
GRIMOIRE BETA 2.06 LICENSED TO PUBLIC FOR REVIEW ONLY!!

All source code, scenario, design, story, programming algorithms,
graphics, sound, music, situations, names and executable and
accompanying files are COPYRIGHT 1995-1997 By Cleveland M. Blakemore
and Grimoire Roleplaying Systems Pty. Ltd. Australia., All Rights
Reserved Unconditionally.

It is absolutely FORBIDDEN to redistribute, reverse-engineer,
modify, alter or abridge or misrepresent the executable of this
code or any of the accompanying files. These files are NOT
public domain and are intended SOLELY for personal review by
players. DO NOT redistribute this code publicly in any form for
commercial reasons or as part of a CD-ROM collection. This beta
version is NOT shareware and may not be represented as such by
any persons for commercial gain in any way shape or form.

If you have ANY doubts about what you can do with this beta version,
contact us FIRST and you can avoid much heartache later on! We can
be reached at the email address "frpg-grimoire@geocities.com" at any
time and we will get back to you.

INSTALLATION GRIMOIRE BETA 2.06

Minimum Setup:

386SX with 8 megs XMS
500K FREE RAM
1 meg SVGA Card w/VESA 1.2+
Soundblaster or Compatible
Microsoft Mouse

Optimum Setup:

486+ with 8 megs XMS
590K FREE RAM
1 meg SVGA Card w/VESA 1.2+
Soundblaster or Compatible
Microsoft Mouse or compatible

Unzip the file into a directory of it's own.

This game will run under DOS, Windows 3.1 or Win '95. There seem to be some problems
under windows '95 with MIDI playback in this beta version.

If you do choose to run in Win'95, the game runs fine except for being somewhat
slow. We're sure that if you are a Windows user this will be familiar to you. 
These speed issues have been fixed a little since BETA 1.06 but there is still a 
tradeoff.

Install a Microsoft Compatible Mouse Driver first if you have one. A mouse
driver is included in the installation directory if you do not have one.

If you want sound and music, you'll have to run the SETSOUND utility first in
order to initialize the sound and music drivers. This SETSOUND utility is 
located in the subdirectory "\dosdrv" underneath the installation directory.

If you don't have a sound card, have problems with the sound or want to
play the game without sound, type GRIMOIRE to start. You can also type "-s" on
the command line after GRIMOIRE to turn off sound playback automatically.

TROUBLESHOOTING:

The hard drive should have at least 25 megs free disk space to install the game ...

Install a VESA driver for your SVGA card if you get an error message saying
you have no VESA support. We highly recommend the SciTech Megagraphics Universal
VESA BIOS for any graphics problems.

If the program bails out with the message "Could not initialize mouse" then
type MOUSE at the prompt, then GRIMOIRE to restart the game ...

If you get the message "Could not allocate required real mode memory" you may
need to free up some RAM. You'll need at least 500K free RAM to run the demo.
Type MEM to see how much RAM you currently have in real mode memory.

Sometimes a machine may report 8 megs free but actually have space used up
by SMARTDRIVE or other XMS resident programs. Do not use SMARTDRIVE if you
have less than 8 megs of RAM. IF you have more, SMARTDRIVE or other disk
caching programs can speed up file access. Under 8 megs you need all the
free space you can get.

Make sure there are no TSRs resident in memory or other funny little things
that crawl around across page segments without even checking to see if they
have permission.

If you have any sound problems, try running GRIMOIRE with the "-s" parameter
to leave the sound and music off.

WALKTHROUGH for GRIMOIRE BETA 2.06

Click QUICKSTART at the MAIN MENU

You'll be in a meadow during the day. Birds are flying around.

Move around a little with the cursor keys or by clicking the correct
direction in the viewport. You might encounter some wandering monsters ...
click the CANCEL button (A developer's tool only) to avoid combat altogether
if you want. Combats are touched on later if you want to fight some of the
creatures you run into.

If you want smoother movement, you can click the DICE icon to bring up the
game control menu. Change the 3D STEPS parameter to SUPERSMOOTH or 
ULTRASMOOTH if you have a high end Pentium. If smooth movement makes you a
bit queasy, you can set the steps to SINGLE for old-style golden age CRPG
movement.

The players on screen each have an icon beside their portrait that is
associated with their current action. Click left arrow beneath this icon to
change to the next control icon, click right arrow under the icon to back up.
When the game starts, the players will probably have the CROSS selected - the
icon for AUTOHEAL.

Once you select the current party member's action, click on their icon to
perform that action. Change a party member's icon to an open book. This is
the spellbook. Click on the spellbook icon - the spellbook appears.

Click the icons at the bottom of the spellbook to change pages to the various
houses for magic, fire, frost, earth, etc. ...

Change to the spellbook page with the eye - the psyche magic. Select the spell
Detect Secret. Click on the rune stone at bottom of page to select power level
of spell. Now click the button at bottom that reads Cast Spell.

An eyeball appears in the upper left corner of the viewport. This eye will
flash a question mark whenever you are close to something secret in the
game ... a secret button, passageway, buried treasure, etc.

Other spells you might like to try casting are Direction (Earth Magic),
True Seeing (Psyche) and Locate Item (More Psyche Magic) as well as
Wizard's Eye (Astral Magic, Green Triangle with circle) to get your bearings
for this area.

If you cast the Locate Item spell, you'll see some items hidden not far away
in the forest. A sack is resting nearby in a small clearing. Get the sack.
It's a container. You can play with this later on. To put it into a
character's inventory, change to the INVENTORY icon (question mark on bag) and
click on it. Drop the item into one of the empty slots.

The EXIT button or escape key gets you out of just about anything in Grimoire.

