Eamon Adventurers Guild
December 1992

December 1992

News and Stuff - by Tom Zuchowski

Unfortunately, I must begin this newsletter with some bad news: after some ten years of service to the Apple II community, Aspen Software is no more. Dan Lefler wrote me a nice letter, reprinted inside in the Letters column. Dan has not been well, and has been forced to close down forever. Please don’t send him any more orders.

Dan makes an interesting offer in his letter. He’s looking for someone to purchase his entire library and stock. I confess that I am sorely tempted myself, but I don’t know where I would find the months it would take to go through a thousand disks!

I’ve lately gotten letters from a couple of Eamon authors who are interested in attempting unusual special events, effects, or ideas in an Eamon adventure. They’d like to hear some ideas from you people about Neat Stuff that you’d like to see done. If you’ve got some interesting ideas, send them in and I’ll print them in the next newsletter.

In fact, this almost sounds like a good contest idea. I don’t think that it’s appropriate to actually announce an “official” contest, but I’ll make you a deal. If I see some ideas I really like, I’ll give some free adventures or maybe a membership extension away to whoever sends them in. And if anyone actually uses these ideas in a new adventure and does a good job of it, I’ll do something really nice for them, too.

OK, let’s be clear on this: there is no official contest running here. I am offering bribes, to be given away at my discretion, to whoever I judge has earned something.

To date there have been one hundred-odd Eamon conversions to ProDOS, with perhaps 30 of them receiving full conversion to 80-column, lowercase text. Strangely, the ProDOS conversions have in themselves generated just a few new EAG members and zero new Eamon adventures. But the 80-col. ones have managed to bring Eamon more respect in the Apple II community, particularly among GS users.

This has resulted in some interesting proposals and developments. Eamon may be going in some brand-new directions next year. I really don’t want to expand on this because none of it may work out and I don’t want to put any pressure on the people involved. But stay tuned.

New Adventures

220 Catacombs of Terror by Phil Schulz

You get the itch to do a little adventuring and head for the Catacombs. The object? Loot and survival! Reviewed in this issue.

Letters

Your zeal for the Apple II world has always been quite inspiring and I wish you the best in your EAG. However, due to serious economic considerations and other considerations I have to announce that Aspen Software (after ten years in business) is now out of business and will never re-open under any circumstances. No orders will be filled and all payments will be returned to sender. Please inform your membership that anyone expecting a refund due to an unfilled order or other situation should write me personally. All complaints (if any) will be answered as has always been my policy.

I started business back when BRAC and AAA were the leading mail-order public domain vendors and, as far as I have been able to determine, Aspen software is now the oldest mail-order public-domain vendor in the U.S. (ed note: BRAC still exists today, as Big Red Computer Club) I have no energy left for a hobby-job, but it will probably always be my personal opinion that the Apple II series is the best ever.

Your generous treatment and support of me and the other public domain vendors has always been absolutely fantastic. Thank you very much. If any of your members want to buy my entire library very cheap (approximately 1000 different disks of programs) please have them contact me.

Please run a notice in your newsletter at least once (or more if you can) regarding Aspen Software’s demise (after long illness).

I wish I had more time. I will always wish you and the other serious Apple II enthusiasts the very best. And I will never sell either my old Apple II or my Apple II Plus.

Sincerely, Daniel M. Lefler Aspen Software Prescott Valley, AZ

Thanks for ten years of support, Dan. Good luck and take care.
-Tom

Dungeon Designs

Bug Fixes You Can Do

by Tom Zuchowski

I get a fair number of calls and letters from people who are having problems with an Eamon. Often, the fix is something very simple that anyone can do, if they know what to look for.

Problem: The adventure is doing something that doesn’t make sense, or is crashing.

Fix: Check the revision date in the adventure’s catalog. Compare the date on your disk with the revision date listed in this newsletter (a DOS 3.3 list was in the last issue, and a ProDOS list is in this issue). If the date does not agree, check the EAG back issues from around the time of the revision date and look for a bug fix that has the same problem you are seeing.

If you don’t see anything that will help, proceed with the various procedures outlined in the rest of this article.

Problem: WRITE PROTECTED error

Files are written to on both the Master and the adventure disks. You must not cover the writeenable notch with a write-protect tab.

