A*N*T*Z
ANTIA'S NEW TRUE Z
\
H
EROES
- Manual -
License agreement
Installing the game
Running the game
How to play it
Solving the rooms
Online competition
Custom user rooms
Tips & hints
FAQ
- License agreement -
Please, read this license agreement carefully.
This is a license agreement concerning the providing and the usage
of this software (a computer program and other associated data files) according to
article 2a, º128, 58/1993 st. of the Czech legal system, concerning the computer game ANTZ,
which you have copied on your harddisc or other storage media.
That all concerning the meaning of article 2b º128, 58/1993 st.,
according to Boris, I know nobody is reading this, so I am contacting you
this way - you must tell Kurt that the action is up and running, only Jean-Luc
did not respond; We cannot afford waiting, we must find him before don Denis learns
about it - otherwise, he will feed us to his crocodiles! And therefore, users
are not allowed to decompile, disassemble or otherwise modify the source code and/or the
data files, according to article 1 º131 , 58/1993 st. Furthermore, the authors
take no responsibility for any damage caused by wrong usage or by usage breaching any of the laws
mentioned hereinbefore and hereinafter, concerning article 3 º125, 58/1993 st.
If you do not agree with this license agreement, please, delete all instances
of this software from your computer and go on about your business.
This license is not valid if it would be in the conflict with the legal system of your
country, if it is two days before the pay day, or if it was full moon last week.
- Installing the game -
If you are reading this, the installation probably ran successfully.
However, if you are sitting and desperately watching the empty screen of your computer, try the following:
- Turn on the computer.
- Wait for the Windows to starts.
- Run the program
"Install.exe".
- Running the game -
You will need some computer to run this game:
Recommended configuration:
(or "On what computer you can hopefully run it")
Pentium 3 - 800 MHz
128 MB RAM
30 MB harddisc or bigger...
Graphic accelerator
(supporting 1024 ╫ 768 resolution in 32-bit colors)
sound card, speakers
Windows XP
(in the case of need even Windows 98 or 2000)
DirectX 9.0 or higher
MS Internet Explorer 5.0 or higher
Developers' configuration:
(or "On what computer it works at our place")
Pentium 4 - 2.6 GHz HT
512 MB RAM
320 GB harddisc
(but 20 MB would be enough...)
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5900XT
SB Live!, stereo headphones
Windows XP
DirectX 9.0 - C
MS Internet Explorer 6.0
Joystick - 4 axes, 9 buttons, POV
(it's of no use, but it looks really cool on the table :-)
Well, and then, you just have to run "ANTZ.exe"...
After this, you will see a short intro - although ANTZ are a pure logical game,
it has some plot. You should read the intro at least once to know what you are fighting for (erm...). Later,
the game will allow you to skip it by pressing any key.
Besides reading the intro, you can also read the
"Antia Herald" paper from Leafingrise 11
(that's the month when all leaves are green and rising...), where you can learn more news from the
world of ants and some details of "Plan B". You can find Antia Herald and this manual in the main
game folder and in the ANTZ group in the Start Menu.
- How to play it -
After watching the intro, you will see the main screen of the game with a few buttons and
a help. After reading and closing it (by pressing F1 or by
clicking the mouse), the map of the realm of ants will appear.
You can learn about the function of the buttons from inside the game - however, the map is much
more interesting.
You can see all rooms of the game on the map. At the beginning, most of the circles are empty. That
means you can't access these rooms. Some circles are orange - that means these rooms haven't been solved yet, but you
can enter them and play them by clicking the mouse on one of the circles.
When you right-click the circle, a small menu with the name of the selected room
will appear. The orange rooms have only one button for playing the room here.
The rooms you have already solved (blue circles) have one more button here - it is used for
watching the solution. If you hold down the Shift key,
you will sow it down.
When the room circle is empty, but you really cannot solve the room before it, there will appear a button for
"unlocking" the room - you won't see the solution of the previous one, but at least you can skip it for
a while and try to solve some other... You can unlock the rooms only in a sequential order, and you cannot
unlock the last room - you really do have to solve all other rooms to be able to access it.
The number of steps you have made will be shown on your screen - in the parentheses, there will be shown
the number of steps in your shortest solution. If you want to enter tie Hi-Score chart on the Internet,
try to keep the number of steps you make as low as possible - you can solve any room as many times as you want to and
enhance your performance.
- Solving the rooms -
In every room, there lies a few drops of Becherovka, which you have to move onto the places marked by
a darker spot. Your task in each room (except the last one) is to fill all spots with Becherovka.
You'll have a few ants to move the drops - at the beginning, there will be only one ant, but as you
will proceed to some more difficult rooms, you will meet the others as well.
