ProfitPress Mega CDROM2 Shareware Freeware (MSDOS)(1992)(Eng)

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Text File | 1990-09-26 | 24.5 KB | 657 lines

┌────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ │ │ The Dark Castle V5.2k │ │ ********************* │ │ │ │ Live BBS Game for Wildcat!, RBBS, │ │ QuickBBS, GAP, GTPower, Phoenix & others │ │ Game Release 8-02-90 │ │ │ │ (C)opyright 1989-90 │ │ │ │ -By- │ │ │ │ Late Nite Software │ │ │ │ Marvin Davis │ │ 313 Queens Road │ │ Sanford, NC 27330 │ │ │ │ Late-Nite BBS (919) 776-2368 │ │ USR Dual Standard V.32, V.29, V.22bis │ │ 14400/9600/4800/2400/1200/300 24 hrs │ │ │ │ │ │ │ └────────────────────────────────────────────┘ The Dark Castle (C)opyright 1989-90, Page 1 Warranty This is product is provided "as is" without warranty of any kind. The entire risk as to the results and program performance is assumed by you. Also, in addition, I the author do not warrant, guarantee, or make any representations regarding the use of, or the results of the use of the program, and you rely on the program and results solely at your own risk. This author cannot accept responsibility for system damage, loss of profit, or any other special, or the incidental or consequential damages resulting from the use or inability to use this product. Copyright The 'Dark Castle' live game is distributed as SHAREWARE. Under this concept you may use the SHAREWARE (unregistered) version for a reasonable period of time, which I consider to be 30 days, after which you must either register your copy or discontinue usage altogether. Registration With registration, you'll receive the latest registered copy of Dark Castle with the ability to download any futher updates from The Late-Nite BBS! at no extra cost. You will also recieve any support the author can give in reference to bugs or other problems that may arise in using the game. I feel that sysop's have enough expense without charging a high cost for a game for their users. I have set the cost of registration at $10.00 which I feel if people will follow the shareware concept will be enough to cover the shipping and handling and encourage me to write more doors for BBS's! * SEE REGISTRATION FORM included in this archive for ordering instructions.* When registered, the Doorware message and delay will not be present. Do not attempt to delete or alter the Doorware message as the game will cease to function entirely. Distribution You are free, in fact encouraged, to distribute the SHAREWARE (unregistered) version of The Wildcat! and RBBS Dark Castle game, provided that all files contained in the original Dark Castle archive are distributed in the absolute original unmodified state. The Dark Castle (C)opyright 1989 - Page 2 Files found in the distribution file DCASTLE5.ZIP These files are found in your Zip or will be created during the runtime; ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- README ;read this first! Startup Info... SETUP EXE ;Setup program for game, just run. REGISTER FRM ;Form to mail in your registration. DOORWARE ASC ;Doorware announcement - WARNING, DO NOT DELETE OR EDIT! DCASTLE EXE ;The Dark Castle Game executable file. DCASTLE DAT ;formatted ASCII file to hold current players/scores. DCTITLE ASC ;ASCII title screen file. DCTITLE SCR ;ANSI color title screen file. DCASTLE CFG ;ASCII BBS and game configuration data file. DCASTLE DOC ;game documentation and setup info. DEATH SCR ;Killed exit screen EXIT SCR ;Exit game screen * DCASTLE ERR ;logs runtime errors for record. * SCORBORD SCR ;Top 10 Color scoreboard * SCORBORD ASC ;Top 10 Mono scoreboard * BULL#xx BBS ;MONO bulletin (auto TOP TEN) Path in DCASTLE.CFG * BULL#xx SCR ;COLOR bulletin (auto TOP TEN) Path in DCASTLE.CFG ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ * DENOTES that file is updated/created during RUN-TIME. Technical Support: If you have problems with The Dark Castle, you may contact Marvin Davis at the Late-Nite BBS! 24 hrs. (919) 776-2368 HST 14400/9600/4800/2400/1200 Registration/ Order Information: Just mail $10.00 - NO Personal Checks! Send Certified Check, Money Order or Cash to: Marvin Davis 313 Queens Road Sanford, NC 27330 Registered users will be given FREE updates to ALL versions of Dark Castle! Look for other new live games from Late-Nite BBS. You can download any updates to a particular game once registered, directly from the BBS. Simply call and check in and leave <F>eedback to Sysop Marv' and I will leave some instructions on how to obtain an updated version of a particular door. The Dark Castle (C)opyright 1989-90, Page 3 -The Dark Castle- (C) 1989-90 Marvin Davis Late-Nite BBS (919) 776-2368 14400/9600/2400/1200 baud 24 hrs. In this new game, you will be taking the challange of finding your way inside the 'Dark Castle' and recovering a treasured item. You however will become blind when you set eyes on the main gate. But, your companion - a FireFly - will give you hints and quide you through the insides and will give you