Shareware Overload Trio 2/Shareware Overload Trio Volume 2 (Chestnut CD-ROM).ISO/dir44/dungn32.zip/DUNGEON.DOC

Text File | 1994-10-05 | 21KB | 560 lines

To:    Dungeon Players
From:    "The Translator"
Subj:    Game Information
Date:    1-Oct-94

This document provides information about V3.2 of Dungeon.

Dungeon is a development prototype of the game ZORK(tm), which is
available commercially from Infocom, Inc, on most personal computers.
Copyright on the Dungeon sources is retained by Infocom, and commercial
use is strictly prohibited.  ZORK(tm) is a trademark of Infocom, Inc.

I.  Components

Dungeon is a maze-solving game for solitaire play.  V3.2 runs on any
OpenVMS VAX, OpenVMS AXP, OSF/1 AXP, or RISC ULTRIX system.  The kit
consists of the following files:

    dparam.for            -parameters
    dungeon.f            -program root
    game.f                -main routine
    parser.f            -parser
    gdt.f                -game debugging tool
    subr.f                -subroutines
    rooms.f                -room processors
    verbs.f                -verbs
    objects.f            -objects
    timefnc.f            -clock processors
    vmssubr.for            -VMS dependent subroutines
    unixsubr.c            -UNIX dependent subroutines
    hints.doc            -hints file
    dungeon.doc            -this file
    dundiffs.doc            -revision log
    dindx                -initialization data base
    dtext                -main data base [binary file]

The hints file is intended only as a last resort.

II.  Installation Instructions, VMS

Before starting, please note that all files (source and object) must
reside in the user's area.  Rename file DINDX to DINDX.DAT and DTEXT
to DTEXT.DAT.  DTEXT.DAT is a binary file consisting of 80-byte fixed
length records.

To compile Dungeon, issue the following commands:

  $ FORT/NOCHECK/CONT=40 DUNGEON.F,GAME.F,GDT.F,PARSER.F,SUBR.F(cr)
  $ FORT/NOCHECK/CONT=40 ROOMS.F,VERBS.F,OBJECTS.F,TIMEFNC.F,VMSSUBR.FOR(cr)

There should be no error messages.

To link the compiled sources, issue the following command:

  $ LINK DUNGEON,GAME,GDT,PARSER,SUBR,-(cr)
  _$ ROOMS,VERBS,OBJECTS,TIMEFNC,VMSSUBR(cr)

It is now possible to run Dungeon:

  $ RUN DUNGEON(cr)

When invoked, Dungeon takes no more than 5-10 seconds to start up.

Notes on the executable program:

  - The only files needed to execute Dungeon are DUNGEON.EXE,
    DINDX.DAT, and DTEXT.DAT.  All other files can be deleted.

  - Files DINDX.DAT and DTEXT.DAT must reside in the user's area;
    alternately, logicals DINDX and DTEXT must be defined to point
    to the actual files DINDX.DAT and DTEXT.DAT, respectively.

III.  Installation Instructions, OSF/1

Before starting, please note that all files (source and object) must
reside in the user's area.  Except for dtext, all files in the
distribution kit are ASCII.  dtext is a binary file consisting of
80-byte fixed length records.

To compile and link Dungeon, issue the following commands:

  % f77 -vms -align dcommons *.f -o dungeon(cr)

There may be a few warning messages.

It is now possible to run Dungeon:

  % dungeon(cr)

When invoked, Dungeon takes no more than 5-10 seconds to start up.

Notes on the executable program:

  - The only files needed to execute Dungeon are dungeon, dindx,
    and dtext.  All other files can be deleted.

  - Files dindx and dtext must reside in the user's directory; you
    can change the source to place these files in a different directory
    (see section VII).

IV.  Changes In Dungeon V3.x

V3.2 reflects a slightly later version of the MDL source than V3.0:

  - The verb COUNT has been added.

  - The object CHIMNEY has been added, for CLIMB UP CHIMNEY.

  - Many objects now recognize both singular and plural, where
    appropriate (eg, cliff/cliffs, jewel/jewels, corpse/corpses,
    ghost/ghosts, spirit/spirits).

