Help for the newbie.

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Newbie Help for Interactive Fiction.

If you’ve never played a text based game before, you’re probably feeling a little lost. This sort of game is nothing but text, hence the name; you enter commands by typing text, and read the results in text. In a perfect world, the game would understand what you mean and just do it. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a super computer, team of computer scientists, and 3.7 billion dollar budget to implement a true natural language processor. The game will only react to commands that are worded the way it was programmed to accept.

This file will show you the sort of commands that you can use, and how to use them. It will do this by walking you through the first part of my game “Ghost Hunter,” which I hope will be more fun than a dry explanation. Any line that begins with a greater than character (>) is a command; everything else is either game output, or my comments.

HTML TADS - A multimedia TADS 2.5.5 Interpreter.

Visit the author's website: http://brotherbrad.net

Type 'commands' for a list of commands that are specific to this game.

Trust me; it won’t take that long, and you really really want to know these commands.

On the one hand, you really needed the money; but on the other hand, you didn't like that job, and now you have time to pursue your true passion.

investigating the paranormal.

Ghost Hunter

by Brad Barton

You had told your fellow ghost hunters that you wouldn't be able to join them on the big trip. You had far too much to do at work. That's no longer true. Though worried about your future, you are still certain that you can at least afford this one little trip.

You pack a bag and pick up the phone to see if you can still catch them before they leave when a mist rises up around you, and you suddenly find yourself somewhere else.

When you first start the game, you get the opening screen; it tells you that you are running a TADS interpreter. TADS is an acronym for “Text Adventure Development System.” It’s a free program written by Michael J. Roberts that you can use to create your own interactive fiction. Once you’ve done that minor chore, anyone with a TADS interpreter can play your game. I’ve made a stand alone executable, but was only able to do that for windows. Sadly this means that anyone not running with Microsoft has to find an interpreter for their own operating system. There’s a link on my main games page to help you find one if you don’t have it already. You can also play “Ghost Hunter” online. All you need is a java enabled browser.

http://brotherbrad.net/games

You can also go to the TADS home page to find more information on the TADS system and text adventures, or find out where you can download the interpreter or author’s kit.

http://www.tads.org

Note that you cannot write a new game with the interpreter. For that, you’ll need the full TADS author’s kit.

small room

This small room, with its bare wooden walls has an air of long neglect. A small window set in the northern wall let's in a shaft of sunlight which highlights the dust in a swirling dance of light. On the wall is a framed photograph. A wooden table is under the window and to the south is a dimly lit hallway.

You see a hand truck here. Sitting on the wooden table is a brass key and a novelty calendar.

Well, according to the text, you’re in a small dusty room. After telling you all about that, the game lists a few objects that are in the room with you: You see a hand truck here. Sitting on the wooden table is a brass key and a novelty calendar.

Generally speaking, objects that are listed at the end are objects that can be manipulated, while objects in the description of the room, such as the window and photo are less likely to be important. This will vary from game to game; some authors hide hints in the descriptions of these objects that you cannot touch, others don’t even bother making them possible for you to look at. I happen to be the first sort of author; besides, this is a good time to try out our first command.

>look at the window

A shaft of sun light shines through this window, highlighting the swirling dust.

Yeah, right, so that wasn’t all that important, but that is one way of looking at an object. Some objects can also be seen through. To do that we type something a little different.

>look through the window

You see that you are on the second floor, and that there is a pet shop across a narrow street.

Ah, may haps you’ll need to visit that shop later on.

These text adventures take a lot of typing. Eventually even saving a few letters will feel worth it, especially if you’re a hunt and peck sort. So, let’s try another way of looking at an object when we look at the photo.

>examine picture

This black and white snapshot shows a happy couple. the woman has long dark hair and a heart shaped face. The man sports a thin scar along his left cheek.

Notice that I’ve been calling it a photo in this file, but the command used the word picture? There are often several ways of referring to any given object. “Look at the photo” would have done exactly the same thing.

Anyway, examine is still a lot of letters. Welcome to the first example of an abbreviated command. “x” is short for examine. Now that you know, you can look at a few other things.

>x table

On the wooden table you see a brass key and a novelty calendar.

>x key

It's a tiny brass key that must fit something.

