Amiga Plus Special 17

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Text File | 1992-09-16 | 12.0 KB | 235 lines

"Legend of Lothian" - by David W. Meny - "Legend of Lothian" is a fantasy-adventure game set in the mythical kingdom of Mercia. In this game, you assume the role of a poor shepherd who has been chosen to save the king of Mercia. For some reason, King Lothian won't wake from his sleep, and, in his absence, chaos has befallen the land of Mercia. It's up to you to find a way to revive King Lothian and restore Mercia to its former tranquility. In "Legend of Lothian", you must explore the large continent of Mercia and beyond. Along your journey, you will talk with many different people, battle fierce monsters, and solve strange puzzles, all in the hopes of saving King Lothian. Your success or failure in this quest will determine the fate of the whole land of Mercia. Your well-being in "Legend of Lothian" is determined by two attributes; health and stamina. Health is an indication of how physically fit you are, while stamina indicates how well-fed you are. Stamina diminishes whenever you run out of food, while health can be diminished through combat, and by starving, after your stamina level reaches 0. If your health level ever reaches 0, you will be dead. Since the fall of King Lothian, the Mercian army has become disorganized and has been unable to check the advances of the monsters of the land of Mercia. In your travels, you will undoubtedly encounter many of these horrible monsters and will be forced to fight them. Collecting the treasure from vanquished monsters is also your only source of income, so combatting them is a necessity. Killing monsters also gives you experience points; after acquiring enough experience points, you will advance to a new combat level, thereby becoming a better fighter and acquiring higher health and stamina levels. But beware! As you becomes progressively better at fighting, the monsters of Mercia also increase in difficulty! The monsters of Mercia can do much damage to you, and therefore, healing yourself is very important. You can be healed in a variety of ways. Whenever you have food, by simply walking around, you will eat food and your health and stamina levels will increase, if either are below their maximum level. As long as you have food, you will heal. This process usually takes a while, which is fine for small damage, but if you are seriously wounded, healing by this method will take a long time, and waste a lot of food. You may also rent a room in one of the inns located in many of the towns of Mercia. Although this costs a small amount of gold, no food is lost while sleeping, and this method is a lot quicker than consuming food to regain your health and stamina, especially when you're badly hurt. Finally, you may choose to visit one of the several mystic healers found in a few of the towns and castles in Mercia. As can be expected, healers charge for their powerful magic, but no food is lost, and this is the fastest and easiest way to get healed. Talking with people is one of the most important elements of "Legend of Lothian". Valuable information can be learned from the inhabitants of Mercia, so talk to everyone you meet. Also, some people may help you by giving you tools that are needed in your quest. There are many puzzles that you'll need to solve in your quest. Overcome these puzzles and you'll be on the right track to saving King Lothian! Operating Instructions ---------------------- Double-click on the "Legend of Lothian" icon after opening its disk icon. After the game has loaded, it will request that you enter your name or the name you wished to be called in the land of Mercia. You may enter any letter from A through Z plus the space character. Press ENTER after entering your name and then you are asked to specify your sex. Press 'M' for male or 'F' for female, or you may select either with the mouse pointer and press a button. Then you are asked if you have heard the tale of King Lothian. Read the tale at least once to get the whole story behind the game. You may press any key or press either mouse button to advance pages in the story. After the story has finished, the game screen will appear and your quest will begin. The game screen is divided into six separate windows. The map window is in the upper-left corner of the screen and represents the area immediately surrounding you. In the center of the map window is your character icon. Directly beneath the map window is the location window. The name of your current location will be displayed in this window. For example, if you enter a town, the name of the town will be displayed here. Beneath the location window is the icons window. Two rows of icons are here for mouse control of the game. From left to right, the top row of icons consists of the talk icon, the get icon, the open door icon, the climb ladder icon, the board ship icon, the attack icon, the save game icon, and the restart game icon, while the bottom row of icons, from left to right, consists of the use tool icon, the info icon, the pray icon, the sleep icon, the disembark from ship icon, the flee from combat icon, the load game icon, and the quit game icon. By simply moving the mouse pointer to the appropriate icon and clicking either mouse button, that command will be activated, if it is valid at that point in the game. In the upper right corner of the screen lies the text window. This window provides all text information from the game and shows the past history of most-recent commands. A purple cursor indicates the current position for your input. Below the text window is the combat/talk/use window. Here is where the monsters you fight in combat are shown, where the person and their speech is shown when you talk to someone, and where you select what tool you want to use. This window will remain blank until one of these functions occurs. Finally, beneath the text window is the information window. Displayed