STARSHIP COLUMBUS
Copyright 1986, Gary McGath. All rights reserved.
Documentation for Version 1.1, MS-DOS edition, June 18, 1986.
Notice: Starship Columbus is distributed as shareware. It may be
freely distributed, but may only be used to a limited extent except by
people who have paid the registration fee of $10.00. At a certain point in
the game, a message will appear requesting that you either send in the
registration fee or quit the game. This approach is intended to let you get
some value from your downloading costs, and to let you find out whether
the game is worth anything to you. Please don't turn the game into one of
seeing how much playing you can do without getting that notice; once you
get it, you should either send in the money or not do anything more with
the game.
This program is my property: I have done the thinking, writing, and
debugging which brought it into existence. I am offering you a value, the
right to possess and use a copy of this program, in exchange for a value,
the payment of the registration fee. I won't make maudlin claims that
you're snatching food off my table, etc., by not paying me; the amount of
money I expect to make from this adventure game is actually small
compared to my other sources of income. My argument is that it's to your
benefit to pay me: first, because I'll let you know of any other adventure
games I release, and where they will become available; second, and more
important, because when you pay for something, your possession of it
becomes a credit to you and not just to me. What you pay for becomes
yours, and not just something you happen to have because somebody was
stupid enough to leave it lying around. I know; it's a nice feeling to have.
To register your copy, send a check for $10.00 (ten dollars) to:
Gary McGath
P. O. Box 286
Hollis, N. H. 03049
Registered owners (or people stuck early in the game) can ask for hints
by writing to me, or by sending Email to 72145,1014 on Compuserve.
Please, no phone queries.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Starship Columbus runs under the adventure interpreter AdvInt,
which is part of the AdvSys adventure system. AdvInt is available for
free on various boards. As of this writing, it is available on the IBM PC and
most other MS-DOS computers, and the Macintosh. To start the game, type:
ADVINT COLUMBUS
Starship Columbus is a text adventure game, a story in which you
take on the role of the principal character and control his actions. Your
character, in this case, is a young man or woman on board a huge starship
which is your world. The Columbus is Earth's first attempt to reach the
stars. Since space travel is limited by the speed of light, the Columbus
will take many years to reach the world which is its destination. In fact,
you have never seen Earth; you were born on the Columbus, as were your
parents and grandparents. The only sight you have had of anything outside
the Columbus, even the stars, has been in pictures.
A starship is a place of limited resources, and of late the authorities
have found it necessary to impose stern measures to keep the population
of the Columbus within acceptable limits. Every person, on reaching
maturity, must pass a test to determine whether he is qualified to live as
a citizen of the Columbus. Those who fail the test are given a choice: death
by laser beam or exile into the Abandoned Corridors, the areas of the ship
which are no longer in use.
The Columbus is built in the form of a cylinder, its rotation serving for
gravity. In order to maintain a sense of connection to Earth, geographic
terms are used for directions within the ship. "Up" is toward the hub,
"down" toward the outer edge, "east" is the direction in which the ship
spins, "north" is 90 degrees to the left of east, and so on. You give
commands in the form of full sentences. Some examples:
NORTH (or N or GO NORTH)
PICK THE BLUE BOOK UP
READ IT
BREAK THE DOOR WITH THE AXE
GIVE THE GUARD A COIN
GUARD, OPEN THE DOOR
TAKE ALL
PUT DOWN METER AND KNIFE
Some useful commands are:
INVENTORY (or I): list the objects you are carrying
VERBOSE: Give long descriptions of every room entered.
BRIEF: Give long descriptions first time only (default). The long
description of a room can be seen again with LOOK (or L).
SAVE: Save the current state of the game to a file.
RESTORE: Resume the game at a previously saved state.
QUIT: End the game without saving.
RESTART: Start all over from the beginning.
WAIT: Do nothing for one move.
STATUS: Find out what your character's general state of health is.
HELP: This command will get you some very general hints on what to do.
Only the first six letters of a word are significant. Thus, the commands
INVENTORY, INVENT, and INVENTION are all equivalent.
There is no scoring. Scoring promotes the idea of an adventure as a
puzzle to be solved, rather than a story to be lived and enjoyed. There are
many possible endings; even if you don't find the happiest one, you should
(I hope) be able to enjoy it for what you do experience. If you overcome all
the difficulties, your character can end up healthy and successful, with a
full lifespan to look forward to. But failing this, you may be able to
achieve a noble death or a less than disastrous life. There are, in fact, two
different ways to achieve the most successful ending. Try to discover
them both.
The difficulties in Starship Columbus may be tricky, but they are
never arbitrary or deceitful. Don't waste time walking into walls or
uttering magic words; this is science fiction, not fantasy. Do try to think
of logical solutions to problems: examine all objects, talk to characters,
think of what kind of tool is needed to accomplish your goal. Try different
phrasings of a command; the command parser may not recognize what you
are trying to do on the first try.
An important element in Starship Columbus is what kind of person
you make of your character. The choices you make may have an impact
later on. If you make the right ones, you can make the best of the
miserable situation in which you start, and perhaps find a better life than
you would have had without the ordeal. May the solar wind always be at
your back!