  - Numerous refinements and traps have been added (eg, try KICKing
    THE BUCKET in the well, or SHAKing THE BOTTLE of water when it
    is full and open).

  - Certain passages are no longer traversible if holding the coffin.
    (You can still get the coffin out.)

The most significant changes from V2.x to V3.0 were:

  - Three new puzzles have been implemented: the Palantir puzzle,
    the Last Point puzzle, and the Dead Player puzzle.

  - The parser recognizes the first eight letters of words as
    significant.

  - The parser allows list of objects, separated by commas or AND,
    to be used with TAKE, PUT, and DROP, eg, TAKE SWORD AND LAMP.
    POSSESSIONS is a new collective noun (in addition to EVERYTHING
    and VALUABLES) that denotes every object you are carrying.  The
    parser allows the EXCEPT <list of objects> construct to be used
    to qualify collective nouns.

  - As a result, multiple commands on the same line must now be
    separated by semicolons or periods, since commas are used for
    multiple objects.

  - The syntax for TELL (INCANT, ANSWER) requires the command (spell,
    answer) be enclosed in quotation marks, eg, TELL ROBOT "PICK UP
    LABEL".  Either single or double quotation marks can be used to
    delimit the substring, but the beginning and ending quotation
    marks must match.

  - SAVE and RESTORE now accept an optional file name within
    quotation marks.  If no file name is given, DSAVE.DAT is used.

  - AGAIN repeats the most recent successful command.

  - If you are killed, your belongings are scattered throughout the
    maze, rather than at the end.

V. Problems Fixed

The following problems from V3.1 have been fixed:

  - DROP ALL works in the dark.

  - TAKE/DROP/ALL BUT now works.

  - TAKE ALL will not take water from the bottle.

  - POUR WATER in y now works correctly.

  - PLAY x WITH y now works.

  - FEEL is recognized as a synonym for RUB etc.

  - The weight calculations in TAKE and PUT now include contained objects
    correctly.

  - IT now works in more cases and reports problems correctly.

  - SHAKing an open object while up the tree is equivalent to dropping
    the contents of the object.

  - SPINning a turnable object no longer says the object can't be turned.

  - THROW x AT BOTTLE/LAMP are no longer handled like THROW BOTTLE/LAMP.

  - Several vocabulary miscodings (STACK, ROCK, SWITCH) have been fixed.

  - A bug which prevented objects present in multiple rooms from being
    implicitly found has been fixed.

  - Throwing water at the stove or into the well or down the slide
    now works correctly.

  - A problem with inferred objects has been fixed, eg, SWING SWORD
    will correctly pick the troll as the object of attack.

  - When the thief discards valueless articles, the correct message
    is printed.

  - When the thief robs you in broad daylight, a message is printed.

  - The granite wall in the Slide Room is now recognized.

  - If the adventurer attempts to tie the rope to the timber or coffin
    while carrying them, the correct message is printed.

  - The rope can no longer be tied simultaneously to the Dome Room
    railing and to the timber or coffin.

  - When using the rope to descend into the Puzzle Room, the correct
    message is printed.

  - If the adventurer misplays the Puzzle Room and blocks the entrance
    hole, subsequent attempts to re-enter will fail.

  - When the adventurer looks into a palantir while in the same
    room with another palantir, the correct message is printed.

  - If the player is killed after successfully exorcising the spirits,
    the description of the Land of the Living Dead is now correct.

  - If the player is killed, his possessions are scattered to the
    correct locations.

  - A negative score prints the correct condescending rank.

  - Lighting conditions while dead are now reported correctly.

  - TELL MASTER "KILL MASTER WITH SWORD" now kills the player.

  - KILL x WITH MASTER gives a more appropriate response.

  - In the end game, ANSWERing after failing the quiz no longer restarts
    the quiz, and ANSWERing after passing no longer continues the quiz.

  - In the end game, the prison door cell does not close when
    already closed.

  - Several subscript out of range problems, which randomly crashed
    the game in some environments, have been fixed.

The following problems from V3.0 have been fixed:

  - Resurrection after death works correctly.

