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                                                     *                
  2005 - 2006, Version 1.01 manual
  By Mikko "Glowie" Karttunen

***************************************************************************
*** What is it? ***********************************************************
***************************************************************************

Frozen depths is a pretty traditional roguelike game with a cold theme.

The background story goes like this:

The world of Glacia has started to freeze all over. The surface people will perish,
should the temperature drop much lower. The high council of Glacia has selected you to go to 
the Frozen Depths of Glacia, find out the source of coldness and get rid of it. If you 
return to the surface, you'll be executed as a coward, if you die on the way, another 
poor one will be sent down, but if you succeed in your quest, you'll become a 
hero. Many have failed and many will fail... Now you're all alone in the Frozen 
Depths, will you make it?

For more information about the game (and roguelikes), search the web and
http://koti.mbnet.fi/frozend


***************************************************************************
*** How to start **********************************************************
***************************************************************************

If you are new to roguelikes and your mind isn't open for new things, you
should try another roguelike game with a longer manual first. This game
should be easy for new roguelikers but it requires a bit of patience and
willpower. But here are the basics of the game:

First you'll have to choose a race and a starting training. They are very
traditional, but I'll explain them nonetheless. The trainings and races
affect your stats and a little your hp/sp increase per level. Dwarves are
tough, but they don't have much stamina to perform special strikes. They
prefer melee weapons. Elves are the opposite. They have more energy, but
less health and they like ranged ways of killing. The humans are between
those two. Warriors start with melee proficiency, archers with a ranged
one. The rangers are a bit more flexible, they start with a bow and a
melee weapon. If I created a dual wielder, it would be a ranger. Your
starting skill depends on your training.

To attack a monster with a melee attack just try to walk to its tile.
If you want to shoot, find a bow and some arrows and press s. The shooting
is very simple, you can target anything within your sight range. Other
monsters can't block your arrows. Throwing is similar, but you'll have to
equip a thrown weapon and then press t.

Eventually you will level up. When this happens, you can train one attribute,
plus one randomly chosen extra attribute will increase too. Every three levels
you'll get a skill point, which can be used to learn a skill when you meet the
requirements. Your HP and SP will increase too when you level up.

Try to stay alive. Explore every level completely before moving on if you
don't have a really good reason to leave (you'll find good reasons to leave
before exploring some levels completely, too!)

Collect all items that you find useful. Equip new items and watch their
durability. Don't let the monsters surround you - and watch your warmth
status. If you start to freeze, go up, eat something warm or find a sage.
If your health is low and you're alone in a "warm" level, regenerate before
continuing. And when you're in a bad situation with a promising character,
think every possible option first. There's no rush; the game is turn based.

You can equip items by pressing e and use or drop items by pressing
i.

Note that weapons, clothes and pieces of armor have a durability. You might
want to have an extra weapon if your current one is about to break.

Clothes increase your natural warmth regeneration and your armor increases
your physical endurance. Clothes can't heat you over the "Warm" status.

Equipable items (except throwing weapons) have a blessed/cursed/uncursed
status. You can't take cursed items off and they're worse than blessed
and uncursed ones. Blessed ones are the best. A sage can uncurse your
cursed items. Equip an item to reveal the b/c/u status. Yellow text indicates
a blessed item, blue is an uncursed item and red means that the item has been cursed.

The sages offer various useful services to you, they are extremely
useful. The altars can be useful, but not necessary. If you sacrifice
enough, the Goddess will help you when you're having problems. To
sacrifice something, find an altar and press u. The u button works
with other dungeon features too.

The menus should be easy to use, always check the first line for help.

Check the commands carefully so you don't miss anything important.

You can use wands, potions and warm food (to increase your warmth)
from the inventory screen. Select the item you'd like to use and press u
in the inventory.

You can find various useful details from the player's info screen, button
@. For example the temperature there indicates your natural warmth regeneration
compared to the depth. If it's ---, you're losing warmth, if it's ===, you don't
lose or gain warmth and if it's +++, you gain warmth every turn.

This should keep you alive long enough for you to learn everything you
need.

When you die (yes, you WILL die) you'll see your identified inventory and
some other info about your character before you leave it for good. If you
scored enough points, you'll get to the Hall of Fame. Also, a mortem file
will be generated to the Mortems folder. You can later look at the (a bit
more specific) stats of your character's life and death. The mortem
will be overwritten if you create a character with the old character's
name and it dies.


