TORPG Readme

TORPG is a turn-based RPG game played from an overhead view. The dungeon consists of many levels, and on each levels there will be a variety of monsters and items. As you fight more monsters, you gain levels, and as you go deeper into the dungeon, the monsters get tougher. Your ultimate goal is to reach the bottom of the dungeon, to defeat what dark menace lurks there in wait for you ...

Each level consists of 1600 cells, in a 40x40 layout. The majority of these will be unpassable wall spaces. The level initially starts off unexplored, but as you move through the level, you retain knowledge of its layout. You have a radius of sight immediately around your character that you can see, but beyond that, explored cells are "grayed" out by the fog of war. You will not see items that are beyond your line of sight, though you will see the basic level layout and the location of the up/down stairs.

To move, you may use either the arrow keys or the numpad, but the numpad is recommended because it also allows diagonal movement. The movement is as you expect. With a basic speed value of 1.0, it takes one in-game turn to move by a cell. If your speed is higher or lower, your rate of travel will vary accordingly. Note that you cannot move through walls, for obvious reasons, and in addition, beware of traps, which will cause harm, but you won't be able to know their location unless you've already found them!

Mouse movement is also allowed. Click the mouse in the direction onscreen you want to move, and you will move there! There are also four interface buttons available to click on that provide all the functionality of the keys "i" "+" "-" and "0" on the keyboard.

Each level has an up and a down staircase that you use to move around the levels of the dungeon. Press the numpad key + to go down a down staircase and press the numpad key - to go up an up staircase. As you leave a level, everything is remembered about that level, but time does not pass on that level - monsters will only move on the level you are currently on. In dire situations, you can flee upwards one level, repair yourself, and return back down to fight. Also, pressing the numpad 5 key will skip a turn to do nothing, perfect if you just want to hang around and heal up from a tough battle.

On the interface bar on the left of the screen, you will notice that the character has various stats. Let's start from the top. The first line simply displays the name of your character. (For a screenshot of the interface, check here). The next line, "Int #/#", shows how much integrity the character has left out of his max integrity. Integrity is like health or HP from other games, and if it passes 0, you die. Integrity will regenerate over time, faster or slower according to any Modules you may have equipped that modify the integrity regeneration rate. "Bits: #" shows how much money you have (The currency in TORPG is bits). "Arm/Shld: #/#" shows you the armor and shield class of your character. The armor class is a rating of the maximum damage this armor can stop; the higher the better. The shield class rating is a multiplier on shield strength, so this number is typically much smaller. A shield strength increase of 1 to 2 is about equivalent to an armor class increase from 17 to 34.

"Shld: #/#" shows how charged your shields are, out of the maximum shield charge. Shields regenerate rather quickly, and extremely quickly if you have shield regeneration modifying Modules equipped, but shields cost energy to recharge! The next line, "NRG: #/#" shows how much energy you have out of your maximum energy amount. Without any energy, you cannot recharge shields, fire energy weapons, and are limited in a lot of other ways. A true TORPG uber character must have powerful energy generation capabilities in addition to a good armor and shield class. The line "XP: #/#" shows what level you are and how many experience points you have. Level 2 takes 20 XP to get to, level 3 takes 40 XP to get to, level 4 takes 80 XP to get to, etc. Check the source code for exactly how many experience points are required to gain each level. As your character levels, he will become stronger, in many ways.

The next part of the interface, "Wght: #/#" shows how much equipment you're lugging around. Items and Modules are heavy, and some of them are very heavy. Luckily there are some Modules that may increase weight capacity, but for the starting off character, it is 650. There is no effect for being under weight capacity, but being over it decreases your speed, because you have more stuff to lug around. Also, the more overweight you are, the slower you will move, until you literally will not be able to move anymore at all. Choose your equipment wisely, and only carry around what you need. The next line "Dlvl: #" is pretty simple; it basically says what level of the dungeon you are on. You start off on level 0 and the number keeps on incrementing from there. The final line on the interface, "Time: #", is basically a counter of moves. This number gets larger every turn as the game decreases. This is game speed, mind you, not player speed, so fast players may be able to move multiple times per game turn, while slow, encumbered characters may take up to two or three game turns to move.

There are seven kinds of modules: head, arms, hand, torso, back, legs, and feet. Each has a different icon/picture to help you identify it. In addition, the hand Modules are divided into two sub-types, weapons, such as blasters, and armor, such as gloves. To pick up Modules laying around on the ground, pick them up using the numpad 0 key. To check what is in your inventory, press the "i" button to bring up the inventory interface.

Inside the inventory management screen you have a variety of actions to perform with your Modules. Click on a currently equipped Module (either to a slot or the inventory) to select it for movement. It will be displayed at the bottom of the screen. While it is shown at the bottom of its screen, its stats will appear in green text on the left in the interface bar. After checking an item's stats, you may choose where to equip it. Click on any of the section headers - Head, Arms, etc., even Inventory, to place the Module there. If it is not the correct Module for a certain slot, or if there are no slots left to equip into, nothing will happen, and the Module will remain in the moving item location. To drop an item onto the floor, click on it at the botton of the screen while it is being "moved" around.

Modules come of all types and sizes. You want to pay attention to the stats of each module. Some are heavily armored, while some will help out with shielding, and some will even allow you to see farther! If your slots for a particular section are full, and you have a better item in your Inventory, unequip and drop the old item and equip the new item. There's no point in carrying around old modules you will never use, since they will just take up weight and Inventory slots.

As you are most likely aware of, there are monsters in Tern Overgul RPG! They take on many different forms and colos, but the bottom line is, monster difficulty is determined by the sum of your experience level and the dungeon level. As you gain levels and or descend deeper, the monsters get tougher. You'll need to get some good equipment to surive this game!

Monsters are quasi-intelligent. They will track you down and attack you. To attack them back, press a movement key in the direction of their cell, and you will attack them. Meanwhile they will be attacking you. The amount of damage done is shown by colored, moving, faded numbers, representing amount of damage done. Killing monsters gains you experience points, and as you gain levels, your stats will get better, so it is good to kill monsters!

The rage meter on the interface bar shows how "angry" your character is. Your character gains Rage from dispatching enemies and will gain Rage levels as the bar is filled up and resets to become a Rage Gauge with higher capacity. Note, in the magic time when your Rage Gauge is 85% full or more, you have the opportunity of triggering a RAGE!, a brief period of time where the character becomes much much stronger. How to trigger a rage is somewhat of a mystery, but let me give you a hint that it has something to do with the yellow flashing circles animation that appear when the RAGE Gauge is nearly full.