Eamon Adventurers Guild
December 1994
The Eamon Adventurers Guild
December 1994
News and Stuff
Those of you who are online all know by now that America Online kicked all the Apple II users off on November 1st and is now Mac and Windows only.
WE HAVE NOT BEEN ABANDONED. The A2 Roundtable on GEnie is still very active. Unlike AOL, GEnie management continues to be very friendly towards Apple II users and has given all the support we have needed for designing front-end software and offline navigators. If you are starting to feel like an orphan, get on GEnie!
To use GEnie, you need a modem and any telecom program. The best ones are ProTERM 3.1, Spectrum or Talk Is Cheap. It’s my opinion that ProTERM is the finest telecom program ever written for any computer, but many GS users prefer a true GSOS program like Spectrum. Talk Is Cheap isn’t as good as these two, but it has the virtue of being the cheapest decent program to buy.
All of the above programs require a minimum of a GS, IIc, or enhanced 128K IIe. If you have a II+ or 64K/unenhanced IIe, you will want to use the telecom program Modem MGR. This is an excellent program and an excellent choice for anyone with only 5.25 drives. I should also note here that you will need a minimum of two 5.25 drives to do anything worthwhile online. A 3.5 drive or hard drive is better, of course.
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Eamonaut of the Month goes to Phil Schulz, for his Eamon review and bug reports. Phil gets any 6 Eamons of his choice.
EAMON ADVENTURER'S GUILD
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New Adventures
SD152 Banana Republic by Sam Ruby
Another Softdisk Eamon from Sam, this one is not to be missed! It actually came out a few months ago, but I neglected to add it to the list.
Letters
I’ve upgraded to a IIc, and now have two working Disk ][ drives and a disk controller to get rid of. I would like to find a good home for them among my Eamon friends. I’d like to sell the drives for $40 each and $7 for the card, or $80 for the entire lot (I pay shipping). I will sell to the best offer received. Henry Haskell
When bug fixes are made to the DDD MAIN PGM, are they made to all already existing adventures? If not, I think it would be a good idea to print some sort of note to this effect if any more DDD MAIN PGM bugs are fixed, telling which Eamons are affected. Phil Schulz
No changes are made to existing Eamons when a fix is made to the DDD. It would be a nightmare to fix and test dozens of Eamons, and would require a separate bug fix/report for each one, especially since the vast majority of DDD bugs are non-fatal. That’s not a bad idea about pointing out the need for bug fixes in similar adventures, but the Eamon listing already shows what version every Eamon is. It is trivial for anyone to scan the list for v7 Eamons that would need the same fix that goes into the v7.1 DDD, for example.
TomZ
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Why don’t you offer a subscription longer than one year? Would you accept $40 for a ten-year subscription? Also, is Computist still being published? The last one I got was issue #89 in late 1993. Dan Carman
You are welcome to send in extra money for a multi-year EAG membership. Many people do this. However, the EAG’s financial picture is different from that of a real magazine, and I cannot offer multi-year discounts. I intend to explain this in more detail in the March issue as part of the annual financial statement.
You know as much about the current status of Computist as I do. It seems that an issue still comes out sporadically, but I haven’t seen one for quite a while, myself.
TomZ
Dungeon Designs
CORRECTION: The DEC’90 article on how to make a 10-direction had a bug in the small program that modifies EAMON.NAME. Here is the correct program:
10 D$ = CHR$(4) 20 PRINT D$"OPEN EAMON\.NAME" 30 PRINT D$"READ EAMON\.NAME" 40 INPUT AN$: INPUT ND$: INPUT DV$ 50 PRINT D$"CLOSE" 60 PRINT D$"OPEN EAMON\.NAME" 70 PRINT D$"WRITE EAMON\.NAME" 80 PRINT AN$: PRINT "10": PRINT DV$ 90 PRINT D$"CLOSE"
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A Tour of the MAIN PGM 7.1 (Part II)
7000-7370 ATTACK routine 7010 check for Ready Weapon, abort if none 7020 check to see if object of attack is named; search for match to monster; if match proceed to line 7300 7030 check to see if object of attack is an artifact in the room; if no match then abort to print error message at 94 7040-7080 perform attack on artifact 7040 if object is not door or container then abort attack; exit routine 7050 set “dice” and “sides” to weapon stats; if attacking through BLAST spell then set “dice” to 2 and “sides” to 5 7060 set up database variables for door; if object is container then set variables for container 7070 perform attack on object; if object strength is reduced to zero then print SHATTERS message and open it 7075 if object is hidden door then unhide it 7080 print WHAM!!! message
