"Montezuma's Revenge"
By Alchemy Game Studios
C 2006 All Rights Reserved
Introduction
Thank you for purchasing Montezuma's Revenge-often also referred to as just
'Monty'. We're confident that you'll spend many fun and challenging hours
playing Monty.
Alchemy's version of Monty was inspired by an old classic game written for
several game systems published back in 1984. For it's time, it was
top-notch and had great replay value.
An excerpt describing the original Montezuma's Revenge:
"Revenge is one of first games of the so-called "platform" genre, an action
game combining treasure hunting, multiple rooms, and puzzle solving. The
player commands the game's character, called "Panama Joe", moving from room
to room in the labyrinthine underground of the 16th century Aztec emperor
Montezuma II, filled with enemies, obstacles, traps and dangers. The
objective is to score points by gathering jewels along the way. Panama Joe
must find keys to open doors, collect and use equipment, such as torches,
swords, amulets, etc. without losing his life. Obstacles are laser gates,
conveyor belts, disappearing floors, and fire pits. Movement is achieved by
jumping, running, sliding down poles, steps, chains, etc. Enemies are the
skulls, snakes, and spiders."
Of course, in this updated version, there is much, much more.
In Alchemy's version, you play Arizona Smith and will risk your hide to find
gold, gems, and artifacts and find the pieces of an ancient scroll that will
bring untold wealth in the depths of ten mostly underground temples. But,
it will be no easy task for the temple is filled with lots of ghoulies and
treacherous environments to navigate to fulfill your dreams of exploration,
adventure, and wealth.
You will run, jump, crouch, climb, and swim through dozens of eerie
environments on various terrain, ladders, ropes, vines, conveyer belts,
platforms, and much more. You will fight lots of adversaries to and
overcome such creatures as rolling chattering skulls, huge tarantulas,
snakes, and undead. You'll also navigate around treacherous lava and acid
pits and various traps. Along the way you'll find and acquire various tools
such as picks and torches to uncover buried treasures or to light your path.
Game Objective and Layout
The objective of the game is fairly straightforward-explore and navigate and
collect treasure along the way while either avoiding or killing the
dangerous creatures that lurk inside ten different temples until you make
your way to the master tomb.
After you complete each level, you will descend further into the underground
depths by jumping between ropes and collecting bonus gems in mid-air.
If you are able to find all ten pieces of the ancient script-one piece is
found on each of the ten levels-then you may read it to open the master tomb
where you will find a treasure of untold value. That is, of course, if you
can defeat The Guardian.
This game is known as a side-scrolling platform game. This means that you
are playing the game from a side view with your audio perspective always
centered.
For example, if you were walking down a hallway to the right, you would be
using your right key to do so. To turn around and return to the direction
from which you just came, you would use the left key.
As you walk across the ground, the various sounds of the game will pan
between your left and right speakers (you're perspective is in the center
between them). So, if you hear a gem sound to your right, you would use the
right key to move toward it until it was centered-straight in front of
you-then jump to grab it. If you were to continue moving right instead of
grabbing it, the gem sound would move toward the left of you.
During the game you'll walk on different types of ground coverings, climb up
and down ladders, ropes, and vine, jump and run across disappearing and
reappearing platforms, ride automatic conveyor belts, slide down quick
streams of water to leap and capture gems, swim through water, and escape
quicksand.
You'll also jump over, sword crush, and whip enemies, catch golden scarabs
with a net, dig for precious artifacts and light your way through pitch
black secret areas if you're lucky enough to find a torch for bonus
treasure.
And, much, much more.. as you will see as you read on through this document.
As an optional setting for owners of surround sound speaker setups, the game
perspective may be rotated ninety-degrees so it's played forward/backward
facing.
Registering Your Software
After installing the setup package for Montezuma's Revenge, it will start in
demonstration mode which allows you to play the first two temple levels
only. To activate the product to unlock the entire game, you must first
enter your registration key and then request authorization via the Internet
or telephone. Once registered and authorized, the game will always start in
the full version mode.
