Your Guide to the Dreamweb


CREDITS

Director:
Neil Dodwell

Artist:
David Dew

Music:
Matt Seldon

Cast:

Narrator/Ryan:
Martin Sherman

Sparky:
Patrick Kelly

Louis King:
Dee Graham

Silverman:
John Haines

Eden:
Nikki Robinson

Diane Underwood:
Rena Kaye

Keeper:
Tony Dilon

Voice of Fate:
Carol Nudds

Other parts played by members of the cast
Recorded at Videosonix Ltd. Sound Studio, Camden, London
Post-production by Reflex Interactive

Technical:

Producer:
Patrick Kelly

Chief Sound Engineer:
Paul Harris

Asst. Sound Engineer:
Matt Grime

Sound Director:
Rik Yapp

Sound Sample Driver:
Creative Reality

Sound Assistant:
Matt Seldon

Concept and Design:
Creative Reality

Created by
Neil Dodwell

Graphics and Effects:
David Dew

Music and Effects:
Matt Seldon

Props. designed by
Stephen Marley

Props. Production:
Paul Oglesby

Sound Conversion:
Reflex Interactive

Guides written by
Neil Dodwell and Rik Yapp

Script Co-ordinator:
Barry Tuck

Best Boy:
Chad Schofield

Key Grip:
Steve Lamb

Creative Reality represented by Jacqui Lyons

Produced by Rik Yapp and Creative Reality

(C) 1994 Creative Reality
Published by Empire Interactive Entertainment


INTRODUCTION

In your dreams you travel to the Dreamweb. Everyone does. The plane of
subconsciousness affects your life every day. It controls the very heart of
civilisation itself. This web is controlled by seven people who each contain
the power of a node within the web. The characteristics of these people imbue
the web, and hence the World, with their own strengths and weaknesses. As one
of the nodes dies it is transferred to another human, and so the forces
within the web fluctuate as the nodes attain differing aspects.

But all this is about to be shattered. The forces of evil have understood the
power of the web, and now all seven nodes are controlled by evil people. The
web itself is about to be overrun and destined to remain evil. Forever!

Only one person can stop this terrible catastrophe. The chosen one. Ryan.
YOU!

You have been summoned by the keepers of the Web. You must destroy the
controllers of all seven nodes to allow the Web to regenerate and thus
restore the equilibrium. The fate of civilisation rests in your hand.

To aid you in this most difficult mission, Ryan's diary 'The Diary of a
(Mad?) Man' has been faithfully reproduced. Read the diary carefully, it will
help you in your quest.

Good luck.


INSTALLATION AND START

ATTENTION: This chapter is only relevant if you intent to play using an old
computer system.

IBM PC & COMPATIBLES

System requirements
To play Dreamweb you will require:
- 20 MB free hard disk space
- 3 MB of extended or expanded memory
  (if sound is required)
- 580 KB of free base memory
- a mouse.

The use of a Sound Blaster or compatible card is recommended.

Note: To use expanded memory you must use an expanded memory manager such as
EMM386 or QEMM. Refer to your DOS manual for details.

Installing Dreamweb
Boot up your computer and then insert the Disk (Disk 1 for floppy disk
version) in any drive. Now type the drive letter followed by a colon. (e.g.
if you put the disk in drive A then type A: )

Type INSTALL and then press ENTER, the installation procedure will now start.

The installation program will ask you which drive you wish to install
Dreamweb on. The default is to drive C: in a directory called DREAMWEB, but
you can change this if you wish.

To hear the sound in the game you must select the Sound Blaster option. The
music and sound effects are all sampled and require a Sound Blaster
compatible card. Follow the on-screen prompts.

Once you have answered all the questions, the installation will commence. If
you are installing the floppy disk version, insert the numbered disks when
the program requests them.

Once installation is complete you may start playing the game.

