The Game Master (3rd Edition)

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GAMESCAPE ver C.4 Copyright 1988-93 Dennis Drew. Copyright strictly enforced. NOW FEATURING INSTANT ON-LINE REGISTRATION! Basic Gamescape instructions follow this registration page. Documentation file. Please read this. Use PGUP/PGDN to move through the file. When finished, press ESC to continue with the GSCAPE program. To print out this file, press P and then use PGDN to move through the entire file. It will be printed as you scroll. REGISTRATION FORM (please print clearly) NAME: __________________________________________________________ COMPANY NAME: __________________________________________________ ADDRESS: _______________________________________________________ CITY: ______________________ STATE: _______ ZIP: _______________ PHONE: (_____)_______-_______ PURCHASE DATE: _____/_____/______ I acquired this program from:___________________________________ On a scale of 1-10, I rate this program a: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 I acknowledge that I have read and agree to the licensing agreement. I request to have my name added to your mailing list for future updates and information. ___________________________________________ ___________________ signed date Please send: ___ 5.25" disks ___ 3.5" disks enclose your check for $95 (we pay shipping) and mail to: Dennis Drew PO Box 101 Joplin, MO 64802 VISA/MASTERCARD accepted Please pay by international money order or a check drawn on a U.S. bank. Due to difficulty in processing, no foreign checks, please. ALL USERS!!! IMPORTANT!!! The following two lines (with the minimum configurations shown) must be in your CONFIG.SYS file on your DOS BOOT disk. FILES=20 BUFFERS=20 If you do not have a CONFIG.SYS file on your DOS BOOT disk, or if it does not contain at least the above specs, then you must update your CONFIG.SYS file so that it does. To do this, switch to your main boot drive (usually either A: or C:) and then enter the following lines EXACTLY: COPY CONFIG.SYS + CON CONFIG.SYS (press enter) FILES=20 (press enter) BUFFERS=20 (press enter) (press F6 key) (press ENTER) (reboot your computer) If you are unsure about how to do this, contact your computer dealer. This computer file is a STANDARD requirement of most modern computer programs and should be present on every computer system. ==================================================== GAMESCAPE Now with Hi-Res Color Graphics ! GAMESCAPE is the incredible program that allows you to design and distribute your own adventure games ! NOTE: This mini-manual is designed to give you an idea of the possibilities of GameScape. The full manual along with extended program commands is included with the registered version. WHAT IS GAMESCAPE? GAMESCAPE is the fantastic program that allows you to design and distribute your own adventure games. GAMESCAPE is a powerful "adventure engine" that allows you to describe locations and rooms, objects, recognizable words, messages, and occurrences that happen within the game. You can also include sound, music, and any of the standard IBM special graphics characters (terrific for mapping). Registered users can create high-resolution color graphics to go with their games! Gamescape encodes information so your game secrets cannot be easily deciphered by end users, and allows games to be "linked" so that your adventures can be of any length. It provides you the ability to design incredibly detailed and LARGE adventure games with far greater ease than using a raw programming langauge. Once the game is finished, registered users are allowed to distribute the games with NO ROYALTY FEE-- the initial registration is all that's required. Imagine writing your own adventure games! Have your family play them, give them to your friends, hand them out at computer clubs, or even sell them and make a few bucks! Gamescape is the incredible adventure game design system that lets you do all this. Using simple commands which are thoroughly explained by an easy-to-understand manual, you can do just about anything you would want to do in adventure gaming: * Define rooms, objects, monsters, and actions * Draw maps, monsters and other objects * Play music, sound alarms, beep warnings * NEW ! High resolution color graphics ability ! Gamescape also allows you to do things that no other adventure system allows. Your games can be of unlimited size and cover multiple disks! Full random features allow you to perform different actions, depending on a "throw of the die". Rather than hundreds of pages of instructions and loads of complex commands, Gamescape has a short, consise, uncomplicated manual and just a few short but very powerful and versatile commands. There is virtually no limitation to the things you can do with Gamescape! Purchasing this package and