AFTER SHOCK - INTERCEPTOR MICROS SOFTWARE AUTHOR: David Banner GRAPHICS: Terry Greer THE STORY Everyone knew that the earthquake would come, there had been enough warnings. It was inevitable, with a fault line running through the heart of the city. All the experts agreed that a major earthquake could not occur for several decades and that it would incur only minimal damage. No one, however could have foreseen the terrible chain of events that led to this disaster. TUESDAY 10 a.m. You are notified of a failure in the backup cooling system at the nuclear power plant, which you helped design, at the edge of the city. The primary system shows no problems. From your city office you coordinate the investigation into the failure of the backup. TUESDAY 2.30 p.m. The military explode a nuclear warhead in an underground test deep within the desert to the east. TUESDAY 8 p.m. Several small shocks hit the city. The experts are puzzled at their occurrence. The city council decides to wait for a while. WEDNESDAY 9 a.m. The shocks have not subsided. In panic, people flee their homes. The city council orders an immediate evacuation. Your backup coolant failure investigation continues. FRIDAY 8.15 a.m. You have not left your office since Tuesday. The power plant maintainence foreman reports that the fault has been traced to a switching valve. He will effect repairs immediately. The evacuation is virtually complete. FRIDAY 8.23 a.m. A massive earthquake grips the city. You head heard about earthquakes, but nothing could have prepared you for the titanic, elemental violence of the actual event. FRIDAY 9.13 a.m. The ground has finally stopped heaving. You receive a frantic radio message from one of the power plant repair crew. The primary cooling system is losing pressure and the backup system is still inoperative, the men are not prepared to wait any longer, they are leaving the area. In a few hours the reactor will explode. Your course of action is clear, you must make you way out of the city, reach the power plant and repair the cooling system. PLAYING THE GAME Some locations have pictures associated with them. If it is your first visit to this location the picture will be displayed. Pressing any key will clear the screen and print the description, together with any supplementary information. The picture can always be recalled by using the LOOK command. Once the description has been printed, the '>' prompt symbol will appear together with a cursor. GIVING COMMANDS Except for the special commands, described below, commands are given in complete English sentences. The language analyser will only accept grammatically correct commands, though the word 'THE' may be omitted. This has been done deliberately, to avoid the often bizarre responses given by some parsers to wrongly constructed commands. E.G. 'TAKE BOX' is correct, it is only a simple verb-noun construction but it is quite legal in English usage. 'GO BOAT' is obviously wrong, no one would ever say such a thing. It as an attempt to use the verb-noun construction that it too complex for it. 'CLIMB INTO BOAT' is correct, using a different verb together with an appropriate preposition produces a legal construction. You may try a phrase that is quite legal, but is not understood. This is because no game based language analyser can be expected to cope with all possible phrases. This would require the complete English vocabulary and an enormous syntax checker, so the analyser is this game has a vocabulary limited to the words and phrases relevant to the game. (Plus a few that aren't). SPECIAL COMMANDS HELP or H Use this when you're really stuck, but remember, the response may not always be helpful. INVENTORY or I This will list all the objects that you are carrying. LOOK or L Print the location description. If this location has a picture associated with it, that will be reproduced first. QUIT or Q Used when you've had enough. You will be given the options to save your current status and start another game. SAVE This will save your current status onto the appropriate storage medium. It is advisable to use this frequently, especially where you are about to issue a command that you may subsequently regret. LOAD This will load a previously saved status file. This allows you to carry on where you left off the last time you saved. SCORE This shows you how well you are doing (or not!). NORTH or N Go North SOUTH or S Go South EAST or E Go East WEST or W Go West UP or U Go Down DOWN or D Go Up [ Transcriber's note: I feel those last two directions may be in error! ] COPYRIGHT: Interceptor Ltd., Unit 3/6, Mercury House, Calleva Park Ind. Est, Aldermaston, Berks. RG7 4QW All rights of the producer and owner of the work being produced are reserved. Unauthorised copying, hiring, lending, public performance and broadcasting of this cassette/disc is prohibited. The publisher assumes no responsibility for errors, not liability for damage arising from its use.