Gamers Delight 2/Gamers Delight 2.iso/Aminet/game/role/TACL.lha/TACL/Padv.DOC

Text File | 1989-12-25 | 13KB | 296 lines

                              T.A.C.L.
                 The Adventure Construction Language

                      Copyright (c) 1988, 1989
                          by Kevin S. Kelm
                       and Alternate Realities
                   Produced by Micro Momentum, Inc.

   This document is freely distributable when accompanied by PADV.

                                PADV
                          (Play ADVenture)
                              Tutorial

                           GETTING STARTED

       The easiest way to play an adventure is to click on the
  icon of the Game that you want to play from Workbench.
  Double click on the Game Part I icon to start the game.  The
  game will load PADV (The adventure player) and then load the
  game you have selected.

       Note:  The same thing can be accomplished by typing "PADV
  GameName" from the CLI.  (Remember to substitute the actual name
  of the game that you want to play for "GameName".)


       PADV is the fun part of TACL, where you play the games that
  you or someone else has created with MADV.  PADV has been
  designed to be as flexible as possible, and each computer's
  version is written to take advantage of any special capabilities
  available on that computer.  The Amiga version, for example,
  uses pull-down menus, special windows for various functions, a
  separate screen for graphics which may be manipulated using the
  standard Amiga layering and drag gadgets, speech, and other
  Amiga-specific features.


                        LOADING AN ADVENTURE

       From the Workbench, either double click on the icon of the
  game that you wish to play, or double click on the PADV icon to
  load PADV, and then load the game by using the menu options in
  PADV as described below.

       From the Command Line Interpreter (CLI), type "PADV
  GameName.GAM" or "PADV GameName," or just type "PADV," and then
  load the game using the menu options as described below.  Note
  that PADV often uses a lot of stack space, and THE STACK SIZE
  SHOULD BE SET TO AT LEAST 20,000 BYTES.  To do this, type "STACK
  20000" at the CLI prompt, or put it in your Startup-Sequence.
  (Just edit the file "s:Startup-Sequence" and add the "STACK
  20000" line somewhere in the file.)


                            PADV's MENUS

       Padv has three main menus.  The ADVENTURE menu allows
  control over which adventure game to play and system options,
  the GAME menu allows save, restore, and restart options, and the
  OPTIONS menu allows you to toggle Graphics, Audio, and Speech.

  The ADVENTURE menu is as follows:
       Load           (Right-Amiga-R)
       Colors         (Right-Amiga-C)
       About          (Right-Amiga-A)
       Help           (Right-Amiga-H)
       Quit           (Right-Amiga-Q)

       Use the LOAD Option to load an new adventure, or to change
  to a different adventure.  See the section below about LOAD and
  SAVE game for a complete description of how to use the file
  requestor.

       As screen colors are a matter of personal choice, feel free
  to adjust the colors to your personal favorites with the COLORS
  menu option.  At the end of the game session, PADV will attempt
  to save the file "TACL-PAdv.Config" to the "s:" directory so
  that next time you run PADV, it will start with your favorite
  colors as well as your selections for Graphics, Audio and
  Speech.

       The ABOUT option will display a window with some
  information about  PADV's legal status.

       The HELP menu option, the Right-Amiga-H combination, or the
  HELP Key can be used to pop up a window that describes the
  commands that are always available in any adventure.  Note that
  both the help and about windows, and any PADV requesters will
  accept keyboard input.  The help and about windows will accept
  any keypress as an "OK", and any requesters that ask for a yes
  or no response will accept "Y" or "N" from the keyboard.

  The GAME menu is as follows:
       New            (Right-Amiga-N)
       Load           (Right-Amiga-L)
       Save           (Right-Amiga-S)

       Select the NEW option to abandon your current game, and re-
  start the adventure from the beginning.
       Use the LOAD and SAVE functions to save games in progress
  and to resume from any previously saved point.  PADV is a nice
  program, and does not erase your saved games when your character
  dies.  This means that you may continually keep trying to get
  past a difficult portion of the adventure, if you have saved
  your game just before your character died.

       Both LOAD and SAVE games, and LOAD adventure will pop up a
  file requester.  To look for files in the directory that you
  were last in (or started the program from), just click in the
  display window.  If you wish to look on a specific drive just
  click on the appropriate icon on the right side of the
  requester.  You may not have all of the drives or devices
  listed, so ignore the ones that you don't have.  If you have a
  device that isn't listed on a gadget, click in the path selector
  on the bottom, and type in the device name followed by a colon
  (:).  If you already know which file you want, you may just type
  it in the file selector by first clicking in that box, and
  typing the name of the file that you wish to load or save.  The
  PARENT gadget will back up one directory, and the ROOT gadget
  will read the root directory of the current device.  When you
  see the file you want, either double click on the filename, or
  single click, and then click the OK gadget.  If you decide that
  you want to stop and go back to what you were doing, click the
  CANCEL gadget.

  The OPTIONS Menu is as follows:
       Graphics
       Audio
       Speech

       No keyboard shortcuts are available for this menu, but
  options from this menu are generally not used often and this
  should not be an inconvenience.  Each Item in this menu has a
  submenu that will have a checkmark in front of the current state
  of each option.  The GRAPHICS submenu will turn the graphics
  screen on and off, thus enabling you to see or not see any
  graphics that may be part of the adventure that you are
  currently playing.  The AUDIO submenu turns any sound effects in
  the adventure on and off.  The SPEECH option will read ALL text,
  including PADV requesters, help window and about window using the
  Amiga's built in speech capabilities.  The submenu allows three
  different speech speeds to be selected to suit your personal
  taste.  This feature is included in the hope that it may prove
  useful -- for a child learning to read, for someone who has
  difficulty seeing the computer screen, or for someone who just
  wants to show off the Amiga.