registering as an official user gives you the right to distribute your adventure games without paying any kind of a royalty fee. So join the world of adventure gaming today. Gamescape is raw, unbridled power, in an easy-to-use package. ============================================== INSTRUCTIONS FOR USING GAMESCAPE Gamescape is an adventure game development system. As such it is a "programming environment" that provides great power and time-saving methods of producing adventure games. To see how Gamescape works, enter the following command after installation: GSCAPE SAMPLE This is the game compiler that will turn the SAMPLE.ADV file into an adventure game. Once the game is compiled, you may then play it by exiting Gamescape and entering the command: SCAPERUN SAMPLE This will allow you to play the sample adventure game. By examining the TEST.ADV and SAMPLE.ADV files, you may get an idea of how the Gamescape development system works. Included with this program is GSEDIT.EXE, the powerful Gamescape editor. We've also included a basic, 2-room adventure called EASY which may be used with the EDITOR to see how Gamescape handles game editing. To do this, enter: GSEDIT EASY GAMESCAPE FILES Once the GS system is "unarced", the following files are present: NOTE: "Registered only" programs are included on this disk solely for the purpose of instant online registration. When you register on the telephone, these files will be opened up to you immediately. They require registration for legal use. GSCAPE.EXE Main GS "compiler", turns your adventure into machine readable code. GSEDIT.EXE The new GS editor, guides you through editing your games-- helps prevent grammar errors. GSGRAPH.EXE High resolution graphics development program. Requires CGA/EGA/VGA. (registered version only) SCAPERUN.EXE "Run-time module", must be distributed with your compiled adventure code in order for the code to work. MOUSECUR.COM Nice mouse driver to use with GSGRAPH. (registered version only) PALETTE.DAT Standard palette color file (alterable to suit your taste in colors) TABCONVT.EXE Converts tabs to spaces in your adventure files. FIXWS.COM Converts WordStar and other non-ASCII files to straight ASCII. EASY.ADV An easy to understand, simple adventure game example. EASY.* Support files to be used with GSEDIT.EXE TEST.ADV A sample adventure game that tests most GS functions. STARTER.FIL Startup file that should be used as a basic model for all of your adventure games. SAMPLE.ADV Small, fully-developed sample adventure game. SAMPLE.IN? "Include" files for SAMPLE.ADV. 1.GR0 thru 5.GR6 Graphics files for SAMPLE.ADV If these files are not present, please contact us immediately with the name and phone/address of the distributor who supplied the game to you, and we'll make them rue their existence on earth (as well as correct the situation). WHAT IS GAMESCAPE? Gamescape is an adventure engine. This means that it makes your adventure go, by providing the "fuel". An adventure engine allows you to write an adventure game, and then execute it by feeding it into a distributable "run-time" program that proceeds to make the game work. This allows the game to be distributed. Gamescape has no memory limitation, for it pulls its information from disk. While the disk access takes a tiny bit longer than a totally memory resident system, it does allow you to write adventure games limited only by the size of your imagination (Gamescape allows linking of multiple disks and/or multiple game modules on a hard disk). GAMESCAPE AND YOUR COMPUTER As with any development system, the faster your computer, the better. Gamescape is powerful. It allows you to develop games of almost unlimited size and versatility. This of course takes microprocessor, RAM and disk access time. While Gamescape works properly on a "PC/XT" type machine (8088 microprocessor), it works much better on faster computers. 8088 systems will work, but will be somewhat slow, especially those that are floppy-based. This is not a fault of Gamescape, but of the slow disk and memory access times of those machines. Of course, using Gamescape is still much faster than trying to write an adventure game with a standard language compiler. Then too, there is the benefit that your games are no longer limited in size; you can design adventure games limited only by the size of your disk. Gamescape really smokes on a 12mhz 286 with a 28ms hard disk drive; that's the minimal type of system we recommend for best results from your game development environment. But even 8088 disk users will derive value from Gamescape. Just remember that if you have a slow computer, access will be slow. Be patient. Realize that the first MS-DOS 8088 based computers were produced over 12 years ago. While they're by no means dinosaurs, the industry has come a long way since then. If