If the adventure is written to the back side of a disk, it may be that the write protect notch was improperly punched.

Fix: If the write-protect notch is covered, remove the Write-protect tape from the edge of the disk. If the adventure is on the back side of a disk, repunch the notch or else copy the adventure to the front side of another disk.

Problem: DISK FULL error This error usually occurs when trying to SAVE a DOS 3.3 version of the game. Many of the better Eamon adventures do not have DOS 3.3 on the disk, because they require every possible bit of disk space. You will get this error on these big Eamons if you make a copy of the disk by using the DOS INIT command and copy the adventure over to the new disk file-by-file. INIT automatically installs a copy of DOS 3.3 on the disk.

Fix: Make Eamon adventure copies with Copy II+, using the “disk” option, or else use COPYA from the DOS 3.3 Master.

NOTE: If you get a DISK FULL error while saving a game, immediately delete the files GAME.STR, GAME.SVAR, & GAME.PTRS (DOS 3.3) or SAVED.GAME (ProDOS). There is a danger that the disk catalog will be corrupted if you don’t do so.

Problem: I/O ERROR This error can not be caused by a bug in the adventure. Your disk is bad.

Problem: PROGRAM TOO LARGE This error can not be caused by a bug in the adventure. It can only occur if the adventure’s MAIN PGM has become corrupted. Note that your disk might be good, but was copied from a bad disk that contained the original error.

You might also get this error in very large Eamons if you have any extra stuff resident in memory such as Program Writer.

Problem: SYNTAX ERROR IN XXXX NEXT WITHOUT FOR ERROR IN XXXX RETURN WITHOUT GOSUB ERROR IN XXXX ILLEGAL QUANTITY ERROR IN XXXX UNDEF’D STATEMENT ERROR IN XXXX BAD SUBSCRIPT ERROR IN XXXX DIVISION BY ZERO ERROR IN XXXX TYPE MISMATCH ERROR IN XXXX

These are genuine program bugs. Please follow these steps immediately after the crash, before typing anything else and before contacting the EAG with a bug report:

1) Write down the line number (XXXX) 2) Type LIST XXXX (XXXX = the line number) 3) The offending program line will be printed to the screen. It will contain a number of variable names, such as RO, M, AD%(A,4), etc. 4) Type PRINT statements for each of the variables in the bad line. PRINT RO PRINT M PRINT AD%(A,4) (Note that this includes the variable A which must also be printed) PRINT A (etc.) 5) Each time you type in a PRINT statement, the value of that program variable will be printed to the screen. Write down all this info. It is virtually impossible to fix obscure bugs without full knowledge of what the bad program line was doing. 6) It will be very helpful if you write down a detailed description of where you were in the dungeon and what you were doing at the time the error occurred. Please include the revision date of the disk and where you got it. It is possible that your supplier’s disk became bad somehow and must be replaced; I will send them a replacement if I make this determination.

Problem: When trying to “go on an adventure”, the Main Hall program goes crazy, printing out all kinds of stuff without waiting for you to type anything.

Fix: The FRESH MEAT file on the adventure disk is locked. Unlock the file with the command

(DOS 3.3): UNLOCK FRESH MEAT (PRODOS): UNLOCK FRESH.MEAT

Problem: FILE LOCKED error when trying to save the game.

Fix: The Saved Game files on the disk are locked. These files are written to when the game is saved and must be unlocked. Type:

(DOS 3.3): UNLOCK GAME.PTRS UNLOCK GAME.SVAR UNLOCK GAME.STR (ProDOS): UNLOCK SAVED.GAME

Problem: REDIM’D ARRAY ERROR IN XXXX

This is really a totally different bug that is being masked by sloppy programming. It happens when the adventure doesn’t bother to disable the ONERR GOTO jump after checking for a saved game (this was a bug in the original version 5 SAVE routine and is common).

Check and modify the saved game verification code in the program named MAIN PGM. It will be at lines 10-50 on most Eamons. The line numbers may be different in some Eamons; the first line will contain an ONERR GOTO statement.

