300 Totally Awesome Games for DOS

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Text File | 1994-04-09 | 12.4 KB | 305 lines

******************************************************************************* ******************************************************************************* ************************ The Land of Wonce ************************ ************************ (c) 1994 Brian Porter ************************ ******************************************************************************* ******************************************************************************* Welcome to THE LAND OF WONCE! This is a graphical adventure game requiring an EGA card or better. A 286 processor or higher is recommended, although this game will work (albeit slowly) on an 8 or even a 4.77 MHz PCXT. THE STORY --------- You awaken on the Southern Shores of a strange land. With no knowledge of how or why you got there, you begin walking. Soon you meet an old man who tells you that you are in the magical land of Wonce. He directs you to Arnuden Castle, which is to the northeast. You ask him if he knows of any way for you to get home. He says that in Wonce almost anything is possible, but the way is dangerous, for it means travel through Dungeons and Magic Portals, and combat with all manner of beasts. He finishes by saying that he has told you all he knows, and must now be on his way. You thank him for his information and start on your trek to the castle to the northeast. . . HOW TO PLAY ----------- You must travel through the Land of Wonce to pick up information and items. The full extent of the journey will unfold as you talk to the different characters in the castles. Movement through Wonce and Wonce's Castles and Dungeons is accomplished with the following keys: I - Move North J - Move West K - Move East M - Move South Other keys that you can use during your quest are as follows: A - Attack: The attack command requires you to specify a direction. This is true whether you are initiating combat, or whether you are actually in combat at the time. E - Enter: In order to use the enter command, you must put yourself right on top of either a Castle, Dungeon, or other object that you feel you can enter. (The game will ignore your command if the object you are trying to enter cannot be entered). G - Get: This command will ask for a direction for the object to be gotten from. Items that you get will appear underneath your character's status, and subsequently disappear from the screen. H - Help: This command displays the help screen. It offers a brief summary of all available commands, and also shows a legend of most of the important landmarks you will encounter during your quest through Wonce. Q - Quit: This command will ask if you want to save your progress before quitting and returning you to the DOS prompt. R - Restore: By using this command you can retrieve a previously-saved game and continue from where you last left off. Since it is very unlikely that you will finish the quest in one sitting, this feature is very important. S - Save: Use this command to save your progress to disk. If you are about to embark on a dangerous mission, then save first. That way, if you are slain you can use Restore to continue playing from that point again. It is important to remember that every time you save, your old game is overwritten on the disk. Thus, don't save if you are not happy with your progress. One other point: this command will only work when you are on the surface of Wonce. You cannot save from inside a castle or dungeon. T - Talk: After you use this command, you will be prompted for a direction. You can only talk to humans. Nothing else will respond. Make a note of what the people say! Although some information is superfluous, much of it is important for the completion of your quest. V - View: Use this command to see a map of Wonce. It will also indicate what position in Wonce you are. This command works in castles and dungeons as well. It can come in quite handy. W - Wait: If your hit points are low and you need to hole up and rest for a while, use this command. You will be prompted for a number (0 to 9) which specifies how long you want to wait. The longer that you wait, the higher your chance of being robbed as you sleep. When robbed, you lose half your gold. X - Exit: This command will only work inside castles and dungeons. It is to allow you to leave whichever one you are in. Unlike some games, however, you can leave at any point in the castle. When you re-enter, though, you will be at the entrance again. In order to use any of these commands, simply type the letter and the game will do the rest. If a direction is required, the game will display a prompt asking you to specify the direction. Use the I-J-K-M keys at this point. If the game ignores your command, then that command is invalid at that particular time or in that particular place. If you forget any commands, just remember `H', which will display the help screen. COMBAT ------ It is necessary that you fight a variety of creatures. Sometimes they block your way, and other times you just need their gold. A WORD OF WARNING: At the start of the quest your battle skill is low. Just about everything and everybody can succesfully slay you. It is unwise to indiscriminately attack every creature that you come across, since it is very unlikely that you would live long. Battle skill increases with combat, but you will need to rest between fights to build yourself up to maximum hit points again. Here are your particulars: Hit Points: This is shown as a ratio to your Hit Maximum (initially 100 / 100) and reflects the number of points required to kill you. Different creatures hit you for different degrees of damage incurred. Hit points increase slowly over time as you heal from wounds received in combat. Also, your hit maximum increases incrementally after you have gained