Precision Software Appli…tions Silver Collection 1/Precision Software Applications Silver Collection Volume One (PSM) (1993).iso/games/egavga/alfie11.exe/ALFIE.DOC

Text File | 1990-03-10 | 14KB | 310 lines

                         Ad-Lib Fill-in Entertainment
                                    (ALFIE)

                   Copyright (c) 1990 by Barbara L. Baser
                             All rights reserved.

                                  Version 1.1
                               February 15, 1990

WHAT'S IT ALL ABOUT?
--------------------
ALFIE generates  "fill in the blanks" party games similar to the popular
"Mad Libs" commercial product.   Briefly, the idea is that party guests are
asked for a list of words to fill in blanks appearing in a story they can't
see.  All they are told is the type of word needed next -- noun, verb,
adjective, exclamation, etc.  When the whole story is read back with the
blanks filled in by words chosen at random, the results are usually hilarious.

The "story" used by ALFIE is an ordinary ASCII file, which can be created
with EDLIN or any other text editor you like.  Blanks to be filled in are
signalled to the program by one or two characters starting with the "@" or
"%" character. For example, a blank which will contain a noun is indicated in
the text file by "@n" (no quotes are typed), while a past tense verb is
indicated by "@t" and a present-tense verb by "@v".

During the party, the computer presents the list of words by type, then
displays the completed story with the blanks filled in by the responses from
the guests.  If the story turns out to be especially good, it can be printed
or the merged file can be saved.

Enjoy!!!



SETTING UP THE INPUT FILE
-------------------------
Use any text editor or word processor you like to create the input "story",
so long as your editor can output a straight ASCII file with no control
characters, and with lines terminated by the carriage return (ASCII 13), line
feed (ASCII 10) sequence.

Blanks to be filled in within the text file are indicated by sequences of two
to four characters of which the first must be "@" or "%".  The second
character determines the "type" of word (noun, verb, adjective, etc.) for
which the computer will ask you to fill in the blank.  The following is the
list of standard type codes recognized by the program:

     @a        Adjective
     @b        animal ("Beast")
     @c        Color
     @d        aDverb
     @e        Expression (e.g., "Ods Bodkin" or "Gadzooks")
     @f        Flavor (sour, yucky, etc.)
     @F, @W    Woman's name  (e.g., "Aunt Em" or "Ethel Mertz")
     @l        pLace
     @M        Man's name (e.g., "Long John Silver")
     @n        singular Noun
     @o        Odor
     @p        Plural noun
     @P        Person
     @t        verb, past Tense
     @v        Verb, present tense
     @V        "ing" form of Verb, e.g. walking
     @#        number
     @"        "Ditto" (see "Multiple Insertions of the Same Response" below)

ALFIE DOCUMENTATION                        Page Two

In some cases, the above list of standard types will not be specific enough
for a given blank in your story.  For these cases, ALFIE allows you to define
three "special" types with the codes @s1 through @s3.

"Special" type codes aren't required at all, but if one or more are used, the
prompt text the computer will use in asking for the word must be defined on
the first one to three lines of the text file.  For example, to add the
special types "a vegetable" and "an emotion," the first two lines of the story
must appear as follows:

    @s1a vegetable
    @s2an emotion

"Special" prompts are limited to 30 characters, and are terminated by the
carriage return/linefeed sequence (what the computer normally produces when
you hit the Enter key).

In the above example, when the computer encounters @s1 in the main body of the
story, it will prompt the guests with the message "Please type in a
vegetable"; when it encounters @s2, it will prompt "Please type in an emotion".

If you would like to force the first letter of the player's reponse to be
capitalized in the final product (whether it was typed in that way or not),
substitute "%" for "@" in the control sequences.  You might want to do this
for the first word in a sentence, a word in a title, etc.

When you're entering the main story line, insert the type code just as if you
were typing a word, surrounded by blanks.  If, for example, you enter:

    See the @n run!

and the guests enter "dog," at run time, the line in the final story will
read:

    See the dog run!

If, on the other hand, you enter:

    See the@nrun!

the final product will read:

    See thedogrun!

This is usually not the intended outcome, although it can be used creatively
for some special effects.  For example:

    See the @ns run!

produces the final output:

    See the dogs run!

without requiring you to use the @p (plural noun) type code.

Terminate each line with the "Enter" (carriage return/linefeed) sequence.
These can be inserted at any convenient position, since the computer reformats
the text after inserting responses in place of the type codes to make sure
it fits in an 80-column screen.





ALFIE DOCUMENTATION                        Page Three

Because of this reformatting, if you want blank lines to appear in the final
story, you must enter into the text file one more blank line than the number
you want.  For example, to have one blank line in the final story, enter two
blank lines in the text file at that position.

After experimenting a bit, you'll be able to tell how often and where in the
text fill-ins should be left to maximize the possibilities for hilarity.  It's
usually (but not always) a good idea to space fill-ins several words apart,
since consecutive random words tend to read as gibberish.

Where do you get "stories" to use as a basis for the game?  All sorts of
articles work well -- horoscopes, advice columns, advertisements, even
recipes!  Just pick something short (at first) and try it on an unsuspecting
friend.



NEW FEATURE:  Multiple Insertions of the Same Response
------------------------------------------------------
Frequently, you'll want to retain one or more of the answers given by the
player to use later in the story.  For example, if you ask for a "woman's
name" and want the same woman to show up later, you can't simply insert the
@W code again.  Why?  Because the player, who doesn't have your overview of
the story, will probably insert a DIFFERENT name when asked again.

You may follow ANY @ or % control sequence (including @s1 through @s3) with an
optional "memory" number, a digit from 0 through 10, inclusive.  This will
cause what the player types in to be stored in that "memory" (like a
calculator's memory) for future use.

