     |
| YS Adventures | ||
In Runestone, the Book of Zarimir is on an island in the great lakes, and the Runestone itself is... oh, excuse I, possums, while I turn my keyboard back to front... TENT S'REDNOMORUAS NI TSEHC NI. In Doomdark's Revenge, don't go looking for Shareth as she will come for you after about 12 to 13 days. (Promise?) If in serious trouble you can hide in the pits underground as Shareth won't pursue you. The Crown of Varend, when used by Luxor, will call all his armies together. To get started on Enigma Force, equip the team with ammo and the fish in location one, and take any ammo, bombs or fish if you come across them in the game. Trevor says he'll help anyone out on any of the following games as he's got through each of them more than once: Lords Of Midnight, Doomdark's Revenge, Dragontorc, Boggit, Erik The Viking, Fairlight, Lord Of The Rings I, Enigma Force, Shadowfire and Dan Dare. In return, he'd welcome help on Fairlight II, Lord Of The Rings II and Sorderon's Shadow, where he says he's totally stuck, "especially with the vocabulary". I'm not surprised! Most mags seem to miss addresses out completely when putting in pleas for help, so I'm not sure how you're meant to write to the people to answer their problems. [This website misses out addresses because 1) They'd be out of date, and 2) These people probably don't want to be contacted anymore, and 3) How would you react today if someone asked you where he could find the Magic Ring? – NickH] Thurstan Felstead writes to me from Ruislip with some tips on getting started in that b@!*!$ of a game, Rigel's Revenge. That's the one written by Smart Egg Software, who must call themselves that because their adventures scramble your brains. Or is it because you can't beat them? Or they're full of yolks? Anyway, for all you hard-boiled adventurers out there who've shelled out for Rigel's Revenge and can't even start the game because of the darkness... read the intro screens! Then SELGGOG DNIF. Searching for a satchel? YDOB ENIMAXE. Can't avoid those deadly bullets by the barricade? NWOD OG, Can't escape from the fiat? Well Thurstan's way of escape involves 30 commands, and I'm not writing that lot backwards, forwards or anywards. You can do it in fewer moves than that, but it's still a long complicated process involving force, timing, bending and buttons. Matthew 'Totally Disgusted' McColley was just plain Matthew McColley of Shropshire till he bought a copy of Play It Again, Sam. He reckons that a constipated rabbit could program a better adventure. Wonder how he knows? He says that apart from being littered with bugs, you could have your Sunday joint twice over before you get a response. One of Matthew's complaints is that "After you've got the envelope which Gloria Guest gives you, and you've read the address, you catch a taxi. After about an hour of trying to find the command which the driver will accept, you eventually hit upon the right one. Then the driver says, 'I don't know where that is,' and after about another ten minute wait he says, 'Just sit back while I take you through the run-down old towns, and you finally reach your destination." Another minor irritation of Matthew's is that when you die you're asked if you want to PLAY IT AGAIN, SAM? Whether you type in 'Y' or 'N' will still start the game over, so why bother asking? I agree! D. Nuttall of Dover has written to me "as a last desperate effort". I'm not sure whether that's a compliment or an insult. Whatever, the problem occurs in the library in The Big Sleaze. where Mr Nuttall says he can't get any clues or information from anywhere in the library or from the librarian. The answer: HCNIFLLUB NAIRARBIL OT REPSIHW - and you'd have got the answer quicker if you'd enclosed a sae, or even eas. Tim or Jim MacFarlane wants some help from any GAC hackers out there who might be able to tell him how to find out the length and start address of a runnable adventure, and also a program to find out the start address and length of a machine code block. Maybe you missed the November issue of YS (your own loss, get a back issue) in which Jim Logan of Glasgow told us that the starting address of a GAC data file is 42271, and the length is 23194 (the number of bytes free when GAC is loaded). From GAC to PAW and some help wanted by Sean Doran, Belfast, Northern Ireland. Sean's a pretty nifty graphics artist (well he's nifty, don't know about pretty), whose work you might have seen on the loading screens for John Wilson's adventures, and in some of the adventure fanzines. Sean is now writing an adventure on PAW and wants... oh, but he can tell you himself: "I'm looking for someone who could advise/help me out with the paging system the 128K PAW uses. The booklets are very unhelpful in that respect, and I really need help. If the volunteer would also like to give a helping hand with the coding then great!" Sean's also involved in the production of a fantasy fanzine called Fantasy Unlimited, which covers computing, PBM, role-playing, comic strips, stories and so on. Still on utilities, and a letter from Lee Hodgson of the Essential Myth programming team who GAC'd The Book of The Dead but then switched to PAW for its newie, Jekyll And Hyde, which you might have read about somewhere recently. Lee says: "When we sat down to write the game we had never even seen The Quill and only had PAW for a couple of weeks before starting the coding. It really is very easy to use, but I think its name will put a lot of 'amateur' writers off. This is a shame because all writers will benefit from the varied layout, fonts and so on which can be obtained with PAW. The 'External' command is also extremely useful and easy to use for the bits PAW can't handle. I would say to anyone that if they can use Quill proficiently and they want to write the best games they can, then buy the PAW." Offering his services (free!) as a loader writer to anyone interested is Graham Collier, Bath, Avon. Just let this Batty poker (so to speak) know what your requirements are. H. Light Jnr (Hi, Junior!) of Buxton kindly sends me about the first 3000 commands you type in when you start that Journey To The Centre Of Eddie Smith's Head, but I don't have space to reprint them all. Let's make do with the advice that to get the cat just type HELP in the computer shop and follow the directions. As to your question about buying games from mail order ads several months after the ads have appeared, I'd certainly write first to see if the game you want is still in stock. Some mail order companies have been known to disappear in that length of time, too! Next a simple but effective tip from Ben Fullerton of Exminster, who's been playing Bored Of The Rings but hasn't solved it yet. Despite that, he's been enjoying reading the bonus 'Sceptical' program by typing in any old password when prompted. The machine renews itself, but then you just LOAD "" the normal loader and 'Sceptical' loads. Jonathan Marshall of Ealing is a right dodgy geezer who admits to having a criminal bent. A criminal bent what? Whatever it is, Jonathan's gone on to present his queries to me. (Stop sniggering at the back there!) In Dodgy Geezers, the Marshall of Ealing asks if he should take the pickaxe at the building site or do something else. EXA EHT EKAT. How to get into the night-club? Any Marx Brothers fan will be able to guess the password, but for those few unfortunate people who aren't, you can always SEHCTAM FO XOB ENIMAXE. "Am I right in assuming that Cracker should be left alone?" SREKCARC S'EH SEY. "Am I right in thinking that there are lots of useless locations?" ESRATRAMS, SEY, Finally, Jonathan says thanks to Peter Bates of Leeds for help on various adventures. Right, attention! Can anyone help sort out a major problem? The Major in question is Major Beardwell, and the problem is in a very old Mikro-Gen adventure, Genesis II. What is the combination to the safe? The clue 'The name of your computer might help' doesn't seem to be very useful. Answers to the Major, please. Right... dis-miss!
|