you plan to write and distribute adventure games, you might want to move up to a faster machine. THE GAMESCAPE INTERFACE -- or how to make the thing work NORMAL USE. To use Gamescape, you should start out with the GSEDIT program and examine the EASY module. Check it out and study how the logic works. Then when you have developed your basic skills, you can move up to the more advanced functions using the registered version of Gamescape and a text editor. Once you've written the actual adventure, you use the GSCAPE.EXE program to compile it. Compilation turns your adventure into a form that Gamescape can read later when the game is actually played. If no extension is present, Gamescape automatically adds the .ADV extension. So to get the system to compile, you enter the command: GSCAPE filename (you supply the filename) The compiling function creates six new files with the same name as your original database, but with the extensions of .GS1 through .GS6. Then you execute the finished game by typing in: SCAPERUN filename Everything is automatic from there on. Don't expect your adventure to work 100% correct the first time; as with any other computer project, you'll make mistakes. But I've put a couple of things in the programs to help you locate those errors, so you should do OK. Of course, when you distribute your adventure, you have to include the SCAPERUN.EXE program with it, because that's what makes the thing work. No problem there; Gamescape was designed with that in mind. Just read the licensing agreement and you're all set. Remember that registered users do have extra goodies that they can add to their games. You will find that I'm very friendly with registered users. I'll answer questions. I'll answer letters. Invite me to a party, and I'll probably show up (you pay the travel expenses, o' course!). TRY OUT THE SAMPLE GAME! I've included three sample adventure games called EASY.ADV, SAMPLE.ADV, and TEST.ADV. Try the EASY adventure first. Then try SAMPLE and finally TEST. SAMPLE contains graphics, and demonstrates how graphics appear in the Gamescape environment. This will give you a feel for how Gamescape works, and will show you how an adventure data file interfaces with the Gamescape program. Go ahead and do this now before reading any further. SAMPLE is a relatively easy adventure game. It may take you several tries before you conquer it, but it only has 5 rooms and will take from 15 minutes to an hour to play, depending on your gaming experience. Once you've played it, and read this manual, examine the files thoroughly to see how Gamescape works. HOW TO WRITE AN ADVENTURE GAME There are 8 basic steps involved in writing an adventure game. These are my concept and you can choose to follow them, alter them for your own use, or ignore them as you wish. But I've found they work for me and I feel that if you skip (or skimp on) any one of them, it will detract from your game. STEP 1. Start with a theme, a plot that tells what your game is going to do. For example, with my popular game MAROONED AGAIN the theme was: You have crash-landed on an alien planet. But all is not lost; you have found an alien ship. The crew apparently died from some strange disease. The ship is still in good condition, but it was not built for human anatomy to withstand a blast-off. Fortunately, you have super-strong clones aboard your ship, but they were damaged in the crash. They now only recognize 1 or 2 words at a time. Your goal: send them aboard the alien ship, find the components required to get it to blast off, and send them for help. See how that works? You need a theme of your own, something to tie the entire game together. STEP 2. Once the theme is established, start writing down individual things you'd like to have happen in the game. For example, you may find a key that's required to open a door located elsewhere. Or you may have to fight a robot to gain access to a room. Don't get too complex. Take my word for it; adventure games get complex all on their own as you start writing the actual code. STEP 3. Draw a map. Set up rooms and corridors, or open land areas, etc., keeping in mind the things in step 2 so you can incorporate them into your map. Use a big sheet of paper and make the rooms large (2" square is a good size) because you're going to be scribbling in details later. The key to proper adventure game writing is advanced planning. You should have the entire game designed before you begin writing one line of code! STEP 4. Number the rooms. Room #1 is always the starting location of the adventure. STEP 5. Go through the rooms one by one and make a list of the OBJECTS in the rooms, and the WORDS that will be required to play the adventure. This will only be a partial list; as you test the adventure you'll probably find more objects and words that you'll