EVIL Credits: 100% Assembler Code: Dr.Blitz Graphics, Drawing&Ray-Tracing: Kpt Screams and sound effects: Dr.Blitz&Jumpsu Some sound effects are from unknown origin, whatever we've found from our few ST-disks =) Lots of samples are quite awful but we'll see to that after we'll find a working microphone (the last one broke down and so did the one before that) This version of the game is freeware. The game is not finished and it propably never will, because there's always something to add into it. We are not responsible for possible damage caused by using this program, use it at your own risk. We take no responsibility if someone should view the characters in Evil as some kind of rolemodels and picks up a few bad habits. If anyone should be killed while using this program, we take no responsibility. If somebody goes nuts because of this game, we take no responsibility. Don't mess with the code. Its no use to anybody. The coder of this game is going into the army soon, so making this game is going to slow down. When we get it better we might release a shareware version... but not after the game looks 'finished'. (There's lots of work to do, just for example, there's lots of empty boxes for spells right now that should be filled) We'll also make a scenario editor for the game. General: If you've ever played Laser Squad or Lords Of Chaos, you'll already know what's it all about. You control a group of characters with some kind of objective(s) to reach. Exterminating your enemies will usually lead you to victory as well. Evil has lots of different scenarios, which can be played by 2-5 players. Some scenarios are only for 2 players while in some you can decide the number of participating sides. Your objective might be something like recovering a certain object or simply crossing a bridge. There's a short briefing in start of each scenario to tell you what side you play and what you must do. I have no idea why we decided to do this type of game, maybe it was because neither Laser Squad nor Lords Of Chaos worked on my A4000/040 and I kind of missed the joy of humiliating my friends in games like this. Laser Squad and LOC also became a bit boring because there wasn't really that many scenarios to fight, but Evil solves these problems because now I'm able to create new scenarios whenever I want to... The game is controlled by the mouse and the arrow keys. The arrow keys are used to move your characters. Arrow up causes your active character to walk forward, arrow back causes him to walk backwards. Left and right change the active character's facing. If there are many characters visible on the screen, the active is the one with black dots around him. Holding down right mousebutton on top of the map picture, you are able to scroll the map around. You can activate your characters on the map easily by clicking the left mouse button on top of him. If you click on top of an enemy character and hold down the button, you can see the enemy's name, his armor and the items he carries in his hands. Possible altered states are not shown after the name, so you can't know if the enemy is, for example, protected or heavily drunk. (It's just a quick glance, no time to see what's sticking out of his backpack) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Item Manipulation: The mouse pointer is used as a storage for one item. This item is later referred as 'the one in the mouse pointer'. Items can be put into the pointer by clicking left mouse button on some of the item boxes. The item boxes are the ones under the map. There's 13 of them and they represent different locations. The first two boxes (from the left) with two arrows next to them show you the items which are in the same square with your active character. Clicking left mousebutton here allows you to pick up items from the ground, or drop them. Clicking on the arrows scrolls the items if there's more than 2 items on the ground. The items are always re-sorted when you active your character or move around, so the boxes reset each time to the leftmost position (And the items are sorted again from left to right). If there's more than 20 items in one square, some of them can't be picked up because of the limited size of the boxes. (These items are the ones under the pile and can't be taken before you take some items that lie on them) The next six boxes represent your active character's backpack. Here you can carry any items you wish. Notice that taking items out of the backpack costs 4 Action Points, while dropping items into the backpack costs nothing. However, carrying too much ware around is not really too wise. The weight of the items causes your characters action points to decrease. Naturally a horse's corpse weights a lot more than say, a cigarrette. The next four boxes represent your characters hands. There's four of the boxes because some creatures might have several arms (maximum of 4) When your character has less than 4 hands, the extra boxes have red crosses over them. Manipulating items here costs no points at all. Clicking right mouse button on top of an item you have in your hand allows you to use the item. Characters with no hands at all can't perform certain actions, like opening doors or picking up items. Non-material characters can't use the item boxes. The last box represents your armor. You can only wear an armor of the right size. Wearing armor costs no points, taking it off costs 20 points. Clicking the box with right mouse button shows the name of the armor you are currently wearing. Note that you can't end turn or change your active monster when you have an item in your pointer. You can, however, transport items in the mouse between a character who is riding and his mount as discussed in the icons section. