Giga Pack/Giga Pack CD1.iso/action/avvy/avvy.doc

Text File | 1992-02-06 | 25KB | 478 lines

You're supposed to read this file first!

                       Thorsoft of Letchworth presents...
                           DENARIUS AVARICIUS SEXTUS

                       (A Roman Graphical Adventure Game)

                                  version 1.5

                       by Mike, Mark and Thomas Thurman.


     (Welcome to the shareware world's first (as far as we know) graphical
        interactive adventure game about a Roman citizen with red hair.)

                                 The background
                                 """"""""""""""
Back in good old A.D. 79, there lived a patrician Roman named Avaricius (Avvy
to his friends.) He was about 26 years old and about six foot three. He had
married a woman named Arkata, which was a mistake he lived to regret- she
never stopped nagging him. His few slaves were so lazy he hardly ever saw them,
except for one named Crapulus, who was always at least inebriated, if not
downright drunk- apart from reading Avvy's mail (amazing! he could read) and
doing the washing-up, he preferred to spend his time with an amphora of wine
down at the "Canis et Anas" (his local.) (*)

You'd think Avvy had problems enough. However, he also lived in a pleasant
seaside resort you may have heard of, called Pompeii, and he was unaware
that in a few hours' time he would be buried alive. Well, maybe. Perhaps,
with the guidance of his guardian angel from the twentieth century (that's
where you come in) he might escape both Arkata and the volcano. The date
is... 24th August, A.D. 79.

(*) = note for non-British players: this is an English term, signifying a
person's usual drinking establishment.

                              The aim of the game
                              """""""""""""""""""
To escape from Vesuvius (and Arkata.)

                                    The game
                                    """"""""
Use the cursor keys (on the right of the keyboard) to move him about.
If you want him to walk diagonally, use the key in between the two you need
(e.g. use PgUp to make him walk up and right.) Enhanced keyboard users should,
of course, use the numeric keypad arrows rather than the other ones if they
wish to take advantage of this feature. And don't forget to switch NumLock off
(if it's on), else you'll just get a lot of numbers on the command line.

You may also use the mouse. See under "Say cheese..." for more information.

                                      Keys
                                      """"
(Not the sort that open doors. Keyboard keys.)

Suppose you want to open a door. (Some doors are already open, so you can
just walk through them. Most doors at the bottom of the screen are like this,
as are some others.) If the door is closed, type in "open door" (with no
inverted commas around it, of course) and hit Enter. The game will respond
"Okay!".

See that "Okay!" message? It came up in a scroll. These are just to let
you know what's going on. To get rid of one, hit Enter (Esc also works, or
the plus key.)

(Something else to note: to get a list of everything you're holding, you
can type "inventory" (or "inv" for short) but it's much easier to press
Ctrl-I (or even just Tab (for new users: Tab is that key with the two
arrows on just above either Ctrl or Caps Lock. (It depends on your
keyboard. (Brackets' revenge!)))))

If you really like choosing things from menus instead of typing commands,
you may prefer the menu interface. This is brought up by pressing Esc, or
the / key (like spreadsheets.) Choose an option using the up, down, Home and
End keys. Hit Enter, or +, when you've got the right one. Use Esc to get rid
of a menu. This doesn't actually replace the command interface, as you must
use it to enter passwords, etc, and some puzzles are impossible to solve
using the menu interface alone because that would be TOO EASY. (which you
don't want, do you?!)

Also, f7 & f8 change the background colour. You can make the screen really
abhorrent if you're into that kind of thing :-) , but the main use for these
two keys will be if and when the CGA version comes out (it probably won't)
because CGA monochrome can get VERY boring... f2 toggles (nice word, that)
the sound on or off, so that you won't wake up your spouse or significant
mother-in-law when you play Avvy in the small hours. (Ever wondered why
they're called the small hours? They're all made up of minutes!) (Minute, get
it? Small- Oh, never mind...!) :-)

                                 Say cheese...
                                 """""""""""""
How to use Avvy with a mouse: The left button is the same as Enter, the right
is the same as Esc. Moving the mouse in any one of the eight directions is just
like pressing that cursor key, so a light touch in that direction is ALL
that's really needed. The mouse is ENTIRELY optional: you may use it if the
driver's installed but you don't have to, and you may just use the cursor
keys, etc., as normal.