You can learn about all four ants and their skills in the training rooms - there, you can learn what they
can do. In one of the training rooms, all four ants will even meet, but this is just to show them all in one place.
In fact, they will really meet each other during the game.
You'll be able to control them with arrow keys and the Spacebar
(for dragging objects or eating leaves). You can switch between the ants by pressing the Tab key,
the Tab key + Shift, or by clicking on the ant or his or her portrait.
Besides Becherovka, you will find many other things, which will sometimes help you, but mainly just stand in your way
or even endanger you. You will see deadly drops of repellent, drops of window-cleaner, which
changes any other drop it touches into more window-cleaner, but also common drops of water, small branches
or other objects.
Often, you will have to push Becherovka on the place using some of the objects you will find around.
Do I have just one try?!
Certainly not! You can try to solve any room as many times as you want to - when you reach a situation when
you cannot see any possible solution, you can restart the room (either using the respective
button, or by pressing F9). When you reach a promising
situation, you can save the game (using a button or by pressing F2).
Later on, you can load the game (using a button or by pressing F3).
If the room is already solved, you can also watch its solution (like from the menu) by pressing
F11. Just be careful to save your current position before you do this, or you will lose it.
During the game, the ants will chat with each other, and sometimes even with you (due to lack of native speakers, only
the voices in the Czech part of the game have been narrated...) - sometimes they may give
a little hint, but don't expect to get much advice. ANTZ are a difficult game, and some rooms are
really hard.
However, all rooms are solvable, and they do not contain any secret tricks, coincidence or cheats.
Well... there is one cheat, actually... You will learn more about it in the FAQ section.
- Online competition -
Every proper game needs a challenge. So, here it is:
Prove that you are smarter and faster than other players!
ANTZ are connected to the Becherovka Online Hi-score system, which allows to compare your successes
with the performances of other players. When you finish all rooms, the game will ask you for your name and your
e-mailovΘ address.
If you don't want to give your e-mail address, you can leave it blank.
The information you enter with the information about the total number of steps and the time of your solution
will be saved to the file "SendSolution.url"
in the game folder, which you can use
to send your score to the Becherovka Game pages.
You will send the information by running the file (for example by double-clicking on it, or by clicking
on one of the links in this manual) on a computer connected to Internet. (If you have no Internet connection at home,
you can take the file for example on a floppy disc and run it from a different computer).
Then, your name with the time of the finishing the game and the number of steps you needed to
solve all rooms will appear in the chart. Due to the Hi-Score system limitations, so-called "score"
(1,000,000 - number of steps) will be sent, in order to keep the best solutions on the top of the chart. Keep in mind that
even the steps from the training rooms are included in the total number of steps.
Every time you improve your solution, the file "SendSolution.url"
will be re-saved, so you can send it again.
(Note for all hackers, crackers and other similar individuals - the data in the file are encrypted and any modification
will render the file unreadable. So, better leave the file as it is, unless your washing powder can decrypt the MD-5 hash...)
- Custom user rooms -
If the rooms we created aren't enough for you, you don't have to worry. The game allows you to load and even create
your own custom user maps.
To open a user map, either click the respective button in the menu
(the one with that puzzle image), or press the F11 key in the menu. Then, a window pops up
and you can select a file with the ".usr" extension from the "DATA\UserLevels" subdirectory
(an user map file).
You can play these rooms like any other - they do not count into the total number of steps in the game, but they
store the information about their best solution and the number of the steps. You can save and load your position
in them (F2 and F3), restart them (F9),
or watch their solution (not from the menu, but only by pressing the F11 key inside the room).
You will be able to get custom maps on the Internet, from your friends, you can even create them yourselves.
To install the room, just copy its files and directories into the right place:
Dialogues (".dlg") come into the "DATA\UserLevels\UserDialogs" directory, images (".bmp" nebo ".tga") into
the "DATA\UserLevels\UserGraphics" directory, and speech files (".mp3") into the "DATA\UserLevels\UserSpeech"
directory. Other files (".usr", ".sav" and ".sol") will come directly into the "DATA\UserLevels" directory.
Click here to learn how to create custom rooms.
- Tips & hints -
- While playing, you can switch the language between English and Czech at any time
(even during the intro) by pressing the F10 key. On the main screen of the game, you can use also
the respective button. So, if the game runs in English and you can't understand anything,
switch to Czech immediately...
- If you cannot solve some room for a long time, and you would like to start some other, you can skip this
room for now and "unlock" the room behind it. This way, you can at least see all rooms, even if you're unable
to solve them. However, you need to solve all of them to finish the game...
- If you want to move an ant to some location without moving any object, try to point
(and click) on the place with your mouse - the ant will use the shortest way, avoiding
repellent if it is necessary. Sometimes, the ant may even find a better way than you and save some precious steps.
