*************************** LICENSE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ************************* INSTALLING THIS SOFTWARE IS AN ACKNOWLEDGEMENT THAT YOU HAVE READ AND AGREE TO THE TERMS IN THE QUIVER LICENSE AGREEMENT (SEE LICENSE.DOC) ***************************************************************************** QUIVER RELEASE NOTES QUIVER 1.01 3/5/97 Initial Release QUIVER 1.02 4/2/97 Corrected Add-On Pack Save/Load (QR) Corrected Switch/Gate prob E1L1 (QSW/QR) Corrected inside/outside crash (QSW/QR) Corrected lava floor data error (G.BIN) Corrected walk-thru octagons E3L6 (G.BIN) For the latest revisions visit: http://www.esdgames.com or http://www.gamegalaxy.com or any other authorized QUIVER download site. ***************************************************************************** ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS Minimum: PROCESOR 486DX 33 RAM 6 MB available EMS/XMS VIDEO VGA HARDDISK 13 megabytes of free hard disk OPER. SYS DOS 5.0 and higher including DOS7 (WIN95) Recommended: PROCESOR 486DX2 50 or better RAM 8 MB available EMS/XMS VIDEO VGA VLB HARDDISK 15 megabytes of free hard disk SOUNDCARD SoundBlaster or 100% SB compatible CD-AUDIO 2x CD-ROM (or better) and MSCDEX 2.x & higher OPER. SYS DOS 5.0 and higher including DOS7 (WIN95) By the way, QUIVER will run V-E-R-Y nicely on Pentium systems too! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- QUIVER IS DESIGNED TO BE A "DOS ONLY" PROGRAM. QUIVER is intended to be run directly from DOS. Although it will start up and go from within Windows boxes, that practice is not recommended or supported by us. We cannot guarantee that all users can do it, so we don't support it at all! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ABOUT QUIVER Aliens have stolen orbs allowing them to return to your world's distant past. Having established covert bases, replete with warehouses and power plants, the aliens are attempting to alter the past and your present! They will too, unless you recover those orbs. You must also eliminate as many aliens (and their little vermin buddies) as you can. To accomplish your mission you must use whatever resources you can find, even alien stuff. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Starting QUIVER: (From the QUIVER directory, type) QUIVERS <------ Start the Trial Version QUIVER <------ Start the Registered Version ----------------------------------------------------------------------- QUIVER KEYBOARD CONTROLS 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 Guns Arrow Keys Movement Esc Main Menu - Pause or restart game at current level Page Up Look up Page Down Look down Home Center View Tab or F9 Auto-Map F1 Help F2 Save Game F3 Load Game F4 Sound/Music Volume Control F5 Pause CD Audio player F6 Restart CD Audio player ALT-F7 Previous Midi/CD Track F7 Change MIDI/CD Track F8 Default Track F9 AutoMap F10 Demo Save (Registered version only) F11 Monitor brightness F12 Screen Capture (PCX) Ctrl or Enter Fire Alt Strafe (use with left and right arrows) Shift Run (use with all motion keys and look up/down keys) End,Ins,\,/ Jump Space Bar Open doors and trigger switches etc. = or * Increase screen size - (keypad) Shrink screen NOTE: THERE IS NO KEYBOARD RECONFIGURATION. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- QUIVER MOUSE CONTROLS Left - Fire Middle - Go Forward Right - Use for strafe and open doors/push switches. You can strafe (walk sideways) by holding down the right button and moving the mouse. Doors and switches can be activated by walking up to the target and clicking the right button. Mouse sensitivity settings can be set by selecting Options-Controls off the QUIVER Main Menu, or by pressing F4 during play. NOTE: Your mouse driver must be loaded for QUIVER's mouse function to work. QUIVER provides auto mouse detection and support for Microsoft compatible mice only. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- THERE IS NO JOYSTICK OR GAMEPAD SUPPORT. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- QUIVER CHEAT CODES (*=Not available in the trial version) þ WUSS - Invincible þ TIMER - Show Level Elapsed time þ NUKE - Kills all enemies þ DBS - Change to Internal Music þ MMAP - Temporary stun badguys þ CD - Change to CD Audio þ PANSY - * All weapons, all ammo þ DEMO - * Playback specific demo þ BUTTHEAD- * All Keys, all orbs þ WARP - * Jump to Episode/Level þ TOD - * Time of day þ STUN - * Temporarily stun badguys ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Miscellaneous Info; Game play tips -You MUST learn to jump -Pick up everything you find. -You MUST learn to jump -Aliens and mutants will fight each another, if you incite them. -You MUST learn to jump -Don't waste powerful weapons on weaker aliens. -You MUST learn to jump ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- QUIVER WEAPONS 1 Spiker - Single shot. Excellent for use on vermin class critters or for softening up a medium size bad guy from a distance. This gun will only just annoy the bigger guys, but sometimes can cause them to retreat just enough to allow you to bolt past them. 2 Fajita - Triple fireball blaster. Useful against hordes of Maker smaller guys. Fairly tight shot group of fire balls. 