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Moving around and doing something costs action points. The costs vary widely, but here's some of them: Turn left/right - - - - - - - - 1 Aps Walk Forward - - - - - - - - - 4 Aps + X (Depends from the terrain you go to) Walk Backwards - - - - - - - - 8 Aps + X (Same as forward) Shoot Long Ranged Weapon - - - 15 Aps Initiate Close Combat - - - - - 10 Aps Pick Up An Item - - - - - - - - 5 Aps Open A Door Or A Window - - - - 4 Aps Take An Item From BackPack - - 4 Aps Search A Square - - - - - - - - 10 Aps Drink/Eat/Smoke/Inject- - - - - 5 Aps Throw An Item - - - - - - - - - 1 Aps Mount/Dismount - - - - - - - - 7 Aps Take Off Armor - - - - - - - - 20 Aps Cast A Spell - - - - - - - - - 15 Aps Manipulating items held by the caracter in his hands is free. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Characters and attributes: -------------------------- The characters in Evil have different attributes. The most important ones are Strength, Dexterity and Intelligence. Strength encanges the damage you inflict in close combat, Dexterity affects your chances to hit your enemy and intelligence controls your mana regeneration. There's lots of other attribute too which involve charcter's ability to withstand damage, his regeneration rate, materiality, invisibility and so on. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Icons: ------ SEARCH : (The one with the chest and a '?') If there's any hidden items in the square you're currently in, they will become visible on the map and they'll appear to the ground boxes as well. This also opens all chests and cupboards, which contain items randomly sprinkled by the game. (And possibly some other items not so random...) BIRDMAP : (The one with the crystal orb) Clicking this icon lets you see the whole map. You can target anywhere with the mouse, and clicking left button draws the map from the location where you pointed. Notice that you can use this icon while targetting with long ranged attacks like spells and bows. (Helpful if your enemy is far away, you don't need to scroll the map that much.) The Birdmap is very unclear right now, and it will be remade in the future. CENTER : (The one with the warrior and two arrows pointing at him) Draws the map again and centers to your active character. Handy after looking at the birdmap. RIDE/DISMOUNT : (The one with the horse and the arrow) Clicking this causes your active character to ride a horse or some other friendly creature. Naturally you need to go to the same square with your mount to do this. Almost any creature can be used as a mount in the game, size being the only limit. (A mouse can ride on human warrior's shoulders but a horse certainly cannot =) ) Non-Material creatures cannot obviously used as mounts. When your active character is riding you can click the mouse on top of his face to cause his mount to become active. Clicking again causes the rider to become active again. This is very useful since many mounts are unable to open doors or pick up items so your rider has to do this. You can have items in the pointer while clicking, allowing you to put items into the horses 'backpack' and to wear horse-armours. THROW : (The one with the hand and the ball) You must have an item in your mouse pointer when you do this. Then just choose your target from the map, and hope that you hit =) You can also throw daggers and spears at your own creatures, so beware with this. Some items that are very heavy can not be thrown too far, and some creatures might become so weak that they are quite unable to throw anything. Some squares on the map might block your throw. Obviously walls stop the item, but some squares like bushes have a certain possibility to block the flying object. Open windows have a small chance to block an item, broken ones have a slightly higher. (And closed ones have a 100% possibility =) ) OPEN/CLOSE : (The one with the door and the arrow) Clicking this causes your active character to open or close a door in front of him. Notice that your character must stand directly in front of the door or the window and must face towards the door aswell. NEXT/PREVIOUS CHARACTER : (The one with the skeleton and the warrior) Clicking this with the left button actives the next monster on your side. Clicking right button actives the previous monster on your side. BREATH : (The one with the dragon) Not supported yet. With this you'll be able to use your active character's long ranged weapons, which would otherwise be visible nowhere. This includes everything between dragon's breath and snake's venomous spit. You can propably use their short-range weaponry too with the other button, so that for example, horses can attack agains terrain. END TURN (The one with the text) This ends your turn. Click this when you've used up all of your action points, or decided to save them. In other words, when you're all done and want your enemy to take his turn. