Your Spectrum
Issue 14, May 1985 - Adventures
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There's an eerie tapping in the hollow halls of Castle Rathbone. It's the Green Goblin, Peter Shaw moving from room to room ... 		Our next step is to call the location description routine which is also tucked away so that it doesn't interfere with the rest of the program. Now, you've probably already spotted where your location is held throughout the program but just in case, it's in P. The location description routine uses this info, jumps to the right part of the code and displays the correct description. Couldn't be simpler!
One last look at the command recognition routine. Yes, it's still got the amazing vocabulary of six words - North, South, East, West, Stop and Quit - but you should be about ready to start expanding it on your own now.
Next month I've got the feeling we're going to run across some of the nastier denizens of the adventurer's world, like ghosties and ghoulies and monstaaaaaagh!
Welcome adventurers. I'm back this month with a program that combines everything we've covered so far. When you've typed it in, you'll have a complete scenario you can wander around in. As yet, there's nothing to pick up, and no monsters to attack but introducing them at this point would only lead to confusion.
So, what have we got? If you've been following our progress, you'll recognise the routines used in the program. Spot our old friend the command recognition routine 		as well as the concept of the Z() array. The new material is the location description routine and the outside lines that stop the whole program coming apart at the seams.
At this point, it's probably a good idea to sit down with your Speccy and start tapping in the listing.
Done that? Jolly good. Taking the program from the top you'll have noticed that the Z() array is only called once, at the beginning. That's why I've tucked it away in a subroutine right at the end of the program.
'VENTURING OUT ...
When it comes to adventures, Dave Nicholls is certainly not green - so he takes a look at Emerald Isle and draws some conclusions about The Illustrator.

EMERALD ISLE
Level 9 £6.95

It's always been tricky to find fault with Level 9's adventures on technical grounds. They have had one major drawback though - the £9.95 price tag! Let's hope that Emerald Isle represents a change of heart - it retails for £6.95. The question is, of course, has the quality of the game suffered? Well, as far as I can see the answer's no; there are still over 200 locations and bags of atmosphere and puzzles.
You are the pilot of a light aircraft, forced to bail out while flying through the Bermuda Triangle. 		At the start you're to be found hanging by your parachute (nasty Ed.) from a tree on a strange island. Once you've come down to earth, you're faced with the harder task of finding a way off the island - and only the ruler of the land is allowed to leave. The good news though is that the throne is up for grabs - the bad news is that you have to prove yourself worthy!
Every location has long textual descriptions along with a picture filling the top half of the screen. It's a shame but the pictures don't really add a lot to the game and I tended to turn them off after a while to speed things up. The atmosphere is maintained by loads of different messages and you'll get a 'clever' response to most of your inputs. I wasn't too sure about the 'I nearly understand' message though - I'm sure it means nothing of the sort!
If you're a fan of Level 9, then all you need to know is that they've done it again. If you're new to adventuring or if you've always shied away from paying a tenner for a game, then Emerald Isle could be just the introduction you've been waiting for. 		See bottom of page for program listing.
The Adventure section changed to a 4-column format this issue, which I can't reproduce on-screen without squashing everything up horribly, so I've given the 2-column wide program listing its own space at the bottom.
EMERALD ISLE screen Level 9's Emerald Isle - a full-blown adventure for a budget price.

THE ILLUSTRATOR
Gilsoft £14.95

When Gilsoft first brought out The Quill, text-only adventures were the norm. Now they have 		come up with The Illustrator which allows you to add full screen graphics to Quilled adventures. You can then save the game independently of both The Quill and The Illustrator.

When the program's loaded, a largish menu appears listing the various options open to you; normally the first you'll choose is "LOAD DATABASE". This loads in the first few bytes of a previously created Quill database. Then The Illustrator finds out how many locations there are and how much space is available.
Now comes the creative bit. Once you've told the program about your game you can get on with the business of drawing pictures. Each piccy is stored not as a series of bytes like a Spectrum SCREEN$, but instead it's kept as a series of commands that recreate the original when you play it back. This saves one hell of a lot of space but it does mean that you've got to start with a pretty good 		idea of what the final picture will look like. And although editing facilities are provided, any mistake can mean going right back to square one.
There are commands for point plotting and line drawing as well as several fill routines and an excellent shading command that lets you produce a stipple effect. You can also define pictures as subroutines and use them over and over again. If I have a niggle it's the lack of circle and arc drawing commands though this can be got round.
All in all, The Illustrator is an excellent companion to The Quill. It'll produce some very good pictures, subject to artistic ability, of course - which I'm rather short of!

