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As you may already have discovered, Rex's story has several possible endings,
only one of which is a "happy" one. You can watch each of these endings simply
by typing the proper command from the DOS prompt:
mainmenu -w:1 ("A Quick Death")
mainmenu -w:2 ("An Honorable Death")
mainmenu -w:3 ("Victory!")
mainmenu -w:4 ("The Decompression Ending")
The last of these (mainmenu -w:4) shows the epilogue only, since the
decompression itself is handled with special program code instead of an
animation script.
Be sure to play through the game normally first, so that you won't spoil the
ending for yourself. Then, use the command line options to bring up "instant
replays" for your friends.
Cheat Mode!
Rex Nebular does in fact contain a special "cheat mode" that was used during
development. Now you too can make use of this special, privileged set of
keyboard commands. One word of warning, however, before you begin: these cheat
keys were designed to be used by experienced programmers (nyuk, nyuk). Mostly,
that means that if they are not used with great care, the cheat keys can cause
the game to crash or cause Rex to get permanently stuck somewhere. We'll tell
you how to get into cheat mode and give you a few basic pointers on how to use
it, but the rest is entirely AT YOUR OWN RISK! Remember also that once you
turn cheat mode on in a game, it will remain on even when you save that game
(so any damage that might have been done by cheat mode will remain in effect
for that game when you restore it). To turn cheat mode off, you must either
start a new game or restore an old game from before you started cheating.
Finally, we STRONGLY suggest that you play Rex all the way through before
turning on cheat mode. First and foremost, this prevents cheat mode from
spoiling the game for you. Secondly, it gives you a better idea of the
intended story line of Rex (so that when you completely foul it up with cheat
mode you will realize what is happening). We must emphasize that cheat mode is
really nothing more than a way to go bashing around the planet in the wrong
order and at the wrong times.
How To Activate Cheat Mode
To activate cheat mode, you must first either start a new game or restore an
old game. Next, press the CTRL key and hold it down. While continuing to hold
down the CTRL key, type the letters W, I, D, E, P, I, P, E in sequence. When
you are finished, a grey box containing the message "Cheating Enabled" should
appear (if it does not, try again from the beginning--you must have missed a
key). Once the grey box appears, you can release the CTRL key. Then, press the
SPACE bar to clear the message from the screen. You are now in cheat mode!
Cheat Mode Options
Once you have entered cheat mode, you can teleport yourself to any location in
the game. To do this, press the CTRL-T key. A grey box will pop up and ask you
where you want to go. Just type in the proper room number and "poof"--you're
there. The tricky part, of course, is finding out the proper room number. If
you type in an invalid room number, the game will abort with the error. Here
is a list of valid room numbers that you can try:
Section 1: (Underwater)
Slippery Pig: 101, 102, 103
Underwater: 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109
Cave: 110, 111
Section 2: (Island)
Island South: 212
Island East: 208, 209, 203
Island West: 207, 211, 210, 205
Island North: 202, 201
Witch Doctor: 214
Twinkles: 215
Section 3: (Underground City -- Medical Complex)
Capture Scene: 301
Death Scene: 304
Air vent: 313
Interrogation Room: 318
Player's Cell (before havoc): 307
Player's Cell (after havoc): 357
Guard station (before/after): 311/361
Gender Bender: 316
Intersection (after): 354
Vault room (after): 352
Teleporter room (after): 351
Section 4: (Underground City -- South Annex)
Scanner Corridors: 401, 407
Other Corridors: 405, 406
Wanda's Bar: 402
Armory: 408
Storage: 410
Laboratory: 411
Teleporter: 413
Section 5: (Machopolis Lower)
Arrive: 501, 551
Security: 503
Software Store/Lab: 506, 507, 508
Restaurant: 511, 512
Elevator: 513
Section 6: (Machopolis Upper)
Bruce's Place: 601, 602, 603
Sea Window: 604
Abdul's Auto: 607, 608
Buckluster Video: 609, 610
Hermit: 611
Williams Bypass: 612
Section 7: (Machopolis Rim/Governor's)
City Rim "before": 751, 752
City Rim "after": 701, 702
Sea Monster: 703
Bottle: 704
Outside Penthouse: 705
Governor's Penthouse: 706
Section 8: (Space Port)
Control Station: 801
Landing Pad One: 802
Landing Pad Two: 803
Inside Ship: 804
You can find out what "room" you are in at any time by pressing CTRL-P. The
grey box which appears will tell you the current room number (among other
things).
