The Oracle v1.0
by Eugene Couto

Copyright 2006. All rights reserved.

________________________________________________________________________________

CONTENTS:

  1. Storyline
  2. Game Specs
  3. Starting The Game
  4. Instructions
  5. System Requirements
  6. Game Credits
  7. Creation References
  8. Licenses

________________________________________________________________________________

1.  STORYLINE:

What are friends for? That's precisely why you decide to help out a friend
who's in way over his head. But you never expected this... 

Your friend Alex goes missing, a trail of notes and clues left behind,
pointing to his possible whereabouts. All the while, you uncover an artifact so
powerful you wish you had never laid eyes on it, and you learn of an ancient
order of monks with ties to it. And the key to all three lies in -- the Oracle. 

________________________________________________________________________________

2.  GAME SPECS:

The Oracle is a first-person perspective, photo-realistic adventure game,
photographed entirely on-location in Canada and all over Portugal.

- Over 140 screens
- 8 different locations
- Logical & challanging puzzles (inventory, musical & interactive puzzles)
- Over a dozen unique musical scores
- Over 75 realistic sound effects
- Save games using photo snaphots
- In-game hint system

________________________________________________________________________________

3.  STARTING THE GAME:

  - Click the "The Oracle" icon to launch the game.

  - Click the "Setup" icon to select between Full-Screen & Window playing modes.

________________________________________________________________________________

4.  INSTRUCTIONS:

  *** NOTE:  If the game runs too slowly on your system you can try changing the
             screen transition setting.  See instructions below. 


  In-Game Help:  Can be accessed by clicking the "Help" buttons.

  In-Game Hints:  Can be access through the Main Menu and clicking "Hints".

  Game Menu:  The game menu is accessible by clicking the PDA icon that appears
              in the top-right corner of the screen

  Travel:  There is a point in the game where a map icon will appear in the
           top-left of the screen.  Clicking the icon will take you to a map
           where you can select your destination by clicking a push-pin.

  Journal:  You will eventually pick up a journal and a journal icon will appear
            in the top-center of the screen.  Clicking the icon will open the
            journal for you to read.

  Inventory:  Can be accessed by clicking the backpack icon that appears in the
              top-left corner of the screen; or by right-clicking anywhere on
              the screen while playing.

  Pick Up Inventory:  Left-click in the game.  If the item can be picked up,
                      your backpack will flash as the item is placed inside.

  Select Inventory:  Left-click an item in the inventory to select it.

  Examine Inventory:  Right-click an item in the inventory to examine it.

  Use Inventory:  Select an item (the cursor will change to it) and then click
                  on what you would like to use the item on.  This can be
                  another inventory item or anything else on the screen.
                  Sometimes items can be combined to create a new item.

  Restore Cursor:  Right-click outside the inventory to restore the cursor.
                   The item will return to your inventory.

  Save Game:  Click "Save Game" on the Game Menu. Then click an empty game slot
              or a used game slot to save over an existing game.  The game slot
              will display a photo snap shot of your current spot of the game
              as well as the date and time the game was saved.

  Load Game:  click "Load Game" on the Game Menu.  Then click a used game slot.
              The game slot will display a photo snap shot of the save point as
	      well as the date and time the game was saved.

  Game Options:  Click "Options" on the Game Menu.  Changes to the game volume,
                 screen transition, and text speed can be made from here.

  Volume:  Adjust the slider bar to inscrease or decrease the game volume.

  Screen Transition:  The default setting is "Best", however on slower systems
                      if the game runs slowly, you can try changing the setting
                      to "Better" or "None".

  Text Speed:  Adjust the slider bar to increase or descrease the text speed.

________________________________________________________________________________

5.  SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:

Pentium 600 Mhz or higher processor
32 Mb RAM
Windows 95 OSR2, 98, ME, 2000 or XP, with DirectX 5 or above
Supports all DirectX-compatible sound and video cards
800x600 resolution, 16 bit color recommended
95 Mb hard disk space
(Soundcard highly recommended but not required)

________________________________________________________________________________

6.  GAME CREDITS:

Created by Eugene Couto

Dedicated to my wife Julia

Software by Adventure Game Studio Copyright 2002-2004 Chris Jones
	    www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk

Beta Testing by Julia Couto

Music by:

AMd Chill Out 1 amd_mi@mac.com
Asmodeus Angels Tears asm0deus36@yahoo.com.sg
Calpomatt A Long Path Ahead mghanson@calpoly.edu
Calpomatt Full Metal Jacket mghanson@calpoly.edu
Chris Taylor Ocean/Beach boomcrash@optushome.com.au
Decennial Music 8 decennial@hotmail.com
Flashkid105 The Buzz About Flashkit valerian5200@yahoo.com
Icebergslim Dreamspell ice8ergslm@aol.com
Jakub Koter Jakub Koter me@jakubkoter.com
Justin Perkins Dream Dance justin@phantomfear.com
Mark Cathedral crazymarko_tnm@yahoo.com
Needtheweb Aai Groovin
Nemo 104 Soft Hit nemos_revenge@hotmail.com
Polonel Fear polonel@2xstudio.com
Rudy Vessup Action Quest rudy@smallpotatoesproductions.com
Rudy Vessup Mistic Sun rudy@smallpotatoesproductions.com
Tarantula Studios A Lunatics Attempt #2
Urbanlex Bjornluster alexander_lau@hotmail.com 

________________________________________________________________________________

7.  CREATION REFERENCES:

Graphic sources:  Kodak 2.0 meg digital camera
                  Google Images  www.google.com

Music sources:  Flash Kit  www.flashkit.com

SoundFx sources:  FindSounds.com  www.findsounds.com
		  Flash Kit  www.flashkit.com

Graphics editing:  Adobe Photoshop Elements

Audio editing:  Goldwave 4.02
                Nero Wave Editor 2.0

_________________________________________________________________________________

8.  LICENSES:

TrueType font display uses ALFont by Javier Gonzalez and the Freetype project.
Distributed under the terms of the FreeType project license.

OGG player is alogg by Javier Gonzalez, using the Ogg Vorbis decoder,
which is available from http://www.xiph.org/ Copyright (c) 2002, Xiph.org Foundation

MP3 player is almp3, by Javier Gonzalez and the FreeAmp team.
It uses the mpg123 MP3 decoder, and is distributed under the terms of the
GNU Lesser General Public License version 2.1.

Pentium is a trademark of Intel corporation. Windows is a trademark or registered
trademark of Microsoft corp.

Refer to the "Docs" folder for the individual license files and software credits.