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Combat: The most important thing in the game is usually rooting out your advesories. The simplest form of combat is close combat, initiated simply by walking to the same square your enemy is in, with some weapons in your hands. Close combat can also be initiated by clicking on top of a weapon in your hand. If there's no enemy in front of you, the attack is targetted towards the square instead. This allows you to clear bushes or break windows. Some creatures have no hands and attack with natural weapons like teeth or magic. These so called natural weapons can only be used by walking to the square your enemy is in. Natural weapons may not be used to clear terrain (or not yet, read the text below the breath-icon) Some creatures have magical protection and can be harmed only by using magical weapons. Some of the natral attacks are also magical, for example, ghost's touch can hurt other ghosts, but normal weapons can not. There are many different levels of magic in the game and as many protections as well. Attack's magic level must be equal or higher to the defender's magic to cause damage. Magic is discussed more closely in the Spell-section. Long ranged weapons like bows are used by clicking right mouse button on top of the weapon in your active character's hand. Close combat can also be started like this. Opportunity: Action Points can be saved for your enemy's turn. You can save points for close combat or for long ranged attack. When you leave your character with more than 10 points and a close combat weapon, he will automatically defend himself when attacked. Notice that your should also leave points for him to turn around, if he's attacked from behind, he'll need 10+4 points for defending. (4 to face his opponent) If you leave many points the character will defend himself as long as he can, i.e. when his points drop below 10 or when he dies. You can also leave points for your characters who are armed with long-ranged weapons. This needs at least 15 points. The character will automatically fire at any moving enemy he can see. The chacarcter is unable to change his facing. Note that a character can only do one long ranged attack with 15 points, so there's no point in having more than one long ranged weapon in your character's hands. The character will shoot as many times as he has points, so you'd need to leave him with 45 points to shoot three times. Notice that the enemy is allowed to act between every shot, like turn, walk to cover, shoot back etc. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Spells And Magic: Magic in Evil is divided up into 6 different levels. These levels are represented by colors, Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue and Violet. Red is the easiest to handle and Violet magic is the most difficult. Wizards and other spellcasters wear different colored robes. These colors usually indicate the highest level of magic the character can handle, i.e. a yellow colored mage could cast spells of red,orange and yellow level but no higher. Naturally many spellcasters cheat and wear robes of lower color to make them look less dangerous. Some characters are magically protected. The protection may also be of different level, and it cannot be penetrated by a weapon of a lower level. Many undeads are somehow protected, most often by red level magic which makes them invulnerable against normal non-magical weapons. Some stronger creatures can have stronger protection; indeed some may even be protected by violet magic which makes them almost invincible. Casting Spells: The spells are cast by using a magical wand. Put it into your character's hand and use right button to see the magic menu. Choose a spell by using the left mouse button, right button aborts. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Spells: ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// RED LEVEL: Magic missile: This one is targetted agains a single character. The targetted character suffers slight damage from the impact of the missile. The spell causes no damage against terrain, and cannot ignite fires. Illusionist's basic weapon with 100% hit. Bandage: This one is like the magic missile but has opposite effect, i.e. it heals a character. Create Scroll: Creates a scroll. You need to have one hand free for this. Scrolls can be used to send obscene messages to your enemies, threats or pure malicious taunts and insults. We recommend that this is used frequently to annoy your enemies. (They do make more mistakes when annoyed and are more likely to run right into your traps) Illusion: Creates an illusion of the