3 Blaster - Five brutal shots. This gun is designed expressly for the purpose of blasting alien tail, and it does. 4 Shredder- Grenade launcher type thing. This time delay weapon is great for softening up a heavily badguy infested area, and will sometimes start a riot. Careful though, the shots from this weapon will hurt you too. 5 Alien - Hurls very nasty spike balls. This alien contraption is Ripper particularly useful when jumping around corners and when strafing. Get good with this thing. 6 2-Fist - Powerful, yet painful. Make sure you're powered up. You'll Alien lose 10 health points with each use. Takes out big guys, Blaster spheres. VERY Fast fire rate. Gauntlets 7 Medusa - Reflects bad guys shots back at the shooter. The aliens can still Sphere rush in for a manual butt whipping session, but their shots are (QR) bad news for them. Warning: It won't transport with you via gates; that means you can't take it with you to the next level. This one is typically hidden somewhere. The aliens (particularly the big bad really mean guys at the end of each episode) really would prefer that you didn't even know about it... 8 Alien - Like the Alien Blasters, but a single firing causes you to whip Hell a 360, blasting and frying continuously. The aliens really would Hands prefer that you not find a set of these. These hurt you a little too. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- QUIVER'S SOUND QUIVER's sound and MIDI support use Diamondware's DOS Sound Tool Kit (STK) Library which supports basic SoundBlaster and 100% compatible SB cards. The SoundBlaster compatible modes of some really cheap sound cards do not provide sufficient volume headroom for both FX and MIDI. If you have one of those cards, we can't help you, other than to suggest that you get a better sound card. NOTE: While QUIVER can play from a DOS box on WIN95 or WIN31, Windows and other apps which access the sound card often alter the cards sound mixer settings, even when exiting from Windows to DOS. If things don't sound right, boot to DOS directly, and then run QUIVER. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- QUIVER'S INTERNAL MUSIC QUIVER has 12 original MIDI mood-setting soundtracks from award-winning game music composer, David B. Schultz. David did Nitemare3d, Cargo Bay, and Rings of the Magi. Each of the nine levels within an episode has an assigned track. There are also three additional bonus tracks. You can change tracks during game play by pressing [F7] to go forward one track, or [ALT-F7] to go backward one track. You can get back to the internal default track by pressing [F8]. Music control settings are accessible via [F4] during play, or via the Options-Control area off of the QUIVER Main Menu. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- QUIVER's CD AUDIO While we really like QUIVER's internal music tracks, we also recognize that sometimes it's just plain fun to wallop aliens while jamming to your favorite tunes. If you want to change to the CD from internal music during play, type CD, or press F6. You can also switch between CD and internal music via the Options pick on the main menu. CD tracks will not auto advance on level change and you can change tracks during gameplay by pressing [F7] or [ALT-F7]. You can also jump to a desired track via the CD cheat code, or by walking the menu via the following picks: Options -> Sound Select -> CD CD music control settings are accessible via [F4] during play, or via the Options-Control area off of the QUIVER Main Menu. They are the same ones used for internal music. NOTE: You must have a CDROM drive, soundcard, and either headphones or speakers, and a MSCDEX 2.x or higher driver loaded for this feature to function. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- MUSIC VOLUME NOTE You might have to adjust the music volume when switching between CD audio and internal music. This happens on some sound cards that support hardware mixing of sound sources. We have to turn off hardware mixing on these cards so that you can here the CD audio. When we do that, the volume settings for music usually wind up being quite wrong. The usual case is that CD music is too loud, and internal music is too soft. It's not a big deal, but you should be aware of it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- TROUBLESHOOTING SOUND PROBLEMS Although we have yet to encounter a problem with the STK's card detection or playback, we provide the following for those who suspect that they are having serious problems with sound (lockups, crashes, missing sounds etc.): To disable sound card detection/support, you can start QUIVER with the -ns command line flag, e.g.: --registered version-- QUIVER -ns -- trial version -- QUIVERS -ns If the foregoing seems to correct the problem, you should be aware that the actual root of the problem might be that you don't have enough memory. Quiver requires about 800K of memory to store sound effects and music. It is possible that a program such as Smartdrv is eating up a bunch of memory. Please verify that you have enough free memory before deciding to run without sound. DO NOT contact Diamondware for any sound problems. They are not responsible, and cannot be expected to be able to help you. