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EAMON ADVENTURER’S LOG – National Eamon User’s Club Volume
1 *
Number Welcome to the third issue of the National Eamon User’s Club newsletter. We hope you’ll like the new format. To help clarify who is responsible far each section of the newsletter, we will begin including a name with each article. This will help you correspond to the appropriate person when you want to comment on our style or content. It’s really not that big a deal, because we read each other’s mail, but it might help you out in addressing your letters. (No one is responsible for the Terminological Inexactitude column - which contains rumors and innuendo and will remain anonymous!) Our volunteer staff now consists of: John Nelson
- Eamon author/fanatic/Bug Killer WE HAVE MOVED! BY THE TIME YOU READ THIS WE WILL BE AT A NEW ADDRESS!! This is a miracle in itself it seems, but it has happened and we’d better tell you the new address before we forget. [Address removed.] Eamon News This is a new column that will contain news about Eamon itself and not necessarily anything to do with the club. News about the Club can be found in Club News. New adventures - We are now up to 74 adventures. This does NOT include the four utility diskettes, the three tournament diskettes, the two dungeon designer diskettes or the new Master Diskette (see below). The newest Eamon adventures (since last issue) are: 69.
By next issue we are hoping to release the following adventures for Eamon, but these are not completed yet:
NEW EAMON MASTER DISKETTE There is a new Eamon Master diskette that has been named Master 2.0. It will not replace the original, because people may choose to remain true to the original Don Brown version. If you want to order the new master, you must specify version 2.0 or you will receive the original. The new features on version 2.0 are: A. Menu program, on boot-up, allows: 1. Listing the names of your
characters B. The Beginner’s Cave has been changed: 1. More monsters and
treasures C. The Main Hall has been expanded 1. A training center has been added For members who would like to try the new master, send us a blank diskette (or your old master) and we will copy this and send it back to you. THIS IS DOME AS A BENEFIT FOR MEMBERS ONLY - Non-members are not eligible for this service. If you are a non-member, please include S5.00 for the copying fee and diskette and postage. FOR THOSE WITHOUT WORD PROCESSORS I have written a crude Applesoft program that will read a standard sequential text file and print it far those people who do not have word processors. The Applesoft Text printer will now be included on the DDD 6.0 diskette. If you would like a copy of it, send a stamped self-addressed envelope. We will distribute this program on paper, since it is very short. Thanks to Tom Weishaar and the May ‘84 issue of Softtalk, we have a patch to DOS that will allow you to read the Eamon text documentation files directly from the keyboard,. You may use this to print the documentation, but the DOS method does not break on words when printing or displaying. Club News The club dues announced last issue seemed to cause a lot of people to drop the newsletter. It too bad because the sore people we have, the cheaper it is for everybody, but there are still those who expect something for nothing. Anyway because we are now on a membership dues and not a total charity outfit, we can afford to give some services to our members for their money. One benefit to being a member of our club is of course the newsletter, but there are other benefits planned. Effective immediately and continuing until further notice, there will be new disk prices (or our adventures. The new prices far members (those who paid $12. dues) are: 1 – 4 adventures $4.00 each You can order Eamon diskettes from other sources also and sometimes cheaper than from us, but we endeavor to have the most accurate bug free and latest up-to-date conies. Also when you order them from us, we keep track of this and when we have some spare time we are planning on notifying people directly when an adventure they have has a bug. This may save hours of frustration. Notices and Junk We now offer two different ways of receiving the newsletter. The first way is a full membership. Those of you who paid the $12 dues are full members. We also offer a lower $6 subscription only price for those on a tighter budget or not in need of any other services from us. The benefits listed below will explain the differences. Member benefits: Member rates
on adventures
