daroloso@watmath.waterloo.edu (Dani A. Roloson) (06/28/91)
KWEST, the Kitchener-Waterloo Eight Sixteen Thirty-two Atari user group,
holds its ST or 16-bit meeting on the second Wednesday of every month
in the DCS Course Room, Room 2009 which is on the 2nd floor
of the Math & Computer Building at the University of Waterloo.
Room opens at 7:00 pm. Meeting starts at 7:30 pm.
The next meetings are Wednesday, July 10, August 14, and September 11, 1991.
The first meeting is free.
Membership is $15 a year and is a family membership.
Our freeware/shareware library currently has over 215 disks and each member
gets a catalog disk which can be traded in for an update.
We sell copies of the library disks and the Disk-of-the-Month for $2 each.
We also have a newsletter "The Hard Copy" (I'm the editor) and distribute
AtariUser free to our members.
Below is the topic of our next meeting. August will be a Games/Library Night.
Dani Roloson
579-3695
----------------
Topic for ST meeting on Wednesday, July 10, 1991
TADS: The Text Adventure Development System
From: Dani A. Roloson
If you're interested in creating Infocom-like text-only adventures on your home
computer, TADS is a great start.
The package does all the parsing and defines most of the common adventure
verbs and item types in editable include files.
TADS is a shareware object-oriented programming tool for the Atari ST,
Macintosh, and IBM PC Compatible (MS-DOS/PC-DOS) which is available from
High Energy Software, P.O. Box 50422, Palo Alto, CA 94303.
(Atari users can try out the version available from the KWEST library.)
For my $25 US, I got the TADS Author's Manual, a sample game, updated versions
of the include files and programs, and a tool for combining
the game runner and game into a single file.
I am pleased with the quality of the manual, the response to the question I
asked with my payment, and the complexity and flexibility that
the package allows.
I would like to get together with other TADS users even on different platforms
since a game written for the Atari can be compiled on all three systems.
Sample simple adventure:
************************
#include <adv.t>
#include <std.t>
fireVerb: deepverb
verb = 'fire' 'shoot' 'blast'
sdesc = "fire"
doAction = 'Fire'
;
/* This is where you start the game. */
startroom: room
sdesc = "Hallway"
ldesc = "You are in the hallway. There is an room to the east. "
east = engineroom
;
engineroom: room
sdesc = "Engine Room"
ldesc = "You are in the engine room. The only exit is to the west. "
west = startroom
;
/* The engine can not be taken since it is a fixed item. */
engine: fixeditem
sdesc = "diesel engine"
ldesc = "It's an old-fashioned diesel engine. You can't imagine how it
runs this spaceship. "
location = engineroom
noun = 'engine'
adjective = 'diesel' 'old-fashioned' 'spaceship'
;
/* The slime gun starts out in your possession. */
slimegun: item
shotsleft = 6
sdesc = "slime gun"
ldesc = "It's standard equipment in the Denebian Space Patrol. "
location = Me
noun = 'gun' 'pistol' 'blaster'
adjective = 'slime' 'space' 'denebian'
/* Don't allow the gun to be dropped. */
/* ver = verify, do = direct object */
verDoDrop( actor ) =
{
"You can't leave the gun here. ";
}
/* Allow the gun to be fired if you still have slime. */
verDoFire( actor ) =
{
if ( self.shotsleft < 1 )
{
"No more slime left.";
}
}
doFire( actor ) =
{
/* Decrement number of shots left. */
self.shotsleft := self.shotsleft - 1;
/* If I'm not in the engine room */
if ( Me.location <> engineroom )
{
"You get slime all over yourself.";
}
else
{
"The slime clogs up the engine and the spaceship explodes.";
die();
}
}
;
Dani Roloson
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>From the TADS manual (please read carefully):
(Like all TADS limits, this can be changed at compile-time with user-specified
compiler options; of course, string space is also limited by the amount of
computer in your memory, which you unfortunately cannot change with compiler
options.