Welcome to Dungeon!

Dungeon is a game of adventure, danger, and low cunning.  In it you will explore some of the most amazing territory ever seen by mortal man.  Hardened adventurers have run screaming from the terrors contained within.

In Dungeon, the intrepid explorer delves into the forgotten secrets of a lost labyrinth deep in the bowels of the earth, searching for vast treasures long hidden from prying eyes, treasures guarded by fearsome monsters and diabolical traps!

Dungeon was created at the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science by Tim Anderson, Marc Blank, Bruce Daniels, and Dave Lebling.  It was inspired by the Adventure game of Crowther and Woods, and the long tradition of fantasy and science fiction games.  The original version was written in MDL (alias MUDDLE).  The current version was translated from MDL into FORTRAN by a somewhat paranoid DEC engineer who prefers to remain anonymous.

On-line information may be obtained with the commands HELP and INFO.

INFO

You are near a large dungeon, which is reputed to contain vast quantities of treasure.   Naturally, you wish to acquire some of it. In order to do so, you must of course remove it from the dungeon.  To receive full credit for it, you must deposit it safely in the trophy case in the living room of the house.

In addition to valuables, the dungeon contains various objects which may or may not be useful in your attempt to get rich.  You may need sources of light, since dungeons are often dark, and weapons, since dungeons often have unfriendly things wandering about.  Reading material is scattered around the dungeon as well;  some of it is rumored to be useful.

To determine how successful you have been, a score is kept. When you find a valuable object and pick it up, you receive a certain number of points, which depends on the difficulty of finding the object.  You receive extra points for transporting the treasure safely to the living room and placing it in the trophy case.  In addition, some particularly interesting rooms have a value associated with visiting them.  The only penalty is for getting yourself killed, which you may do only twice.

Of special note is a thief (always carrying a large bag) who likes to wander around in the dungeon (he has never been seen by the light of day).  He likes to take things.  Since he steals for pleasure rather than profit and is somewhat sadistic, he only takes things which you have seen.  Although he prefers valuables, sometimes in his haste he may take something which is worthless.  From time to time, he examines his take and discards objects which he doesn't like.  He may occas- ionally stop in a room you are visiting, but more often he just wanders through and rips you off (he is a skilled pickpocket).

HELP

1 User Commands

The following command may prove useful while playing Dungeon. They are not, however, game commands; that is, they have no side affects on the current game.

1.1 Verbosity

  VERBOSE:     The default: prints long room descriptions on first visit, 20% of the time thereafter.

  BRIEF:     Prints short room descriptions and short object descriptions for rooms which have been visited.

  SUPERBRIEF:     Prints short room descriptions and short object descriptions all the time, even on the first visit.
Note that the maximally verbose description may always be obtained by the command "LOOK".  See also the "ROOM" and "OBJECTS" commands.

1.2 Help

  INFO:     Prints information on what the game is about.

  HELP:     Prints this message. 1.3 Progress

  QUIT:     Prints your score, and asks whether you wish to continue playing; "Q" is equivalent.

  SCORE:     Prints your score (and deflates your ego).

  TIME:     Prints how much time you have wasted playing the game.

  VERSION:     Prints the current version number. 1.4 Save/Restore

  SAVE:     Saves the current game for future continuation.

  RESTORE:     Restores a previous saved game. SAVE and RESTORE take an optional file name, in quotation marks.  If no name is given, the file name defaults to "DSAVE.DAT".

1.5 General

  AGAIN:     Repeats the last command.

  LOOK:     Describes the current surroundings; "L" is equivalent.

  ROOM:     Prints the verbose description of the current room, without object descriptions.

  RNAME:     Prints the short description of the current room.

  OBJECTS:     Prints the verbose description of all the objects in the current room, without describing the room.

  INVENTORY:     Prints a list of your possessions; "I" is equivalent.

  DIAGNOSE:     Prints your current state of health.

  WAIT:     Causes "time" to pass.

2 Command parser
A command is one line of text terminated by a carriage return. For reasons of simplicity, all words are distinguished by their first eight letters.  All others are ignored.  For example, typing "DISASSEMBLE THE ENCYCLOPEDIA" is not only meaningless, it also creates excess effort for your fingers.  Note that this trunca- tion may produce ambiguities in the interpretation of longer words. You are talking to a moderately stupid parser, which understands the following types of things:

2.1 Actions

  Among the more obvious of these, TAKE, PUT, DROP, etc.  Fairly general forms of these may be used, such as PICK UP, PUT DOWN, etc.

2.2 Directions

  NORTH, SOUTH, UP, DOWN, etc. and their various abbreviations. Other more obscure directions (LAND, CROSS) are appropriate in only certain situations.

2.3 Objects

  Most objects have names and can be referenced by them.  Multiple objects, separated by commas or AND, can be used with TAKE, PUT, and DROP.  In addition, there are collective objects EVERYTHING, VALUABLES, and POSSESSIONS, which may also be used with TAKE, PUT, and DROP.  Collective objects may be qualified with an EXCEPT clause; for example, TAKE EVERYTHING EXCEPT THE RUG.

2.4 Adjectives

  Some adjectives are understood and required when there are two objects which can be referenced with the same noun (e.g. DOORs, BUTTONs).

2.5 Prepositions

  It may be necessary in some cases to include prepositions, but the parser attempts to handle cases which aren't ambiguous without.  Thus "GIVE CAR TO DEMON" will work, as will "GIVE DEMO CAR".  When a preposition is used, it should be appropriate; "GIVE CAR WITH DEMON" won't parse.

2.6 Sentences

  The parser understands a reasonable number of things.  For example, multiple commands (separated by periods or semicolons) can be placed on the same line.

2.7 Ambiguity

  The parser tries to be clever about what to do in the case of actions which require objects that are not explicitly specified. If there is only one possible object, the parser will assume that it should be used.  Otherwise, the parser will ask. Most questions asked by the parser can be answered.

3 Theories

The following "theories" are fundamental to the game and should be noted.

3.1 Containment

  Some objects can contain other objects.  Many such containers can be opened and closed.  The rest are always open.   They may or may not be transparent.  For you to access (e.g., take) an object which is in a container, the container must be open.  For you to see such an object, the container must be either open or transparent.  Containers have a capacity, and objects have sizes; the number of objects which will fit therefore depends on their sizes.  You may put any object you have access to (it need not be in your hands) into any other object.  At some point, the program will attempt to pick it up if you don't already have it, which process may fail if you're carrying too much.  Although containers can contain other containers, the program doesn't access more than one level down.

3.2 Fighting

  Occupants of the dungeon will, as a rule, fight back when attacked.  In some cases, they may attack even if unprovoked. Useful verbs here are "ATTACK <villain> WITH <weapon>", "KILL", etc.  Knife-throwing may or may not be useful.  You have a fighting strength which varies with time.  Being in a fight, getting killed, and being injured all lower this strength. Strength is regained with time.  Thus, it is not a good idea to fight someone immediately after being killed.  Other details should become apparent after a few melees or deaths.  The"DIAGNOSE" command describes your state of health.

3.3 Vehicles

  These are some objects in the labyrinth which are rumored to have the ability to transport the fearless adventurer to mysterious regions which are inaccessible on foot.  Needless to say, the adventurer faces great personal peril as he encounters these regions.  The vehicles can usually be entered with the "BOARD" command and can be exited with the "DISEMBARK" command.