McKENSIE - SOFTWARE PROJECTS
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                          TYPED BY VAXALON 1993
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 McKENSIE -
 
  You are the world famous space explorer Captain Vito, and for the last two
 years you have been travelling through space in your shuttle, "Zarcula" in
 search of the precious lithium crystals. Whilst navigating an asteroid field
 you receive a distress message from a nearby space station, so you decide to
 investigate. You dock into the space station only to find that it has been
 ransacked by a gang of space bandits. Unfortunately you are captured and
 placed in a high security cell. Later that day you hear through the door, a
 bandit say "The air purifier has broken down and there is only one hour of
 oxygen left". The bandits leave, obviously forgetting you, you have one
 major problem, to escape and hopefully with some lithium crystals, the 
 question is how?
 
                         WHAT IS AN ADVENTURE?
 
  Your micro becomes your eyes, ears, hands and feet - and using these tools
 you examine the world about you. The one thing the machime will not do is
 think for you, so you have to supply the necessary native wit and 
 intelligence to stay alive long enough to enjoy the thrills and spills of
 your newfound existence. Make no mistake - the journey ahead of you is full
 of pitfalls and human life is valued cheaply - but don't be disheatened, 
 the Adventurer doesn't exist who hasn't been killed at least once during
 his "lifetime".
  All Adventures have a theme, be it the underground caverns of Collosal
 Caves, and alien planet, the pyramid of ancient Egypt, the castle of
 Count Dracula or even an ordinary funfair. What they have in common is
 that they provide a scenerio in which the computer can provide a story
 for the player to follow.
  You interact with the program using simple sentances suck as "GET
 DIAMONDS" or "KILL GIRAFFE". Normally you only use two words, although
 some games can handle longer and more complicated sentences.
  Each time you give a valid instruction to the computer it will tell you
 what has happened, so that if you type "GO NORTH" (or very often just "N") - 
 and there is indeed a way north, then your position will change and the 
 computer will tell you about it. Let me give you some pointers that apply
 to just about every game on the market. Ignore them at your peril!
 
  1) Examine everything that you encounter, even if its use is not 
 immediately visible. Don't forget that not everyone (or everything) you
 meet out out there will be as friendly or as trusting as yourself - 
 that bottle you've just found might look like lemonade, but it might 
 well turn out to be a Molotov cocktail that only needs a fuse to turn it
 into a very potent weapon. Typical verbs that you might use are EXAMINE,
 SEARCH, SMELL, SMASH, TAKE & TWIST.
 
  2) Don't get too complacent about your surroudings. either. Always keep
 your wits about you and check the terrain for clues. Useful words you
 may need are LOOK, WAIT & LISTEN.
  This is probable time to mention the greatest survival aid known to
 adventurers - make a map. This may sound obvious, but you will soon
 find yourself in a place where going south will not return you to the
 place from which you just went north. This is why it's worth paying
 attention to the place descriptions you encounter and marking them
 down to show how you get from one to another. The time will come when 
 you'll want to get to a particular place in a hurry.
 
  3) Watch what you carry about with you - Everything has weight - and you
 will almost certainly be limited in what you can carry, so think carefully
 about what you will need at this particular point in the game. After all,
 whilst your going round making this a safe planet to live on by
 exterminating the unfriendly native life forms, there is little point in
 weighing yourself down with those egg sized diamonds you keep on tripping
 over - they'll still be there when you come back - and right now you need 
 all the food, water and ammunition you can carry. The moral of the story is
 - don't be greedy, consolidate your position before advancing and only
 spend energy carrying those things that you need for a particular purpose.
 Useful works include PICK, GET, DROP, EMPTY, FILL, DRINK & EAT.
 
  4) Moving about is simplicity itself - simply type the direction you want
 to go. The directions you will use are: (N)ORTH, (S)OUTH, (E)AST, (W)EST,
 (U)P, (D)OWN, IN, OUT and rather less commonly: SE (SOUTHEAST),
 NE (NORTHEAST), SW (SOUTHWEST) & NW (NORTHWEST). Note that for the more
 common directions, it is usually only necessary to use the first letter
 of the direction you wish to go - the rest is unnecessary. Sometimes you
 may want to indicate a particular urgency to your actions, or indicate
 the special way you want to go : use such words as RUN, CRAWL, JUMP & CLIMB.
 
  5) You may come across a warm or cold blooded creature guarding something
 you need to continue, blocking your way or minding treasure from
 Adventurers like yourself. Snakes, Dragons or heavily armoured bully boys
 trying to stop you in your quest. Then words like KILL, ATTACK, STAB, 
 POISON, CUT, STRANGLE & ... (may I leave the rest to your imagination?)
 , seem appropriate.
  I could go on with page after page of hints and advice for the Adventure
 player, but I would soon reach the point where help for the novice player
 would turn into specific explanations of the game on this cassette - 
 which takes away the whole point of playing the game!
  I shall therefore, stop here and wish you good luck. Remember that 
 every problem has a solution (although there are times when you'll swear
 that ain't so!) so just keep at it - it'll come clean eventually.
 
                                                   Courtesy P.KEMP
 SOFTWARE PROJECTS 1983