EnigmA Amiga Run 1996 March/EnigmA AMIGA RUN 05 (1996)(G.R. Edizioni)(IT)[!][issue 1996-03][Skylink CD IV].iso/earcd/games1/dungeon.lha/Dungeon/Dungeon.6

Text File | 1995-10-16 | 10KB | 265 lines

DUNGEON(6)          UNIX Programmer's Manual           DUNGEON(6)



NAME
     dungeon - Adventures in the Dungeons of Doom

SYNOPSIS
     dungeon

DESCRIPTION
     Dungeon is a game of adventure, danger, and low cunning.  In
     it you will explore some of the most amazing territory ever
     seen by mortal man.  Hardened adventurers have run screaming
     from the terrors contained within.

     In Dungeon, the intrepid explorer delves into the forgotten
     secrets of a lost labyrinth deep in the bowels of the earth,
     searching for vast treasures long hidden from prying eyes,
     treasures guarded by fearsome monsters and diabolical traps!

     Dungeon was created at the Programming Technology Division
     of the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science by Tim Anderson,
     Marc Blank, Bruce Daniels, and Dave Lebling.  It was
     inspired by the Adventure game of Crowther and Woods, and
     the Dungeons and Dragons game of Gygax and Arneson.  The
     original version was written in MDL (alias MUDDLE).  The
     current version was translated from MDL into FORTRAN IV by a
     somewhat paranoid DEC engineer who prefers to remain
     anonymous.

     On-line information may be obtained with the commands HELP
     and INFO.

DETAILS
     Following is the summary produced by the info command:

          Welcome to Dungeon!

          You are near a large dungeon, which is reputed to con-
          tain vast quantities of treasure.   Naturally, you wish
          to acquire some of it.  In order to do so, you must of
          course remove it from the dungeon.  To receive full
          credit for it, you must deposit it safely in the trophy
          case in the living room of the house.

          In addition to valuables, the dungeon contains various
          objects which may or may not be useful in your attempt
          to get rich.  You may need sources of light, since
          dungeons are often dark, and weapons, since dungeons
          often have unfriendly things wandering about.  Reading
          material is scattered around the dungeon as well;  some
          of it is rumored to be useful.

          To determine how successful you have been, a score is
          kept.  When you find a valuable object and pick it up,
          you receive a certain number of points, which depends
          on the difficulty of finding the object.  You receive
          extra points for transporting the treasure safely to
          the living room and placing it in the trophy case.  In
          addition, some particularly interesting rooms have a
          value associated with visiting them.  The only penalty
          is for getting yourself killed, which you may do only
          twice.

          Of special note is a thief (always carrying a large
          bag) who likes to wander around in the dungeon (he has
          never been seen by the light of day).  He likes to take
          things.  Since he steals for pleasure rather than pro-
          fit and is somewhat sadistic, he only takes things
          which you have seen.  Although he prefers valuables,
          sometimes in his haste he may take something which is
          worthless.  From time to time, he examines his take and
          discards objects which he doesn't like.  He may occa-
          sionally stop in a room you are visiting, but more
          often he just wanders through and rips you off (he is a
          skilled pickpocket).

COMMANDS
     brief          suppresses printing of long room descriptions
                    for rooms which have been visited.

     superbrief     suppresses printing of long room descriptions
                    for all rooms.

     verbose        restores long descriptions.

     info           prints information which might give some idea
                    of what the game is about.

     quit           prints your score and asks whether you wish
                    to continue playing.

     save           saves the state of the game for later con-
                    tinuation.

     restore        restores a saved game.

     inventory      lists the objects in your possession.

     look           prints a description of your surroundings.

     score          prints your current score and ranking.

     time           tells you how long you have been playing.

     diagnose       reports on your injuries, if any.

     The inventory command may be abbreviated i; the look command
     may be abbreviated l; the quit command may be abbreviated q.

     A command that begins with '!' as the first character is
     taken to be a shell command and is passed unchanged to the
     shell via _s_y_s_t_e_m(_3).

