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* *
* Welcome to the *
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* STAC *
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* demo disk *
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This disk contains demonstrations of
adventures created using the ST
Adventure Creator ( STAC ) from
Incentive Software.
PLEASE COPY !
This disk is unprotected and Public
Domain - please copy it and give it
to your friends ! Further copies can
be ordered from Incentive ( address
below ) at œ1.99 each.
ST ADVENTURE CREATOR
The STAC itself, due for release
late in April 1988, allows you to
create your own professional quality
adventures, like the demo adventure
on this disk, and will retail for
œ39.95.
Its many features include:
* Full colour graphic editor with
facility to import pictures from
DEGAS and NEOCHROME art packages.
* Advanced command interpreter for
the player - "Get the cat and the mat
then examine the box and drop it" is
a perfectly valid player command !
* Unlimited adventure size - you can
split adventures up and load parts
from disk, or even multiple disks,
giving you an adventure dependant
only on the number of disks.
* Selectable resolution for text,
with split screen modes in advent-
ures. Now you can have 80 column text
AND full colour graphics at the same
time.
* Give your adventure that final
polish with the loading screen
option.
* Font editor, with many preset
fonts to personalize your adventure.
* Easy to understand conditions,
like: if verb "drop" and noun "food"
then drop "food" ok. Over 120 condit-
ional words, including random, colour
swapping, disk linking.
* Flexible condition structure
allows you to do almost anything !
* Quickstart file to get you going.
Incudes many of the most common words
etc. used in adventures.
* String handling - address the
player personally ! What now, John ?
* Ramsave and ramload as well as
normal save and load positions on
disk, for speed.
* Oops ! Three ramsave positions
allow you to create a useful Oops
feature which undoes your last
command.
* Generate runnable adventures that
work on any system - no need for STAC
to be present when playing the
adventure. And no commercial licen-
sing fee, either !
With STAC, virtually anything is
possible ! Let your creation begin !
FREE ADVENTURE
Firstly, there is a full adventure
which you can actually play, called
SHYMER. To start this up, move to the
window displaying an icon named
SHYMER.PRG, click in the window to
activate it, then double-click on
SHYMER.PRG. After a few seconds, the
title page of the adventure will
appear, and you can start playing the
game.
FREE SLIDESHOW
Secondly, there is a slideshow of
pictures that have been created using
the STAC. This is started by clicking
on the window containing STACDEMO.PRG
and then double-clicking on the icon.
To start the slideshow, go to the
SLIDES menu, and select "Show
compressed". The slideshow will then
run automatically, displaying each
picture in turn. To stop the
slideshow, press Cntrl-C ( press and
hold the Control key, and press C ).
If you are likely to be displaying
the slideshow for a long time ( maybe
as a window display in a shop ), then
select "RAM compressed" instead of
"Show compressed". What this does is
load all the compressed pictures into
memory, displaying them as it does
so, then continues the slideshow
without accessing the disk at all.
This saves wear and tear on the disk
drives which would otherwise be in
constant operation.
The timing between pictures can be
altered using the "Time" menu. The
default time is 10 seconds, but this
can be taken up as far as a minute,
and down to no delay ( ie as fast as
the pictures can be loaded from disk
and decompressed ). On a RAM
slideshow, the pictures are first
loaded as fast as possible, then
displayed at the correct speed.
To pause between pictures until you
press a key, go to the OPTIONS menu,
and select "Pause" ( A tick will
appear next to it if the pause
facility is switched on already ). To
turn this off, do the same thing
again.
The slideshow program also has the
ability to compress and decompress
pictures saved to disk in NEOCHROME
format, in order to save space on
your disks. It will also act as a
NEOCHROME slideshow.
To compress NEOCHROME slides ( which
will have names ending in .NEO ),
load the slide in using "Load .NEO"
from the FILE menu, and choose the
picture you want to load using the
file selector box that appears. The
picture will then be loaded in and
displayed. You can then save this as
a compressed picture by selecting
"Save compressed" from the file menu.
Again, the file selector will appear,
allowing you to choose a name for the
compressed slide. The default name is
the same as the original picture, but
ending in .CMP ( for compressed )
rather than .NEO. After the few
seconds taken to compress the pic-
ture, the new compressed picture will
be saved on to the disk.
To decompress a picture, use the
reverse process ( ie "Load
compressed" then "Save .NEO" ). You
will need to do this if you have a
compressed picture that you wish to
edit - NEOCHROME cannot cope with
compressed slides directly. You will
also need to do this if you want to
import parts of the compressed demo
pictures into the STAC.
There is one more option not covered
yet - the "Show info" option on the
OPTIONS menu. When this is active,
then the length of the compressed
picture is displayed before saving.
CREDITS
SHYMER adventure by Sandra Sharkey,
pictures by Dicon Peake of Wildfire
Graphics.
Demo pictures by David Wyatt,
digitized by SAM from Start Systems,
tidied by Paul Gregory at Incentive !
STACDEMO program and STAC itself by
Sean Ellis.
NEOCHROME and ST are trade marks of
Atari Inc.
DEGAS is a trade mark of Batteries
Included.
OUR ADDRESS
If you want to order the STAC, or
want more information on any
Incentive product, please write to us
at this address:
Incentive Software Ltd.,
Zephyr One,
Calleva Park,
ALDERMASTON,
Berkshire RG7 4QW,
ENGLAND
Tel. (07356) 77288