Rainbow Despair Demo Text File version 2
Original demo released on August 12, 1999.
Version 2 released on Sept 25, 1999
The game, Rainbow Despair, is copyrighted by Robert Boyd.
All other products are copyrights of their respective companies.

Rainbow Despair is a comic RPG using the VERGE 2 engine.  
Essential details of the demo:

Over an hour in length.
4 playable characters.
14 useable spells and techniques.
A Dragon Warrior/Quest style battle system.
Over a dozen enemies.
4 dungeons, 2 towns.
Humorous and quirky story and dialogue.
Support for the Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete Music CD.
Over 5000 lines of code (included for aspiring coders to peruse).

Controls:
  Arrow Keys - Movement, menu navigation.
  Enter      - Action button (Talk, select from menus, look, etc.).
  Space      - Cancel commands, exit menu.
  Tab        - Main Menu.
  ESC        - Quit.

Questions & Answers (Read this!):

Q) How do I start Rainbow Despair?

  A)  Type VERGE in a Dos box from Windows.  

Q) What's the difference between version 1 & version 2 of Rainbow Despair?

  A)  Version 2 has a number of improvements over version 1.  All aspects
      of the game (graphics, story, gameplay, interface, coding, etc.) have
      been improved except for the music (still has the music CD feature).
      Have fun finding the improvements as you play.

Q) What do the Spirit and Greed statistics do?

  A)  Spirit is your defense against spells and special attacks.
      Greed (along with wealth) affects the power of certain items and
      spells.  Greed is general good, but in some cases, it's detrimental.
      Note, none of the spells in the demo are affected by Greed.

Q) What is wealth?  How do I increase it?

  A)  Wealth is based on the amount of gold you possess and like Greed, it
      affects the power of certain items and spells.  Wealth will increase,
      first, when you have at least 100 gold, and secondly, when you have
      at least 400 gold.

Q) What does chat do?

  A)  Chat (a command in the main menu) lets you talk to the members of your
      party.  The conversations that occur with Chat change after most story
      sequences, so check it regularly.

Q) What does Defend do?

  A)  Defend cuts all damage received by your character in half for the
      turn that it's used.  It's quite useful.

Q) What happens when a character's HP drops to 0?

  A)  Any character whose HP is 0 is wounded.  They can not do anything in
      battle, but they can use spells outside of battle.  Any source of
      healing will restore wounded characters (you don't need a special
      "Life" spell or item).

Q) How does poison work?

  A)  Poison damages the character or enemy at the end of each turn.  It's
      automatically cured when the battle is over.  Different poisons
      do different amounts of damage so be careful (Spirit tends to reduce
      the damage done by poison).

Q) Can Larry equip anything?

  A)  Larry can equip rings and accessories, but there are no weapons or
      pieces of armor for him to equip in the demo.

Q) Can you buy potions?

  A)  No, however in the completed game (soon after the demo ends), Molly
      will have the ability to make her potions.

Q) Who created Rainbow Despair?

  A)  I, Robert Boyd, created Rainbow Despair with the support and
      suggestions of friends and family.  Additional art was done by
      Tralu of the Cyberwizards project, Tracy of VERGE GIRL, and my brother.
      If you want to contact me about Rainbow Despair (found a bug, want to
      help me make it, just want to make a comment, etc.), you can email me
      at rwb36@email.byu.edu.

Q) How much time did it take you to make the Rainbow Despair demo?

  A)  Lots of time.  I've been working on it since VERGE 2 came out a few
      months ago.

Q) Can I use your code in my game?

  A)  The source code was included to help people make their own games.  As
      long as you give me credit, you can use Rainbow Despair code in your
      own game.  Be warned, I use few comments in my code, so it's up to you
      to figure out how exactly to use my code.

Q) Can I use your graphics, maps, etc. in my game?

  A)  No.  All other parts of Rainbow Despair (besides the code) can not
      be used in other games.

Q) I don't hear any music.  What's the problem?

  A)  Since I had enough work to do with making the graphics, dialogue,
      gameplay, code, etc., I have not created any music for Rainbow Despair.
      However, if you own Working Designs' PSX RPG, Lunar: Complete, you can
      stick the music CD in your computer's CD drive and the game will play
      appropriate track from the CD to coincide with the action on screen.

Q) Are there any accessories in the demo?

  A)  Yes.  In the original version there weren't, but the 2cd version
      includes two accessory.

Q) What's the difference between the full version of Rainbow Despair and the
   demo?

  A)  The full version will be bigger, better, and longer (I'm aiming for at
      least 10 hours).  You will be able to choose your party later in the
      game.  Both versions will be free.

Q) When will the full version come out?

  A)  I'd like to get it out by the end of the year if possible.

Q) I'm stuck on Rainbow Despair.  How can I get help?

  A)  Post a message on one of the message boards on the Verge site
      (http://www.verge-rpg.com) or Compuserve's VGCentral message board.
      Someone there will probably be able to help you.  Also, I will probably
      create a short FAQ for the demo in the near future which you will be
      able to find at http://www.gamefaqs.com.

I hope you enjoy the game. :)

-Robert Boyd (rwb36@email.byu.edu)