Starting Dreamweb
Once installation is complete you may start the game by typing:

C:            (assuming that the game was installed on the C drive)
CD DREAMWEB   (assuming the installation directory was called DREAMWEB)
DREAMWEB

Changing the Sound Options
Once the game has been installed you may change the sound options by running
the game using the following commands:

DREAMWEB /i5   to run with Sound Blaster on interrupt 5
DREAMWEB /i7   to run with Sound Blaster on interrupt 7
DREAMWEB /n    to run with no sound

CD-ROM VERSION
The CD-ROM version of Dreamweb has been designed to run directly from CD
without any hard-disk installation. The game however will need to write to
the hard-disk to store temporary files. These files will be placed in a
default directory on your C: drive called DREAMWEB. (If any further technical
details become available, they will be included on a CD-ROM addendum card in
the pack.)

COMMODORE AMIGA
The Amiga version of the game requires 1 MB of memory to run.

The game will autoboot from Disk 1. Simply turn on the computer and insert
disk 1 in the disk drive.

If you wish to install the game to hard-drive then insert the last disk
(Disk 3) in the drive and the installation program will autoboot. Follow the
on-screen instructions.

COMMODORE AMIGA 1200
The game will autoboot from Disk 1. Simply turn on the computer and insert
disk 1 in the disk drive.

If you wish to install the game to hard-drive then insert the last disk
(Disk 4) in the drive and the installation program will autoboot. Follow the
on-screen instructions.


GETTING STARTED

The Diary of a (Mad?) Man
Ryan's diary contains important information you will need during the game. On
the final page, Ryan has noted down some things to remember. We strongly
advise that you read the Diary fully before entering the Dreamweb.

Playing Dreamweb for the first time
If you are playing Dreamweb for the first time, or if you have previously
played the game without saving your position, you will see the game
introduction first. This may be skipped at any time by pressing the ESC key.
The introduction is followed by the credits. Again, these may be skipped with
ESC.

Playing Dreamweb from a saved position
If Dreamweb finds previous saved positions on the disk it will give you the
option to play from a saved position, start the game from the beginning
(including the introduction), or to exit to DOS. Click with the left mouse
button when the pointer is over your chosen option.

If you decide to load a saved position you will be presented with a list of
saved games. Highlight the one you wish to load and click on LOAD. Your saved
game will be restored and you can continue playing Dreamweb from where you
left off.


THE GAME INTERFACE

THE MAIN GAME SCREEN AND INVENTORY
Once the game has started you will be presented with a screen laid out as
shown below:

      |DDDDDDDDDDDDD|---------------------------------|     O |---|      
      |DDDDDDDDDDDDD|                                 |    /  |   |      
      |DDDDDD/      /   LOCATION:                     |    _  |   |      
4-------------- O  /    EDEN'S BEDROOM                |   /_/ |   |      
      |DD\C        \----------------------------------\_______/---|      
      |DDDD\       _|             _________________               |      
      |DDDDD|    --\             |      ______     |              |      
      |     \___   |             |     |      |    |              |      
      |      \  \__|             |     |   O  | ------------------------1
      |       \/\                |     O      |    |              |      
      |           \              |     |  \ / \    |              |      
5----------        /             | D   |___o__|    |              |      
      |  _________/              |        / \      |              |      
      | /     /   \              |                 |              |      
2----------  /    |              |       ____      |              |      
      | |\   O\   |              |   \  |____|_  o |              |      
      | |/     |  |              |   |\|_______|   |              |      
      | |_________|              |_________________|              |      
3-------  Walk to Bed                                             |      
      |___________________________________________________________|      

The main part of the screen is the map area (1) which shows an overhead view
of your character within a room.
The zoom box (2) shows a magnified view of what is under the mouse pointer.
As you guide the pointer around the screen the status line (3) tells you what
will happen if you click the left mouse button. You may do the following:

Walk to
an object. Your character can only examine objects that he is reasonably
close to. If he is too far away, click on the object to walk to it. It will
then be examinable. You can also walk to exits on the map when a blue arrow
appears over the mouse pointer. This allows you to move from room to room or
leave a location.

Examine
an object on the screen. Clicking on an object will bring up a description of
the object. From here you may Open or Use an object or, if it has a picture,
click on it to pick it up. If you open the object or pick it up you will be
taken to the inventory screen. See Open Inventory section below.

