon you. These blessings can be spent at the Temple Gift Shop. The gift shop carries everything that a Sentinel could ask for (guided missiles, energy mines, engine upgrades, etc.).
When the Goddess Ceth is in a particularly good mood, she will send down Boons that can give you special powers for a limited time.
I WANNA PLAY!
Click on the START button from the title screen to start the game. You start with 12 Gems in a circle around the center of the Temple floor. The enemy Doltres ships will fly in from the sides and try to steal you Gems. If you kill them while they are carrying a Gem, the Gem will fall back to the Temple floor at the place where the enemy was killed. Any enemy that leaves the temple with a Gem will drop it off and come back to steal more. If all the enemies in the wave are destroyed, you will gain bonus blessings based on how well you performed. At the start of the next wave, the remaining Gems will be relocated back into a circle around the center. Once a Gem is stolen, you cannot get it back. When all the Gems are stolen, the game is over.
The upper left of the screen will show ammo counts of three special weapons you are able to purchase once you have gained enough blessings. Below it is the Boon level indicator which will only appear if you have gotten the Visions Boon or the Shield Boon (see Boons).
The upper middle shows your life bar. You can take 20 points of damage before your ship is destroyed. If you are killed, the gems will regenerate you. You are immortal as long as the gems remain in the temple. At the beginning of each wave and after you have been regenerated, your life bar is restored to 20. Note that enemy weapons do different amounts of damage and as the wave number gets higher, the enemy weapons will do even more damage.
The upper right shows your current blessings. As you spend blessings in the Temple Gift Shop, this number will go down. Total blessings earned throughout the game will determine your final score. Spent blessings do not count against you.
SPECIAL KEYS
Caps Lock
Caps Lock on will pause the game.
ESC
While in the game/Temple Gift Shop this will abort your game. If you abort the game, you will not be able to enter your score into the Greatest Sentinels list.
SYSTEM OPTIONS
When you start SoC, you are presented with a System Options dialog.
Change Video Resolution (640x480)
When checked, SoC will attempt to change the resolution to 640x480. This will allow the game to fill your entire screen. If it is unchecked, it will fill the screen with black and the game will play in the center of the screen.
Temporarily Disable Screen Saver
When checked, this will disable your screen saver while SoC is playing. It will re-enable it when you quit SoC. This does not work with all screen savers.
Quit Other Applications
When checked, other programs currently running will be stopped. This gives SoC a little more "horsepower" to play with. If the game runs slowly or stutters, we recommend that you check this item.
Quit The Finder
When checked, the finder will automatically be stopped. This prevents icons on your desktop from being moved around (if you are changing screen resolution). To Quit the Finder, you MUST also quit other applications. If the game runs slowly or stutters, we recommend that you check this item.
Don't Ask Again
If this is checked, then the System Options dialog box will no longer appear every time you start SoC. If you wish to access the System Options dialog later, you simply double-click the "Sentinels of Ceth" application and quickly press and hold down the SHIFT key. If you do this correctly, the System Options dialog will appear.
THE DOLTRES
There are eight different enemy ships that will work toward your demise. They are listed as follows:
Freighters
Armor: Light
Speed: Medium
Weapon: None
They are bulky and have no weapon. They will try to steal a Gem and hope you do not notice. They are the weakest of the Doltres.
Fighters
Armor: Medium
Speed: Medium
Weapon: Photon Cannon
They will try to steal your Gems in addition to trying to hurt you. They will try to keep you occupied while the Freighters steal your Gems.
Kamikaze
Armor: None
Speed: Very Fast
Weapon: Laser
These purple ships are fast and deadly. Armed with only a laser, their sole purpose in life is to ram their ship into you. They are the only Doltres ship that will not try to steal your Gems. If you collide with a Kamikaze, you will take a tremendous amount of damage.
Stealth
Armor: Medium
Speed: Fast
Weapon: Photon Cannon
These dark ships are nearly invisible. When they steal a Gem, they will break for the side and fire at you with a rear mounted photon cannon. You should try to destroy them before they can grab a Gem.
One Gate
Armor: Medium
Speed: Medium
Weapon: Laser
These evil ships use Gate technology to teleport in near one of your Gems then try to sneak off with it. They are only armed with lasers, but they are built sturdy and are not to be taken lightly.
Loder
Armor: Medium
Speed: Very Fast
Weapon: Photon Cannon
These vicious ships use gravidic arms to snatch Gems quickly. They are very fast and come equipped with photon cannons.
Raider
Armor: Heavy
Speed: Fast
Weapon: RAID Missiles
A more powerful upgrade of the Fighter. They are armed with the most powerful Doltres weapon; the RAID Missile. Their speed and strength make them difficult to stop.
Twin Gate
Armor: Heavy
Speed: Slow
Weapon: Pulse Laser
The most insidious of the Doltres’ ships, the Twin Gate is an improvement over the One Gate. They will teleport in near a Gem, steal it, then teleport out. It takes a little while for them to re-open the Gate after teleporting in, so you will have a small window of opportunity to destroy them before they gate out.
BOONS
The Goddess Ceth knows the struggle will be hard for her Sentinel, so she will bestow Boons on occasion. These Boons will appear randomly on the Temple floor. You must touch them in order to gain their benefits. Any Boon appearing on the temple floor will vanish if you are not quick enough to pick them up. There are three Boons that Ceth bestows:
Shield Boon
This Boon will allow your ship to take an additional 20 hits this wave. The Boon Indicator in the upper left will show how many more hits your shield can take before collapsing.