  - The load calculation for going up the chimney works correctly.

  - DIG x WITH y gives a more appropriate response.

  - Many spelling errors have been corrected.

  - Some (but not all) of the problems founding in porting to
    MS DOS have been corrected.

The following problems from V2.6 have been fixed:

  - If you ask for your SCORE while it is negative, you get an
    appropriate condescending message.

  - The command TELL ROBOT "DESTROY ME" destroys you rather than
    the robot.

  - Unexpected events (such as appearance of the thief, or failure
    of a command) wipe out any subsequent commands on the current
    line, to prevent unexpected catastrophes.

  - TAKE BOTTLE OF WATER, and other situations involving "OF", now
    work correctly.

  - The grating in the Clearing cannot be referenced until the leaf
    pile has been dislodged.  If the grating is unlocked but closed,
    attempting to go up from the Grating Room gives the right message.

  - ^Z (end of file) in response to the input prompt no longer crashes
    the program.

  - THROUGH is no longer a synonym for WITH, so LOOK THROUGH WINDOW
    will parse, while LOOK WITH WINDOW will not.

  - <random verb> EVERYTHING now gives the correct message.

  - The thief demon now reports the results of its criminal activity
    correctly.

In addition, numerous detailed responses have been added for wayward or
strange situations, as appropriate.

VI.  Abstract of Informational Printouts

SUMMARY
-------

            Welcome to Dungeon!

   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!

   No system should be without one!

   Dungeon was created at 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 long
tradition of fantasy and science fiction games.  The original version
was written in MDL (alias MUDDLE).  The current version was translated
from MDL into FORTRAN by a somewhat paranoid DEC engineer who prefers
to remain anonymous.

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

INFO
----

Welcome to Dungeon!

   You are near a large dungeon, which is reputed to contain 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 profit 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 occas-
ionally stop in a room you are visiting, but more often he just wanders
through and rips you off (he is a skilled pickpocket).

HELP
----

1 User Commands

The following command may prove useful while playing Dungeon.
They are not, however, game commands; that is, they have no side
affects on the current game.

1.1 Verbosity

    VERBOSE:    The default: prints long room descriptions on first
        visit, 20% of the time thereafter.

    BRIEF:    Prints short room descriptions and short object
        descriptions for rooms which have been visited.

    SUPERBRIEF:    Prints short room descriptions and short object
        descriptions all the time, even on the first visit.

Note that the maximally verbose description may always be obtained
by the command "LOOK".  See also the "ROOM" and "OBJECTS" commands.

1.2 Help

    INFO:    Prints information on what the game is about.

    HELP:    Prints this message.

1.3 Progress

    QUIT:    Prints your score, and asks whether you wish to
        continue playing; "Q" is equivalent.

    SCORE:    Prints your score (and deflates your ego).

    TIME:    Prints how much time you have wasted playing the game.

    VERSION:    Prints the current version number.

1.4 Save/Restore

    SAVE:    Saves the current game for future continuation.

    RESTORE:    Restores a previous saved game.

SAVE and RESTORE take an optional file name, in quotation marks.  If
no name is given, the file name defaults to "DSAVE.DAT".

1.5 General

    AGAIN:    Repeats the last command.

    LOOK:    Describes the current surroundings; "L" is equivalent.

    ROOM:    Prints the verbose description of the current room,
        without object descriptions.

    RNAME:    Prints the short description of the current room.

    OBJECTS:    Prints the verbose description of all the objects
        in the current room, without describing the room.

    INVENTORY:    Prints a list of your possessions; "I" is equivalent.

    DIAGNOSE:    Prints your current state of health.

    WAIT:    Causes "time" to pass.

2 Command parser

A command is one line of text terminated by a carriage return.
For reasons of simplicity, all words are distinguished by their
first eight letters.  All others are ignored.  For example, typing
"DISASSEMBLE THE ENCYCLOPEDIA" is not only meaningless, it also
creates excess effort for your fingers.  Note that this trunca-
tion may produce ambiguities in the interpretation of longer words.