need. Try to be as thorough as possible. STEP 6. Make sure the game is logical. One of the worst problems with many adventure games is that the things the author requires you to do don't make any sense. I remember one game I played where I found an Egyptian statue that would kill me every time I got near it. I could find no way around this. When I started asking around and tore the game apart, I finally discovered that a ruby found earlier in the game (which the game stated was a treasure) was actually the heart of the statue, and had to be thrown into a lava pit. There were no clues that this should be done, no hints. Totally illogical. I hate an adventure game that requires the player to be stupid and do ignorant and dumb things in order to make the game work (there is a difference of course, between stupid things and sneaky things). So ask yourself as you write the game: If I were playing the game, would this be a logical thing to do, something that I might actually think of doing? If the answer is "no", eliminate that thing and do it some other way. STEP 7. Once you're convinced the game is logical, begin writing the code. There is a file called STARTER.FIL that should be the heart of every adventure you write. It includes standard adventure functions, as well as a few required adventure functions that you'll need for each game. You can alter it any way you wish; it's just a guideline to use. Of course, do not alter STARTER.FIL itself; copy it to another file: COPY STARTER.FIL MYGAME.ADV Then use the MYGAME.ADV file to write your adventure. NOTE: If you are using the GSEDIT editor, there is no need for the STARTER.FIL file. STEP 8. Writing the game and testing it yourself is called the alpha stage. Beta test stage is the important one. Call in a friend who enjoys playing adventure games (not two, because you'll want to beta test this on several individuals) and let him have at it. Grab a pencil and notebook and sit by him the whole time. Don't give any hints; figuring out the adventure is part of the testing. Give hints and you'll ruin the spontenaity such testing requires. Resign yourself to the fact that you will most likely need several sessions to test a game propery. This is the research & development stage; R&D takes time. Anything worth doing... As you note errors in the game (and you will) write down the circumstances and errors that result. Take legible, detailed notes. But don't alter the game right then unless it is unplayable due to that error. Let your friend finish playing, all the while writing down alterations. Also, make notes of things you wish to add to the game; you'll find lots of things to include that you didn't think of before. Once your friend has finished playing (this may take many, many hours, or even several sessions, depending on the complexity of the game) then make the changes to your game, and call over another friend. Go through the same process again. Do this two, three, four, or five times if necessary, until the game is playable. Don't try to cover every possible situation that might occur; just make sure that the things you do allow in your game, work properly. After this is done, you are now to gamma production stage, which means that your game is ready to distribute. You may still find minor bugs in your code as the months go by, but none of them should seriously affect game play and for the most part everything will be fine. ============================ A BRIEF GAMESCAPE TUTORAL This brief tutoral is designed to help you experience how a game is written by using Gamescape. In order to write your own, full- featured game, you will need the registered version and the Gamescape manual. Understand please, that game writing is never easy; if it was, EVERYONE would be doing it. But by using Gamescape as a tool, you can greatly increase your game skills and reduce game writing time. The game we are going to write is called MYGAME. It is a very, very simple game similar to our EASY game we have already included in here. Let's use our 8-step method to produce the game. Please follow these instructions step-by-step to get the hang of the thing. 1. THEME. Go in the kitchen and drink the milk. (A simple theme, I know, but it will serve the purpose). 2. DETAILS. Start out in the main room. Go east to the kitchen. Open the refrigerator. Get the milk. Drink the milk. Game ends. 3. MAP █████████████ █████████████ █ █████████ █ █ MAIN ROOM KITCHEN █ █ █████████ █ █████████████ █████████████ 4. NUMBER ROOMS: 1 2 5. OBJECTS & WORDS: OBJECTS Main room: none Kitchen: refrigerator, milk WORDS REFRIGERATOR/ICEBOX GET/TAKE OPEN MILK QUIT/END LOOK SEARCH/EXAMINE EAST (to move from main room to kitchen) WEST (to move from kitchen to main room) DRINK (the milk) 6. MAKE THE GAME LOGICAL. It's milk we're drinking, not poison. 