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MANUAL
1. Contents
2. Introduction
3. Philosophy
4. The Startup Menu
5. Main Menu
6. Starting a new game
7. Playing stages
8. After a stage has ended
9. Shop
2. Introduction
European Hero is a game, about the destiny of the European race fulfilled in another galaxy.
When the European race leaves Earth to escape from the horrible Amazemikes, they find another galaxy.
This galaxy cosists of multiple races who are in war with each other. When you approach one of them, the
Cassians, their emperor seems to be quite willing to help the millions of people on board of the ship
"The New Beginning". The ship stores, hundreds of million people, animals, valuable plants, machinery and
pieces of art. The European President de Ruyter has agreed to help the Cassians in their war against The
Dark Syndicate(TDS). Most of the allies of the Cassians are either dead or imprisoned. Together with the
Cassian researchers, the European Researchers build "The Baguette". This ship will be the ship you will be
flying with through the game. With the ship you fly missions and will need to destroy enemy units. When you
destroy an enemy unit you can get a credit, which you can use to buy weapons, stocks and other upgrades to
improve your ship for the next level. European Hero is a game divided in three saga's consisting out of six
levels each. In the game there is a total of 27 upgrades, 8 different stocks, 18 missions, 12 different races,
more than 15 bosses, 6 medals and 2 prestige units. Before and after a mission you will be briefed and
debriefed, which will lead you through the story. Additionally, you can look at statistics after a mission
and you can study alien races. These races are described in a detailed way and through the game all of them
will have a clear relevance in it. Before a mission start you will see a map and will pinpoint your position
and your course. All the items on the map have a name and a history, which you can see on the bigger map on
www.europeanhero.com. Other relevant information is also mentioned on this website as well as a high score
list. The story behind European Hero will be clarified through the game and highlighted by the clues given on
the website. On the other hand you can choose how much you would like to know about the story as you can
choose between the story game and the arcade game. For people who would just like to do some shooting we
advise the arcade mode. European hero as mentioned before will be published in three saga's and therefore
saga 1 will be the only playable saga. We will do our best to finish the other three saga's on short notice.
We would like to get some feedback on our forum to see how we could improve the remaining two saga's.
We would like to wish you a lot of fun in playing European Hero.
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The New Beginning
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Emperor Cassior III
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3. Philosophy
The world of today is getting more and more individualistic, less moralised, more poluted, less social, more
violent and most important less righteous. It is not a coincedence that the thrid world is the contiousnous
of the world and that a plane crash gets more attention than a civil war in Africa where millions of people
die. This makes you wonder... In western countries some people get unemployment allowances which are hardly
less than what you earn when you work. Where is the righteousnous in that. State and Church were to be
seperated right? Why is the name of God being used so often in political agenda's. Why do people hate each
other so much? Why do people get irritated, shoot eachoter, rob and torture eachother? Where is the thing we
call common sense? Why do we let other people think for us, because it is easier? Why do we polute our planet
so much and endanger our own human race and don't seem to care about later? Why are people living so much in
the present and don't seem to care about the future, never mind the past? Why do we stigmatize each other and
make eachoter so black and white as we want them to be? Why are people who seem to talk about change and
improvement being disposed of in a miraculous way. And why does the truth seems to be the hardest thing to
find on the internet while it should contain all the information known by human kind?
If you have problems with answering one or more of these questions and you would like to experience a
completely different world and learn something about social, moral, philosophical, and economical issues,
this game might prove to be helpfull. If you just want to shoot some alien scum and make your ship more
destructive, this will also be a cool game to play.
4. The Startup Menu
4.1 Start Game
You can play the game in a Window or in Full Screen. Full Screen can only be played by Windows users. Users
of Linux or Mac OS will only be able to play the game in a Window.
4.2 Display Mode
Your computer will make an available list here for the available display modes, the (R) means Recommended.
If you do not want to adapt the display mode manually, your computer will choose the best possible display
mode.
4.3 Documentation
Here the following subjects are dealt with:
- Game Controls
- Software Requirements
- System Requirements
- Known Problems
- Contact us
4.4 Credits
These two persons made European Hero.
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Startup Menu
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5. Main Menu
In the Main Menu you can choose out of 8 options, seven visible options and one hidden option. Most of the
movement through the menu is done with the arrow buttons and the space bar.
5.1 New Game
When choosing New Game you will be able to choose between Story Game and Arcade Game. When choosing Story
Game you will be able to use all the options possible in the game, including stories about races, briefing,
debriefing, statistics and the shop. In Arcade Game, only the shop can be accesed. For people who play the
game for the first time we advise to play the Story Game, as they will receive useful hints in the briefing
and debriefing about what to expect.