CONTAINMENT
     Some objects can contain other objects.  Many such con-
     tainers can be opened and closed.  The rest are always open.
     They may or may not be transparent.  For you to access
     (e.g., take) an object which is in a container, the con-
     tainer must be open.  For you to see such an object, the
     container must be either open or transparent.  Containers
     have a capacity, and objects have sizes; the number of
     objects which will fit therefore depends on their sizes.
     You may put any object you have access to (it need not be in
     your hands) into any other object.  At some point, the pro-
     gram will attempt to pick it up if you don't already have
     it, which process may fail if you're carrying too much.
     Although containers can contain other containers, the
     program doesn't access more than one level down.

FIGHTING
     Occupants of the dungeon will, as a rule, fight back when
     attacked.  In some cases, they may attack even if unpro-
     voked.  Useful verbs here are _a_t_t_a_c_k <villain> _w_i_t_h
     <weapon>, _k_i_l_l, etc.  Knife-throwing may or may not be use-
     ful.  You have a fighting strength which varies with time.
     Being in a fight, getting killed, and being injured all
     lower this strength.  Strength is regained with time.  Thus,
     it is not a good idea to fight someone immediately after
     being killed.  Other details should become apparent after a
     few melees or deaths.

COMMAND PARSER
     A command is one line of text terminated by a carriage
     return.  For reasons of simplicity, all words are dis-
     tinguished by their first six letters.  All others are
     ignored.  For example, typing _d_i_s_a_s_s_e_m_b_l_e _t_h_e _e_n_c_y_c_l_o_p_e_d_i_a
     is not only meaningless, it also creates excess effort for
     your fingers.  Note that this truncation may produce ambi-
     guities in the intepretation of longer words.  [Also note
     that upper and lower case are equivalent.]

     You are dealing with a fairly stupid parser, which under-
     stands the following types of things:

          Actions:
               Among the more obvious of these, such as _t_a_k_e,
               _p_u_t, _d_r_o_p, etc.  Fairly general forms of these may
               be used, such as _p_i_c_k _u_p, _p_u_t _d_o_w_n, etc.

          Directions:
               _n_o_r_t_h, _s_o_u_t_h, _u_p, _d_o_w_n, etc. and their various
               abbreviations.  Other more obscure directions
               (_l_a_n_d, _c_r_o_s_s) are appropriate in only certain
               situations.

          Objects:
               Most objects have names and can be referenced by
               them.

          Adjectives:
               Some adjectives are understood and required when
               there are two objects which can be referenced with
               the same 'name' (e.g., _d_o_o_r_s, _b_u_t_t_o_n_s).

          Prepositions:
               It may be necessary in some cases to include
               prepositions, but the parser attempts to handle
               cases which aren't ambiguous without.  Thus _g_i_v_e
               _c_a_r _t_o _d_e_m_o_n will work, as will _g_i_v_e _d_e_m_o_n _c_a_r.
               _g_i_v_e _c_a_r _d_e_m_o_n probably won't do anything
               interesting.  When a preposition is used, it
               should be appropriate; _g_i_v_e _c_a_r _w_i_t_h _d_e_m_o_n won't
               parse.

          Sentences:
               The parser understands a reasonable number of
               syntactic construc- tions.  In particular, multi-
               ple commands (separated by commas) can be placed
               on the same line.

          Ambiguity:
               The parser tries to be clever about what to do in
               the case of actions which require objects that are
               not explicitly specified.  If there is only one
               possible object, the parser will assume that it
               should be used.  Otherwise, the parser will ask.
               Most questions asked by the parser can be
               answered.

FILES
     dtextc.dat     - encoded messages and initialization infor-
     mation
     dsave.dat      - save file

BUGS
     For those familiar with the MDL version of the game on the
     ARPAnet, the following is a list of the major incompatabil-
     ties:
          -The first six letters of a word are considered signi-
          ficant, instead of the first five.
          -The syntax for _t_e_l_l, _a_n_s_w_e_r, and _i_n_c_a_n_t is different.
          -Compound objects are not recognized.
          -Compound commands can be delimited with comma as well
          as period.

     Also, the palantir, brochure, and dead man problems are not
     implemented.

AUTHORS
     Many people have had a hand in this version.  See the "His-
     tory" and "README" files for credits.  Send bug reports to
     [e-mail] (or uunet!airs!ian).