Star Saga One Map Kit Readme

1.  What is the Kit?
2.  What You Need to Use It
3.  Installation and Starting
4.  Using the Map
5.  Restarting and Quitting
6.  Saving and Loading the Map
7.  Sharing Save Files With Friends
8.  FAQ

1.  What is the Kit?

The Kit is a program to assist in the playing of the computer game "Star Saga: One - Beyond the Boundary."  The Kit is not a game itself - it only useful when used in conjunction with the original "Star Saga: One" program.

"Star Saga: One" is an innovative science-fiction role-playing game that was published in 1988 by Masterplay Publishing Corporation.  As well as a computer program, "Star Saga" featured two large fold-out maps, six colored tokens the players would move about the map, and thirteen booklets containing 888 passages of text.

"Star Saga" combines aspects of a board game and Choose-Your-Own-Adventures books with the complexity of a computer RPG.  When playing "Star Saga," a player moves his or her token on the map, then plots these movements and actions into the "Star Saga" program,  In response to the player's movement and actions, the program makes any necessary changes to the character's stats and inventory, calculates any space or personal combat, and directs the player to which text passage should now be read. Reading this passage, the player discovers the results of his or her actions, and if any new special actions are available.

The Kit is a digital representation of the game's two maps, so "Star Saga: One" can be played entirely on the computer (in conjunction with looking up passages in the "sg1-passages" PDF file included with this package). Also, the Kit allows you to save the current state of the Map to a small file.   This file can then be traded via email, so people on multiple separate computers can play the same game.

The original "Star Saga: One" program was created by Andrew C. Greenberg (of "Wizardry" fame), Rick Dutton, Walter Freitag, and Michael Massimilla.   Both maps, all the text passages and various black-and-white illustrations found in the Kit are all copyright 1988 by the Masterplay Publishing Corporation.

The Kit itself was created by me, J.J. Sonick, with tons of invaluable help from Underdogs, webmaster of "The Home of the Underdogs" site where you'll find the Kit: http://www.theunderdogs.org.

2,  What You Need to Use It

In addition to the Kit itself, you will need the Star Saga program and several PDF files containing the "Star Saga" manual, character booklets, passages etc.  The "sg1-rulebook" PDF file tells you how to use the original "Star Saga" program.

As mentioned above, all these files can be found at http://www.theunderdogs.org

3.  Installation and Starting

Unzip the Kit into a new folder. This folder can be named anything you wish and can reside anywhere on your hard drive.  That was easy, huh?

To start the Kit, simply double-click on the icon named "Star Saga 1 Kit.exe"   You'll be taken to the title screen, from which you can click buttons with the mouse to either go to the Map or to Quit.

While using the Kit, you'll need to also be running the "Star Saga: One" program, and have the "sg1-rulebook" and "sg1-passages" PDF files open.  You will need to switch (Alt + Tab) between these as you play.   You will mostly be switching between the Kit, the passages PDF, and the original program.  You can minimize the Kit like any other Windows program if necessary.

4.  Using the Map

Both fold-out maps used in the game appear on the Map screen.   When the game starts, are players will be moving their tokens on the smaller map on the left of the screen.  Players will only move their tokens to the second, larger map when the program or a text passage tells them to.

When you first go the Map screen, the view will be centered on the upper right-hand corner of the first map.    The six player tokens will be visible, waiting to placed on the first map.

Controls:

-- You can scroll around the maps using the arrow keys.   A black X will always be centered in the view.
-- To pick up a player token, move the mouse pointer over it and double-left-click.  You will then be "holding" the token and can move it wherever you wish with the mouse.   Left-click once to drop the token.   
-- If you use the arrow keys to scroll about the map while still holding a token, the token will scroll with you.

You may notice that scrolling is kind of slow.  Fortunately, the function keys will allow you to zip about the map:

-- F4 centers the view on the yellow token
-- F5 centers the view on the blue token
-- F6 centers the view on the red token
-- F7 centers the view on the green token
-- F8 centers the view on the black token
-- F9 centers the view on the purple token
-- F11 centers on the Save Map, Load Map, and Passage Selector buttons
-- Page Up flips to the second map
-- Page Down flips to the first map

There will be times when you need to put previously undiscovered planets and other discoveries on the map.  To do this:

-- Press the space bar and a black dot (a "planet") will be placed on the map beneath the X.  (For naming the unnamed planets on the second map, simply put the dot inside the planet.)
-- When you do this, a text box will appear next to the dot.   Type the name of the discovery in the box and press enter.
-- If you need to change the name simply left-click with the mouse in the text box, type your changes, and press enter.
-- If there's a lot of text boxes on the screen, scrolling can become slow, so you can press F12 to toggle seeing the text boxes on and off.

5.  Restarting and Quitting

You can restart the Kit fresh at any time by pressing F2 or by going to the Game Menu at the top of the screen and selecting "New."

You can quit the Kit by going to the Title Screen and pressing the Quit button, by pressing Alt + F4 at any time, or by going the Game menu and selecting "Quit."  (See note about quitting and Autosave below.)