After selecting the type of game you will have to select the difficulty level. For beginners we advise to
choose Easy. The Brutal difficulty level is only playable for absolute experts. No matter what Difficulty
level is chosen, the ending will be the same. However in the fiercer difficulty levels one can earn more
credits and more points.
5.2 Show Intro
To see the beginning story of the game, press Show Intro to see what happened before the Europeans came to
this part of space.
5.3 Highscores
To see your highscore list, press Highscores and see how many points you scored. you can check your scores in
different difficulty levels. To see the highscores of other players around the world go to
www.europeanhero.com.
5.4 Resume Game
If you are Game Over you will be able to save your game. You will have the coice to fill in your Highscore
and then to end the game. Another option is pressing Retry after the highscore. You will now go to the shop
before the level in which you died. A final option is Save and Exit, your game will be saved now and you will
return to the main menu. However you will only have one save so saving a game again will overwrite the save
you made before. You can exit the game savely and for instance begin your same game the next day by pressing
Resume Game.
5.5 Options
In the Options menu you can adapt the following settings:
- SFX: When enabled you will hear sounds during the game.
- Music: When enabled you will hearing music during the game.
- Detail: The detail level of the game can be adjusted automatically or manually set for the game.
- Controls: To change the default controls of your ship press space when standing on controls and
then press the buttons you want to use in that order. Standard is: Shot: Q, Shield: W, Select: A, Use: S.
To change these buttons change it in that order. To move the ship use the arrow keys.
When you exit the Options menu your settings will be saved, also when you exit and restart the game.
5.6 Credits
In the Credits menu you can see the task devision of the game.
5.7 Demo
To have an impression of how the game should be played press Demo.
6. Starting a new game
When new game is being initiated and the kind of game and difficulty level is set, you will get a briefing.
In the briefing you will be explained the goal of the stage, what you can expect and usefull background
information. You can scroll through the briefing with the up and down arrow key. After confirming proceed
with Space, a map is show with the distribution of the different regions of the Kronos Galaxy. You will see
where you will go as well as the enemy and which region has changed sides. Right after this map is done the
game will start. This map can also be skipped by pressing Space.
7. Playing stages
7.1 Moving the Ship
To move the ship you can use the arrow keys of the keyboard. This speed can not be upgraded. At certain
moments you will not be able to move your ship. You will be notified if the ship is in Autopilot mode. This
will be notified in the upper mid side of your screen. If your plane crashes down you will be able to
manoeuvre your ship. This way you can make kamikaze kills. Moreover, you will be able to crash your ship
into an enemy boss. This will cause considerable damage. This damage can be increased by upgrading your ship
with a Desintegrator. A Desintegrator will activate when the plane crashes down and will explode at impact.
7.2 Other uses
The other options of the ships are: Shooting, Enabling the shield, Selecting and Using. As mentioned before
the buttons can be changed at the Options menu. The Shoot button Can be pressed continuously and it will fire
the weapons, which are always equiped. these weapons are: Cannons, Missiles, Destructo Disks and the Proton
Laserbeam. These are the Primary and Secondary Weapons. Other weapons need to be selected first with the
Select button. For instance the Nuclear Weapons need to be selected and then the Use button needs to be
pressed to launch it. When wanting to select an item, then keep pressing the Select button until you see the
icon of the weapon you want to use. Finally you have the Shield button. When you play the game you have
standard two upgrades of the Heavy Cannon and an Emperial Shield. This Emperial Shield is full in the
beginning and will get empty when it is being used with the Shield button and when it is being hit by an
enemy vessel or a bullet. This shield can be upgraded with a Shield Generator. This will regenerate the
shield when it is not used. The Emperial Shield is collored green and the shield you can retrieve in the
level is blue. When this last shield is activated and you press the Shield button, the shield will collor
purple. The condition of the normal shield will be shown bellow in the thin green bar and the retrieved
shield will be a blue overlap of you life bar.
7.3 Game Options
Besides Ship options there are a few Game Options, which can be toggled during the game:
- F1: Press F1 to enter the command list, this will show all the commands as well as your score at that
specific moment.
- F2: This button wil enable you to either turn on or turn off the music.
- F3: With this button you can set the detail level. Standard it will arange the detail level by
looking at the computer's capacity.
- F4 or Pause: Press one of these two buttons to pause your current game.
- F5: To show the amount of frames per second press F5, the game will be running fluently if it
stay around 50 frames per second.
- SPACE BAR: mostly you confirm an action by pressing the Space Bar.
7.4 Items
In the game you will be able to pick Items by moving your ship over an Item. Within the game you can retrieve
the following Items:
- Coin: Within the level you can retrieve coins by shooting enemy ships. However not all ships
contain coins. Enemy bosses provide even more coins. Every coin represents 1 credit you can spend these
credits when you enter the shop. You can buy upgrades for your ship, invest in stocks at the CEX, or buy
Prestige Items. You can also borrow coins at the bank.
