General TADS Game Instructions
------------------------------

Written by  Michael J. Roberts
(Edited slightly by David Baggett for ADVENTIONS and slightly more 
by Hans Persson for SophistiChaos Game Design.)


Playing the game
----------------

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.

Each time you see the prompt, ">", you type a command.  Your command 
should be a simple imperative sentence, or a series of imperatives 
separated by periods.  Press the RETURN (or ENTER) key when you are 
done typing your command; the game doesn't start interpreting the 
command until you press RETURN.

You can use capital or small letters in any mixture.  You can use 
words such as THE and AN when they're appropriate, but you can omit 
them if you prefer.  You can abbreviate any word to six or more 
letters, but the game will 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
------

At any time during the game, you are in a location.  The game 
desribes your location when you first enter, and again any time you 
type LOOK.  In a given location, you can reach anything described, so 
you don't need to type commands to move about within a location.

You move from place to place in the game by typing the direction you 
want to go.  The game will always tell you the directions that you can 
go from a location, although it usually doesn't tell you what you will 
find when you go there.  You will probably find it helpful to make a 
map as you explore the game.  The directions the game recognizes are 
NORTH, SOUTH, EAST, WEST, NORTHEAST, SOUTHEAST, NORTHWEST, SOUTHWEST, 
UP, and DOWN.  You can abbreviate these to N, S, E, W, NE, SE, NW, SW, 
U, and D.  In some locations you can also use IN and OUT.

Generally, backtracking will take you back to where you started.  For 
example, if you start off in the kitchen, go north into the living 
room, then go south again, you will be back in the kitchen.

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 what you want to do; be 
explicit.  For example, you could type READ THE BOOK or OPEN THE 
DRAWER.  Most of the objects in the game have fairly obvious uses; 
you shouldn't have to think of any obscure or unrelated words to 
manipulate the objects.

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.  We didn't think it was 
particularly interesting to force you to specify which object you 
wish to put in your left pocket, which you wish to carry in your 
right hand, and so forth.  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 
you can abbreviate to X).  You can PUT an object IN or ON another 
object when appropriate.  The game recognizes many other verbs as 
well.  We tried to make all of the verbs obvious; if you find a knob, 
you will be able to TURN it, and if you find a button, you will be 
able to PUSH it.  By the same token, you probably won't need to turn 
the button or push the knob.

Some examples of commands that the game recognizes are shown below. 
These aren't necessarily commands that you'll ever type while playing 
the game, 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
	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.  In addition, you can ask 
characters about things:

	ASK WIZARD ABOUT WAND

Some characters will tell you quite a bit in response to such 
queries, while others will be more taciturn.


Time
----

Time in the game 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 it.  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 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.

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 only 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 sometimes use words in its descriptions that it doesn't 
understand in your commands.  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 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.


Saving and restoring
--------------------

You can store a snapshot of the game's state in a disk file at any 
time.  Later, if your character is killed or you find that it has 
become impossible to finish the game (due to a lost or broken object, 
for example), you can restore the state of the game exactly as it was 
when you saved it to the disk file.  You can save your position 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 state.  The game will 
tell you 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 
state will be restored to exactly the position when you saved it.


Special commands
----------------

The game understands several special commands that you can use to 
control it.  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.

OOPS: 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 spce.

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: Tells the game you want to take back your last command.  The 
game state will be restored to the way it was before the undone 
command, as though the command were never issued at all.  You can do 
this more than once in a row.

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 a 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. 
