Preface
No doubt, many of you who have started playing this
game will find NoEL to be quite unique to other simulation games
like Tokimemo. For one thing, all the interactions are done using
your computer. Basically the object of the game is to find out
as much as possible about the three girls- Kaho, Yuka, & Emi
- using everything resource your computer has as its disposal.
Ultimately, your goal is to win someone's heart by Christmas day.
I have only started playing this game myself, so I will try to
give a rough sketch of the game's controls and highlights as a
way of introducing the game to new users.
Introduction to the Rabbit OS v.1.00
When you start playing the game for the first time and after
you have viewed that gorgeous demo, you will be contacted by Kaho
Shimizu through the VDO phone, which will be your primary means
of contacting the girls. Move the rabbit cursor to the lower right
hand corner of the screen to the command circle and click on W.
Phone, which is the VDO phone. Click on Interactive to start talking
to Kaho right away. During the talk mode, there is a re-sizable
data window in the middle of the screen. The data which goes into
this window comes from this black bar at the lower left hand corner
of the screen right below the timer. As you talk with Kaho or
any other character, topic icons stream across this bar, so click
on them and they will be transferred to the data window. If you
want to ask Kaho about a particular topic, just click on the topic
icon from your data window. In general, the more you ask the more
clues you will get. One helpful tip I've found is not to use all
the topic icons the second you get them, but to use them slowly,
perhaps once every 30 secs and use only the recent ones.
You can also leave the topic icons in the data window for later
conversations. Of course, you may not get a connection every time
you call someone and even you do, if you don't have enough data
(more on gathering data later), she might cut the conversation
short, so it's helpful if you collect enough data first before
you call.
In the W. Phone mode, there's also the pool"Delete.. mode
which allows you to delete data acquired from conversations by
clicking on the topic icons to be deleted. This is useful if you
get repetitive data and the icons are starting to hog up screen
space :). Be warned though that there is no undelete command for
this, so be careful!
Again
This is the second command in the command circle which is
your means of finding data about the three girls outside of conversations
(and this data can aid conversations as well). Once this command
is selected, you will see two large squares, one with the Rabbit
OS logo (for viewing data) and the other filled with data search
icons (the square can be rotated by using the arrow keys on the
left). There's also a bar at the bottom of the screen lined up
with 5 "search rabbits". To collect data, simply click
on the data icons you want to find. For example, if you click
on the icon "K" and then the cat icon, you want to find
out info about Kaho's pet. You can select up to four topics to
search for at any one time per rabbit. To initiate search, just
simply click on one of the search rabbits and it will disappear
into the cybernet and may or may not appear with the data you
need (if it does, you'll see it holding a new data icon). The
availability of each new data icon depends on where you are in
the game, so keep on trying! Here is a brief overview of the 6
sides on the data search square:
First side: has the half-black half-white open book as the first
icon. The icons here deal with your relationship status with the
three girls, whether it's about dating, money, etc.
Second side: has a wavy line as the first icon. The icons here
deal with the personal aspects for each of the three girls. You
normally would not get much info here yet until late in the game
because the data you get are things like personal photos, maps
to their houses, and time schedules (mighty useful for timing
phone calls!).
Third side: has an arrow pointing upwards as the first icon. The
icons here deal with latest happenings, for example, weather reports
and news. You will use this side the most as the data you get
here will be your basis for conversations. For example, if you
wanted to ask someone out for a date you need to know weather
report first.
Fourth side: has the K letter as the first icon. The icons here
contain information directly dealing with the three girls. You
can find out things like their personal profiles, their airline
schedules (if they are traveling overseas) and their school sports
day activities.
Fifth side: has the lock with the letter S as the first icon.
Mostly misc. stuff here like cosmetics, gifts, etc. But the icon
which has an arrow with a D in it is useful because at one point
the girls will go to an amusement park and you can use this icon
to talk to them.
Sixth side: has this thing that looks like a chip as the first
icon. Again, mostly misc. stuff like clothes, etc. The tree icon
is very useful during Dec. 23-24 as it contains vital information
about Christmas activities.
Once you have collected all the data you need and you wish to
view them, click on the Program button on the right side. The
Rabbit OS logo screen will enlarge and from here, click on the
search rabbit(s) carrying the data to view that item. You can
also click on Text to view the text data of that file.
Comp
There are four commands here that deal with your computer.
They are:
Time Control - allows you to jump ahead in time in increments
of minutes, hours, and days. You can't jump back, so use this
command with caution. Time control is useful when you don't want
to spend anymore time collecting data and want to jump ahead to
events, like dates or times of the day when one of the girls is
at home and you want to call her. To jump, just use the arrow
keys to fix the future time and click on Jump to execute.
Account Meter - allows you to see various game settings like speech
rate but you aren't allowed to change anything.
Sound - allows you to change various sound settings.
Shut down - quits and saves the game. You are allowed to save
only one game, and this is loaded automatically every time you
boot up NoEL.
V.Mail
Supposedly stands for "Video Mail" which isn't far
from the truth as this command will allow you to view whatever
video clips you may have acquired. You automatically start out
with one clip (which is the demo animation) and will gain more
later as you progress.
