GABventure System Documentation Version 3.0 - Mar 1987 1. Introduction. 2. Features. 3. Future plans. 4. File conventions. 5. Prepare to play. 6. How to play. 7. How to make a GABventure. 8. Known bugs. 9. Feedback. Section 1 - Introduction GABventure is a text-adventure system for the C64. You can play or write adventures. BASIC programs are used but you don't program to write adventures. More on that later. Written entirely by Gary A. Beck THIS SYSTEM IS PUBLIC DOMAIN. Section 2 - Features 1. Command/Abbr north/n south/s east/e west/w up/u down/d enter exit get drop open close lock unlock look/l examine quit/q stop end read inventory/i score help put....into.... get....from.... turn on turn off printer what 2. Some objects can contain other objects or GABventurers. 3. GABventurers can carry objects. 4. Moving to some locations may requireyou to be inside of a 'vehicle' or have 'equipment' with you. 5. Full description of 'rooms' is provided on initial entry or by 'look'ing around. 6. The game is over when the maximum score is 'score'ed. 7. You can play again after 'quit'ing without reloading the program. 8. SAVE option when 'quit'ing. 9. RESTORE option at the start. 10. Output to printer via 'printer' cmd 11. You can 'get/drop/what' a list of objects: 'get chain tree fish' 12. New versions of GABventure are able to play GABventure games created for previous versions. (That's half the reason for the OPT file.) Section 3 - Future Plans Addition of CHARACTERS to interact with. The current version does get lonely now and then. Maintain clock. (Your comments could add to this list) Section 4 - File Conventions GABventure system uses disk files in addition to the program itself. You will need the proper collection of files to play a game. File names will follow this convention: The first three characters are GAB - in upper case. Characters four through six identify either a game or version number. Character seven is a period. Characters eight through ten are the file type - in upper case. Files used by GABventure: NAME P/S/R/U Used for... GABnnn.PLY P Playing the game GABnnn.BLD P Make your own GABnnn.STR P Make RELative file from SEQuential file (or SEQ from REL) GABnnn.REL R These are the rooms or places. Used to play the game. You build one to make your own GABventure. GABnnn.SEQ S Tis a SEQuential version of the RELative file. You can use the STR program to make the REL file from this. GABnnn.OBJ S These are the OBJects. Needed to play. Build one to make your own. GABnnn.OPT S The OPTions for GABventure nnn. Used to Play the game. GABnnn.DOC S You are reading it. GABnnn.SAVxxx S Saved game position By the way, P/S/R/U stands for PROGRAM SEQUENTIAL RELATIVE USER. These are file storage types. Section 5 - Prepare to Play. You need four files to play. GABnnn.PLY is the program. The other three files are OPT, REL, OBJ. The names of these three files must follow the naming conventions outlined in section 4. (If not, it won't work.) So...for GABventure number 007 ya need: GAB007.OPT GAB007.REL GAB007.OBJ Note: UPPERCASE is needed and the files MUST be of the proper storage type. Check your directory. Are the needed files there? If so go to section 6. Was only REL missing? If so - you can make one if you have the SEQ file. LOAD & RUN the GABnnn.STR. It will ask you for the GABventure number. Enter the three characters. The program will first read the options from the OPT file. Then the SEQ file is read. Finally the REL file is made. Creating the REL file is rather slow. Maybe you could read a good book while you wait. You should now have all the files you need. If not you need more help than I can give you here - seek help elsewhere. Section 6 - How to Play To play you need the PLY, OPT, OBJ and REL files. That's all covered in section 5 above. LOAD GABnnn.PLY RUN it. This is basic. Do your normal thing. You will be asked what drive number the data is on. Default is 8. You will be asked which GABventure to play. This is a three character identifier. (The one that comes after GAB in the OPT, OBJ and REL file names) Enter all three characters. You should be off and running. Section 7 - How to make a GABventure You need the GABnnn.BLD program for this. Using the BLD program you can make or modify the OPT, OBJ & REL files. Positive locations are rooms or places. Negative locations are objects. Location zero is the GABventurer. If object 2 is located inside of object 5 then its location is -5. If object 7 is in room 3 then its location is 3. If the GABventurer has object 10 then its location is 0. You can define TRIPs. A trip is a range of room numbers which require certain object number(s) to be held by the GABventurer. Set trips up while editing the OPT file. Beyond that it's self explanatory. In the future the program and this document will be revised based on your comments. Section 8 - Known Bugs & FUNNY Stuff I wrote it so it makes sense to me but you .... might have other ideas. Details: When naming objects in commands, you match on all characters or ending characters of the object name. If more than one match... strangeness. If an object name is more than one word you should use only one of them in commands. You can exit and re-enter an object while using it as a vehicle. Section 9 - Feedback By mail: G. A. Beck 5419 Summit Lyndhurst, OH 44124 CIS: 73537,3704