The CTRL-O key allows you to move objects around. When you press CTRL-O, you
will be asked for an object number (valid numbers range from 0 to 54, with the
exceptions of 18, 38, and 44). You can then move the object to any desired
location ("2" moves it to your own inventory; "0" gets rid of it). Moving
objects is extremely risky, since typing an invalid object number is almost
guaranteed to crash the game. We'll let you figure out which objects are which
by trial and error. We will, however, give you one example: Press CTRL-O. Then
type the number "39" (for detonators) and press ENTER. Then type the number
"2" (for player inventory) and press ENTER. You now have the detonators!
We recommend that you DO NOT attempt to use the CTRL-G option (to change
global flags). Bad, horrible things could happen.
While Rex is walking somewhere, you can press the SPACE bar to scoot him along
his path quickly. The risk here is that occasionally you will get Rex "stuck"
so that he can't move at all; if this happens, press CTRL-Z. Pressing the
SPACE bar occasionally has other bizarre effects (such as causing all the
people on the screen to disappear). These exciting bonus features can also
generally be corrected by pressing CTRL-Z (see, isn't cheat mode neat!).
Several other strange and wonderful cheat options exist; they have not been
described here, but you may find them with a little experimentation. Use them
at your own risk!!!
One of these features is the "frame by frame" mode which will be activated if
you accidentally press the CTRL-F key. The game will appear to "freeze up",
but you can restart it by pressing CTRL-F again.
only one of which is a "happy" one. You can watch each of these endings simply
by typing the proper command from the DOS prompt:
mainmenu -w:1 ("A Quick Death")
mainmenu -w:2 ("An Honorable Death")
mainmenu -w:3 ("Victory!")
mainmenu -w:4 ("The Decompression Ending")
The last of these (mainmenu -w:4) shows the epilogue only, since the
decompression itself is handled with special program code instead of an
animation script.
Be sure to play through the game normally first, so that you won't spoil the
ending for yourself. Then, use the command line options to bring up "instant
replays" for your friends.
Cheat Mode!
Rex Nebular does in fact contain a special "cheat mode" that was used during
development. Now you too can make use of this special, privileged set of
keyboard commands. One word of warning, however, before you begin: these cheat
keys were designed to be used by experienced programmers (nyuk, nyuk). Mostly,
that means that if they are not used with great care, the cheat keys can cause
the game to crash or cause Rex to get permanently stuck somewhere. We'll tell
you how to get into cheat mode and give you a few basic pointers on how to use
it, but the rest is entirely AT YOUR OWN RISK! Remember also that once you
turn cheat mode on in a game, it will remain on even when you save that game
(so any damage that might have been done by cheat mode will remain in effect
for that game when you restore it). To turn cheat mode off, you must either
start a new game or restore an old game from before you started cheating.
Finally, we STRONGLY suggest that you play Rex all the way through before
turning on cheat mode. First and foremost, this prevents cheat mode from
spoiling the game for you. Secondly, it gives you a better idea of the
intended story line of Rex (so that when you completely foul it up with cheat
mode you will realize what is happening). We must emphasize that cheat mode is
really nothing more than a way to go bashing around the planet in the wrong
order and at the wrong times.
