OLISA (c) 2007,2012 D.H.S. This is a dialog text game for ZX Spectrum 48K, including "puzzle-like" as well as "strategic" tasks. BACKGROUND Olisa is a little girl belonging to an intelligent species inhabiting planet X. Having gone astray in a forest, she accidentally enters the zone of aliens' secret experiment. The experiment consists of language education of local Beasts, possessing rudimentary intelligence. The study is conducted in strict secrecy. The forest is unfamiliar to Olisa and staying in it is highly risky for her. The forest is known as a hunting area of Predator, who terrorizes the locals for some time already. Olisa can be saved, but this would break the secrecy of the studies. She can not be allowed to die however, as the investigation of her loss would lead to discovery of the mission and possible dyplomatic complications. An agreed tactic of communication with Olisa, mediated by six Beasts participating in the language study, was chosen. Unfortunately the knowledge of the Beasts is fragmented and contradictory, so the dialogue is moderated by one of the researchers, called Teacher by the Beasts. The Teacher can answer the Beasts' questions, communicate some information to them, and ask questions to gather knowledge on one's own. If Olisa can learn the necessary facts from the Beasts, shw would escape from the forest and the experiment could continue. On the other hand, increasing the risk for Olisa would require a rescue operation and uncovering the mission. GAME FEATURES - the game is based on the dialogue with learning characters in real time - the parser recognizes addresses, statements, questions and answers, full and abridged sentences, pronouns BEGINNING OF THE GAME After loading is finished, program information and the list of commands/directives is displayed. The NEW directive begins the game, printing introductory text. DIALOGUE WITH THE PROGRAM After the game starts, the characters, including player character, begin to chat with each other, exchanging questions and expressing statements about the game world. The dialogue is displayed in dramatic style, i.e. a character's nickname and his utterance (a statement, a question or a reply) is printed. If a character leaves the game location (the "Forum") or returns there, this is as well displayed on the screen. The player can view the list of present characters and game session time by typing TIME command. The degree of safety for the heroine is estimated every time after she enters the game. The safety level is estimated qualitatively by "in danger - uncertain - moderate - absolute" scale, and as a number. Three possibilities to interact with the game exist: 1) typing a statement or a question: this is allowed to the player at random and is indicated by a blank white cursor in the bottom of the screen 2) answering a question: the characters can ask questions to each other as well as to player character. If an answer is expected from the player, the question mark cursor appears To begin typing, one minute is given to the player. If nothing is typed, the game continues. One can refuse to answer by pressing ENTER 3) typing directives or commands. The parser can be invoked at any moment by pressing a key. Directives and commands list is displayed at the program start and after typing HELP directive. This list is explained below The language is close to natural. The parser recognizes sentences of any structure which contain some game-related information. Only a number of fixed rules exist: 1) a particular character is addressed by typing his nickname first in the sentence, followed by a comma 2) questions end with a question mark 3) when several character names, objects or locations are used at once, only the last item in its class is recognized If no particular character is addressed, the player character addresses a random Beast. If the character is not present at the Forum, the input is not recognized. The game vocabulary is scarce, which is compensated to an extent by synonyms. In addition to structures used by characters, some other are possible. If an input is not recognized at all, as in case of significant misspellings, it is printed in quotation marks. This will as well happen when a sentence is entered inappropriately, e.g. by invoking the command parser, or does not correspond to the question asked. ATTENTION: pink border indicates a request to wait for parsing to finish. To increase parsing speed, abridged structures are recommended, only consisting of addresses and short names (e.g. up instead of up the creek), modalities (e.g. sure, maybe or likely) or inquires (who, what, where). To speed up further, only four letters of each word can be typed. WINNING AND LOSING The player's task is facilitation of Olisa's learning from the Beasts to increase her safety level. Winning and losing are determined by safety rating and session time. ATTENTION: the rating is printed during Olisa's entering (after "Olisa has come" is displayed), but winning/losing situations are estimated after her leaving ("Olisa has left"). This means that the player can not directly see the dialogue influence on the safety level. This as well means that after expiration of allocated session time (e.g. after one or three hours), winning and losing does not occur until Olisa leaves. The game is won when the safety rating is "absolute" and the session time exceeds the minimum (i.e. one hour). Winning occurs after Olisa leaves the Forum. The game is lost in one of two cases: 1. If the safety rating is "in danger" after one hour of playing. In this case Olisa is chased by the Predator. 2. If maximum session time has expired (i.e. after three hours of playing or later in case of successful DELAY application) and the rating is lower than "absolute". In this case the researchers have to take Olisa to their base after dark. If Olisa is absent at the Forum when session time expires, losing occurs after her next talking session at the Forum, whenever this happens. ATTENTION: the game flows in real time on real hardware. However, the count is slower or faster depending on emulator performance. The in-game clock count, printed by TIME command, is, of course, implied all the time. GAME COMMANDS Commands are executed by player character and change the game world situation. As well as directives, they can be typed at any moment and are thus printed in one list with the directives after typing HELP. The TIME command shows the list of present characters and session time. Maximum game time is three hours and can be extended while playing. The minimum game time is one hour. The GO command allows the player character to leave the dialogue and merely observe the characters. The border is cyan in this mode. This mode can be turned off by pressing a key and invoking the parser. The LEAD command turns the emergency guiding system on to lead Olisa back to the Forum at any moment. This can be necessary to accelerate her learning or to extend the game time. The DELAY command allows extending maximum game time beyond the set three hours in case the safety level is high enough. Delaying rescue operation increases the required safety level, so the command is better applied with caution. GAME DIRECTIVES The directives are used to control the program. They can be typed at any moment after pressing a key to invoke the parser. To start a new game, type NEW. To exit from the program, type EXIT. Typing HELP lists commands and directives. HINTS AND TIPS IN THE VERY BEGINNING: To get acquainted with the game, observe the Beasts' dialogue for a while (e.g. by typing GO) - this will reveal their questions and answers. To start communication, one can enter similar sentences or use abbreviations. There are less possibilities for meaningful exchanges than initially appears. One can as well call Olisa immediately by typing LEAD, and read her questions to learn what information she needs to complete the quest. Emulator users can increase the emulation speed before typing GO - the Beasts will then accumulate knowledge quicker and shift towards a more complicated dialogue. HINTS: This manual does not uncover the internal game mechanics to be studied separately. Some questions listed below could assist in further experiments. Olisa's safety depends not on the entire body of her knowledge, but on some critical facts known by the Beasts. What are these facts and how can Olisa learn them? The Predator is actually one of the participating Beasts. How can he set a trap for Olisa? How to recognize the Predator and outplay him? The characters' replies often seem random. Is that true so? How do the replies reflect the knowledge of every character? Each Beast has a nickname (Nose, Ears, ...) and a name (Pluto, Charon, ...). Nicknames and names are to be used in particular cases. What are the names needed for? Do the Beasts have their "right" names? Time is critical in the game: Olisa has to start learning quickly and gather accurate reliable facts. Does learning take long? Who teaches more effectively, the Teacher or the Beasts themselves? How to manage Olisa's and one's own time best? Enjoy! TECHNICAL INFORMATION The program runs on ZX Spectrum 48K and 128K, correctly loading in any BASIC mode. Tape and disk (Beta/TR-DOS) versions exist. After applying TR-DOS MOVE command, the game crashes; please reset the machine before running the game when having MOVEd files on game disc. The game was tested under UnrealSpeccy 0.36.3 and Fuse 1.0.0.1 (WinXP), and Warajevo 2.51 (MS-DOS). The game was not launched on real hardware.