***************************************************************************
*** Commands **************************************************************
***************************************************************************

Press ? in-game to check commands quickly.

These are the default commands. You can change them by changing the keybindings.txt
file.

Movement: Numpad (NUMLOCK MUST BE ON!) or if you really have to, you can use
arrow keys too.

> Descend stairs when you are on them
< Ascend stairs when you are on them
Q Quits the game. Notice that you won't see the post-mortem if you use this
, Pick up something from the ground
i Opens the inventory, from which you can drop and use various items
e Opens the equipment screen, where you can naturally equip things
s Shoots with an equipped bow. You need arrows to use this
c Chats with a sage when one is next to you
S Swaps main hand weapon quickly
w Run to a direction or wait 50 turns if you press 5 (rest) afterwards. Press space while moving to stop
O Switches the warning sound when hp is low on/off. It is on by default
l Look around you. You can see trap names, monster's health and everything on a tile
t Throws something if you have equipped a thrown weapon
_ Pray. Don't bother if you haven't sacrificed anything. This doesn't do anything bad, though
L Opens the skill menu, where you can learn new skills when you have enough stats
u Uses a dungeon feature. Check below for the dungeon feature symbols
k Opens the skill menu, where you can use skills that you know
G Saves the game. The name will be the characters name
m Opens the message buffer where you can read the previous messages
@ Opens an info screen about the player and his stats
T Changes fighting styles


***************************************************************************
*** Definitions ***********************************************************
***************************************************************************

Status ailments (shown on the bottom line of stats bar)
    Par = Paralyze (You can't do anything)
    Sle = Sleep    (You'll wake up when something hits you)
    Con = Confused (You'll wander around aimlessly)
    Sic = Sickness (Damage over time)
    Fev = Fever    (Decreases carry capacity and shows warmth always as 'Warm')
    Ble = Bleeding (Damage over time)
    Poi = Poisoned (Damage over time)
    Burd = Burdened (Decreases speed, dodge and chance to hit)


Body temperatures (shown on the bottom line of stats bar)
     Freezing
     Cold
     Cool
     -
     Warm
     Hot
     Boiling


Strength:
    Affects your melee damage and carry capacity
Vitality:
    Affects your hit point increase per level and hp regeneration rate
Dexterity:
    Affects your ranged damage and miss rate
Agility:
    Affects your dodge, speed, natural armor and critical strike chance
Stamina:
    Affects your energy (special) point increase per level and sp regeneration rate


Dungeon symbols
    . = Open space
    # = Wall
    > = Stairs down
    < = Stairs up
    ' = Iceblock, you have to kick these down
    ^ = Trap

    ~ = Abandoned campfire
    - = Shrine (of a shrine spirit)
    _ = Altar (of the Goddess)
    : = Snowman
    + = Icemirror
    ? = Scroll
    | = A lootable corpse

    Yellow @ = Sage
    A-Z, a-z = monsters

    ! = Potion
    % = Warm food
    / = Ammunition
    " = Amulet
    = = Ring
    ] = Piece of armor
    [ = Piece of cloth
    ( = Melee weapon
    ) = Ranged weapon
    * = Something valuable
    \ = Wand


The game screen
	It should be pretty easy to understand. HP is your health, SP represents
	your energy and then there are the stats. If your, for example, agility
	is purple, it means that it has been temporarily buffed up. You can see
	the unbuffed agility using the @ screen. Next there is the amount of turns
	you've played. After that you can see how many arrows you have left, DL is
	dungeon level, CL is character level and the $ is of course your money.
	Xp % shows your progress to the next level.

	Above these you can read the important messages that your actions
	will generate. The dungeon uses up the rest of the screen.

	Status ailments and the body temperature is shown on the bottom line.


***************************************************************************
*** Special skills ********************************************************
***************************************************************************

You can learn new special skills when you meet all the requirements. Those
consist of stat requirements, a level requirement, plus you need a skill point.
You can check the requirements for each skill in the skill menu (L).


Multistrike
	Hits all monsters around you. (Range: one tile)

Multishot
	Shoots all monsters that you can see.

Critical strike and critical shot
	Your next swing has an increased critical hit chance.

Double strike and double shot
	You'll hit your next target twice.

Brutal strike and brutal shot
	Increases the damage of your next normal attack.

Crimson strike and crimson shot
	You'll lose 1/3 of your current hit points and that will be added
	to the damage of your next swing.

Accurate strike and accurate shot
	Your next swing has an increased chance to hit.

