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Text File | 1992-02-06 | 24.7 KB | 478 lines

You're supposed to read this file first! Thorsoft of Letchworth presents... DENARIUS AVARICIUS SEXTUS (A Roman Graphical Adventure Game) version 1.5 by Mike, Mark and Thomas Thurman. (Welcome to the shareware world's first (as far as we know) graphical interactive adventure game about a Roman citizen with red hair.) The background """""""""""""" Back in good old A.D. 79, there lived a patrician Roman named Avaricius (Avvy to his friends.) He was about 26 years old and about six foot three. He had married a woman named Arkata, which was a mistake he lived to regret- she never stopped nagging him. His few slaves were so lazy he hardly ever saw them, except for one named Crapulus, who was always at least inebriated, if not downright drunk- apart from reading Avvy's mail (amazing! he could read) and doing the washing-up, he preferred to spend his time with an amphora of wine down at the "Canis et Anas" (his local.) (*) You'd think Avvy had problems enough. However, he also lived in a pleasant seaside resort you may have heard of, called Pompeii, and he was unaware that in a few hours' time he would be buried alive. Well, maybe. Perhaps, with the guidance of his guardian angel from the twentieth century (that's where you come in) he might escape both Arkata and the volcano. The date is... 24th August, A.D. 79. (*) = note for non-British players: this is an English term, signifying a person's usual drinking establishment. The aim of the game """"""""""""""""""" To escape from Vesuvius (and Arkata.) The game """""""" Use the cursor keys (on the right of the keyboard) to move him about. If you want him to walk diagonally, use the key in between the two you need (e.g. use PgUp to make him walk up and right.) Enhanced keyboard users should, of course, use the numeric keypad arrows rather than the other ones if they wish to take advantage of this feature. And don't forget to switch NumLock off (if it's on), else you'll just get a lot of numbers on the command line. You may also use the mouse. See under "Say cheese..." for more information. Keys """" (Not the sort that open doors. Keyboard keys.) Suppose you want to open a door. (Some doors are already open, so you can just walk through them. Most doors at the bottom of the screen are like this, as are some others.) If the door is closed, type in "open door" (with no inverted commas around it, of course) and hit Enter. The game will respond "Okay!". See that "Okay!" message? It came up in a scroll. These are just to let you know what's going on. To get rid of one, hit Enter (Esc also works, or the plus key.) (Something else to note: to get a list of everything you're holding, you can type "inventory" (or "inv" for short) but it's much easier to press Ctrl-I (or even just Tab (for new users: Tab is that key with the two arrows on just above either Ctrl or Caps Lock. (It depends on your keyboard. (Brackets' revenge!))))) If you really like choosing things from menus instead of typing commands, you may prefer the menu interface. This is brought up by pressing Esc, or the / key (like spreadsheets.) Choose an option using the up, down, Home and End keys. Hit Enter, or +, when you've got the right one. Use Esc to get rid of a menu. This doesn't actually replace the command interface, as you must use it to enter passwords, etc, and some puzzles are impossible to solve using the menu interface alone because that would be TOO EASY. (which you don't want, do you?!) Also, f7 & f8 change the background colour. You can make the screen really abhorrent if you're into that kind of thing :-) , but the main use for these two keys will be if and when the CGA version comes out (it probably won't) because CGA monochrome can get VERY boring... f2 toggles (nice word, that) the sound on or off, so that you won't wake up your spouse or significant mother-in-law when you play Avvy in the small hours. (Ever wondered why they're called the small hours? They're all made up of minutes!) (Minute, get it? Small- Oh, never mind...!) :-) Say cheese... """"""""""""" How to use Avvy with a mouse: The left button is the same as Enter, the right is the same as Esc. Moving the mouse in any one of the eight directions is just like pressing that cursor key, so a light touch in that direction is ALL that's really needed. The mouse is ENTIRELY optional: you may use it if the driver's installed but you don't have to, and you may just use the cursor keys, etc., as normal. You can see if the mouse is installed, because one of the scrolls at the start will be mouse information. Use the right key to enter the menu system (from the prompt), and when there use the left key to select and the right key to cancel. You may lose a scroll by clicking on either side (?!) and if you are asked a "yes/no" question, you can use the left key for yes and the right key for no. If your mouse switches between 3-key and 2-key (MS compatible) mode, like ours used to, leave it on the same setting throughout the game, or it will start sending silly messages to the computer. This is actually true for quite a lot of programs. Saving and loading """""""""""""""""" Type "save" or "load". This is useful if you should get struck by lightning, or something- you can just reload. (Yes, you CAN get struck by lightning!) You will be asked to enter a filename. (Usually a good idea is to name it with your name plus a number (e.g. "MARVIN1". This will save a file called "MARVIN1.ASG" in the current directory.)) You will then be asked to describe your file. Don't say something stupid like "a game file"- that's obvious! Your comment will be saved in the file, and displayed when you reload the game, although you don't have to give a comment if you don't want to. Typing in "DIR" will give a list of .ASG files in the current directory. "DIR B:" will give all .ASG files on drive B:, etc. Lion through your Teeth... """""""""""""""""""""""""" "Avaricius" contains an integrated shoot-'em-up. I know it's not exactly "Galaga", but never mind. The game should be self-explanatory. Please note that the keys are: "A" = Up "Z" = Down "Enter" = Fire (You are bound to get eaten while playing this. Let's hope that the gods of Olympus are on your side. (Jupiter? No, she went of her own accord. (?))) (This routine has now been polished up slightly, but a few inaccuracies remain here. Please note: you need to kill 7 or more lions to continue with the game. (It's easy, there's a knack to it. When you've got the knack you can always knock over lions, which goes to prove the old saying: Pride goeth before a fall...)) Brand loyalty """"""""""""" At the start of the game, on the loading screen, is the message: "Compliments of Thorsoft." This is known as a brand. It is embedded within the code. When you register, please specify 5 1/4" or 3 1/2" disk. We will then send you an up-to-date copy of "Avaricius", branded with your name, together with a review copy of another Thorsoft game (currently "Spellchick"). ALL THIS FOR ONLY 5 QUID / 10 BUCKS REGISTRATION FEE!!! Enviromental Considerations """"""""""""""""""""""""""" This game is environmentally friendly. It doesn't damage the ozone layer, it has never in tests been shown to pollute the Irish Sea with radioactive substances, and it was NOT tested on animals (they don't like the jokes anyway.) Furthermore, 97% of the jokes used in this release were recycled. The next game in the series """"""""""""""""""""""""""" Would you like to know what happened to him when he DID get out? (assuming you managed it.) Well, so would we. We won't even THINK about starting coding the sequel until we get some registrants (e.g. you.) Whether you liked this one or not, you'll be pleased to hear that the next one will be (even) better. So will the graphics and ESPECIALLY the jokes. We will send a review copy of this, or our latest game, to all registrants. Who borrowed all the giraffe's paperclips? """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Just to check if you're still reading. I'm glad to see that you are. (What would be the point of me sitting here typing all this if you weren't?) File logging """""""""""" If you want to remember your progress through Pompeii, work out where you went wrong, and so on, you can redirect output to a file thus: Instead of: avvy type: avvy <SPACE> = <SPACE> filename.ext e.g.: avvy = memo.txt Of course, you can also redirect output to a DOS device: "avvy = prn" copies all the info to the printer on LPT1: (for parallel printers. If yours is serial, use "avvy = aux" instead.) The only device you can't log to is "con", which is the screen. This would really muck up the screen display if you could (I tried it.) To see whether it is or not, a "\" is printed first, then checked to see if it's on the screen or not. If it is, the log file is terminated. >Lines beginning with a prompt character are what you typed. "Lines beginning with an inverted comma are what the computer replied. (Bracketed lines are "stage directions"; e.g. "The game was restarted.") (You may also use /q on the command line to hush Avvy up and prevent your boss's wrath from flaring up if she hears the strains of "The King of the Beoetians" floating across the office.) Shift-PrtSc """"""""""" There is a screen-dump routine built into Avvy. Press Shift-PrtSc to activate it. (Not on the "Back in good old..." or loading screens.) It unhooks itself from Int 5 when you leave the program. (Sorry if I'm confusing you...) Use the option /n on the command line to stop the program hooking Int5. This is in case you own one of those super-whizzy EGA screen dump programs which are slightly less naff... sorry, more well-polished... than our built-in one. (Thanks to Mark, who designed the colour shading on the dump. Great.) The /n option is also useful if you haven't got an Epson-compatible and are using a special screen-dumping routine. NB: Epson-compatible is as Epson-compatible does, as the old saying goes (I think.) It works fine on our Panasonic KX-P1080. Whether it does on your Epson- compatible, or even on your Epson, is only discoverable by you, as clones vary a lot. I should think it probably would, but you never know. For power users. """""""""""""""" Some power users who have '286s or above may need to have the program slowed down slightly for your computer's "brain the size of a planet"! Include on the command line the word "/sxxx" (where xxx is any number you like) and then the program will delay for xxx milliseconds every step (our Turbo manual says they're milliseconds.) Those of you with the tortoise-compatible 4.77Mhz XT's will have to grin and bear it, sorry. You don't actually have to use this command if you like it as it is, of course. If you prefer the game to run slightly more slowly, this command can also be useful. There is also a routine which slows the game down by reading the system clock, so it SHOULD