mirror of https://github.com/sean-m/zork
252 lines
8.0 KiB
Groff
252 lines
8.0 KiB
Groff
.TH DUNGEON 6 "March 11, 1991"
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.SH NAME
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dungeon\ -\ Adventures in the Dungeons of Doom
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.SH SYNOPSIS
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.B dungeon
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.SH DESCRIPTION
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Dungeon is a game of adventure, danger, and low cunning. In it
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you will explore some of the most amazing territory ever seen by mortal
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man. Hardened adventurers have run screaming from the terrors contained
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within.
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.LP
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In Dungeon, the intrepid explorer delves into the forgotten secrets
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of a lost labyrinth deep in the bowels of the earth, searching for
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vast treasures long hidden from prying eyes, treasures guarded by
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fearsome monsters and diabolical traps!
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.LP
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Dungeon was created at the Programming Technology Division of the MIT
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Laboratory for Computer Science by Tim Anderson, Marc Blank, Bruce
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Daniels, and Dave Lebling. It was inspired by the Adventure game of
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Crowther and Woods, and the Dungeons and Dragons game of Gygax
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and Arneson. The original version was written in MDL (alias MUDDLE).
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The current version was translated from MDL into FORTRAN IV by
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a somewhat paranoid DEC engineer who prefers to remain anonymous.
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.LP
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On-line information may be obtained with the commands HELP and INFO.
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.SH DETAILS
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Following is the summary produced by the
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.B info
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command:
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.RS
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.LP
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Welcome to Zork!
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.PP
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You are near a large dungeon, which is reputed to contain vast
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quantities of treasure. Naturally, you wish to acquire some of it.
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In order to do so, you must of course remove it from the dungeon. To
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receive full credit for it, you must deposit it safely in the trophy
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case in the living room of the house.
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.PP
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In addition to valuables, the dungeon contains various objects
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which may or may not be useful in your attempt to get rich. You may
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need sources of light, since dungeons are often dark, and weapons,
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since dungeons often have unfriendly things wandering about. Reading
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material is scattered around the dungeon as well; some of it
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is rumored to be useful.
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.PP
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To determine how successful you have been, a score is kept.
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When you find a valuable object and pick it up, you receive a
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certain number of points, which depends on the difficulty of finding
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the object. You receive extra points for transporting the treasure
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safely to the living room and placing it in the trophy case. In
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addition, some particularly interesting rooms have a value associated
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with visiting them. The only penalty is for getting yourself killed,
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which you may do only twice.
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.PP
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Of special note is a thief (always carrying a large bag) who
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likes to wander around in the dungeon (he has never been seen by the
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light of day). He likes to take things. Since he steals for pleasure
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rather than profit and is somewhat sadistic, he only takes things which
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you have seen. Although he prefers valuables, sometimes in his haste
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he may take something which is worthless. From time to time, he examines
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his take and discards objects which he doesn't like. He may occasionally
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stop in a room you are visiting, but more often he just wanders
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through and rips you off (he is a skilled pickpocket).
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.RE
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.SH COMMANDS
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.LP
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.TP 15
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.B brief
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suppresses printing of long room descriptions
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for rooms which have been visited.
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.TP
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.B superbrief
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suppresses
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printing of long room descriptions for all rooms.
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.TP
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.B verbose
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restores long descriptions.
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.TP
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.B info
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prints information which might give some idea
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of what the game is about.
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.TP
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.B quit
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prints your score and asks whether you wish
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to continue playing.
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.TP
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.B save
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saves the state of the game for later continuation.
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.TP
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.B restore
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restores a saved game.
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.TP
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.B inventory
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lists the objects in your possession.
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.TP
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.B look
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prints a description of your surroundings.
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.TP
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.B score
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prints your current score and ranking.
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.TP
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.B time
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tells you how long you have been playing.
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.TP
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.B diagnose
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reports on your injuries, if any.
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.LP
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The
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.B inventory
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command may be abbreviated
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.BR i ;
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the
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.B look
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command may be abbreviated
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.BR l ;
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the
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.B quit
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command may be abbreviated
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.BR q .