6.  Saving and Loading the Map

Autosave

Whenever you leave the Map screen to go to the Passage Selector, the current map state is saved in the Autosave file, and is reloaded when you return to the Map during the same session.   You can also reload the last Autosave when you're starting the Kit up fresh, by going to the Map and pressing the Insert key (you can also click the Load Game button, type "autosave" and press enter.)   If you're just going to playing one game of "Star Saga" solitaire, then you can probably just let Autosave take care of things for you. 

WARNING:  If you open a new Star Saga Kit session and DON'T load up your last Autosave first, then the first time you leave the Map,  your old Autosave file will be copied over with the new, current map state.   To avoid this problem, see "Custom Saving and Loading" below.

Also, if you're on the Map,  want to quit the Kit and you want the Map to be Autosaved DO NOT press Alt + F4 or choose Quit from the Game menu while you're still on the Map screen.   Go from the Map screen to the Passage Selector first, then quit.  This will insure that your Map is Autosaved and you can reload it next time you start the Kit.

Custom Saving and Loading

You can make your own save files, so that you don't lose your Map state to accidentally copying over your last autosave and also so multiple people can use the Kit on the same computer and/or share their save files with friends on multiple computers.

F11 will center the view on the Save and Load Map buttons.   To make a custom save file, press the Save Map button, type a name for the file in the text box, and press enter.   The file will be saved in the same folder that your "Star Saga 1 Kit.exe" program is in.

To load a custom save file, press the Load Map button, and type the EXACT NAME of the custom save file in the text box and press enter.   It is very important you type the correct save file name, because otherwise the Map will reset to its "blank slate" state after you press enter.   If necessary, Alt + Tab to momentarily switch out of the Kit and look in the folder containing the Kit to be sure you've got the file name right, then go back and type it.

7.  Sharing Save Files With Friends

To share save files with players on separate computers, simply zip up the entire original star saga program (it's small) and the latest save file that resides in your Kit folder and email it to the other player.   The other player should then place the save file in whatever folder holds the Saga Kit on their computer and unzip and run the "Star Saga" program you sent them.  They can then take up their turn in the original program, and load the save file in the Kit.    Then they in turn can send the Star Saga program and the save file (with their new moves saved to it) back to you, or pass it on to the next player if three or more of you are playing.   It's suggested you give the save files names that will clearly indicate who went last.

8.  FAQ

-- Hey - wait a minute!  Wasn't the second larger map supposed to be a secret the players wouldn't even see until the program told them to?

Yes, this is true.  The Kit starts you off on the first map, so if you're virtuous, you can choose not to look at the second map until you're told to.  But since the Kit doesn't keep track of whose turn it is or where players are in the game, there was no real way to "hide" the second map from the players.  Originally, the two maps were going to be on separate screens at least, but this proved too difficult to make work with The Games Factory (the program used to create the Kit)'s quirky save system.   To make the saving the map state work, both maps had to be put on the same screen.   

-- Strange graphic glitches occur when there's a bunch of custom text boxes on the screen and I'm scrolling around.  It also gets really slow to scroll around when this is the case.   Is this a bug?

No, this is just due to the fact the Games Factory graphics engine (circa 1996) doesn't like you scrolling around while there's a bunch of text boxes on the screen.   You can solve this irritating problem by pressing F12 which will toggle seeing the text boxes on and off.   Toggle them off when you scroll and back on when you're finished.

-- Is there a limit to how many custom discoveries I can add to the map?

Yes.  Currently you can add up to 60 custom discoveries.  The Kit hasn't been tested out yet with six players going through a whole game, so it's unknown yet whether this is enough or not.   The Kit will be updated if it turns out more are needed.

-- Why don't you guys put the passages in the Kit itself, instead of a clunky PDF file?

Well, some of this blame must be laid at my feet for being an inexperienced Games Factory user when I started the Kit, and learning a lot as I went.   But, some of the blame must also be laid at the feet of the Games Factory itself and its horrible management of memory and graphic files. ;)  Underdogs and I initially put all the passages in the Kit, but unfortunately Game Factory had far too many limitations we couldn't solve. We plan to do a Kit for Star Saga 2 as well, and we hope that it will be much more complete, i.e. with all the passages as well as the map (and thus may be made with something beside the Games Factory.)

-- Do the original makers of "Star Saga" know about this Kit?

Actually, when some development had been achieved on the Kit, Underdogs was able to contact Andrew G. Greenberg, whose email responses were enthusiastic about the project.   Greenberg was going to seek approval for the project from the other creators of the game, after which his email responses ceased, and we have not been able to get any more replies from him.   So we have a kind of "unofficial blessing" from one of the original creators, but "official approval" has not been achieved.   Mr. Greenberg, if you're out there, please contact us again.

-- I want to compliment/ask a question of/complain to you about the Kit.

If you have any questions or comments about the Kit, feel free to contact me at jjsonick@earthlink.net

Enjoy!
J.J. Sonick
March 2, 2002