a surprize at the end of your journey - IF you make it! The game is VERY easy and simple BUT challanging and hard, all at the same time. Good Luck! This game supports both MONOchrome and ANSI Color graphics modes. Ports on COM1 - COM4, game exit on loss of carrier, and complete keyboard control during runtime. Game is configured by the configuration file below. Support for the popular BBS programs, WildCat V2.x, RBBS v17.x, Phoenix and a command line 'generic' setup for use with basically any board program. Game "dead time" is a two minute timeout at any prompt and the game is terminated. The following ASCII file is commented so that it can easily edited to comform to your BBS. The file must be in this format to correctly pass important parameters to the game. All the text to the right of the ";" semicolons are just remarks. There is a SETUP.EXE program that you may use to create this instead of an ASCII editor. Just run SETUP and follow the prompts exactly. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- DCASTLE.CFG ;game config file ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Starvin' Marv's ;Your BBS's name Marvin ;Sysops first name Davis ;Sysops last name C:\BBS\CALLINFO.BBS ;BBS caller file supported (see list) C:\BBS\BULLETS\BULL#22.BBS ;PATH for Text bulletin C:\BBS\BULLETS\BULL#22.SCR ;PATH for ANSI Color Bulletin NO ;Locked DTE baud rate use NO or LOCKED {baud} NO ;Print Log [LPT1] if desired use LOG instead ;of the word NO. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- BULLETINS ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- On a game completion, automatic TOP TEN Bulletins, both MONOCHROME and COLOR will be created to the PATH/FILESPEC designated. If the user aborts the game at a speed prompt with 'Q',then the game is exited and no bulletin created. If NO BULLETINS ARE WISHED, or no color bulletin is supported, then place a N/A in the line where the PATH parameters/filespec is! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- PRINTER LOG ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- If a printer is being used to keep a running log of callers, errors, etc., then you can place in upper case the word LOG instead of the word NO in the above config file. Game minutes, start time and end time is printed on the printer connected to printer port 1 (LPT1). Also, any untrapped errors are recorded and are useful in debugging or isolating a problem. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Dark Castle (C)opyright 1989-90, Page 4 Command Line parameters to call The Dark Castle! DCASTLE {space} /game switch(s) {space} /node switch(s) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- WILDCAT! V2.xx ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- DCASTLE /WC ;the ' /WC' parameter instructs the game to run under ;WildCat! and get its user info from the CALLINFO.BBS ;file that WildCat! produces when running a door. ;CALLINFO.BBS path and filespec are configured in the ;DCASTLE.CFG file line # 4. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- RBBS V17.xx ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- DCASTLE /RBBS ;the ' /RBBS' parameter instructs the game to run under /QBBS ;RBBS and to get its user info from the DORINFOx.DEF ;file, where 'x' is the node number. For a single line ;board x = 1 and the infor file would be DORINFO1.DEF ;DORINFO1.DEF path and filespec are configured in the ;DCASTLE.CFG file line # 4. QuickBBS users whose BBS software writes the DORINFO1.DEF file can use the /QBBS command line switch to inform the game that it is to get its caller information from the same compatible file DORINFO1.DEF. So QuickBBS users can use the RBBS setup for their board software. If you wish to run port locked DTE then set that spec in the DCASTLE.CFG file and it will ignore any baud rate in the DORINFO1.DEF file. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- GAP ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- DCASTLE /GAP ;Set game for GAP and read in DOOR.SYS as it caller ;file. filename entered on line #4 of DCASTLE.CFG. ;If you are a GAP user and wish locked port DTE baud ;then RUN SETUP.EXE or enter LOCKED {baud} on line # 7 ;of DCASTLE.CFG file. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- GTPOWER ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- DCASTLE /GTP ;Sets game for GTPower and read in GTUSER.BBS caller ;file for caller information. Since this BBS's caller ;file does NOT contain current COM PORT configuration ;you may need an additional switch to set the game up. ;to COM: port # 2 with an additional switch parameter. ;EXAMPLE: DCASTLE /GTP/2 ;this sets the game for COM: port #2 from the DEFAULT of ;COM: port #1. If using COM:1 ignore the "/2". ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- DCASTLE /PHX ;Sets game for PHOENIX and read in INFO.BBS for caller ;info. Game gets baud speed from this file and if you ;are a HST user - use the DCASTLE.CFG file to setup ;LOCKED PORT of 19200 or 38400 baud to ignore the caller ;connect DCE baud rate. This can be done in SETUP also. The Dark Castle (C)opyright 1989-90, Page 5 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- GENERIC BBS ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- DCASTLE /GEN ;the ' /GEN' parameter instructs game to look for its ;basic configuration info on the command line! You can ;set up the game to run on any BBS with these basic ;parameters shown below with parameters separated with ;a SPACE character. DCASTLE /GEN COM1 n AN ;where COM is either COM1 or COM2, where "n" is the ;specified baud rate: 0 = 300 1 = n/a [NOTE: 1 is NOT USED!] 2 = 1200 3 = 2400 4 = 4800 5 = 9600 6 = 19200 ;8 data bit, 1 stop bit and no parity are defaulted. ; ;The AN instructs DCASTLE to display ANSI color graphics ;and an AS instructs to use standard ASCII text. ;Without ANSI or ASCII specified, ASCII is defaulted. ;The following is an example of a 'generic' setup. DCASTLE /GEN COM1 3 AN -> sets PORT as COM1, speed as 2400 and also use ANSI COLOR graphics. The Dark Castle (C)opyright 1989-90, Page 6 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- KEYBOARD PLAY or local mode ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- DCASTLE /LOCAL ;sets game to play on the keyboard, with no color. DCASTLE /LOCAL/C ;set game to play on keyboard and use COLOR graphics. :NOTE, bulletins are NOT created in LOCAL keyboard mode. This a purely an evaulation mode. SETUP EXAMPLES ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Setting up The Dark Castle Game for WildCat! version 2.xx ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Create your batch file to; 1. call the game with file DCASTLE /WC 2. last line in batch file calls WILDCAT! back An "example" of a batch file from WildCat1 ver 2.xx, named DOOR35.BAT might look like this; CD DOOR CD CASTLE DCASTLE /WC CD \WILDCAT CAT ** Be very careful with PATH for files, it must be complete and correct! ** ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Game STATUS LINE; ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- While the game is up, at the bottom screen line (line 25) will be the current Player Status Line. The Game name, players name, date, time of game start, callers baud rate and current state of the CLOCK. This will let the SysOp know how much time the user has left in the game or online. If the SysOp wishes to 'nuke' a player out of the game, the ESC key is the kill key. Once pressed the game is immediately terminated, so be carefull on that as some keyboards (84 and 102) have the ESC key right next to the number 1! FOR REGISTERED USERS!! Extra features are allowed on the function keys. At any prompt other than a "(Y/N?)" prompt, the "F1" key will toggle the bottom status line to show the function key definitions. F1, F5, F9 are displayed to show that you have a [Drop to DOS] and a [Online Chat] mode! You can chat with a caller in the game and resume with F9 key which acts as a Chat modem toggle. Also displayed is the "remaining players minutes". Which is helpful is you see that a player is about to run out of time. Players will be warned each minute upon reaching five minutes of play left. Remaining minutes of the call are read in on the BBS caller file if one is available in the config files for WildCat! and RBBS, so users won't be allowed to exceed this time. The Dark Castle (C)opyright 1989-90, Page 7 RBBS sample batch file (door) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- RBBS example by Wayne Aiken, Sysop, StarFleet BBS, Raleigh NC 919-782-3095 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- RBBS has the capability to call DOORs by either by SHELLing out to DOS, or by quitting RBBS completely. My system does the latter. When RBBS quits to a DOOR, it dynamically builds a file called RCTTY.BAT. This file is dynamically created, and contains the name of the next batch file in the sequence, the batch file that invokes the particular door: ------------------------------- RBBS.BAT ------------------------------------ echo off cd \RBBS if exist RBBS1F1.DEF del RBBS1F1.DEF if exist RBBS1TM.DEF del RBBS1TM.DEF if exist RCTTY.BAT del RCTTY.BAT WATCHDOG OFF RBBS-PC if exist RBBS1F1.DEF goto Exit if exist RCTTY.BAT RCTTY.BAT if exist RBBS1TM.DEF RBBS1TM.BAT E:\RBBS\RBBS.BAT :Exit -------------------------------- RBBS.BAT ----------------------------------- In the example above, the presence of the file RBBS1F1.DEF means that RBBS has been ordered to shut down, RCTTY.BAT means a DOOR will be executed, and RBBS1TM.DEF means that the daily event has been invoked. All of these files are deleted when RBBS starts up, if it is recycled as in the case of a DOOR or scheduled event. RCTTY.BAT contains the lines: G:\COMMAND /C xxxx E:\RBBS\RBBS.BAT where xxxx is the name of the batch file for the Door. This name must also appear in MENU5x, which is the Doors menu. A sample batch file for the door, in this case the Dark Castle door is: watchdog off e: cd \rbbs\game dcastle /rbbs cd \rbbs I set WATCHDOG off because the Dark Castle door automatically monitors carrier detect. After the program terminates, I have it go back to the proper directories. When it quits, it falls back to RCTTY.BAT (/c parm), which then invokes RBBS. RBBS is a pretty big file to be re-loading each time, but I have it in a RAM disk so it does it fairly quickly. Some sysops may use the SHELLing method to do it. In either case, this shouldn't affect your Doors programs, except possibly if this SHELLing makes memory tight. RBBS takes up about 384K of memory, which is why I use the RUN method in the case that I got a DOOR which was also memory-hungry. The Dark Castle (C)opyright 1989-90, Page 8 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Installation tips; ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- For those with slow hard drives, you can run this game from a RamDisk to save wear-and-tear on accessing. Since color files are stored on disk as files, the disk access is fairly constant. I use a large 'disk cache' on my BBS to speed up repeat accesses. Once the game, color and data files are read once, those files are no longer accessed for reading. So you might use a disk-cache or RamDisk to enhance your systems speed or save some usage on your hard disk! If all the files were hard coded into the game, it would be too large for most BBS's to run, especially from a SHELL process. If you have a printer on your board, use it to monitor the users during the game run. Also any runtime errors that are not trapped will be printed out on the printer. This game has almost 100 hours of continous use and most errors possible are trapped. But some users have a knack of finding even the weakest link in any program so if you experience any repeatable errors and they can be duplicated, they will be fixed upon reporting them to me! Place ALL files in this ZIP archive in the same DOOR# directory. Everything that you need to operate this software game is included in this ZIP archive. To print the documentation file on a printer type: A>TYPE DCASTLE.DOC > PRN <RETURN> or A>COPY DCASTLE.DOC PRN <RETURN> To view to screen: A>TYPE DCASTLE.DOC NOTE: A couple of WildCat! sysops have been having problems with my games dropping carrier when a user quits the game. This is NOT a programming problem. DTR is forced high immediately upon game termination. If your WildCat! is still having DTR problems on game ending, try changing your modem delay in the initialization string within makewild. Changing the S10 register to S10=24 gives more time for the board to reset before the modem thinks a user has dropped carrier. Many modems are quite touchy! Thank you for trying The Dark Castle, I hope you enjoy it! The Dark Castle (C) 1989 Marvin Davis Page - 9 Dark Castle V5.01 (C) 1989-90 Marvin Davis Setups for Multi-Node Dark Castle configurations ------------------------------------------------ An additional switch setting can now be added to the command line with the particular Node that is calling up the game. This is to be placed after the command line switch for the particular BBS that is using the game. An example command line below is set for a WildCat BBS on Node #1; DCASTLE /WC /NODE1 The following additional switch will cause the game to read in a file in the current game directory called DCASTLE1.CFG instead of a normal single BBS configuration file called DCASTLE.CFG. You may edit these files directly with an ASCII editor or use the SETUP.EXE file and fill in the prompts carefully, to create them. Up to 4 Nodes can have separate DCASTLEx.CFG (where x is the NODE number) in the current game directory, and in this file you can point to the NODE directory's caller file. Below is a sample BATCHFILE that might call the game from NODE 2 for instance; CASTLE-2.BAT CD DOOR#3 DCASTLE /WC /NODE2 ECHO Game finished, returning to BBS CD BBS CAT EXIT The NODEx (where x is the NODE number) switch will instruct DCASTLE.EXE to read a different game DCASTLEx.CFG file when its envoked. Note the complete PATH to the caller file for the particular Node. Example, the DCASTLE2.CFG might contain the following data; Starvin' Marv's Marvin Davis C:\BBS\NODE2\CALLINFO.BBS C:\BULLETS\BULL#22.BBS C:\BULLETS\BULL#22.SCR NO NO At present, four 'nodes' and COMM ports are supported (ie. COM1 - COM4) They are normally assigned to their respective COMM ports, NODE1 to COM1 and NODE2 to COM2, etc. Although, the game will look into the caller file that is specified in the BBS caller file listed in the DCASTLE.CFG file, and the game will use that COM port specified for that caller. Under the different 'node' configuration files, you could have two different scoreboard bulletins created, one for each node - but the game will only have one scoreboard file in both ANSI and ASC format in its own door directory at the completion of a successful run by a player. These are created every time on a good run even if the .CFG file lists an N/A for BBS bulletin msg creation.