|  | The Game The Story Starting The Game Playing The Game Dialogues Using The Inventory Using The Map Shortcut Keys What The Hell Are Spoonbeaks? System Requirements Adjusting The Settings And Language Technical Support / Bug Reports Credits Disclaimer / Legal Information THE GAME 'Nelly Cootalot: Spoonbeaks Ahoy!' is a free adventure game by Alasdair Beckett-King. I made it for my girlfriend whose alias is Nelly Cootalot. I hope you enjoy playing it, even if you aren't my girlfriend. The game offers you the opportunity to: Rescue endangered and unusually named wildfowl Acquire morally dubious items on behalf of minor aristocrats Intercept the private correspondances of a daredevil pilot Come to the aid of downtrodden supernatural beings Be confused by Nelly's County Durham colloquialisms Borrow facial hair from long-dead pirates Wantonly misuse the word 'borrow'. THE STORY Nelly Cootalot is a young pirate captain who meets her destiny when she comes face-to-face with the visage of the long-dead buccaneer William Bloodbeard. Bloodbeard, once the scourge of the South Seas had a sideline in protecting cute and endangered birds. He tells Nelly that the Spoonbeaks of the Barony of Meeth have vanished. Nelly must investigate and uncover nefarious goings-on in the small island community. Nelly Cootalot STARTING THE GAME Double-click on 'Nelly Cootalot.exe' to begin. When you start the game you will be presented with the title screen. From themenu bar at the top you can choose to start a new game, load an old game, change the settings or quit. When playing, the menu bar shows these options: SAVE - Click to open the 'Save' window. There is a maximum of 50 save slots. LOAD - Click to open the 'Load' window. From here you can load a previously saved game. QUIT - Click when you want to get on with your life. MAP - This button is only visible once Nelly has a map in her inventory. See Using The Map. SETTINGS - See Adjusting The Settings. PLAYING THE GAME The game is a standard point-and-click adventure. If you have played an adventure game before, and you probably have, you might not need to read this. You control the game through the yellow mouse pointer. If you click on an area with your left mouse button, Nelly will walk to that area, or as close to it as she can. If you hover the mouse over an exit, the mouse pointer will change into an 'X'. Clicking on an exit will make Nelly walk to another location. When you move your mouse around the screen you will notice that the interactions bar at the bottom of the screen displays the name of characters and objects with which Nelly can interact. Nelly begins her adventure To interact with an area, click and hold the left mouse button. The action compass will appear after a moment. The action compass has three buttons: The Action Compass SPEECH BUBBLE - this button will make Nelly talk to an object/character. PORTHOLE - this button will make Nelly look at an object/character. HOOK - this button isn't for gouging. It will make Nelly interact with an object/character. It can be used to pick up items or operate machinery. Release the mouse when it is over the option you have chosen, and Nelly will attempt to carry out your instruction. If you get stuck, make sure you have examined your surroundings and talked to every character. Showing objects in your inventory to characters can also offer clues. DIALOGUES When you talk to a character you will be presented with a series of options. Choose what you want Nelly to say by clicking that line. Once a line of dialogue has been said the option will normally appear in a dim red font. This indicates that the line has been said before, but allows you to say it again. You can disable this dimming by choosing settings from the menu bar and clicking the 'Read Dialogues' toggle. USING THE INVENTORY At the beginning of the game Nelly has only one item in her possession, but she will collect more during her adventure. You can bring up Nelly's inventory by right-clicking or by pressing the 'I' key. To close the inventory, move the mouse to the edge of the screen or press the 'Escape' key. You can interact with an item using the action compass (see above). To select an item, left-click on it. You can then attempt to combine that item with other items in your inventory. If you want to use an item with a character or object, select the item ;and move the mouse to the edge of the screen The inventory screen will disappear and you can use the item with any character or object. To discard the selected item, right-click and it will return to your inventory. USING THE MAP Once Nelly has found a map, she can travel around the Barony of Meeth. Bring up the map using the menu bar or by pressing the 'M' key. The map shows icons that represent places Nelly can travel to. Hovering the mouse over an icon will give