SPEAR RESURRECTION README
=========================

A thanks to id software
-----------------------

Firstly, AReyeP and MCS Amsterdam would like to thank id Software (www.idsoftware.com) for making the original "Wolfenstein 3D" and its sequel "Spear of Destiny". The guys at id made 3D gaming what it is today, as the Wolfenstein games were the breakthrough as far as today's 3D computer gaming is concerned. Wolfenstein was just the beginning, afterwards, the team at id went on to make classic 3D games such as "Doom", "Quake" etc.

When John Carmack (head programmer at id) made the source code for the earlier Wolfenstein games freely available to the public a few years back, it enabled Wolfenstein fans to alter the game in ways we had never been able to. And although Spear Resurrection was made by 2 Wolfenstein 3D fans, it would not exist if it weren't for the original Wolfenstein games. Don't let it be said that id software don't look after their fans!

And let's not forget John Romero - although he's no longer with id these days, he was part of their team when they made Wolf 3D. He was also decent enough to reply to a couple of emails I sent him. As I said earlier, these people look after their fans!

If you want the original Wolfenstein 3D (believe me, it's a classic that is well worth the small amount it would cost these days), then pay a visit to www.3drealms.com (home of classic games such as Duke Nukem 3D etc). Also, visit www.idsoftware.com and check out the games they make!

Game Manual Addendum
--------------------

In order to prevent the game manual for Spear Resurrection becoming too long, we left out a few things that we'll mention here.

Enemy deaths:
An enemy death = points for B.J.! It doesn't matter how or what strategy you use to dispatch an enemy - you will always receive the allocated amount of points when an enemy dies. So, feel free to lure your enemies into a minefield. Or towards an Artefact of Death. Or kill them with exploding barrels. And relax in the knowledge that by doing these things you score points the easy way!

Of course we could have set the game so that you wouldn't score in certain situations such as described above, but we felt that players chasing a high score may be discouraged from trying inventive strategies to defeat the enemy if we did this.

And the points earned for each enemy dispatched? You earn:
100 points for a suicide clone
200 points for a guard
400 points for an officer
500 points for an SS
500 points for a standard clone
1000 - 10000 points for "boss" enemies (the tougher they are, the more they're worth)

Weapon Selection:
We set the game so that if you're using a pistol, machine gun or MCS weapon, that once you run out of ammunition for that particular weapon, the knife is then automatically selected as your default weapon.

As an example, say you have a machine gun and 150 rounds of ammo type 1, and you're using an MCS type weapon with only 24 rounds of ammo type 2 remaining against a horde of enemies. When you run out of ammo type 2, you'll drop back to your knife, NOT the machine gun, meaning you'll have to manually select the machine gun by pressing the number 3 key.

Why in blazes did we set it this way? Perhaps you may not like this "feature", but, we had our reason for doing it this way, and that reason was mainly to discourage player complacency. Being that the player can hold up to 300 rounds of ammunition at once (150 of each ammo type), we felt it would mean a player would never have to worry about a weapon running out of ammo if weapons using the other ammo type were automatically selected as a "fallback". In other words, no matter what type of weapon/ammo you're using, you'll have to keep an eye on the ammo remaining instead of just blindly blazing away like Rambo on steroids! Hopefully, it will keep players on their toes. Besides, in real life, you'd have to take at least a second or so to change weapons, wouldn't you? It doesn't just happen automatically!

Secret Areas:
This topic was hardly even mentioned in the "readme" manual from within the game due to limitations in the readme size, so it's covered here.

There are a number of secret areas in each level of Spear Resurrection. You don't HAVE to find them to complete the game, but it can certainly help you complete your mission if you do.

As with the original Wolfenstein games, essential items such as keys are never hidden in secret areas, as we didn't want the player becoming frustrated looking for a necessary key that's hidden in some remote area. However, if you DO find a key in a hidden area, well, it may be worthwhile trying to find just what bonus area it opens!

And of course, as all Wolfers would know, the best way to search for secrets is to run along a wall at a 45 degree angle whilst keeping the space bar depressed.

Secret Levels:
Yes, of course there are secret levels! These can be hard to find, but should you find any, be warned, they are generally more difficult than standard levels. However, they may also be very worthwhile from a treasure point of view!

Cheat codes:
There is a cheatcode (similar to the MLI in the original Wolfenstein 3D) that grants the player all weapons and full health (but takes the player's score back to zero). But we won't make it widely known yet. If you're lucky, you may figure it out yourself.
We will quite possibly list the cheat codes etc at www.areyep.com in the near future.

