Notrium

Briefing

Notrium is a realtime single player survival game. You control a spaceship crew member who has crashed on a strange planet filled with aliens, and your job is to get home alive. You find alien items on the planet surface which you can combine with others to make all sorts of useful gadgets and weapons. The game can be completed in several different ways, and it has a high replay value.

Surviving in the world of Notrium is not an easy job. See the Survival Guide if you need help. Have fun playing!

If you find the graphics in this game to your liking, you can find some more of my drawings at http://elfwood.lysator.liu.se/loth/v/i/villemon.

Survival Guide #1299

This is the abridged version. Marine, keep this guide with you always in case you suddenly find yourself shipwrecked on a hostile planet!

What to do when stranded on an alien planet?
The first thing to do is to check your immediate surroundings for anything useful, and to find out what necessary survival gear you already have. Collect everything you find by right clicking the items.

Character classes
Marines are chosen from four species: The very rare Humans, the common Aliens, the manufactured Androids, and the mysterious Psionics.

Humans
-Weak and fragile. Easily hurt by cold and heat. Best suited for suicide missions.
Aliens
-Compared to humans are faster and stronger. The only drawback is that they cannot wear weapons, and must only use their claws.
Androids
-Very high resistance to both damage and temperature. They do not require food to survive, but constantly use battery energy to operate.
Psionics
-These weird little critters use their mind to attack and command their enemies. Their bright mind illuminates their surroundings.

The meters

Body Temperature
The topmost meter shows your body temperature. You will get warmer when you stay in the sun during the day, and when you get too hot you will have a heat stroke. To avoid getting too hot, stay in the shade of a tree by days. On nights you will get cold, and to avoid getting frozen you must stay near a fire. Fires can be found near crash sites, and you can eventually make some of your own.

Food
The yellow meter in the middle shows how much food is in your stomach. If you run out of food you will starve, and lose health. Finding food on an alien planet can be difficult, try right clicking anything that looks edible.

Health
The lowest red meter shows your health. When you run low on health, you should find local herbs or doctors to heal your wounds.

Weapon use

Battery
The blue meter shows how much energy your battery has left. Weapon use will drain your battery, and you will want to build a recharging station as soon as possible. Energy may be scarce if you have crashed on an uncivilized planet, so don't waste your shots.

Tazor
All Escape Pods are equipped with the standard issue Tazor #D21, a stunning weapon that is effective against most alien races. It is not likely that the weapon can kill, so you should be safe against murder charges on alien worlds. Remember, The Space Navy will not defend you in any court outside Artus prime.

Item use

Using items
Your inventory computer keeps a list of the items you have. When you want to use an item you have picked up, press I-key to activate the inventory, select the item from the list and press U-key. Notice that using some items may make them unusable for other purposes.

Combining items
When stranded on an alien planet you will need to build some things you cannot find, for example weapons. You can combine items together by selecting the part from the list, then clicking on the part you wish to combine it with. Not all parts go together. If you wish to break down an item to its components, simply select the item and press B-key.

Item Weight
Marine, altough we've trained you to carry items like a mule, you may occasionally find it impossible to carry everything with you. Carrying over your carry limit will slow you down, so drop unnecessary items at a safe place.

Slots

Slot system
Certain items such as weapon and armor use slots. When you equip a slotted item, you will see it appear on the right side of the screen. You can also wield/unwield slotted items by dragging them to the proper slot. If you are for example wielding a two-handed weapon, you cannot use the flashlight, since the slot is already taken.

Energy Usage
Many slotted items such as the flashlight and the item detector use battery energy when wielded. Remember to unwield them if you don't need them.

Additional Controls

Mouse left to shoot
Mouse right to pick up
J for journal
I for inventory
Mouse wheel or E to change weapon
F12 to quicksave, F9 to quickload
P to pause.

New in version 1.3

These are just the main points, there are literally hundreds of more additions and fixes in 1.3.
Read the full changelog.

New Features:

Rewritten AI: pathfinding, line of sight, exploring and leader following.
Fourth race: the mysterious Psionic with unique weapons and skills!
Fortified enemy bases and buildings for you to conquer.
The alien player race now evolves into a real killing machine.
You can now ride a Hoverbike.
New areas: The marine battleship, the bunker, the dried up marsh.
New beginning: Fly the escape pod to the planet.
New journals: An exciting scifi story that's different for each race.
Tons of new options for modders, plus a map editor.
Hundreds of minor tweaks and fixes including the much awaited minimap.

Installing & Requirements

To begin the game:

Run Setup.exe to setup your display.
Run Notrium.exe.

You may use the included unistaller to uninstall the program.

Requirements:

Direct3D compatible graphics card
DirectX 8.1 or better
Windows (98, ME, 2000, XP)
1000 MHz CPU
64MB RAM

FAQ

If you cannot find the solution to your problem here, or need additional help playing the game, see the Notrium forum.
The game doesn't start. What's wrong?
-Make sure you have at least DirectX 8, and that you have a hardware 3D accelerator.
The game says that a DLL is missing or the game just generally complains about them.
-Make sure you have the latest DirectX and that all your drivers are in working order.
How do I tell you of a bug?
-See the Notrium forum at www.monkkonen.net and check if your bug has already been found. You can tell of the bug in there, or mail me.
-When you tell of a bug, list your: graphics adapter, operating system, DirectX version, memory, processor, game version, and most importantly tell me how to reproduce the bug. I get a lot of mails stating simply that the game doesn't work, please be more specific than that.

Mods & Modding

Notrium has been designed as a moddable game. All the content of the main game is just one mod, and you can find new mods on the Notrium homepage. After installing a mod you can choose to play it from the new game menu.

If you are interested in modding the game, we have an excellent community of modders at the forum to help you out. There are two main tools:

The map editor
The map editor ships with the game. It is a hidden feature, and you can activate it by editing the setup.dat file in the Notrium/data folder. Set the flag "create game initialization debug file" to 1, and you will see the map editor button appear in the new game menu within the game. You can find out the main keys of the editor by pressing F1.

Jan's File Viewer
Jan B÷cker is the author of a fine editor to help you work with the Notrium data files. You can find an up-to-date link at the Notrium homepage.

License

This software is provided "as is", without a warranty of any kind. In no event shall the authors be liable for any consequential, special, incidental or indirect damages of any kind arising out of the use of this software.

This game is freeware. You may make copies, and distribute this game freely, as long as the game is not modified in any way. You may distribute this game on magazine cover CDs, collections, and such.

This game is completely free, you don't have to pay anyone anything to be able to play it.

Credits & Contact

Design, Programming, graphics, that sort of thing: Ville Mönkkönen
In association with: Michael Quigley aka Quanrian
Music: Kush Diarra, http://www.fiyahangels.com
Psionic Tutorial: Sergio Enriquez aka Torment
Based on design by: Mikko Tikkanen
Editor collaboration: Jan B÷cker, Notrium File Viewer
Using Grim 2D graphics engine http://grim.10tons.org

Very special thanks to the beta testing crew from our forum:

Robbie BT aka ZeXLR8er!!
Sergio Enriquez aka Torment aka Casanova
Nick Atherley aka Eternal
Carl S. aka Click

Contact:
E-mail:ville@monkkonen.net
Please write in English (or Finnish). Feedback is always very welcome. (Please read the FAQ section before mailing a bug)

Homepage:www.monkkonen.net
These pages contain possible updates to the game, the game forum, and other games produced by me.

Mission Contents