7300-7370 perform attack on monster 7300 define attacker (OF) and defender (DF); proceed to DO BATTLE routine 7310 if successful hit then check to see if weapon ability should be increased; increase weapon ability 7360 if defender was enemy or self then exit to PICK FOE routine 7370 if defender was friend or neutral then calculate whether alignment changes and update group totals; exit to PICK FOE
7400-7450 MONSTER PICKS UP WEAPON subroutine 7410 find artifact number of weapon that monster had dropped; if available then go to 7440 7420 search room for available weapons; identify best weapon found 7440 if weapon found then pick up and assign as monster’s ready weapon 7450 exit to calling routine by way of screen pause check
7500-7900 DO BATTLE routine 7505 reset “Hit” flag; set W to Artifact number of attacker’s weapon; if no weapon then go to PICKS UP WEAPON routine 7507 compute percent odds of scoring hit (WM) 7510 select correct attack verb. Print attack 7511 check line count; generate random number RL in 1-100 range; if RL is less than 5 or the computed odds WM and also less than 97 (3% chance of fumble) then set Hit flag and proceed to damage computation 7515 if defender is carrying a real weapon then set A2 to weapon type, or set to 0 if natural weapon 7520 if RL < 97 or the attacker is using natural weapons, then print a “Miss” verb and exit through screen pause routine (97% chance) 7525 print “A FUMBLE” (3% chance) and generate random number R; if R < 41 (40% chance) then print FUMBLE RECOVERED and exit through screen pause routine 7530 if R < 81 (40% chance) then drop attacker’s weapon; adjust Weight Carried; put weapon in Room; set attacker’s weapon to None; exit through screen pause routine 7532 if attacker’s weapon is magical then print SPARKS FLY message and exit through screen pause routine 7535 if R > 95 then proceed to WEAPON HITS USER (5% chance) 7537 if R < 91 (90% chance) then print WEAPON DAMAGED and lower weapon sides by 1; if sides is greater than zero then exit through screen pause routine 7540 if sides equals zero then print WEAPON BROKEN; lower Weight Carried by weapon weight; set weapon location to zero; set weapon carried to None; generate random number; if more than .5 then exit through screen pause routine (50% chance) 7545 print WEAPON HITS USER; check screen pause; set DF to attacker for damage computation; proceed to damage computation unless R = 100 then proceed to WELL STRUCK computation
7600 if player is attacker then compute possible increase in weapon and armor expertise 7605 set Dice and Sides to monster’s stats; if carrying weapon then use weapon stats 7607 set Defender’s armor factor to 1; Print “** A HIT” if defender is player or “++ A HIT” if monster; if RL > 5 then proceed to damage computation (95% chance)
7610 print WELL STRUCK! (5% chance); check screen pause; generate random number R2; if R2 < 51 then set Defender’s armor factor to zero (50% chance); proceed to damage computation 7615 set RL to 1.5 (35% chance); if R2 > 85 then set RL to 2 (10% chance) 7620 if R2 > 95 then set RL to 3 (4% chance) 7625 if R2 = 100 then set RL to Defender’s Hardiness (a sure Death Blow; 1% chance) 7630 multiply Sides by RL to increase damage
7633 check for screen pause; compute hit damage D2; reduce D2 by defender’s armor multiplied by armor factor set in 7607-7610; if D2 is not positive number then no damage; if defender not wearing armor then print BLOW TURNED and exit through screen pause routine 7635 if D2 is not positive then print BLOW BOUNCES OFF ARMOR; exit through screen pause routine 7636 print blank line 7637 check for screen pause; if defender is multiple-monster then print ONE 7638 print monster’s name and IS 7640 compute hit damage to defender and defender’s room-group total; if hits equal or exceed defender hardiness then proceed to MONSTER DIES routine
7650 proceed to appropriate damage report 7652-7675 damage reports; exit through screen pause routine
7700 MONSTER DIES routine 7710 print DEAD!; remove dead monster from room group total; if multiple-monster then reduce monster count by one and set hits to zero for next member of multiple-monster and exit through screen pause routine 7720 remove dead monster from room; if multiple-monster then reset total to original value; place all artifacts carried by dead monster in room 7730 set dead monster’s weapon to None 7735 inactive line that is used for optional dead bodies; if activated, places dead monster’s body artifact in room 7740 if Defender is player then set DIe flag; remove DO BATTLE subroutine from stack with POP; proceed to DONE routine 7750 if room group hits equals or exceeds room group hardiness then all foes have been killed; reset group hardiness to zero to indicate there are no hostiles in room 7900 exit through screen pause routine
