H E L L F I R E P R E S E N T S Full documentation to Timekeepers! typed by IGGY/HF THE PLOT Welcome to the world of the 4th dimension. Due to recent technological advances which have provided many successful devices for time travel, on the 5th January 2071 the Earth government established a fully trained expendable law enforcement group called TIMEKEEPERS. An elite police force whose sole task is to protect the Earth from mishap and misadventure and to prevent abuse of this precious dimension. We join them soon after Seymour, the TIMEKEEPERS commander has received valuable information concerning the antics of a psychotic warlord named Wilhelm whose hatred of Earthlings has once more resulted in yet another attempt to destroy the Earth`s evolutionary superiority by placing nuclear devices in various time zones of Earth`s history. THE RESOLUTION Seymour has selected 4 seperate platoons to travel back to the Time Zones of Hieronymus Land 2 million BC, Medieval land 1245, Vietnam Land 1966 and Space Land 2001 in order to locate and disarm the nuclear devices. Prepare to undertake the position of ultimate responsibility for it is your task to guide these brave soldiers through 15 treacherous levels in each Time Zone successfully locating all the Teleporter pods and eventually disarming the nuclear devices that threaten these fragments of history. as our destiny is in your hands the following pages are completely dedicated to the provision of as much information as necessary to help to help you complete the task as time can be a very unpredictable place. TECHNICAL INITIATIONS PLAYING FROM FLOPPY Switch on your computer and your monitor, at the disk prompt insert disk 1. Please insure disk 2 is not write protected. INSTALLING ON HARD DRIVE Boot your system in the normal manner, insert disk 1 into your floppy drive. Double click on the disk icon to reveal the contents. Drag the TIMEKEEPERS icon and the VULCAN icon into any draw on your hard drive. Repeat this procedure with disk 2. Remove all floppy disks and simply double click on the TIMEKEEPERS icon to play the game. THE CHOICE SCREEN After watching the credit sequence (which can be speeded along by holding down the left mouse button) you will eventually be faced with three options, each option can be accessed by a click of the left mouse button on the appropriate icon. The icon of the Reel of film allows you to watch the introduction animation, when it is finished it will bring you backto the Choice scree. The icon of the chess Board allows you to plat TIMEKEEPERS from the very beginning. The icon of the floppy disk allows you to load in a previously saved position from disk 2. Obviouslty if this is your first time playing TIMEKEEPERS then this should not be used until you have eventually saved a position. THE REGENERATOR DEVICE Platoon 1 comprising of 14 government soldiers anxiously climb onto the Regenerator device. Effortlessly their appearance is electronically transformed into the relevant identity of their selected Time Zone enabling them to blend into their new environment and not distort the fragments of culture. They know they will never be coming back but if they fail in their mission there will be nothing to come back to. Warp transmitters are locked and ignited with precision, in a flash of neon they are instantly transported into their new world, a world of distorted morals. The TIMEKEEPERS Electronic monitoring device is their only clue to what lies ahead, what perils they will face and exactly how many soldiers will be required to disarm Wilhelm`s neclear devices. THE ACTION AREA The 14 strong platoon is instantly teleported into the relevant Time Zones main Action Area in the middle of the display screen. it is here where the platoon will do their utmost to obey your commands, avoid death, threatening incidents, strategically venture through disorientating and puzzling terrain and eventually be transported through 15 Teleporter Pods to reach the nuclear devices. The Action area is quite long but can be viewed in it`s entirety by moving the mouse indicator into one of the two Scrolling Zones located at the very top and very bottom of the display screen. This will scroll the Action Area up or down in the relevant direction allowing you to focus on your desired section of the Action Area. TIME ZONES PLAQUES AND MONITORS At the very top of the display screen you will see four Time Zone Plaques, thesee indicate what Time Zone your platoon is currently in and also information regarding the status of the nuclear devices. In the middle of the 4 Time ZOne Plaques sits Seymour the commander, he will often advise you of your performance and progress as well as keeping a watchful eye over your mistakes. Below there are 15 Grey Monitors, the one that has a picture in it corresponds to the level you are currently playing in. When you successfully teleport into the next level the next monitor in line will also light up, when all 15 are lit it means you are on the final level which holds the nuclear devices and nearing the end of that particular time zone. STATUS PLAQUES To the left of the Action Area there are 14 Status Plaques, these inform us of the relevant status of each individual member of the platoon, there are 3 possibilities, if the plaque contains a picture of a face it means that a particular platoon member in question is alive and well and still active, if the plaque is of a small cross it means he is deceased and can only be