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.LP
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A command that begins with '!' as the first character is taken to
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be a shell command and is passed unchanged to the shell via
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.I system(3).
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.SH CONTAINMENT
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.LP
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Some objects can contain other objects. Many such containers can
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be opened and closed. The rest are always open. They may or may
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not be transparent. For you to access (e.g., take) an object
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which is in a container, the container must be open. For you
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to see such an object, the container must be either open or
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transparent. Containers have a capacity, and objects have sizes;
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the number of objects which will fit therefore depends on their
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sizes. You may put any object you have access to (it need not be
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in your hands) into any other object. At some point, the program
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will attempt to pick it up if you don't already have it, which
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process may fail if you're carrying too much. Although containers
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can contain other containers, the program doesn't access more than
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one level down.
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.SH FIGHTING
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.LP
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Occupants of the dungeon will, as a rule, fight back when
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attacked. In some cases, they may attack even if unprovoked.
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Useful verbs here are
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.I attack
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<villain>
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.I with
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<weapon>,
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.IR kill ,
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etc. Knife-throwing may or may not be useful. You have a
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fighting strength which varies with time. Being in a fight,
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getting killed, and being injured all lower this strength.
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Strength is regained with time. Thus, it is not a good idea to
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fight someone immediately after being killed. Other details
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should become apparent after a few melees or deaths.
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.SH COMMAND\ PARSER
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.LP
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A command is one line of text terminated by a carriage return.
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For reasons of simplicity, all words are distinguished by their
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first six letters. All others are ignored. For example, typing
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.I disassemble the encyclopedia
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is not only meaningless, it also
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creates excess effort for your fingers. Note that this truncation
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may produce ambiguities in the intepretation of longer words.
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[Also note that upper and lower case are equivalent.]
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.LP
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You are dealing with a fairly stupid parser, which understands
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the following types of things:
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.RS
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.TP 5
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.B Actions:
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Among the more obvious of these, such as
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.I take, put, drop,
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etc.
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Fairly general forms of these may be used, such as
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.I pick up, put down,
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etc.
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.TP
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.B Directions:
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.I north, south, up, down,
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etc. and their various abbreviations.
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Other more obscure directions
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.RI ( land,
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.IR cross )
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are appropriate in only certain situations.
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.TP
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.B Objects:
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Most objects have names and can be referenced by them.
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.TP
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.B Adjectives:
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Some adjectives are understood and required when there are
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two objects which can be referenced with the same 'name' (e.g.,
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.I doors,
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.IR buttons ).
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.TP
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.B Prepositions:
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It may be necessary in some cases to include prepositions, but
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the parser attempts to handle cases which aren't ambiguous
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without. Thus
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.I give car to demon
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will work, as will
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.I give demon
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.IR car .
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.I give car demon
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probably won't do anything interesting.
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When a preposition is used, it should be appropriate;
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.I give car with demon
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won't parse.
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.TP
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.B Sentences:
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The parser understands a reasonable number of syntactic construc-
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tions. In particular, multiple commands (separated by commas)
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can be placed on the same line.
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.TP
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.B Ambiguity:
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The parser tries to be clever about what to do in the case of
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actions which require objects that are not explicitly specified.
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If there is only one possible object, the parser will assume
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that it should be used. Otherwise, the parser will ask.
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Most questions asked by the parser can be answered.
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.RE
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.SH FILES
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dtextc.dat - encoded messages and initialization information
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.br
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dsave.dat - save file
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.SH BUGS
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For those familiar with the MDL version of the game on the ARPAnet,
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the following is a list of the major incompatabilties:
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.RS
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-The first six letters of a word are considered
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significant, instead of the first five.
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.br
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-The syntax for
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.I tell, answer,
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and
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.I incant
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is different.
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.br
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-Compound objects are not recognized.
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.br
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-Compound commands can be delimited with comma as well
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as period.
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.RE
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.LP
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Also, the palantir, brochure, and dead man problems are not
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implemented.
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.SH AUTHORS
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.LP
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Many people have had a hand in this version. See the "History" and
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"README" files for credits. Send bug reports to ian@airs.com
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(or uunet!airs!ian).
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