* Caverns of Chaos v0.84 - Copyright 1998, 1999 Jaakko Salonen *

THE IDEA
--------
In the Caverns of Chaos, players control chaos wizards
and fight against each other. All the wizards possess
great knowledge in the art of magic, but the actual
powers are gained from mana crystals: they are the
sources of mana.

So the crystals control everything. When a wizard
start using mana crystal he is also possessed by it.
This makes the wizards almost immortal thought,
as the mana crystals have powers to resurrect
dead wizard. The only point is that when a crystal
shatters, everything possessed by it will disapear.

The game itself is a combinement of role-playing and
strategy. You lead your summon army with wizard to
strike the enemy down, and also try to protect your
mana crystal at the same time.

STARTING THE GAME
-----------------
Start the game from the main menu by pressing enter on the
start game text. Anyway, before starting game you should
configure the game options first.

GAME TYPE
Type of the game. When you play with one computer you should
leave this to "single computer". Network game is described
further.

WIZ START LEVEL
Starting level of all wizards. The bigger the level is, the
more spells and monsters the wizard are able to summon.

CRYSTAL STRENGHT
Hit points of the crystal. The bigger this value is, the
more hits crystals can stand.

EVENT MONSTERS
Enabling this option will cause "event monsters" to appear
in the game. These monsters attack everyone, and are not
controlled by a wizard or a crystal. Rarely, few, much
and MAX means the number of appearing monsters.

NETWORK GAME
------------
Caverns of Chaos support network gaming up to 8 players.
1-8 computers can be on the game, but remember that
up to 4 players can play on the same computer. The network
game uses IPX-protocol.

Note! The network game is still on beta-stage, and the
event monsters are not implemented yet. The game should
run smoothly with 2 computers and 2 players per computer,
but 3 or more computers seem to cause trouble sometimes.

Still there are some bugs (like disapearing or immortal
monsters) in netgame that are caused by my bad network
game code ;)

SETTING UP A NETWORK GAME
To set up a new game, select game type "create ipx game"
and press enter on "Start game". Before that, please make
sure that anyone else is not playing on the same socket.
Other players that wish to part that game should select
game type "join ipx game".

The socket is the "channel" that the computer uses for
communicating with other computers in the network.
All players in the same game must have the same socket.

When you create a game, a chatroom will appear. Use
keyboard to write your messages and press enter to post.
On the up-left corner of the screen there are some
mystic numbers. Those numbers are the network addresses
for the players currently on the game (I will replace
them with nicknames later..). If there are two same
addresses, that means that two players are playing at
the same computer.

Here the host can also configure the wizard starting
level and crystal strenght with F1 & F2 keys.

When all players are joined the game, the game
creator (host) can press the F5 key to start to game.

(If the F5 is not printed in white, that means that
the map is still being uploaded to the other players.
Wait a few seconds and it should turn white)

As I said before, the network game is still a bit unstable.
If the game does not run on the first try, please try
changing creator computer, dropping players or something
like that before mailing me..

HOW TO PLAY?
------------

THE INTERFACE
I must admit, the game interface is almost bit too
complicated. This makes the game hard to learn, but
it is worth of it!


The screen layout is something like this:
Ŀ
              
      the     
   viewport   
              

--- MENU BAR ---
the content
of the selected
menu item
-- STATUS BAR --


STATUS BAR
This two lines bar shows the status and info
about your wizard (or selected monster, while in
stat menu).

MENU BAR
The idea is that the game is kind of "menu driven".
Everything you do, will be done using the "menus"
shown on the bottom of the viewport. (I am saying
menus, because I really don't know a
better expression..). To move to next or previous
menus, simply use keys labelled "move at menus"
(found at section Player controls).

MOVE MENU
When the "move" is highlighted you are able to move
with your main character, wizard. Use arrow keys
to move to the four different directions. Note:
only monsters controlled by AI are able to move
diagonally.

SUMMON MENU
The next section is "summon". Here you find all
the monster you are able to summon with your
wizard. The monsters are shown in a list, which
you can scroll with moving keys up & down.
The list looks something like this:

MOVE SUMMON CAST COMMAND MAP STAT
  Blk Dragon  450 level 27 head hunting
  Blu Dragon  390 level 28 crystal def
 >Bug       <   6 level 1  running away
  Giant Ant    11 level 2  head hunting
  Rogue        28 level 4  wiz killing
  Cuthroat     29 level 5  head hunting

Characters "<" and ">" point to the selected monster.
Lets take a better look to the list. First from the
left, there is the name of the monster. Next comes
the amount of mana points required for the casting.
If your are lacking mana points, this value is
shown red. The level points to the level required
from the caster to summon the monster. This is
also shown red, if your wizard is not on enough
high level. The monster can only be casted if these
two criterias are filled. For example, 450 mana
points is not enough for casting Black Dragon -
you must also have level 27 wizard.
The last field in the summon list is the type
of the monster, or the "mission" they are
accomplishing. These missions are described
in the Monsters section.