SPEAR RESURRECTION "HALL OF FAME"!!!
------------------------------------

Would you like to have your name recorded in the Spear Resurrection "Hall of Fame" at www.areyep.com? Well, all you have to do is play the game through on one of the two hardest skill levels ("I'm a Hero" or "Suicidal Tendencies") WITHOUT CHEATING! Remember, this does not apply if you playing on either of the two easiest skill levels (and no, we don't want a "Grandma's Hall of Fame" :)

By not cheating, we mean you shouldn't activate any cheats whatsoever that you may be aware of. This does NOT include loading saved games. In other words, you're free to save and reload games as often as you wish (don't ya wish real life were like this?!!!) And don't try pressing the "MLI" keys simultaneously during the game either - you'll be penalized for doing so!

However, the MLI keys do have a special use. Once you have actually TAKEN POSSESSION of the Spear (not before), the MLI keys (pressed simultaneously) will give you a secret code (if you've cheated even just once, you WON'T get the code at all). If you'd like your name to appear in the Spear Resurrection "Hall of Fame", then once you've captured the Spear, save your game and send a copy of the savegame file (it will be in your Spear Resurrection folder named in the form "savegam?.rip" where ? is the number of the saved game) to:
admin@areyep.com
We'll check the saved game to confirm you didn't cheat. Most importantly, don't forget to include your name and/or alias so that we can actually list it in the "Hall of Fame"!

The Spear Resurrection "Hall of Fame" will be open to new entries until MCS and/or AReyeP decide it is time to close it off. Check www.areyep.com to see the "Hall of Fame" and whether the list is closed or otherwise.

Oh, errr, don't get too cocky once you've grabbed the spear and saved your game. We didn't say that meant the game was over...!

***TROUBLESHOOTING***
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MEMORY:
-------

You require at least 550 - 560 kb of base (or conventional) memory in order for Spear Resurrection to run reliably. Although you may be able to run it with less, you may experience problems such as the game refusing to run with the maximum view size, or even "dumping out" altogether. The more base memory you have free, the better. Ideally, you should be aiming to have at least 560 kb free base memory.

Although the game will also use available "extended" (XMS) and/or "expanded" (EMS) memory, the base memory is the most critical. When you start Spear Resurrection, you'll see 3 memory indicators under the title "Available Memory". The one on the far left listed as "Main" is the most important. If the yellow indicators are only as high as the orange 256 (or lower), then you may need to free up more base memory for reliable performance.

To find out how much base memory your system has, go to a DOS prompt, and type:
mem
then press the Enter key.
At the bottom of the readout, you should see a line that says:
Largest executable program size      608K (623,008 bytes)

If that 608 is anything higher than 560, then you shouldn't have to worry. Between 550 - 560 should hopefully be adequate also.

If, however, that 608 is less than 550, then you should look at freeing up some conventional memory. To do this, open your config.sys file (use "Notepad" or some similar text editor) and, if they're not already there, try inserting the following lines at the top:

DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\HIMEM.SYS
DOS=HIGH
DOS=UMB
DEVICEHIGH=C:\WINDOWS\EMM386.EXE AUTO RAM

In addition to the above, it's quite possible your config.sys file has other "DEVICE=" lines. Try changing those to "DEVICEHIGH=" and it's possible these may be loaded into upper memory areas thus freeing up base memory. Of course you'll need to restart your computer for these new settings to take effect.

Or, if you're certain you don't need particular device drivers loaded from your config.sys, just put the letters "rem" in front of the line you don't need eg:
rem DEVICE=C:\ATACR\ATAPIMGR.SYS
The "rem" will stop that particular driver loading and hogging precious memory. Of course, if you later find you really do need to have that particular line loaded, you can just remove the "rem" and restart your computer.

After making these kind of adjustments to your config.sys and restarting your computer, go to the DOS prompt once again, type
mem
and press the Enter key. If your "Largest executable program size" is now above 550kb, then you should be able to run Spear Resurrection without any problem.

GAME CRASHES:
-------------

If for some reason your system decides it doesn't like something the game is doing, then the game will most likely just "dump out" with an error message. This won't harm your system, but it will mean that you'll lose whatever progress you'd made in the game after your last save.

If you've got a standard type of computer with an adequate amount of base memory (see above), you shouldn't experience any crashes at all, but, there is one you may encounter under certain circumstances.

