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.