>x calendar

This is one of those calendars that give you a joke for every single day of the year. It must be a long time since anyone looked at it, since it is way out of date now. Either that, or they decided just to leave the last joke in the calendar up, despite what a truly awful pun it is.

“What do you get when you drop a piano over an army base?

A_flat_major!”

Ok, terrible joke, but it’s a hint.

Now it’s time to see how to pick something up.

>take key

Taken.

Typing “pick up key” or “get key” would have worked just as well.

Now, what is this “hand truck” thing here for? Let’s have us a look see.

>x hand truck

The hand truck has a platform which is very low to the ground, and little wheels which will roll fine inside the house, but probably won't do well outside. It looks like it's here to move heavy furniture. You could probably 'slide hand truck under' what you want to move.

There's nothing on the hand truck.

Notice the phrase in single quotes? That’s just the way I let the player, you, know that this is something you might find useful to type. So, let’s try that.

>slide hand truck under table

You don't need a piano dolly to move a wooden table

A piano dolly? Yep, you can call this object truck, hand truck, handtruck, dolly, or piano dolly, even hand dolly or piano truck will work. When seen in the room it is called a “hand truck”, while trying to use it let’s you know it’s also called a “piano dolly”; this is yet another big old hint. Remember the joke?

While we’re here, let’s try putting something on something else.

>put key on hand truck

You don't need a piano dolly to move a brass key

Right, you can try putting it on the table and picking it back up if you want to. It probably would have made a better example, but it took some work to make the hand truck refuse to carry most objects. Anyway, let’s grab the thing and get out of here.

>take truck

You take hold of the hand truck's handle.

Taken.

Oh, wait, how do we get out of here? Well, if the description text has scrolled off the screen and you need to see it again, to figure out how to get out of the room for example, there’s a command you can use.

>look

small room

Sitting on the wooden table is a novelty calendar.

Ah, to the south is a hallway; most games use compass directions for navigation.

>go south

Dimly lit hallway

This is a dimly lit hallway leading north and south. To the east is an open doorway leading into a dark room, to the south can be heard the sound of soft music, and to the north is a small dusty room.

You roll the hand truck along.

See that last line? Nice to know that we’ve got our trusty hand truck with us isn’t it? Anyway, as with examining objects, there’s a simpler way to tell the game what direction you want to go.

>east

It's pitch black.

You roll the hand truck along.

Yep, you can use just the direction without typing something like...

>go north

You stumble around in the dark, and don't get anywhere.

This is a dark room. You can’t really do anything in here until you find a source of light. It won’t even tell you how to get back out. The only thing you can do is go in the opposite direction from the one that brought you into this horrible place.

>west

Dimly lit hallway

You roll the hand truck along.

Ah, back in the hallway. But wait, that’s all it said. Well, you can type “look” again, or you can use an abbreviation.

Dimly lit hallway

This sort of game generally only gives you the long description the first time you enter a room. After that, you just get the room’s title. Those who play these games a lot often prefer it that way, sometimes keeping a notebook and pen to draw little maps, or relying on extremely good spatial memories. Since you’re new to this, we’ll tell the game to give you the long description all the time.

>verbose

Okay, now in VERBOSE mode.

Dimly lit hallway

If you get tired of all that text, you can switch it back by typing “terse”.

Anyway, we haven’t seen the room where the music is coming from. Let’s head there now with another abbreviated command. Most of the common directions have a one or two letter form: n=north, e=east, s=south, w=west, u=up, d=down. There’s also nw for northwest, ne for northeast, se, for southeast, and sw for southwest. Now and again you may also run across an “in”, an “out”, or an “enter”. Sometimes the author creates oddball exits, but we’ll deal with that later. For now...

The music room

This is the music room.

As you step inside the sounds of the piano die away. Odd... you could have sworn someone was playing! You feel a deep chill.

To the north is a dimly lit hall, and the southern wall seems strangely insubstantial.

You see a piano and a piano bench here. Sitting on the small corner table is an oil lamp (providing light).

You roll the hand truck along.

Oh! A piano! Wonder if that might possibly come in handy some time some how? Oh, an oil lamp providing light! Wonder if that might possibly come in handy right this very second?

>x lamp

An old fashioned miner's oil lamp giving off a warm glow.

>take lamp

Taken.

Yep, it’s still an oil lamp, a miner’s oil lamp. Some games might make you find oil for it, locating some way to light it, have it go out on you after a certain number of turns have passed (certain number of commands have been entered) but not this time. This time, the lamp just magically glows throughout the whole game.

