INTERNEXT SOFTWARE presents FINAL EXISTENCE for the Amiga Program Code, Graphics, Animation, and Storyline: John Bintz Beta Testing: John Bintz, Justin Bintz, Becky Trout, Jeremy Templeton Music & Sound Effects: The AMOS PD CD Final Existence © 1998 Internext Software. All rights reserved. All other trademarks are owned by their respective owners. Internext Software not liable for damages caused by this product. End very short legal mumbo- jumbo. Please don't sue. STORYLINE Mike had three hundred pages of Geology II textbook to dive into that weekend, and he was less than willing to do so. Not only was this the driest textbook on Earth, but his family's last vacation had caused him to miss a whole weeks worth of notes. His classmate Chrissy offered him her notes, but he didn't know which was worse: A twenty page dissertation on the nature of pumice, or the random "I Love Billy"s strewn through the sloppy notes. After four hours of solid studying, he glanced outside. It was a beautiful spring day. Why they couldn't hold final exams during the dead of winter, when no one wanted to be outside, instead of during the sweet, gorgeous spring was beyond him. Probably some form of punishment, he thought. He returned back to his textbook, sick of all the hearts and scribbles courtesy of Chrissy, and began to read about the Earth's core, and the molten magma within... INSTALLING THE GAME Installation from demo archive: If you're reading this, you're pretty much done. Run the LibInstall program to copy the necessary libraries and fonts over to your hard drive. You will also need the XPK compression libraries. They are available on Aminet in the util/pack directory as xpk_User.lha. The minimum required version is also available at the INextSoft Web Site as shown below. STARTING THE GAME To start the game, open the directory to where you installed Final Existence. See your Amiga user manual to learn how to do this. You can select the following options: START A NEW GAME Begin a new game from the beginning (where else?) LOAD A SAVED GAME Load a game previously saved to disk VIEW FMV INTRO Stare in awe at the incredible Full Motion Video introduction...again. Only available on the CD-ROM version EXIT FINAL EXISTENCE Quit Final Existence and return to AmigaDOS PLAYING FINAL EXISTENCE Final Existence is not the typical tile-based role playing game. You have the ability to move about the entire screen, in any direction, and around objects more realistically. than most RPGs. Control is done by the joystick. Simply push the joystick in the direction you wish to travel. You are also not the only person in this game. When you meet up with other people, hit the fire button to talk with them. You can also pick up objects by hitting the fire button. Room exits are usually doors or passageways. Look for them on the edges of the screen. Sometimes they may not be too visible, so keep trying. Unfortunately, unlike other RPGs that follow this design, you cannot walk behind objects yet. One example is the television set in your living room. The only solution is to walk around it. But don't worry--our crack programming team is working day and night to solve this nasty, multi-legged bug. Expect to be able to walk behind trees in the next Internext Software RPG. Sometimes, talking characters will pose a question within the dialogue box. Simply move the pointer up and down until you've selected your choice, and then press fire. Dialogue boxes are not the only way to communicate. Circular Menus are a common way to select items from a store, and they are also used in the in-game menu system. With Circular Menus, the currently selected option is usually above your head, depending upon your position on the screen. The description of the current item is also on the bottom of the screen. Move the joystick left and right in the direction you want the selected item to go, and hit fire when you've selected the item you wish. IN-GAME MENU SYSTEM The in-game menu system is a hierarchical menu that lets you select weapons & armor, use items, save & load games, and check character statistics. The structure of the menus, with child items indented below parent items, is below: EQUIPMENT EQUIP WEAPON ARMOR GLOVES HAT CANCEL USE (List of Items) MORE... CANCEL MAIN MENU LOAD/SAVE LOAD SAVE MAIN MENU STATS HP/MHP STR/DEX/INT CREDITS ATK/DEF EXP MAIN MENU EQUIPMENT The equipment menu, where you equip and use items EQUIPMENT/EQUIP The menu where you equip items for battle, and also tells you which items are currently equipped EQUIPMENT/EQUIP/(Piece of Equipment) The menu will show available weapons and armor, which you can choose from to equip EQUIP/USE Lists items that can be used to restore Hit Points (described in Battle) EQUIPMENT/USE/(List of Items) All of your unequiped items are listed here. You can scroll through them. Any items that restore Hit Points are marked by how much they restore. Select them and press fire to use the item and restore HP. LOAD/SAVE Load or save a game in progress. Be sure when naming your