CAST MENU
Next comes the cast menu. This menu is quite similar
to the cast menu:

MOVE SUMMON CAST COMMAND MAP STAT
  Antidote          42  level 1
  Poison            31  level 5
> Strong poison <   58  level 9
  Power Flow        61  level 17
  Magic Attack      6   level 8
  Fire Flash        8   level 12

The value after spell name points out the mana
required for casting. And just like in summoning,
also in casting a certain level is required
for casting any spell.

To cast a spell just hold down the button "use 1".
The spell stars loading, and when it is readied,
the name of the selected spell will be highlighted.
Now you have only to select the focus. To cast
the spell to a certain directory, just press
following direction key. However, you can also
focus the spell on yourself by pressing "use 2"
key. Healing, teleport and that kind of spells
should be used that way. Still, the game doesn't
restrict which spells can be focused to the
wizard - you can also focus offensive spells
like magic attack or poison to your wizard.

There is also a quicker way to cast spells.
While you are in move menu, hold "use 1" key
to start casting. The same spell list open,
but now you must use "move at menus" keys
to select spell. The spell will be
automatically readied, and the focusing
is done in the same way is in cast menu.

COMMAND MENU
This menu contains the commands that different
type of monsters are obeying:

MOVE SUMMON CAST COMMAND MAP STAT
  head hunters   attack freely
  attackers      attack freely
> wiz killers <  attack freely
  defenders      defend close
  crystal def    defend close

Only these five type of monsters can be
commanded somehow. Head hunters, attackers
and wiz killers obey normally "attack freely"
command, but they can be also commanded
to "retreat" (retreat around mana crystal) or
to "follow wiz". Anyhow, as these two
others are not their primary mission, they
are not as skilled at them so their
attack motivation will be decreased on that
time. So the commands retreat and follow wiz
should only be used for a short period.

MAP
This menu simply reveals an inaccurate map
of the battle field. Your wizards position
is marked with "W" and the area of your
crystal (base) is highlighted.

STAT
This menu offers you possibility to follow
and browse your monsters. The name, level,
hit points, and mana points of the monsters
are shown in the list (in that order).


PLAYER CONTROLS
---------------

PLAYER KEYS
	      pl 1           pl 2         pl 3         pl 4
moving keys    arrow keys     a, s, w, d   j, k, i, l   joystick 1
use 1          enter                      7            but1
use 2          backspace      tab          8            but2
move at menus  del, end       1, 2         5, 6         but3, but4

GLOBAL GAME KEYS
F10     Back to main menu

Redefining keyboard is currently impossible.

SPELLS
------
Haven't write these yet..

MONSTERS
--------
Currently, there are someabout 30 different
monsters in COC. Every monsters have their
own hit points, mana points, weapon, armor class
and so on.

Every monsters have also their "mission",
the objective they are trying to reach.

WANDERING
The monster doesn't really care about
anything around. Maybe due low intelligence
or something, monsters of these type
just want to wander around.

WIZ KILLING
The monster is specialized for Wizard
assasination. They run for the nearest
wizard and try to hit it with their
knives as many times as possible. And
then..

RUNNING AWAY
The monster is scared for caster and
tries to get away from it.

HEAD HUNTING
This is the most common type in COC.
The monster serves its master by
slaying all enemies it gets to its
sight. If there are none left on the
field of vision it tries to find
them more..

DEFENDING
Monster serves its master by defending
it from any coming attack. Attackers
are eliminated even from a long range
as fast as possible and even retreating
attackers will get caught..

ATTACKING
This kind of monsters try to maintain
the peace by killing everything that
is not on their side. But unlike
head hunters, these monsters don't
seek for the trouble.

BODY GUARDING
Body guards are monsters that keep
in short range from wizard and
eliminate everything that tries
to harm their master. Many wizards
are well known from their massive
body guards clubs..

BUG LORDING
A special mission that is only
given to the bug lords.

CRYSTAL DEF (Crystal defending)
This kind of monsters try to
protect the mana crystal from
everything attacking. They
are the base for good strategy.

SPELLS
------
Maybe I will describe the spells later, but now you just
have to try them out..

THE CREATORS
------------
As the game is mainly done by Jaakko Salonen, the
following persons have also helped by beta testing
and designing monsters and spells:

- Juhani Salonen
- Olli Ikonen
- Otto Janhonen
- Mikko Salonen
- Toni Kesti

VERSION MODIFICATIONS
---------------------

0.83b -> 0.84
 - fixed some monster properties
   (trolls are better, vampire is more expensive, ogres are better and
    wizard killers are cheaper)
 - fixed the network game
   dropped down latency to make game run smoother. (This will
   increase the amount of lots packets, but makes the network
   game somehow playable..)
   The netgame is still on beta stage (v0.84b), but I will
   concentrate on that later..
 - orc mages don't cast anymore, because they liked to blast head
   of from their friends..

LEGAL
-----

Caverns of Chaos is freeware. This means that you may copy this
to anyone. Anyhow, you may not do any changes to this game or
to any files coming with it.
Caverns of Chaos has been tested for a long time. However,
the author still does not substitute any damage, that is
possibly caused by this game or its components.

CONTACTING
----------
Jaakko Salonen
WWW	http://www.salonen.cjb.net/
E-Mail	salon@saunalahti.fi







document written by Jaakko Salonen
