"One Dark Night..." An Adventure by Paul Brunyee for 48k Spectrums. Introduction ------------ The tyres screech over the slippery surface as you desperately pull the car around yet another sharp bend. Together with your companion you are travelling through unfamiliar moorland, in the hope of finding some shelter for the evening. You left your home some time earlier to find an old cottage left to you in a relative's will. At the time, the solicitor's directions seemed clear enough, but now ... A momentary burst of lightning dissolves your thoughts and illuminates the sodden undergrowth as you hurtle from one lane to the next, having lost your course many miles before. A dull blur of light and a sharp crack focus your attention on the huge tree suddenly torn asunder by lightning a short distance in front of you. The tree shudders, and starts to topple over as if in slow motion. There is no time to stop. You push hard on the accelerator pedal and miss the tree by a fraction. It crashes to the ground behind you. You slam the brake pedal down, as hard as you can, realising that the car is out of control. You slide into a bend and strike a high verge a glancing blow before a jarring impact with a series of pot holes see the car roll to a halt at the start of a gravel drive. You try turning the ignition key again and again, but the car refuses to start. Resigning yourself to this, you peer outside the car and see only the gravelled drive to one side and dense foliage elsewhere. Sitting rather cold and miserable, you discuss with your companion the possibilities of finding help at the end of the drive, wherever it may lead ... Getting Started --------------- To load "One Dark Night...", follow the loading preparations as documented in your manual. Once the cassette recorder is linked to the computer, type LOAD "" followed by ENTER, and press PLAY on your cassette recorder, and then wait! Once loaded, you will be asked which of the two characters in the car you wish to take the part of. You may choose either Ann or Jon by pressing either key 'A' or key 'J'. When you make your selection, you will assume the role of your chosen character and the remaining character will be moderated by the adventure. You will then be presented with the first location description. You will see, as a part of the description, a small message indicating that your companion is present. They will usually follow you about, but generally take a back seat, leaving you for the problem solving. Of course, they will be able to lend a hand from time to time, should you need it. The adventure is designed such that certain situations you will be faced with have differing solutions according to which character you have elected to play. Communicating within the Adventure ---------------------------------- The Screen Display The screen is divided into two windows, the largest of which is used to show your surroundings and the results of any actions you take. The smaller, bottom window is used for command input and features a word wraparound facility. Whenever the characters "...more" appear between the two windows, this means that a window of information has already been displayed and there is still some more to show. Simply press any key and the remaining text will appear. This feature is designed to prevent information scrolling off the top of the window before you have a chance to read it. The Parser The parser has been developed to provide a flexible medium of interaction between the adventure and the adventurer. Most reasonable English requests will be decoded correctly and acted upon in an appropriate manner. The parser is able to decode sentence input utilising not only verbs and nouns, but also adjectives, adverbs, prepositions and conjunctions. Indeed, the use of these extra word types may well be necessary in the completion of certain problems. The following list describes some of the special words allowed: ALL - used to refer to all items, either to be dropped or taken IT - used to refer to the last (mobile) item mentioned AND or - conjunctions used to concatenate multiple commands together THEN Conversing with your Companion Your companion will mostly take a back seat within the adventure, leaving you to attempt the problem solving, but will probably lend a hand when you call. If you want your companion to carry out a task, you must prefix the command with their name. For example: JON DROP ALL or ANN TAKE THE BOOK AND EXAMINE IT However, your companion may not be so inclined to follow your every wish, but gentle persuasion often pays dividends. A Selection of Commands The following list briefly describes some of the more commonly used commands within this, and many other adventures. There are many more commands at your disposal but I'll leave it up to you to find them all. TAKE - Pick up an item and add it to your possessions DROP - Remove an item from your possession INVENTORY - Take inventory and list your possessions EXAMINE - Scrutinise something rather closely QUIT - I'd like to start again SCORE - How well am I doing? SAVE - Save current position to tape LOAD - Load a previously saved position from tape RAMSAVE - Save current position in memory only Only good for 4 uses RAMLOAD - Load a previously ramsaved position from memory SAVE tip: When saving you position to tape, after having SAVEd for the first time, while the cassette recorder is still recording, enter SAVE and press ENTER once more. I find that this double saving method ensures a reloadable position is always saved. The vocabulary within "One Dark Night..." is quite extensive, so if you enter a seemingly valid command, and the results are not what you expect, then you are either barking up the wrong tree or you are using an unrecognised verb. In the first case, you are either going about things the wrong way, or you must perform another action first. In the second case, try rephrasing your command with a different verb. If the results are still not what you expect, then you are probably wasting your time! At first, you may not easily discern which commands you use are unrecognised and which are simply inappropriate. Particular messages are shown for each type of input and it shouldn't be long before you recognise which command falls in which category, either "unknown" or "inappropriate for this situation". Movement Movement is accomplished with the use of compass directions together with UP and DOWN. For example: NORTH, EAST, VEST, SOUTH, UP and DOWN In certain situations, you may be able to ENTER or CLIMB you way into or out of something. It may also be worth noting that all of the possible exits are not necessarily included in each location's description. Abbreviations Abbreviations down to four characters, where applicable, are allowed for all commands. For example: INVENTORY may be shortened to just INVE, but GET must stay as GET. Furthermore, singular movement commands may be shortened to their first character. This reduces the set of movement commands to N, E, W, S, U and D. Examples of Valid Commands The following list shows several examples of commands which would be perfectly valid within the adventure. The list is intended to show the formats available. The subjects of the commands are not necessarily reflected within "One Dark Night...". LIFT THE BOARDS SLOWLY TAKE THE CROSSBOW AND FIRE IT AT THE BEAST CAREFULLY SEARCH THE GUARD THEN TAKE ALL AND GO NORTH FEED THE MEAT TO THE WILD DOGS AND RUN NORTH JON HELP ME TO ROLL THE BOULDER OVER THE CLIFF Scoring You can find out your score at any time by entering "WHAT IS MY SCORE" or something similar. You will be given a percentage rating which indicates your progress through the adventure. As you solve certain problems, your score is increased accordingly. Completing the Adventure Far be it from me to provide you with a solution, but what I will say is that you must find a telephone somewhere and use it to dial for some help ..... You can complete "One Dark Night..." with a score of less than 100%, but you will have overlooked a couple of features which I will leave up to you to find. Happy Adventuring. "One Dark Night..." was developed and coded in its entirety by: Paul Brunyee, 38 Gynsill Lane, Anstey, Leicester LE7 7AG. General queries and replacement tape requests should be sent to this address.