Battle Royale: Forward to the Past is a game designed with both single-player and multi-player gameplay in mind. Currently only offline multiplayer is supported, though online multiplayer gameplay might become available in a future update. In the options screen you can switch between playing against an AI-controlled opponent or playing against another person. Both options follow similar gameplay rules, though there are different endings, so try both modes!

The goal of the game is to reduce opponent's HP (health points) to 0. In order to do so, you can use three kinds of attacks.

The first one costs 5 MP (magical energy) and shoots 20 projectiles in a wide arc. These projectiles deal 1 point of damage, move quite fast and last for 5 seconds.

The second one costs 15 MP and shoots a single, large projectile. It moves slowly and therefore the effects of gravity impact it's trajectory quite a lot. Use it to your advantage, as it allows you to hit your opponent even when she is hiding behind the Moon or the planet. The projectile explodes on impact, or after 10 seconds. You can also manually explode it. It bursts into 40 projectiles similar to the ones from the first attack. It can deal a total of 45 damage on a direct hit, though usually at least some of the smaller projectiles will fly away, without hurting the target.

The last attack is a Wave Motion Gun. It costs you the entire pool of MP (100). You'll shoot a large wave of projectiles, first spread around you and then concentrated into a single beam. The total amount of bullets is 900. To counterbalance it's extreme power, most of the bullets have relatively short lifespans. If your opponent is going to use it against you, you NEED to defend yourself.

In order to protect yourself from harm, you can shield yourself (or better yet, dodge the bullets, or hide behind an obstacle!)
The shield reduces incoming damage by X%, where X is equal to 80% of your total magical energy. For example, when your energy bar is full, it'll reduce incoming damage by 80%. If it's half full, by 40%. Also, when your energy bar is full you automatically gain a shield effect (because your energy regeneration would be wasted otherwise). It only shields you for 50% damage, but it also costs you only as much energy, as you are regenerating.

It's also useful to know that your energy regenerates 50% faster when you're standing on the planet's surface and 100% faster on the Moon.

During gameplay, you can use ESC to pause the game (and access the options screen). If you change 2nd player's mode during a pause, it'll take effect during your next game. You can switch the debug mode on and off though and it'll take effect immediately. The debug mode is useful to learn navigation, aiming, dodging and similar abilities. It shows you the direction of gravitational acceleration too.

The default controls for both players are as follows:
Celestia:
Up: up
Down: down
Left: left
Right: right
1st attack: 1
2nd attack: 2
3rd attack: 3
shield: q
detonate big projectiles: w

Nightmare Moon:
Up: numeric keypad 8
Down: numeric keypad 5
Left: numeric keypad 4
Right: numeric keypad 6
1st attack: 8
2nd attack: 9
3rd attack: 0
shield: i
detonate big projectiles: o

You can change these in the options screen. To do so, click either on the action's name (e.g. "Attack1"), or on the left edge of the currently assigned key's name. The right edge won't work for longer names (e.g. "Numpad 8") since it could potentially overlap another button and overlapping buttons are a bad thing. Anyway, after clicking the name press the new key you wish to assign to that action. The settings currently aren't saved between sessions, but it's one of the things on the "TO DO" list.

By the way, currently the AI is not very advanced, so it's easy to abuse it's stupidity. Please, don't do so, unless you don't mind having an easy and boring victory. You have been warned. Improving AI is also on the "TO DO" list.

Feel free to resize the window if you think the default resolution is too small (or too big). Just keep in mind that resolutions with a ratio of 4:3 work best, such as 800x600, 1024x768, 1280x960, 1400x1050, 1600x1200. Anything with a different ratio will cause some discrepancy between width and height of objects. This "might" cause relativistic instability and therefore cause perpendicular realities to collide with each other. Just stay on the safe side and don't use different ratios, ok?

^_^

Regards,
Xinef, Fluttershy and Mruczek.

Have fun, keep calm and flutter on!... If that's ok with you ;)
