--------------
NIGHT STALKERS
--------------
By Tim Nolan
Version 0.20 - 9/22/02

A CITY IN CRISIS
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The city of Jaguarville is on the brink of anarchy. A crime wave of 
unprecedented proportions has overwhelmed the police force and paralyzed 
law-abiding citizens with fear. As hope fades, it becomes increasingly clear
that only desperate measures can stave off catastrophe now. Frightened
residents clamor for someone, anyone to do something.

The city's cry for help will not go unanswered. 

Four heroes will heed the call. Their disdain for traditional methods of 
law and order is resented by city authorities, but there is no other option 
now. The time has come for vigilante justice. The time has come for the 
NIGHT STALKERS.

WHAT'S NEW
----------
From version 0.11 to 0.2:
- Items are now in! There are bonus items you can grab for extra points,
  food to restore your health, and breakable items you can smash open to get
  those other items. Also, you can jump on top of the larger items. Right now, 
  you'll notice that there's not exactly a wide array of items yet. :)
- Gamepad/joystick support is now in! You can't configure the buttons yet, 
  though. You can now choose keyboard or joystick/pad controls for each player 
  in the CONTROLS menu. (This menu now has a DEFINE KEYS option as well, but 
  it is non-functional at this time.)
- Game now tells you to "MOVE!" when you linger in an area with no enemies.
- Fixed bug affecting Lenny's grab-and-stab move which allowed you to stab a 
  guy you weren't grabbing. It wasn't supposed to be that way.
- Fixed bug that sometimes caused a guy you were grabbing or throwing to get
  stuck in mid-air. This occasionally resulted in a crash.
- Fixed AI bug that caused koala to stand still off screen if there was a
  player hanging around near that edge of the screen.
- Fixed bug that sometimes caused enemy at start of level to be invisible
  until the "MISSION #" message disappeared.
- Lenny's spin move now only decreases your energy if it actually hits
  something.
- Boss now fights back if you try to stand over him and hit him again as soon
  as he gets up.
- Game now handles continue/game over in multiplayer properly. Before, the
  game wouldn't do anything if a player lost all his lives and would allow
  everyone to keep playing with negative lives. Those days are gone. >:)
- I'm the only one who probably cares about this, but shadow.pcx, the file the
  game uses as a template to draw shadows, is now part of the main "Night
  Stalkers" datafile instead of being a separate file.
- Slight graphical changes, including slightly different color schemes for a
  couple of enemies.

From version 0.1 to 0.11:
- Game now accepts user maps. Look for the USER MAP option in the main menu.
- Blood is now optional, if for some bizarre reason you actually want to
  turn it off. It's in the options menu.
- Your fellow players are now hittable in the multi-player game. If you
  don't like this, it can also be turned off in the options menu.
- Esc key now gives you the option to quit, restart, or simply resume the 
  game, rather than instantly quitting.
- Game now loops right back to Mission 1 after Mission 5, rather than making
  you play through placeholders for Missions 6 through 8.
- On-screen messages now appear when you take a screenshot, change the 
  music, or use certain cheats.
- New cheat to skip to any mission.
- Log mode (which I occasionally use for debugging) now available from
  within game (rather than from command line, which is annoying to use in
  Windows).
- Sound of boar's bat hitting changed to more appropriate sound.
- Slight graphic improvements here and there.
- "Rock Tumbler" music updated, though it's still not used as a default tune
  for any level. And I'm still not satisfied with the way it sounds...
- Source code somewhat cleaner and a bit Linux-friendlier. Since Linux is
  case-sensitive, I'm trying to standardize all relevant filenames as best I
  can: All level names (.NSM files) will be in all capitals; all other
  filenames will be in all lowercase.

INSTALLATION
------------
You make a directory, you unzip the contents of the compressed folder into
the new directory, you run ns.exe. No fancy installation programs for me!

GAMEPLAY
--------
Guide your Night Stalker through the streets of Jaguarville, trashing every
crook who crawls out of the woodwork. In this early version of the game, only
Lenny the mountain lion is available. Eventually, there will be four Stalkers
to choose from. The game allows up to 4 players (all will have to use Lenny
clones). Please note, though, that if you don't have any joysticks or 
gamepads, then I don't recommend any more than two players, and even two might 
be a stretch.