You can see if the mouse is installed, because one of the scrolls at the start
will be mouse information. Use the right key to enter the menu system (from the
prompt), and when there use the left key to select and the right key to cancel.
You may lose a scroll by clicking on either side (?!) and if you are asked a
"yes/no" question, you can use the left key for yes and the right key for no.

If your mouse switches between 3-key and 2-key (MS compatible) mode, like ours
used to, leave it on the same setting throughout the game, or it will start
sending silly messages to the computer. This is actually true for quite a lot
of programs.

                               Saving and loading
                               """"""""""""""""""
Type "save" or "load". This is useful if you should get struck by lightning,
or something- you can just reload. (Yes, you CAN get struck by lightning!)
You will be asked to enter a filename. (Usually a good idea is to name it
with your name plus a number (e.g. "MARVIN1". This will save a file called
"MARVIN1.ASG" in the current directory.))

You will then be asked to describe your file. Don't say something stupid like
"a game file"- that's obvious! Your comment will be saved in the file, and
displayed when you reload the game, although you don't have to give a
comment if you don't want to.

Typing in "DIR" will give a list of .ASG files in the current directory.
"DIR B:" will give all .ASG files on drive B:, etc.

                           Lion through your Teeth...
                           """"""""""""""""""""""""""
"Avaricius" contains an integrated shoot-'em-up. I know it's not exactly
"Galaga", but never mind. The game should be self-explanatory. Please note
that the keys are:

           "A" = Up
           "Z" = Down
       "Enter" = Fire

(You are bound to get eaten while playing this. Let's hope that the gods of
Olympus are on your side. (Jupiter? No, she went of her own accord. (?)))

(This routine has now been polished up slightly, but a few inaccuracies remain
here. Please note: you need to kill 7 or more lions to continue with the game.
(It's easy, there's a knack to it. When you've got the knack you can always
knock over lions, which goes to prove the old saying: Pride goeth before a
fall...))

                                 Brand loyalty
                                 """""""""""""
At the start of the game, on the loading screen, is the message: "Compliments
of Thorsoft." This is known as a brand. It is embedded within the code. When
you register, please specify 5 1/4" or 3 1/2" disk. We will then send you an
up-to-date copy of "Avaricius", branded with your name, together with a review
copy of another Thorsoft game (currently "Spellchick"). ALL THIS FOR ONLY 5
QUID / 10 BUCKS REGISTRATION FEE!!!

                          Enviromental Considerations
                          """""""""""""""""""""""""""
This game is environmentally friendly. It doesn't damage the ozone layer, it
has never in tests been shown to pollute the Irish Sea with radioactive
substances, and it was NOT tested on animals (they don't like the jokes
anyway.) Furthermore, 97% of the jokes used in this release were recycled.

                          The next game in the series
                          """""""""""""""""""""""""""
Would you like to know what happened to him when he DID get out? (assuming
you managed it.) Well, so would we. We won't even THINK about starting
coding the sequel until we get some registrants (e.g. you.) Whether you liked
this one or not, you'll be pleased to hear that the next one will be (even)
better. So will the graphics and ESPECIALLY the jokes. We will send a review
copy of this, or our latest game, to all registrants.

                   Who borrowed all the giraffe's paperclips?
                   """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Just to check if you're still reading. I'm glad to see that you are.
(What would be the point of me sitting here typing all this if you weren't?)

                                  File logging
                                  """"""""""""
If you want to remember your progress through Pompeii, work out where you
went wrong, and so on, you can redirect output to a file thus:

Instead of:  avvy
type:        avvy <SPACE> = <SPACE> filename.ext
e.g.:        avvy = memo.txt

Of course, you can also redirect output to a DOS device: "avvy = prn" copies
all the info to the printer on LPT1: (for parallel printers. If yours is
serial, use "avvy = aux" instead.)

The only device you can't log to is "con", which is the screen. This would
really muck up the screen display if you could (I tried it.) To see whether
it is or not, a "\" is printed first, then checked to see if it's on the
screen or not. If it is, the log file is terminated.