How To Activate Cheat Mode
To activate cheat mode, you must first either start a new game or restore an
old game. Next, press the CTRL key and hold it down. While continuing to hold
down the CTRL key, type the letters W, I, D, E, P, I, P, E in sequence. When
you are finished, a grey box containing the message "Cheating Enabled" should
appear (if it does not, try again from the beginning--you must have missed a
key). Once the grey box appears, you can release the CTRL key. Then, press the
SPACE bar to clear the message from the screen. You are now in cheat mode!
Cheat Mode Options
Once you have entered cheat mode, you can teleport yourself to any location in
the game. To do this, press the CTRL-T key. A grey box will pop up and ask you
where you want to go. Just type in the proper room number and "poof"--you're
there. The tricky part, of course, is finding out the proper room number. If
you type in an invalid room number, the game will abort with the error. Here
is a list of valid room numbers that you can try:
Section 1: (Underwater)
Slippery Pig: 101, 102, 103
Underwater: 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109
Cave: 110, 111
Section 2: (Island)
Island South: 212
Island East: 208, 209, 203
Island West: 207, 211, 210, 205
Island North: 202, 201
Witch Doctor: 214
Twinkles: 215
Section 3: (Underground City -- Medical Complex)
Capture Scene: 301
Death Scene: 304
Air vent: 313
Interrogation Room: 318
Player's Cell (before havoc): 307
Player's Cell (after havoc): 357
Guard station (before/after): 311/361
Gender Bender: 316
Intersection (after): 354
Vault room (after): 352
Teleporter room (after): 351
Section 4: (Underground City -- South Annex)
Scanner Corridors: 401, 407
Other Corridors: 405, 406
Wanda's Bar: 402
Armory: 408
Storage: 410
Laboratory: 411
Teleporter: 413
Section 5: (Machopolis Lower)
Arrive: 501, 551
Security: 503
Software Store/Lab: 506, 507, 508
Restaurant: 511, 512
Elevator: 513
Section 6: (Machopolis Upper)
Bruce's Place: 601, 602, 603
Sea Window: 604
Abdul's Auto: 607, 608
Buckluster Video: 609, 610
Hermit: 611
Williams Bypass: 612
Section 7: (Machopolis Rim/Governor's)
City Rim "before": 751, 752
City Rim "after": 701, 702
Sea Monster: 703
Bottle: 704
Outside Penthouse: 705
Governor's Penthouse: 706
Section 8: (Space Port)
Control Station: 801
Landing Pad One: 802
Landing Pad Two: 803
Inside Ship: 804
You can find out what "room" you are in at any time by pressing CTRL-P. The
grey box which appears will tell you the current room number (among other
things).
The CTRL-O key allows you to move objects around. When you press CTRL-O, you
will be asked for an object number (valid numbers range from 0 to 54, with the
exceptions of 18, 38, and 44). You can then move the object to any desired
location ("2" moves it to your own inventory; "0" gets rid of it). Moving
objects is extremely risky, since typing an invalid object number is almost
guaranteed to crash the game. We'll let you figure out which objects are which
by trial and error. We will, however, give you one example: Press CTRL-O. Then
type the number "39" (for detonators) and press ENTER. Then type the number
"2" (for player inventory) and press ENTER. You now have the detonators!
We recommend that you DO NOT attempt to use the CTRL-G option (to change
global flags). Bad, horrible things could happen.
While Rex is walking somewhere, you can press the SPACE bar to scoot him along
his path quickly. The risk here is that occasionally you will get Rex "stuck"
so that he can't move at all; if this happens, press CTRL-Z. Pressing the
SPACE bar occasionally has other bizarre effects (such as causing all the
people on the screen to disappear). These exciting bonus features can also
generally be corrected by pressing CTRL-Z (see, isn't cheat mode neat!).
Several other strange and wonderful cheat options exist; they have not been
described here, but you may find them with a little experimentation. Use them
at your own risk!!!
One of these features is the "frame by frame" mode which will be activated if
you accidentally press the CTRL-F key. The game will appear to "freeze up",
but you can restart it by pressing CTRL-F again.