TADS Instructions - written by Michael J. Roberts, modified by Neil deMause for MACWESLEYAN/PC UNIVERSITY
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.