8000 FLEE routine 8010 if no hostiles in room then print NOTHING TO FLEE FROM and exit to YOU SEE routine 8020 if no exits then print NO PLACE TO GO and exit to YOU SEE routine 8030 if no direction specified to flee to then proceed to flee in random direction 8040 find direction specified 8050 proceed to MOVE routine 8500 find random direction to flee 8510 proceed to GO routine
9000-9900 GIVE routine 9010 run object through PARSE routine to see if it parses into full command (GIVE XX TO YY) 9040 if not full command then ask GIVE WHAT? 9050 if artifact given has no numeric value, then it’s not gold; check to see if is carried by player; if not, then exit through error message at 91 9060 if not full command, then ask TO WHOM? 9070 check to see if named monster is in room; if not, exit through error message at 96 9080 print OKAY; if gold is being given then proceed to GOLD routine 9090 if artifact is player’s weapon then mark player as unarmed 9095 if artifact is drinkable and monster is wounded and artifact has swallows left and is open then proceed to MONSTER HEAL routine 9100 reduce weight carried by weight of artifact given; mark artifact as carried by monster it was given to 9110 if monster was unarmed and artifact is weapon then mark artifact as monster’s ready weapon 9115 if monster not Friendly then redefine monster’s original potential Friendliness in terms of artifact’s value 9120 reassess monster’s Friendliness; jump into DROP routine to check for effects on player of losing artifact
9300-9320 GIVE POTION/HEAL MONSTER routine 9300 print that monster drinks and returns artifact to player; check for screen pause; if not Friendly then redefine monster’s potential friendliness; reduce “swallows left” by one 9320 heal/poison monster; print health report; return to GIVE routine
9500-9550 GIVE GOLD routine 9500 find amount of gold to be given; if more than player carries then exit through error message at 91 9540 reduce player’s gold; redefine monster’s potential Friendliness in terms of amount of gold given 9550 return to GIVE routine
9800-9820 PARSE routine 9810 try to break command object into artifact and monster names (eg: GIVE XX TO YY will break into artifact XX and monster YY) 9820 return to calling routine
10000-10150 INVENTORY routine
10010 if no object named then inventory self
10020 if no light then abort to YOU SEE routine
10030 search for match to monster name; if no match then abort to error message
10040 If named monster is not Friend then exit through SMILE routine to give response
10050 set X to location of named monster’s stuff and jump to do inventory
10060 search for worn artifacts; if none found then bypass “worn” code
10070 print “IS WEARING” line and check for screen pause
10080 print worn artifact name
10090 check for more; set X to location of player’s stuff
10100 print “IS CARRYING” line and check for screen pause
10110 search for carried artifacts; if none found then skip to “(NOTHING)” line
10120 print artifact name; if ready weapon then print “(READY WEAPON)”
10130 check for screen pause; check for more; if no artifacts were found then print “(NOTHING)”; check for screen pause
10140 if player being inventoried then print gold; check for screen pause; print player’s health condition
10150 exit to PICK FOE routine
11000-11050 BLAST routine 11010 set S to BLAST; go execute spellcast; check if spell object is named; search for match to monster name; if no match then proceed to ATTACK routine to try for artifact match 11050 print DIRECT HIT message; increment line counter; set “sides” to 5 and “dice” to 2; use code in DO BATTLE routine to compute and print hit damage; exit to PICK FOE routine
11500-11540 SPELLCAST subroutine 11500 if player has ability for cast spell, use random number RL to determine result 11505 if RL = 100 (1% chance) then print SPELL BACKLASH! message; diminish current spell ability by 90%; exit through screen pause check to PICK FOE routine
11510 if spellcast unsuccessful, then print NOTHING HAPPENED message and exit through screen pause to PICK FOE routine 11520 use random number to determine if permanent spell ability is increased by 2 11530 diminish current spell ability by 20% 11540 exit to calling spell routine
Bugs’n’Fixes
Dungeon Designer Diskette 7.1 Date Fixed: 11/14/94
Problem: DDD manual incorrectly lists artifact fields. Fix: In the listing of Artifact Formats, change Format 1: 5-Complexity 6-Weapon Type
Problem: Critical Hit not correctly calculated Fix: 7615 RL = 1.5: IF R2 > 85 THEN RL = 2 7620 IF R2 > 95 THEN RL = 3 7625 IF R2 = 100 THEN RL = M%(DF,1)
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#206 Curse of the Hellsblade Date Fixed: 11/14/94
Problem: Magic word can work at wrong time.