To recall a memory, insert the control sequence @" (double quotes) or %",
followed immediately by the memory number in which you stored the original
word.  When it detects this sequence, ALFIE will NOT prompt the player for a
new reponse; instead, it will insert the contents of the memory into the story
at that point.

For example, suppose the text file is set up with entries as follows:

    Look, look, see @F1 and @M2!  See @"1 and @"2 run!  See @"1 and @M
    play!

This sequence will result in prompts for one woman's and two men's names.  If
the player types in "Minnie Mouse," "Fred Flintstone," and "Batman,"
respectively, the story will come out as follows:

    Look, look, see Minnie Mouse and Fred Flintstone!  See Minnie
    Mouse and Fred Flintstone run!  See Minnie Mouse and Batman
    play!

Like calculator memories, text memories remain stable until you change them.
If you inadvertently use a memory that you forgot to set up, "blivet" will
appear in the final text at the location where the "ditto" control code occurs.

To illustrate the ability to overwrite memories, consider one more example:

    The @a0, brown @n0 slyly jumped over the @"0 dog.

Let's assume the (well-behaved) player types in "quick" and "fox" to the
prompts.  If so, the resulting text will appear as follows:

    The quick, brown fox slyly jumped over the fox dog.



ALFIE DOCUMENTATION                        Page Four

Obviously, this is PROBABLY not what was intended.  The trouble arises from
the use of the same "memory" area (in this example, 0) for both the adjective
and the noun.  True, the adjective was dutifully stored by ALFIE in memory 0.
Unfortunately, the text file maker caused this memory to be overwritten by a
noun two words later!  So it goes....


RUNNING THE GAME
----------------
Once you have a number of input files set up, you're ready for an evening's
entertainment.  Seat one of your guests at the computer and enter ALFIE.  As
usual, all input should be followed by the Enter key.

The computer will first ask for the name of the input text file to use.  Key
in the name of one of your creations, and turn the keyboard over to your guest.

For every location you set up with a type code, the computer will prompt for a
word or words.  (Two and three word responses with blanks in the middle are
okay, by the way, but excessively long responses will confuse the reformatting
procedure.  Encourage your guest to use short two-word sequences if he'd like:
"spare tire" is fine, but responses like "antidisestablishmentarianism blivet"
should be avoided.)

Also, some words are inherently funnier than others.  For example, there are
more humorous possibilities in "rutabaga" and "slimy" than in "boy" and "nice",
even though these words are of the same types (noun and adjective,
respectively).  Try to steer the group toward snappy, off-the-wall words and
away from ordinary words used in everyday conversation.

When the computer reaches the end of the text file, it will stop and tell you
to press a key to display the story.  Gather all your guests around the screen
and have one read the story  aloud.  With some luck (and some skill on your
part in choosing the text and fill-in spaces, and in guiding the fill-ins
toward humorous words), your guests will spend the next few minutes falling
over themselves laughing.

If the story is especially good ("a keeper"), you can print it to LPT1 or save
it to disk.  In the latter case, BE SURE not to use the same file name in
storing the merged story as you used in setting up the text file, or your
original input will be overwritten and, therefore, not available for re-use.


NEW FEATURES AND FIXES
----------------------
Differences from Version 1.0

1.  The "multiple insertions of the same response" (ditto) feature was added.

2.  ALFIE now allows you to continue with additional text files rather than
    bailing out to DOS after each file is processed.

3.  The capitalization function has been corrected; in the previous version,
    the first lower-case letter encountered in the reponse was capitalized.
    If the player had ALREADY capitalized the initial letter, this resulted
    in both the first and second letters being capitalized.

4.  The standard prompts have been clarified for @M (formerly "a male person",
    now "a man's name") and @F (formerly "a female person", now "a woman's
    name").  The new standard control code @W, a synonym for @F, has been
    added for mnemonic reasons.

5.  Pauses have been added between screen displays if the final story runs to
    more than one screen; this keeps the story from scrolling off at the top
    if it is long.

ALFIE DOCUMENTATION                        Page Five

6.  The "special prompts" variables have been initialized to "a nonsense
    word," in case they are accidentally used without being defined; this
    prevents the inadvertent display of raw memory on the screen when the
    game is run.


SUPPLIED FILES IN THIS ARCHIVE
------------------------------
The following is a listing of files supplied with ALFIE.ZIP 1.1:

     ALFIE.EXE      The program
     ALFIE.DOC      This manual
     RECIPE.FIL     A sample input file
     RECIPE.LIB     Output from a sample session using
                    RECIPE.FIL as input.
     PIRATE.FIL     Another sample input file, illlustrating
                    special word types and rated R
     PIRATE.LIB     The resulting output file from the above



                  ALFIE Shareware Notification

If you use ALFIE and find it enjoyable, your shareware contribution of $8.00
will be gratefully accepted.  Registered users will receive future upgrades
at no charge, and a 5-1/4" diskette containing pre-created fill-in files for
your use.  Make checks payable to Barbara Baser and mail to:

                           c/o Cogitate, Inc.
                             P. O. Box 413
                          Southfield, MI 48037

If you have suggestions for improvements or features you'd like to see in
future versions, or if you find any program errors or run into problems, you
can contact me on CompuServe (76703,4252), or Delphi (MSWIZ) detailing the
problem you are encountering.

You are encouraged to upload ALFIE.ZIP to other BBSs and on-line services;
however, the archived file must be uploaded in its entirety and contain all
the originally supplied files, documentation, and this shareware notice.
ALFIE may not be sold as a commercial program; doing so is illegal and
contrary to United States copyright law.