experience points. Level: This affects your ability to avoid injury in battle and also to inflict damage on your foe. You start the game at level 1. Battle Skill: Your skill in battle reflects the highest number of hit points you can incur on an enemy. The more experience you have, the higher your battle skill. Also, the more combat you have participated in, the higher your battle skill. You start the game with a battle skill of 2 (completely unformidable). Experience: Your experience reflects how much you have accomplished in the game. It increases as you travel, talk to characters, acquire objects, and participate in combat. When you begin in Wonce your experience is 0. Gold: This is the amount of gold collected from succesfully slaying enemies. As expected, the nastier your enemy, the more gold it is carrying. To start, you have no gold at all. One important point to remember: Although you may meet other humans during your quest, it is bad form to attack them. Try talking with them instead. If you want to play the game by just slaughtering all the living things in sight, try one of my other games. Also, the various creatures have Battle Skills and Hit Points of their own. The following is a list of all their attributes: +--------------------------------------+ | Creature | Points | Bat. Skill | |------------+------------+------------| | Troll | 15 | 3 | | Snake | 50 | 2 | | Spider | 35 | 5 | | Human | 100 | 10 | | Dragon | 200 | 10 | | Ogre | 150 | 15 | | Griffin | 300 | 20 | +--------------------------------------+ At the beginning of the game you start with these attributes: Hit Points: 100 / 100 Level: 1 Battle Skill: 2 Experience: 0 Gold: 0 Your experience affects your hit maximum. The more battles that you engage in, the more things you pick up, and the more people you talk to, the higher your experience level. Obviously, to start, your battle skill of 2 and your hit maximum of 100 is not nearly enough to take on the more fierce creatures. A good rule of thumb is to multiply your hit points by your battle skill and compare the product to that of your enemy. Allow about 20% more for the `random' element. Not all hits are going to be good ones! Your maximum of maximums for hits is 250, and your maximum battle skill is 40. Therefore, the greatest battle ability you can have is 40 X 250 or a total of 10,000. Compare that with a griffin's, which is 6,000. There should be no contest at this level, but getting there takes time and experience. At the start, your battle skill is 2 and your hit maximum is 100, or an ability of 200. Compare that with a troll (45), spider (175), and a snake (100). These three creatures are considered the lesser creatures, though they will be threat enough, initially. Even a human (1000) will be out of reach at first. The relationship between experience and hit maximums is as follows: +---------------------------+ | Experience | Max hits | +---------------------------+ | 0 -> 1200 | 100 | | 1201 -> 2000 | 120 | | 2001 -> 3000 | 150 | | 3001 -> 5000 | 175 | | 5001 -> 8000 | 200 | | 8001 & OVER | 250 | +---------------------------+ One last thing about combat: remember to use the attack command and direction while you are fighting. If, however, you find yourself losing the battle, and you fear death, there is an option open to you. Press `R' for the Retreat command, and you will be able to escape from the enemy. The drawback is that you lose all your gold. A FEW WORDS OF ADVICE --------------------- 1) Talk to everybody until you are sure you have heard everything of value. 2) Build up your Battle Skills as quickly as possible. 3) Save before entering dungeons and castles. 4) In combat, manoeuver yourself to land the first blow. 5) View the map often, and study it carefully. OTHER INFORMATION ----------------- The program may be freely distributed, as long as the following files are all included: WONCE .EXE <------The Main Program WONCE .DOC <------This Document * .WON <------Various Data Files *********************************** * NOTE: THIS PROGRAM IS SHAREWARE * *********************************** I have spent a great deal of time working on this software. I need some sort of indication from people that my hard work is worth all the effort. I don't believe that my expectations are too high. This game is not free for all, it is being distributed in the hopes that honest people who play the game will register it. If enough people register The Land of Wonce I will write a sequel to it, based on suggestions by individual users. To make the deal more enticing, I have decided that by registering, you will be sent two other games that I have written: BRIAN'S CASINO: --------------- Play your five favourite Casino games, including two Slot Machine, Twenty-One, Baccarat, and Acey-Deucey. If you're broke, sell off your personal items at the Pawn Shop, or if you're really desperate, try borrowing money from Louie the Loan Shark . . . ESCAPE THE RAINFOREST: ---------------------- You've crashed your airplane somewhere in South America. Now, how to get home? In this text-adventure game, you must overcome mountains, rivers, caves, wild animals, and dangerous natives to find a way back to civilization. So, for The Land of Wonce, Brian's Casino, and Escape the Rainforest the cost is only $15.00 US, $20.00 CAN. To Register The Land of Wonce and receive your two bonus games: 1) Send Cheque or Money Order for $15.00 US or $20.00 CAN to: Brian Porter 10318 - 149th Street Surrey, B.C. Canada V3R 4A2 (Make your cheque or money order out to `Brian Porter') 2) State which game you are registering. 3) If you do not want to be on my mailing list, please state this with your order, otherwise I will send you information about other products as they become available. I hope you enjoy playing The Land of Wonce. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, please feel free to contact me. -Brian Porter