Fix: In Line 16020,
change IF S$
to IF RO = 64 THEN IF S$
Adventure Reviews
#80 The Search for the Key by Donald Brown
Reviewed by Tom Zuchowski
MAIN PGM Version: 4.0 Extra Commands: Deleted Commands: no SAVE Special Features: None Playing Time: 15 min. Reviewer Rating: 4.0 Average Rating: 4.2/4
Description: You have been selected by the king to rescue several high officials who were kidnapped last week. The king’s warlock has devised a plan that should make your job fairly easy. However, for it to succeed, you must first possess the fabled Key of Molinar. The key is a magical teleportation device.
No one knows where the key currently lies. The warlock has a spell that will teleport you to the Key’s vicinity. You are advised to get the key as soon as possible, and use it to return.
Comment: This Eamon is the first part of a two-part adventure. Eamon #81 is Part Two. This was the very first two-disk Eamon, and the NEUC mistakenly assigned a number to each disk. This was also originally something called a “Tournament Eamon”. I have never seen the Tournament version and don’t know what was involved. I assume that it incorporated some kind of scoring system for competitive play. John Nelson converted it to a normal Eamon back in 1984.
This can be played without Eamon #81, but you cannot return to the Main Hall at the end, since it exits to #81 only. I don’t recommend playing this Eamon without #81.
This is one of the shortest, easiest Eamons in the list, with 26 Rooms and 7 Monsters. There are no puzzles or hidden passages. Just run through the rooms, find the Key, and teleport out. I give it a Difficulty rating of (2). ____________
#81 The Rescue Mission by Donald Brown
Reviewed by Tom Zuchowski
MAIN PGM Version: 4.0
Extra Commands: OPEN
Special Features: no SAVE
Special Features: None
Playing Time: 1 hour
Reviewer Rating: 6.0
Average Rating: 6.7/3
Description: “You are now ready to rescue the kidnapped officials. Again, the warlock does not know where they are, but he can and will teleport you there.
“You will be carrying a lantern and the Key of Molinar, in addition to your weapons. You can teleport yourself or a friendly person home by saying their name.”
Comment: This Eamon is Part Two of a two-part adventure. Eamon #80 is Part One. It would be very nice if we could reassign these two Eamons to a single number, but they have been listed separately for 10 years now.
The proper way to play this Eamon is by entering it from Eamon #80, but it was modified in 1989 so it can be played from the Main Hall also.
The 53-Room map is a simple collection of uninteresting corridors and cells, and the bad guys nearly all have names like GOON19. There is a large group of people to rescue who are spread all through the map. You will enjoy the play the most if you try to envision the original “tournament” objectives and try to rescue as many as you can, as quickly as you can. I also recommend playing the two Eamons in one sitting, as originally intended.
Except for killing umpteen goons, there isn’t a lot to do or solve here, so it gets a difficulty rating of (4) from me. One hint: there’s no need to wait to teleport the prisoners home. ____________
#206 Curse of the Hellsblade by John Nelson and Tom Zuchowski
Reviewed by Phil Schulz
MAIN PGM Version: 7.0 Extra Commands: None
Special Features: None Playing Time: 1-2 hours Reviewer Rating: 7.5
Description: “It happened one day that you chanced upon a wondrous sword of black metal. This sword had a marvelous edge that did not dull, and it sang eerie melodies as you tested its edge against nearby saplings. But you cannot put it down! The most you can do is pass it to your left hand to free your right for other weapons.
“Later you met with some friends. One of them recognized it as a weapon of Hell, and told you of a cave that is reputed to hold the key to lift its curse. You listened closely as he told you how to find it.
“Still it is a marvelous sword, and you could do worse than to be saddled with such an obviously magical blade. The sword began its strange song as you prepared to demonstrate it for your friends. You felt a tremendous surge of strength as you severed a 6-inch limb with one blow!
“And then, even before you knew what was happening, you swung about, and you watched in horror as the sword slew all of your friends! Its song grew deeper and stronger as it tasted the blood of each. You realized then that this blade is more than just cursed, but must be possessed by a demon.
“It’s plain that the sword is stronger than you, and if it drinks much more blood it will control you completely. Apart from that, it simply won’t do to go about slaying everyone that you meet. Without a doubt, you must find that cave and rid yourself of the curse of this Hellsblade.”
Comment: I should start out by mentioning how this Eamon came to be. It was originally designed by John Nelson for his “KnightQuest” system, which was supposed to be a sort of “Super-Eamon”, but because of memory limitations of the Apple II was never finished. The only reason this was important is that the version 7 Eamon does not support a couple of things that were in this adventure to begin with, which made conversion to Eamon a bit more difficult, so I kept this in mind when reviewing it.
