README - Legacy Forest
Legal
Legacy Forest is Copyright 2003 by Calvin French.
All Rights Reserved.
Legacy Forest may be freely distributed provided it is done so unaltered and in-tact, and no fee is charged. This includes but is not limited to fees for copying and/or distribution.
Credits
Game by Calvin French. Music by Michael Burke and Xavier Dang. Title screen and character portrait art by Spencer Reyneke. Using the Allegro game programming library by Shawn Hargreaves and many, many others. Using JGMOD library for music playing by Guan Foo Wah. Using AllegTTF truetype font reading routines by Doug Eleveld. Using somebodies public domain TTF fonts.
Thanks to all who helped me with this horrendous, horrendous project ;) The bugs still haunt me. I simply hope I will never have to make these mistakes again......
If you want the source, email me and I might release it. I don't really want to release the source mainly it's just kind of embarassing. It is not useful for creating your own similar-styled RPG, I'm afraid. Way too many bugs and hacks. My email address is frenchc@telus.net.
Prologue
From the Journal of Roald Mortimer Gaetan:
After consulting with the Academy of Mathematics and Science in Rojun, and securing the neccesary finances, I have embarked finally on the construction of the estate. The western bank of Lake Sundre is the ideal encampment for such a venture, and I hope to explore further the peculiar nature of those substances collected on my last excursion. At any rate, the townsfolk of East Side will be more than happy for the economic benfit it will bring them, although the locals have repeatedly warned me about the forest. Indeed, given the strange properties observed of the lake during my previous expeditions, it would not be totally unthinkable that any old-growth vegetation in close proximity to it might have taken on some unusual properties of their own. Well, at any rate, the years spent there will give me all the time I need to uncover these mysteries, God willing.
I do wonder about Angela! The journey to the Frontier's Edge is not an easy one, and not without it's own dangers, especially for a pregnant woman. Nevertheless we both agree that raising our young child there will be much healthier than in the big city. When the time comes we can decide if we want to hire private tutors or move back to the city.
Well, my young protege, Gerard, is quite another case. He is leaving ahead of us, to supervise some of the preliminary construction and make sure the lodging is adequate before I bring along my dear wife. I only hope he doesn't make some misaccounting of the construction plans, it is quite a bit out of his usual realm of experience.
May 4, Year 3756
Gameplay
Legacy Forest is a role playing adventure game. You live with your uncle Dunhaben, working as a hired hand on the estate of a wealthy scientist who does research on the nearby mysterious Lake Sundre. The estate is sandwiched between the lake and an ancient forest.
If you remember the keys (Arrows, Enter, Esc, Left Shift, and Tab), it should be fairly simple to play. The main catch is how to use the ring menus. Holding shift will bring up the ring menu, which you navigate using left, right and up. Use the up arrow to make your selection on the ring menu. But before you can use an item, you must equip it into the appropriate ring menu. To do this, use the main menu (hit ESC) and use Enter to equip it. Items may only be equipped by one character at a time, and you may switch characters (using Tab) while the main menu (or ring menu) is open. So you can
easily unequip one item off one person, and equip it on another person.
Saving happens automatically. When you die, a screen will ask you if you want to save. Choose yes to save, or no to not save. Alternatively, when you exit (using the main menu) you may choose to save or not to save.
The game itself is fairly short, and I've been told the graphics I did are bordering on eye-bleeding, but I think it has it's own sort of charm once you play for a bit, and if you can get past the bugs (sometimes not an easy task) you might even actually enjoy it. It does hold a few surprises, and isn't quite your average RPG at any rate.
Controls
Arrows: Walk about, or navigate the menu.
Enter: Talk to someone, examine or use something on the field, make
a main menu selection, or attack when in battle mode.
ESC: Bring up the main menu, close it if open, or defend when in
battle mode.
Shift: Bring up the ring menu. Use LEFT/RIGHT arrows to navigate the ring menu, and UP to make your selection. You must equip items that you find into your ring menu before you can use them. You can equip things into your Item, Weapon, Armour or Magic rings. Some items may only be equipped by some characters.
Tab: Switch between characters.
Setup
Legacy Forest is configured via two methods. First of all, is included the allegro setup program (setup.exe), with which you can choose sound settings. Legacy Forest might work with joystick, but it's largely (okay, completely) untested. It did at one point work, anyway.
Secondly, you may edit config.def in a text editor. The main settings of interest are "nosound = 1" which disables all sound and music, and "windowed = 1" which will force the game to run windowed mode. Disable this to run it in fullscreen. You may set the scale x/y values to .5 if you wish to see somx try to run in low-res. Other settings are there just to psyche you out.
Bugs
There are several known bugs, none of which are likely to be fixed at this point. They are listed in order of severity:
1. Getting stuck. If you go off the side of the screen at the wrong place, the location you appear in on the next screen may be imbedded in rock. Oops =) This could be fixed with some careful map editing, but for now (ETERNITY), sorry, it's best to just exit and start playing again (you can use the menu for this, so it will save; whew!)
2. Players keep walking when they should be standing still, look utterly ridiculous at times for unexplainable reasons, appear on top of tables, lose legs, a horse appears to warp in matrix-style at the side of the screen, and various other indescribably bizarre graphics and animation glitches. Well, it's just all part of the charm.
3. Music/SFX sounds wierd. This can actually be fixed! Just run setup.exe, and choose a digital driver. This bug is caused by hardware mixing by
directsound of the music, which apparently isn't entirely copasetic. There may still be some clicking on the SFX. This is normal, though not
desired.
4. Story bugs. Let's hope I got all of these!