- You can try to solve the rooms in more different ways - don't be always content with the first solution.
We reduced the number of steps in nearly all of the rooms (in one of them from 81 to 19 steps,
in one other from 2540 to 325 steps).
By the way, our best solution has pretty less than 8000 steps...
(we may send the exact number on the hi-score pages someday...)
- If you wish, you can switch the current music track by pressing F4. The new track
won't start immediately, you have to wait a short while.
- FAQ -
Are all of the rooms really solvable?
- Really really.
But I really don't know what to do in this or that room...
-You have many choices:
- Try to solve another room.
- Take a short rest.
- Take a long rest.
- Take a cup of coffee, piece of chocolate,
chewing-gum or some other mental doping.
- Turn your monitor upside down,
it will give you a whole new sight...
- Ask your family, neighbors, other players, authors or aliens for help.
You can find successfull players or authors on the pages of
Becherovka Game.
The aliens can be found in the Area 51, but it is completely surrounded by the
US Army, so better do not try it...
The music/sound is too loud/silent!
- You can change the sound volume with the keys F5
and F6.
- You can change the music volume with the keys F7
and F8.
Something refuses to move, and I don't know why.
- Check whether you are using the right ant - some ants cannot move some objects. Then, check if
you aren't pushing some other ant, or moving something against the wall. And, finally, check if
you aren't trying to move something with a drop - drops cannot push anything.
Is there any cheat that could help me with the game?
- I don't know if it helps, but there really is one cheat.
Select any ant and press the right mouse button.
Huh? You say it's too easy? Well, let's make it a bit more difficult...
You have to hold down these keys at the same time with the click:
H, L, F6, Insert,
tilde (~) below the escape, spacebar
and the dot (.) on the numpad.
Have fun with your fingers...
( And don't call for anybody's aid - you can do it alone ! )
Is there any "Undo" function?
- No, and there won't be any. If you could undo any step, the game would be too easy - you would never
get dissolved by repellent, you would never spill the window-cleaner into Becherovka. Instead of this, try
to use saving and loading the room. A bit of care is also useful ;-)
My boss keeps coming to my office and I can't play!
- Don't worry. For this case, ANTZ have built-in "boss key" support. You just have to press
the F12 key at any time, and the screen will show the content it was showing
before you launched the game. When your boss is gone, press F12 again and continue playing...
And when the boss seems to stay in your office for a longer time, you can press any other key
or click the mouse to quit the game and return to Windows. But be careful, this works well
only when your desktop resolition is 1024 ╫ 768 in 32-bit colors
- otherwise, the effect won't be as good. And one more thing - be careful when you try this manoeuvre on
All Fools' Day - on the 1st of April, the game could surprise you a bit... just try it!
That sokoban is doing whatever he wants!
- Don't be afraid... Sokoban is written in the way he moves acording to the steps you've already made.
You can try it - start the room, make a few steps, then restart the room and move through the same path -
sokoban will go through the same way as before. Therefore, every player has the same chances as others.
I can see only blue shapes instead of some objects...
- The problem is probably that you have old drivers for the graphic accelerator installed
- this problem appeared only with the oldest GeForce 2 drivers.
How do the boxes from Sokoban behave?
- They behave like the drops of Becherovka (or like the boxes from Sokoban), so you cannot use
them to push anything. Willi also doesn't want to move them. However, there is one small but
interesting difference between boxes and drops - the boxes aren't afected by window-cleaner.
What if more players want to play ANTZ on one computer?
- If all of you want to solve the game on your own, you can install the game more times on the same computer - you just have
to install each instance of the game into a different directory and different Start menu group. Then, rename the desktop
icon (e.g. "A.N.T.Z - player 1"), in order to prevent any possible collisions. Then, you can launch next installation.
To prevent the confusing of more desktop shortcuts, you can select a different icon for each of them (you can choose Tink,
Flo, Benedict, or Willi). You just have to right-click the icon and select "Properties - Change Icon..."
My computer is very slow - what should I do to make the game run more smoothly?
If you run the game with the "-nospeech" or "-nomp3" command line parameter, the MP3 files won't be played. This may help you, but only when you are playing the dubbed (Czech) version.
What should I do when I finish the game?
- When you finish ANTZ, the file "SendSolution.url"
should appear in the game folder.
You can run it on a computer connected to Internet and enter the hi-score chart.
Besides this, you can also let the authors know,
go to a cinema, get dead-drunk, write a poem or two, invite somebody for a dinner, cup of coffee or
a fox hunting, you can learn Portuguese, or just get some sleep. If you want to, you can even try to make your
own room. It's up to you - we were happy to entertain you...
This manual is too long...
- No kidding! You've just finished reading it, congratulations :-)
Copyright © 2004 - Karel èt∞pka jr.