If there is no POKE 216,0 in Line 20, add one just before the GOTO statement. There are several variations on this line; here’s one example of the original line:

20 DK$ = CHR$ (4): PRINT DK$"VERIFY GAME.PTRS": GOTO 29000

Change it to:

20 DK$ = CHR$ (4): PRINT DK$"VERIFY GAME.PTRS":POKE 216,0: GOTO 29000

There are many variations of this line in different Eamons. In the above example, I didn’t change anything except to add the POKE statement. That’s what you should do.

If there’s no POKE 216,0 in line 50, you should add one to the front of the line:

Change: 50 GOTO 1000 to: 50 POKE 216,0: GOTO 1000

NOTE: As stated above, this error message is not the real problem. Once you add the POKE 216,0 statement, the adventure will still crash at the same point. But after the POKE has been added, you will get the correct error message.

Problem: When restarting a saved game, it immediately tries to again do a SAVE.

Fix: The DOS 3.3 Eamon SAVE routine does not want you to hit the <Return> key when answering the question “DO YOU WANT TO RESTART THIS GAME?” If you answer this question with “Y <Return>”, the “Y” is taken and the <Return> is left in the keyboard buffer to be taken as the first command. And since the last valid command was the SAVE command that saved off the game, it tries to save the game again.

When playing DOS 3.3 Eamons, do “not• hit the <Return> key when answering “Y” to the “RESTART THIS GAME” question. If you forget and do it by mistake, simply answer “N” when asked “DO YOU WANT TO SAVE THIS GAME?”

ProDOS note: this “feature” causes so much trouble for new Eamon players that all ProDOS versions “do• require that you hit the <Return> key when answering Save/Restart game questions.

Warning: Any time you modify the MAIN PGM, a DOS 3.3 saved game will be dangerously unplayable. If you try to restart it, you will see bad room names and other weird stuff, and it will soon crash with a corrupted program in memory. Never, ever save the MAIN PGM to disk after seeing such a weird crash. This is one way that the corrupted MAIN PGMs mentioned in one of the above problems come about.

ProDOS note: unlike DOS 3.3, it is OK to restart ProDOS saved games after modifying the MAIN.PGM.

Problem: OUT OF MEMORY

Fix: This error does not mean that you have run out of free memory. This error is also printed when something called a “stack overflow” occurs. Some Eamon adventures occasionally experience stack overflows because they were written using very poor programming practices.

Normally you can immediately restart the adventure by typing this line at the keyboard:

POKE 51,0:GOTO100

Sometimes it will crash a second time. Just type it in again.

If you do find a genuine problem, please follow the steps outlined for SYNTAX ERROR above. I get an astonishing number of letters that say, “I bought your Eamon game, (name), and it crashes. What are you going to do about it?” Obviously, I can’t do anything with that except write them back with some suggestions about bug reporting.

Bugs’n’Fixes

DDD Multi-Disk Supplement Date Fixed: 10/4/92

Program: DUNGEON EDIT 2-DISK Problem: UNDEF’D STATEMENT IN 6840 Fix: In Line 6840, change 140 to 150

Program: MAIN PGM 2-DISK Problem: Player is not prompted to swap disks Fix: Add these lines:

31057 ONERR GOTO 31058
31058 HOME: VTAB 12: PRINT "PLEASE INSERT DISK 2 AND PRESS 'C'";: GET X$: PRINT X$: IF X$ < > "C" THEN 31058
31059 POKE 216,0: HOME 

#45 SwordQuest Date Fixed: 9/13/92

Problem: Save causes DISK FULL errors Fix: Delete DOS from the disk. ________________

#132 Rhadshur Warrior Date Fixed: 10/3/92

Problem: “Enemies in room” after Mardak banished Fix: In Line 16090, change NBTL = 0 to GOSUB 3600

Note: The 80-col. ProDOS version incorporated many playability enhancements over the 40-col.version and is a major upgrade. The 40-col. version was not changed.

Adventure Reviews

#132 Rhadshur Warrior - by Roger Pender

Reviewed by Tom Zuchowski

MAIN PGM Version: 6 Extra Commands: MEDITATE, EAT, SEEKER commands Deleted Commands: BLAST, HEAL, POWER, SPEED Special Features: 10-directions, Seeker Robot, Healing through meditation, advice Playing Time: 2-3 hours Reviewer Rating: 9.0
Average Rating: 7.9/5

Description: “The time is the far distant future. Science and sorcery have intermingled and merged into a semi-scientific, semi-mystic art called Rhadshur.