Talk to
a person on the screen. When you talk to someone you will see a description
of them followed by a conversation (spoken on CD-ROM version). Click the
mouse button to skip to the next piece of speech. To repeat the entire
conversation, click on the icon of the person at the top of the talk screen.
You may return to the map at any time using the EXIT icon. Talking to people
may provide vital clues or help in solving a puzzle.

Look around
the current location. The name of your current location is shown at the top
of the screen. Clicking on Ryan's eye (4) brings up a short description of
your character's surroundings.

Zoom control:
This switches the zoom box (2) on and off.

Disk options:
Allows you to save, load or exit to DOS (see below).

Open inventory:
Clicking on Ryan's coat (5) takes you to your inventory screen. This shows
ten spaces for objects in your inventory at a time. There are three inventory
pages, selectable by clicking on the page numbers at the top right of the
inventory. If an object has been opened its contents will be shown below
Ryan's inventory.

Objects may be moved around in the inventory or placed into open objects by
clicking on the object using the left mouse button. The pointer will 'grab'
the object. It can then be placed in any free space, swapped with another
item, or dropped by placing it over the bin at the top of the screen and
clicking.

To examine an object in Ryan's inventory or an open object, click on it with
the right mouse button.

To leave the inventory click on the EXIT icon in the bottom right of the
screen.

Note: Large objects will not fit inside smaller ones and some objects will
only allow certain objects to be placed inside them. E.g. A CD player can
only have CD's placed inside it.

Use with
allows one object to act upon another. If you examine an object on the map
and use it, you may be taken to the inventory screen and asked 'use with.... ?'
Click on any item in Ryan's inventory to use them together. E.g. Examine card
reader and use it with the cashcard.

THE TRAVEL SCREEN
When you leave a location (such as walking off the left of the screen outside
Eden's house) you will be taken to the travel screen. Over the cityscape
appears a travel picture that shows a place you can travel to, with the name
of the place at the top of the screen. By clicking on the two arrows either
side of the name you can select different locations. To travel to a place
click on its travel picture at the bottom of the screen.
To find out more information about a place before you travel, click on the
information icon (the notepaper in the top right of the screen). If you
decide you do not want to travel, click on the EXIT icon and you will return
to the map of the current location.

SAVING AND RESTORING YOUR GAME
Selecting disk options takes you to a screen that allow you to exit to DOS,
carry out disk operations, or return to the game. If you select disk
operations you will be presented with save and load icons.

When saving a game click on a free slot or a file that has been used that you
wish to overwrite. Then type the name of your save game. Click on the disk
icon to save the game.

When loading a game just click on the file you wish to load and then click on
the disk icon.


THE NETWORK MONITOR

STARTING THE NETWORK
In a few locations you will find a Network screen. The Network is a cranky
and ancient information system still used by most people because it doesn't
cost much to use. Using the Network you can read current news and weather
reports and examine Network Cartridges using an interface. If a cartridge is
placed inside a Network Interface its contents are readable on the Network.
Examine and use the monitor itself, not the keyboard or interface, to access
the Network.

NETWORK COMMANDS
There are a few basic commands to read files on the Network. Each file is
broken down into topics and some files may be password protected. These
commands are:

LIST: Used on its own this lists all files on the system including files on
any cartridge being used. Once you have a list of files you may type LIST
plus a file name to bring up a list of all topics in that file.

READ: Having obtained a list of topics this command will display all the text
within a topic.

LOGON: Any password protected file requires a key before it is readable. You
obtain keys by entering passwords. For example, Ryan's key is RYAN. To read
any file protected by this key type LOGON RYAN. You will then be asked for a
password. You can log on to any key on any Network machine provided you know
the password.

KEYS: This lists all keys that you have successfully logged on to.

HELP: Displays help information.

EXIT: Disconnects the Network and returns you to the game.

When reading text you can stop it from scrolling by hitting the space bar.
Hit it again to continue reading. The Network may help you find important
information during the game.