John & Bob Adventure Tips This is a new column that will help you while adventuring. Some of the tips say be of a general nature (concerning adventures) and others will be hints on specific adventures. DETERMINING FRIENDLINESS - No Risk One thing about Eamon is that you have to know the name of the monster you want to attack before you can attack him. In many cases the designer will give the name in the monster’s description. You may not always be able to tell if a monster is friendly and you don’t want to attack if he is, but it takes one turn to find out and by then you’ve taken a hit from his. One way to avoid this is to try to leave the room immediately upon encountering the monster. If the monster is an enemy, you won’t be able to but at least you won’t be attacked. Of course you say not always want to do this if the room was difficult to find, the exit is a one way door or something like that. BRIBING MONSTERS - a sure thing Did you know that you can bribe a monster in Eamon and depending on his friendliness, get him or her to be friendly? If you did know this, did you know that the maximum amount you have to bribe is 100 gold pieces? Unless the monster is totally unfriendly (in which case you can never bribe him) or there has been special programming to require a larger or different bribe, this is the most , have to spend to insure success. CHEATING DEATH - possibly There are a couple of programs an the Eamon Utility diskettes that allow you to test an adventure with no risk to your character’s life. One of these programs is on Eamon Utilities II and is called TEST BENCH. It creates a character for test purposes only that you can take through an adventure. Another prom., recently created is ADVANCED BENCH on the same diskette. It is a more advanced program used for the same purpose. These characters can never be returned to a Master diskette, but are goad for testing an adventure for bugs before risking a good character. A third program, but one that allows you to use a regular character and be able to return to the Master when done is ADVENTURE (or on some versions it say be called ADVENTURE ONLY). This say be found on both the current Eamon Utilities I and Eason Utilities II diskettes. When you want to on an adventure from this program, select it from the menu or RUN it. It will ask you to insert the diskette that the character is on. This will be the Master diskette containing your character. You will then have to type in the name of the character and you will be on your way. If you can’t remember the name of your character, type ‘?‘ and you will be given the names of characters on that diskette. CONTINUING AFTER CRASH - maybe If an Eamon adventure crashes on an error of some sort, it is possible to continue under certain circumstances. If there is no ONERR statement in effect while the game is in play, it may be possible to keep going after an error. The ONERR statement will sometimes act to close the files. If the files get closed, you will not be able to restart the adventure. If someone discovers how to restart an adventure after the files have been closed, I would like to hear about it. (It seems like I did do this once by doing a POKE 51,0 and branching to the line number that opens the files in the restart routine.) Anyway, to continue after a program crash, it will also depend on why the program crashed. If it was bad programming and you were trying to do something obscure such a POLISH EMERALD RING that you could just as well do without doing, you can get back into the game by typing GOTO 210 (or GOTO 165 in. some of the old adventures - prior to #4 or in adventure #13). If the crash occurred while merely walking around, it is possible you have a bad copy of a disk and you may not be able to restart the game. John
DESIGN STANDARDS -- by Jeff Harris I was asked to provide a set of standards for a typical EAMON adventure. What follows is, of course, personal opinion and not gospel. But PLEASE consider these points when next you create a dungeon. I. BE CONSISTANT! Your adventure is set in a world of fixed technology, laws and environment. Nothing gripes me more than striding dawn a castle corridor - in full plate armor - and being mowed down by a Nazi with a machine gun! If you’re in a medieval scenario, then by all means fill it with wizards and warriors, ogres and princesses, etc. A .357 Magnum or a flashlight simply do not belong. Conversely, who wants to run around in chain mail when everybody else has blasters? 2. WHAT’S THE POINT? An adventurer should have a goal. If the adventure is just an excuse far violence, save your time and bucks and go watch a football game on T.V. On the other hand, you’re not out to rebuild Atlantis, either. Use your judgment: a rescue, an assassination, a magic sword keep it simple, but stick to it. 3. AT THE ZOO. ‘There we were,
fighting two dozen orcs when in walks this blue dragon ..." In a pig’s
eye.