>Lines beginning with a prompt character are what you typed.
"Lines beginning with an inverted comma are what the computer replied.
(Bracketed lines are "stage directions"; e.g. "The game was restarted.")

(You may also use /q on the command line to hush Avvy up and prevent your
boss's wrath from flaring up if she hears the strains of "The King of the
Beoetians" floating across the office.)

                                  Shift-PrtSc
                                  """""""""""
There is a screen-dump routine built into Avvy. Press Shift-PrtSc to activate
it. (Not on the "Back in good old..." or loading screens.) It unhooks itself
from Int 5 when you leave the program. (Sorry if I'm confusing you...)

Use the option /n on the command line to stop the program hooking Int5. This
is in case you own one of those super-whizzy EGA screen dump programs which
are slightly less naff... sorry, more well-polished... than our built-in one.
(Thanks to Mark, who designed the colour shading on the dump. Great.)
The /n option is also useful if you haven't got an Epson-compatible and are
using a special screen-dumping routine.

NB: Epson-compatible is as Epson-compatible does, as the old saying goes (I
think.) It works fine on our Panasonic KX-P1080. Whether it does on your Epson-
compatible, or even on your Epson, is only discoverable by you, as clones vary
a lot. I should think it probably would, but you never know.

                                For power users.
                                """"""""""""""""
Some power users who have '286s or above may need to have the program slowed
down slightly for your computer's "brain the size of a planet"! Include on the
command line the word "/sxxx" (where xxx is any number you like) and then the
program will delay for xxx milliseconds every step (our Turbo manual says
they're milliseconds.) Those of you with the tortoise-compatible 4.77Mhz XT's
will have to grin and bear it, sorry. You don't actually have to use this
command if you like it as it is, of course.

If you prefer the game to run slightly more slowly, this command can also
be useful. There is also a routine which slows the game down by reading the
system clock, so it SHOULD run equally fast on most machines, but you never
know...

                                 Avvy T-Shirts!
                                 """"""""""""""
This is (at the moment) just an idea. We know where we could get them from,
but we want to know that our users have some support for the game. They
would probably cost just over a fiver each plus p&p. (You never know, we
might get some sweatshirts, baseball caps, etc, too if people want them.)
Of course, this is ONLY for the registrants. Our advice to non-registrants
is: register!

                              Your boss is coming!
                              """"""""""""""""""""
OK, you can look back to the screen now, I was only joking. But suppose he (or
she) WAS coming? With Avvy you're prepared. Just hit ^B or alt-B and then Enter
and you will get a nice graph showing spring sales for the first quarter.
(There's an option on the menu that does this, too.) If you watch it,
you'll see why it was for "spring"! Esc gets you out of this and back to your
game when SWMBO (She Who Must Be Obeyed) has gone elsewhere. You may press
any key to pause the graph, so it looks slightly more conventional.

                                File extensions
                                """""""""""""""
The following special filename extensions are used here (apart from .EXE,
.DOC and .ME, which should be fairly obvious!).

     AVD = AVvy Data file. Nothing interesting to you here, only to the game.
     TRP = "TRiPpancy". Also, uninteresting to you!
     ASG = Avvy Saved Game (the saved positions)
 and BGI = Borland Graphics Interface- needed for EGA.

                                How was it done?
                                """"""""""""""""
Good question. The pictures were almost all drawn by Mark Thurman, and the code
was written by Thomas Thurman in Turbo Pascal 5.5, on an Opus PC IV Turbo with
an AMS mouse. Mike Thurman bought Turbo (and the computer) in the first
place. Thanks to Mike, Liz, Mandy and Andrew for support and suggestions of
what we could do.

(If you see a dud picture it was probably drawn by me (Thomas). I'm no artist- I
got kicked out of Art at school. Sorry. Next time a higher percentage of the
pictures will be by Mark. (NB: Most of my pictures have now been tidied up
by Mark, anyway.))

There was only ONE piece of assembler used in the coding, which was written
by Kent Cedola. We found it on Shareware Marketing disk no.500, and the
routine has the name of "Gpwtcol". It was one of a set used on TP 3.0 (which
didn't support EGA) but the set includes one or two very neat routines that
Borland didn't offer with Turbo Pascal. It was used to speed up the walking
("trippancy") routines. (You should have seen it before...!)

