============== Dead Reckoning ============== From the Spanish "Olvido Mortal" A short adventure written in Inform (C) 2000, 2001 Andres Viedma Pelaez English translation (C) 2003 Nick Montfort [A translation of this adventure called "Shattered Memory" was entered in the 2001 Interactive Fiction Competition; it was disqualified since it was based on a previously released work. "Dead Reckoning" is the first translation of "Olvido Mortal," and possibly the first interactive fiction translation of any work into English, done by a native English speaker.] INSTRUCTIONS ------------ At the beginning of this adventure the protagonist is unable to remember anything and has to recover his memory. This situation calls for a few special commands, but not too many. One verb has special importance in the game, and can be used in two ways: 1. REMEMBER 2. REMEMBER REMEMBER alone causes the player character to make a special effort to remember things in general. Whether or not a thing can be remembered depends on context, and on whether something has previously occurred that can help you remember. Using REMEMBER with a topic allows you to concentrate on a particular topic and try to recall something about it. There are several methods of communicating with characters: 1. TALK TO 2. SAY TO 3. ASK FOR The first of these begins menu-based conversation, allowing you to speak with characters by selecting pre-established options. These include some of the things troubling the character at the moment, the normal questions people might have or those that bear on things that have happened. These options can appear at any moment depending upon the context and what has happened. In fact, a conversation itself can give rise to new options on the conversation menu. The second and third options are different forms of the same command. They allow you to say something specific or ask about a particular topic. These would usually be used for more "advanced" conversation which isn't obvious, and which requires the player to discover the topic. An important note: these two modes of conversing (menu-based conversation with TALK TO and direct discourse with SAY and ASK) are complementary. Certain answers can only be obtained using one method, certain other ones using the other method. You shouldn't always expect to be understood if you try to use SAY and ASK with topics that refer to things from the conversation menus. Another command that can be useful is SUMMARY. In this adventure, there is some knowledge that the protagonist has recovered and some which is still "lost" (that is, it is not yet known with certainty). This command provides a summary of what the protagonist knows. This summary won't include everything the protagonist has done, not even all the important things. What it should include, at least, is the information needed to indicate what the protagonist has remembered so far. Other useful commands -- which will be familiar to those who have previous experience with interactive fiction -- include L(OOK), (E)X(AMINE), I(NVENTORY), TAKE, DROP, SAVE, and RESTORE. This game should recognize other "logical" commands in natural language that might occur to the player. The vocabulary is certainly not limited to the commands listed here. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS ------------------- This adventure was created with Inform and compiled to run on the Z-machine. It is cross-platform, running on any Z-machine interpreter. Specifically, it has been tested with Frotz for DOS and Unix and Zoom for OS X. The game uses different colors for its text. Specificially, different colors are used for statements by different people. It is known that these colors display correctly with Frotz for DOS. Many other interpreters, including WinFrotz and Zoom for OS X, either do not support color or have limited support. If you prefer proportional fonts when using Frotz, you can use the -d5 option with Frotz: "frotz -d5 deadreck.z5" CREDITS ------- "Olvido Mortal" testers in alphabetical order: Adr, Carolina, Jorge, and Zak. Particular thanks in developing "Olvido Mortal" go to Zak for his work on InformATE and for laying to rest all concerns about its mysteries. The translator thanks the beta testers for the English translation, Josh Kellar and Kiri Wagstaff. Also, thanks to Andrea Weikert for creating the Interactive Fiction Translator's Page that put the translator and the author in touch. Bug reports and comments on this translation are welcome and should be addressed to the translator: "nickm" at the hostname nickm.com AWARDS ------ "Olvido Mortal" was the winner in the Best Adventure category of the First Spanish Adventure Awards (I Premios Hispanos a la Aventura) for 1999-2000, and placed in five other categories. "Olvido Mortal" also won the Estatuilla de Dragon for best adventure in the First Short Adventure Competition of CAAD (I Concurso Aventuras Breves del CAAD) in 2000, and was a finalist in all the other categories. ###