Scarab of Ra/Walkthrough

1. Story and Gameplay - A small addictive rogue-like game. For a complete story and gameplay, see the Links section.

2. Items

- anaesthetic dart gun : use it with darts to put animals to sleep, but they can still be easily waked up if you step on them - bullwhips : use it to scare away animals - charcoal : use to write message on wall and if you write "Bank of RA - Gold Deposit", it will not work to deposit gold :) - compass : use to know the direction you're facing in the Map window - darts : to load the anaesthetic dart gun - food : helps recover Hunger - gold : the most heaviest thing, be sure to use the Bank of RA to drop it there and gain more prestige points - key : helps to open the exit door to the next level - lantern : helps to see clearer and farther in the maze - melon : most of them explodes if you grab them, for the one you can get,   just eat them for raising your Hunger bar - net : use to entagle animals - oil : to refill the lantern - plank : helps to cover a trap, you can grab the plank again after - snake bite cure : cures from the cobra bite and the poison trap, note that  one use of this cure will not cancel all the bites you got, each bite must  be treated - ten-foot pole : helps to trigger traps so they won't get you - treasure 1 : Scarab of RA : give 1000 prestige points and the guardian will be after you - treasure 2 : Crown of RA : give 1000 prestige points - treasure 3 : Staff of RA : give 1000 prestige points

Some items can be hidden under other items, even if you see an item on the ground that you don't want, make sure you still step on it and check your News window to see if, maybe, there's a key under it, also apply for animals, so yes you must step on them!

3. Enemies -- - cobra : They can bite with a poison, one poisonous bite will mean that you cannot regenerate your Health with time and two bites means your Health will actually go down - guardian : Only one appears per level if you grab the Scarab of RA, the only way to kill them is to throw the Scarab Of RA at it, don't miss, else it will break, they are worth 500 prestige points, if they touch you, your Health will go down quite a bit, be careful - lioness : Can maul you which drain your Health - monkey : Most annoying ones but the less harmful, they cannot hurt you, they can only steal your items, if they steal something important, just wander the area until it steal something else from you and he'll drop the item he's carrying, can also be bribe, try throwing 100 or 200 golds on him and it's possible he will snatch it and run away

4. Maze --- Stick with one side of the wall, personally I always go left, that is, I always choose left when I have a choice of direction. When I get to a dead end, I just turn 180 degree and continue following the left wall. when I get the key, if I never saw the exit door, I continue going left and eventually I'll find the exit door, unless I already saw the exit door, I just switch direction and go always right until I find the exit door again. That way, looking at the map becomes optional, which is a very good thing when you're far in a big maze and your map gets drenched in water!

When entering a new maze, *always* check if there are things right at your feet. Quite often I miss the key there :>

Turning right or left do makes you lose time, hence making you lose Hunger, so everytime you have to turn, just take a glance instead which doesn't make you lose time (with the 7 and 9 keys). Also, when you reach a dead-end, instead of turning 2 times right or left, just make a 180 degree turn with the 2 key, save you 1 turn.

Level - Dimensions - Awarded Prestige points 1   - 3x3        - 0 2   - 4x4        - 90 3   - 5x5        - 160 4   - 6x6        - 250 5   - 7x7        - 360 6   - 8x8        - 490 7   - 9x9        - 640 8   - 10x10      - 810 9   - 11x11      - 1000 10   - 12x12      - 1210 11   - 13x13      - 1440 12   - 14x14      - 1690 13   - 15x15      - 1960 14   - 16x16      - 2250 15   - 17x17      - 2560 16   - 18X18      - 2890 17   - 19x19      - 3240 ??   - ??x?? - ????

5. Speed

Going to the fastest causes these disadvantages : - More chances of waking up a sleeping animals - More chances of triggering a trap - Cannot carry as much items - Cannot automatically map - Harder to spot hidden traps

But also causes these advantages : - Health bar regenerate faster - Hunger bar will drop slower - Lantern oil burn slower

And going to the slowest causes the reverse effect.

So each speed setting has his own drawbacks and advantages. After experimenting with them, I found that moving at a speed of 1 is quite bad, your will die from Hunger very soon, then moving at a speed above 5 will trigger too many traps and you will die from Health, sometimes even before finding a first aid kit! And going too fast won't let you carry a big amount of gold which is worth a lot of prestige points. So, the best speed is 5, unless you see an animal or a trap, go to 1 and resume on 5 after you pass them.

6. Walls

Sometimes you will find a few things written on the wall : - Hyeroglyphs : No purpose. - Bank of RA - Gold Deposit : This is where you can deposit your gold for more prestige points (1 ounce of gold for 5 prestige points). - This the path to the exit : Don't mind it, sometimes it's false. - This isn't the path to the exit : Don't mind it, sometimes it's false. - Kilroy was here : No idea what this means.

7. Goal --- Find the Crown, Scarab and Staff of RA then head for the exit door, after you open it with the key, the game will ask if you want to quit or continue, if you quit, all your gold will be deposited into the Bank of RA and you will gain about 15000 prestige points, else if you continue you can take the chance of gaining more prestige points, but do know that if you die, you will lose a quarter of all of your prestige points. It is always best before diying, to quit, you will keep all your prestige points.

Know that to find the 3 items of RA, you have to search each maze completely, if you miss one item in a maze and you go to the next level, you'll never be able to finish the game.

8. Top Scores -- Strategy do play a good role for this game, but luck also greatly helps. Sometimes you'll find a deep level with no animals, other times a monkey will steal all your food and you won't see other food until you die at only level 7! So reaching the highest scores possible can only be achieved with patience... and being lucky!

If you choose "About Scarab of RA...", it says that Rip Rapacki has gone to level 199 but was stopped by the limits of the version 1.2. Well, I, for one, doubt that many times. So let's make our own Top Scores here, send me the file named "Dean's List" which is the Top Scores and a screenshot of your Top Scores and I'll add it here.

1 - Zurd - 15   - won    - 50460    - Smith Chair - 706450 - C, Sc, St 2 - Zurd - 17    - quit   - 36110    - Emeritus    - 485736 3 - Zurd - 13   - won    - 35945    - Emeritus    - 323687 - C, Sc, St 4 - Zurd - 12    - won    - 34890    - Emeritus    - 376609 - C, Sc, St 5 - Zurd - 16    - quit   - 33850    - Emeritus    - 525120
 * 1) - Name - Level - Status - Prestige - Title       - Gold   - Items

9. Links - The story, gameplay and more at Wikipedia : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scarab_of_RA

The company that produces and distribute it : http://www.semicolon.com/Scarab.html

The Basilisk II software which is an emulator that can be use to play the game, works with Windows, Macintosh, Linux : http://basilisk.cebix.net