7. WRITE THE CODE. In order to do this, you will need to use the GSEDIT program (to start with. Advanced users usually write their code via a word processor). Enter the following commands exactly as shown. NOTE: For purposes of this tutoral, the symbol < will mean ENTER. Items in [brackets] are game comments and are not to be entered into the computer. [From DOS:] GSEDIT< [At title screen:] C [or] M [color or mono monitor] [At shareware screen:] Y [to accept terms] [At info screen:] < [remember that < means ENTER in this tutoral] [First, let's tell the system what the name of the game is going to be:] [At main menu:] E [Enter game name] MYGAME< Y [new game] [Now let's describe the locations. There are two rooms.] L [locations] < [location number, defaults to next location] Welcome to my game. This is a little test to see how easy it is to< write a Gamescape adventure. To see this work, go east.< [press ESC] E< [specify exits. East is the only exit] F6 [save this room] L [locations] < [defaults to location #2] Well, it looks like you made it here. This is the kitchen.< Feel free to look around.< [press ESC] W< [exits west] F6 [save room] [We have two objects to describe, a refrigerator and milk.] [At main menu:] O [objects] < [defaults to object #1] REFRIGERATOR< 2< [starting location is room 2, the kitchen] F6 [save the object] O [objects] < [defaults to object #2] MILK< 301< [note that location 301 is in limbo. In other words, this] [object is not visible at the beginning of the game.] F6 [save object] [Now we have to tell Gamescape which words to recognize.] [At the main menu:] W [words] < [defaults to word #1] REFRIGERATOR< [this is the main word] ICEBOX< [this is an acceptable synonym] < [no 3rd equivalent] < [no 4th equivalent] F6 [save the word] W [words] < [defaults to word #2] [now enter the rest of these words in this same manner:] GET OPEN MILK QUIT WEST EAST TAKE Q W E END LOOK SEARCH DRINK EXAMINE QUAFF EXAM [Now we have to enter our messages, which basically are responses to player actions:] [At main menu:] M [messages] < [defaults to message #1] [What if the player tries to GET the REFRIGERATOR? We stop him.] Ugh! That thing is far too heavy to lift!< ESC [press escape key] F6 [save message] [Now repeat these steps with messages #2-6:] [#2:]You manage to open the refrigerator.< [#3:]You drink the milk and feel much better.< Now you will have the energy to write more adventure games!< [#4:]Sorry. This is an extremely simple game. Much too simple for that.< [#5:]You don't seem to be holding any milk.< [#6:]You have the milk!< [Now we will tell Gamescape what commands it is to accept from the player (and what commands not to accept!) From the main menu:] C (commands) [The command structure has three parts: Command, If's, Do's. Basically, these mean that when a COMMAND is received, IF certain conditions exist, then DO the following things.) First, let's allow the player to look at whatever room he's in. From the COMMAND menu:] C (Command) LOOK< [the verb (first word) which will trigger this command] < [pressing ENTER at a VERB or NOUN accepts ANY word, indicated by * ] D [do] A [show the room. Note that the screen blinks, but nothing else happens. This is because the command has been automatically recognized and entered. No further action is required on your part. This is quite common in this section; so long as the screen blinks, the system has recognized your instruction.] B [terminate further actions] F1 [exit the DO menu] [Now press T to go to the top of the commands. See what has been created? This is the basic command structure. You can press F2 to go backward through the list, or ENTER to go forward. Be careful about what you insert or erase in your commands. If an error occurs when you try to compile or play the game, go back to your COMMANDS list and see if something looks out of place. Now press E to go to the end of commands, and continue on.] [Allow the player to quit the game if he wants to.] C [Command] QUIT< [verb] < [noun] D [DO menu] 8 [QUIT] B [terminate further actions] F1 [exit the DO menu] [Now let's allow the player to move from room to room.] C [command] EAST< [verb] < [noun] I [IF menu] 1 [AT] 1< [location 1] F1 [exit IF menu] D [DO menu] G [GOTO] 2< [location 2] A [SHOW the room] B [terminate further actions] F1 [exit DO menu] C [command] WEST< [verb] < [noun] I [IF menu] 1 [AT] 2< [location 2] F1 [exit IF menu] D [DO menu] G [GOTO] 1< [location 1] A [SHOW] B [terminate further actions] F1 [exit DO menu] [Stop the player from getting the refrigerator.] C [command] GET< [verb] REFRIGERATOR< [noun] I [IF menu] 1 [AT] 2< [location 2] F1 [exit IF menu] D [DO menu] K [PRINT] 1< [message 1] B [terminate further actions] F1 [exit DO menu] [Note that this command will prevent the person from picking up the refrigerator. But in addition, the