PC Gamer (Italian) 30/PC Gamer IT CD 30 2-2.iso/galapg/README.TXT

Text File | 1997-08-25 | 13KB | 269 lines

GALAPAGOS DEMO

Welcome to the Galapagos demo.

This demo will give you a chance to experience a completely new game concept.
It contains 2 play sections that provide just a small taste of the full retail
version.

Galapagos combines intricate puzzles, beautiful worlds, and revolutionary
technology to create a phenomenal game. In five stunning and labyrinthine
worlds, Mendel relies on you to adapt and survive. You must manipulate the
environment to solve puzzles and coax Mendel through hostile, fantastic,
mind-bending worlds. Test your reflexes and your mind as you and Mendel journey
through the diverse landscapes of Galapagos.

Key Features

*  First game character with a mind of his own
*  Advanced adaptive controller technology NERM(tm)
*  Hostile environments with mind-blowing puzzles
*  Real-time 3-D textured, continuous-motion graphics
*  Active-panning 3-D stereo sound
*  Direct3D-compatible hardware acceleration
*  Addictive, non-sequential gameplay

Minimum System Requirements

Windows 95
90 MHz Pentium
16MB RAM
DirectX 5 compatible sound card
DirectX 5 compatible video card with 640X480, 256 colors
2x CD-ROM Drive
10 MB hard-drive space
Mouse

Installation

To manually start the installer, run Setup.exe in the Galapagos folder of the
CD.  The installer will setup a directory called "Galapagos" on your hard disk
with files to run the program.

The installer will run Microsoft's DirectX 5 installer to configure your
machine.  This is the most recent version of DirectX available at the time of
this demo and is required to run the Galapagos Demo.

Playing the Game

The one thing that separates Galapagos from other video games is Mendel╨he is a
truly autonomous creature. You can't control him, you can only help him. If you
coax Mendel safely from one sector to another, he eventually becomes more
confident and assertive. If you repeatedly fail, Mendel shatters and
regenerates, gradually becoming more neurotic and cagey.

To assist Mendel along his escape route, you must properly manipulate certain
game elements that exist in his environment.  Experiment by clicking on objects
to discover which elements you can affect, and then figure out how to use them
to Mendel's advantage.

*  To activate/deactivate an element, click it. Study the response and use the
element in Mendel's favor.
*  You may touch Mendel by clicking on him with the right mouse button in the
Windows version, or the mouse     button with a key modifier in the Macintosh
version.  Use this to help coax Mendel when you are trying to make it through a
tricky play section.  Clicking on Mendel is side specific - clicking on his left
side is different than than clicking on his right side.  This is not required
for game play, but it can be useful.
*  To access menus and game options, press [Esc] at any time.

Time Score

The Time screen appears after Mendel passes from one world to another through a
dimensional gate.  It displays the Time spent in the level and the Total time
spent in the game.

Save Pad Dialog

The Save Pad Dialog  allows you to save a game in progress. It can only be
accessed by clicking on a Save Pad (Blue, shimmering floor panel) while Mendel
is walking on it.  When Mendel's body is destroyed and regenerates after saving
a game, he will appear on the last save pad , all of the game elements will be
restored to their saved conditions.  Everything will be exactly as it was when
the game was saved except for Mendel's brain - his brain is not restored unless
you OPEN the saved game.  This allows Mendel to learn from his mistakes.  If
his mind were to "forget" everything that happened every time his body was
destroyed, he wouldn't be able to learn from his experiences.

To save your game:
1.  Click a Save Pad while Mendel is walking on it. The Save Pad dialog
appears.
2.  Click in the Save As box and type a name for your game.
3.  Click SAVE to complete the process or CANCEL to exit. The game returns.

Pause Game Menu

The Pause Game Menu allows you to: start a new game, open a saved game, import
and export a Mendel's NERM controllers, set game preferences, or quit the game.

*  To access the Pause Game Menu at any time, press esc.
*  To access game options, use the File pull-down menu.
*  To access Preferences, use the Edit pull-down menu.
*  To resume game play, press esc.

File Pull-down Menu

New

Start a new game with a new Mendel.  The age of the new Mendel will be
determined by the setting in the Preferences dialog.

Open

Open a saved game.
To open a game:
1.  Click Open from the File pull-down menu. A list of saved games appears.
2.  Click the saved game you want then click OPEN. Your saved game is loaded.

Import Mendel NERM
Import a previously saved NERM (Mendel's brain) directly into your current
Mendel in your current game.
To import a Mendel NERM:
1.  Click Import Mendel NERM from the File pull-down menu. A list of saved
NERMs appears.
2.  Click the NERM you want, then click OPEN. Your saved NERM is loaded into
your current game in progress.
Export Mendel NERM
Save the current NERM for use at any time during later games.

Export Mendel NERM
To export a Mendel NERM:
1.  Click Export Mendel NERM from the File pull-down menu. The default
Galapagos data folder is opened.
2.  Click in the Save Game As box and type a name for your Mendel NERM.
3.  Click SAVE and your NERM is saved.

Quit

Exit Galapagos.
*  To exit Galapagos, click Quit then click OK at the confirmation prompt.

Edit Pull-down Menu
*  To access the Preferences Menu, select Preferences from the Edit pull-down
menu. The Preferences screen appears.

What is Galapagos?