Anyway, I liked this one a lot. It has a clean, coherent map that wasn’t too simple yet not so insanely dense that it was easy enough to map. There are a couple of unmarked secret passages that can only be found by going in that direction. When this was originally written, version 7 did not exist yet, and older adventures supported finding secret passages by LOOKing in the room. This is not a big deal, but this sort of unmarked passage really irritates me when I try to EXAMINE everything in the room, and when I don’t find anything, I ignore it, only to be forced to come back later and finally figure out that there is a passage there.
(Author’s Response: I must say in my defense that every room with a hidden passage had a clue in the room description, and the room name had the unusual “feature” of not listing the exits in the usual way. Even so, EXAMINE should have revealed the passages, for consistency. TomZ)
There is not a huge amount of combat here. There are a couple of tough monsters, but I didn’t have much trouble getting by with a slightly “above average” character. I actually prefer this to having lots and lots of easy monsters that can be killed with one shot– it makes play a lot less tedious. I’m not a huge “hack’n’slash” fan, but I do like a decent amount of combat. Not a lot of puzzling, either, but there were a couple I had to think about for a minute before I got by them.
I put the difficulty at about (6). It is a fun play that does not wind up requiring lots of play-through before you finally complete it. I won on my third try.
Softdisk #152 Banana Republic by Sam Ruby
Reviewed by Tom Zuchowski
MAIN PGM Version: 7 (heavily modified) Extra Commands: ENTER, BUY, SELL, TALK, HOLD, SEARCH, RESUME, QUIT Deleted Commands: BLAST, POWER, SPEED, Extra Commands:-3 hours Reviewer Rating: 9.0
Description: “While searching for treasure, you were surprised by an evil conjuror and his warriors. In the ensuing battle, you managed to break both your swords and lose your shield to a conjured Fire Giant. Faced with imminent demise, you pulled out a little talisman that is your only remaining hope, and spoke the magic word.
“Suddenly you were falling! You prepared for the inevitable thud but all you got was a SQUISH! You landed in…what? Bananas? BANANAS! The next thing you heard was an alarm being raised. The next thing you saw were the soldiers…
“You find yourself under arrest for Trespassing – and ‘Destroying Magic Bananas’. They’ve got to be kidding! Finally you are taken to the leader, who says: ‘The Banana Republic is facing its darkest hour. Once we were the most powerful and important nation on this continent, but now we face destruction from our enemies.
“‘Our stores of magic bananas have, until now, kept the balance of power in our favor. But our enemies have started their own biological weapons programs. We have developed a new crop of extremely powerful bananas, but the seeds have been stolen by the four powers that oppose us.
“‘In our orchards is an ancient tree that bears a single Time/Space Displacement banana that can return you to your own world. Return our seeds, and we will give it to you.’
“‘Right,’ you say, ‘I’m on the job. For starters, I’ll need some string, a Holocaust Cloak, a wheelbarrow, and…’”
Comment: Well, of course you don’t get anything that you ask for. But the Pres does start you out with a sword, some fragmentation bananas and a sling to throw them with. From there, you are on your own (as usual!). It should go without saying that the above description is shortened from Sam’s original.
This Eamon is a Softdisk sequel to Sam’s very excellent “Redemption” that Softdisk published a year earlier. Though it only has 49 Rooms, it encompasses an astonishing range of interesting stuff to keep you entertained for the hours you will be playing.
“Banana Republic” is quite a bit simpler than “Redemption”, and is perhaps the simplest top-quality Eamon that Sam has ever done. Once again, you must use the TALK command to discover things you need to know. From there, you must solve a succession of small puzzles and battle quite a few imposing enemies before you finally recover all of the seeds. It is not as deeply interlocked as many of Sam’s top Eamons, and a careful selection among the many special-purpose bananas will be very helpful in dispatching the bad guys. It is fairly forgiving and has an excellent SAVE command. Between the smallish, symmetrical map and the logical layout, I found it easy to play with no paper map and few notes.
It requires an 80-column display, and probably won’t work on a II+ without some modification. Softdisk assumes that you have 128K; though the adventure doesn’t itself require 128K, you may find that other Softdisk features won’t work on 64K machines.
Like all of Sam’s best stuff, this is not an Eamon to be missed. I found the play to be much fun and very relaxing, and highly recommend it to puzzlers and hack’n’slashers alike. I give it a (7) for difficulty.This Eamon adventure is commercial software. You can not obtain it from the public domain but must buy it from Softdisk. Non-subscribers can purchase it for $12.95 + $1.50 S&H. Ask for Softdisk issue #152.
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