IF AT 2 logic will prevent the game from even recognizing the existence of the refrigerator if the person is at location #1.] [Allow the player to open the refrigerator] C [command] OPEN< REFRIGERATOR< I [IF] 1 [AT] 2< F1 [exit IF menu] D [DO] I [move object] 2< [object #2, the milk] 2< [move to location #2, the kitchen] K [PRINT] 2< [message #2] B [terminate further actions F1 [Allow the player to examine the refrigerator. The SHOW command will display that the milk is present.] C SEARCH< REFRIGERATOR< I [IF] 1 [AT] 2< F1 D [DO] A [SHOW] B [terminate] F1 [Allow the player to get the milk... if he has searched the refrigerator.] C GET< MILK< I [IF] 4 [EXIST] 2< [the milk] 2< [at location 2] F1 D [DO] I [move object] 2< [the milk] 302< [the player] K [PRINT] 6< [message #6] B F1 [If the player has the milk, allow him to drink it] C DRINK< MILK< I [IF] 4 [EXIST] 2< [the milk] 302< [on the player] F1 D [DO] K [PRINT] 3< [message #3, which wins the game] 4 [END the game] B F1 [If the player doesn't have the milk and tries to drink it...] C DRINK< MILK< D [DO] K [PRINT] 5 [message #5] B F1 F1 [exit COMMANDS menu] [At main menu:] T [translate to Gamescape syntax] F6 [go] [At main menu:] Q [quit] < [conclude the program] [Now we need to take the translated game and compile it into executable Gamescape code:] [At DOS:] GSCAPE MYGAME< C/M [color or mono monitor] Y [accept terms] < [press ENTER at description screen] Y [do you wish to compile?] Y [do you wish to display the source code?] C [drive name. Enter A or B if using floppy disk.] [Compilation is performed] < [following compilation, press ENTER] Q [quit at main menu] < [conclude program] [Now we can play the game. From DOS:] SCAPERUN MYGAME< C/M [color or mono monitor?] < [if you are not a registered user, the non-reg notice will display] [Now play! Enjoy your hard-won efforts! If an error occurs, read the DEBUGGING CODE section.] DEVELOPING GRAPHICS The graphics development system (GSGRAPH) is available to registered users. Once you register, you will be able to incorporate high-resolution graphics in your adventure games. Gamescape is the most advanced and most powerful game development system in the world. Registration brings you not only a full instruction manual and advanced capabilities, it also allows you to distribute your developed adventure games without a royalty fee. Please register today! ================================================= IMPORTANT NOTICE ON NON-REGISTERED GAME DISTRIBUTION LICENSE: You may distribute your GAMESCAPE adventures without being a registered user, under the following license requirements: 1. You may not charge for your game in any form, not even a diskette duplication fee. It is illegal to commercially distribute a game without express, written permission from the author. What this means in short is that you may give copies to your friends, send them to penpals, and enter them in GAMESCAPE contests, but you may not market them in any fashion, regardless of profit or non-profit motive, without express written permission from the author. You may not distribute your game through shareware channels or across BBSs. 2. You may not use advanced GAMESCAPE features. Advanced features are those found in the REGISTERED version, and include: LINKing modules Hires GRAPHICS (although you may use block graphics as is standard with the shareware version) 3. You may not present the game as registered. You may not use a registered version of GAMESCAPE to produce your game (you must use the shareware version). 4. The SCAPERUN.EXE program must be included (of course, or the game won't work). Non-compliance with any of these requirements will, by terms of our license, void your ownership of your work (in other words, games distributed against our license requirements become our property). This is not so much for our benefit as it is to protect those who DO pay for registration; they deserve the rewards of their payment. SPECIAL REGISTERED USER NOTICE!!! The REGISTERED version of Gamescape now contains HI-RES GRAPHICS ABILITY!!! Yes, you can create your own B&W or color pictures and add them to your games. This feature is available on the registered version only as our way of saying "Thank you for registering!" If you're a registered user, CONGRATULATIONS! You can just about do what you want. That's what you paid for. You can use our advanced functions including high-res graphics. You can charge bucks for your work. You can distribute through shareware. You don't have to pay royalties of any kind. You can give your games away or sell them, and pursue any marketing method you wish. You are fully licensed. About the only thing we require is standard, forseeable stuff, such as: 1. You must include the SCAPERUN.EXE program when you distribute your game (naturally; it's the run-time module). 