Right, back to the documentation... The finished .EXE file was compressed using
the brilliant public-domain utility "LZEXE" by Fabrice Bellard.

NB: Hands off the files. Anyone who is discovered to have mucked around with
*ANY* of the Avvy files will have their registration terminated and we will
NEVER EVER EVER let them re-register! So there. You have been WARNED.

Oh, yes... Virtually all of the places in this game actually existed in towns
such as Pompeii, but not necessarily exactly as we've shown them or in that
order. We tried to make it fairly historically accurate, but if you discover
anything that doesn't fit, take it as surrealism... (halibuts wear
sunglasses...)

                               How about support?
                               """"""""""""""""""
Fine. You can 'phone us and ask about the game, or write to us, but you'll have
to be registered- more info pending on registration!

                             "Register, or your..."
                             """"""""""""""""""""""
Several shareware programs give the following cheerful message at the end:
"Register, or your conscience will haunt you for the rest of your life."
We decided to cheer this up a bit, by making a few improvements!

                         What on earth is a "pedigree?"
                         """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Check the file PEDIGREE.DOC. This contains a list of names. The first one will
be the name of a member of Thorsoft. This person will have given it to a friend
or a bulletin board or a shareware library, etc., and this recipient will put
their name down as no.2. Whoever gets it next will be no.3, and so on. This
file doesn't have to be completed, but it's nice if you do (of course, you can
use a nickname like "Cowboy" or "Mouse", or something). You should also add
your rough geographical location (eg Letchworth, Tewkesbury, New York or
whatever.) It's then possible to see where on earth (literally) that copy
of the program's been.

                                Revision history
                                """"""""""""""""
ver.no.   date      comments

1.50    Mar 1992  One or two bugs fixed: firstly, the lions now have to get
                   closer to kill you than before, and secondly, Gedalodava's
                   legs no longer get left behind at a certain part of the
                   game (can't tell you where, it would give away clues!)
                   Also you fall down the crack when you reach it,
                   not about six feet beforehand, like in previous versions!
                   One or two titchy other ones eliminated, too. Oh, yes,
                   saying "hello" no longer gets you struck by lightning...

1.40    Jan 1992  Various shoot-'em-up bugs fixed, also another interesting
                   little one- did you know that in 1.30 & below if you
                   walked where Didymus was he reappeared? Also, in previous
                   versions only registrants were allowed to win. In the
                   interests of goodwill and the shareware ethic, this
                   "feature" has now been permenantly disabled. See below.
                   Plus, the bug that has plagued us since almost the
                   beginning has been fixed! Gedalodava no longer leaves
                   shadows on the screen. (Would you believe, just one
                   variable was wrong? I set it to False, and hey presto! it
                   worked.) Oh yes, the three versions prior to 1.40 claimed
                   to be v1.10 in the saved files. A flash of lightning has
                   been added on MOAG PLC's report, also a proper keyboard
                   sink, and the writing effect has been speeded up. "Talk to
                   him" now works everywhere, even with Didymus (it didn't
                   before.) Also, for some reason all previous versions gave
                   the menu option "talk to Gedalodava" in the harbour. That's
                   now fixed. Anything else...?

1.30    Dec 1991  Three Little Bugs sorted out- if you left your house, turned
                   round and then walked straight back in again, you hung
                   the computer up! This is now fixed, of course. Also a
                   small error with the wall outside the Treasurer's house,
                   and a bug where if you DIR'd a non-existent drive it
                   caused a run-time error.

1.20    Oct 1991  Fixed an annoying bug which hung the game up if you went
                   anywhere near the amphitheatre! (Thanks to Ken Hughes
                   for pointing this out.) Also one or two minor ones.

1.10    Sep 1991  Cleared up minor bugs: incorrect version no. on title
                   scroll, slight error on Sinistrus's walking, one joke
                   changed, proper branding routines implemented, and
                   one or two other slightly annoying, very minor, bugs.

1.00    Aug 1991  First ever...

This is version 1.50/E/E. (The first E stands for EGA. The second stands for
English (we might do a Latin version. Who knows?))