If you play the game for extended periods making lots of saves and reloads as you play, the game may "dump out" with a "no purgable blocks" error message. This same kind of thing used to happen with the original Wolfenstein games. It could be due to a "memory leak" of some sort - whatever, just be aware of it if you plan to play for hours on end and you save/reload a lot.

If it does happen, well, it's no major problem. Just restart the game, load from your last save, and away you go again!

SOUND PROBLEMS:
---------------

In order to hear sound and/or music in the game, your computer will require an Adlib or Soundblaster compatible sound card. When you start the game, it should automatically detect the presence of such a soundcard. If it doesn't, there are a few things that may be the cause. The most common causes will hopefully be solved by checking the following:

1. If you're not getting any sound at all, then one possible cause is due to your soundcard's "interrupt" setting. To check this, from Win95/98, click "Start", "Settings", "Control Panel", then double click on the "System" icon. Click the "Device Manager" tab, and you should see a list of various hardware components installed in your computer. Look for "Sound, video and game controllers". To the left of this there should be a + sign; click on this to open the sub tree. You should see your soundcard listed in there. Click on it, and then click on the "Properties" button. Now, click the "Resources" tab, and you will see a number of settings assigned to your soundcard.
If the "Interrupt Request" setting is higher than 7, then that's most likely your problem. You'll need to change this, as the old Wolfenstein 3D engine didn't recognize soundcard interrupt values of greater than 7. To do so, deselect the "use automatic settings" option, then highlight the "Interrupt Request" option and click on "Change Setting" (you may have to change the Basic Configuration Setting if Windows won't allow you to change it). Now, click on the arrows until you find a number lower than 8 that isn't being used by any other system component (Windows will list what components are using each interrupt). If there's one lower than 8 that's free, select it! If there's not, you'll have to assign something else that's using one of these lower interrupts a higher figure so as to free up the lower one for your soundcard.
Please bear in mind that the above procedure is from within Windows 95 - Windows 98 would be much the same, but I'm not certain on how Windows Me/2000 may deal with this. And if all this hardware setting stuff is a little confusing, well, you'd be best to get a friend who knows a little about computers, or a computer technician, to help out rather than attempt to fiddle around with things yourself.

2. Another possible cause of sound problems may be found in your autoexec.bat file. Although you may still get in game sound without the following, it's certainly worth trying this if step 1 above doesn't seem to be your problem.
In your autoexec.bat file, you should have a SET BLASTER line that looks like this:
SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5 P330 T6
or
SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 T4
This tells your computer to set your Soundblaster (or compatible) so that DOS based programs will be able to detect it. Without trying to get too technical, the "A" points to the hex IO address, The "I" indicates the interrupt request, the "D" the low DMA, the "H" the high DMA, the "P" the MPU-401 UART address, and the "T" the soundcard type (refer to your soundcard manual).
Generally, A220 , D1, H5 and P330 are pretty much standard for most soundblaster type cards. Often, the number 5 is a common setting for the "I" value, but other figures can be used. You'll have to ensure the "I" setting matches that listed for the soundcard's interrupt request as explained in step 1.
Don't forget, you may need to restart your computer in order for altered settings to take effect. 

3. If you've accounted for the possible problems as per steps 1 and 2 above, and are still having no luck, then look for a file named "config.rip" in the folder where you installed Spear Resurrection to. This file contains information pertaining to your soundcard. It's possible it may have incorrect settings in it. Delete it, and then try running the game.

4. Although unlikely, if the sound engine should "lock up" for some reason during the game, try pressing the keys "BAT" simultaneously to reset it.

If none of the above help with sound problems, then I can only suggest you ask someone who may understand your particular computer setup.

We (AReyeP & MCS) have run the game on a number of different systems, each with different setups and different soundcard types.
Problems we have encountered with sound on various computer configurations:
1. If you have a Soundblaster AWE64 soundcard, you may sometimes find in-game sound effects "drop out" eg: you may not hear a door open, or your weapon firing on some occasions. The other systems have different soundcards (one has a Crystal 3D Soundblaster clone, another a Soundblaster 16 clone built on to the motherboard, another a genuine Soundblaster 16, and yet another a very early model Soundblaster card), and none of these systems experienced these "drop outs". Could just be an issue with the AWE series of Soundblaster soundcards.
2. On the system with the "on board" Soundblaster 16 clone, the in game music sounds off key. This isn't a problem on the other systems with other soundcards. If you experience this problem, we'd recommend you just go to the "Options" menu in the game, select the "Sound" option, and in the "Music" section select the "None" option. Better a game with no music than crappy sounding stuff!

