ADVENTURE PDA MANUAL
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This is your guide to Adventure PDA and, more importantly, how to play the incredible adventures of Scott Adams and others. You now have a wonderful excuse to spend hours in front of your PC or on the fly with your PDA, struggling through mazes, wrestling with brain-teasing problems, trying to defeat magical monsters and spells, while you get closer and closer to unlocking the secrets of your adventure.


-= EQUIPMENT NEEDED =-

If playing on a PC (ADVPC.EXE) you will need a PC with Windows 2000 or greater with .NET Framework minimum v2 

If playing on a Windows mobile PDA you will need a 'Windows Mobile' operating system with a minimum screen resolution of 240x240 (240x320 recommended) and Windows .NET Compact framework minimum v2.

PLEASE NOTE: If you have an ealy version of a Microsoft 'Pocket PC' operating system (such as Pocket PC v4.20) the hyperlinking may not be functional - but this is optional in any case.

Microsoft .NET frameworks are available as a free download from http://www.microsoft.com


-= WHAT ARE ADVENTURE GAMES? =-

Adventure games are sometimes referred to as ‘mind-fantasies’ or ‘interactive fiction’. In the beginning, you find yourself in a specific location and you have to start exploring. You can accomplish a variety of tasks by entering one or two word commands. Depending on the command, the computer will respond accordingly with a reply message.

Use your imagination to think about how the place it describes to you as the current location may look. This adds 'atmosphere' to the game.


-= HOW TO PLAY AN ADVENTURE =-

When you enter your commands, the first word is always a verb – something you do. The second word should indicate a direction or object. Suppose, for example, that you are in a dark room and the computer says “It’s dark in here. I can’t see.” – what should you do? Well, if you are carrying a torch you may be able to light it by entering ‘LIGHT TORCH’ - but perhaps, only if you are carrying some matches which you may pick up on your journey!

Some (but not all) of the words you might find useful are:

Climb, Examine, Leave, Move, Say, Get, Drop, Go, Light, Pull, Push, Read, Enter, Help, Look, Wear.

If you use a command that the game can’t do or doesn’t understand, it will reply with messages similar to “I can’t do that.” Or “I don’t understand”. When this happens, try thinking of another way to say it or try making a verb of the action. Instead of ‘GO SWIMMING’, try saying ‘SWIM’. You’ll also discover that most items can be picked up using the last word of their names. For example, to pick up a Blue Ox, enter GET OX. Normally, you can only do things to items that are visible or that you are carrying.

When you run Adventure, you will see a screen asking you to select your quest. You can pick from the selection of Scott Adams adventures using the pull down box, and then clicking the [Play] button or if you have other adventures structured in the same "Scott Adams" data file format, these can be accessed by the [Open other...] button and then pointing it to the appropriate data file.

Other data file format games such as Brian Howarth's 'mysterious' adventure games and perhaps others are available from the Interactive Fiction Archive at ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive

When your adventure opens, you will be presented with a window with a top, middle and bottom section. By default, the top section describes where you are and what you can see. The middle section describes any possible exits and the bottom section will show general messages and responses to your input.


-= SPEEDING UP PLAY =-

"The pointer is mightier than the keyboard" - Using the mouse of the PC or the Stylus of the PDA, you can speed up play in the following ways:

Clicking on hyperlinked items** in the top window will usually allow you to pick up the item and add it to your inventory. Similarly, if you perform an INVENTORY, you will see the items you are carrying in the bottom window, and by clicking on these items, usually you can drop the item. In the middle window, if there are exits available, for example, NORTH, if you click it, you will move north.

As well as this, you could enter a verb manually then click on a hyperlink, for example, entering EXAMINE (or pressing the 'Examine' magnifying glass and then clicking the 'Blood Soaked Book' icon will EXAMINE BOOK instead of 'GET BOOK'.

There are also some buttons for common actions, and pressing these buttons more than once will offer a similar action, such as a button for GET / DROP, a button for ENTER / LEAVE / CLIMB / SWIM etc. 

There are also shortcut key sequences that can be used, for example, pressing the H button twice will ask for HELP, a summary of the shortcut keys are:

HH - Help, II - Inventory, LL - Look, NN - North, SS - South, EE - East, WW - West, UU - Up, DD - Down.

Most Scott Adams adventures use three word (sometimes four depending on the adventure in question) activation sequences, such as typing 'DRO LEA' will work as well as "DROP LEAFLET".

On the odd rare occasion where you may need to input a number, if your screen is 240x320, use the "^" button to the left of the onscreen keyboard to exchange the top row of QWERTY... keys with 12345... 

** Hyperlinking is available on PDAs with "Windows Mobile" operating systems. Hyperlinking may not work on older PDA operating systems such as some versions of Windows "Pocket PC" operating system.

If you experience problems with hyperlinks, try setting the Linkfix option to Yes in the Options menu.