Let’s go have another look at that dark room now.

Dimly lit hallway

This is a dimly lit hallway leading north and south. To the east is an open doorway leading into a dark room, and to the north is a small dusty room.

You roll the hand truck along.

bed room

This was someone's little bedroom. There is a bed in one corner with some space under it, and the door leads back into the hallway to the west.

You see a birdcage here.

You roll the hand truck along.

There doesn’t seem to be much here. Still, what’s with the cage?

>x cage

A wire bird cage.

There's nothing in the birdcage.

>take cage

Taken.

Ok, what the hell? We might as well grab everything that isn’t nailed down.

Dimly lit hallway

This is a dimly lit hallway leading north and south. To the east is an open doorway leading into a dark room, and to the north is a small dusty room.

You roll the hand truck along.

Notice that there isn’t music coming from the south anymore? That’s right, it died away the first time you entered the music room. Depending upon how your game’s author wrote it, the descriptions of the rooms might change now and again.

The music room

This is the music room.

To the north is a dimly lit hall, and the southern wall seems strangely insubstantial.

You see a piano and a piano bench here.

You roll the hand truck along.

The southern wall seems strangely insubstantial?

>x wall

Though you can easily see the solid wall, the material of the wall seems to shimmer oddly, and as you watch, you swear that at times you can almost see through it.

>look through wall

The longer you look at this wall, the stranger it seems. Every so often it looks like you're looking into a dark room.

Here’s that oddball exit I mentioned before. There are lots of ways of using this one, including just going south, but let’s do this:

>enter the wall

You carefully step into the wall, which offers no resistance. Then you get a little dizzy.

bed room

This was someone's little bedroom. There is a bed in one corner with some space under it, and the door leads back into the hallway to the west.

You roll the hand truck along.

Seem familiar? Well, since I wrote this thing and the help file, I knew we’d be back. I put off this next bit as it is a good example of searching. Let’s start by looking at the only thing left here.

>x bed

A musty old bed with an old mattress, and hardly off the floor at all.

The shadow of something under the bed catches your eye.

Sometimes objects are hidden in one place or another. You can find them by searching, looking under and looking behind things. I made the bed, (heheh, made the bed) so that you could either “search bed” or...

>look under bed

You squat down to peer under the bed.

You just earned yourself two points!

You find a jewelry box and a journal, which you take.

Excellent! If you want to you can “x bed” again to see how the description has changed, but there really isn’t anything else to be done here.

Dimly lit hallway

This is a dimly lit hallway leading north and south. To the east is an open doorway leading into a dark room, and to the north is a small dusty room.

You roll the hand truck along.

The music room

This is the music room.

To the north is a dimly lit hall, and the southern wall seems strangely insubstantial.

You see a piano and a piano bench here.

You roll the hand truck along.

A piano, a piano dolly, hmm. Well, since the guy who wrote this likes to put hints in descriptions, let’s...

>x piano

A large grand piano. Even through the dust that has accumulated over time, you can easily see that this is a high quality instrument. You can't help but wish to 'play' it.

There's nothing on the piano.

This is about the simplest puzzle in the game, or at least most obvious. Long before I put the word “play” in quotes, one of my game testers managed to figure this one out. He wasn’t even familiar with text adventures.

Let’s continue.

>play piano

You sit on the bench and play a couple of half recalled songs. Before long you lose interest and stand back up.

if only there was some music on the piano to play!

Where oh where might we find some music?

>x bench

A simple square topped piano bench. It's the kind which has a top you can lift and a small brass lock. The piano bench is closed.

Yep. Let’s try the command to open this thing and see what’s inside.

>open bench

It's locked.

Locked? I swear we picked up something that could help out. Here’s how to list the objects that you are holding.

>inventory

You have a brass key, a hand truck, an oil lamp (providing light), a birdcage, a jewelry box, and a journal.

Hey! A key!

>unlock bench

(with the brass key)

Unlocked.

Notice that all we typed was “unlock bench” but that the game figured out what to do anyway? Sometimes TADS will do that for you. Sometimes you’d have to type a longer command: unlock bench with key. Let’s try opening it again.

>open bench

Opening the piano bench reveals some sheet music.