here is all the information on you in "Legend of Lothian". Your current health and stamina levels are shown here in two ways; by bar graphs on the left side of the window and the numerical form showing the current and maximum (in the format "current/maximum") health and stamina levels on the right side. Here you will also find the amount of gold and food you have, your experience points, your current combat level, along with the weapon and armour you have, if any. All of the information in this window will be automatically updated when changed. You may control the actions of your character in "Legend of Lothian" by using the keyboard, the mouse, or a combination of both devices. The mouse may be used to do everything in the game, with the exception of three tasks: inputing your name at the beginning of the game, specifying how much food you wish to purchase at food stores, and typing in a chant that you want to pray upon. Action is specified via the mouse by selecting one of the icons in the lower-left hand corner of the game screen and pressing either mouse button. If that command is valid at that time, that command will be executed. Each icon also has a keyboard equivalent. Simply press the corresponding key for the action you wish to perform. Valid keyboard commands are as follows (the notes that follow most commands also apply when these commands are executed via the mouse): A = ATTACK! (valid only in combat). B = BOARD a ship (player icon must be on ship). C = CLIMB ladder (player icon must be on ladder). D = DISEMBARK from ship (ship icon must be on beach). E = ENTER a town, castle, etc. (player icon must be on object). F = FLEE! (valid only in combat). G = GET item (player icon must be adjacent to item). I = INFO (gives information to player). O = OPEN door (player icon must be adjacent to door). P = PRAY (to meditate upon a chant). Q = QUIT game. S = SLEEP (player must have rented an inn room and be present in the room). T = TALK (player icon must be adjacent to a person or a merchant). U = USE tool (used to solve puzzles). ESC = Quit game. F8 = Restart game. F9 = Load old game position from disk. F10 = Save current game position to disk. Movement in "Legend of Lothian" is accomplished by using the arrow keys on the keyboard, or by positioning the mouse pointer in the map window, in the direction where you wish to move (i.e., above your character icon for north, below your character icon for south, to the right of it for east, and to the left of it for west). When the mouse pointer is in the map window, the mouse pointer turns into an arrow indicating the direction you will go when the mouse button is pressed. If you're standing on on object that can be entered, such as a towne, castle, etc., then by position the mouse pointer on your character icon, the pointer will turn into an "in-ward arrow", and by pressing the mouse button, you will enter that object (the same as using the E key). Also, if you're on a ladder, then positioning the mouse pointer on your character icon will turn the pointer into an "up and down arrows" pointer, and pressing the mouse button will climb the ladder. One of the most important commands is the Info command, accessed by the I key on the keyboard or the ? icon. After executing this command, the mouse pointer will change into a question mark. By placing this pointer on anything in the game screen, you will be told what that object is. This is especially useful for knowing what the graphics in the map screen are supposed to represent. The talk, open door, and get commands (whether accessed by the mouse or through the keyboard) will automatically check to see if there is only one person, door, or object adjacent to you. If there is, then that is the object that is acted upon. However if there are two or more people, doors, or objects adjacent to the player, the game requests you to "Select dir:" (specify direction) that you wish to act in. For the majority of the time, you will never need to specify the direction, but there are a few places where you will. At various points in the game, you will prompted for input, such as a yes or no question, whether you wish to be male or female, or the number of the weapon or armour you wish to buy. You may use the keyboard, or move the mouse pointer to the response desired and press either button. For example, when you want to buy a weapon or armour, a "Select: (0/1/2/3/4/5)" prompt appears below the price list of weapons/armour. By pressing the appropriate number key, or by moving the mouse pointer to any number on this prompt (not to the names of the weapons/armour!) and pressing either button, you indicate which weapon/armour you want to purchase. Game Information ---------------- "Legend of Lothian" was written in SAS/C, version 5.10, on an Amiga 1000 with two disk drives and two megabytes of RAM. All of the graphics seen in the game were drawn in Deluxe Paint III and are loaded in at run-time. Almost a year of my time was spent on this game, and I hope you enjoy all of my effort. Have fun and good luck! - David W. Meny Helpful Hints: -------------- 1. Make a map of the various places you visit. The land of Mercia is very large, and a map will aide you in your travels. 2. Listen to the townsfolk carefully and take note of important information. Although some people may offer only useless chit-chat, most have valuable information that will help you in your quest. 3. Don't try to go exploring too soon. Stay around Larkspur until you you have purchased both a weapon and armour and have enough food to travel long distances. 4. Explore everywhere! The land of Mercia is very large and some places you need to visit are located in hard to reach areas. Also, in towns, not all people are located in buildings; some are off the paths, so explore everywhere! 5. Save your game position often. Death can come very quickly in this game, and you don't want to lose anything important that you may have accomplished.