KNOWN BUGS:
-----------

One bug we are aware of was present in the original Wolfenstein game also. After playing for extended periods and saving/loading games on a frequent basis, you may find some wall tiles display the incorrect graphics. If this happens, it most likely will occur on a large complex level. We could have made the levels smaller and less challenging to avoid the likelihood of this ever happening, but we didn't wish to sacrifice features in levels just so as to try to avoid a bug that is very rare anyway.

If you do find that some wall graphics look decidedly out of place whilst playing, then save your game, quit the game altogether, and restart the game. After loading the game you just saved, all should be OK.

DISCLAIMER:
-----------

AReyeP and MCS take no responsibility for problems encountered as a result of running "Spear Resurrection", or as a result of following or attempting to follow suggested courses of action as per the above "Trouble Shooting" section.

FINALLY:
--------

A note from MCS Amsterdam:

Should you ever find out how to enter "debug" mode, then you should be aware that certain rather "useless" cheats have been removed in order to save some precious memory. Instead, we added some more useful cheats for your convenience.

Available keys:

Tab-C (Count Objects)
Displays the amount of static objects, doors and enemies used in the current level.

Tab-D (Display Ratio)
Displays the ratio of kills, secrets, and treasures so far.

Tab-E (End level)
Ends current level and displays intermission screen.

Tab-G (God mode)
Invulnerability mode. No enemy, object or artefact can harm you.

Tab-H (Hurt yourself)
Takes 16% off your health (you can use this if you get stuck and nothing else helps).

Tab-I (Item cheat)
Adds health, points, weapons and ammo to your current total.

Tab-M (Memory info)
Displays current memory usage.

Tab-N (No Clipping Mode)
Used to walk through walls, static objects and enemies.

Tab-Q (Quit)
Exit to DOS immediately, without saving current game.

Tab-V (View Position)
Displays the current MapEdit coordinates of the player and the direction he's facing.

Tab-W (Warp to Level)
Go directly to the level of your choice (1 up to 23).

Tools used by MCS Amsterdam:

- UltraEdit v.7.10 and 8.00 (the ultimate editor, www.ultraedit.com)
- Norton Text Search for DOS v.7.0 (text search)
- Audio File Manager v.1.0 by DarkOne (music and Adlib sound replacement)
- FloEdit v.1.0 by Florian Stohr (graphics and digitized sound replacement)
- Paint Shop Pro v.5.03 by Jasc Software (graphic modifications)
- CoolEdit2000 v.1.01 by Syntrillium Software (sound modifications)
- EatMem v.1.0 -author unknown- (memory management)
- LZEXE v.0.91 by Fabrice Bellard (EXE compression)
- Borland C++ v.3.1 (source compilation)
- VThief 0.07 by Andrew Aksyonoff (screenshots)
- MapEdit 8.4 by Bill Kirby (level design)



A note from AReyeP:

A special thanks to the people who run the websites "Graphtallica" (www.graphtallica.com); "Texture Universe" (www.planetunreal.com/TextureUniverse); and "3D Cafe" (www.3dcafe.com). These sites post a number of freely available textures that are fantastic. A number of these textures were used as a "base" in some of the textures created for Spear Resurrection. To the people that run these sites - a big thankyou - you are appreciated!

I will be setting up my own "Wolfenstein 3D Texture Library" in the early part of 2002, and will be showing how the textures used in Spear Resurrection were created. Just check www.areyep.com for updates.

Tools used by AReyeP:

- Paint Shop Pro ver 6.00 by Jasc Software (graphic creation & modification)
- FloEdit v.1.0 by Florian Stohr (graphics and digitized sound replacement)
- Mapedit 8.4 by Bill Kirby (level design)
- Wolfedit 2.1 by Bill Kirby (for quick graphics replacement)
- Midi Orchestrator Plus ver 2.11.24 by Voyetra Technologies (midi editing)
- Wlfaud Wolf 3D audio editor ver 1.1 by Bill Neisius
- Goldwave ver 4.25 Copyright 2001 Goldwave Inc (*.wav editing)
- Audio File Manager v.1.0 by DarkOne (for music replacement)
- Wolf 3D and Spear of Destiny (of course) by id software (who else)?!!!

And one last thing: should you ever encounter the term "betagraphiken saugen" anywhere in the game, it's just an "in house" joke between myself and MCS. Let's just say it was one of my poor attempts at German referring to some of my earlier "beta graphics" :)

Take care all :)
- AReyeP & MCS Amsterdam
  (November 2001)