game you give it the extension ".game", otherwise it won't come up on the requested when loading. STATS Shows individual statistics on the player. (Statistics explained in Battle). BATTLE So you managed to run in to a bad guy, huh? The battle system is easy to pick up on, but differs from most other RPGs, because battles are real- time. You can't afford to be indecisive, as the enemy will attack even if you're not ready. This will involve a lot of fire-button pressing and quick decisions when fighting. When fighting, all other characters are frozen, and the enemy surrounds you. All fighters draw their weapons and begin battle. Depending on your position on the screen, the battle window, which contains the power gauge, will open up on the top or bottom of the screen. Battle now begins. In its simplest form, battles only involve you pushing the fire button when the white power gauge, in the center of the battle window, fills up, and the action (usually Attack) is highlighted. You'll leap at the enemy, fire off a shot, and leap back, causing a certain amount of damage, shown by the damage number that bounces at their feet. Enemies fight the same way, using internal power gauges and attacking when their gauge is full. Damage also appears below you when they attack. There is a chance that your hit or the enemies will be more powerful than normal. If this happens, the screen flashes white when the hit occurs, and the damage is slightly higher than what a normal hit would've been. If you find that certain enemies in certain battles are weaker or stronger than others, you may wish to eliminate them first. You can select an individual enemy by moving the joystick left and right. An arrow on the main screen points to the currently selected enemy. Enemies can hit hard, and you may need to use some of your healing items during battle. Move the joystick up and down to select three different healing options: LightHeal Use item with lowest healing power SmartHeal Choose best item for amount of HP lost MaxHeal Use item with highest healing power When you finally eliminate an enemy, they will disappear from the screen. Once all enemies are eliminated, the battle is over, and you are awarded Credits and Experience. Credits and Experience are two other statistics, including Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, and Hit Points: Strength Increases Attack Dexterity Increases Defense Intelligence Increases both Attack and Defense slightly Credits Money. To buy stuff. Hit Points Amount of damage you can take before you die. You can't get any more Hit Points than your Max Hit Points Experience Get enough and you get more Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, and Hit Points Attack and Defense are calculated from Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, and your Equipment. The higher the Attack, the more damage you'll cause. The higher the Defense, the less damage you'll take from enemy hits. Attack and Defense, when added together, become your Hit Percentage. The higher your hit percentage, the more likely you'll hit an enemy. If you get killed in battle, all of us at Internext Software hope you read the part on saving your game. QUESTIONS AND COMMENTS To contact Internext Software, write: John C. Bintz 5 Windy Hills Drive Taneytown MD 21787 USA Email: uv334@victoria.tc.ca or visit the INextSoft Web Site: http://www.dragonfire.net/~JohnBintz/inext/home.html Please write us about bug reports, glitches, praise, and information on special ordering deals. Sorry, we won't tell you how to get the best ending! STANDARD PURCHASING OPTIONS Floppy Disk Version Final Existence on three floppy disks, with manual, for $10 CD-ROM Version Final Existence, the FMV introduction, and some odds and ends, with manual, for $15 We also have group discounts. Purchase ten copies of Final Existence (same format) and get a 10% discount on the lot. $100 goes down to $90, and $150 down to $135. PRODUCTION INFORMATION Final Existence began as a simple RPG engine written in AMOS Professional Version 2.0, and has evolved into a powerful, colorful, and easy-to-program engine. Its stil in AMOS Pro, and will always be. It began on my 020/14 A2000, and finished on my 030/25 A2000. The entire program was developed on an IOmega Zip drive. Graphics were done in FreePaint, DPaint IV AGA, and Brilliance 2.0. Character animation done on a custom RPG editor. FMV animation done in AMOS Pro, True Brilliance 2.0, and BuildAnim 2.0. Sound effects came from the AMOS PD CD. Web Space provided by Dragonfire Internet Services. THANKS Akira Toriyama, for designing such wonderful characters! Chris Trompeter, for nodding his head alot at my bragging about my Amy. Becky Trout, for supporting my dreams and loving me. 8^) Jeremy Templeton and Alex Fazenbaker, for beta-testing. The Amos Mailing List, for answers to many questions. The authors of many of the programs I used. Jay Miner, for designing the ultimate computer. Go eat some pie, Bill Gates! Manual written in Wordworth 6. Long live the Amiga.