Mac Mania 4/MacMania 4.toast//Games&Education/LNYf for Mac/Instructions

Text File | 1996-03-21 | 18KB | 495 lines

TADS Instructions - written by Michael J. Roberts, modified
by Neil deMause

HOW TO PLAY

In an adventure game, you play by typing commands that
describe what you want to do.  Unfortunately, the game isn't
as smart as you are, so it can't understand nearly as many
sentences as a person could.  In this section, we'll describe
most of the types of commands that you will need to use while
playing the game.

Note that we've tried to design this game so that you won't
need to think of any unusual words or phrases that aren't
directly mentioned by the game.  We've especially tried to
avoid making you guess a strange verb or an unusual way of
phrasing a command.

Each time you see the prompt, >, you type a command.  Your
command should be a simple imperative sentence (i.e., TAKE
SWORD, READ THE BOOK, THROW BOMB AT NEWT GINGRICH), or a
series of imperatives separated by periods.  Press the RETURN
(or ENTER) key when you are done typing your command; the
game won't do anything until you press RETURN.

The TADS parser (the part of the program that interprets your
commands) is fairly lenient about how you type your
instructions.  You can enter commands in either capital or
lower-case letters, and you can use words such as THE and AN
when they're appropriate, or omit them if you prefer. You can
also abbreviate any word to its first six (or more) letters,
but the game will still pay attention to all of the letters
you type.  For example, you could refer to a FLASHLIGHT with
the words FLASHL, FLASHLIG, and so forth, but not with
FLASHSDF.


TRAVEL

Text adventures (or interactive fiction games, as we snobs
prefer to call them), take place in a series of "rooms,"
which can be either indoor or outdoor locations.  When you
first enter a room, the game gives the name of the room, and
describes your surroundings. (To look around again later,
type LOOK.)  In a given location, you can reach anything
described, so you don't need to type commands to move about
within a room.

To move around in the game, you need to type the direction
you want to go.  The directions the game recognizes are
NORTH, SOUTH, EAST, WEST, NORTHEAST, SOUTHEAST, UP, and DOWN.
(These can be abbreviated to to N, S, E, W, NE, SE, NW, SW,
U, and D.)  In some locations you can also use IN and OUT.
You can usually tell which directions you can go by typing
LOOK, though be aware that some exits may not be so obvious.
It's also a good idea to make a map as you explore the game,
indicating which direction you can go from each room.

Most of the time, when the game describes a door or doorway,
you don't need to open the door to go through the passage;
the game will do this for you.  Only when the game explicitly
describes a closed door (or other impediment to travel) will
you need to type a command to open the door.


OBJECTS

In the game, you will find many objects that you can carry or
otherwise manipulate.  When you want to do something with an
object, type a simple command that tells the game as clearly
as possible what you want to do.  (For example, OPEN DRAWER,
EAT APPLE, or THROW BOMB AT NEWT GINGRICH.)  Most of the
items in the game have fairly obvious uses, and you shouldn't
have to think of any obscure or unrelated words in order to
manipulate them.

You generally don't have to specify exactly where you want to
put an object that you wish to carry; you can just type TAKE
(followed by the object's name) to carry an object.  However,
there is a limit to how many objects you can carry at once,
and to how much weight you can handle.  You can carry more
objects (but not more weight, of course) by putting some
items inside containers (for example, you may be able to put
several objects into a box, and carry the box), since this
reduces the number of objects you actually have to juggle at
once.

Some basic verbs that you will use frequently are TAKE (to
pick up an object), DROP (to drop an object), OPEN and CLOSE,
and EXAMINE (which can be abbreviated to X).  You can PUT an
object IN or ON another object when appropriate.  The game
recognizes many other verbs as well; if you think a verb
should work with a given object, try it out.

Some examples of commands that the game recognizes are shown
below.  These aren't necessarily commands that you'll ever
type while playing, but they illustrate some of the verbs and
sentence formats that you may use.

