ZORK/DUNGEON User Information I. Getting a ZORK/DUNGEON a. ITS: Say ZORK^K to DDT rather than :ZORK to get a zork. b. 10X/20X: Invoke the local dungeon (usually DUNGEO) II. Bugs, comments, suggestions... Always welcome and encouraged. All mail should be sent to DUNGEON@MIT-DMS. Dungeon has a BUG command, in addition, which may be used to report strange happenings. Its use is described below. Please note that for 10X/20X systems, net mail to DUNGEON will be acted on much more quickly than BUG command reports. If, in making a bug report, you know what symptoms were exhibited by the program, PLEASE, PLEASE!!!!! include them. It is at best extremely irritating and at worst useless to receive a bug report like 'mumble frotz' loses, or 'try saying \"mumble frotz\"'. With such reports, we have no way of knowing the situation when your 'mumble frotz' lost, and no way of knowing if any bug we manage to reproduce (if we do) is the same one you saw. In consequence, everyone's time is wasted. III. Typing to Dungeon. A number of characters in Dungeon have special effects. These include a number of line editing commands. The characters are: or : delete the last character typed : delete the last word typed or or : delete the entire buffer : redisplay the buffer : redisplay the buffer. Sometimes this also clears the screen. : terminate commands : flush long typeouts : like the QUIT command (vide infra) : Causes the remainder of the command line to be ignored. This may be useful for annotating hard copies/scripts of games. IV. Garbage Collection Dungeon may occasionally type out a message 'GIN FREE STORAGE- GOUT TIME=10.92'. This indicates that a garbage collection is occurring. We have attempted to prevent this, since it may take a significant amount of real time on a loaded system; should it ever occur, please send mail to DUNGEON@MIT-DMS describing the circumstances--how many moves have been made, whether a RESTORE has been done, and so on. THIS IS NOT FATAL: after the GOUT message is printed, you may continue playing. V. User Commands The following commands may prove useful for the playing of Dungeon. They are not, however, game commands (i.e. they have no side effects in the current game). a. Verbosity Verbose: The default: print long room descriptions on first visit, 20% of the time thereafter. Brief: Supresses printing of long room descriptions for rooms which have been visited. Short object descriptions are also used in such rooms. Super(brief): Suppresses printing of all long descriptions, even on the first visit. Short object descriptions are always used. Noobj: Suppresses printing of object descriptions in rooms already visited. See the 'object' command. Note that the maximally verbose description (that printed on the first visit to a room in verbose mode) may always be obtained by saying 'look'. See also the 'room' and 'object' commands. b. Help Info: Prints a file which might give some idea of what the game is about. Help: Prints this. c. Progress Quit: Prints your score, and asks whether you wish to continue playing. Score: Deflate your ego. Time: Describe how much of eternity you have injured. Versi(on): Describe the current version. d. Hard copy (directory owners only!) Scrip(t): Script to a file ZORK.SCRIPT Unscr(ipt): End scripting e. Save/restore (directory owners only!) Save: Save the game for future continuation (to ZORK.SAVE) Resto(re): Restore a saved game (from ZORK.SAVE) Only the player who created the save file can restore it at a later time! You are warned. f. Bugs, etc. Bug: Although the best way to report bugs is to send mail to DUNGEON@MIT-DMS, there is a 'bug' and command built in to the game. This generates files which must, alas, be manually transmitted to the maintainers. It is, however, better than nothing. Featu(re): Like Bug, to make a suggestion for a feature. g. General Again: Repeat the last input. Look: Describe the current surroundings. 'L' is equivalent. Room: Print the verbose description of the room, without mentioning any objects. Object: Print the verbose description of all the objects in the room, without describing the room. 'Look' is equivalent to a 'room' command followed by an 'object' command. Inven(t): Describe your possessions. 