“Things were going well until Threndor Tokas, descendant of the great Hokas Tokas, discovered a parallel universe. Zagora was identical to the world of Eamon; yet at the same time evil, twisted, and deadly. Threndor immediately recognized the danger, but it was too late. The evil Mystics of Zagora keep the hole open, and have stolen the Life Orb of Threndor, the only one capable of closing the hole. Threndor now lies unconscious and at the brink of death.

“Three Rhadshur Warriors have entered Zagora but none have returned. You are now chosen to enter Zagora & retrieve Threndor’s Life Orb. You will be accompanied by the latest model Seeker robot.

“You close your eyes and go to third level meditation. You slowly bring your heartbeat and respiration back to normal. You feel the Mystics reach out and gently soothe your troubled mind. You go to tenth level meditation and form a mental image of your Ki. It shines gloriously like a fiercely blazing sun.”

Comment: This adventure is classic Pender. The text descriptions are rich with detail, the map is sensible and interesting, and the combat and puzzles are well balanced. The basic Seeker robot has its own interface, and is able to SCAN the area and sometimes offers cogent advice.

There are several mini-quests to fulfill that you learn about as you progress through the adventure. You must find and deal with a street low-life who happens to have several important enhancements you will need for your Seeker. There are allies to find and/or rescue. You must connect with a banished Mystic who can supply you with assistance in combat against the evil Mystics. You discover that Threndor has been bodily kidnapped and must be found.

The standard spells have been disabled, but Roger offers several replacements for HEAL. The basic one is your ability to MEDITATE yourself back to health. This can only be done when you are not fighting; but once there you can enhance your Seeker to heal you during combat.

There are two small drawbacks that puts some people off: one is that the Seeker interface is somewhat awkward to use, and to cover all the bases you must LOOK, SCAN, and get ADVICE in every single one of the 100 rooms. Needless to say, this does get a bit old. The other is that all 10-directions get heavy use on a rather dense city map, and it is somewhat difficult to keep track of where things are. But this is a great adventure, and I loved playing it.

#133 The Final Frontier - by Roger Slemon

Reviewed by Tom Zuchowski

MAIN PGM Version: 6 Extra Commands: STATUS, HELM, BEAM, COMPUTER, ASSEMBLE Deleted Commands: INVENTORY, READ Special Features: Animated Hi-Res Title screen, space travel simulation; timed deadline to complete quest Playing Time: 2-4 hours Reviewer Rating: 5.0

Description: “Hokas Tokas turns off his futurevision machine and says Eamon Trek is not your ordinary adventure as it is set in the galaxy Eamon with space sectors. Coordinates are in 3-D from 0-20 so that simple mathematics tells you there are over 9000 space rooms!

“But some sectors have stars with habitable planets or space stations. But beware of the Nebuleans. The United Federation of Eamon occupies half the space, the Nebuleans the other half, with the Neutral Zone in the middle.

“Your assignment is to rescue a scientist, Dr. D. Brown, who has been captured by the Nebuleans. You must complete your quest by Star Date 3750. Hokas ushers you into a clear tube where you teleport to the 23rd century.”

Comment: Right off the bat this adventure hits you with a bit of strangeness: it calls itself “Eamon Trek” on the title page and in the intro. This adventure was entered into (and won) the AAA Eamon contest many years ago; Ron Maleika may have changed the name, as he was extremely mindful of not wanting to step on toes.

This is an unabashed clone of Star Trek. Your starship, the Intrepid, is simply laid out in seven rooms, and your crew consists of Sawbones, Scotty, and Mr. Sparks. The space travel mode is fairly clever, the plot develops nicely, and the quest evolves as you travel through space.

Each “planet” consists of 4 or 5 rooms that you beam to and from. The first planet that you visit will be very difficult unless you have seen the Star Trek episode in which Kirk builds a cannon from raw and natural materials.

The game’s basic concept, plot, and space layout is excellent. However, the execution of many details was not well done. You must do an inordinate amount of traipsing about the Intrepid, going to each room for a single function. And the transporter only functions from transporter room to transporter room; nearly one-quarter of the rooms in this 58-room adventure are transporter rooms!

