THE DISCOVERY INCIDENT¢ By David Woolley¢ ¢ You awake suddenly, and find¢ yourself with slight amnesia. The¢ only thing you can remember is that¢ you are captain of the starship¢ Discovery, which should be on a¢ direct course from the star system¢ Nu Draconis to Earth. But what has¢ happened while you were unconcious?¢ Why has the crew mysteriously¢ disappeared? And does the strange,¢ alien cannister in the launch bay¢ have anything to do with it?¢XXX¢ Your job is to find out what went¢ wrong aboard the Discovery, and, if¢ possible, correct the situation.¢ You use one- and two-word commands,¢ with the basic sentence structure¢ of a verb and a noun. In this¢ adventure, you use the standard¢ commands of GO (followed by a¢ direction), GET (followed by an¢ object), and INVENTORY (which¢ displays a list of your current¢ objects) and others.¢XXX¢ You'll find The Discovery Incident¢ on disk as ADVENT.BAS. You can run¢ this game directly from the disk,¢ but it you want to SAVE your games¢ you MUST copy this program to¢ another disk containing the DOS.SYS¢ file.¢ ¢ When you first RUN the game the¢ menu will appear, with options 0-4:¢ 0- PLAY GAME¢ 1- LOAD GAME¢ 2- SAVE GAME¢ 3- SWAP SETS¢ 4- LEAVE¢XXX¢ Option 0 starts the game where you¢ left it. To return to the menu¢ during the game, simply type MENU.¢ ¢ Option 1 loads a saved game, and¢ option 2 saves the game in¢ progress. If you are using a¢ cassette data recorder, add these¢ lines:¢ ¢ 9155 OPEN #A2,A8,O,"C:"¢ 9185 OPEN #A2,A4,O,"C:"¢ ¢ This will SAVE and LOAD from tape¢ instead of disk.¢XXX¢ Option 3, swap sets, toggles¢ between the special character set I¢ designed, and the standard Atari¢ character set.¢ ¢ Option 4 returns you to BASIC,¢ clearing all variables.¢XXX¢ Playing the Game¢¢ Select option 0. The screen turns¢ black, and at the top of the screen¢ is a short description of your¢ present location, including any¢ nearby objects that you could¢ carry. Note: the items listed¢ beside OBJECTS are not the only¢ objects in that location, just the¢ ones that you can pick up. You can¢ still manipulate other objects¢ described in the text.¢XXX¢ When referring to items you can¢ pick up, always use the name that¢ is listed under OBJECTS, but when¢ referring to items listed in the¢ description, use only one word.¢ So, when you are talking about the¢ alien cannister, use CANNISTER.¢ ¢ You can use several commands to¢ move in a certain direction. For¢ instance, to go up a ladder you¢ could type GO UP, UP, U, or CLIMB¢ LADDER. Other commands you will¢ use frequently are GET, DROP and¢ INVENTORY. To repeat your last¢ command, just press [RETURN].¢XXX¢ Program Take-Apart¢ ¢ All verbs and nouns are assigned a¢ number. This is done in the¢ subroutines from 8030 to 8060. The¢ program finds the number by sorting¢ through either the ACT$ string for¢ verbs, or the OBJ$ string for¢ nouns. The number of the command¢ is its starting position in the¢ string. So, the number for the¢ verb INVENTORY is 13, because¢ ACT$(13,15)="INV". Note that only¢ the first three letters are used.¢ The variables VB and NN are made¢ equal to these 'command numbers'.¢XXX¢ A set of variables, A0-A9, O, and¢ LI, are established in the first¢ line, and are used in places to¢ refer to numbers. This is to save¢ memory. So, instead of using 0, we¢ use O(see line 3), A0 instead of¢ 10(as in line 9077), and LI to¢ refer to line 52, which is often¢ used.¢XXX¢ The custom character set was¢ designed to add "character" to the¢ game. Lines 9036 to 9045 contain¢ data for numbers 0-9, and lines¢ 9046 to 9071 contains data for¢ letters A-Z.Line 9072 contains data¢ for the ? character, and lines¢ 9073-9074 contains data for¢ characters ( and ). If you have no¢ experience with custom character¢ sets, try reading the article¢ Ultrafont (Antic August 1986), or¢ take a look at Instedit(AP0117)¢ from The Catalog.¢XXX¢ Which line the object is on depends¢ upon its position in the OBJ$¢ string. So, WATCH is at line¢ 11019, because WAT holds the¢ positions 19-21 in OBJ$. The¢ coordinates of each object that can¢ be picked up and moved are¢ contained in the two-dimensional¢ array OBJECTS, which is DIMed to a¢ maximum of (11,3) because there are¢ 11 objects that can be TAKEn, and¢ there 3 coordinates. So,¢ OBJECTS(3,x) would refer to the¢ Manual, because it is the third¢ object in the OBJ$ string. Take a¢ look at this:¢XXX¢ OBJECTS(3,1)=7¢ OBJECTS(3,2)=4¢ OBJECTS(3,3)=3¢ ¢ This means that the Manual's¢ coordinates are (7,4,3).If the¢ player was carring the Manual, then¢ three zeros would be placed into¢ OBJECTS(3,1-3). The starting¢ position of each object is placed¢ into the array at lines 9900 to¢ 9925.¢ ¢əəəəəəə