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- TROUBLESHOOTING CD PLAYER PROBLEMS If you suspect that Quiver's CD player is causing you problems (like crashes and/or lockups), you can try using the -nc command line parameter to force Quiver to ignore the CD driver,e.g.:. --registered version-- QUIVER -nc -- trial version -- QUIVERS -nc If the foregoing seems to correct the problem, you should always start Quiver with the -nc command lne parameter. DO NOT contact Diamondware for any CD problems, or for any other problems. They did not provide the CD player, therefore they are not able or willing to help. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- TROUBLESHOOTING MOUSE PROBLEMS If your mouse isn't as responsive or touchy as you would like, or is too touchy, you should attempt to modify the sensitivity via Quiver's mouse sensitivity control gadget. You can get to that by selecting the following menu picks: Options -> Controls. Once you have arrived at the control panel, use the cursor keys to make the pointer point at the mouse control slider. Use the up/down arrows to adjust the sensitivity. Upwards will make it more sensitive, and downward will make it less touchy. If your mouse doesn't work at all, you should check to be sure that there is a mouse driver loaded. If there is, and it still doesn't work, then you should ensure that it is a Microsoft compatible mouse driver. Although rare, non-Microsoft compatible mouse drivers do exist. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- TROUBLESHOOTING SPEED PROBLEMS Quiver is designed to run at about 24 fps (frames-per-second). When it can't get that kind of speed, it engages an internal "transmission" that helps it appear to be going that fast. What this means is that if Quiver starts running really slowly, or the "feel" of the game is jerky or unresponsive, then you probably have a problem that we can't fix. For example, if you have a 486DX33 but you also have a slow VGA card, then Quiver will simply not be able to cruise at decent speeds. Some laptop computers are simply not what their manufacturers claim they are. If you are running Quiver on a laptop system, and you are experiencing speed problems, we can't help. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- FOR THE TECHNICALLY INCLINED Quiver is a 32 bit program. It was compiled and linked using Watcom 10.a, and depends upon DOS4GW.EXE to be present for it to run. Quivers CD player is a TSR. It will steal away about 1600 bytes of RAM, and it won't ever ever give it back. You gotta reboot to get rid of it. No, we're not thrilled by that either. We use a slightly modified version of the program STKRUN.EXE to launch Quiver. STKRUN.EXE is provided by Diamondware (the STK people) in a form that is supported by them, but only if you don't hack it. We hacked it. Therefore, Diamondware is off the hook for any problems associated with that program. We removed (a) the stay resident feature, and (b) the code that displayed info to the DOS screen. That's it. A point of questionable interest: Quiver was designed and programmed on an archaic 486DX33 system with an ancient 512K VLB (VESA Local Bus) VGA card. Its performance envelope was determined and implemented based on the limitations of that venerable system. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- THE QUIVER TEAM 3D Engine Graphics/Artwork Mike Taylor ADvertainment Software Game Design Sound Effects CD Player Artwork Miguel Insignares MAI Studios Music David B Schulz DBS Music Marketing/PR John Reisinger ADvertainment Software Biz David Chapnick ADvertainment Software Web/Support Sharon Miller Florida Software http://www.flsoft.com Barrister Andy Greenberg Carlton Fields ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- SPECIAL THANKS TO VENDORS Keith Weiner Diamondware (Sound Tool Kit) http://www.dw.com QUIVER uses the STK for all internal music and all digital sound effects. We chose it because its auto-detection works so well, it's very memory friendly (not a pig), and because it's just so easy to interface to. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- DEDICATED TO Our families, who might still remember us.