Nectaris by Hudson Soft Copyright (c) 1989-1997 by Hudson Soft, Inc. All rights reserved. System Requirements: o Windows 95/NT 4.0. o Direct X 3.0 or better. o Mouse. o video and sound card supported by Direct X. Game: I can't read the kata so I don't really know what's going on. At a guess, you are a rebel commander attempting a revolution on Icarus and kicking the Earthies off your planet. You must drive the Earthies from various strategic points on Icarus, as represented by a world map. Each point on the map constitutes one battle that must be won to move to the next point. However, to boil it all down you, the blue commander, must vanquish the computer, the green commander. Do this by moving your icons to the best advantage and attack the green icons from that position of advantage. Whenever a group destroys another group, the winner gets experience. Get enough experience and the group becomes stronger. Program Controls: Everything is accessible with the mouse. In windowed mode (the game starts up in windowed mode), the menus are in english and self-explanatory. Right-click in the window during the game with no icons selected will produce a dialog with three buttons. o The top button continues play (i.e., cancels the dialog. Acts like a pause button). o The second button quits the game but not the program. However many points on the world map you have conquered will still be retained. Basically, this allows you to restart the current battle. o The third button allows you to save your game with a standard file Save As dialog. Game Controls: As you move the mouse, the current terrain is displayed in the bottom status window. The precentage is the advantage a group holds while on that hex (relative to a no advantage ground level). If the mouse passes over an icon, the number of units in that icon and their type are also displayed in the status window. When it is your turn, you will click on one of your blue icons to select it. It will turn red indicating it is selected. The top command option will flash. If you click again, this option will be selected. Otherwise, you can move the mouse and click on one of the other options (described below). Commands: There are four commands on the upper right side of the game screen. These are, from top to bottom: o Move. When you select an icon and then click on this button, a grid will appear showing you the range that icon can move. Click on the hex in the highlighted grid you want the icon to move to and it will immediately go there. Click on the icon again to stop the movement phase for that icon. If there is an enemy icon next to the destination icon, you can click on that enemy after your icon has moved to attack it. The screen will change to show an overview of the battle. Both sides exchange one round of fire simultaneously, losses are tallied, experience totalled, and that is the end of that round of combat for that icon. Once an icon has moved, it will turn gray indicating you cannot select it again in this phase. Note: a shortcut for playing is to select an icon, click again to go immediately into move mode (the Move button flashes indicating the action that will be taken when you click the mouse a second time). Click on a destination to move to. After the move, click on an enemy to attack. That's four mouse clicks: click once to select icon, click again to enable movement, click on destination, and click on enemy to attack (if next to destination). o Show enemy attack range. Click on an enemy icon to select it. Then click on this command to see the attack range of the selected icon. A highlighted grid will appear showing you what hexes that icon can attack. Right-click to get out of the display. You cannot select your own icon for range information. Instead, I believe you can find this information on the stats screen. It is the number associated with the icons that look like little guns. o Stats. Select an icon and then click on this command. The screen will change, showing you the stats on the units in that icon. Click the mouse to get out of the stats view. o End Phase. Click this when you are done moving your icons around. The computer will then take its turn. When the computer is done, it will also click this command to turn control over to you. UnitEdit Program: I think this might be a level editor but I don't know. You are on your own with this one! This file written by Stephen P. Lepisto Web Master of Otaku World http://otakuworld.com/ September 20, 1998