You are talking to a moderately stupid parser, which understands
the following types of things:

2.1 Actions

    Among the more obvious of these, TAKE, PUT, DROP, etc.  Fairly
    general forms of these may be used, such as PICK UP, PUT DOWN, etc.

2.2 Directions

    NORTH, SOUTH, UP, DOWN, etc. and their various abbreviations.
    Other more obscure directions (LAND, CROSS) are appropriate in
    only certain situations.

2.3 Objects

    Most objects have names and can be referenced by them.  Multiple
    objects, separated by commas or AND, can be used with TAKE, PUT,
    and DROP.  In addition, there are collective objects EVERYTHING,
    VALUABLES, and POSSESSIONS, which may also be used with TAKE,
    PUT, and DROP.  Collective objects may be qualified with an
    EXCEPT clause; for example, TAKE EVERYTHING EXCEPT THE RUG.

2.4 Adjectives

    Some adjectives are understood and required when there are
    two objects which can be referenced with the same noun (e.g.,
    DOORs, BUTTONs).

2.5 Prepositions

    It may be necessary in some cases to include prepositions, but
    the parser attempts to handle cases which aren't ambiguous
    without.  Thus "GIVE CAR TO DEMON" will work, as will "GIVE DEMON
    CAR".  When a preposition is used, it should be appropriate;
    "GIVE CAR WITH DEMON" won't parse.

2.6 Sentences

    The parser understands a reasonable number of things.  For example,
    multiple commands (separated by periods or semicolons) can be placed
    on the same line.

2.7 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.

3 Theories

The following "theories" are fundamental to the game and should be noted.

3.1 Containment

    Some objects can contain other objects.  Many such containers 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 container 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 program
    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.

3.2 Fighting

    Occupants of the dungeon will, as a rule, fight back when
    attacked.  In some cases, they may attack even if unprovoked.
    Useful verbs here are "ATTACK <villain> WITH <weapon>", "KILL",
    etc.  Knife-throwing may or may not be useful.  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.  The
    "DIAGNOSE" command describes your state of health.

3.3 Vehicles

    These are some objects in the labyrinth which are rumored to have
    the ability to transport the fearless adventurer to mysterious
    regions which are inaccessible on foot.  Needless to say, the
    adventurer faces great personal peril as he encounters these
    regions.  The vehicles can usually be entered with the "BOARD"
    command and can be exited with the "DISEMBARK" command.

VII.  Source Notes

A few notes for source hackers.

- The initialization module (INIT in game.f) includes an access check
  function PROTCT.  If PROTCT returns a value of .TRUE., the game is
  permitted to start;  if PROTCT returns .FALSE., the game is
  terminated with a suitably nasty message.  At present, PROTCT is a
  dummy routine and always returns .TRUE.;  by tailoring PROTCT,
  access to the game can be restricted to certain hours or users.

- The two data files (DINDX.DAT and DTEXT.DAT in VMS, dindx and dtext
  in UNIX) are accessed without a pathname.  If you want to place these
  files in a central directory, then:

  > [VMS] define logical names for DINDX and DTEXT pointing to
    that directory.
  > [UNIX] edit module INIT in GAME.FOR to include a pathname in
    the two OPEN statements.

- Porting the game to other processors is possible provided that the
  target system's FORTRAN supports 32-bit integers and implements the
  extended features of VAX FORTRAN.  The following extended features
  are required:

  > ! recognized as a comment delimiter.
  > READONLY attribute in OPEN, to allow shared access to the data files.
  > Logical operators on integers for bitwise binary operations (.AND.,
    .OR., and .XOR.).
  > Capability to disable integer overflow checking.
  > $ in FORMAT statements.
  > Octal constants ('xxx'O) in DATA statements (module PARSER.F) and
    octal specifiers in FORMAT statements (module GDT.F).
  > Operating-system dependent routines to get the current date and
    time of day (see modules VMSSUBR.F and UNIXSUBR.C, as well as the
    DEC FORTRAN specification).

  If these features are available, and VMSSUBR.FOR or UNIXSUBR.C is
  rewritten for the target environment, then porting the game is
  possible.  However, you are STRICTLY on your own, sport!