bought back to life by going further back in time, if the plaque is illuminated in orange it means he has successfully been transported into the future and is waiting for the outcome of the remainder of the platoon. At the bottom of the action Area sits the main Command icons, there are 8 of them in all and are listed in more detail in the next few pages, each one is accessible by clicking the left mouse button on the appropriate icon. COMMAND ICONS A command icon is your only way of communictaing with your platoon members, on selecting a command icon a silver hi-lighter appears to inform you of your current selection. Once you`ve made your selection you can now move your mouse pointer into the Action Area, here you will see a graphic representation of the command following your mouse pointer. This graphic command can then be pasted into a blank square in the Action Area by pressing the left mouse button, remember the square must be blank, you cannot place a command graphic on walls, in rivers, on bushes etc. but you do have unlimited quantities of graphic Commands. When a platoon member walks or lands onto your graphic command he will do his utmost to follow your given orders ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE Not every command is logical? Lets start with the four arrow commands, when a soldier lands on an arrow command he will attempt to walk in your chosen direction but only if it`s logical, for example, our soldier is walking upwards and lands on an arrow command to walk left which just happens to point into a solid wall, our soldier will think "I was walking up, you want me to walk left, I can`t as there is a wall there so I will walk right as you definately don`t want me to to walk up!" Confused? so are they, their intelligence is in their logic, the same will apply to their etiquette, quite often they will bump into each other and confuse one another individual commands, in all cases if they can`t follow your given order they will make a decision as to what to do instead and faced with an impossible dilemma they will look up to you in a confused state and wait patiently for a solution. WAITING AND JUMPING Having mastered direction commands now lets look at the graphic command of the clock, this will order the first soldier that lands on it to wait for a periiod of time, this can be useful in tight passegeways as all other platoon members will bump into the lazy individual and reverse direction. When the soldier has finished waiting he will erase the icon from the Action Area and continue to do whatever he was doing previously. The icon of the foot will command the soldiers to jump over the object in front of them, again if this is not logical i.e. the object in front is too high to jump over or the landing square is blocked by an obsticle or another platoon member then the soldier will glance in your direction and erase the foot icon from the Action Area. If the jumping command is logical then the icon will remain on the screen for the next platoon member. OPERATING AND AGGRESSION The icon of the spanner is to command the first soldier to land on it to operate the square directly in front of him, for example if it is a lever then he will pull it and open a door or maybe a radio transmitter to call for a controlled helicopter lift, it will all depend on what level you are currently playing, again if it`s not logical it will be ignored. The icon of the teeth is basically a form of aggression, on landing on this icon the soldier will attempt to be aggressive to the square directly in front of him using whatever methods he has at his disposal, this can be invaluable when faced with the Greenmen of Shoutsville or Vietnam gooks in combat or Shamen Knights of the Realm. The final command icon is an eraser, this allows you to remove an unwanted command before a soldier has time to land on it. TRAVELLING IN TIME If all your platoon members die Seymour will transport you back in time to when you started that particular level to give you another chance of teleporting some or all of your platoon into the future. If you manage to teleport a few soldiers onto the next level they will wait patiently until the fate of the remaining platoon has been decided. When no soldiers remain in the curent level and at least one soldier has been teleported you can progress onto the next level, but remeber you will need at least the required amount of soldiers corresponding to the number of nuclear devices to reach the final level for disarming. If at any point you feel you have performed badly you can activate the lightening clock to choose the relevant level you wish to travel back to, perhaps to a level where you had more soldiers alive so you can better your long time success rate. SAVING, LOADING AND SLEEPING Upon selecting the disk icon you will have the choice to either save your current position to Disk 2 or load in your previously saved position, as with the lightening clock icons you will always have the option to confirm your actions with Yes or No and can easily escape the decision process by pressing the left mouse button. The snoozy icon simply will pause the game and can be resumed at any time by pressing the right mouse button. That basically sums up all the operating techniques involved in TIMEKEEPERS and the rest is completely up to your personal skills in management, co-ordination, judgement, patience and logic. ITS TIME TO SAVE THE EARTH! TYPED UPBY IGGY/HELLFIRE 20/6/95