1DUNGEON(6) Games Manual DUNGEON(6)
2
6 dungeon - Adventures in the Dungeons of Doom
7
9 dungeon
10
12 Dungeon is a game of adventure, danger, and low cunning. In it you
13 will explore some of the most amazing territory ever seen by mortal
14 man. Hardened adventurers have run screaming from the terrors con‐
15 tained within.
16 In Dungeon, the intrepid explorer delves into the forgotten secrets of
18 a lost labyrinth deep in the bowels of the earth, searching for vast
19 treasures long hidden from prying eyes, treasures guarded by fearsome
20 monsters and diabolical traps!
21 Dungeon was created at the Programming Technology Division of the MIT
23 Laboratory for Computer Science by Tim Anderson, Marc Blank, Bruce
24 Daniels, and Dave Lebling. It was inspired by the Adventure game of
25 Crowther and Woods, and the Dungeons and Dragons game of Gygax and
26 Arneson. The original version was written in MDL (alias MUDDLE). The
27 current version was translated from MDL into FORTRAN IV by a somewhat
28 paranoid DEC engineer who prefers to remain anonymous.
29 On-line information may be obtained with the commands HELP and INFO.
31
33 Following is the summary produced by the info command:
34 Welcome to Zork!
36 You are near a large dungeon, which is reputed to contain vast
38 quantities of treasure. Naturally, you wish to acquire some of
39 it. In order to do so, you must of course remove it from the
40 dungeon. To receive full credit for it, you must deposit it
41 safely in the trophy case in the living room of the house.
42 In addition to valuables, the dungeon contains various objects
44 which may or may not be useful in your attempt to get rich. You
45 may need sources of light, since dungeons are often dark, and
46 weapons, since dungeons often have unfriendly things wandering
47 about. Reading material is scattered around the dungeon as
48 well; some of it is rumored to be useful.
49 To determine how successful you have been, a score is kept.
51 When you find a valuable object and pick it up, you receive a
52 certain number of points, which depends on the difficulty of
53 finding the object. You receive extra points for transporting
54 the treasure safely to the living room and placing it in the
55 trophy case. In addition, some particularly interesting rooms
56 have a value associated with visiting them. The only penalty is
57 for getting yourself killed, which you may do only twice.
58 Of special note is a thief (always carrying a large bag) who
60 likes to wander around in the dungeon (he has never been seen by
61 the light of day). He likes to take things. Since he steals
62 for pleasure rather than profit and is somewhat sadistic, he
63 only takes things which you have seen. Although he prefers
64 valuables, sometimes in his haste he may take something which is
65 worthless. From time to time, he examines his take and discards
66 objects which he doesn't like. He may occasionally stop in a
67 room you are visiting, but more often he just wanders through
68 and rips you off (he is a skilled pickpocket).
69
71 brief suppresses printing of long room descriptions for rooms
72 which have been visited.
73 superbrief suppresses printing of long room descriptions for all
75 rooms.
76 verbose restores long descriptions.
78 info prints information which might give some idea of what
80 the game is about.
81 quit prints your score and asks whether you wish to continue
83 playing.
84 save saves the state of the game for later continuation.
86 restore restores a saved game.
88 inventory lists the objects in your possession.
90 look prints a description of your surroundings.
92 score prints your current score and ranking.
94 time tells you how long you have been playing.
96 diagnose reports on your injuries, if any.
98 The inventory command may be abbreviated i; the look command may be
100 abbreviated l; the quit command may be abbreviated q.
101 A command that begins with '!' as the first character is taken to be a
103 shell command and is passed unchanged to the shell via system(3).
104
106 Some objects can contain other objects. Many such containers can be
107 opened and closed. The rest are always open. They may or may not be
108 transparent. For you to access (e.g., take) an object which is in a
109 container, the container must be open. For you to see such an object,
110 the container must be either open or transparent. Containers have a
111 capacity, and objects have sizes; the number of objects which will fit
112 therefore depends on their sizes. You may put any object you have
113 access to (it need not be in your hands) into any other object. At
114 some point, the program will attempt to pick it up if you don't already
115 have it, which process may fail if you're carrying too much. Although
116 containers can contain other containers, the program doesn't access
117 more than one level down.
118
120 Occupants of the dungeon will, as a rule, fight back when attacked. In
121 some cases, they may attack even if unprovoked. Useful verbs here are
122 attack <villain> with <weapon>, kill, etc. Knife-throwing may or may
123 not be useful. You have a fighting strength which varies with time.
124 Being in a fight, getting killed, and being injured all lower this
125 strength. Strength is regained with time. Thus, it is not a good idea
126 to fight someone immediately after being killed. Other details should
127 become apparent after a few melees or deaths.
128
130 A command is one line of text terminated by a carriage return. For
131 reasons of simplicity, all words are distinguished by their first six
132 letters. All others are ignored. For example, typing disassemble the
133 encyclopedia is not only meaningless, it also creates excess effort for
134 your fingers. Note that this truncation may produce ambiguities in the
135 intepretation of longer words. [Also note that upper and lower case
136 are equivalent.]
137 You are dealing with a fairly stupid parser, which understands the fol‐
139 lowing types of things:
140 Actions:
142 Among the more obvious of these, such as take, put, drop,
143 etc. Fairly general forms of these may be used, such as
144 pick up, put down, etc.
145 Directions:
147 north, south, up, down, etc. and their various abbrevia‐
148 tions. Other more obscure directions (land, cross) are
149 appropriate in only certain situations.
150 Objects:
152 Most objects have names and can be referenced by them.
153 Adjectives:
155 Some adjectives are understood and required when there are
156 two objects which can be referenced with the same 'name'
157 (e.g., doors, buttons).
158 Prepositions:
160 It may be necessary in some cases to include prepositions,
161 but the parser attempts to handle cases which aren't
162 ambiguous without. Thus give car to demon will work, as
163 will give demon car. give car demon probably won't do any‐
164 thing interesting. When a preposition is used, it should
165 be appropriate; give car with demon won't parse.
166 Sentences:
168 The parser understands a reasonable number of syntactic
169 construc- tions. In particular, multiple commands (sepa‐
170 rated by commas) can be placed on the same line.
171 Ambiguity:
173 The parser tries to be clever about what to do in the case
174 of actions which require objects that are not explicitly
175 specified. If there is only one possible object, the
176 parser will assume that it should be used. Otherwise, the
177 parser will ask. Most questions asked by the parser can be
178 answered.
179
181 dtextc.dat - encoded messages and initialization information
182 dsave.dat - save file
183
185 For those familiar with the MDL version of the game on the ARPAnet, the
186 following is a list of the major incompatabilties:
187 -The first six letters of a word are considered significant,
188 instead of the first five.
189 -The syntax for tell, answer, and incant is different.
190 -Compound objects are not recognized.
191 -Compound commands can be delimited with comma as well as
192 period.
193 Also, the palantir, brochure, and dead man problems are not imple‐
195 mented.
196
198 Many people have had a hand in this version. See the "History" and
199 "README" files for credits. Send bug reports to ian@airs.com (or
200 uunet!airs!ian).
201 March 11, 1991 DUNGEON(6)