- Gold Bar: Sometimes you retrieve a Gold Bar instead of a coin. A gold bar is worth 5 credits.
These will appear when shooting a transport ship.
- Repair: When you shoot a transport ship you can retrieve items, one item is a repair unit. A
repair unit will give you 150 aditional units on your life bar. A normal Life Bar contains 200 life units.
- Life: A life is represented by a sign with a European flag. These will appear after shooting a
transport ship. and will add a life to your lives in the top left side of your screen.
- Shield: When you retrieve a shield in a level a blue bar will overlap your life bar and a blue
bubble will surround your ship. After the shield is destroyed your life bar will continue counting.
- Destruction: This item will instantly destroy everything vissible in your screen. This allows
you to time the moment of destruction at your disposal.
- Artifact: Some upgrades in the shop are locked and with an artifact you can unlock one of these
upgrades. When an item is unlocked you are able to buy it in the shop.
- Refill Mini Nukes: This item will refill your stock of mini nukes untill it is full. The
maximum number of mini nukes is five.
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Coin
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Gold Bar
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Repair
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Life
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Shield
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Destruction
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Artifact
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Mini Nukes
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7.5 Status
Your status during the stage will be shown by different symbols and bars. Additionally your Radar will warn
you on occasion. The following status related elements are shown:
- Lives(1): The number of lives you have are shown with the European sign in the upper
left side on your screen. You can retrieve lives by collecting Items, scoring
points, and buying them at the shop. The efficiency of one life can be increased
by improving your Armor Plating, Shield Generator, buying a Draxium Regenerator
or retrieving a Shield underway.
- Rank(2): When you destroy a ship this will be added to the total of ships you have
destroyed. The more ships you destroy the higher your rank will be. Your first
rank is Recruit. Your rank is shown right below your lives.
- Coins(3): In the upper right side of your screen you can see the amount of coins you
posses.
- Special Items(4): Special Items must be selected before they can be used. The scroll list
is shown right below the number of coins.
- Boss Armour(5): When you have an encounter with a large vessel "Encounter" will be
mentioned in your screen. When you see the boss his life bar will be shown to
give you an idea of his status.
- Shield Bar(6): Just above the Life Bar you can see the strength of your shield, which is
still left.
- Life Bar(7): The bar below shows the value of the life, which is still left. When you buy
Armour this bar will continue with a next bar.
- Radar: When vessels or objects approach with a high velocity, your radar will warn
you before by highlighting danger in the middle of your screen.
- Communicator: Your communicator is placed below and will pop up when someone is
hailing you, for instance when headquarter warns you or advises you.
- Autopilot: At certain moments your Autopilot will take over the ship and this will be
shown in the upper side of your screen. When this text disappears you will
be able to take over the ship again.
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Game Screen
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7.6 Other Ships
The Baguette is not the only ship in the game. Besides your ship there are different types of other ships:
- Incoming Hostile Ships: During the game you will encounter hostile ships, which will mostly
shoot at you. Enemy ships can kill you by shooting at you or by crashing in to you.
You should try to destroy as many ships as possible or in the worst case try to evade
them as they will cause damage to your ship. Some ships have enourmous amount of
hitpoints and will therefore have a desastrous effect to your ship when they crash
into you.
- Bosses: Most levels are ended with a boss, which you will need to defeat. These bosses have
enourmous amounts of hitpoints and will be different in type all the time. As
mentioned before you can crash into a boss when you are crashing down and this will
cause the boss to suffer severe damage. The life bar of the boss is show above your
shield bar and will give you an estimate of the life he has still left.
- Reinforcements: Next to hostile ships, you will occasionally be reinforced by friendly vessels,
which will help you defeat incoming vessels and will leave over time. These
reinforcements will not cause friendly fire.
- Distant units: Some vessels will be too low or too far away to cause damage to your ship.
8. After a stage has ended
After a stage has ended, the points collected in that specific stage are added to the total of points.
If enough points were collected you will receive the corresponding lives for it. Press Space to continue.
8.1 Debriefing
Right after the ending of a stage you will get a debriefing, which will point out your achievements and
sometimes whether you have earned a Medal. You can either proceed to the shop or take a look at the logbook.
You can scroll through the debriefing with the up and down arrow key.
8.2 Logbook
In the logbook you can see the Medals you have earned and your Rank. By pressing Return you will return to
the debriefing. You can also take a look at the different Races within European Hero. Every level you will
get access to another race and can take a look at their history and their current relevance in the Kronos
Galaxy. Additionally you can take a look at your statistics, the amount of ships you have destroyed, the
number of credits collected, total shots fired, etc. if you have seen all this then press return to go back
to the debriefing and then proceed to enter the shop.
