Disclaimer and Copyright:
I have no responsibility for whatever happens to any material, software, hardware or anything else due to use/misuse of this game. However, this should never happen, and if it does, please email me about it and I'll try to solove your problem.
This game is freeware, which means that you can distribute it freely as long as you don't modify the files, and as long as they're distributed all together. You cannot charge any money for this game without written permission from me (Joakim Ahnfelt-Rønne). If you want to do this in a magazine or for any other purpose, email me and we'll probably figure it out :) The Martian Venture game engine and files are © Joakim Ahnfelt-Rønne.


System Requirements:
486 DX 66
(untested on slower machines, may run fine)
A DOS capable OS
(such as dos, windows etc.)
Enabled EMS
(See troubleshooting about this)

Recommended:
Pentium
(233+ MHz)
Mouse
(Has to work in DOS)
Soundcard
(Also has to be DOS compatible)


The Story:
Long, long time ago, there were an alien called Turt le Martian. He lived on one of the many space stations his people had build just before their homeplaned was destroied by their enemies, the Evaals. The Evaals had been mr. Martian's people's enemies as long as anybody could remember, and they had always lived in the fear that they one day would attack them again. However, people seemed to forget this as the decades passed, and one day, a scientist invented a teleport. This teleport was used to transport people and goods from station to station, and it greatly increased their urge to invent new things. The teleports required very much energy, and a new reactor were invented. All space stations were equiped with such a reactor, and everybody were happy. However, they had no idea that they were being watched. The Evaals had spys all around. Fortunally they had no reason to attack. All that, until one day, where the Evaals biggest powerplant had a meltdown. They needed power as fast as possible. Their dictator ordered an attack on the space stations, and they scared everybody but mr. Martians away from them. They set up crystal ploes, which transmitted pure energy to the Evaal main ship in every space station, and set up traps and let alieans loose to insure that their enemies wouldn't return. Without power, mr. Martians people couldn't use the teleporters anymore. They only knew that if they destoyed the crystal poles, they would work again. However, they had no way to return without the teleports. Only mr. Martian were left on one of the stations. He had to destroy every crystal pole so his people could return. And that's where your adventure starts...
Good luck!
(What did you expect?)


Game Instructions:
Welcome to Martian Venture!
This is a sidescrolling platformer featuring colorfull graphics, challenging levels, enhanced AI, and a lot of other stuff. The objective is quite simple: Destroy all the crystal poles and find the exit! Yet it's not always as simple as it might seem. A lot of challenges and different enemies will try to stop you before you reach the exit of the level. However, you can fight theese with your plasma machine gun. Every moving enemy can be eliminated with this weapon, it's just a question of hitting them enough. Your ammo is infinite, however, you can pick up limited ammo witch increases your firerate threefold and thereby helps you a lot.
You are intruduced to the gameplay in a tutorial, so don't worry :)

Game controlls:
Jump: Ctrl
Shoot: Alt
Run: Left and right
Climb: Up and down

Menu keys:
Select: Up and down
Choose: Enter

Misc Keys:
Pause: P
Exit: ESC


Using the Level Editor:
The level editor is mouse controlled. I suggest you start by clicking on Help. And then go from there. When you're creating a level, remember to make it challenging, fun and make it look good. It's also a good idea to use the little arrows to show the route you want the players to follow.
The 'Test' option may cause problems on some systems. It seems that windows doesn't like dos programs to execute each other. You can optionally run 'green.exe level.lvl' to test it, eg. running 'GREEN TEST' would allow you to play test.lvl. However, the 'test' option works tip-top in pure dos.


Level Packs:
A level pack file are just a file that tells the game eninge in which order to play the levels. The format is as follows:
mylevel1.lvl, secndlvl.lvl, level3.lvl...
The level names can be any 8.3 (dos) file name, but remember the extention.
To play a levelpack, run "GREEN -L LVLPACK.TXT" where LVLPACK.TXT could be any 8.3 (dos) file name.


Trouble Shooting:
The editor crashes, and it's not my fault. Windows ain't too happy about my editor (especially the 'test' option). It will run fine in DOS. Actually, there's serveral known problems, due to bad backwards compatibility in windows and in hardware. Especially the sound cards can be incompatible with dos. However, this may be fixed by using VDMSound. Additionally, the game requires EMS to run, and it may be disabled if you're using windows. Here's some tips, but I can't guarantee that they will work:
 Windows 95 or 98:
It should not be necesary to do this in Windows 95, since EMS is turned on by default, but in some cases, you will have to include this into your config.sys (usually found in c:\) yourself:
DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\HIMEM.SYS
DOS=HIGH,UMB
DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\EMM386.EXE
 Windows ME, 2000 or XP:
Actually, you can do it the 95/98 way with ME, but it's not recommended. You need to turn ems on for every single dos program here. Right-click on the shortcut and select properties. Then click on the memory tab and turn ems on (set to 16384 or 32768) or choose "run as windows 95/98".
Tip: If you want this done by default, search for _default.pif, open it and set the memory properties as described upon.
 It still won't work:
Check your system.ini (probably in c:\windows\) under [386enh] for EmmExclude or NoEMSDriver statements, and remove them if possible. If it still doesn't work, add a ReservePageFrame=yes statement under the [386enh].


Contact Information:
Joakim Ahnfelt-Rønne
Email: Joakimar@c.dk
MSN: Joakimar@c.dk
ICQ: 148669969 (temp)
AIM: JoakimAhnfeltR (temp)
Web: www.qbrpgs.com


Credits:
 Programming, idea and graphics:
Joakim Ahnfelt-Rønne
 Levels:
Rico, Nexinarus, Joakim
 Sounds:
Many different sound archives on the net, and probably some games too ;)
 Beta testing, suggestions and greetings:
Rico, Nexinarus, Fling-Master, Blitz, Lithium, V1ctor, Kackurot, and tonnes of other people, probably even somebody I never talked to ;)

This game uses Direct QB by EC and RelLib by RelSoft.


End of document. © Joakim Ahnfelt-Rønne. A Danish production.