“1. Introduction/ how to play”

About this game…

This game is a TEXT BASED ADVENTURE game. In other words, a simplified role playing game. Or you can call it an interactive novel as it changes itself based on YOUR decisions. In this game, the main character is YOU. The events happening to you are in short written form. You have to read through steps 1 to several hundreds to reach the end alive and solve the mysteries.

The closest similarity to other games would be a Visual Novel. It is a Japanese invention, taking place in the world of Manga/Anime, and still played by millions of players even in this very moment. Unfortunately, I don’t have the resources for hundreds of licensed pictures, I don’t have a powerful artist studio behind me, therefore, as it was mentioned above, instead of pictures, each step in this game is a short description, which is a result of your decision and it’s happening to YOU. Instead of going through from step 1 to step 2, and 3, and so on, you go through these steps IN A DIFFERENT WAY.

Let’s see an example: step 1 says you stand at an entrance of a house in a town, from where you can go in the house (Step 2), around the house (Step 3), and away from the house (Step 4). If you decide to go in the house (Step 2), the game changes itself and shows Step 2, which is a text (and some pictures too at some Steps) about what you see in the house (corridor, rooms, stairs, etc.). Then from there you may go upstairs, in one of the rooms, to the garden, or you may find an item or a secret, meet a character, and you can interact with them by reading another steps.

The route among and through Steps from the beginning to the end is like a labyrinth. The number of ways how to get to the end of your adventure might be several hundred. And there will be some dead ends… which means you died.

In case you died, you don't need to panic and give up the game. Yes, you have to start from the beginning again, but the way among the Steps are logical, and if you have gone through some part, you will know the way back to where you made a wrong decision and died. So from the beginning to the point where you died, you can get back in 2-3 minutes. And going through the entire game from the beginning to the end is like 3-4 hours first time.

During your adventures, you will find items. Some can be used in fights, some to open doors, reveal secrets, and so on. Each item has a number. At the top of the page the program displays your items you have found previously. When there is a situation to use one of your items, all you need to do is TYPE the number of an item in the field. Use capitals, like IN78. You will not lose your items previously found in case of death.

There are some situations where you need to fight. It is simplified and the program calculates the result. You will find items that can be used as a weapon, listed with (W). When you fight, you can type the number of a weapon. Each has a different attack power, which will be added to your basic attack power, thus to win a fight you have more chance if you use a weapon. In the second part of the game, using a weapon is highly recommended as your opponents are stronger.

You might think about what this game is about. The story. You are an assistant manager in a restaurant, and have to travel somewhere with your car. And then you have an accident. You survive the crash but you hit your head hard and suffer a temporary memory loss, and forget the purpose of your travel. Your phone is not working. You are at a town, and have to find a working phone and some help. But no one is around … the place is abandoned. Where is everyone? What’s the purpose of your visit? What is this thick fog everywhere?

The town has a dark history and even darker secrets. You just need to find some help, right? You don’t need to interact with these secrets, right? You don't need to go deep into the fog, right? Well, you are wrong. You have to face mysteries, solve riddles, fight enemies, while trying to find the way out of town. And the purpose of your visit might be as dark as the secrets of town…

You might have noticed by now that English is not my first language. I'm Hungarian. I have studied English by myself, written and translated novels and worked for companies as freelance translator. This game first was written in Hungarian by me, I have done the programming as well, and now it is time to translate it in English. Although I'm trying to do my best while translating and trying to be as accurate as possible, you may find some mistakes, or strange use of words. I still have a lot to learn, and by translating this game it's another great chance to improve my English. It's also the time to test myself in a different area of creative creation, and this game is the first part of my attempts. I apologize for the mistakes you find in the game. Please don't hesitate to contact me if you find any.

By playing this game you will see that I have several years of novel writing experience in creating and leading stories through several conflicts to the end. However, this game is different: leading the story to the end is in YOUR hand.

Good luck, and have fun.

Leslie P. Knox