**************************************************************************** ************************** C A V E R A I D E R ************* Version 1.4 * **************************************************************************** ******************* Copyright (c) 2004 by Paul Redling ******************** **************************************************************************** Cave Raider is a fun and amazing ASCII adventure game. You are a young man or a young woman and enter a dangerous underground cave system with six consecutive caves. You'll find a lot of gold in these caves, but also terrible cave monsters that guard the gold. Your intention is to raid cave after cave, get all the gold and leave the cave system alive. The layout of the individual caves is randomly generated. This means that each game will offer you a new challenge! In addition, you can choose between three difficulty settings (Easy, Normal and Hard). If you have some spare time, then give this game a try. The best cave raiders will get an entry in the Hall of Fame. This program is freeware, i.e. you can freely use and distribute it. However, you must leave all files as they are and must not charge any money for the program. CR.ZIP contains the following files: CR.EXE - The executable program CR-E.TXT - The documentation in English CR-G.TXT - The documentation in German CR.BAS - The source code The file CR.DAT is created after you run CR.EXE. It's used for the configuration data and the Hall of Fame data. The program was written in Microsoft QBasic 1.1 and compiled with Microsoft Basic PDS 7.1. It is offered without any warranty. The program has been tested and should not cause any undesirable operation. However, you are using it at your own risk. System Requirements ------------------- Don't worry! All you need is a computer with an EGA/VGA compatible graphics card. The game should run fine under DOS as well as under Windows (including Windows NT/2000/XP). Running the Game ---------------- DOS: Switch to the directory into which you installed the game, type "CR" and then press Enter. Windows: Open the folder that contains the game and double-click on the CR icon. The game should be played in fullscreen mode. Options ------- 1) Cave Raider - Male (yellow) or Female (pink) 2) Difficulty Setting - Easy, Normal or Hard 3) Sound - on/off If you make a change, you can save the new settings. If you want to clear the table in the Hall of Fame, then go there and press F1. Keys ---- The arrow keys - Move the cave raider Spacebar - Fires a grenade. Use the arrow keys to pick a direction. Press Spacebar again to cause an immediate explosion of the grenade. M - Magic (Stone Spell) S - Sound on/off H - Help Q - Quit Every time you start a new game, you'll be asked for your name. It can have a maximum length of eight characters (A-Z, a-z and spaces). Use Backspace to delete a character. Press Return if your name is less than eight characters. Symbols ------- (The actual ASCII characters can be found in the in-game instructions.) Smiley - You Rock - If you run into it, your health will decrease by 80 (cave wall), 60 (rock formation) or 40 (damaged rock formation). If your health is zero, you'll die. Gold - 50 points. As soon as you've collected all the gold, the magic wall around the magic scroll will disappear and you can get the scroll. Chest of - Depending on the difficulty setting, you'll get 5 (Easy), grenades 3 (Normal) or 2 (Hard) extra grenades. You also begin a a game with 5, 3 or 2 grenades. The number of grenades is the only difference between the three difficulty settings, but you'll see that this difference really influences the difficulty of the game. Grenade - You are equipped with a grenade launcher. Use a grenade to kill a green or a red monsters or to block its way with a sign. A grenade has no effect on a black monster, but a sign will also block its way. Be careful not to hit a piece of gold. If a grenade blows up one of the pieces of gold, you can no longer get the magic scroll to leave the cave and your adventure has come to an end. In rare cases you'll have to blow up either the leftmost rock or the rightmost rock of a rock formation to get a piece of gold. These two rocks are the only ones that can be blown up by a grenade, provided there's no rock below them. All the other rocks of a rock formation can only be damaged by a grenade. A grenade has no effect on the cave walls and on everything of magic origin. Explosion - If you run into it, you'll die. Sign - A white star on blue background. This sign is left behind on the ground after you cause an immediate explosion of a grenade by pressing a button (Spacebar) on your grenade launcher. It's absolutely harmless, but the cave monsters are afraid of it and won't walk over it. Therefore, you can use the sign as a barrier, e.g. at the magic door. Magic gem - 100 points. It gives you two spells. Press "M" to temporarily turn the red monsters into stone. This also applies to the black monsters. You need the gem to leave the cave through the magic door. Magic scroll - 100 points. It generates magic fields of quicksand every few seconds. If you take the scroll, the magic fields of quicksand will disappear immediately and the magic monsters, i.e. the black monsters, will turn into gems worth 100 points each. You need the scroll to leave the cave through the magic door. Magic wall - It protects the magic scroll. If you walk into it, you'll die. Magic field of - It's near the magic scroll and protects it. If you walk quicksand into it, you'll die. Green monster - 60 points. Maximum number: 10. The green monster is slow and not very intelligent, but it moves towards the magic door and once it reaches its destination, it stays there and hinders your escape. If you're in the way, it'll eat you. Red monster - 80 points. Maximum number: 10. The red monster is always in the same cave as the green monster. It's a skilled and pretty fast hunter that adjusts to the speed of your movements. If it gets you, it'll eat you. Black monster - 100 points as gem. Maximum number: 15. The black monster is a magic creature that can't be killed by grenades. However, as soon as you take the magic scroll, the black monster will turn into a black gem. Similar to the red monster, the black monster is a skilled hunter, but it moves continuously, at a quick speed. This means that you should also move quickly if you don't want to get eaten by it. Luckily, the black monster never appears together with green or red monsters because it doesn't get along with them. Magic door - You'll get 200 points if you leave one of the first five caves and 1000 points if you leave the sixth cave, i.e. the cave system. You need both the magic gem and the magic scroll in order to leave a cave. In addition, there must be no cave monster at the magic door when you want to leave the cave. If these conditions are not met and you walk into the magic door, you'll die. Notes ----- 1) As I wanted the possibility to escape from the cave system, I decided that there should be a total of six caves and three difficulty settings (Easy, Normal and Hard). If you play well, you should be able to escape from the cave system in Easy Mode. If you play very well, an escape should also be possible in Normal Mode. In Hard Mode, however, an escape is almost impossible. If it says "Cave:X" in the Hall of Fame, it means that he or she escaped from the cave system. That's great, but remember: There's always a next time. You can never be sure if you'll leave those dangerous caves alive. 2) There's one cheat code in this game. Program Updates --------------- Version 1.4 12/01/2004 - Changed the behavior of the magic door - Improved some routines - Made a few corrections in the documentation Version 1.2 10/24/2004 - Fixed bugs with the grenade - Optimized several routines Version 1.1 10/04/2004 - Fixed bug with the initial positions of the monsters - Fixed a few other bugs - Improved the AI of the hunters - Optimized parts of the code - Made some minor cosmetic changes - Improved the story - Revised the documentation Version 1.0 08/04/2004 - First public release Contact ------- Email: paul.redling@gmx.net I welcome your comments.