NAME

       battlestar — a tropical adventure game

SYNOPSIS

       battlestar [-r] [saved-file]

DESCRIPTION

       battlestar is an adventure game in the classic style.  However, it's slightly less of a puzzle and more a
       game  of exploration.  There are a few magical words in the game, but on the whole, simple English should
       suffice to make one's desires understandable to the parser.

THE SETTING

       In the days before the darkness came, when battlestars ruled the heavens...

             Three He made and gave them to His daughters,
             Beautiful nymphs, the goddesses of the waters.
             One to bring good luck and simple feats of wonder,
             Two to wash the lands and churn the waves asunder,
             Three to rule the world and purge the skies with thunder.

       In those times great wizards were known and their powers were beyond belief.  They could take any  object
       from thin air, and, uttering the word ‘su’ could disappear.

       In  those times men were known for their lust for gold and desire to wear fine weapons.  Swords and coats
       of mail were fashioned that could withstand a laser blast.

       But when the darkness fell, the rightful reigns were toppled.  Swords and helms and heads of  state  went
       rolling across the grass.  The entire fleet of battlestars was reduced to a single ship.

SAMPLE COMMANDS

             take    ---     take an object
             drop    ---     drop an object

             wear    ---     wear an object you are holding
             draw    ---     carry an object you are wearing

             put on  ---     take an object and wear it
             take off --     draw an object and drop it

             throw  <object> <direction>

             !       <shell esc>

IMPLIED OBJECTS

             >-: take watermelon
             watermelon:
             Taken.
             >-: eat
             watermelon:
             Eaten.
             >-: take knife and sword and apple, drop all
             knife:
             Taken.
             broadsword:
             Taken.
             apple:
             Taken.
             knife:
             Dropped.
             broadsword:
             Dropped.
             apple:
             Dropped.
             >-: get
             knife:
             Taken.

       Notice  that  the  "shadow"  of the next word stays around if you want to take advantage of it.  That is,
       saying "take knife" and then "drop" will drop the knife you just took.

SCORE & INVEN

       The two commands “score” and “inven” will print out your current status in the game.

SAVING A GAME

       The command “save” will save your game in a file called .Bstar in your home directory  by  default.   You
       can  recover a saved game by using the -r option when you start up the game, or by giving the name of the
       saved file as an argument.  Save files will be saved to and restored from your home  directory  unless  a
       path  is  specified - i.e., “battlestar -r savedgame” will look for savedgame in your home directory, but
       “battlestar -r ./savedgame” will look in the current  directory.   “battlestar  -r”  will  look  for  the
       default file, .Bstar in your home directory.

DIRECTIONS

       The  compass  directions  N, S, E, and W can be used if you have a compass.  If you don't have a compass,
       you'll have to say R, L, A, or B, which stand for Right, Left, Ahead, and Back.   Directions  printed  in
       room descriptions are always printed in R, L, A, and B relative directions.

HISTORY

       I  wrote Battlestar in 1979 in order to experiment with the niceties of the C Language.  Most interesting
       things that happen in the game are hardwired into the code, so don't send me  any  hate  mail  about  it!
       Instead, enjoy art for art's sake!

AUTHOR

       David Riggle

INSPIRATION & ASSISTANCE

       Chris Guthrie
       Peter Da Silva
       Kevin Brown
       Edward Wang
       Ken Arnold & Company

BUGS

       Countless.

FAN MAIL

       Send to edward%ucbarpa@berkeley.arpa, chris%ucbcory@berkeley.arpa, riggle.pa@xerox.arpa.

Debian                                          September 7, 2000                                  BATTLESTAR(6)