ISLAND OF LOST HOPE DOCUMENTATION

Brought to you by Angel Eyes of Vision Factory



ADVENTURING
In an adventure game you play the role of a character in a story. You must
manipulate the story in such a way that you can continue your quest. This
is done by finding certain objects and using them in a particular way for
solving puzzles. Carefully chosen actions should allow you to reach your
goal or eventually the conclusion of the story. Communication with the
story is done by typing in commands that determine what happens next.
These commands usually involve an action word or verb such as "Examine",
"Get","Drop","Throw" or "Attack" and the object or noun you want to act
upon such as "Room","Book","Key","Stone",or"Man". Commands may be more
precise than simple two word inputs and may include adjectives and words
such as "the". This allows players to type in commands that are more
natural and descriptive. The simple commands may not always be enough to
tell the program what you exactly want to do. You may have to specify the
"object" that you will use to commit this action, as in "Unlock the door
with the iron key". You may also need to specify what to do with the
object, as in "Throw the coconut into the ocean". Words such as "the","a"
and adjectives may be omitted, so "Unlock the wooden door with the iron
key" becomes "Unlock door with key". In this case if you possessed more
than one key the program would prompt you to pick which type of key "Iron
or Silver". Some actions only require one word such as "Look" and
"Inventory". If you use "Look" by itself it will print the room description
while "Inventory" will give you a list of objects that you are currently
carrying. Not all actions have good effects. Some may get you killed,
stop you from solving a puzzle, or may do nothing at all. Not all the
commands you type will be understood by the program: remember the program
isn't a person and can't possibly have that large of vocabulary and under-
standing. If you encounter a phrase that isn't understood, act according
to the error prompt you receive. If the program doesn't understand a verb
then try others that have similar meanings, if those fail then it is reason-
able to think that the verb is not used in the story. The program under-
stands the most commonly used verbs. To examine something you can use words
like "look","search" or "examine" but not "peruse". The program understands
quite a few words, but remember the most commonly used words throughout any
adventure game will usually be "go","look","drop","get", and "open". If a
noun isn't understood then that object isn't in the game or you spelled it
wrong. If the sentence isn't understood then try to reword it in a more
logical order and simplify it into the format shown above. If you are
prompted with an error message like "with what" or "You can't unlock the
box with nothing" then retype the command, but remember to include the
object with which you wish to perform this action. Always remember to look
at everything for clues and use your understanding of how an object may be
used, no matter how bizarre, to solve a puzzle. Following is a typical
sequence from an adventure game:

"You walk down into a room in the basement. Acounter surrounds three walls
and on the counter are various objects. An Amiga computer and monitor sit
on the middle counter. An exit leads south and stairs lead upward".

Examine the computer

"On the computer is a switch."

Turn on computer

"The screen lights up and prompts you to insert a disk."

Get disk

"The disk is not here."

Go South

"You go south. You are inside a small messy closet. Garbage is all over the
place."

Search the garbage

"You find a particularly interesting small blue square object."

Get the disk

"You get the disk."

Examine the disk

"The label says 'Island of Lost Hope'."

North

"You go north. A computer surrounds three walls on the counter are various
objects. An Amiga computer and monitor sit on the middle counter. An exit
leads south and stairs lead upward."

Put the disk into the computer

"The screen lights up and you sit down to play."

This is a fairly simple example, but it is a good starting point for playing
an adventure. Expermenting with various words usually has to be done in
order to solve a puzzle.


LOADING THE PROGRAM
1) Follow normal booting procedure as described in your computer manual.
2) Insert "disk one" at the workbench prompt.
3) After the Intro has played and game has been loaded you will be prompted
to insert disk two*. Remove disk one from the internal drive and replace it
with disk two.

NOTE: You won't have to reinsert disk one again until you finish the game
ending animation has to be loaded.

*Disk one is copy protected(not anymore haha!)but disk two is not protected.
Since you save games to disk two we recommend you make a copy of it and
always use the copy to play the game.