run equally fast on most machines, but you never know... Avvy T-Shirts! """""""""""""" This is (at the moment) just an idea. We know where we could get them from, but we want to know that our users have some support for the game. They would probably cost just over a fiver each plus p&p. (You never know, we might get some sweatshirts, baseball caps, etc, too if people want them.) Of course, this is ONLY for the registrants. Our advice to non-registrants is: register! Your boss is coming! """""""""""""""""""" OK, you can look back to the screen now, I was only joking. But suppose he (or she) WAS coming? With Avvy you're prepared. Just hit ^B or alt-B and then Enter and you will get a nice graph showing spring sales for the first quarter. (There's an option on the menu that does this, too.) If you watch it, you'll see why it was for "spring"! Esc gets you out of this and back to your game when SWMBO (She Who Must Be Obeyed) has gone elsewhere. You may press any key to pause the graph, so it looks slightly more conventional. File extensions """"""""""""""" The following special filename extensions are used here (apart from .EXE, .DOC and .ME, which should be fairly obvious!). AVD = AVvy Data file. Nothing interesting to you here, only to the game. TRP = "TRiPpancy". Also, uninteresting to you! ASG = Avvy Saved Game (the saved positions) and BGI = Borland Graphics Interface- needed for EGA. How was it done? """""""""""""""" Good question. The pictures were almost all drawn by Mark Thurman, and the code was written by Thomas Thurman in Turbo Pascal 5.5, on an Opus PC IV Turbo with an AMS mouse. Mike Thurman bought Turbo (and the computer) in the first place. Thanks to Mike, Liz, Mandy and Andrew for support and suggestions of what we could do. (If you see a dud picture it was probably drawn by me (Thomas). I'm no artist- I got kicked out of Art at school. Sorry. Next time a higher percentage of the pictures will be by Mark. (NB: Most of my pictures have now been tidied up by Mark, anyway.)) There was only ONE piece of assembler used in the coding, which was written by Kent Cedola. We found it on Shareware Marketing disk no.500, and the routine has the name of "Gpwtcol". It was one of a set used on TP 3.0 (which didn't support EGA) but the set includes one or two very neat routines that Borland didn't offer with Turbo Pascal. It was used to speed up the walking ("trippancy") routines. (You should have seen it before...!) Right, back to the documentation... The finished .EXE file was compressed using the brilliant public-domain utility "LZEXE" by Fabrice Bellard. NB: Hands off the files. Anyone who is discovered to have mucked around with *ANY* of the Avvy files will have their registration terminated and we will NEVER EVER EVER let them re-register! So there. You have been WARNED. Oh, yes... Virtually all of the places in this game actually existed in towns such as Pompeii, but not necessarily exactly as we've shown them or in that order. We tried to make it fairly historically accurate, but if you discover anything that doesn't fit, take it as surrealism... (halibuts wear sunglasses...) How about support? """""""""""""""""" Fine. You can 'phone us and ask about the game, or write to us, but you'll have to be registered- more info pending on registration! "Register, or your..." """""""""""""""""""""" Several shareware programs give the following cheerful message at the end: "Register, or your conscience will haunt you for the rest of your life." We decided to cheer this up a bit, by making a few improvements! What on earth is a "pedigree?" """""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Check the file PEDIGREE.DOC. This contains a list of names. The first one will be the name of a member of Thorsoft. This person will have given it to a friend or a bulletin board or a shareware library, etc., and this recipient will put their name down as no.2. Whoever gets it next will be no.3, and so on. This file doesn't have to be completed, but it's nice if you do (of course, you can use a nickname like "Cowboy" or "Mouse", or something). You should also add your rough geographical location (eg Letchworth, Tewkesbury, New York or whatever.) It's then possible to see where on earth (literally) that copy of the program's been. Revision history """""""""""""""" ver.no. date comments 1.50 Mar 1992 One or two bugs fixed: firstly, the lions now have to get closer to kill you than before, and secondly, Gedalodava's legs no longer get left behind at a certain part of the game (can't tell you where, it would give away clues!) Also you fall down the crack when you reach it, not about six feet beforehand, like in previous versions! One or two titchy other ones eliminated, too. Oh, yes, saying "hello" no longer gets you struck by lightning... 1.40 Jan 1992 Various shoot-'em-up bugs fixed, also another interesting little one- did you know that in 1.30 & below if you walked where Didymus was he reappeared? Also, in previous versions only registrants were allowed to win. In the interests of goodwill and the shareware ethic, this "feature" has now been permenantly disabled. See below. Plus, the bug that has plagued us since almost the beginning has been fixed! Gedalodava no longer leaves shadows on the screen. (Would you believe, just one variable was wrong? I set it to False, and hey presto! it worked.) Oh yes, the three versions prior to 1.40 claimed to be v1.10 in the saved files. A flash of lightning has been added on MOAG PLC's report, also a proper keyboard sink, and the writing effect has been speeded up. "Talk to him" now works everywhere, even with Didymus (it didn't before.) Also, for some reason all previous versions gave the menu option "talk to Gedalodava" in the harbour. That's now fixed. Anything else...? 1.30 Dec 1991 Three Little Bugs sorted out- if you left your house, turned round and then walked straight back in again, you hung the computer up! This is now fixed, of course. Also a small error with the wall outside the Treasurer's house, and a bug where if you DIR'd a non-existent drive it caused a run-time error. 