Note: Alchemy Game Studios takes a strong stance against software piracy.
Do not share you registration information with any one else under any
circumstances. If anyone other than the registered user attempts to
activate this product without the express permission of Alchemy Game
Studios, the registration key will be invalidated and the game will be
downgraded to demo mode. It is wise to decide which machine you'd like to
activate the game on because we will only allow reactivation a reasonable
number of times and the product will have to be deactivated on the prior
machine before reactivation on the new machine can occur.
The registration and authorization wizard is located in the game's program
folder located in the Start Menu/Programs/Alchemy Game Studios/Montezuma's
Revenge folder. Once run, you will be provided instructions and prompted
for information to complete activation.
Starting The Game And Menu System
This game is self-voicing and requires you to unload any screen reading
software you may have loaded before playing.
The menu system is used to start a new game, load previous games, set
options, listen to sample game sounds, test your speaker configuration, and
exit the program.
The menus are navigated with the up and down arrow keys. To access a
sub-menu, simply press the ENTER key.
Navigation and Keyboard Commands
Following is a default key listing use for player movement:
Numpad 4 - Move Left
Numpad 6 - Move Right
Numpad 8 - Climb Up (ladders, ropes, vines, etc.)
Numpad 2 - Climb Down / drop off rope end
Numpad 0 - Jump / Swim / Leap
Facing Perspective Mode player movement key listing:
Numpad 8 - Move Forward
Numpad 2 - Move Backward
Numpad 4 - Turn Around
Numpad 6 - Turn Around
Numpad 9 - Climb Up (ladders, ropes, vines, etc.)
Numpad 3 - Climb Down / drop off rope end
Other player key function listing:
Numpad Insert - Speak Health
Numpad Asterisk - Inventory Toggle
Numpad Minus - Map Units From End of Level
Numpad Plus - Use Whip
Numpad Enter - Use Net
Numpad Period - Use Shovel
Control Key - Run
Shift Key + Direction Key - Review Mode (describes surrounding objects)
F1 - Toggle Music On/Off
F2 - Increase Music Volume
F3 - Decrease Music Volume
F4 - Toggle Perspective Mode
Note: Key reassignment is available from the options menu.
Game Objects & Geometry
The following objects and geometry that are in the game are described below
and how to interact with them:
Ground Surfaces
As you walk, run, or land from a jump or survivable fall, you'll encounter
many different types of ground surfaces that are auditorily different. Most
of them have no other consequence than to provide a contextual environment,
but some are cues and maybe even dangerous.
The contextual ground sounds include: concrete, dirt, grass, metal, mud,
sand, shallow water, and wood.
Crumbling ledge edges warn you of drop-off's that could potentially lead to
an unsurvivable drop. Some chasms may be able to be jumped across for bonus
booty or to reach other areas.
Acid pits and fire pits spell instant death if fallen or jumped into.
Often, they will need to be jumped over to reach other areas of the level.
There is also water that requires swimming in order to reach the other side.
Swimming is described elsewhere in the manual.
Game World Geometry
The geometry within the game world is fairly simple and consists mostly of
ground surfaces (described previously), walls, doors, and climbables
(ladders, vines, ropes, and magnetic levitation streams (mag levs).
Walls are just that; solid walls that cannot be walked through. You'll hear
a thud-like sound once as you come in contact with the wall and you'll need
to return to area that you came from.
In Monty, you'll spend quite a lot of time looking for keys to open various
colored doors. Each key you find will match the same color door in order to
open it. There are four colors of keys and doors: red, green, blue and
white.
Climbables and Movables
In Monty, there are plenty of opportunities to climb including ladders,
vines, ropes, and mag levs. There are also objects and devices to move you
from place-to-place such as warps, conveyor belts, streams, and reappearing
platforms.
