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 neophyte@aliensoft.com 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 neophyte@aliensoft.com. 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.