Release Notes for:

AUGUSTINE

An Interactive Fiction written by
Terrence V. Koch  (teviko@softhome.net)

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DESCRIPTION

	St. Augustine, Florida is a city rich in history.  Touted as the Oldest City in the United States, tourists flock to her to learn something of the nation's earliest settlers and get a sense of what life was like in the past.  But there is another side of St. Augustine that reveals itself when the sun goes down.  It is a city steeped in legends of the supernatural, as evidenced by the many ghost tours that are offered along the city streets.
	While on one of these tours you realize that the many stories are more than legends, they are chronicles of events that hold personal significance for you.  In fact, your seemingly innocent decision to take the tour sets off a chain of events that trigger painful memories for you, endangers the life of an attractive tour guide, and brings you face to face with an ancient enemy.  Will questions that have haunted you for years be answered?  Will an ancient curse be lifted?  Will a 600-year-old conflict be resolved?  These are questions you hope to find answers for tonight . . . in Augustine! 

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GENERAL INFORMATION

	AUGUSTINE is an Interactive Fiction using the TADS2 language.  Files available for AUGUSTINE are as follows:

	augustin.gam  -  The game file
	augustin.txt  -  Release Notes (this file)
	aug_sol.txt   -  Complete walkthrough
	aug_hint.html -  HTML-based hint file

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BACKGROUND

	To some, AUGUSTINE might bear some similarities to a certain movie and television series that involves sword fighting and people who happen to be immortal.  Let me take this moment to say that my attempt is not to copy or rip-off that idea.  The actual origins of this adventure go all the way back to daydreams, or fantasies, I had beginning in Jr. High, a few years before the release of the aforementioned movie.  While names and origins were vague, I used to dream up stories involving the two main characters presented in this IF.  The idea to create an IF based on these characters came after a recent business trip to St. Augustine.  I took a couple of the ghost tours offered in the city and spoke a bit with my tour guide.  A couple of weeks later I found myself dreaming up a story which wove my characters from long ago with several of the stories I recently heard on the tour.  So, with a little work, I combined those elements with actual events of my business trip. The result is the IF now known as AUGUSTINE.
	All of the ghost stories in AUGUSTINE are public domain and were told to me during the ghost tours I took.  I have tried to keep the details as close to those related by my tour guide, except, of course, for the inclusion of my own characters.  In some instances, however, I had to alter the details, either to make the stories fit in my IF or because I did not know, or could not remember, the actual "facts" of the story.  All other historical information in AUGUSTINE was researched and, except for the inclusion of my own characters, was written to be as accurate to actual history as possible.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

	While the bulk of the work was performed by myself, many people offered support, advice, encouragement, information and tools needed to create AUGUSTINE.  In fact, this project would not appear as it does today, if at all, had it not been for these people.


For Proofreading of the original story line:

	Thank you to Jay Korb, Arthur Johnson and, especially, Erik Ratliff who, thanks to his screenwriting training, has a good sense of what works and what doesn't and isn't afraid to tell you so, even when it's not what you want to hear.


For Beta Testing:

	Thank you to Darren Lacoste for some early testing.  More thanks to Erik Ratliff for testing the final product.


For Inspiration:

	As mentioned before, much of the historical material in this story that deals directly with St. Augustine was acquired when I took several of the ghost tours offered in the city.  I wish to thank the particular company which offered the tours I took, Ghost Tours of St. Augustine.  Furthermore, I wish to thank my tour guide, Shannon.  If you happen to visit St. Augustine, I recommend the tours offered by Ghost Tours of St. Augustine.  You might even run into Shannon herself, however, I do know she now works for a different tour company.


For Patience and a Willing Ear:

	A special thank you needs to go out to Darren Lacoste, a fellow employee who occupies the cubicle next to mine, for putting up with the many grunts, groans, cries of frustration and shouts of jubilation that have been drifting over the cubicle wall practically every lunch hour for the past six months.  Not only that, but Darren also listened willingly (though I'm sure not always completely interested) to me drone on and on about IF as though it was the most important thing in the world.


For the IF community:

	Of course, without the support - technical and distribution - of the IF community, all of this would be for naught.  Therefore, I wish to thank specifically Stephen Granade, Michael J. Roberts and Mark Engelberg for the support they have unknowingly gave me.  Furthermore, I wish to thank the entire IF community in general for their source files, routines, advice, and interest in playing text adventures, all of which have either provided programming insight or given me a reason to write AUGUSTINE.

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A NOTE TO THE IF COMMUNITY: AN APOLOGY

	In the mid-1980's I fell in love with text adventuring.  I began with the Scott Adams series, then moved on to Infocom and others.  As computers evolved and games advanced, I was slow to make the move to graphical adventures.  I felt they watered down the adventure experience.  Of course, graphical adventures improved and text adventuring went by the wayside.
	About a year-and-a-half ago, I stumbled upon Interative Fiction, and lo and behold, many of the old games I enjoyed in the 80's were available for play today.  I downloaded some and went looking for more.  My original thought was to restrict myself to games that were previously released in the commercial market.  I found many adventures that were written by IF fans and, of course, there were were IF Competition entries.  Still, I avoided them at first thinking that the commercial games were written by professionals.  Could the "home-grown" games compete?
	I am not ashamed to admit that I was totally misguided.  I eventually did play some to the games written by you, the IF community, and found them to be great.  While, of course, some games are dogs, most are well written and enjoyable to play.  You are an extremely talented group of programmers and story tellers.  I have all but abandoned the commercial games for the many treasures that can be found at the extensive IF FTP.  Keep up the good work and I look forward to playing past year's IF's, as well as future entries in the IF competition.
	Now, I have decided to move from player to author.  It's been a fun journey and I can't wait to see where it goes from here.

Terrence Koch can be reached for questions or comments at teviko@softhome.net.