Unless they kept the big lizard as a pet, they’d probably avoid it like
the
plague. This borders on #1 above, but it deserves separate mention:
contrary to
popular belief, every little hole in the ground does NOT have a
life-form
lurking in it. And where there are life-forms, the ratio of predators
to prey 5
like 4. THE OBSTACLE COURSE. A complaint I heard recently was about an adventure where practically every door gave the adventurer an electric shock. It eventually killed him six doors into game. While not really an advocate of fair play, some early warning - or an available defense - sure couldn’t have hurt here. Any series of obstacles (no matter how many or how difficult) should not be insurmountable; using a Power Spell to break out of a room is unfair, stumbling blindly in a dark cave is NOT unfair. Consider the odds when designing a trap, a riddle, or a confrontation with a monster. 5. BE ORIGINAL! My wife (John’s wife, too) collects Harlequin Romances by the box-full. I’ve looked at a few of them, and they’re all the same - only the names and locations have been changed to keep the reader awake! Variety is the spice a + life, and the best adventures have a totally different slant to them. Try to avoid the Thirty-room-six-monsters-and-a-wizard syndrome. BE CREATIVE!! Designer’s Den This issue we will cover more of what we covered last issue, but in more detail: LOCAL PIA6IC. If you read the Eamon Player’s manual, it describes universal and local magic. Universal magic is the magic you can buy at the Main Hall and it works roughly the same everywhere you go. Local Magic is magic that is unique or special to a particular adventure. Local magic is that created by the de5igner when he designs and programs the adventure. It consists of printing neat little messages to the player and modifying some information in the computer to simulate some action taking place. Let us say, for example that you wanted to make the adventurer grow old if he drinks a certain potion. This could be simulated by printing a message such as YOU ARE GROWING OLDER BY THE SECOND. YOUR HAIR HAS TURNED WHITE, YOUR SKIN IS BECOMING EXTREMELY WRINKLED, AND YOU ARE GROWING WEAKER’’. You must then modify values to simulate the age increase. There is no age kept for an Eamon character, so you don’t have any variable here to contend with, but you may lower the character’s agility which is contained in he variable MD%(0,2) lower his defensive odds (which normally contain zero, so you could make them negative and lower his strength (contained in variable MD%(0,1). Using the different fields, you can do almost anything. I will cover the most commonly wanted tricks and let you, as the adventure designer decide what you want to do with it. One common thing is secret passages. Although this is not really a magical type of effect, it is a common feature and I promised to cover it last issue. Secret passages are handled automatically in DOD version 6.0, but in version 5.0 and before, it required the designer to program these. To program a secret passage, you may do it one of two ways. The first and easier method can also be more dramatic. That is to teleport the adventurer into the new room as soon as they discover the passage. A message can be printed to be as dramatic or as different as you wish. Ta effect the change in rooms, all you have to do is change the variable ROOM to the desired room number with a statement such as ROOM nn. You then have to branch to 3500 of the main program. The second method is a bit more sophisticated and the adventurer will not be forced to use the secret passage immediately. This is done by having a switch (or variable) to indicate whether or not the adventurer has discovered the passage yet. In the move routine, you would check this switch and if the passage had been discovered, allow the move in that direction. Far example, in the look routine, I would code IF ROOM = 54 THEN L1 = 1: PRINT "YOU FOUND A SECRET PASSAGE TO THE WEST!". Then in the Move routine I would code IF R2 = -55 AND L1 THEN R2 = 55: GOTO 3500 Another common adventure feature is to love artifacts or monsters into or out of the room. The variable for an artifact’s location is AD%(A,4) where A is the artifact number in question. The variable for a monster’s location MD%(M,5) where M is the monster’s number. The variable ROOM contains the current room number that the adventurer is in. Therefore, to move an object - be it monster or artifact - into the room you change the corresponding room number variable. For example, to move an artifact into the room, the code might be something like: PRINT ‘THERE IS A BRIGHT FLASH AND A MAGIC SWORD APPEARS!’: AD%(1,4} ROOM. To remove an object from the room, the item’s location is changed to zero. For example, to take the sword away from the adventurer or out o the room it is currently in, the code might be: PRINT ‘THE SWORD VANISHES!’: AD%(1,4) = 0. Monsters are a bit more complicated to teleport around, however. When a monster is caved around, you have to compensate for whether he is friendly, or unfriendly, and how he will react to these changes. This is done by setting the variable R3 to ROOM and performing the subroutine at line 3600 after changing the monster’s room number. This extra step insures that the monster knows he has been teleported. That’s about all the space we have for this issue, so I’ll wrap it up for now. Next issue I’ll cover locked doors, gates and how to operate and program them. John Terminological Inexactitudes Things appearing in this column must not be confused with actual facts, but are rumors regarding the world of Eamon and adventuring. Bob Davis writes adventures?? We’re
not sure it’s true, but rumor has it that Bob has written Eamon
adventures
before, but never released them to the world. I am planning a covert
operation