OK, OK, we said that 1.30 was vitually bug-free. There is probably some wise
maxim to cover what happened- about twenty bugs turned up two or three days
after release! (Yes, I am exaggerating.) I just hope less bugs turn up in
Spellchick- at the time of writing none are known in the current version.
After all, the main Avvy program has over 5,000 lines of code, so there are
bound to be bugs. (I heard the other day that some Microsoft products have
over 500,000 lines- phew! Pity the valiant souls who have to debug that
lot!)

In the interests of goodwill to all men, and all that, we have commented out
the lines that let only registrants win (from v1.4 onwards). Henceforth,
anyone can. ("Spellchick" has never had this restriction.) If you are playing
an older version, for some reason, firstly give whoever it is a copy of this
version, and secondly type the following:

   REGISTER <return> <lose scroll>
   THIS VALIANT BAND THIS CHOSEN FEW <return> <lose scroll>
   REGISTER <return> <lose scroll>

And the computer will say "Thanks a lot for registering!" Without this, YOU
CANNOT WIN. The soothsayer won't let you. We have told him to relax his
vigilance.

If you know of any bugs in the current release, please tell us. Then you can
get it out of your system, and we can get it out of ours. (old joke...)

                                   Trademarks
                                   """"""""""
Some of the words used in this document are trademarks or registered
trademarks of their respective owners (who else?). Just so you'd know...

                                   Cast List
                                   """""""""
Denarius Avaricius Sextus : our hero
Arkata                    : his wife
Crapulus                  : his slave
Gaius Lupus Malus         : a rival of Avvy's
Compactus Discus Romulus  : an old friend of Avvy's in the army
Titus Nervus Pecunia      : a worried official
Gedalodava                : a very beautiful slave girl!
Sinistrus                 : a left-handed barman
Julius Selfimportantius
    Noxius                : a big-headed guard
Didymus Tonitrusdeus
    Hicesse               : someone who got on the wrong side of Lupus
Gaius Quicphingus
    Haruspicis            : a sly soothsayer

            AND... a star guest appearance from an Olympian god...
                               (plus his guest)

                                 Press Reviews
                                 """""""""""""
(If we add anything to this section, it is not counted as a version change.)

"...You may even be treated to a few corny but amusing jokes! The best part
of the game has to be the droll conversation between Avvy and his friends.
Searching the screens for clues and trying out the various commands is also
good fun. I did, however, find it very difficult, when fighting the lions,
to control my side of the battle... perhaps you'll do better. ...I would
recommend it as an addition to your library."
                                 PC Shareware Magazine, February 1992, p.42.

"Brothers Thomas and Mark Thurman have had a hard year's work... Avvy, the
game's hero, is in pursuit of his ultimate goal... He is impeded by the
power of the taxman and the temptations of the vine, but if, in helping him
in his quest, you lose the ultimate battle and die, you go to heaven and have
your life evaluated by the gods!!"
                                  HiFiW3, January 24th 1992, No. 735


                            **** Registration! ****
                                 """""""""""""
This is NOT free software. We decided to distribute it as shareware because
we believe we can trust you. If you don't register we have no incentive to
continue writing games. (Even if you don't like them, we must get better!) Go
on, restore our confidence in you. This game costs 8 pounds sterling, or 15 US
dollars (posting to the USA is expensive, you know!) You must have bought more
expensive software than that! Our address is:

           Thorsoft,
             71, Baldock Road,
               Letchworth,
                 Herts SG6 3JP,
                   Great Britain.

Make cheques payable to L.V. Thurman. Thanks!

Site licences are £10 sterling plus 50p per computer (or US$20 plus US$1 per
computer), should you need a site licence. Certain nameless companies in the
City of London have, I hear, been using alleged copies of a certain nameless
game that may, at first sight, bear a vague resemblance to Avvy. Well, now's
your chance to get a LEGAL clone.

If you want to contact us, you can e-mail us on:
               Ebby: SEND your message to Thomas Thurman.
         CompuServe: send to Mike Thurman, number 100021,3441.
  Dr.Solomon's Fido: send to Thomas Thurman.

(In case your printer doesn't support it, this sign, £, is the pound sign.)

(This game comes to you from Letchworth, the Land of the Black Squirrels, the
First Garden City- a town where there's only one street!)

Io!