The Lost TribeȘ Copyright © 1992 Lawrence Productions Inc. This file contains information to streamline the use of The Lost Tribe on the Apple IIGS Computer. It is somewhat verbose but does attempt to cover most of the common questions regarding The Lost Tribe. Please read the Introduction, Features and Errors sections. In the interest of brevity the hardware section is segmented to match different situations, (floppy disk users, harddrive users and AppleShare). Introduction: The Lost Tribe was originally designed for the IBM PC (MCGA) and the Macintosh. Since an IBM is not guaranteed to have a mouse and has other "peculiarities," most of the explanation in the manual is devoted to IBM users. Like the Mac, the IIGS version uses the Apple Interface and thus is familar to most of the Apple II community. This document is intended to fill in the gaps by explaining features that are not self-evident from the design or were implemented after the manual was printed. At this time you are encouraged to read the sections of the manual, "Introduction" (page 3) and "How To Play" (pages 9-16). The design of an interface can simplify the "how to" aspect of a program but cannot explain the background ideas or goals necessary to win a game, (e.g. The goal of a word processor is self-evident -- to write a document; the goal of a game much less so.) Reading the manual provides the "whys" and "wherefores." One caveat is needed here. The manual's subtopic, "A Sample Turn," is informative but its description of Hunting and Practicing uses the IBM model for choosing tribe members. IIGS users need only click directly on the Hunter/Gatherer figures on the cavewall to select them. Features: Menus: Here are short descriptions of your menu choices. Apple Menu: About Tribe... (Gives version and credits) File Menu: New Game... (Starts a game. Lets you select a route) Open (Allows loading of previously saved games) Close (Not used. Needed to support NDA's) Save (Use to save your game for later play) Save As... (Like 'Save' but you specify a file name) Edit Menu: (Not used. Needed to support NDA's) Special: Show High Scores (Gives list of top six scores in your current scenario/route) Preferences (Allows you to set the border color [black|brown], enable simple access to VideoKeyboard & set the music volume) A Little Help: During play of the game, you may obtain a brief explanation of the symbols on any of the rock buttons on The Lost Tribe screen. Simply hold down the Option key while clicking on a button. A short explanation of that button will appear on the text rock at the bottom of the screen. To resume play click a second time. Help is also available for the Status Rock and Current Hex Rock. Anytime music is playing, (eg. the overture or during an animation), you may click the mouse button to stop both the music and the animation. Strange but true happenings: The Lost Tribe uses multi-palette pictures, (ie. lots of colors). This notion is contrary to what the IIGS system regards as a "standard" palette. This can cause some colorful, but harmless features. The Control Panels desk accessory is one such example. In this case the Control Panel may force an Apple standard palette causing the parts of The Lost Tribe still visible to be in strange colors. Not to worry, the colors are restored when you exit the Control Panel. If you are running under System 6.0 you'll note that dialogs, (used for Preference settings and such), may blank out the area behind them. Again this is not a problem, the screen is restored when the dialog closes. Just a quick finishing note. The About box looks better when the Geneva.10 font is in your "Fonts" folder. This font is standard under 5.0.4 and might only be absent with System 6.0 floppy-based systems. For Video Keyboard users only: The Lost Tribe is considered 'incompatable' w/ the Video Keyboard. Recognizing this fact, a partial, but hopefully adequate workaround is available for the two occurances that keyboard entry is required, (these occurances are: entering filenames for saved games or a name for the highscore list). To make use of the Video Keyboard keep it closed when starting The Lost Tribe, then open the "Special" menu and choose "Preferences". A dialog will appear that includes a check box for "Use Video Keyboard". Make sure the box is checked then click "Save". (Note: the check box will be dimmed if the Video Keyboard is not installed.) Now when The Lost Tribe needs keyboard input it will automatically open the keyboard for you. Input the desired filename, (or your name for highscore) and close the keyboard before clicking "Save" or "OK". _______________________________ Errors: Aside from the common and easily fixed problems (ie. non-fatal errors such as "Disk full", "Write Protected", etc.), The Lost Tribe can fail for two major reasons: 1) Lack of memory, and 2) inability to find its data files. If you get an out-of-memory error, try reducing your RAM disk size and/or inactivating some of your Desk Accessories. The inability of the program to find its data is, fortunately, a controllable situation. By following the installation guidelines you should have no problems. If problems do crop up, remember these two general rules: 1) If running from floppies, the disks MUST be called: The.Lost.Tribe The.Lost.Tribe2 and The.Lost.Tribe3 This includes any copies that you make for archive purposes. (If you make copies with the Finder you'll have to rename the copies when you finish since the Finder will not copy the disk name exactly.) 