(top secret, of course) to try to get these from his and release them. We have gotten thousands (maybe millions) of letters asking what is Knight Quest. Rumor has it that it is Eamon raised to the 12th power less the bugs, but we’re not telling. Questions and Answers In this column we answer commonly asked or interesting questions we receive. Q. I was in the Abductor’s Quarters and found that the roams in one area were not working correctly. Can you tell me how to fix this? A. I spoke to the author about this ‘bug’ years ago when I first encountered it and found out it was not a bug. The designer did this to create a ‘space warp’ effect. Q. It costs you over $1.00 per person per issue to put out the newsletter? Actually, yes and no. Depending an the size of the issue, the number of copies and whether or not you count overhead such as use of a postage machine, it ranges from 70 cents to 1.05 per issue per person. Amazing, isn’t it? If we had a lot more members, this price would go down drastically, but there seems to be few Eamon players who don’t want to pay for a newsletter. They tend to want everything for free. Q. I would like to buy some more Eamon adventures, but I don’t know which ones are any good. Is there a description of all of the adventures that I could get? Ratings on the adventures would also be great. A. There is a document containing
descriptions of all of the Eamon adventures, but it is not current at
this
time. Every time we get more adventures, this document has to be
updated. We are
currently updating the document and are adding a review and rating
section to
each one. It may take a while to get this all done, but we will keep
members
informed on it’s progress. It will be quite a thick document, so we
will have
to charge to recover printing costs, but we will keep it as cheap as
possible
for members. For non-members, the once will be a bit higher. Since we
do not
have it finished yet, we do not know its length or cost. In the
meantime, see
the current Bug Bytes One thing I would like to talk about before getting into the actual bugs and their corrections is the tools and knowledge needed to make these changes. If you are an Applesoft programmer and are familiar with a program line editor, you say skip down to the bugs portion. If you do not know anything about Applesoft programming, the changes may be difficult, but you should be able to make them if you follow the instructions. If you do not want to attempt the changes, please let me know and I’ll see what I can do to help you out. I can’t promise to make the changes for you, but I can give you a more detailed set of instructions or possibly re-copy the diskette for you. The best way to make corrections to the program lines is with a program line editor. It is advised to obtain one of these and learn how to use it. It will make corrections much easier. If you are already familiar with Applesoft programming and how to change programs and you understand the instructions given for changing these programs, go right ahead and make the changes. If you do not know how to change Applesoft programs, there’s no time like the present to learn, so I’ll try to explain the procedure below. CHANGING AN APPLESOFT PROGRAM IN GENERAL In order to change an Applesoft program, the program must first be in the computer’s memory. This is done by typing LOAD followed by the exact name of the program. From that point on you may modify the program by replacing the lines already in the program, adding new lines or deleting lines that are already in memory. If you have a line editor, you will be able to change a line without having to completely replace it. [ACTUAL FIXES OMITTED FOR INTERNET VERSION] Spotlight On: Last time I promised to highlight some intermediate to tough adventures. (By tough I mean not easily survived.) Well, I’ll do that but unfortunately I have not tried some of the adventures above #48 because of the volume (25 new adventures in 4 months!). Those will be covered in later issues. I would like to clarify the rating system a little more. The first number is the overall rating including settings, descriptions and plot; the second number is the difficulty in both problem solving and survivability. Range is I to 10 with 10 highest. The following is a break-down of the meaning of the numbers. Rating - any rating 5 or above is recommended. 0-2
Poor or
tasteless. Would not recommend. Difficulty - any rating above 5 is recommended. 0-2
Easily
survived, little problem solving. I have a personal definition I would like to share before going on to the reviews. It is ‘adventure’. ADVENTURE - A defined, riskful task that must be or is desired to be performed within a set of UNKNOWN circumstances. Unknown is the key. In other words, I am not going to explain in detail the environment the adventure is to be performed in, the adversaries/friends you’ll encounter, the special effects/magic possible or the types of treasure available. I wouldn’t want someone to inform me of this. I will explain the general background and mission (if known) and sometimes the quality of the game (descriptions. settings, task, etc.). Here are the recommended intermediate adventures and their ratings: NO TITLE 8
Abductor’s