9. Shop
The shop is the place where you can spend the credits you have earned in the levels. You can either upgrade
your ship or you can invest in stocks at the stock market. You can also do something good for this galaxy by
buying the planet Helmo, to make it secured for its original inhabitants. If you do not have enoough money
you will be able to borrow a small amount at the bank.
9.1 Upgrade Ship
You can upgrade the ship in different ways, all upgrades are distributed in different categories. For every
item counts that you buy an item by pressing the right arrow key and left arrow key for selling an item. By
pressing Space one can get more detailed information about a specific item. Some items are marked red, these
are not yet available, they will either be unlocked in Saga 1 or in a later saga. The following categories
are distinguished:
- Primary Weapons: here you can buy upgrades for your Cannon system. Your Cannons are always equiped
and are the most crucial weapons of your ship. You can only have one type of cannon
system at a time.
- Secondary Weapons: Here you can buy Missiles and other always equiped weapons. You can Choose
between the three kinds of missiles and additionally you can buy a Constructo Disk
for the rear mechanism and a Proton Laserbeam on top of the ship. However these two
will only be available in a later saga.
- Nuclear Weapons: Nuclear weapons are selectables. You will need to slect one of them before
you can use one of them. In Saga 1 you can only purchase mini nukes, light nukes and
the Nuclear Shell. The other two nuclear weapons will be available in later saga's.
- Defence Systems: To defend your ship against enemy vessels you can upgrade your ship in
different ways. You can improve the Armour plating of the ship, you can make the ship
regenerate its hull with nanobots, upgrade your emperial shield or build a protective
sphere.
- Co-Pilot: In saga 2 there will be a co-pilot system available, which allows you to hire a
co-pilot and train him to make him more accurate and perseverant. This co-pilot will
shoot automatically and will allow your ship to be even more destructive.
- Miscellaneous: Finanaly there are some miscellaneous upgrades. You can buy additional lives
when needed or make your ship more destructive in kamikaze mode. Addtionally you can
buy a projector, which will make it hard for enemy ships to distinguish you from your
hologram, you will need to buy this one again when it is once used. A hyperspace
drive will allow you to return to homebase when things are looking really desperate.
However when you return to base and would like to use it again, you will have to buy
a new one. The coin grabber will be available in a later saga. and will help you to
collect coins.
9.2 Stocks
European Hero allows you to buy and sell stocks at the CEX(Cassian Stock Exchange). As you will influence the
news yourself, it will help you to predict the price of stocks to a certain extend. There are stocks
available from companies concerned with War, Train transport, Space Transport, Water, Employment, Space
Tourism and Food. Addtionally you can invest in the CEX itself, which are an average of the above mentioned
stocks. When reading briefings and debriefings, you will receive hints for the way in which the stocks will
develop. Additionally you should read the descriptions of the companies by pressing Space Bar when standing
on a specific stock. When you have bought a stock you can see the development of the stock in the past and
may decide to sell your stocks or maybe even buy more stocks. The maximum amount of stocks you can buy is
three, which represents about 15% of the company. After playing a stage and you enter the Stocks Menu you can
see the amount of profit or loss you made with your investments by moving your cursor over the stock.
9.3 Prestige
In the third Saga, prestige will be introduced. As your image as a hero will become more clearer and wider
spread, it is time to invest in some good causes. For instance, you may want to decide that the original
inhabitants of Helmo will have an own planet, free from interference of other races. On the other hand you
may want to choose for an own place for Europeans to live. If you buy Sloesp and allow European marketeers to
begin businesses, this will help increase the prosperity of your European people.
9.4 Bank
If you need some extra money, you can borrow it at the bank. However, there are not many banks who would like
to borrow you money as the probability that you will die and not pay back the money is quite high. There is
only this notorious banker The Last Perzikian who is willing to borrow you money at a ridiculous interest
rate. However, if you are an experienced investor in stocks or you desperately need a certain weapon and need
some addtionaly credits, this is your chance. The following example will explain the way The Last Perzikian
will calculate the amount you can borrow and need to pay:
Example: You have a Networth of 100 credits( this means all the weapons, stocks and credits you posses)
and would like to borrow some credits. With a networth of 100 credits the Last perzikian will allow you to
borrow five percent of this amount. This means you can borrow a maximum of 5 credits.
However The Last Perzikian has a dubious and dangerous network and therefore people who do not pay back their
borrowed money are in serious trouble. He will take care that he will get his money somehow. Do not think you
can escape his Network. There were pilots who did not have enough money, their most expensive weapon was torn
out of the ship and the pilot did not receive anything back for it. The Last Perzikian is a very nice guy,
but will make you pay when he doesn't get his money back.
The interest percentage is 100 percent and the fine, which comes above this interest when you do not pay back
the borrowed money is 50 percent of the initially borrowed amount.
The Last Perzikian
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