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! <bursts into tears>