=== Using the Online Help ===

You can press Escape at any time to leave the online help.

You can press Question Mark (?) to return to the previous help file.

You can press Space to advance one page, or Return to advance one line.
If you reach the end of the help file, you will wrap around to the start.

You can press Minus (-) to back up one half page at a time towards the
start of the help file (this is very inefficient).

You can press Pound (#) to go to a specific line (defaults to line zero).

You can press Percent (%) to go to a specific file (defaults to "help.hlp").

You can press Equals (=) to hilite lines containing a string (case sensitive).

You can press Slash (/) to search for a string.  Use Slash + Return to continue
a search.  Use Pound + Zero + Return + Slash + Return to restart a search.


=== General Information ===

The game of SAngband is a single player dungeon simulation.  A player
may choose from a number of races when creating a character, and then
"run" that character over a period of days, weeks, even months,
attempting to win the game by defeating Morgoth, the Lord of Darkness,
who resides far below the surface.

The player will begin his adventure on the town level where he may acquire
supplies, weapons, armor, and magical devices by bartering with various shop
owners.  After preparing for his adventure, the player can descend into
the Pits of Angband where fantastic adventures await his coming!
 
Note that SAngband is a very complex game, and it may be difficult to grasp
everything at first, especially if you have never played a "roguelike" game
before.  You should probably browse through all of the "online help files",
especially this one, before beginning any serious adventuring...

For those who are familiar with Angband, or most of its other variants, you
should be aware that the gameplay in SAngband can be quite different,
especially in the early game, and you expectations of what a starting
character is capable of could be fatally wrong.

=== A Note from the Maintainer (of Angband) ===

Welcome to Angband 2.8.X.

My name is Ben Harrison, and I have been the maintainer of Angband since
November 1994.  I have been responsible for many improvements to the game
over the past few years, and I have many more planned for the future.

Angband 2.8.X is available for almost every known system (including Unix,
Macintosh, Amiga, Windows, DOS, OS/2, etc).  It is written entirely in C,
and the source code is freely available.  Creating a version for a new
platform involves writing as few as 100 lines of code and recompiling.

Angband 2.7.8 was the most recent official "stable" version.  However,
it contained a few minor (non-fatal) bugs (see the web page).  You can
give Angband 2.7.8 to your friends while they wait for Angband 2.8.2.

Angband 2.8.3 will be the next official "stable" version.  A whole lot of
changes have been made since Angband 2.7.8 was released, and there is now
a web page listing all of the changes made in each version since that one.
Angband 2.7.9v1, 2.7.9v2, 2.7.9v3, 2.7.9v4, 2.7.9v5, 2.7.9v6, 2.8.0, 2.8.1,
and 2.8.2, are basically "transition" versions leading up to Angband 2.8.3,
and they are all still available (for now) at the ftp sites.  Angband 2.8.3
is based on all previous versions, and incorporates bug fixes in addition to
new features.

See the Official Angband Home Page ("http://www.phial.com/angband/") for up
to date information about the latest version of Angband, including a complete
list of recent modifications and known bugs.

You can obtain the latest source and pre-compiled executables from various
places, try "ftp://ftp.cis.ksu.edu/pub/Games/Angband/Angband-2.7.x" and
the developer site at "ftp://export.andrew.cmu.edu/angband".

You can email compliments, complaints, suggestions, bug reports, and patches
to me ("benh@phial.com"), and you can post interesting experiences and basic
questions to the newsgroup ("rec.games.roguelike.angband").

You may freely distribute the game, and its source, though you are bound
not only by the existing copyright notice from 1984, but also whatever
restrictions may be present on various other pieces of the code, including
the fact that any source written by me is technically automatically placed
under copyright and may thus not be used for commercial purposes.  Remember
to read the "version.txt" help file for some more copyright information.

The basic help files supplied with this game are more or less up to date,
but when in doubt, you should ask the newsgroup for confirmation.

The documentation is very easy to modify and update, so you may want to
check in to the ftp site occasionally to see if there are any new help
files (or spoiler files) for you to acquire.  Note that the spoiler files
are not distributed with the source since they are so huge, but you can
obtain them from various places as with the source and executables.  New
spoiler files may be placed into the "lib/info" directory, or into a user
specified external directory, to allow access via the "online help" system.

Remember to tell all your friends about how much you like Angband...