'I' is equivalent. Diagn(ose): Describe your state of health. Wait: Causes 'time' to pass. V. Dungeon Command Parser A command is one line of text terminated by a carriage return or altmode. For reasons of simplicity all words are distinguished by their first five letters. All others are ignored. For example, typing 'DISASSEMBLE THE ENCYLOPEDIA', while meaningless, is also creating excess finger motion. Note also that ambiguities can be introduced by this: 'unscr' is 'UNSCRipt', not 'UNSCRew'. You are talking to a moderately stupid parser, which understands the following types of things. Actions: Among the more obvious of these, TAKE, DROP, etc. Fairly general forms of these may be used: PICK UP, PUT DOWN, etc. Directions: NORTH, SOUTH, UP, DOWN, etc. and their various abbreviations. Other more obscure directions (LAND, CLIMB) are appropriate in only certain situations. Because words are only five letters, you must say 'nw' for 'northwest': the latter is truncated to 'north', which isn't quite what you had in mind. Objects: Most objects have names, and can be referenced by them. Adjectives: Some adjectives are understood and are required when there are two objects which can be referenced with the same 'name' (e.g. DOORs, BUTTONs) Prepositions: It may be necessary in some cases to include prepositions, but the parser attempts to handle cases which aren't ambiguous without. Thus 'Give car to demon' will work, as will 'Give demon car.' When a preposition is used, it should be appropriate: 'Give car with demon' does not parse. Sentences: The parser understands a reasonable number of things. Rather than listing them, we advise you to do reasonable things. Note that several sentences may be typed on the same line, separated by commas or by 'and': 'n,e,s,w,open mailb and read' will [try to] do just that. Multiple Objects: Sentences of the following forms will parse: Put A and B and C in trophy case Put A, B, and C in trophy case Give A and B to the troll The following will not: Put A B in case Take A B C The point is that an AND or a are required so as not to hopelessly confuse the parser. Special objects named 'everything' and 'valuables' exist; one may, for example, say 'take everything' and 'put valuables in trophy case'. Multiple commands: Several commands may be included on a single line. They must be separated by 'then' or '.'. Thus: TAKE BOOK. N. DROP BOOK AND CANDLE is correct. Note that the use of a comma between commands will cause the command line to be parsed incorrectly: comma should only be used between multiple objects. Ambiguity: The parser tries to be clever about what to do in the case of actions which require objects in the case that the object is not specified. If there is only one possible object, the parser will assume that it should be used. Otherwise, the parser will ask. Most questions asked by the parser can be answered (e.g. With what?). VI. Theories The following 'theories' are fundamental to the game and should be noted: Containment: Some objects can contain other objects. Many such containers can be opened and closed; the rest are always open. They may or may not be transparent. For you to access (take, for example) an object which is in a container, the container must be open; for you to see such an object, the container must either be open or transparent. Containers have a capacity, and objects have sizes; the number of objects which will fit therefore depends on their sizes. You may "put" any object you have access to (it need not be in your hands) into any other object; at some point, the program will attempt to pick it up if you don't already have it, which process may fail if you're carrying too much. Although containers can contain other containers, the program doesn't access more than one level down. Fighting: Occupants of the dungeon will, as a rule, fight back when attacked; they may in some cases attack you unprovoked. Useful verbs here are 'attack with ', 'kill', etc. Knife-throwing may or may not be useful. The adventurer has a fighting strength, which varies with time: in particular, being in a fight, getting killed, and getting injured, all lower it. One's carrying capacity may also be reduced after a fight. Strength is regained with time. (Thus, it is not a good idea to fight someone immediately after being killed.) Other details may become apparent in the course of a few melees. The 'diagnose' command describes your state of health. Vehicles: There are some objects in the dungeon which are rumoured to have the ability to transport the fearless adventurer to mysterious regions which are inaccessible on foot. Needless to say, the adventurer faces great personal peril as he encounters these regions. The 'vehicles' can usually be entered with the 'board' command, and can be exited with the 'disembark' command.