>x music

Some hand written sheet music. Good thing you know how to 'read music'.

There’s some of those words in single quotes again.

>read music

Glancing through the hand written music, you, being a concert pianist, can tell that it is a haunting melody. The title catches your eye.

"The ghost of a Chance"

in A-flat-miner.

Notice how I spelled “miner” with an e? That’s not a typo; it’s a hint.

>put music on piano

Done.

>play music

You'd love to play, but you need the bench, and you can't sit on it when it's open.

Oh come on! Who wrote this thing?

>close bench

Closed.

>play the piano

You settle down on the piano bench, flex your fingers, and begin. The music floats through the air, recalling past passions and love lost and lamented.

Suddenly the sheet music bursts into flames. the smoke twists and turns in the air until it forms into the image of a woman with long dark hair, and a heart shaped face.

Your score has increased by 23 points!

Hey! You just found the ghost! Considering the title of this game, you’d almost think you’d already won. No such luck though; there’s still more to do.

>x ghost

The spectral figure is nearly transparent, but substantial enough for you to see her long black hair and heart shaped face. She seems to need your help.

>take ghost

You reach out to grasp the ghostly woman, but your hands pass right through her.

She needs your help, but apparently, grabbing her isn’t the way to go about it. Still, maybe something we picked up earlier can tell us what to do next. The inventory command has its own abbreviation.

You have a brass key, a hand truck, an oil lamp (providing light), a birdcage, a jewelry box, and a journal.

>x journal

this looks to be the journal of whoever lived here. For some reason, most of the pages have been torn out, leaving only one entry you can 'read'.

That’s right! You found it under the bed.

>read journal

That little wench!

I could forget that she stole my husband. I could forget about how she ruined the mine by making him dig where there was nothing to find. But she's gone too far!

I remember when she first arrived. I recall how she joined our circle and seemed humble enough. She would come to the pawnshop on full moon nights, just like the rest of us, and bow to the authority of her betters, but now she has broken just about every rule we have. She ordered the books, the real books with real magic described, and has them for sale in her damn shop!

Now she's tried to trap me here. Amateur! I'll bet anything she'll summon some demon, dragon or demigod to do her bidding. I'll bet she has no idea that I can redirect her little portals with a simple trinket. She probably thinks I'm trapped here.

Time to show her what a real master can do. She'll be expecting me to summon something to defeat her. I will, but not a angelic creature, or another demon to do some ridiculous, and far too public, battle through the streets. Even if she hasn't taken steps to block such a spell, angels are just about as dumb as posts. I'll beat her with a human.

Yes, that should work. I'll summon a man who is interested in this kind of thing, and use the art in the subtle fashion that it is best at. Everything will be ready for him to beat her, and even should she murder me, as I'm sure she plans to, I'll be back.

I've torn out everything in this journal that had to do with my art. She won't learn anything from me! Let her read this if she can find it. Let her look up the subtleties that are possible. Let her wonder what part of her plans are her own, and what she has been manipulated into doing. Let her know that she has already lost!

“...that I can redirect her little portals with a simple trinket...” Seems like we might find this trinket in the jewelry box we found with the journal.

>x box

This is a small, flat, felt covered jewelry box.

The jewelry box is closed.

>open box

Opening the jewelry box reveals a silver ring and a diamond.

>x diamond

It's a large sparkling diamond, probably worth quite a bit.

>x ring

This silver ring, though plain, seems very nice to you. As you gaze at it, you realize that the reflections in its surface, don't match what you'd expect to see in your current location.

You’re doing great. Now what around here resembles a portal that could be redirected?

>look through wall

The longer you look at this wall, the stranger it seems. Every so often it looks like you're looking into a dark room.

How does one use a ring? There’s more than one way to write this command. You can type “put on ring” but let’s try this:

>wear ring

(First taking the silver ring)

Taken. Okay, you're now wearing the silver ring.

Hey, nice of the game to save us a step there.

>look through wall

The longer you look at this wall, the stranger it seems. Now and again, you almost see a street, and maybe a building of some kind.

Excellent, you can probably get out of this silly little house now.

Remember this trick. When you have the ring on, the magic wall takes you one place. With the ring off, it takes you somewhere else. To take off the ring, type “take off ring”.

Oh, by the way, you don’t need the journal anymore. Here’s how you drop what you don’t want to carry around.

