MIKE'S STORY


PLAYER'S GUIDE


Introduction

This game is released as freeware.  It can be freely distributed with certain restrictions, and is provided with no warranty.  See the license.txt document for more details.

Mike's Story is a simple role-playing game (RPG) that I created as a way to
work on my coding skills with the Euphoria programming language.  The game certainly contains no great innovations in playability or story development, but it is a fine way for an RPG fan to entertain himself for several hours.

Mike's Story centers on a simple farmer named Mike who wants nothing more from life than to be left to grow carrots in peace.  His quiet life is disrupted by rebellious rabbits and insolent elves, forcing Mike to undertake a quest to regain his former contented lifestyle.

The game runs in DOS or a full-screen DOS window.  It uses a screen of 320 by 200 pixels with 256 colors (although less than 16 colors are utilized).  The game has been tested in DOS and in Windows XP.  It should work fine in all versions of Windows.

The interface for the game is entirely keyboard-controlled.  The game contains a simple menu system where the choices are selected with the up and down cursor keys.  The current selection is highlighted in green.  A selection can be accepted by pressing either the space bar or Enter key.


The Main Screen

The main screen shows Mike's world.  The character is moved with the cursor keys.  Much of the terrain (such as the trees in the forest) is impassable, but there are some secret paths to be found through seemingly impassable terrain.  Buildings are represented as houses.  When you walk into a building, you will usually trigger a special event.  Special events include things such as a conversation, an establishment, or a story point.  Special events can be triggered in places other than buildings as well.

You will notice a red bar in the top right corner of the main screen.  This bar shows a measurment of your character's fighting points (FP).  Fighting points are explained in more detail in the combat section.

In addition to the cursor keys, the following keys work in the main screen:
D.......Drop An Item (see the items section below)
H.......Show A Help Screen
I.......List Your Inventory (see the items section below)
S.......Save Your Game
U.......Use An Item (see the items section below)
ALT-P...Print Screen Shot (to file)
ESC.....Quit the Game

Note that there is only one saved game at any time.  Whenever you save your game, you will overwrite any previous saved game.  Save your game often, because death can come quickly in Mike's Story.


Combat

Mike's world is a violent one, full of creatures that will attempt to waylay lone travellers.  When you come across such creatures, you will enter combat mode.

When you enter combat, you will see a blue bar below your red FP bar.  This bar represents your opponents FP.  Keep an eye on this bar to determine if you are wittling your opponent down or just making him madder.

The combat menu has three choices: Attack, Run Away, or Use Item.

Attack
This option causes you to attack your opponent.  If your attack is successful, you may decrease your opponent's FP.  You win when your opponent's FP are completely exhausted.  When you win, you will automatically search your opponent's corpse for any useful items.

Run Away
If the combat is going badly, you can attempt to flee.  Your chance of escaping is lower the more skilled your opponent is.  Your opponent will continue to attack while you try to escape.

Use Item
Some items can be used in combat.  You will be presented with a list of useful items or told that you have none.  Keep in mind that your opponent will continue to attack while you rummage around looking for useful objects.

You start out as a farmer unskilled in the ways of combat.  The more fights you are in, the better you will become at it.  You will find that it becomes easier to hit your opponents and harder for them to hurt you.

Unlike many other RPGs, you will not see your character's skill levels during the game.  You are left to trial and error to determine what types of opponents you are capable of taking on.  Because of this, you shouldn't be too proud to run away from a fight that you are going to lose.  You are likely to run across some creatures before you are prepared to fight them.  In the words of the old song, you gotta know when to hold 'em and know when to fold 'em.


Items

There are several different types of items in Mike's world.  Some can be sold for money, some can be used and some are part of the story.  You can buy and sell items at a shop.  Additionally, some monsters carry items that you can find when you defeat them.  Other items are waiting to be discovered somewhere in the world.  Certain items are useful in combat while others are useful out of combat.  Some items can be used in either situation.

Two special types of items are weapons and shields.  Weapons do damage to your opponents and shields protect you from your opponents' attacks.  Different weapons and sheilds offer different amounts of attack power and protection.  You start the game with a kitchen knife and no shield.  When you use a weapon or shield it becomes active and you discard whatever weapon or shield you were using before.


Establishments

Inns
There are a few inns located in Mike's world.  These are places where you can pay to spend the night in a relatively comfortable bed.  Resting at an inn will recover some of your FP.  Different inns charge different rates and will cause varying amounts of recovery.

Shops
Shops are where you can buy and sell items.  A shopkeeper will pay you about half of what an item is worth and sells items at full value.  A shopkeeper does not sell the items he buys from you.  That means that an item is gone once you sell it to a shopkeeper.

Trainers
Trainers let you practice your weapon skill and combat manuevers, as well as offering you a rating of how advanced you are.  Trainers can get expensive if you rely on them too much, but you don't risk personal harm the way you do in actual combat.


Support

I can't offer support for this game because I am making no money from it.  I hope that it is simple enough that very few questions should come up.  I do have a few suggestions though.

There are no unkillable opponents in the game, although a couple of the wild monsters are ridiculously hard to kill.  If you come across an opponent that you can't beat, you need to put in some time at a trainer or go wandering around an area where the monsters are relatively easy to beat and practice your combat.

Some of the people you come across will have missions for you.  It is possible for your character to fail on some of the missions.  If you have done something that causes a mission to fail, you will have start a new game to complete that mission.

If you are stuck on what to do next, there is an oracle deep in the forest that will give you suggestions about what to do next.


Feedback

I welcome comments about the game.  I may even create sequels if there is enough interest.  You can email your comments about the game to mewever@hotmail.com.  Your subject line should include the game title Mike's Story.  If not, I may discard it as spam.  If you are reporting a problem with the game, it is helpful if you can send any error messages you received.  I can't promise I will reply to your email, but I do promise I will read it and give it consideration.