The Dark Bat's Rising - Readme
 Copyright BatWare Productions 2000


The Story
---------
 You have just turned eighteen and finished your studies. Your old father, the
wizard Ka'rath comes to greet you. When he approaches a terrifying image appears
before you!
-"Ha,ha!" it snarls. "I am free again! This time nobody can stop me!"
-"It's Zerak, the Bat of Doom!" yells your father. "He has risen from his 1000-
year hibernation!"
 When you try to strike Zerak, the image disappears and you feel a chill running
up your spine.
-"This is serious, very serious indeed!" says your father, shaking his head.
"You must find the mighty artifacts and slay Zerak or we shall all be doomed!"
 He gives you some gold and equipment and sends you for the difficult mission.

Overview
--------
 Dark Bat's Rising is a small rpg in the spirit of the classic 'Roguelike'
games, but featuring some graphics. Your task is to gather the mystical
artifacts and destroy the Bat of Doom.

Playing the game
----------------
 You may choose to be a mage or a fighter. After that, you find yourself
outside a small town with some equipment. You explore the world with the
arrow keys and visit towns (marked with a brown house) to get healed, buy
equipment and talk with the town elders to get precious information and aid.
When an encounter occurs, you are thrown into the 'Combat' screen.

Combat
------
 The fight is up! You start near the upper left corner of the area and your
foe starts from the lower right. You can (try) to escape by leaving the area,
but your enemy may be faster than you... When you are adjacent to the foe,
you turn at his direction to attack. Whether you hit or miss, he will get the
next turn and try to flail at you. If you are low on HP, you can drink
Potions... if you have any!
 And if you happen to be a mage, you can cast the fearsome Combat Magic to
hinder or even destroy your foes!

The Keyboard
------------
Map 
  Arrows - Movement
       1 - Inventory
       2 - Rest
       3 - Save
       4 - Load
Combat
  Arrows - Movement
  Numpad - Movement (NumLock must be on. You can also move diagonally with
                     the 1,3,7 and 9 keys.)
       U - Use potion
       C - Combat Magic

Credits
--------
 This game was entirely made by Mikko^BW.


Disclaimer
--------
 We give no guarantee about this software. If you die playing it, we won't pay
your funeral. You can not modify this game. If you distribute the game, you
must distribute ALL (and i mean ALL) the files that came with the archive.

Features to come
-----------------
 -Ranged weapons. Boy, what would a beginning character give for a bow!
 -More classes like Ranger, Combat Mage, Priest...
 -Potions of Restore MP. It sucks to run out of MP in battle.
 -Cursed items? Those bastards? Who knows... :)
 -Modifiable game keys
 -Music and/or SFX
 -Scrolling map display
 -SVGA graphics? 
 -You name it! Send EMAIL to BatWare. (Adress later)

Known bugs
----------
 Should you find a bug, please email BatWare. Currently we know of no bugs.
 

Troubleshooting
---------------
Problem:  The game takes hours to load!
Solution: You do not have an EMS manager loaded. Please load one.

Problem:  I get killed all the time!
Solution: Flee from battles when you know that you will not win.


If you have anything to ask, email us. The address is batware@hotmail.com

Thanx for reading!
