path: root/games/battlestar/battlestar.6

.\"	$OpenBSD: battlestar.6,v 1.9 2001/08/18 03:27:17 pjanzen Exp $
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.\"	@(#)battlestar.6	8.1 (Berkeley) 5/31/93
.\"
.Dd May 31, 1993
.Dt BATTLESTAR 6
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm battlestar
.Nd a tropical adventure game
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Nm battlestar
.Op Fl r
.Op Ar saved-file
.Sh DESCRIPTION
.Nm
is an adventure game in the classic style.
However, it's slightly less of a puzzle and more a game of exploration.
There are a few magical words in the game, but on the whole, simple English
should suffice to make one's desires understandable to the parser.
.Sh THE SETTING
In the days before the darkness came, when battlestars ruled the
heavens...
.Bd -literal -offset indent
Three He made and gave them to His daughters,
Beautiful nymphs, the goddesses of the waters.
One to bring good luck and simple feats of wonder,
Two to wash the lands and churn the waves asunder,
Three to rule the world and purge the skies with thunder.
.Ed
.Pp
In those times great wizards were known and their powers were beyond
belief.
They could take any object from thin air, and, uttering the word
.Sq su
could disappear.
.Pp
In those times men were known for their lust of gold and desire to
wear fine weapons.
Swords and coats of mail were fashioned that could withstand a laser blast.
.Pp
But when the darkness fell, the rightful reigns were toppled.
Swords and helms and heads of state went rolling across the grass.
The entire fleet of battlestars was reduced to a single ship.
.Sh SAMPLE COMMANDS
.Bd -literal -offset indent
take	---	take an object
drop	---	drop an object

wear	---	wear an object you are holding
draw	---	carry an object you are wearing

puton	---	take an object and wear it
take off --	draw an object and drop it

throw  <object> <direction>
.Ed
.Sh IMPLIED OBJECTS
.Bd -literal -offset indent
>-: take watermelon
watermelon:
Taken.
>-: eat
watermelon:
Eaten.
>-: take knife and sword and apple, drop all
knife:
Taken.
broadsword:
Taken.
apple:
Taken.
knife:
Dropped.
broadsword:
Dropped.
apple:
Dropped.
>-: get
knife:
Taken.
.Ed
.Pp
Notice that the
.Dq shadow
of the next word stays around if you want to take advantage of it.
That is, saying
.Dq take knife
and then
.Dq drop
will drop the knife you just took.
.Sh SCORE & INVEN
The two commands
.Dq score
and
.Dq inven
will print out your current status in the game.
.Sh SAVING A GAME
The command
.Dq save
will save your game in a file called
.Pa ~/Bstar
by default.
You can recover a saved game by using the
.Fl r
option when you start up the
game, or by giving the name of the saved file as an argument.
Save files will be saved to and restored from your home directory unless a
path is specified \- i.e.,
.Dq Li battlestar -r savedgame
will look for
.Pa ~/savedgame ,
but
.Dq Li battlestar -r ./savedgame
will look in the current directory.
.Dq Li battlestar -r
will look for the default file,
.Pa ~/Bstar .
.Sh DIRECTIONS
The compass directions N, S, E, and W can be used if you have a compass.
If you don't have a compass, you'll have to say R, L, A, or B, which
stand for Right, Left, Ahead, and Back.
Directions printed in room descriptions are
always printed in R, L, A, & B relative directions.
.Sh AUTHOR
David Riggle (riggle.pa@xerox.arpa)
.Sh INSPIRATION & ASSISTANCE
.Bl -item -compact
.It
Chris Guthrie (chris%ucbcory@berkeley.arpa)
.It
Peter Da Silva
.It
Kevin Brown
.It
Edward Wang (edward%ucbarpa@berkeley.arpa)
.It
Ken Arnold & Company
.El
.Sh HISTORY
I wrote Battlestar in 1979 in order to experiment with the niceties of
the C Language.
Most interesting things that happen in the game are hardwired into the
code, so don't send me any hate mail about it!
Instead, enjoy art for art's sake!
.Sh BUGS
Finite.