INSTRUCTIONS   Play: Amertis is a classical point-and-click game. Everything is done with the mouse, except a few passwords you have to type now and then, and one puzzle which requires using the keyboard arrows (this will be detailed when the time comes). When moving the mouse across the screen, the cursor changes to a hand indicating the direction in which you can go, or what you can do. means “go forward”, but also “talk”, “act” or sometimes “look up”, means “go back”, or “put in the inventory”, or “look down”, indicates the presence of an item that you can take or manipulate, but… sometimes you must wait before you are allowed to! indicates a zone where you must use an item from your inventory.

The menu:

It appears whenever you press the space bar. You can then save your game, load a previously saved game, leave the current game or return to it (after having saved a game, usually). There are ten slots available for saved games, with the date, time and a picture showing which world you were on.

Warning: if you save your game when a puzzle hasn’t been completed, the game will start again at the beginning of that puzzle (whatever initial moves you have made will not have been recorded).

Rodrigue’s bag:

This is a very special bag, since it can contain as many items as you want, however big and heavy they may be! The items which may go in the inventory are flagged with a closed hand. In most cases (when there is no previous action required to pick it up), you need a simple click to put the item in the inventory. It will appear for a few seconds in a yellow frame in the upper left corner of the screen.

WARNING: don’t try to pick up two items one after the other too quickly, otherwise the inventory may no longer work, and you will have to quit the game! Make sure you wait a few seconds until the first object has disappeared from the yellow frame on the upper left of the screen, and only then pick up the second item.

To “open” Rodrigue’s bag, click on it. You will see all the items you have already collected, displayed on three leather straps. To close it and return to the game, again one simple click (downward hand).

Possible operations once the inventory is open:

- A single click selects an item: it then remains “active” in the upper left corner, as long as no other item has been picked up or used on the first one.

- A double click on an item enables you to zoom on it: this may be useful to look at details or to access the specific functions of some items. To leave the zoom mode, click anywhere you see a downward hand.

- To combine two items, open the inventory, click on one, then on the other. If those two items can be combined, they will disappear to be replaced by the resulting combination. 

Warning: after this operation, the yellow frame around the active item may sometimes disappear. This has no impact on the game whatsoever. Just press the space bar and choose “Return to the game” to see the yellow frame reappear.

Active item:

Note that the “active” item, the one you (Rodrigue…) hold in your hand, does not appear directly on the mouse cursor, but only in the yellow frame on the upper left of the screen. Once the item has been taken out of the inventory, all you need to do is close the inventory and click where you think the item might be useful. Quite often, small gears will appear on the different areas where inventory items should be used, but not always: some items must simply be given to a character.

Warning: clicking on an item puts it back straight away into the inventory. Even if the item has been for a brief moment in the yellow frame on the upper left of the screen, it is not active. If you want to use it, you must select it again in the inventory.

Dialogues:

They start automatically, or with a simple click on a character, or on vignettes illustrating the various topics of conversation you can choose. You can always cut off the voices by clicking on the small microphone on the top right of the screen, but this will not affect the current dialogue, only the following ones. In some cases, when the dialogue goes on and on, the subtitle may disappear before the voice has finished… Sorry, but that’s technically unavoidable ! It’s not a problem, though, you generally have enough time to read it all, and you can always restart the dialogue.

WARNING: we urge you to follow the dialogues until the end, because this is sometimes what will make new vignettes appear, which may in turn unblock a situation or lead to a new puzzle. Do not hesitate to talk again to the various characters once you have completed an action: they might well provide a crucial comment. Sometimes, you must get back to previously discussed topics, to get new reactions.

Know finally that you can never be stuck in this game. There is always something to do, always a way out.

And now, play the game! We hope you will get as much pleasure travelling in our universe than we had creating it.