>drop journal

Dropped.

Alright, let’s get out of this place.

>step into the wall

You carefully step into the wall, which offers no resistance. Then you feel strange, almost like you're falling.

in front of house

You're in front of an old house which sits to the south. The north leads to a pet store, and the little street continues west

You've landed in the muddy yard of the abandoned house. The piano dolly's wheels sink irrevocably into the mud.

Here’s an example of what was poor game design. I wanted to make sure that the player could move the piano out of the house, but didn’t want them to be able to use the hand truck after getting outside. The muddy yard is just an excuse to make the hand truck immobile. The name of the object has changed to let the player know what it was supposed to be for. The poor design came in when I first worked on this. I’d neglected to let the player go back in the house and get back the piano once the ghost was there. This meant that the player could lose the game right here, without any messages or events that would let them know.

I’ve since fixed that, but let’s pretend that it’s still that sort of game, and that through a sense of prescience, you know that you have just messed up. Time to introduce the most important command in the game.

>undo

(Undoing one command)

The music room

This is the music room.

To the north is a dimly lit hall, and the southern wall seems strangely insubstantial.

You see a piano, a piano bench, a ghost, and a journal here.

>slide the hand truck under the piano

You slide the hand truck under the piano. You can move it now!

Done.

That’s better. We can head back outside now. All this typing is getting tiresome, so let’s just use the abbreviated compass direction.

You carefully step into the wall, which offers no resistance. Then you feel strange, almost like you're falling.

in front of house

You're in front of an old house which sits to the south. The north leads to a pet store, and the little street continues west

You've landed in the muddy yard of the abandoned house. The piano dolly's wheels sink irrevocably into the mud.

The piano tips off the truck and lands on the edge of the street.

Good. Now let’s have a look at the dolly.

>x dolly

Firmly mired in the mud of the abandoned house's yard, this hand truck is going nowhere.

>take the hand truck

You pull on the handle for a few moments, but the hand truck doesn't even budge.

I didn’t show you that before because I wanted to show you how to use the undo command. If you had looked at the hand truck and tried to move it, you’d have to have typed undo several times before you’d get back inside the house. TADS has a lot of undo memory, a very useful feature. At the moment, you could probably undo all the way back to the start.

If you want to go back to the start, there is a much easier way to do so. You can type “restart” and the game will restart. You can save a game by typing “save” and the game will give you a dialog to help you choose a file to save it in. If you want to reload a game, type “restore” and the game will help you find the file to reload from. Whenever you’ve had enough, type “quit” and the game will end, prompting you to save if you haven’t.

Let me show you a few more things, and then you can run off and play.

>x piano

A large grand piano. Even through the mud, you can easily see that this is a high quality instrument. You can't help but wish to 'play' it.

There's nothing on the piano.

>play the piano

You consider playing some music, but decide that this isn't quite the right setting for it.

>take the piano

The piano is too heavy for you. If only you had a big strong hairy helper.

Notice that the piano is now muddy instead of dusty and that you cannot play or take it. Notice also the hint about the big strong hairy helper. As it happens, you won’t be able to get this helper without the game specific commands that were mentioned way back at the beginning.

>commands

Command list.

This game uses money, and as I am an essentially lazy person, I didn't make a money object. Instead, we have magic commands.

First off, by typing 'money' you can find out how much cash you have on hand.

Next, by typing 'buy (item)' you can buy what you want to buy. That is, so long as you are in the one and only place that is actually selling things, and that you have the money, and that you replace (item) with the name of what you're buying. For example: buy bird.

Lastly, 'sell (item)' which lets you earn some money by selling one of the things you can sell in the one and only place you can sell things. Example: sell diamond.

There are standard commands that might come in handy: 'undo', which lets you take back the last command entered; and 'z', which lets you sit where you are for another turn to see what unfolds.

That's all.

By the by, the commands command has a couple hints, namely that the examples of how to use the game specific commands are things you’ll want to use first, before you buy or sell other things.

That should give you enough to get started with “Ghost Hunter” and with other interactive fiction games.

Here are a few links that you might find useful.

The Interactive Fiction Archive is the largest collection of interactive fiction links on the net. In fact, it is such a large and complex site that you will probably want Baf's Guide to the Interactive Fiction Archive, which will help you find specific information and downloads. If you want more TADS games, you can go to the TADS section.

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