    GO NORTH
    NORTH
    N
    UP
    TAKE THE BOX
    PUT THE FLOPPY DISK INTO THE BOX
    CLOSE BOX
    LOOK AT DISK
    TAKE DISK OUT OF BOX
    LOOK IN BOX
    WEAR THE CONICAL HAT
    TAKE OFF HAT
    CLOSE BOX
    TURN ON THE LANTERN
    LIGHT MATCH
    LIGHT CANDLE WITH MATCH
    RING BELL
    POUR WATER INTO BUCKET
    PUSH BUTTON
    TURN KNOB
    EAT COOKIE
    DRINK MILK
    THROW KNIFE AT THIEF
    KILL TROLL WITH SWORD
    READ NEWSPAPER
    LOOK THROUGH WINDOW
    UNLOCK DOOR WITH KEY
    TIE THE ROPE TO THE HOOK
    CLIMB UP THE LADDER
    TURN THE KNOB
    JUMP
    TYPE \"HELLO\" ON THE KEYBOARD
    TYPE 1234 ON THE KEYPAD
    GET IN THE CAR
    GET OUT OF THE CAR
    GET ON THE HORSE
    GIVE WAND TO WIZARD
    ASK WIZARD ABOUT WAND


OTHER CHARACTERS

You may encounter other characters in the game.  You can
interact in certain ways with these characters.  For example,
you can GIVE things to them, and you could try to attack them
(although this is a non-violent game, so you shouldn't expect
to solve any of your problems this way).  In addition, you
can ask characters about things:

    ASK WIZARD ABOUT WAND

You can also tell characters to do something.  To do this,
type the character's name, then a comma, then a command that
you want the character to perform.  You can type several
commands for the character all on the same line by separating
the commands with periods.  For example:

    ROBOT, GO NORTH. PUSH BUTTON. GO SOUTH.

Of course, you shouldn't expect that characters will always
follow your instructions; most characters have minds of their
own, and won't automatically do what you ask.


TIME

Time passes only in response to commands you type.  Nothing
happens
while the game is waiting for you to type something.  Each
turn takes about
the same amount of time.  If you want to let some game time
pass, because
you think something is about to happen, you can type WAIT (or
just Z).


SCORE

The game assigns you a score while you play, indicating how
close you are to
finishing the game.  At certain points in the game, you will
be awarded points
when you solve some puzzle or obtain some item.  The score is
intended to
provide you with a measure of your progress in the game, and
increases as
you get further in the game; you never lose points once they
are earned.


REFERRING TO MULTIPLE OBJECTS

You can usually use multiple objects in your sentences.  You
separate the
objects by the word AND or a comma.  For example:

    TAKE THE BOX, THE FLOPPY DISK, AND THE ROPE
    PUT DISK AND ROPE IN BOX
    DROP BOX AND BALL

You can use the word ALL to refer to everything that is
applicable to your
command, and you can use EXCEPT (right after the word ALL) to
exclude certain objects.

    TAKE ALL
    PUT ALL EXCEPT DISK AND ROPE INTO BOX
    TAKE EVERYTHING OUT OF THE BOX
    TAKE ALL OFF SHELF

The word ALL refers to everything that makes sense for your
command, excluding things inside containers that are used in
the command.  For example, if you are carrying a box and a
rope, and the box contains a floppy disk, typing DROP ALL
will drop only the box and the rope; the floppy disk will
remain in the box.


"IT" AND "THEM"

You an use IT and THEM to refer to the last object or objects
that you used
in a command.  Some examples:

    TAKE THE BOX
    OPEN IT
    TAKE THE DISK AND THE ROPE
    PUT THEM IN THE BOX


MULTIPLE COMMANDS ON A LINE

You can put multiple commands on a single input line by
separating the commands with periods or the word THEN, or
with a comma or the word AND.  Each command still counts as a
separate turn.  For example:

    TAKE THE DISK AND PUT IT IN THE BOX
    TAKE BOX. OPEN IT.
    UNLOCK THE DOOR WITH THE KEY. OPEN IT, AND THEN GO NORTH

If the game doesn't understand one of the commands on the
input line, it will tell you what it couldn't understand, and
it will ignore the rest of the commands on the line.