2. You may not alter or misrepresent the GAMESCAPE system in any manner, or present your games in a manner contrary or harmful to our concepts and purposes of GAMESCAPE. That's all; pretty simple stuff. The bottom line: if you're an unregistered user, feel free to give your games to friends and to enter GAMESCAPE contests. Enjoy yourself; we want you to have fun using this excellent program. But remember that there's a lot more available to you if you register! ====================================================================== VERY IMPORTANT! DEBUGGING CODE Gamescape is a very complex project, and I would be foolish to imagine that some obscure bug doesn't exist somewhere. If you find a legitimate bug, I will appreciate you letting me know. However, please do so under the following guidelines: #1 AND MOST IMPORTANT: Remember that Gamescape is a programming environment, and it has been used to generate very complex adventure games. It is therefore reasonable to assume that most (if not all) of the bugs have been discovered. Whenever you find what you think is a bug, realize that it is most likely in your game code, and not a problem with Gamescape. Before you report a bug, go over your code with a fine tooth comb. Whether or not we charge you for examining your code depends on whether the bug is caused by Gamescape, or by user coding errors. If we have to spend time hunting for a bug that we find to be user programming code errors, we will have to bill the user for that time. This may seem unfair, but A) we will help the user discover the mistake and thus have rendered a programming service and B) we deserve to be reimbursed for time/wage/computer expense involved in finding user coding errors. Even in such a case, our rates are reasonable, and can be avoided completely if you make sure that a bug report is an actual bug. Note that billing will only be done if we feel that significant time was wasted. We're not going to worry about minor work... that's just part of doing business and supporting you as a registered user of Gamescape. #2: An error message does not mean a Gamescape bug. It likely is pointing out a problem with your code. Check out the error; you may find it means something like "printer not on" or "disk full" or something like that. Or, it may mean you've left out a part of an IF/DO line which causes Gamescape to return an error such as "Out of string space" or "Bad record number" or "Illegal function call" (that happens more than adventure programmers like to admit). Such things are programmer errors, and are not likely to be a fault of Gamescape. #3: If you do find what you feel to be a legitimate bug, write us a letter fully documenting the info. A phone call is allowed as well, but the phone is mainly for answering questions, not in trying to trace down a supposed bug. If you can send us a disk with your source code, that will be appreciated as well (source codes will be kept extremely private and secured... we will not release or distribute them under any circumstance. They will be used solely for the purpose of documenting the bug). #4: We will not consider any bug report from an unregistered user. No exceptions. Sorry, but that's what registration means: support. If you are unregistered then you are not aware of updates, changes, techniques, etc. We will not waste time with an unregistered user, no matter how legitimate you think your problem may be. Bottom line: if you want the support, then please register. #5: If you do find a legitimate bug, we will send you one of our nifty adventures free of charge, as well as give you credit for the bug find in future documentation! Thanks for your attention to these matters. GAMESCAPE ERROR CODES Gamescape is written using Microsoft QuickBASIC 3.0 and uses most standard BASIC error codes. I am listing them here for your convenience in tracking down your game code errors. Please note that an error that pops up does not likely mean Gamescape has a bug; if you have not yet read the section on debugging code, do so now. It is extremely important. 1 NEXT WITHOUT FOR 2 SYNTAX 3 RETURN WITHOUT GOSUB 4 OUT OF DATA 5 ILLEGAL FUNCTION CALL 6 OVERFLOW 7 OUT OF MEMORY 8 UNDEFINED LINE NUMBER 9 SUBSCRIPT OUT OF RANGE 10 DUPLICATE DEFINITION 11 DIVISION BY ZERO 12 ILLEGAL DIRECT 13 TYPE MISMATCH 14 OUT OF STRING SPACE 15 STRING TOO LONG 16 STRING FORMULA TOO COMPLEX 17 CAN'T CONTINUE 18 UNDEFINED USER FUNCTION 19 NO RESUME 20 RESUME WITHOUT ERROR 22 MISSING OPERAND 23 LINE BUFFER OVERFLOW 24 DEVICE TIMEOUT 25 DEVICE FAULT 26 FOR WITHOUT NEXT 27 OUT OF PAPER 29 WHILE WITHOUT WEND 30 WEND WITHOUT WHILE 50 FIELD OVERFLOW 51 INTERNAL ERROR 52 BAD FILE NUMBER 53 FILE NOT FOUND 54 BAD FILE MODE 55 FILE ALREADY OPEN 57 DEVICE I/O ERROR 58 FILE ALREADY EXISTS 61 DISK FULL 62 INPUT PAST END 63 BAD RECORD