you a brief description of that location. Clicking on an icon will send Nelly to that place. As Nelly learns about more places in the Barony, more icons will appear on the map. To close the map, move the mouse to the edge of the screen or press the 'Escape' key. SHORTCUT KEYS ESC - During the introductory cutscene: Skips ahead to the start of the game. While Nelly is walking: Skips ahead until she reaches her destination. While a window is open: Closes the open window. L - brings up the 'Load' window. S - brings up the 'Save' window. Q - brings up the 'Quit' window. M - brings up the map. I - brings up the inventory. F12 - will capture a screenshot and save a Windows Bitmap file(.BMP) in the Nelly Cootalot folder. Please note that the shortcut keys (apart from F12 and ESC) will not function if the 'Save', 'Load' or 'Quit' windows are open. WHAT THE HELL ARE SPOONBEAKS? Spoonbeaks, more widely known as spoonbills, are one of Nelly Cootalot's favourite kind of bird. Here is a drawing of one: Spoonbeaks are funny looking. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS This game does not require a very fast computer. Even if your system is lower than the minimum requirements the game will probably still run. You may find that some parts of the game run more slowly than others. If that's the case, altering the settings may improve performance (see below). MINIMUM- 500 Mhz Pentium Processor 128 Mb RAM Windows 95 OSR2, 98, ME, 2000, XP, Vista or 7 DirectX 5+ DirectX compatible video card resolution DirectX compatible sound card RECOMMENDED- 3 Ghz Pentium Processor 1 Gb RAM Windows 95 OSR2, 98, ME, 2000, XP, Vista or 7 with DirectX 9 DirectX compatible video card DirectX compatible sound card ADJUSTING THE SETTINGS AND LANGUAGE In-game you can make adjustments to the sound, graphics and gameplay by clicking settings from the menu bar. This allows you to alter sound and music volume, screen gamma, and a number of other minor settings. To change the game's language from English to Spanish or French, run 'winsetup.exe' and select Nelly_Spanish or Nelly_French from the game language drop-down box. You can adjust other major settings through 'winsetup.exe'. If sound effects or music do not play properly, you can try altering the sound options. You can also choose to disable music or sound completely. Checking 'Downgrade 32-bit graphics to 16-bit' and unchecking 'Smooth scaled sprites' will make the game run faster on slower computers, at the expense of the graphics. You can choose to play the game full-screen by unchecking 'Run in a window instead of full-screen'. Note: The application also allows you to change the game's resolution, but please do not use 320x240 as it will render the game unplayable. TECHNICAL SUPPORT / BUG REPORTS If you find a bug, or receive an error message asking you to contact the game's author please let me know. Send a message to 'Ali' using the Private Message function on the AGS forum. CREDITS 'Nelly Cootalot: Spoonbeaks Ahoy' by Alasdair Beckett-King Starring Nelly Cootalot as herself Original Music by Mark Lovegrove Adventure Game Studio v2 run-time engine (c) 1999-2013 Chris Jones Opensource Verbcoin by Intoxicated Little Bunny Music Continuity Module by Andrew MacCormack Smooth Scrolling Script by Steve McCrea Some animations rendered with Akumayo's Particle Engine (before version 1.6) Original fonts created with Radiant FontEdit by Peiter Simoons (before version 1.6) Some sound effects from www.royaltyfreemusic.com Beta Testers: Marina Siu-Chong Mark Lovegrove Andrew MacCormack Peder Jonsen Spanish Translation by: Translator: Ana Ramírez Revision: Ernesto García www.kawagames.com French Translation by: Hervé Appriou Mathieu Bergounioux et Marc Denizot Thanks to Chris Jones & The AGS forum regulars DISCLAIMER / LEGAL INFORMATION 'Nelly Cootalot: Spoonbeaks Ahoy!' is copyright Alasdair Becket 2007-2013. You may freely distribute this game but you must not charge money for it. If you paid for this game please let me know as soon as possible. Send a message to 'Ali' using the Private Message function on the AGS forum. If you distribute this game you must include this document and those the 'Licenses' folder. You may freely reproduce images from the game for the purpose of reviews, critical analyses or promotion. If you reproduce any of the graphics in the game you must credit Alasdair Beckett-King and where possible provide a link to the game. You use this software at your own risk. I have tested the game and found it to be functional, however I will not be liable for any damages in connection with the use of this software. The game's music is copyright Mark Lovegrove 2007. 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. Other pertinent legal information can be found in the 'Licenses' folder. Copyright Alasdair Beckett-King 2007-2013 |  |