Project NOVA (C) 1987. Written by Mark Cantrell. LOADING INSTRUCTIONS. I:- Insert the tape into the cassette recorder and rewind to the beginning. 2:- Ensure the EAR socket on the Spectrum is connected to the EAR socket on the cassette recorder. Disconnect the MIC socket. 3:- Type LOAD "" and press ENTER. 4:- Press PLAY on the cassette recorder. Project NOVA should now LOAD and RUN. Select 48 BASIC on 128K machines. Storyline The tutordroid glided across the dimly lit room to take position behind the data terminals and display screens before turning to face its waiting class. It then spoke in a harsh metallic voice, "Good morning class. Today we will be studying a period of great crisis for Earth and her budding empire and the war-time development of the contravertial NOVE device whose deployment and threat of total stellar holocaust has maintained peace for four hundred years since the end of the First Galactic War." The tutor signalled for the present students to connect their neurological interfaces to their data consoles before continuing its lecture, "For many years the war had raged across the galaxy between the forces of Earth and her colonies against an alliance of alien races who objected to man's colonisation of their worlds. Both sides had fought hard but the war had reached a stalemate." "After many years of trying to break the stalemate, the Earth Government of the time received news that a team of military scientists were working on a device that was capable of penetrating the heart of stars and detonating their nuclear fuel causing them to collapse and fling off their outer layers, creating a super nova and destroying the target star's system of planets. The project was named NOVA after its effect upon stars." "The potential of this device encouraged the Earth Government and excited the military who saw this weapon's ability to break the stalemate and allow the Earth to win the war, opening up the galaxy for colonisation." "Project NOVA instantly began to receive increased government funding to prodcue a working prototype and eventually a full sized test warhead." "Development went well until finally disaster struck! Alien agents managed to entice a technician with the NOVA project to treason. In return for immense wealth and his own private planet he was to help the aliens to procure the NOVA project. He stole the prototype and the designs, taking them to a rendevous with an alien ship and escaped. The alien vessel was tracked to an old pre-war Earth space station which had been abandoned and left in a nearby sector of alien occupied space." "The aliens intended to learn how to build and operate the NOVA device. Once it was in their hands they would have been able to destroy the Earth and win the war in one fell swoop!" "Naturally the Earth authorities were worried, a small fleet of ships sent in to recover the device would have been intercepted and destroyed by a larger force while a large fleet would have weakened the front with potentially disasterous results." "It was decided that a lone pilot would be sent in to retrieve the NOVA designs and destroy the prototype. He was supplied with a canister of 'flu virus which he was to use to clear the station of alien life before he could search for the NOVA designs." "Thus the lone pilot, a Flight Sargeant Smith of the Third Martian Combat Squadron, found himself approaching the disused station, seeing no apparent signs of activity F.SGT Smith manoeuvred in for his final approach when the station's defense lasers opened fire and destroyed his directional motors. This caused his ship to smash through the hull of the station's primary docking bay, completly wrecking his ship." "So began one of the most operations of that conflict, had F.SGT Smith failed then the Earth would almost certainly destroyed and the war lost!" "Now class, I want you to perform the following history test. Smith's surroundings will be simulated by a computer and fed straight to your cerebral cortex as though you were Smith. You must guide events as close as possible to the recorded historical events, if you have studied your introductory work correctly then this test should pose few problems for you." "Right, load your test programs and commence the test when ready. Good luck." List of useful commands. RAMSAVE:- Will save a position and status to a buffer in memory and redescribe the current location. RAMLOAD:- Will restore a saved position and status from the buffer in memory and redescribe the current location. LOAD:- As RAMLOAD but from cassette. SAVE:- As RAMSAVE but to cassette AGAIN:- Will repeat the last player input. TEXT:- Will turn the text display off and redescribe the current location. In this mode all player input will scroll underneath the location text and list of present objects. PICTURES:- Will turn the picture display on and redescribe the current location. INVENTORY,I:- Will list on screen what the player is carrying and wearing. LOOK:- Will redescribe the current location. GET ALL:- Will place all conveyable objects in the players location into their inventory. DROP ALL:- Will place all carried objects into the players current location. EXAMINE ALL HERE, CARRIED, WORN:- Will allow the player to examine all objects in the specified area, (here, carried or worn). QUIT:- Will end the current game and allow the player to clear the program from memory. WAIT:- A neutral command. Used when the player wishes to wait for something to occur. HOLD:- Will pause the game until a key is pressed, this is so the player can read responses to command strings. SEARCH:- Will allow the player to search through an object to see if it hides another. CHARS A-C:- Changes the main character set to the one selected by the player. TELEPORT:- Will allow the player to activate the teleport providing they are carrying the control unit. SAY, SPEAK:- Will allow the player to speak to a character or give them a command. The speech section must be enclosed in quote marks, eg. SAY "HELLO" TO PILOT. With the ALL commands an object may be ignored by entering EXCEPT x. The exception to this are ALL commands where you put the objects into another.