2) If the files are on a mass storage device (harddrive/AppleShare volume), all files from the disks should be copied across to the same directory level (i.e., put them all in the same folder). Music Errors: You may receive the error, "Could not find Tool035," when you start up. This is not a fatal error (click 'OK' to continue), but for the music to function, Tool035 (Midi Synth), must be located in the Tools folder on your boot device, (floppy disk, harddrive or AppleShare volume depending on your situation). A copy of Tool035 is included on disk 3. Copy this file to the Tools folder on your boot device. For floppy users there may not be enough room on your boot disk to hold the extra tool, (the reason its absence was made a non-fatal error). If you haven't the room but would like to be set up for music output do the following: 1) Make a copy of your boot disk. 2) On your copy only, remove the files Basic.System and P8 (located in the System folder). 3) Copy the file Tool035 from The.Lost.Tribe3 to the Tools folder (located in the System folder) of your boot disk. Note: These steps will inhibit running ProDOS 8 programs from this boot disk. ________________________________ Running The Lost Tribe from floppy drives: During the development of The Lost Tribe, great emphasis was placed on allowing a user to run (and enjoy) the program on a floppy based system. Steps were taken to accommodate three different configurations: 1) Single 3.5" floppy drive with less than 2 MB of memory 2) Single 3.5" floppy drive with 2 MB or more of memory 3) Two or more 3.5" floppy drives The goal was to reduce the number of disk swaps to a minimum. User considerations for each setup are covered below. 1) [1 drive, < 2MB]. The sad truth here is that there is more than 2 MBs of program data and no place to put it. But don't despair, the disks are configured so that the data needed to run 75% of the game are included on disk 1. You will be required to swap disks only when a Random Event occurs or when you want to view the Survival Guide. 2) [1 drive, >= 2MB]. With this setup, provided the extra memory is not devoted to a large Ram disk or Desk Accessories, the program will detect the extra space and ask if you would like to preload the Random Event data. This means that you will need to swap disks only to view the Survival Guide. 3) [2 drives]. It is best to keep Disk 1 in drive 1 and swap disks 2 and 3 out of drive two as necessary. Note that if you have > 2 MB of memory, as in setup 2 above, you could preload the Random Event data, then place disk 3 in drive two and not have to swap any disks at all. Note: Ram prices are very low now-a-days. At the time of this writing a 4 MB card for the IIGS retails for < $150. ______________________________ Harddrive Usage: To install: 1) Create an empty folder on your harddrive. (Open-Apple-N in the Finder will do this). You can name it anything, but the icons work best if you name it The.Lost.Tribe and place it in the root level (i.e., topmost or first window visible after clicking open a drive). 2) Insert Disk 1, "The.Lost.Tribe," into your disk drive. A window should open automatically. (If it doesn't, simply double-click on the floppy disk icon). 3) Copy all files (Open-Apple-A will select all files) to the folder "The.Lost.Tribe" that you created on your harddrive. Repeat steps 2 and 3 for the remaining disks, The.Lost.Tribe.2 and The.Lost.Tribe.3. When you're finished, the folder "The.Lost.Tribe" on your harddrive should contain 24 items. 4) Remove the floppy disks. You should be looking at an open window on your desktop containing all of the files for The Lost Tribe. Locate the "Icons" folder and open it as well. You will find a file "Lost.Tribe.Icns". Copy this file into the "Icons" folder on your harddrive. To begin the program simply double-click on The.Lost.Tribe file, (it will look like a bone with feathers if your icons copied okay). Cleanup: After copying the icons and possibly Tool035 to their proper folders you may, in the spirit of keeping your harddrive as free as possible, remove the folder "Icons" and the Tool035 file from The.Lost.Tribe folder. ________________________________ Running the program under AppleShare: Installation: The network management package does a better job of explaining file copying than can be given here. The general rule offered in the Errors section above is applicable here: the files and HighScores.f folder for The Lost Tribe should be in one folder on your server. Considerations: The file "LostTribePrefs" will be copied to the user folder (if one exists) and read at startup. If no user folder is available the copy in the application folder will be used. Read/Write access should be given to the folder "HighScores.f" to all users. If access is not given no new scores can be entered into the game list. As mentioned previously Tool035 should be in the /System/Tools folder of your boot device, be it your server, harddrive or floppy disk. (Note: Please refer to the section Music Errors above if you have insufficient room on your floppy boot disk.) _______________________________ The Lost Tribe is a trademark of Lawrence Productions, Inc. IBM is a registered trademark of International Business Machines, Inc. Apple IIGS, Macintosh, AppleShare, Finder, Video Keyboard and MidiSynth are trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc. This program contains material from the ORCA/C Run-Time Libraries, Copyright © 1987-91 by Byte Works, Inc. Used with permission.