Brief Encounters

A quick mention for a couple of goodies that came our way this month. The first is Confidential from a new company called Radar Games. You play a character called Craig Adams who's out to solve the case of a missing person. This involves questioning suspects and following up clues. Confidential is written with The Quill and costs £6.95 from Radar Games, nn xxxxxxx xxxxxx, xxxxxxxxxx, xxxxxx, xxxx xxxxxxxx.
The other game is Talisman from Games Workshop. It's not really an adventure, though, more an animated strategy game in which up to four players (either computer or human controlled) search for a legendary source of power that'll give them control of the land. The game's not at all bad but what struck me most was the intelligence of the computer controlled characters. A pretty brainy bunch - while I was playing a demo game with all four characters controlled by the machine, one of them solved the quest!
YS ADVENTURE HELPLINE
England and Wales: Gary Smart (nnnn) nnnnn and Peter Marment (nnnn) nnnnn. Scotland: Neil Mackintosh nnn-nnn nnnn.
ILLUSTRATOR screen A pretty good likeness of the snake from the Hall of the Mountain King drawn on The Illustrator by someone with no artistic talent!

 
10 REM YS ADVENTURE ROUTINE 3
20 POKE 23658,8
30 GO SUB 9000: REM ROOMS
40 GO SUB 8000: PAUSE 100: REM ROOM DESCRIPTION
50 INPUT "What do you want to do now, O great one?",A$
60 FOR A=1 TO LEN A$
70 IF (A$(A)<"0" OR A$(A)>"9") AND (A$(A)<"A" OR A$(A)>"Z") THEN LET A$(A)=" "
80 NEXT A
90 FOR A=1 TO LEN A$
100 IF A$(A)=" " THEN LET C$=A$( TO A-1): LET A$=A$(A+(1 AND (A+1)<=LEN A$) TO ): GO TO 120
110 NEXT A: LET C$=A$
120 IF C$="STOP" OR C$="QUIT" THEN STOP
130 IF LEN C$>0 AND LEN C$<=5 THEN IF C$="NORTH"( TO LEN C$) AND Z(P,1)=0 THEN PRINT '"THERE'S NO EXIT NORTH!"
140 IF LEN C$>0 AND LEN C$<=5 THEN IF C$="NORTH"( TO LEN C$) AND Z(P,1)<>0 THEN PRINT '"OK": LET P=Z(P,1)
150 IF LEN C$>0 AND LEN C$<=5 THEN IF C$="SOUTH"( TO LEN C$) AND Z(P,2)=0 THEN PRINT '"THERE'S NO EXIT SOUTH!"
160 IF LEN C$>0 AND LEN C$<=5 THEN IF C$="SOUTH"( TO LEN C$) AND Z(P,2)<>0 THEN PRINT '"OK": LET P=Z(P,2)
170 IF LEN C$>0 AND LEN C$<=4 THEN IF C$="EAST"( TO LEN C$) AND Z(P,3)=0 THEN PRINT '"THERE'S NO EXIT EAST!"
180 IF LEN C$>0 AND LEN C$<=4 THEN IF C$="EAST"( TO LEN C$) AND Z(P,3)<>0 THEN PRINT '"OK": LET P=Z(P,3)
190 IF LEN C$>0 AND LEN C$<=4 THEN IF C$="WEST"( TO LEN C$) AND Z(P,4)=0 THEN PRINT '"THERE'S NO EXIT WEST!"
200 IF LEN C$>0 AND LEN C$<=4 THEN IF C$="WEST"( TO LEN C$) AND Z(P,4)<>0 THEN PRINT '"OK": LET P=Z(P,4)
210 FOR A=1 TO 50: NEXT A: PAUSE 50
220 GO TO 40
 		8000 PAPER RND*7: BORDER RND*7: INK 9: CLS
8010 GO TO 8000+(P*100): REM FIND ROOM DESCRIPTION OF PRESENT ROOM
8100 PRINT "THE ENTRANCE HALL"
8110 PRINT
8120 PRINT "This is a small square room withan open door leading to the South."
8130 RETURN
8200 PRINT "THE DINING ROOM"
8210 PRINT
8220 PRINT "There are three possible exits from this room. That's North, East and South."
8230 RETURN
8300 PRINT "THE KITCHEN"
8310 PRINT
8320 PRINT "The Kitchen is quite a small place, but there are two exits for you to leave by. You can either go North or East."
8330 RETURN
8400 PRINT "THE MAIN BEDROOM"
8410 PRINT
8420 PRINT "This is probably the biggest room in the whole house. There are two exits, one in the South wall and also one in the West."
8430 RETURN
8500 PRINT "THE CLOSET"
8510 PRINT
8520 PRINT "This is the smallest room in thehouse, with an exit to the Northand also one to the West."
8530 RETURN
9000 REM SET UP Z() ARRAY
9010 DIM Z(5,4)
9020 FOR A=1 TO 5
9030 FOR B=1 TO 4
9040 READ Z(A,B)
9050 NEXT B
9060 NEXT A
9070 DATA 0,2,0,0
9080 DATA 1,3,4,0
9090 DATA 2,0,5,0
9100 DATA 0,5,0,2
9110 DATA 4,0,0,3
9120 LET P=1: REM START IN ROOM 1
9130 RETURN
The Hobbit it ain't, but at least this program will allow you to grasp the idea of command recognition and room layout.
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