Neophyte: Koplio’s Story – Windows Readme – English

NEOPHYTE: Koplio's Story

Countless years ago evil ruled the realms. Fierce monsters roamed 
the land causing chaos and destruction.  People were helpless 
until The Goddess of Light looked down upon the world and fused 
the evil into the Orb of Salumain. Thereafter, the world entered 
an age of peace and prosperity.

However, Orb was imperfect and caused its guardian to become 
evil and corrupt.  After a great battle, the guardian of the 
orb was defeated by the hero Gorus, who was granted great 
powers by the Goddess of Light.  Gorus' armor, sword, shield, 
and helm were distributed to monasteries across the world to 
be kept safe.

A scant handful of years ago, the leader of the Monks, Vacmatio, 
also known as the Grand Malefactor, rose up and tried to take 
control of all of the Artifacts of Gorus.  With the help of the 
evil Horde, he nearly succeeded, but was defeated and slain by 
Aliquis the Great of the Empire of Light.

Peace returned to the world, at least for a time...

Koplio is a Neophyte Monk left at the Regara Monastery when 
he was six years of age.  Now sixteen, Koplio is ready to take 
his sacred vows to guard the precious Armor of Gorus from the 
outside world, thus earning his Sigil of Passage into Adulthood.

But all is not well within the monastery.  Rumors of the 
reemergence of the Grand Malefactor, Vacmatio, have traveled 
even as far as Regara.  Very recently strange rumblings have 
been heard from the forbidden basement of the monastery, 
disused for hundreds of years.  But what is worst of all is 
the earthquake which hit the monastery last night.  Part of 
the building has collapsed, including the entrance to the holy 
vault where the Armor of Gorus should be safely stored.

Can you, Koplio, manage to solve the mystery of the earthquake, 
and perhaps recover the Armor of Gorus in the process?  Without 
it, you can never take your vows.  Worse yet, if the Armor has 
fallen into the wrong hands, it might mean the end of an era of 
peace.  Beware, young Neophyte.  The road ahead will be difficult 
to travel and could mean your destruction.

REQUIREMENTS:
--------------
- Pentium computer 
- 8MB of ram.
- svga card with at least 1MB of video ram. It must support 16 bit 
  color in 640x480.
- 40MB of free hard drive space.
- DirectX 5.0 or later. This can be downloaded from 
  http://www.microsoft.com or http://www.aliensoft.com 

RECOMMENDATIONS:
--------------
- Pentium 100MHZ or faster
- 16MB of ram or more
- hardware accelerated PCI video card with at least 2MB of memory.
- 16 bit windows compatible sound card and good speakers.

1. Controlling Koplio:

You can use the keyboard or joypad to control Koplio.  Here is a summary 
of commands:

Command		Keyboard		Joystick		
-------		--------		--------		
Move		Arrow keys or		Dir-Pad		
		Numerical keypad
Use Magic	Alt			Button 1		
Attack* 	Ctrl			Button 3	
Interact/Talk	Spacebar		Button 3	
Run		X			Button 4		
Inventory	I			Button 2		
Help		F1
Save		F2
Load		F3
Toggle Sound	S
Toggle Music	M
Exit/Resume	ESC

*You can not attack in most areas of the monastery.  Sorry.

Press the spacebar (or joystick button 3)to talk to a person, to pick up an 
object, to read a bookshelf or a sign, open a chest, or search a barrel.  
You have to be in front of the object or chest, but you only have to be near 
the person to talk.  Some special objects can also be picked up by pressing 
the spacebar.

The mouse is used in the inventory screen, in the buy/sell screens, and in 
the alternate interface.  You can move the sword cursor with the mouse and 
select items by clicking on them.  Click in the background to return back 
to the game.

2.  Help!  I'm Stuck!

Here are some helpful tips for finding out what is going on:

Have you talked to all of the monks?
Have you read all the bookcases? 
Have you explored everywhere? (Really?)
Have you talked to the Sensei?  He's very wise.
Have you asked your friends?
Have you emailed [email protected] for more help?

3.  Known Bugs

- If you are playing MIDI files outside of NEOPHYTE when you start the 
  game, our music won't work. 
- You must have NUM-LOCK off to use the numeric keypad to control 
  Koplio.
- Koplio's Story is designed as a full screen immersive standalone program.
  You may experience difficulties if you attempt to ALT-TAB to other programs.
 
4.  About Alien Software

Alien Software is a radical departure from your typical game publishing 
houses.  Elsewhere, you have adults acting like teenagers and trying to 
figure out what you want.  Here, we ARE teenagers.  The art and 
programming of Neophyte was done almost entirely by people from 15 to 21 
years of age (OK, we had some help from a few adults, but we did all the 
hard stuff).

We can be reached at Alien Software, 9140 Guilford Rd, Suite O, 
Columbia, Maryland, 21046, or e-mail us at [email protected].

5.  Credits

Programming:
------------

John Corwin
Thang Duong
Brian Frisvold
John Hicks
Steve Huang
Mike Kayser
Gregg Miskelly
Adam Pino
Srinivas Rao
Brendan Trexler
Mike Young

Art:
----

Sven Dixon

Additional Art:
---------------

Kristine Rencs
Brian Dugan
Josh Budich

World Development:
------------------

Anatoly Brechman
Sven Dixon
Jerry Frese
John Hicks
Mike Kayser
Rich Malinowski
Mike Young

Music/Sound Effects:
--------------------

Mitch Brink
Check out his web page: http://www.geocities.com/~mitchb2

Designer:
---------

Mike Young

Additional Design:
------------------

John Corwin
Sven Dixon
John Hicks


Producer:
---------

Mike Young

Executive Producers:
--------------------

Wayne Moore
Patrick Huddie

Playtesters:
------------

David Ball
Mitch Brink
Susan Brown
John Colwick
Sharon Forsman
David Golz
Timothy Haritun
Chris Lingor
David Personen
Erik Seligman
Yoshiaki Suzuki
Daniel Walls
Dale Walter II

The Voice of Vacmatio:
----------------------

Arthur Adams

Special Thanks To:
------------------

Srinivas Rao
Andrew Wiles
Microcosm, Inc.

6. Copyright

NEOPHYTE: The Journey Begins is copyright (C) 1997, Alien Software.  All 
rights reserved.

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