AMBIGUOUS COMMANDS

If you type a command that leaves out some important
information, the game will try to figure out what you mean
anyway.  When the game can be reasonably sure about what you
mean, because only one object would make sense with the
command, the game will make an assumption about the missing
information and act as
though you had supplied it.  For example,

    >TIE THE ROPE
    (to the hook)
    The rope is now tied to the hook.  The end of the
    rope nearly reaches the floor of the pit below.

If your command is ambiguous enough that the game doesn't
feel safe making assumptions about what you meant, the game
will ask you for more information. You can answer these
questions by typing the missing information.  If you decide
you didn't want to bother with the command after all, you can
just type a new command; the game will ignore the question it
asked.  For example:

    >UNLOCK THE DOOR
    What do you want to unlock the door with?

    >THE KEY
    Which key do you mean, the gold key, or the silver key?

    >GOLD
    The door is now unlocked.


UNKNOWN WORDS

The game will occasionally use words in its descriptions that
it doesn't understand in your commands.  (Though we've tried
to avoid this as much as possible.)  For example, you may see
a description such as, "The planet's rings are visible as a
thin arc high overhead, glimmering in the sunlight."  If the
game doesn't know words such as "rings," you can safely
assume that they're not needed to play the game; they're in
the descriptions simply to make the story more interesting.
For those objects that are important, the game recognizes
many synonyms; if the game doesn't understand a word you use,
or any of its common synonyms, you are probably trying
something that is not necessary to continue the game.


TYPOS

If you accidentally misspell something in a command, you can
fix it by typing OOPS followed by the correctly spelled word.
For example:

    >TAKE ROLLERBLADES AND HACKYSACK FROM DWRAF
    I don't know the word "dwraf".

    >OOPS DWARF
    Taken.


SAVING AND RESTORING

You can save a game to disk at any time.  Later, if you want
to go back to a point you were at earlier in the game, you
can simply restore the position from the disk file.  You can
save as many times as you like, using different disk files
for each position.  Saving the game also allows you to play
the game over the course of many days, without having to
start over from scratch each time you come back to the game.

To save the game, type SAVE at any prompt.  The game will ask
you for the name of a disk file to use to store the game
state.  (You will have to specify a filename suitable for
your computer system, and the disk must have enough space to
store the game file.  You will be warned with an error
message if the game was not saved properly for some reason.)
You should give the file a name that does not exist on your
disk.  If you save the game into a file that already exists,
the data previously in that file will be destroyed.

When you wish to restore a game, type RESTORE at the command
prompt.  The game will ask you for the name of a disk file
that you specified with a previous SAVE command.  After
reading the disk file, the game will be restored to exactly
the position you were in when you saved it.


SPECIAL COMMANDS

The game understands several special commands that you can
use to control the game.  You can use these commands at any
prompt.

AGAIN or G:  Repeats your last command.  If your last input
line was composed of several commands, only the last command
on the line is repeated.

INVENTORY or I:  Shows the list of items you are carrying.

LOOK or L:  Shows the full description of your location.

NOTIFY:  Tells the game whether you want to be notified of
score changes when they happen.  When the game starts, NOTIFY
is turned on, so you will see a message whenever you do
something that changes your score.  If you'd prefer not to
see these messages, type NOTIFY. (If you later change your
mind, typing NOTIFY again will turn notification back on.)

OOPS or O:  Allows you to correct the spelling of a word in
the last command. You can use OOPS when the game displays
this complaint:  "I don't know the word <word>."  Immediately
after this message, you can type OOPS followed by the
corrected spelling of the misspelled word.  You can only type
one word after OOPS, so this command doesn't allow you to
correct certain types of errors, such as when you run two
words together without a space.

QUIT:  Stops the game, and returns you to your operating
system.

RESTART:  Starts the game over from the beginning.

RESTORE:  Restores a position previously saved with the SAVE
command.