The monsters were not well thought out. Fully 27 of the 34 bad guys have names like “#22”, and the descriptions all read, “YOU SEE A MASSIVE NEBULEAN CENTURION. HE IS TATTOOED #15” And you will find one of these guys in virtually every room on every planet, resulting in seemingly endless replays of the same combat scenario.

The adventure gets high marks for originality and low marks for execution; (5) is the average.

Difficulty is hard to score. When I first played this long ago, I found it childishly simple and gave it a (3) for difficulty. This time around I was unable to complete it without cheating. I had successfully completed every step, yet I was not permitted to beam down to the last planet, and I could not find my error. I don’t know if I missed a subtle clue or if there is a flaw in the code that tracks the sequence of events.

How much you like this one will depend on how much of a Trek fan you are and how well you key on the clues. As I said, this adventure won the AAA Eamon contest, beating “Thror’s Ring”; Ron obviously liked it a lot more than I do.

#172 The Mountain of the Master - by Michael Dalton

Reviewed by Robert Parker

MAIN PGM Version: 4 Extra Commands: RETREAT, ESCAPE, DRINK, WAVE Deleted Commands: NO SAVE Special Features: Hi-Res title screen with music Playing Time: 30-60 min. Reviewer Rating: 5.5
Avg. Rating: 5.2/2

Description: “While relaxing at the tavern one day, a man in black informs you that you are the 16th in line for the throne of the Land of the Sister Mountains. To prove yourself for such honour, you have to rid their countryside of a warlord who calls himself ‘Master’.”

Comment: That about sums it up for the intro, though why they called on number 16 to prove himself for the throne is beyond me. Why not someone a bit closer to number 1, or are you the 16th to try? This particular Eamon has a spot in my heart, as it was the first Eamon I ever played. So I felt I should review it.

It clocks in at about 80 rooms, and most of the descriptions are of the N/S HALLWAY type, which gets used about 19 times, one-quarter of the rooms! Add hallways and bends, and you only have 24 rooms, with only 11 actual rooms. The rest are bridges and caves. There are a fair number of monsters here. The intro warns that this disk is for the strong, but the character I used kicked the Master’s butt in 3 rounds. It’s not a Monty Haul when it comes to treasure, but I still walked away with over 2,000GP.

I had to rate this adventure a 5.5. The over-abundance of N/S hallways coupled with below-par punctuation brought it down. The only thing that kept it at 5.5 was a puzzle, which I don’t want to give away.

#220 Catacombs of Terror - by Phil Schulz

Reviewed by Tom Zuchowski

MAIN PGM Version: 7 Extra Commands: HIRE, DISMISS, THROW, JUMP Deleted Commands: POWER Special Features: Mercenary companions Playing Time: 1 hour Reviewer Rating: 5.0

Description: “The time has come for you to go on yet another adventure in the land of Eamon. After all, you get rather bored sitting around in the Main Hall all day doing nothing but sipping ale and looking at the other poor adventurers who have barely made it back alive.

“There is a cave not far from here which is rumored to be the entrance to some ancient catacombs. Your mission: just find all sorts of valuable treasure. But once you get there, you find that it is not so easy to leave….”

Comment: Phil has come up with some pretty original ideas in this adventure. The potential companions are mercenaries for hire and some are jealous of one another. There’s a gaming room of sorts where you can bet as much as your lives on the outcome, if you desire.

Though there is no clear quest, once you have begun the adventure there is no turning back until you have solved five tests of your mettle. These tests are rather difficult puzzles to solve and require special paraphernalia in most cases. However, Phil has made it easy to temporarily escape from each test in order to scour the catacombs for the stuff you need.

While the tests are tough, they are somewhat alleviated by numerous hints that are scattered all over the place. The companions will offer sage advice–listen to them!

This adventure had plenty of sophisticated and interesting stuff. It would have received a higher rating but for a few inconsistencies of play that didn’t sit just right with me, and the high difficulty of a couple of tests.

I give it a (9) for difficulty, for the puzzles and some tough monsters. Here’s a hint that should lower this number a bit for you: the diamonds are important.

Eamon Adventure Listing