NUMBER 64 BAD FILE NAME 66 DIRECT STATEMENT IN FILE 67 TOO MANY FILES 68 DEVICE UNAVAILABLE 69 COMMUNICATION BUFFER OVERFLOW 70 DISK WRITE PROTECT 71 DISK NOT READY 72 DISK MEDIA ERROR 73 ADVANCED FEATURE 74 RENAME ACROSS DISKS 75 PATH/FILE ACCESS ERROR 76 PATH NOT FOUND (you probably didn't install CONFIG.SYS properly) Please register for Gamescape. Not only does registration provide you with expanded abilities and privileges, registrations encourage us to update the program and add even more power, so that your games can be more impressive than ever before. The more registrations we receive, the more eager we are to provide regular updates to the program. Thank you for registering ! The remainder of this manual is contained in the registered version. To get started writing your own adventure games, please use the GSEDIT program. Realize however, that the registered manual provides you with a great deal of information that is required for professional game development. THANK YOU FOR EXAMINING GAMESCAPE end of manual Gamescape is written and published by: Drew Software PO Box 101 Joplin, MO 64802 (417)781-4248 ====================================================================== Please read the following: IMPORTANT: HOW TO OBTAIN THE INSTRUCTION MANUAL Our programs are very easy to use. You do not need an instruction manual to operate them. However, the manual allows you to gain greater benefit from this program. To get the manual, you must REGISTER with us. We depend on your registration fee to continue operation. Registration brings you: 1. Instruction manual. 2. Call-in telephone support. 3. Places you on our mailing list for notification of future updates. 4. Usually brings you a more advanced version of the program. We will support you if you register; absolutely no support will be given to non-registered users. USER REGISTRATION AND LICENSE AGREEMENT ARTICLE 1. ACCEPTANCE. In registering for our programs, the user agrees to abide by all articles and restrictions of this license. It is the responsibility of the purchaser to note the items of this license, and decide upon agreeability of its terms prior to the registration of the program. ARTICLE 2. LICENSING. This program is licensed, not sold. As such, the user/ purchaser has the right to use the program on a day-to-day basis, but recognizes the ownership of the program and all materials as belonging to Dennis Drew. ARTICLE 3. COPYING AND MULTI-USER. This program is USER SUPPORTED. You are encouraged to copy the SHAREWARE diskette and give it to your friends and acquaintences. You may use this program freely and distribute it as you wish. However, the following restrictions do apply: 1. You may not charge a fee for this program, other than for the cost of duplication. 2. You may not alter the program or supporting items in any manner, may not add to or remove items from the disk. 3. You may not copy or reproduce in any way the instruction manual that is available for this program. The instruction manual is provided to REGISTERED USERS ONLY. Copying of this manual in any form is strictly forbidden. If several copies of the manual are required, then a discount is provided on request. 4. Shareware companies must obtain a distribution license from the author. ARTICLE 4. WARRANTY AND LIABILITY. It is the responsibility of the purchaser to decide upon usability and application of this program to his/her particular needs. Every effort has been made to insure the accuracy and reliability of this program. However, since the success of this program relies a great deal upon individual use and dedication to the use thereof, and the fact that this program is user copiable (thus limiting our control over what the end-user receives), We will not be held responsible for any results obtained from the direct or indirect use of this program nor does this program comply to the laws of merchantability of any state. ARTICLE 5. TERMINATION. If the user/purchaser breaks any article of this agreement, all items pertaining to the program shall be returned to the publisher. This will not exclude any additional punitive damages incurred according to national and civil laws. ARTICLE 6. CUSTOMER SUPPORT. We are eager to support our customers. Technical assistance is available to REGISTERED USERS ONLY by calling (417)781-4248 Monday through Friday during the hours of 9am to 5pm. If your diskette is damaged in any way, return it to us along with $10.00 to cover cost of replacement. We will rush you a new diskette. It is recognized that the purchaser is already bound by the terms of the LICENSING AGREEMENT enclosed with this package. This registration form serves two purposes: 1. To emphasize agreement with the terms of the license. 2. To allow us to provide you with timely updates and information. Thank you for registering!