SAVE:  Stores the current state of the game in a disk file,
so that you can come back to the same place later (with the
RESTORE command).

SCORE:  Shows you your current score, the maximum possible
score, and the number of turns you have taken so far.

SCRIPT:  Starts writing everything you see on the screen
(your commands and the game's responses) to a disk file.  The
game will ask you for a filename to be used for the
transcript; you should select a filename that does not yet
exist on your disk, because if you use an existing filename,
data in the file will be destroyed.  Use the UNSCRIPT command
to stop making the transcript.

TERSE:  Tells the game that you wish to see only short
descriptions of locations you have already seen when you
enter them.  This is the default mode.  See also the VERBOSE
command.

UNDO:  Take back the last command.  This can be used multiple
times to take back a series of commands in sequence.  The
number of commands that you can undo at any given time
varies, but you can generally undo over a hundred commands.

UNSCRIPT:  Turns off the transcript being made with the
SCRIPT command.

VERBOSE:  Tells the game to show you the full description of
every location you enter, whether or not you have seen the
description before.  By default, the game will show you the
full description of a location only when you first enter it,
and will show you the short description each time you enter
the location thereafter.  Of course, you can get a full
description at any time by typing LOOK.  See also the TERSE
command.

VERSION:  Shows you the current version of the game.

WAIT or Z:  Causes game time to pass.  When the game is
waiting for you to
type command, no game time passes; you can use this command
to wait for
something to happen.


COMMAND EDITING AND RECALL

On most computer systems, the game has a special feature that
allows you to use your keyboard's editing keys to modify an
input line as you are typing it, and to recall commands that
you have previously typed for editing and re-entry.  The
specific keys you use vary depending on your system, and some
systems don't support this feature at all; see the system-
specific documentation for more information.

While you are typing a command, the game allows you to go
back and change part of the line without backspacing over the
rest of the line to get there. Simply use your left and right
cursor-arrow keys to move the cursor to any point in the
command line.  The BACKSPACE key deletes a character to the
left of the cursor, and the DELETE key deletes the character
at which the cursor is located.

You can insert new text at the cursor simply by typing the
text.  You can press the RETURN (or ENTER) key with the
cursor at any point in the line (the cursor need not be at
the end of the command line).

You can recall the previous command that you  entered by
pressing the up cursor-arrow key; pressing the up-arrow key
again recalls the command before that, and so forth.  Using
the down cursor-arrow key reverses this process, until you
get back to the original command that you were typing before
you started pressing the up-arrow key.

Once you have recalled a prior command, you can re-enter it
by pressing the RETURN key.  In addition, you can edit the
command, as described above, before entering the command.

The exact number of commands the game retains depends on the
lengths of the commands, but more than a hundred of the most
recent commands are generally retained at any given time.


REVIEW MODE

Another special feature that the game supports on many
computer systems is called "review mode."  The game remembers
text as it "scrolls" off the screen; by invoking recall mode,
you can go back and look at text that is no longer visible on
the screen.  On most systems, review mode is activated by
pressing the function key F1.

Once in review mode, the status line that is normally at the
top of the screen will be replaced by the review mode help
line.  This line shows the keystrokes you use to view
previous screenfuls of text, and also shows you the key that
exits review mode and resumes normal game play (this is
generally the game key that you used to activate review
mode).

While in review mode, your screen becomes a window onto the
text that the game has stored away.  When you first activate
review mode, you are looking at the very bottom of this text,
which is the screenful of text that was just displayed.  Use
the up and down cursor-arrow keys to move the window up and
down.  Pressing the up cursor-arrow key moves the window up
one line, showing you one line of text that has scrolled off
the screen.  Most systems also provide keys to move up and
down by a full screenful (also called a "page.")

To resume game play, press the same key that you used to
activate review mode.

The number of screenfuls of text that the game stores away
for review depends on how much text is actually on each
screen, since the game has a limit on the number of
characters it can store, not on the number of lines.
Normally, more than twenty of the most recent screens of text
are saved and available for review at any given time.