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The Best of Select: Games Special 4
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THE BEST OF SELECT Games Special 4 (Select CD-ROM)(1996).iso
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dosgames
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avalot
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avalot.doc
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Text File
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1995-08-04
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47KB
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1,148 lines
First there was Avaricius...
Then, over a thousand years later, there came
Lord
oO"Oo "OO "OO oO"Oo "OO" oO"Oo O"OO"O
OO OO OO OO OO OO OO OO OO OO
OOoooOO OO OO OOoooOO OO OO OO OO
OO OO OO OO OO OO OO o "Oo oO" OO
"" "" """ "" "" """""""" """ """"
d'Argent
(A Mediaeval Graphical Adventure Game)
Copyright (c) 1994, Mike, Mark and Thomas Thurman.
Version 1.0 - November 1994
****************************************************************************
* NB: Read the legal stuff at the end soon. Quick synopsis: Not to be *
* hacked up or sold without our written consent. To be freely distributed. *
* Don't blame us for anything this program does. *NO WARRANTY!* *
****************************************************************************
Background
""""""""""
Jupiter had had a hard day. Being head of the Mount Olympus Associate Group
PLC was no picnic. In the morning, he had overheard the Naiads talking of
going on strike again. Jupiter sighed- another drought. Then Pluto had come
up to his office again to ask him if he would consider selling out, and when
Jupiter refused, had gone off shouting that he would get Phoebus Apollo to
print the story. Finally, Pan had told him that he had invented a sort of
flying machine, and asked whether he could start an airline company on Mount
Olympus. "You could call it the Jupiter-Pan-Olympian company." he had said.
Jupiter said that he didn't see anything wrong with materialising in a puff
of smoke, whereupon Pan went off in a huff. He had left a note: "Will not set
up company on Olympus; have gone to America instead. Your name will not be
included on the headed notepaper."
Jupiter sighed again. At least he was off-duty now. The job wasn't that bad
and it did have its perks. Omnipotence had had to go years ago, but you still
got the executive flat in Docklands and the sports car. He'd taken to driving
it around London recently. Being immortal certainly had its benefits.
Another benefit of the job, he reflected, is the technology. That was the
best thing for years. It was only in a few days' time that he had gone down
to the end of the twentieth century and bought himself a laptop (his
time-travelling wasn't what it used to be.) He had been rather annoyed that
the installation program wasn't in Greek, but you couldn't have everything.
The dryads, who were, of course, greatly in favour of the paperless office,
had typed in all the records from the old ledger filing system for him only a
day or two before. He decided to play around with it.
> Enter number of record:
said the screen helpfully. Jupiter frowned at the screen; it was all English
to him. At least he could remember how the numerals worked. He chose a number
at random:
> CLXXVII
he typed. Nothing happened, so he waited for a few minutes and then
remembered he hadn't pressed Enter.
> Non-numeric characters in response, please try again
announced the screen. Jupiter had never been much good at English and this
was beyond him, but after a few minutes he realised that he was supposed to
use the Arabic number system. He picked another random number and typed it
in.
> 17417
This time, he remembered to press Enter. The screen said:
> Report no. 17417: D. Avaricius Sextus
> Killed: while fighting as gladiator.
> (Had, in fact, killed 17 lions previously,
> in self-defence.)
Jupiter stared at the screen as the text slowly scrolled up it. Of course! It
was all coming back to him now. He called on the intercom for Neptune. There
was a splashing sound, water flew everywhere, and Neptune appeared. The
computer, having been hit by several stray drops, fizzed and exploded,
obviously without hurting anyone.
"Do you remember this chap?" asked Jupiter. "Quite tall? Red hair? Lived in
Pompeii? Name of Avaricius?"
"Hmm... it was a long time ago..." said Neptune. "Hang on a sec, yes, I do
remember him. I set him up with that pretty little mermaid... what was her
name, now..."
"Never mind that," said Jupiter, "I've just remembered something. Do you know
who warned him about the disaster?"
"I heard on the grapevine it was a soothsayer named Quicphingus." said
Neptune.
"On the grapevine?"
"Yeah, Bacchus told me."
"Oh, right. Look, Quicphingus never existed! It was me! In disguise!"
A slow smile began to spread itself across the sea-god's features. "You? You
crafty old god!" he chuckled. "You dressed up as a soothsayer just to save
him from the volcano?"
"Oh, you know, I just felt like helping someone..." said Jupiter. "Well,
actually, no, I'd promised to find that mermaid a husband. Vowed to on the
Styx. Silly of me."
"It's amazing." said Neptune. "I never realised it was you."
"Did this Avvy chap have any children by this mermaid, then?" asked Jupiter.
"I forgot to find out."
"Oh, yes, lots. They spread all over the earth. D'you know something?"
"Yes, everything. What in particular?" asked Jupiter.
"Genetics. A lot of his descendants turned out exactly like him. I mean,
totally. Even talked like him. Amazing."
"That sounds interesting." mused the king of the gods. "Could I see one of
them?"
"Welllll...." said Neptune, "there's one... no, he wouldn't do, the game'd be
banned, there's another... yes! There's one in 1189. Look."
A huge puddle had spread across Jupiter's desk from the dripping hair of the
ocean god. Neptune pointed at this and a shaky image formed, which grew
steadily clearer. It seemed to be a picture of a bedroom in a mediaeval
castle.
Both the gods craned forwards and peered closer into the screen...
Getting started
"""""""""""""""
Assuming you've already installed Avvy (if you haven't, use the INSTALL
program or just run AVLT100.EXE), you can start to play. To do this,
you must type:
AVALOT
at the Dos prompt (something like C:\AVALOT> or C>.) The game will then load
and you're ready to have fun. A sort of blue whirly thing will appear; if
you don't want to sit and read all the credits, press any key. The whirly
thing will then vanish, to be replaced by a menu. Soon, you'll see what you
can do from this menu; for now, just press Enter. The game proper will then
load and you'll see Avalot fast asleep in bed.
The first thing you must do is to wake him up! Just type WAKE UP on the
keyboard and press "Return" or "Enter" (usually marked with an arrow with a
quarter turn in it.) Avvy will then wake. Typing GET UP will get him dressed
and on his feet, and you'll be ready to progress to the next section of the
manual!
(NB: Since you need to do this whenever you start the game, there's a
short-cut: press f5 twice to get him on his feet.)
Moving Avvy around
""""""""""""""""""
OK, so you've woken Avvy up and he's ready to explore the world. But... how
do you move him around? Well, there are four ways:
1) For real traditionalists. This method involves using the
arrow keys on the right-hand side of your keyboard. Press
any arrow to make him walk in that direction (eg, left
arrow makes him walk left.)
There can be up to two sets of arrow keys on your keyboard.
There's a set with numbers on (like 7 Home, 4 <--, 1 End,
etc.). This is called the Numeric Keypad. If you have
a snazzy new-style keyboard, there will also be a cluster of
(probably grey) keys which only have arrows on. Some people
prefer using these, but I've never lost the habit of using
the numeric keypad for control (hey, I started out on an
XT- and Avaricius was written on it.) But use whichever
arrows you prefer, I don't mind. Right. If you choose
to use the numeric keypad, bear in mind that Num Lock must
be *off*, otherwise you'll just get a string of numbers
on the command line.