spellcaster. The illusion is a non-material image and its able to slowly hover around. The Illusion can't attack, and it can't pick or use any items. The spellcaster is able to sense terrain trough the illusion, but only a few squares (so the illusion can actually 'see') The illusion is destroyed right after it suffers any damage. Its not protected by any magic, but because its non-material, it suffers no damage from fire or explosions. ItemDelivery: This teleports the item in the mouse pointer to a place choosed by you. Very useful if you want to send equipment to your troops or scrolls to your enemies. Also useful in sending explosives. MagicDoor: Opens a door or a window, works just like the icon of opening but can be done from quite far away. Quite useful when you want to block the line of sight. BustInvisible: Makes invisible monsters visible from 5*5 area. The location you choose is the centre of the area. Exceptionally useful if you suspect infiltrators or notice mysterious deaths or wounds. (They might be right behind you, trust no one) Strength: Makes one of your characters to become like major Jax Briggs in Mortal Kombat. This should not be underestimated, it's a great advantage in combat and very useful if you wear armor and don't want to lose action points. It lasts about 10 turns. /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// ORANGE: Puntti: This creates a rather large and heavy object into your target's backpack. Your target needs to have space for this, too. This spell has a very low range and is ment for defensive purposes, it causes no damage but surely slows down your opponent. Three of these is usually enough to almost totally immobilize a character. The name of the spell comes from a certain invidual (who is very fat indeed, and moves around very slowly). ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// YELLOW: Teleport: Teleports your caster to a place choosed by you. The place must be a square which you have already seen, that is, visible on your map. Riders cannot teleport their horses, neither can horses teleport their riders. (Like magic-user centaurs) Blast: A tremendous explosion of a very wide area. The only drawback is the quite small amount of damage, it doesn't decrease very quickly, however, making it almost as effective through its area. Non-Material creatures suffer no damage from this spell. /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// GREEN: One Fireball: A deadly fireball is launched towards your target. The fireball has very impressive damage which can kill almost every character instantly. However, The damage decreases quite fast and does only little damage far from the centre of the explosion. The area of the fireball is 5*5. Notice that the fireball acts like a thrown weapon; it can possibly hit any obstacles between the caster and the target. If you shoot the fireball through a window, it might not fly through it and explode. Naturally bushes and trees have a higher chance to block the fireball. Non-Material characters suffer no damage from fire, because they can't burn. //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// BLUE: Two Fireballs: Two fireballs just like the Green level one. Note that this spell costs you more action points than 15, because the fireballs are cast one after another. (Like Shang Tsung in Mortal Kombat =) ) Huge Blast: A more powerful version of the Yellow level blast. Inflicts more damage and has an ever wider area (be careful with this) Possess: With this spell you are able to convert enemy characters into friendly ones. The spell is effective agains weak creatures, who are not able to resist the spell. The spell does not work against characters whose magical protection is beyond red level. Very intelligent characters are hard to possess and those who have lots of hitpoints are difficult, too. Characters with good health and good intelligence are very hard to possess. Character's cost (the price of mana you must pay for summoning) also affects the difficulty to possess a character. Note that the character's health is a factor which can be brought down by attacking the character first, i.e. you should inflict some physical damage to a character before trying to possess it. Naturally very petty characters can be possessed easily without damaging them first, like zombies or goblins (but there's always a chance of failure no matter what you do) ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// VIOLET: Three Fireballs: The ultimate destruction spell, hurls three deadly fireballs towards your foes. Summon: Propably the most important spell in the whole game. Only the most skilled magicians can cast this spell, and are able to create an endless horde of minions. (Unless somebody splits them first) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- CREATURES: Here are some of the most common creatures in Evil. Warriors, Warrior Lords and Knights: These are the basic fighters of Evil. They have good hit points and good strength. Warriors are the normal ones, Warrior Lords are a bit more competent fighters than normal warriors (More