KEYBOARD CONTROLS:

Player 1:
Up: Up arrow
Down: Down arrow
Left: Left arrow
Right: Right arrow
Attack: Left Ctrl
Jump: Left Alt

Player 2:
Up: Home
Down: End
Left: Delete
Right: Page Down
Attack: 9
Jump: 0

Player 3:
Up: Num pad slash
Down: Num pad 8
Left: Num pad 7
Right: Num pad 9
Attack: F11
Jump: F12

Player 4:
Up: Num pad 5
Down: Num pad 2
Left: Num pad 1
Right: Num pad 3
Attack: Insert
Jump: Page Up

JOYSTICK/GAMEPAD CONTROLS:

Use pad or stick to move up, down, left, and right.
Attack: Button 1
Jump: Button 2

Press Attack repeatedly to string together a combo.
Press Attack while jumping for a midair attack and a quick knockdown.
Move in very close to an enemy and you will grab him.
Press Attack while holding an enemy to hit him in the hold (up to 3 times).
Press Attack+Left or Right while holding an enemy to throw him.
Press Jump+Attack together to do a spin attack. The spin attack is very
powerful, but the trade-off is that it costs you a little energy if it hits
anything.
Press F9 to take a screenshot, which is saved in .PCX format.
Press F10 to change the music.
Press P to pause the game, then press it again to resume.
Press Esc during gameplay to quit or restart the game.
Finally, use the arrow keys, Enter (to select options), and Esc (to go
back) to navigate the game's menus. Not all menu options currently work.

Your Stalker has three lives, and if those aren't enough, you can continue
three times. After that, you've done enough dying. Time to start over.
Your life meter refills at the beginning of each new mission.

HOW COMPLETE IS IT?
-------------------
Only five levels of the eight slated for the complete game are even partially
represented--and only the first level is anywhere near complete. I'm not even
sure I'm going to keep that elevator fight in Mission 5. The level graphics
are in the rudimentary stage and will undergo many improvements. Only a few
of the game's enemies are actually in right now, and do not have all of their
planned animations yet. Lots of music is yet to be written for this game, and
most of the music that is in the game is incomplete. The game has just a few
sound effects in it right now, and several of those are borrowed from other
games. In terms of percentage, I would say "Night Stalkers" is about 15%
complete. But hopefully, there's enough of a framework here to get people
interested in this project.

LOG MODE
--------
Log mode produces a text file as you play (called ns1log.txt). This file
records the entrance of each and every enemy and the loading of each level.
It also registers the values of certain game variables. Naturally, it's used
for debugging, and it has helped me squash a few tough bugs. You, the user,
don't need log mode unless you plan to fool around with the source code, but
if you're curious to see what the log looks like, go ahead and turn it on.
If you're running "Night Stalkers" from a command line, enter -l as a 
command-line parameter. That's a lowercase 'L', not a one. But if you're
running "Night Stalkers" from your Windows desktop, you don't get to put in
any command-line parameters. So there's an alternate way to turn log mode on.
From the main menu, select "USER MAP" and when you're prompted for the name
of the user map, type LOGMODE... (include the three periods) and hit Enter to 
activate it.

CHEATS
------
To compensate for the relative lack of content in such an early version of
the game, the cheats are available at all times. Simply press these keys:

F: Make your character fall down (If you're wondering what the purpose of
   this is, I use it to make sure the falling animations look right)
G: Toggle grab debug mode. This was useful only to me for about two hours 
   while I worked out a couple of bugs related to the grabbing and throwing, 
   but I left it in anyway. What it does is that it turns any enemy who is
   currently being held by player 1 (more technically, any enemy whose "hold"
   variable points to player 1) bright red. Unfortunately, it also strips
   all other enemies on screen of the palettes they're supposed to have.
C: Toggle visible collision boxes on/off (For non-programmers: The collision 
   boxes are the actual lines of demarcation used by the computer to figure 
   out if one object has hit another)
R: Instantly make a rat appear
B: Instantly make a boar appear
W: Instantly make a weasel appear
Q: Instantly make a koala appear
E: Instantly make an elk appear
F1:Instantly make a cat boss (Fluffy Calico) appear
F2:Instantly make a rhino boss (Roughhouse) appear. The rhinoceros is
   obviously unfinished, and doesn't do anything, but you can kick his ass.
   Just don't knock him offscreen, because he can't get back onscreen and so
   you won't be able to kill him. If that happens, and you want to proceed,
   then your only option is to hit the 'K' key.
Also note: If you hold down Shift, Ctrl, or Alt while pressing any of the keys
   that make an enemy appear, you can get different types of that enemy. For
   example, if you simply press 'Q', Aaron the koala appears. But if you hold
   Alt and press 'Q', then Jayson, the strongest of the koalas, materializes.
Tab: Change your character. You can actually play as each different type of
   enemy--just keep hitting Tab to cycle through them. Keep in mind that they
   each have their limitations. Most can't grab, some can't jump, and none
   have a spin attack like Lenny. Also, changing characters in the middle of
   an action can have some strange effects, which can usually be escaped by
   pressing 'F' to flop on the ground. This cheat only works for player 1 at
   the present time.
1-5:Instantly jump to the mission of your choice, 1-5.
K: The Kill 'Em All key! The 11th letter of the alphabet leaves no foe alive.

Thanks for trying my game, and I hope you enjoy it.

-Tim Nolan
tjnolan@earthlink.net