-= SAVING YOUR GAME AND RELOADING IT LATER =-

You can SAVE your game by using the 'GAME' -> 'SAVE' menu option so you can come back to an adventure later or SAVE before that crucial scary move in the game. To reload a previously saved game, select 'GAME' -> 'LOAD'. You must be in the adventure of the game you are reloading, for example, you will be unable to load an adventure for Pirate Adventure if you are currently in Adventureland. 

Saved game files saved on your PDA can be loaded on the PC version and vice versa.


=- CUSTOMISING IN GAME OPTIONS =-

From the menu option 'Game' -> 'Options' you can choose from a selection of different 'themes', that is colour schemes of the window where your adventure is shown. You may wish to make your own theme. To do this, take a look at the sub folder called '\themes' and use the template.thm (edit using Notepad) to create your own theme. You will need to have some knowledge of HTML text colour formatting to create your own template.

You can also select the size of the font most appropriate to you. Please note that the font size you see in game is related to the font size selected in your Microsoft Internet Explorer - please ensure your font size in Internet Explorer is set to the default of "Medium" for optimum play.

There is also an option to have all bold fonts should you wish more definition of character.

The Hyperlinks option can switch on / off hyperlinks depending on your preference.

If you experience problems with hyperlinks when playing, try setting Linkfix to Yes to apply a possible workaround patch, but normally this should be set to No.

With the selection 'Message at top', you can state in which order you see the game text. 'Yes' will show the message section first, the the room and content description and then the possible exits. 'No' will show the room and content description first, then the exits and then the messages. 

If you have a PDA hard keyboard and your screen is large (i.e. 480x640 or 480x800) you can hide the "soft" onscreen keyboard allowing more area for the actual in game text by pressing the [Kbd = Y] button which will then change to [Kbd = N]. A game restart will need to take place for this specific setting to take effect.

Once done, click the APPLY button to have your options saved (in adv.ini) for future play.


-= MAPPING OUT YOUR ADVENTURE =-

Please see the MAPPING.GIF image file in this package. It shows you how to map out adventures to help you visualize your adventure.

In the MAPPING.GIF file, each location (commonly known as a 'room') is represented by a box with the 'room' name in it and all items found in it are noted alongside.

Directions from a location are indicated by a line coming out of anywhere on the box but with the direction leaving the box indicated by the first letter of that direction. If a direction from Room A to Room B is bidirectional, simply draw a line between the two boxes. If it is unidirectional ('one-way') then add an arrowhead to the one-way direction (again, see example in MAPPING.GIF.


-= OTHER HINTS =-

Be sure to examine the items you find throughout your adventure. Also keep in mind that most problems and solutions require no more than common sense to solve. Special knowledge / information is rarely required. For example, if an area is too dark to see in, you are going to need a source of light to avoid disaster!

You could try asking for HELP if you get stuck. You may or may not get assistance depending on what you are carrying, where you are, etc. Finally, be careful about making assumptions - to assume can be fatal. (As my teacher used to say - to ASS/U/ME makes an ASS of U and ME)!

If you are seriously stuck, have a look in the \hints folder in this package - but don't look until you are sure you have EXAMINED everything and have exhausted all other avenues. Remember, the challenge of text adventures is in the adventuring, not the cheating!


-= BUG REPORTS / SUGGESTIONS / SAYING YOHO =-

For bug reports, or suggested improvements, please first check for the latest version of this software at Scott Adams website at one of the following three locations:

Main website:       http://www.therealeasterbunny.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk
Scott Adams Mirror: http://www.msadams.com 
Support Forums:     http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/adventurepda

If the bug still exists follow the next steps:

- If the error occurs on your PDA, try to reproduce the error on your PC (or vice versa). If it works on your PC, it may be a fault or bad configuration on your PDA or your PDA may not be compatible.

- Try downloading and reinstalling the game from scratch once more - does the problem go away? If so you may have had a corrupt or incomplete game package.

- If the problem still occurs, please post a message at the Yahoo group:

http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/adventurepda/
 
If posting a message, please describe the error as much as possible, explaining what you were doing at the time - try to include a saved game attachment in the files area with additional commands leading up to the error. Although I cannot guarantee a fix, I will try my best. 


-= CREDITS =-

Thank you to Scott Adams who has graciously given me permission to create this driver for use with his game data files.

Thank you also to Alan Cox (driver "ScottFree" v1.14) and Robert Schneck (driver "Another Scott Free Driver" v1.20) whose previous works under the C programming language was a great help in creation of this work.

Other reference: 'Pirate Adventure' (Byte magazine, December 1980)

Thank you to 'agraham' for his webbrowser.dll and assistance in its use.

Thank you to 'brathbone' for his DeviceInfo.dll for PDA OS detection.

Thank you also to my beta testers: dieself1sh, Mr G, Andy Betts, BowbZ and Jenny.


-= DEDICATIONS =-

This game driver is dedicated to the good old days of vintage computing - YOHO!


Happy Adventuring!


therealeasterbunny
http://www.therealeasterbunny.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk
http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/adventurepda/