Move using either the cursor keys or by clicking on the appropriate directions
within the viewport.

You may arrive at the location of the buried items but see nothing. The
Question Mark for Detect Secret should be flashing. Change to the SEARCH icon
(Eyeball) and click on it. You'll uncover the hidden items.

You could walk around some more and explore this forest, but when you're ready
you'll want to head for the Aquavia or Spirit Cave.

The easiest way to get back to places you've already been in Grimoire is by
using Pathwalk, which permits you to walk automatically to any place in the
game you've already been.

This is how to create a pathwalk trail ...

There are four large icons at the bottom of the playing screen:

a campfire (REST)
a map (AUTOMAP)
a journal (LOG, ignore this, it's disabled and only displays blank statistics)
some dice (GAME CONTROL & CONFIGURATION)

Click on the map to enter the automap utility. You'll see an overhead view of
your location. You can click the button labeled WORLD ATLAS to see where you
are inside the global map of the game. The red flag is positioned in the area
intended to be released as the shareware portion of the game. Exit the atlas
by clicking anywhere on screen.

Click on the automap where you want to walk to. The button PATHFINDER appears.
Click it. You'll see footprints walking from your current location to the
destination. Now click the button PATHWALK and sit back ... the 3D engine
will take you there. If you want to stop pathwalking, press the spacebar at
any time.

Go to the strange stone corridor to the southeast of your starting location.
This is the aboveground corridor down to Aquavia.

The ladder down not far from Aquavia leads down to an underground fountain 
where you can return to get a complete heal of all hitpoints, magic, vitality
and morale if you need it at any time during play.

Find the secret room nearby, push the button to open it and then push the
button inside on the west wall to close the Aquavia Pit.

Click on a ladder to climb down.

Go left or right at the intersection. Keep your eyes open ... you may see a
discolored stone on the wall. This is a secret button. Click it to open hidden
passageways. If you have any trouble finding these secret walls, use
Wizard's Eye or Detect Secret to assist you.

You may run into some wandering monsters. You can reduce the number of these
encounters or increase them by changing the switch for wandering encounters in
game preferences.

Eventually you'll find another ladder leading down. Climb down to the Aquavia
Causeway. You'll look for a rusty old gate key if you want to go for a ride
on the turtle. Be wary of the Skinkasaur.

If you run into an NPC, click on the TALK BUBBLE icon to speak with
that character. You'll be able to type sentences to speak to the NPC
until you either type EXIT, BYE or press the escape key.

IF you want to try to recruit an NPC, click on the handshake icon in NPC
interaction to see if they'll join the party.

OTHER STUFF TO LOOK AT:

You can change the marching order by clicking on nameplates consecutively to
switch the character around.

Click on the OK icon near the portrait to see the character's current
conditions, if any.

Click on the campfire to rest ... you'll get eight hours of sleep. You might
be jumped by wandering monsters.

INVENTORY

Choose the Icon of the Checkbox. Click on PC's portrait. Inventory appears.
To change to a different PCs inventory from inside inventory, click on the
name of the PC you'd like to switch to. Try clicking on the sack you picked
up earlier. It's a container. You can put other items inside it, up to six
items total.

Try using the MAGNIFYING GLASS icon to assay an item you have selected, or
the EYEBALL icon to get an explicit description of an item. Most of the items
do not have full text descriptions yet. Using the Identify and Improved
Identify spells can reveal more information about an item or assay it properly.
Casting Detect Magic makes magical items glow a light violet hue.

To equip an item, drag it to the armor figure and drop it. Sometimes you might
find something that is cursed. Once you've put it on, you can't get it off.
These items can drain vitality or other statistics from the player who is
unfortunate enough to be wearing them.

To review a character, click on their portrait.

IF YOU WANT TO ENGAGE IN COMBATS:

You'll need to equip weapons if you have'em unless you wish to fight
barehanded or with natural race weapons.

Choose your orders by clicking on the desired icons and then the player's
face. You'll be prompted for the orders for all partymembers. You can FIGHT,
USE, EQUIP, SHIELD, CAST, RUN, BACKSTAB... etc.

When a party member's orders are complete, that red question mark beside the
portrait changes to a red flag. You can click the REVIEW button at the bottom
to see all outstanding orders for the party at the moment.

In some cases you may be require to specify the row of monsters you wish to
direct your attack or magic at. Click the row you want to attack or hit
escape to cancel the order.

When all Party members are ready to fight, the button MELEE appears. Click
this button and the turn-based combat runs it's course. Hold down the mouse
button or enter key to speed up messages.

... so much more, but this should be enough to give you a good idea of what
is in the game. If you're curious, exit the game to the MAIN MENU and peruse
the character library to see how to go about creating new characters and
assembling a new party.

You'll probably discover bugs, perhaps lots of them. This beta version was
archived in source control some months back and many of the glitches you
might see in this version have since been fixed. We'd definitely be 
interested in hearing about any bugs which interfere with your enjoyment
of the game or cause fatal crashes.

BETA 2.06 is a playable game with a conclusion, but it is totally
incomplete and obsolete. GRIMOIRE is undergoing a complete redesign of maps,
interface, graphics and countless enhancements before it is released as 
shareware. We hope you have as much fun playing this early beta as we did
creating the GRIMOIRE game engines and story. We hope you'll see enough to
convince you that the final product, when it is ready, is an absolute steal
at any price.

Good luck and have fun!


(c)1995-1998 Cleveland Mark Blakemore - All Rights Reserved Unconditionally

Visit the Grimoire Web site for updates on our progress and info about the shareware
version!

url  : http://www.grimoire.net
email: frpg-grimoire@geocities.com