                              KEYS

       PADV's keys are simple and fairly straightforward.
  In addition to the menu-shortcuts mentioned above, all the
  standard characters "0" thru "9", "a" thru "z", and "A" thru
  "Z", dash "-", underscore "_", the spacebar, the up and down
  cursor control keys, F1, F2, F10, the backspace, return, help,
  and escape keys are accepted.  Here's how to use them.

     ESC         Blanks the current line of input.
     UpArrow     Recall the last line of input.
                 Use to re-do a previous command.
     DownArrow   Recall the first line of input.
     Help        Display the quick help window.
     F1          Toggle between text and graphics.
     F2          Toggle image select window.
     F3          Toggle the EXITS window.
     BackSpace   Delete the last character typed.
                 (as usual)
     Return      Tell PADV you're done typing that
                 line, and to try and do what
                 you've asked.
     Other Keys  Same as usual. (i.e. the "A" key
                 will type an "a" or an "A")


       Use the F1 key to swap back and forth between the graphics
  screen and the text screen.  The graphics screen will pop to the
  front automatically after any graphics are drawn or displayed,
  to return to the game, press F1 WITHOUT clicking in the graphics
  window.  If you accidentally do click in the graphics window,
  click about one centimeter to the left of the upper right corner
  of the screen.  The layering gadgets are really there, in their
  usual places, but are invisible.

       The F2 key is used to toggle the image select window.  When
  visible, this window will display all objects (and the current
  room) for which there are images.  The first one is usually the
  room, any items in the player's inventory that have images are
  next, followed by the objects in the current room, if they have
  images. You do not have to wait for the adventure to display
  these, but single-clicking on any listed object or room will
  draw and display the picture for that object.  This allows every
  object to have its own picture, often saving on long
  explanations.  If you don't want to see the objects that have
  available pictures, except when they are automatically displayed
  by the adventure program, then press the F2 key and the image
  select window will disappear.  Note that clicking on the close
  gadget will turn off the whole graphics system.

       The F3 key toggles the presence of the EXITS window.  This
  window will always show the exits that the player may use to leave
  the current room or place.  They are arranged in a circle with "N"
  for "North" at the top.  Following clockwise, they are Northeast,
  East, Southeast, South, Southwest, West and Northwest.  In the center
  are "U" for Up and "D" for Down.  These abbreviations will appear only
  when that corresponding exit is valid.


                      PADV's STANDARD COMMANDS

       PADV has several commands that are standard, and should
  always be available, but most of these can be re-defined by the
  Adventure creator, and may function differently.

       ALL Directions: NORTH, NORTHWEST, NORTHEAST, SOUTH,
  SOUTHWEST, SOUTHEAST, EAST, WEST, UP, and DOWN, including
  abbreviations (N, NE, NW, S, SW, SE, E, W, U, D) are standard,
  and move you from room to room as described in the room's links.
  (See MADV section for complete details on room links)

       The SCORE command will display your current score.

       The INVENTORY (abbreviated as "I") command will display all
  objects that you are currently carrying.

       The LOOK (abbreviated as "L")  will display the full room
  description that you got when you walked into the room the first
  time.

       LOAD or RESTORE will bring up the "LOAD GAME" file
  requester, to allow you to continue or re-start an adventure.

       SAVE will give you a file requester to save your current
  position in an adventure so that you can continue from that
  position at a later time.

       QUIT will do the obvious, but will first give you a last
  chance to confirm your request before doing so.


                         SENTENCE STRUCTURE

       One of the most important parts of an adventure game is the
  command parser.  TACL's parser is a solid, top quality parser,
  but in order to simplify the TACL language, it is not as complex
  as some parsers.  Generally, the biggest limitation is that TACL
  only allows one verb per sentence, and one sentence per turn,
  unless specifically implemented for specific situations by the
  adventure writer.  The following sentence structures are standard,
  and should serve for almost all situations.  Once again, other
  sentence structures can be used in certain situations, but supporting
  them is up the the adventure's author.  Note that articles (A, AN, THE
  and THAT) can be placed in front of any noun (or in front of the
  adjective in front of the noun.)

  SENTENCE STRUCTURE LISTING

  <verb>  <noun>
  ex:  GRAB TIMER

  <verb>  <adjective>  <noun>
  ex:  GRAB the NUCLEAR BOMB

  <verb>  <noun>  <preposition>  <noun>
  ex:  DETONATE the BOMB WITH the TIMER

  <verb>  <adj>  <noun>  <preposition>  <noun>
  ex:  STEAL the SECRET DOCUMENT FROM the AGENT

  <verb>  <adj>  <noun>  <prep>  <adj>  <noun>
  ex:  DECODE SECRET DOCUMENT WITH the DECODER RING

  <verb>  <prep>  <noun>
  ex:  LOOK UNDER the TRASHCAN

  <verb>  <prep>  <adj>  <noun>
  ex:  SEARCH THROUGH the OAK DESK

  OFTEN USED SPECIAL CASES:  (These must be specifically
  implemented by the adventure writer.)

  <verb>  <preposition>
  ex:  LAY DOWN
  ex:  STAND UP

  <verb>
  ex:  YELL
  ex:  SLEEP

       We hope that you enjoy using PADV when playing adventure
  games written with the TACL system.

REMEMBER:  PADV NEEDS A STACK OF AT LEAST 20K!!!