The Main Menu
In the dim light of the hangar, lit by occasional flashes from arc welders, you carefully look over the damage to the hull of your beloved hovercraft, the Oionisma. A dispute over scavenging rights had turned into an all-out battle, and you were caught in the crossfire of the laser blasts while trying to flee. Long black scars mark the hull in several places, but fortunately the shields prevented any real damage to the ship.
You are a scavenger, travelling in your hovercraft through the ruins of once majestic cities, looking for any items that could conceivably be useful. Your parents were mechanics, as were their parents before them, and from them you have learned much about how to repair and maintain the machines that were left behind after the Great War.
MENU OPTIONS:
NEW GAME - clicking this button will allow you to start a new game from any of the levels that you have already visited. Games are saved the first time in a game that you reach a given level, so if you play up to level three and then start over again, your more recent statistics will be the ones that are stored for each level. When you hover your mouse over a level name, the side bar on the right will be changed to reflect the current state of your ship in that saved game.
The "Tutorial" level is designed to teach you the basics of piloting your ship, dodging enemies, and using weapons. It is highly suggested that you run the tutorial before playing the actual game. Plus, the tutorial level lets you experiment with a large variety of weapons that you won't find until much later in the actual game.
CONTINUE - When playing the game, you can hit the quit key (q by default) to quit to the main menu. After doing this, clicking "Continue" will continue your game exactly where you left off - so the quit key can be used to pause the game and also to change the configuration options in the middle of a game. Clicking "Continue" when Apteryx first starts up will bring you to the very start of level 1.
ABOUT - Clicking this button displays the credits for Apteryx.
CONFIGURE - Clicking this button allows you to change the key settings, volume, and control style. To change a key setting, click on it (the space for the key should start to flash) and then type a new key to use. Volume can be changed by clicking on the volume bar, and clicking on "Control:" toggles the control type between mouse control and keyboard control. "Cancel" will return you to the main menu without saving your changes; "OK" will write your changes to the preferences file.
QUIT - Click this button to quit Apteryx.
