JADE FIGHTER ARENA v3.0                                    Kris Asick (Gemini)
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INTRODUCTION:

	Jade fighter arena is the type of game you play when you're bored, or
hooked. The objective is to buy weapons, armor, and shields, then gore all of
them on the opponents you fight in the arena! (NOTE: This game is 100% 
graphic violence free. SORRY!)

INSTALLING:

	Simple. Just unzip it all into it's own directory and run it from
there. Win95 users, no problems have been encountered so you're free to run
it fullscreen. Not sure about DOS boxes though...

STARTING YOUR GLADIATOR:

	To run the game, type ARENA at the DOS prompt. In WIN95, run the
ARENA.EXE file.

	The first menu that comes up will have three selections. Choose to
make a new character.

	First, make a name for your character. The maximum character limit is
20 so you have plenty of room for your name. Be careful though, cause if you
go over it simply chops the last characters off! Next you get to select a 
race and class using the arrow keys. These have absolutely no effect in the 
game whatsoever, they're just for looks. Next though, you have to choose a 
balance between strength and agility. Strength effects your ability to hit 
something, whereas agility affects your ability to avoid something. Note that
missing, and dodging, are two seperate things.

	Now a screen should appear showing you all your stats. A new
character will start out with 100 gold. You can either go to the store, or go
straight to battle. Or quit if you really want to. Note that the game saves
your character after every battle.

	The store is an excelent place to get weapons and armor! (Actually,
it's the only place!) When you go to the store, ten wepaons, three armors,
and three shields are randomized. To switch between stores, use the left and
right arrow keys. To go through the list, use the up and down arrow keys. To
select something to buy, push SPACEBAR.

	Weapons are probably the funnest part of the store. There are 32
different types of weapons, including five secret ones, and 32 different
types of materials, including five secret ones. Plus, sometimes a weapon may
be enchanted! There are ten different types of enchantments, each more or
less powerful than the others. The price of a weapon is based on it's overall
power! Also, if you want to know how many different combinations of weapons
there are, simply multiply 32 by 32 by 11. Meaning that there are 11,264
different combinations of weapons!

	Plus, you actually get to SEE YOUR WEAPON before you buy it, and when
you're in the store, you can look at your current weapon too!

	Hit ESC to exit the store.

	The battles are the tough parts. You could end up in a battle of 3 to
8 people, which are pretty basic. Or you could even duel it out against a
single opponent, which would give you quadruple winnings! Or maybe even fight
a 12, or a 24 player battle!!

	When a battle starts, computer people start attacking, unless you get
to go first, they attack just like you so the battle is fair. Turns are
random, so if some fighters go more often than you, it's just luck.

	If it is a computer's turn to attack, they will go through the attack
and it will show you what happens when the attack is completed. Note that the
attacker is highlighted yellow and the victim is highlighted red. Simply push
a key when you're done reading what happened.

	If it's your turn, a red background will appear on your target. Use
the up or down arrow keys to select a target from the list. Push SPACEBAR to
attack that target.

	WARNNING! The game's keyboard routines are very fragile! If you hold
down any key aside from CONTROL, ALT, or SHIFT, you may start experiencing a
strange phenomina I call "Key Lag", when keys you pushed respond after
pushing more keys. If you want to race through the game, hold CONTROL or ALT!

	Next, a bar will appear near the bottom that is constantly
randomizing. Push spacebar to stop it on a type of attack, and accuracy.

	Let's say your strength is 32. Here are some examples of what could
end up appearing after hitting SPACEBAR, and their effects:

24 Slice    - This would be a slice attack with a 24% + 32% accuracy. Note
	      that even if your attack was good, the opponent's agility will
	      affect whether or not he succesfully dodges.

2  OverHead - An overhead attack with a 2% + 32% accuracy. Pretty pathetic.

50 Chip     - A chip attack with a 50% + 32% accuracy! This would probably
	      not miss, but Chip is a rather small damage attack.

12 Splatter - A splatter attack with a 12% + 32% accuracy. Splatter is the
              rarest attack in the game! Mainly because it's an instant kill
              attack!

	The winner is the last person standing at the end of the battle!
GOOD LUCK! (You're going to need it!)

HINT'S AND TIPS from GEMINI:

1: Don't get frustrated. The game is meant to be difficult. Rarely does my
   wins counter exceed my loses counter. You will probably have a 25% win
   rate after about 30 battles if you play your best. If you get lucky, then
   it will be signifigantly higher. The trick is to just have fun!

2: Speed up your battles! If you don't want to read every little freakin'
   detail about the computer's attacks and just want to get your next attack
   as quickly as possible, hold the CTRL or ALT key down and it will zip
   through all the PRESS ANY KEY statements!

3: Be careful! One playing style I find works well is to attack the enemy
   with the highest attack power. He can be the most trouble to you later on
   if he ends up being the only gladiator left! Also, don't attack someone
   with high defense power unless nescesary since your attacks might not get
   through!

4: If a player brings an enchanted weapon into battle, you may see a
   signifigant jump in the winnings purse. Take this into account near the
   beginning of your game so you can buy a cheap enchanted weapon!

5: There are a few secrets in the game that may jump out at you. You've been
   warnned.