Penetrating strike and penetrating shot
	Damages all monsters in one direction. (Range: 4 tiles)

Piercing strike and piercing shot
	Your next target's armor is reduced. (Duration: one turn)

Vampiric strike and vampiric shot
	Your next hit leeches some life from the victim.

Dash
	You can move two tiles in one turn if there's nothing blocking your
	movement.

Yell
	Your yell releases frozen stalactites from the ceiling which can block
	corridors. Cannot hit monsters or you. Also wakes up the monsters.

Knockback
	Knocks the enemy back three tiles from your direction if there's nothing
	blocking the space behind it. Note that the monster rushes back to you quickly.

Create snowballs
	Creates snowballs, which you can use as a throwing weapon. It reduces
	your warmth a bit. Only usable in the snowy levels.

Wild regeneration
	Heals over time using your SP. It is cancelled when your SP hits 0 or
	you use another skill.

Listen
	You might catch some monstrous sounds and locate them in the dungeon,
	but this skill isn't 100% accurate.

Destroy walls
	You are able to destroy walls and thus explore some levels faster.

Inhuman reflexes
	You have an increased chance to dodge the next harmful attack.

Warrior's strength
	Temporarily increases your strength. The amount depends on your SP and level.
	Warriors start with this one.

Archer's dexterity
	Temporarily increases your dexterity. The amount depends on your SP and level.
	Archers start with this one.

Ranger's agility
	Temporarily increases your agility. The amount depends on your SP and level.
	Rangers start with this one.

Disarm traps
	Disarms all visible traps near you. (Range: one tile)



***************************************************************************
*** Other useful info *****************************************************
***************************************************************************

-Missiles don't weigh and their value is 0.

-The Goddess requires more gifts deeper in the dungeon if you want to pray.

-If you wield two weapons, your miss rate will be increased.

-Blessed items are better than uncursed ones (rings and amulets are an exception).

-If you have fever, you can carry less weight than normally.

-Space quits the run mode during the movement (command w).

-You can only have one special skill coming up (if the skill doesn't occur instantly).

-The skills advance as you advance.

-The base power you can see in inventory does not include prefixes or BCU statuses.

-Ice is slippery.

-All of the bosses have one increased, extra high stat.

-If the monsters seem to be too hard and you're soon going to level up, camp for a second.

-The player's color is randomly selected, there is no secret behind it.

-Resting increases your regeneration rate (default key 5).

-You can identify potions and wands by using them, but that doesn't work with accessories.

-You can't wear two similar rings.

-Burdened state slows your movement and decreases your dodge and chance to hit.

-The right resolution for the game is 80x25 tiles.

-You need skill points to learn skills. You gain one point per 3 character levels.

-ESC and z commands are usually the same in menus.

-Windows users should use the fullscreen mode (ALT+ENTER)

-If your body temperature drops a lot, your movements and regeneration rate will
 get slower.

-Patience is a virtue.

-The @ screen's armor and weapon values take into account the weapon/shield skills.

-You can change the delay of the quick move command so it works perfectly on your computer.
 Open the Keybindings.txt and change the first number.

-Wands and potions draw the base power from the character and are thus useful
 in all dungeon levels.

-Some Windows' versions (XP) don't use the pretty colors. If those users
 want to waste half a minute of their time to enhance the play experience, point
 the shortcut to the right .exe and folder.

-The fighting styles can save your life when used properly in a tough situation.
 Aggressive increases your damage, but lowers a bit your armor. Defensive does the
 exact opposite. Accurate style increases your chance to hit, but lowers your speed,
 which can be increased by the fast fighting style at the cost of chance to hit.

***************************************************************************
*** The end ***************************************************************
***************************************************************************

Feedback:

Please send me feedback. If you don't like the game, you may also tell me why that is.
Feedback is very important, because I can't find all the bugs and make up all the cool
ideas alone. Feedback is the most important thing when it comes to improving the game.
You may also ask me questions if you're wondering "What is that?" or "How does this
work?".

drizzt_888@hotmail.com is my e-mail address, which can be used with
MSN Messenger too. You can find me on IRC, QuakeNet, the name is Glowie.
And you can use the contact page on the website.


Credits:

I created this game alone, but I thank all those who have helped me in any way.
I won't list every single one of them, because that would eat your poor computer's
HDD.


Disclaimer:

This game is a freeware game, blah blah blah, and I won't give you any money if it eats
your computer. Though you can report it as a bug.































The end.