1.20 Oct 1991 Fixed an annoying bug which hung the game up if you went anywhere near the amphitheatre! (Thanks to Ken Hughes for pointing this out.) Also one or two minor ones. 1.10 Sep 1991 Cleared up minor bugs: incorrect version no. on title scroll, slight error on Sinistrus's walking, one joke changed, proper branding routines implemented, and one or two other slightly annoying, very minor, bugs. 1.00 Aug 1991 First ever... This is version 1.50/E/E. (The first E stands for EGA. The second stands for English (we might do a Latin version. Who knows?)) OK, OK, we said that 1.30 was vitually bug-free. There is probably some wise maxim to cover what happened- about twenty bugs turned up two or three days after release! (Yes, I am exaggerating.) I just hope less bugs turn up in Spellchick- at the time of writing none are known in the current version. After all, the main Avvy program has over 5,000 lines of code, so there are bound to be bugs. (I heard the other day that some Microsoft products have over 500,000 lines- phew! Pity the valiant souls who have to debug that lot!) In the interests of goodwill to all men, and all that, we have commented out the lines that let only registrants win (from v1.4 onwards). Henceforth, anyone can. ("Spellchick" has never had this restriction.) If you are playing an older version, for some reason, firstly give whoever it is a copy of this version, and secondly type the following: REGISTER <return> <lose scroll> THIS VALIANT BAND THIS CHOSEN FEW <return> <lose scroll> REGISTER <return> <lose scroll> And the computer will say "Thanks a lot for registering!" Without this, YOU CANNOT WIN. The soothsayer won't let you. We have told him to relax his vigilance. If you know of any bugs in the current release, please tell us. Then you can get it out of your system, and we can get it out of ours. (old joke...) Trademarks """""""""" Some of the words used in this document are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners (who else?). Just so you'd know... Cast List """"""""" Denarius Avaricius Sextus : our hero Arkata : his wife Crapulus : his slave Gaius Lupus Malus : a rival of Avvy's Compactus Discus Romulus : an old friend of Avvy's in the army Titus Nervus Pecunia : a worried official Gedalodava : a very beautiful slave girl! Sinistrus : a left-handed barman Julius Selfimportantius Noxius : a big-headed guard Didymus Tonitrusdeus Hicesse : someone who got on the wrong side of Lupus Gaius Quicphingus Haruspicis : a sly soothsayer AND... a star guest appearance from an Olympian god... (plus his guest) Press Reviews """"""""""""" (If we add anything to this section, it is not counted as a version change.) "...You may even be treated to a few corny but amusing jokes! The best part of the game has to be the droll conversation between Avvy and his friends. Searching the screens for clues and trying out the various commands is also good fun. I did, however, find it very difficult, when fighting the lions, to control my side of the battle... perhaps you'll do better. ...I would recommend it as an addition to your library." PC Shareware Magazine, February 1992, p.42. "Brothers Thomas and Mark Thurman have had a hard year's work... Avvy, the game's hero, is in pursuit of his ultimate goal... He is impeded by the power of the taxman and the temptations of the vine, but if, in helping him in his quest, you lose the ultimate battle and die, you go to heaven and have your life evaluated by the gods!!" HiFiW3, January 24th 1992, No. 735 **** Registration! **** """"""""""""" This is NOT free software. We decided to distribute it as shareware because we believe we can trust you. If you don't register we have no incentive to continue writing games. (Even if you don't like them, we must get better!) Go on, restore our confidence in you. This game costs 8 pounds sterling, or 15 US dollars (posting to the USA is expensive, you know!) You must have bought more expensive software than that! Our address is: Thorsoft, 71, Baldock Road, Letchworth, Herts SG6 3JP, Great Britain. Make cheques payable to L.V. Thurman. Thanks! Site licences are £10 sterling plus 50p per computer (or US$20 plus US$1 per computer), should you need a site licence. Certain nameless companies in the City of London have, I hear, been using alleged copies of a certain nameless game that may, at first sight, bear a vague resemblance to Avvy. Well, now's your chance to get a LEGAL clone. If you want to contact us, you can e-mail us on: Ebby: SEND your message to Thomas Thurman. CompuServe: send to Mike Thurman, number 100021,3441. Dr.Solomon's Fido: send to Thomas Thurman. (In case your printer doesn't support it, this sign, £, is the pound sign.) (This game comes to you from Letchworth, the Land of the Black Squirrels, the First Garden City- a town where there's only one street!) Io!