Quarters 8) Abductor’s Quarters (6:7) - A friend of yours (who is a fellow adventurer, of course) has been captured and is being held in a nearby network of caverns. You must enter these caverns and rescue your friend before the abductor executes him/her. If you slip up and become abducted yourself, your friend will be lost forever and you must wait in the deep recesses of the diskette far the next rescuer. If you rescue your friend and escape, both of you will return to the Main Hall safely. 9) Assault on the Clonemaster (5:6) - You blundered into an aperture between universes and fell into a different world; a world ruled by a ruthless despot called the Clonemaster. The rebels force you to help them destroy his Clonatorium (where the evil clones are being produced even now) before they will show you the way home. The longer you wait to destroy it, the more clones you will have to face to complete your mission. 25) Nuclear Nightmare (6:5) - A mysterious stranger appears in town talking about the ultimate weapon; a weapon that could destroy the entire kingdom! If this weapon does exist. it must be dismantled or destroyed and measures must be taken so that it could never be rebuilt. 33) Orb of Polaris (7:7) - You have been captured and teleported by an angry warlock who claims a great treasure has been stolen from him - his orb of power. A mystic defense has been cast over the ice caverns of Polaris barring the warlock from entering. He needs a free adventurer (you) to get the orb for his, for which he will give you a great reward. He teleports you to the ice caverns without so much as loaning you a sweater. The caverns are very cold and you must find some form of protection from the cold before you can even begin to look for the orb. 37) Quest for the Holy Grail (9:7) - A personal favorite for any Monty Python fan, this adventure is entertaining, very descriptive, humorous and follows the movie enough that you should catch some clues if you’ve seen it. Be wary of a little peril. If you have not seen the movie version, but are partial to English humor, this adventure is a must. The following are same of the best adventures available for Eason (my opinion of course). These adventures are challenging in either puzzles, mazes and/or seasoned fighting monsters. NO TITLE RATING 12
Quest for
Trezore 12) Quest for Trezore (7:8) – You are searching for the wizard Trezore and come across a bronze door with three small holes in it. You know it must be opened somehow. The key(s) is tough and dangerous, as you will encounter varied and pugnacious beasts and beings. 16) Caves of Mondamen (8:8) - The evil Mondamen is assembling an army and has employed the services of a wizard to summon a demon from another dimension. He has captured the princess of Nexdar (a neighboring kingdom) to force the king of Nexdar to help him financially. You must stop Mondamen by killing the wizard before he summons the demon Vaprak and then rescue Princess Mari. 21) Quest for Marron (8:8) - A friend of yours has become possessed by an evil (what else?) demon. The only one that can help her is Marron, a crazed holy man now living in a cavern with other crazy, and a few normal, people. You bind your friend and take her into the caves only to find two people named Marron! Which is the fake? You must find the clues to deduce the real Marron along with finding several artifacts to help Marron purge the demon from your friend. 24) Black Mountain (8:8) - The evil, rotten, no-good Black Bark has been terrorizing a little town for years, The local authorities, are hot on his trail, but need some assistance. You pick one mission of a possible six, and each time this adventure is entered the monsters are different and found in random places. The six missions are: 1. Arrest Black Bark The most interesting of the six is number 3; you must find what the murder weapon is before you can retrieve it. 45) SwordQuest (7:8) - King Arthur’s sword, Excalibur, has been stolen and is being kept in Morgan Le Fay’s castle. You seek Arthur’s favor by retrieving the sword for him. This is a dangerous mission and you may need help. This is a large dungeon with many roams, artifacts, and creatures. The room descriptions are average but most monsters have reactions (such as being surprised) and enough action is taking place that flourishing room descriptions are not critical. 47) FutureQuest (8:7) - You are in a future society and must use new commands to communicate - SCAN for LOOK, REPAIR for HEAL and TRANSMIT for SAY for example. Waking up from a cryogenic sleep an a spaceship under attack, you must abandon the shin and head for the planet below. You will Cross a desert, invade a castle or two and end up on another planet where you will try to complete your mission - assassinating the emperor. For those of ho like a real challenge or just watching your characters die, we have the following four adventures classified as ‘tough’. I personally only recommend #7 and #19 as far as overall rating. NO TITLE 7
Devil’s
Tomb 7) Devil’s Tomb (6:9) - Setting out of this one is the mission. Along the way (if you get out of the first room) you’ll find gambling with the devil, a few demons and gargoyles, and the magical book of Trezore! One hint: You’ll need magic to survive the Tomb. 14) Furioso (4:91 - You start out being abducted and all your possessions taken - armor, weapons, everything. You are placed in a dark hold of a ship which soon runs aground and is sinking. You must get out of the ship before it sinks and find your way back to the Main Hall. 19) Death Trap (7:9) - Enter at your awn risk - this dungeon contains very experienced warriors. You took a bet proposed by one of your enemies that you could survive this place. The amount at stake - 20,000 gold pieces! Good luck. One note - this dungeon adjusts to your character’s experience; the tougher your character, the tougher the dungeon. 29) The most exciting part of the adventure as when I found an Eamon-like passage (text), but then found nothing there. Got my hopes up, then - DASHED on the rocks. In summary, if you’ve got characters ready for intermediate and/or ad dungeons, these are the diskettes to get next. Bob P. S. About a day before press time we
received the last two adventures These adventures warrant a small
word from us before we pack this off to the printers. The The second adventure: Search for Yourself is not a pop psychology game, it is an adventure with what the author calls ‘two moderately devious features’. I regret that I have not yet had a chance to play it, so I cannot give you my review, but I promise by next issue that I will try this one out. |
