€€ DAMOCLES DOCUMENTATION GAME DESCRIPTION Damocles is a game of exploration and discovery in which youare a 21st century soldier of fortune - a mercenary. Your fight, should you choose to take on the challenge, is against the forces of nature. Your objective, in any event, is to gain a fortune in return for your endeavour. You have been invited, by the State President, to the planet Eris for work that offers a rich reward, if you succeed. The comet Damocles, in its present trajectory, is on a collision course with Eris and will destroy the planet. You will be asked to prevent this catastrophe. When those originally charged with finding a solution were seen to be failing, the President called for your assistance. Unfortunately, you were unexpectedly delayed en-route and now, on your arrival, there are only a few hours remaining before the comet hits! And so the game begins - with you having landed at Eris Capital City Spaceport. Your car awaits. the key, which you need to pick up, is in the spaceport building. Board the car and drive along the exit road. The State Office is the first building along this road that you can see. For a full briefing, walk in. It's up to you. In Damocles, you choose the action! GAMEPLAY In Damocles, the player is never `killed'. Your ability to play the game never ends, even if the comet hits Eris or, through your own doing, something worse happens! Although you could conceivably be left with nothing to play with - or you could possess everything worth playing for, you choose your end of game. PLAYFIELD The Damocles playfield is the Gamma solar system of nine planets and their nineteen moons in orbit around the star Dialis. All of the planets and moons are accessible to you by flying to them in a suitable spacecraft. Some have seas and islands, others are barren but are cratered or have other features, some are featureless and there are two gas giants on which you are not able to land. ÊbÊÜ`ÜŒ TRANSPORT You arrive in the game able to walk from your interstellar craft, which is not re-fitted for further flight. A car awaits you, which you can only use after you have collected the key from the spaceport building. All transport in the game requires you to be holding its matching key for you to be able to use the vehicle. (There is one exception with the `Quit' option - see later.) There are three types of craft 1. Cars and other ground based vehicles. 2. Aircraft, which are restricted to the planet or moon that they are on. 3. A number of spacecraft for interplanetary flight. All craft have varing capabilities, some are good, some not so good. OBJECTS Interaction with the game is principally through the objects that are to be found. Many of these have a use. You can pick up and hold objects to relocate or use at any time by taking these into your inventory. You can generally hold up to a maximum of 10 objects at a time. Please note that there is no limit to the number of objects that you can drop in any one place bun an excessive concentration of objects will significantly slow the game graphics. CLUES Following from the `State Office' briefing, there is a straightforward `trail' that leads to a solution, for which you are suitably rewarded. It is rewarding to play and affords a useful insight and experience of some of the gameplay available, but occupies only about 20% of the full gameplay installed. There are a number of interlinked ways to varying solutions and remembering that your objective is to maximise your fortune, the experienced player will want to investigate these other options. EXPLORATION The Damocles playfield is vast. You can of course explore everywhere, and might eventually find all that there is to find. However, this approach is not recommended: for example, there are over 16000000 individually numbered but identical pyramids on Midas. Even the most ardent adventurer would find a simple search of these somewhat tedious. In exploring, look for the differences. Certainly significant buildings are well worth a look inside, but also a structure that may be commonplace elsewhere, if cited individually, could also be interesting. Similarly, one pink building among many of the same type in green would have a purpose. ÊpÊÜnÜŒ TRADING An important feature of the gameplay is the value of many of the objects you can find. you must sell an object to be credited with its value. This can be accomplished at any of the Trading Posts that you can find that do not already have an object for sale in the window. You can of course buy the displayed object , if you can afford it. The price is shown on the wall panel. where you can sell, the money shown on the panel is that offered at these premises for the object currently selected in your inventory. Drop the object and leave the room for the transaction to be complete. TIME Your panel clock is tuned to the time countdown to Damocles' impact with Eris. If Eris continues to exist when this clock zero, you will have succeeded. Your space travel around the system is at speeds near to the speed of light. Very quick and convenient for you, but note the rapid decay of your Eris based time clock! Comparefd to the speeds that you can attain, the planet and moon rotations and even the comet, appear to move at a leisurely pace. But beware! This can be misleading. The comet is moving relentlessly on. IN-FLIGHT EFFECTS In space flight, an ecliptic plane lock operates to encourage your flight to remain within the plane of the system. During rapid spaceflight, Benson, your In-Helmet PC, affords a playable view by compensating for the effects of acceleration and for relativistic distortions. Similarly, to provide you with simple flight controls, in space your engine speed and direction are regulated to take account of gravitational fields and appropriate deceleration is applied for you to enter above the planets and moons. Above the surfaces, you will move faster at high altitudes. A red panel light shows with ground proximity. CONTROLS With Benson in communication mode, you may be asked to respond. This is indicated by a `?' following text. Press O (or Y) to respond `OK' and `N' to respond `NO'. Walking is initiated by pointing the joystick in the appropriate direction while you are able to run by pressing `R'. This will activate Run mode as indicated by a white light on the control panel. To Board a craft press `B'. To leave a craft press `L' Speed is selected with a number key on the main keyboard 1 is slowest,0 is fastest. Reverse speed can be selected in the same way with the F-keys. Press the space bar to come to a complete stop.ÊpÊÜnÜŒÊpÊ When flying a spacecraft, you can press `ESC' to attain escape velocity To enter SAVE mode press `HELP'. there is a special option for Mercenary players. If you have a saved game from Escape From Targ or Second City, instead of pressing F2 to load a normal game press F3 or F4 respectively. Objects and Inventory: All object and Inventory controls are through the Keypad and cursor keys. To pick up an object, stand near it and press the up cursor key. To drop it press down. The left and right cursor keys scroll through the inventory. Some objects can be activated. To activate an object, select it with the cursor keys and then press `ENTER'. An auxillary central `use' panel will appear with relevant control information. To deactivate, drop the object or activate something else. ---The End---