Vision Boon
This Boon will cause the enemies to lose sight of your ship, rendering you completely invisible to them for a limited time. You can still take damage from their weapons so be careful. The Boon Indicator in the upper left will act as a timer, counting down the remaining time left.
Orb Boon
This Boon will give you a celestial helper Orb. This Orb will circle your ship in order to protect it. Also it will fire a laser in the direction you are firing. Your ship can only control a single Orb at a time. If you pick up a another Orb Boon when you already have an Orb, then nothing will happen. If the Orb collides with an enemy ship, it will explode, destroying the enemy as well as itself. It is immune to enemy weapons. The Orb is the only Boon you can carry over between waves.
TEMPLE GIFT SHOP
At the start of the game your ship will be equipped with a Laser (Mk1), an Engine (Mk1) and a Regenerator (Mk1). Between enemy waves, you can spend your blessings at the Temple Gift Shop to upgrade your ship components and purchase new weapons. The highest Mk any component or weapon can achieve is 4. You have to buy ammo for all weapons except the Laser (it has unlimited shots). All ammo costs are the same no matter what Mk the weapon is. You can also play Temple Bingo to take a chance at winning more blessings. It costs 5 and you will get from 1 to 9 blessings back (50/50 chance of netting a gain). If a panel is dimmed out, you cannot purchase from that panel either because you cannot afford the item or you already have the maximum Mk/ammo count. The Return Gifts button will cancel all purchases made this wave (but will not effect bingo gains/losses). The Done button will take you back into the game (start of the next wave).
YOUR SHIP COMPONENTS
Laser Gun
Your primary weapon, the Laser Gun has unlimited shots. Each Mk above one will add another laser shot to your weapon. So at Mk 4, you will fIre 4 laser blasts simultaneously. The shots are unlimited in range and have a fast rate of fire. Each shot will do only a single point of damage.
Missile Launcher
This weapon is guided. When a missile is launched, it will target the closest enemy in front of your ship and travel until it hits its target. If there are no enemies in front of your ship when a missile is fired, it will just go straight out without targeting anything. They have a long range but fly slowly. Each missile will do one point of damage per Mk of the Missile Launcher. It costs 50 blessings to buy 10 missiles for your Missile Launcher.
Scatter Cannon
When fired, this weapon will fly out a short distance then explode launching little bombs. This makes for excellent crowd control. Each Mk will increase the number of bombs launched. Each bomb does 1 point of damage. The scatter cannon is most effective at short range. It costs 30 blessings to buy 10 shots for your Scatter Cannon.
Mine Dropper
The Mine Dropper will deposit an energy mine in back of your ship. The mine is coded to your ship so you are immune to it. The higher the Mk, the greater the damage and the radius of the blast. If nothing comes into contact with the mine, the energy matrix inside will deteriorate and the mine will fizzle. It costs 20 blessings to buy 10 energy mines for your Mine Dropper.
Engine
There are four different Mks of engines. Of course, you will start with the slowest one. Each Mk of engine will be faster in top velocity and acceleration.
Regeneration Time
At Mk1, it takes your ship 4 full seconds to regenerate if it is destroyed. Each Mk will decrease the regeneration time by 2/3 of a second. So at Mk 4, your Regeneration Time is only 2 seconds.
WAVE BONUSES
After you finish destroying all the enemy ships in a wave, you will get bonus blessings based upon various conditions. The four bonuses are listed as follows:
Wave Completion
For completing the wave you will gain 10 blessings x the wave number completed.
Gem Bonus
For every Gem remaining x 1. Every 5 waves, the multiplier is increased by 1.
Gem Protection
If no Gems are stolen in the wave, gain wave number x 2.
Safety Award
If you do not die, gain wave number x 3. If you do not die and take no damage to your life bar, gain wave number x 6.
OPTIONS
In the Options screen, you can reconfigure your keyboard and make adjustments to the game.
Key Commands
To change a key control, use the mouse to click on the control you want to change. After it prompts you, press the new key.
Sound
You can turn the sound on and off by clicking the sound control.
Test Keys
Some keyboards may not allow you to press all of your keys down at once. Use the Key Test button to determine if your key selections are okay. If not, you run the risk of your commands not being recognized (i.e. Not being able to turn or fire). After pressing Test Keys, hold down all of the fire and move keys at the same time. A message of “KEYS: OK” will appear if your keys check out. If not, hit the ESC key and try to figure out which keys are causing the problem. The default keys should work on most keyboards.
HINTS AND TIPS
Keep moving. The enemies come onto the screen firing at you. Do not stand still or you will eat on a ton of weapons.
When the enemy grabs a Gem, he will always move away from where your ship is, so if you are good, you can “herd” Gems back towards the middle.
Lasers have unlimited ammo. Apply liberally.
If an enemy ship like a Raider is coming toward you, do not face him and charge or you will suck on a ton of missiles. Fly diagonally and strafe him.
One and only one boon will appear on each wave at a random time. You must quickly decide whether to grab a boon or protect your Gems.
Your first purchase should be Mk2 Engines. The Mk1 engine truly sucks and you will need the mobility to avoid the rapidly increasing weapon fire.
