Monkeygames and Ben 'Yahtzee' Croshaw present...

		     		ROB BLANC II:
		     PLANET OF THE PASTEURISED PESTILENCE

				REMASTERED!


THE STORY

In Better Days of a Defender of the Universe you play Rob Blanc, a chip
shop worker from England who has been selected from millions of bored but
adventurous people to become an intergalactic hero. The High Ones, dwellers 
of the Higher Plain and auditors of all the known universe, have decided that
the Evil in the galaxy has become too great, and they need a way to vanquish
the hordes of Darkness. So they chose Rob as the most suitable candidate from
the only neutral planet in the universe, Earth.
	In this second chapter of the series, Rob is very nearly the
Defender of the Universe, but the High Ones insist on him going for a
holiday on Earth before he leaves (they haven't built the ship yet).
However, during his stay Rob gets stuck in a lift with an enigmatic
teenager, and that's where you come in... get the hell out of that
lift, and try not to be too surprised when you do!
	I've pulled out all the stops to fill this chapter with much more
fun, thrills, spills and challenge than the last one. Visit an alien world!
Go skin diving! Come back from the dead! It's all here in RBII.

INSTALLATION

Just unzip all the files to a directory on your hard drive (eg. C:\DEFEND)
Run SETUP first to configure the game, then double click on the 'DEFEND'
batch file to begin your holy quest.
To uninstall, just delete the game directory.


PLAYING THE GAME

If you are familiar with the interface used by such games as Space Quest 4
and King's Quest 5, you will already know how to play. For the benefit of
everyone else, here are the basics:
Most of the screen is taken up with the main view window. This shows you Rob
and his current surroundings. Several objects in each room can be interacted
with, and these are called 'hotspots'. 
When the intro finishes a blue bar wil appear at the top of the screen. This
bar displays the game title and the name of the hotspot the mouse cursor
is currently over.
Move the mouse cursor there and the icon bar will appear. The pictures on 
the bar represent the following, from left to right:

1. Walk to
2. Look at
3. Interact with
4. Speak to
5. Open inventory
6. Save game
7. Restore game
8. Quit
9. About

BASIC COMMANDS

The first four pictures, when clicked on, will change the mouse cursor to the
appropriate symbol. Then you may click on a hotspot in the main view window
to use the appropriate symbol on said hotspot.

WALK TO (walking man): not necessarily used on a hotspot. Click on a point
in the room you want Rob to walk to, and he will do so if he can, otherwise
he will go as close as he can to it. For instance, click on a wall and Rob
will walk to the floor next to the wall.
LOOK AT (magnifying glass): When used on a hotspot Rob will examine it and
tell you his conclusions with a dialog box. When a dialog box appears you can
dispel it by clicking anywhere.
INTERACT WITH (hand): Click on a hotspot and Rob will firstly walk over to it
and then try and do an appropriate action - eg. interact with a button to
press it, interact with a door to open it. If Rob can't do anything or if he
doesn't know what to do, he will either tell you or do nothing at all.
SPEAK TO (speech bubble): In most cases this only works with other characters.
Click and Rob will try and open a conversation with the selected object. If
he succeeds, a discussion will begin. If not, nothing will happen. 
During a conversation a number of options appear at the bottom of the screen.
Click on the line of dialog you want Rob to say and watch the ensuing talks.
When a character is speaking you can skip dialog by clicking anywhere.

THE INVENTORY

Click on the picture of a satchel to open the inventory. This displays all
the items Rob is carrying with him - obtained by either interacting with
them or being given them. Click first on the magnifying glass and then on 
an object to examine it in more detail. Alternatively inventory items can
be held in Rob's hand and used on another interactive object. Click on the
arrow and then on an inventory item - the cursor will become the same item.
Now click again on something in the inventory to try and combine the two
objects , or click 'OK' and click on a hotspot in the room to use the item 
on that.

SAVING/LOADING

As you progress through the game you may have to leave the computer at some
point, or you may for some reason want to stop playing the game. You can
save your progress by clicking on the 'Save Game' icon and entering a name
for your save game. Later on, when you come back to the game, you can click
the 'Restore Game' icon and reload your saved game, so you don't have to
play through the whole game again.

PROGRESSION

To advance in the game you will usually have to find a puzzle and solve it -
for example, to enter the door to the captain's cabin you must first get the
keycard from the droid. Better Days has a number of puzzles for you to mull
over, most of which require some inventory item or other. You will find the
game has a very linear style - solve one puzzle to get one item for the
completion of another puzzle elsewhere.

HINTS

* Pick up everything you can. There are few red herring inventory items in 
Better Days, so even obscure objects have a purpose.
* When speaking to a character, use every possible dialog topic. You can
glean more useful information that way.
* If you get really stuck, use every inventory item you have on everything
else you can find. You may not have to do this often, as I have endeavoured
to make the solution to each puzzle reasonably obvious. Look for clues!

BUG ALERT!

I apologize for a few little glitches in animation and characters. This is
because I was being a bit too ambitious for the AGS engine.

The game contains a bug which makes the whole thing crash unexpectedly. You
can get round this by saving regularly and restoring should the game
suddenly bomb out. This may only apply to certain computers.

BORING LEGAL BOLLOCKS

This game (except for the music) was written entirely by Ben Croshaw. All
graphics, animations, dialog, story and puzzles.

The Rob Blanc theme tune (the first music you hear) was written by Mark
"Mods" Lovegrove.

Includes CWSDPMI DPMI host, copyright 1997 by Charles Sandmann

This game is FREEWARE so you can distribute it as much as you like among your
friends without nagging twinges of guilt. 

I am always happy to receive advice and equally happy to offer help.

e-mail me at: gcroshaw@croshaw.freeserve.co.uk

Or snail-mail me: 28 Portland Road
		  Rugby
		  Warwickshire
		  England
		  CV21 3RX

Remember, if you want to play further instalments of Rob Blanc's adventures,
you'll have to keep on at me to write some!

Visit the Rob Blanc website! Walkthroughs, updates, screenshots!
www.2dadventure.com/dotu/