There are metal ladders to climb all over most of the levels. As you're
walking along, you may hear a metallic sound under your feet. This is
always a cue that you're either at the bottom of a ladder that you can climb
up or at the top of a ladder that you can climb down. The metallic sound is
slightly different in each case. You may also jump onto ladders from the
side. When you reach the top, you will automatically jump up off the ladder
and, if you're lucky, might even grab something mid-air to make the climb
worth it!
You may also find vines and ropes hanging from the ceiling in various areas
that allow you to climb and jump from vine-to-vine or rope-to-rope to secret
areas, platforms, or other sections of the level.
When you've jumped onto or up to a vine, you'll quickly begin sliding down
it as they're somewhat slippery. In order to prevent slipping off the
bottom of the vine-and, to whatever perilous tragedy may lurk below-you'll
need to occasionally climb upward.
Ropes are easily clung to and don't require constant climbing as the vines
do. Also, in order to know when you've reached the bottom of a rope, an
auto-stop feature has been added so your character stops automatically at
the bottom end of a rope until you release the down key and press it down
again. Otherwise, you may either climb back up the rope or jump over to
another or to a ground platform.
Magnetic levitation streams-or, Mag Levs-are levitating streams that pull
you upward very quickly without having to climb as you do a ladder. This
occurs due to supernatural magnets in some areas of the levels and, if there
happens to be an opening above you, unable for the floor and ceiling to
oppose each other, stream upward, taking you with the field. Cooler than a
glass elevator, huh?
Occasionally, you may come across an eerie humming sound that, if you jump
into, will warp you to another area of the game map. Sometimes, this will
be necessary to advance through the level, but other times they may lead to
secret areas. Just be careful not to lose your bearings and get lost!
Conveyor belts are belts that will carry you along in one direction or the
other automatically. You may come across staggered conveyor belts to jump
onto or adjacent conveyor belts to reach another location. Sometimes,
you'll need to walk against the direction of the conveyor belt in order to
avoid falling off the other side instead of jumping to your destination.
And, they may be moving in different directions.
Streams are shallow, but quickly move streams of water that carry you
quickly from one area to another. You can, however, perform short jumps
upward while being whisked down them in order to grab gems and other items.
Reappearing platforms are solid platforms you can jump onto and walk or run
across that appear and disappear at certain intervals. They may also be
adjacent and/or staggered. To use them, listen to their timing before
deciding to jump onto or walk across one.
Since rooms and areas are constructed with walls and doors and, sometimes,
climbable structures, you can be sure that there will always be a way out of
a room or area. The trick is to just explore and find out how!
Traps and Hazards
There are various traps in Monty that you need to be on the look out for
including falling boulders, rolling boulders, ground spikes, electric plasma
fields and quicksand.
Falling boulders occur when standing too long in an unstable area. They
will damage your health unless you make a quick getaway through the area
you're trying to navigate.
Rolling boulders are boulder traps that will roll toward you and cause
instead death if you're crushed. Always roll away from the boulder, i.e. if
you hear the boulder begin rolling in your left speaker, continue moving
toward the right until you're safe. This often involves ending the escape
with a jump across a chasm, but may involve other situations as well.
Ground spikes are long, sharp spikes that are set into holes in the ground
that will shoot up if stood on for too long, impaling and killing you
instantly, but definitely a Polaroid moment.
Electric fields are columns of electric plasma that travel from the ceiling
of an area to the ground directly below. Most of the time, they are only on
intermittently and you know this because of the high-energy sound they make.
There may be more than one column of fields to move past quickly or oddly
spaced columns of field with resting spaces in between them to navigate to.
Be careful, though, because they'll suck away your health quickly.
Quicksand requires swimming through much like the deep water previously
described in the ground surfaces section. Quicksand is much more
challenging to get through because of its viscosity.
Game Creatures and Adversaries
Deep within the depths of the tombs, you will come across other treacherous
and deadly obstacles that you will have to overcome or interact with on some
basis. These include snakes, rolling skulls, poisonous spiders, tigers, and
golden scarabs (non-harmful).