APENDIX A: ATTACK TYPES

SLASH: Does 1 HP more damage than normal.
THRUST: Does base damage.
SLICE: Not only does 2 HP more damage, but also goes straight through armor!
CHIP: Does 5 HP less damage. Also the worst attack in the game.
STAB: Goes straight through armor, doing base damage.
FIENT: Does 1 HP less damage.
SMASH: Does 4 HP more damage.
UPPERCUT: Does 5 HP more damage.
HACK: Does 2 HP more damage.
OVERHEAD: Does 4 HP more damage.
JAB: Does 2 HP less damage.
CLEAVE: Does 10 HP more damage!
CHARGE: Does 3 HP more damage.
TWIN-HIT: Slash twice at the guy. Only a few weapons have this.
KNOCKOUT: You knockout the victim. Making him fallen, but not dead.
SPLATTER: A gladiator's favorite, splattering the guy in several directions!
DECAP: Chop the guy's head off.
BONESNAP: Hurts the guy excesively, bringing him down to 1 HP.
ENCHANT: Calls up your weapon's enchantment for some awesome power!

APENDIX B: ENCHANTMENTS

WIND: A dark cyan color. This enchantment does some damage and has a very
      low chance of knocking the guy out.

FIRE: A pure red color. This enchantment does 10 more HP damage and also goes
      straight through armor!

POWER: A pure yellow color. This enchantment does twice as much damage as the
       weapon!

LIT: A white-yellow color. This enchantment will knock off 3/4 of the guy's
     maximum hit points! If he is bellow 1/4 though, it will fry him to a
     crisp!

EARTH: A brown color. Solidifies the opponent. He is not dead though.

TITAN: A purple color. This enchanment will add your strength to the attack
       damage!

MERCURY: A green color. This enchanment works like TITAN but using agility
         instead!

ICE: Birght blue color. Freezes the opponent into a statue of ice! Note that
     he can still be attacked after this! Until someone shatters the statue,
     he is counted as being knoced out.

DEATH: Dark grey color. Causes your opponent to die, plain and simple.

LIGHT: Pure white color. The enchantment gives off a flash of light that
       incinerates the victim!

VERSION HISTORY:

ADDED to v3.0:

* Weapons can no longer use every kind of attack. Example, you can no longer:
	- Decap with a tanto
	- Splatter with a spear
	- Kockout with a shortsword
	- Fient with an axe
	- Slash with a mace
	- Smash with a longsword
	- You get the idea...

* The game will not load a character from previous versions. Sorry!

CHANGED from v2.1:

* Oops! attack was removed. You can now fight without the worry of stupidly
  hitting yourself!

* Instead of 50 attribute points, you get 60. Plus you can now set your
  strength or agility to 0.

* The cash system has undergone an enlargement process. Don't be frightened
  when you suddenly see a kickass weapon worth something in the hundred-
  thousands...

* Most of the secret materials can no longer be enchanted, for good reason.

* Winnings have been quadrupled to compinsate for the larger prices.

BUGS FIXED from v2.05:

* A memory leak was fixed. This should solve practically every problem that
  was occuring.

BUGS FIXED from v2.0:

* Something strange was occuring with the gold count and has been fixed.

* The enchantment pricing should work properly now. A couple enchantments
  were getting priced wrong.

* The Mercury and Titan enchantments are now priced a little more sensibly,
  considering they aren't exactly top-notch.

* A secret in the game wasn't working correctly, and has been fixed.

CHANGED from v2.0:

* Almost every sword image has been modified. A few have been left alone. All
  new images by me.

* A button has been added to let you view your own weapon! Push W in the
  store to see it!

* I learned that there is such a thing as a Murasame, so I guess I was right
  the first time. I'm not bothering to change it back though because the
  Muramasa exists too.

BUGS FIXED from v1.4:

* You can go to the shield store now after you bought an armor.

* When you find a large enchanted weapon at the store, the enchantment no
  longer gets cut off by the 50x50 pixel limit.

CHANGED from v1.4:

* The purse at the end of a battle is now based on the players themselves
  instead of how much you're able to hurt people.

* The audiance is no longer generous. If you want cash from them, you have to
  earn it!

* The best material that is normally found is StarDust. If you see this
  material item at the store, you will not find any more normal materials.

* New materials: Bio and StarDust added!

* Boomerang has been changed to a Rapier.

* New Serrated Sword image by Mike Curtis.

* Murasame now named properly as Muramasa.

* New images for Muramasa, Masmune, and Excalibur, done by me, Gemini.

* More than 8 player battles occur much less often now.

TROUBLESHOOTING AND KNOWN BUGS:

* Sometimes, very rarely too, the games character set will become corrupted
  in a few places. I have absolutely no idea what causes it. To get rid of
  this problem, simply restart the game. I think it's beacuse of the 
  unreliability of QuickBASIC to begin with.

* Some weapon combinations are a bit long and will cause a scroll effect in
  12 player or less battles when using specific enchantments. This shouldn't
  be a long term problem since the screen is redrawn every next attack.

* These is some text that will wrap across the screen if it's long enough. I
  don't particularly want to keep that from hapenning since it's not easy to
  fix.

* There is no error checking so the game will give a run time error if
  anything goes wrong. (Not really a bug...)

* The game switches to a multitude of text-mode resolutions, so be prepared to
  deal with the off-screen effects of some of them on low-end systems.

* If you encounter any other obscure problems, send them in.

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	This game is provided by Kris Asick soley for entertainment or
educational purposes. The game may be copied and distributed freely
provided this readme is included and that none of the game's files are
modified.

	You may contact Kris Asick at either his website, or by E-Mail.

	WEBSITE:
	http://www.pixelships.com

	EMAIL:
	gemini@pixelships.com