How To Play

To begin a game of Dark Archon Invasion you
  1. Click on "New Game" from the start screen using your mouse to control the white fireball cursor.
  2. The next screen will ask for the difficulty level.  There are 3 levels, Easy, Medium, and Hard.  Harder levels are faster, and the enemies require more hits to take them down.  You select the difficulty level with your mouse by clicking on the level that you want.
  3. After selecting your difficulty level, you will have the chance to pick your race.  Each race's ship is shown with the different abilities and weapons of that particular ship.
  4. Immediately after choosing a ship you will be taken to the game.  The first thing you will see is the mission briefing.  It is recommended that you read the mission briefing so that you know what you are going to do on that particular level.  If you forget the mission briefing, you can access it again from the pause screen.

The Pause Screen

The Pause screen may be the first you want to access after starting the game.  You can access the pause screen by pressing the 'ESC' key or the letter 'P' on the keyboard.  The Pause Screen is broken into nine options.
  1. Display Objective - This will show you the mission briefing again, incase you have forgotten it.
  2. Control Options - This will let you change your control of the game.  You can use keyboard, keyboard + mouse, or a joystick to control the movement of your spaceship. (discussed later in detail)
  3. Sound Options - There are four Sound options on the Music Screen: (clicking on the words will set the different options)
    1. Music On/Off - Underneath this option, you can set the volume of the music
    2. Sound Effect - Underneath this option, you can set the volume of the sound effects
    3. Engine Effects On/Off - This option will turn on the motors of the various space ships, this is off by default
    4. Panning - This option allows you to switch the stereo sound so that the Left Sound comes out of the Right Speaker speaker and the Right Sound comes out of the Left Speaker speaker (reverse panning) or you can have each of the sounds come out of the typical Left and Right Speakers (Normal Panning)
  4. Save Game - This option allows you to save a game to one of 6 spots (discussed later in detail)
  5. Load Game - Allows you to load a game from one of 6 slots (discussed later in detail)
  6. View Ship Abilities - Clicking on this option lets you choose how to assign your attribute points that you gain with each experience level earned.  The Ship Level is also shown on this screen
  7. Restart Mission - Will start the mission over.
  8. Unpause Game - Takes you back to the action. You can also unpause the game by pressing the 'ESC' key or the letter 'P' on the keyboard.
  9. Exit Game - This option will take you out of the current game that you are playing and back to the start menu.

Controls
There are 3 control options in the screen.  Each can be changed in game.  The three different options are:

  1. Keyboard - The keys you use and the rotation speed when using the keyboard is set in the Control Options section of the pause screen.  Everything is explained in game as to which buttons do what in game.  When using keyboard control, the mouse can be used to fire.  The direction the ship is flying is also the direction it will fire.

  2. Joystick - When using the joystick, the ship will fire the same direction it is flying.  The ship will move the direction pressed on the joystick, and both fire buttons are on the joystick.
  3. Keyboard + Mouse - This is the default controls.  This control allows the player to use the mouse to control the firing direction of the ship, and the keyboard to move the ship.  Using this control allows you to fly away from your enemies while firing at them.

For all control options, there are two main buttons used.  The first is the fire button.  This is the left button on the mouse, or one of the buttons on a joystick.  The second button is the special weapon button.  It uses the special weapon that is available to the player.  Each race has a different special weapon.  The on-screen display shows the amount of secondary weapon available in the middle bottom of the screen.  (There are 5 indicators at the bottom, the special weapon is the middle of the five) 
You can access the pause screen by pressing the 'ESC' key or the letter 'P' on the keyboard.

Screen Layout

How to Save

To save a game, go to the pause screen, and then click on "Save Game."  You will be given several slots to save in.  To save in any one slot, simply click on one of the slots.  If the slot is empty it will say the word "empty."  If something else has been saved in the slot, it will show the name of the race, and the level that was saved.  If you click on a slot where you have already saved something, you can overwrite the previously saved game.

How to Load a Game
To load a game, go to the pause screen and then click on "Load Game."
You will then see the 5 different games that have been saved.  Each is designated with the race and the level where the game was saved.  You can load the game by clicking on any of the the saved games.