Snakes are usually stationary, but sometimes may slither around as well.
They're bite is venomous and, if you are bitten, your health will slowly
decrease over time until you are dead. The only way to stop this deadly
progression is to find a healing potion (see miscellaneous items about
potions). More often, you'll simply want to either jump over them or avoid
them, but if you're lucky enough to find a whip, you can get rid of the vile
creatures.
Rolling skulls haunt the hallways of the temples still undead stuck between
here and the afterlife. They may roam freely or roll within confined areas,
slowly or quickly. As you approach them, their sound changes until you get
too close for it to be too late. As with the snakes, it's best to either
jump over them or avoid them, if possible. If you're lucky enough to find a
sword laying around one of the tombs, you can crush them dead.
Also lurking about the temple are poisonous spiders. They scurry around at
various speeds and, like the skulls, may roam around or stay confined to
various rooms. Your only defense against these beasties is to jump or
avoid.
Now and then, tigers will roam the more open areas of the temple and
sometimes stray within its depths. They are silent until they begin their
chase and your only hope is to be quick on your feet.
Golden scarabs sometimes take flight from the ground and, if you have a net
and are quick it, you may even catch a few to increase your treasure stash.
Treasure Items
You'll have to work hard to collect as much treasure as you can on your
journey.
The main two items you're searching for are gems and gold. As mentioned
previously, golden scarabs may be caught with the net, too.
There are also precious artifacts buried within the ground inside the
temples. If you are lucky enough to find a shovel, you may find valuable
artifacts to add to your collection.
It's been rumored that within each of the ten temples lies a piece of an
ancient scroll that's worth a fortune. If you find all ten pieces, all the
other treasure you've found will pale in comparison to the wealth you will
amass.
Miscellaneous Items
Aside from the objects and creatures described above, there are also other
items that will aid you along your journey. They include shovels, swords,
torches, potions, health urns, whips, and nets.
As previously described, the shovel is used to dig for artifacts. If you
walk over a section of dirt ground and dig, you may find a number of
artifacts. If you're not being chased by a tiger or a rolling boulder, dig
as long as you continue to find artifacts in that spot. Different spots
have a different quantity of artifacts.
The sword is primarily used to destroy rolling skulls that you don't want to
attempt to jump over or avoid. Once you use the sword, you'll need to find
another one as they can't take much punishment after slicing through a
haunted, undead skull.
If you can find them, torches are very handy for locating treasure in rooms
or corridors that are usually dark. Once you've acquired a torch and it
begins burning, it will only last for a certain amount of time before it
goes out. Different torches you'll come across will have different burn
times.
Potions are found and used to heal snake bites to prevent further poisoning
(see section describing snakes). Depending on how full they happen to be,
you may also get a partial or full health increase.
Health urns raise your health level by a certain percentage or to full
health. However, they will not heal poisonous snake bites!
Whips are found and used to kill poisonous snakes. Depending on the size of
the snake, you will have to whip them several times to kill them (see
section describing snakes).
The net is used to catch golden scarabs to increase your treasure stash.
While you're walking, you will suddenly hear them begin to take flight. If
you're quick enough with the net before they fly away, they're yours!
Getting And Staying In Touch
If you have questions regarding technical issues with the game or to report
bugs, please e-mail our support team at [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Please contact customer service for other non-technical issues by sending an
e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sales may be contacted at [EMAIL PROTECTED] for ordering
inquiries or questions about becoming a distributor of our games.
For current relevant information regarding Alchemy Game Studios, our
products, downloads including update patches or to place an order, please
visit our website at www.alchemygamestudios.com.
Thanks and Credits
We'd like to thank the following people for their support and inspiration:
Jennifer North, Ryan Conroy, Joshua Johnson, Joshua Loya, and Michael Feir.
And, of course, my children Alex, Katie and Joss.
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