Galapagos is a new game that uses an advanced form of artificial life
technology called Non-Stationary Entropic Reduction Mapping . This is the first
game with a character that literally has a mind of its own. Mendel is an
artificial organism with the ability to learn, adapt, and interact with his
environment and the user.

You must help Mendel escape from the beautiful, but hazardous 3-D
texture-mapped worlds found in Galapagos. There are many dangerous and
challenging obstacles that will bar Mendel's way and often threaten his
survival. You have to work together to solve the puzzles found in each world to
successfully escape from Galapagos.

How do I play Galapagos?

Galapagos is a single player game with a third person perspective. You view the
worlds of Galapagos through the eyes of a camera. As Mendel moves through the
world, the camera follows with sweeping, cinematic movement. This virtual
tether between the camera and Mendel creates a dependency upon Mendel's
movement through the world.

In order to progress through the strange and exciting worlds found in
Galapagos, you must activate objects near Mendel by clicking on them, affecting
his environment in different ways. By doing so, you can coax Mendel in the
right direction and solve the many puzzles that lie in his path. Of course,
Mendel is an independent thinker and may have other ideas.

What is Mendel?

Mendel is a completely synthetic organism with the ability to detect infrared
radiation and tactile stimulus. He sees much like a bat, by emitting infrared
pulses and measuring the strength of the returning signal. His senses are less
acute than a living organism--though he adapts and learns much faster. Mendel
will adapt to his environment without your intervention or assistance.

How should I care for Mendel?

Mendel is autonomous and should require no interaction from you to adapt to his
environment.  However, you can expose him to some very hostile environments,
some of which will retard his development.  For example, leaving Mendel in an
area where he can be harmed over and over, specifically in areas where he is
physically incapable of escaping the danger by himself, can lead to a neurotic
Mendel.  Fortunately, because of Mendel's adaptive brain, such damage is not
necessarily permanent.  If you can deliver Mendel to a safe, stimulating
environment, he will re-adapt with very few long term side effects.

What is artificial life?

Artificial life is a field of scientific research that attempts to reproduce or
model the complex behaviors and forms found in natural systems. A coral reef is
a fantastically complex system on all scales, macroscopic and microscopic. What
does it mean to say that a system is complex? Complexity refers to
relationships, or correlations, that exist across remote portions of a system.
For example, the existence of a certain type of rain forest plant might have
some distant "effect" on the form and color of a particular coral.
Collectively, these types of relationships "cause" the very form of a coral
reef.

Complex systems are best described in terms of complexity theory, a relatively
new, unified way of looking at seemingly unrelated fields of research. It is an
unusual mixture of probability theory, information theory, and non-linear
dynamical systems. By understanding complexity theory, one can form models for
understanding things as different as human language, an ecosystem, or the
technology that allows Mendel to learn.

What is Non-stationary Entropic Reduction Mapping?

Galapagos uses an advanced form of technology called Non-stationary Entropic
Reduction Mapping (NERM) developed exclusively by Anark. This technology serves
as the "brain" of Mendel. It allows Mendel to learn, adapt, and react much like
a living organism.  NERM is a special form of controller technology. A
controller is a device that accepts inputs and produces an output.
The NERM controllers contained inside Mendel accept inputs from his sensors and
produce outputs that are translated into behavior or action. For example, when
Mendel is walking along and sees an obstacle in his path, he may turn to avoid
hitting it.  Controllers are found in a variety of household appliances,
automobiles, and consumer products.

For example, modern automobile engines have a computer that controls the flow
of gasoline. When you depress the gas pedal, the computer receives an input
that describes how far it is depressed. Additional inputs from the engine
describe the oxygen level, temperature, and other important characteristics.
Based upon all of these inputs, the computer produces an output that tells the
fuel injectors in your engine to release fuel at a specific rate.

Normally, controllers such as these are created or programmed by engineers
based on an exacting model, or mathematical description, of the system that
they are trying to control. A NERM controller is self organizing; it does not
require prior knowledge about the system that it will control. All that is
required is a special type of feedback from the system. As the controller is
used, it will organize itself. This is how Mendel learns.

How does NERM compare to other forms of technology such as artificial
intelligence?

NERM technology is very different from traditional artificial intelligence. In
general, artificial intelligence requires a very detailed understanding of the
system that it will control or simulate. This is quite problematic; it may be
difficult or even impossible to understand relatively complex systems without
significantly reducing or simplifying the problem, specifically if the behavior
of the system changes through time.  Unfortunately, the simplification of the
problem may lead to an invalid or incomplete understanding of the structure or
behavior of the system.

NERM approaches this problem from a completely different direction. A NERM
controller is a complex system unto itself. It was designed to change its
internal form to accommodate the subtle and not-so-subtle nuances of its
environment. If its environment changes through time, the NERM controller will
reorganize accordingly. This characteristic allows Mendel to adapt to a variety
of local "habitats".

NERM offers significant advantages over other adaptive, controller-oriented
technologies. It allows controllers to emerge that may produce multiple
outputs, or solutions, for the same input. For example, NERM allows Mendel to
express many different behaviors though he is receiving the same stimulus. In
general, NERM has the flexibility to create input to output relationships of a
form that are impossible with other technologies.

How to buy Galapagos?

Galapagos will be available through software retailers, or call Electronic Arts
at 1-800-245-4525.