Games-ScottAdams
view release on metacpan or search on metacpan
lib/Games/ScottAdams/Manual.pod view on Meta::CPAN
If an optional argument is supplied then that argument is the
percentage chance of the occurrence happening when its conditions are
all satisfied; otherwise the chance is 100%.
There is one more very important difference between actions and
occurrences: before each turn, every occurrence whose conditions are
all satisfied is executed. Then at most one action will happen: the
first action matching the players command and whose conditions are all
satisfied.
=head1 GLOBAL PARAMETERS
Finally, we come to the global parameters, a rag-bag of bits and
pieces which affect the game as a whole. In general, each of the
following directives should appear exactly once: it's an error for any
one of them not to appear at all, and a warning is generated if any is
used more than once.
=head2 %ident
%ident 1
This simply specifies a number which uniquely identifies the
adventure. I have read in the C<Definition> file that comes with the
C<scottfree> distribution that this number (and all others in the
Scott Adams file format) is ``apparently 16 bit''. I don't know how
this is apparent, but it's possible that some interpreters will choke
on numbers larger than 65536 (2^16-1), or maybe even 32767 (2^15-1)
if they interpret the value as signed. So you should probably pick a
number smaller than this.
Somewhere out there, there should be a register of all Scott Adams
format games, each with a unique identifier number. Unfortunately, I
don't know if there is one or where it is - please contact me if you
can point me at it (or if you want to start maintaining one!)
Also unfortunately, the uniqueness of the register is already well and
truly broken (although that doesn't mean we should break it more, of
course!)
Adams' original series of twelve adventures uses numbers 1-12
(I<Adventureland> has the coveted number 1, of course!), and the later
I<Sorceror of Claymorgue Castle> is number thirteen. Unfortunately,
I<Return to Pirate's Island> and I<The Adventures of Buckaroo_Banzai>
are both given number fourteen; and the two Questprobe adventures,
I<The Incredible Hulk> and I<Spiderman> are both number two again (the
same as the original I<Pirate Adventure>. What a crock. At least the
I<Adventureland> ``sampler'' that used to be given away for free has
its own number, 65.
To make matters worse, Brian Haworth's series of eleven I<Mysterious
Adventures> re-use the numbers 1-11. So there are no fewer than four
adventure number two's. Ho hum.
=head2 %version
%version 416
Specifies the version of this adventure. Looks like Adams went
through 416 design iterations before he got I<Adventureland> into a
state he was happy to release.
=head2 %wordlen
%wordlen 3
Specifies the number of significant letters in each word known to the
game. Because this is three for I<Adventureland>, all longer words
can be abbreviated to three letters - so the player can type C<CLI
TRE> (or indeed C<CLIMAX TREMENDOUSLY>) instead of C<CLIMB TREE>.
=head2 %maxload
%maxload 6
Specifies the maximum number of items that the player can carry at
once - if he tries to pick up something else, the interpreter issues a
suitable message.
=head2 %lighttime
%lighttime 125
Specifies how many turns the light source is good for. Light is only
used up when the light source is in the game, so, for example if
there's an unlit lamp in the game and a lit lamp initially not in the
game, the light time doesn't start to tick down until the lamp is lit
(i.e. the lit lamp object is brought into the game.)
=head2 %start
%start forest
Specifies which room the player starts in.
=head2 %treasury
%treasury stump
Specifies the room in which the player must store treasure for it to
count towards his score. Remember that treasures are, by definition,
objects whose name begins with an asterisk (C<*>). The player's score
at any time is defined as the number of treasures that have been
stored in the treasury, divided by the total number of treasures,
multiplied by 100, and rounded to the nearest integer (so that it's
always in the range 0-100.)
The special room-name C<-> may be used to indicate that treasures must
be carried in order to contribute to the score, rather than deposited
in a particular place.
=head2 %lightsource
%lightsource lamp
Nominates a particular item as the light-source for the game. When
flag 15 (darkness) is set, the player can only see if either carrying
or in the presence of the lightsource object. There can be only one
lightsource in the game - if a second is nominated, it replaces the
first.
( run in 0.553 second using v1.01-cache-2.11-cpan-71847e10f99 )