hitpoints and stronger) Knights are a bit fat =) but they have an excellent dexterity and hit much better than warriors. They are also very strong and can take lots of damage. Skeletons: The basic undead warrior. The skeleton is protected by Red level magic, making it invulnerable against normal weapons. Skeletons are not as strong as warriors, but they compensate the difference with their magical protection. Mummies: A bit slow, but quite strong warriors. They have a stronger protection of Orange level and can't be hurt by almost any of the common weaponry. They are not very good at combat, unless the opponent hasn't got the weaponry to hurt the mummy. Zombies: Very slow and not protected by magic, the zombies only good side is their fast regeneration rate. They are quite poor warriors and are very clumsy with weapons. Orcs: Somewhat like human warriors, but stronger and a bit slower. They regenerate quite fast too, and are mediocre in combat. Ghosts and Spectres: Non material spirits who can pass through walls and bushes with no additional cost. They are protected with magic beyond Red level and attack with their natural deadly touch. Ghosts are most commonly used as scouts because their limited ability to cause damage. Spectres are stronger and slower and are more dangerous in combat. They both have no eyes nor hands, and they can't sense enemies or terrain very effectively. Because they are not material, they can't be hurt by fireballs. Kaakkis: Kaakki is a Finnish word and it's a somewhat insulting term meaning a horse. Kaakkis are very fast and make excellent mounts for warriors or warrior-sized characters. They kick twice in combat with their hooves. Shokan Warriors: They have four arms and are very deadly in combat. Norsus: Another Finnish word, its an elephant. Slower than horses but don't die as easily. They attack better, too. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TIPS : Long ranged weapons like bows are quite ineffective when used alone. It requires almost always multiple shots to kill an opponent with a bow, and you are able to do much more damage in close combat. Bows become effective when you have lots of them or lots of points to use them. There's no real point in saving say, 19 points for opportunity, since your character is able to shoot only once. Saving more points like sixty doesn't allow you to move around that much and your bowmen are left behind your close assault forces. The easiest way to get more points for your bowmen is naturally horses or other mounts. When your rider is armed with a bow, he can save all his points for opportunity, because only the horse uses it's points for moving. If you have about three warriors mounted on horses with full action points and effective bows, enemies start falling down like dead trees. Its generally a good idea to divide your assault troop into two parts, the close combat group and the long-range support group. A well balanced attack is half of a victory already. Magically protected creatures are a good way to resist long-ranged artillery. Most of the bows are not magical and can't harm the protected characters. If your enemy has a single effective bow, move many characters one after another so that the enemy's opportunity fire becomes didvided between your attackers. Don't dump bottles. They're really useful. The green ones tell you what's in them, but their effect is not very good. The red potions are strong ones - but they don't tell you what's in them. You might drink poison instead of healing liquid, the choice is yours. The gray bottles contain the most beneficial effects, like invisibility which is a great advantage. But you might also become drunk after taking a sip from a gray bottle so don't say that you wasn't warned. The blue potions contain very different liquids, usually labelled ones. Bottles aren't the only items you can use, there's lots of other magical items lying around, but some of them might be even heavy drugs. The characters won't mind this at all, so you should test different things to see what might come up. Chests and cupboards might contain some really valuable items. It's always a good idea to search a chest or a cupboard nearby, but it's not a good idea to divide your troops all around the map in search of a super-weapon which you'll never find. When the enemies come for you, its not fun to find your characters far from each other, because a single character is in usually in deadly danger when faced by several enemies. Its a very good idea to divide your troops into small groups. Three warriors are much better than just one, there's three times more action points to use in attacks. Watch out for enemy magic-users, though. Its not a good idea to have all of the three warriors standing side-by-side when they're facing some fireballs... Weapons and especially armors are heavy. This is another thing when a mount is really useful. If you're losing action points because of weight, put some items into your mount's backpack. (Click the face of the rider while the item is in your mouse pointer, just as you'd wear an armor for your mount)