GETTING STARTED
For those with a megabyte(1024k)of memory or more please note that when the
second disk begins to load, the graphics file will be loaded into memory.
This will increase the intial loading time by about 50 seconds but will
greatly enhance the playability and speed of the game. Although we recom-
mended extra memory, those with 512k will still get these features. The last
few graphics are stored in a ram buffer, so the graphics won't have to be re-
loaded every time you move between adjoining areas. If you have at least one
and a half megabytes of memory, then as the sounds are loaded they will be
stored in a ram. The animators will still load from disk even with extra
memory, but they are only played once at specific times in the game. Please
leave the second disk inserted in the drive at all times unless otherwise
prompted. Those people with the early Amiga 1000 computer systems should note
that the program uses extra halfbrite. Although the program works fine on
these machines the graphics lose some of their depth. You can contact your
local dealer if you want to get your machine upgraded.


THE STORY SO FAR...
You are a young captain searching for the lost treasure of forgotton souls.
unfortunately, in your quet you ran into a band of cutthroat pirates led by
the infamous Captain Black. They sink your ship, killing all of your crew
and stealing your cargo. You were thrown overboard in the battle and drifted
until washed upon a nearby small island. Now you stand there watching the
pirate ship, anchored within sight, as they gloat over their victory. All
the resources you had at hand are now lost and only your wits will get you
out of this alive. The treasure seems so distant now and your only thoughts
are on survival and revenge.


NUMBER KEYS
To move from one area to another you can type in the direction, click on
the movement gadget as described above or press the number keys. "8" is
north, "4" is west, "6" is east, "2" is south, "5 is down and "0" is up.


DELETE AND BACKSPACE
Backspace moves the cursor back one space and erases the character at that
location. Delete deletes the current character the cursor is on. Like back-
space, all the characters after the cursor are moved back one space. If
after deleting, two spaces or periods are back to back then one is auto-
matically erased.


RESTORING/SAVING A GAME
The second disk should should always be write-enabled so you can save your
games to that disk (use a backup copy). You can get to the store/restore
menu by using different methods. Use the F10 key as described in the special
keys section, type "save" or "restore" into the text window or press "R"
after ending or quitting a game.

Ten games can be saved at any one time. labelled 0-9. To restore a game
simply click on the saved game or press the corresponding number of the
game you wish to restore.

To save a game, pick the number you wish to store into(the previous game in
that location will be erased). A cursor will appear at the save position,
and you will be prompted to type in the name of the game you wish to save.
Most of the special keys are disabled when inputting the name of the game,
but you can edit the text as usual. Pressing shift with the right of left
cursor will now move the cursor to the end or beginning of the line
respectively. The up arrow will print the previously saved game name for
that position. Press return to save the game or ESC will take you back to
the save game menu.


WHEN THE GAME IS OVER
When you are killed or exit the current game you will be prompted to "Play
Again?(Y/R)". Use the right and left cursor keys to highlight your choice
and press return, or press the coresponding key. Press "Y" to play again or
"R" to restore a saved game.


THE SCREEN LAYOUT

THE TOP HALF OF THE SCREEN
The top half of the screen contains the following:

On the left side is a port hole through which a graphic representation of
the area you are currently in will be shown. On the right side of the
screen is a map which shows your current location represented by a blue
sphere. It also shows you all the areas you have visited on this level and
the possible exits. In the middle of the screen is a graphic of a skull
surrounded by the letters "N E W S U D" (each one represents a direction).
Click on the specific letter with the left mouse button, by using the
mouse to move the pointer (sword) to that particular letter. The bottom
half of the screen will inform you whether or not the move is possible. If
you were successful the graphic will change and a new room description will
appear. You can also move around by hitting various keys, please read the
next sections for more information.

THE BOTTOM HALF OF THE SCREEN
The bottom half of the screen is the text area. In this area the text that
you type will be displayed along with the descriptions, responses and
prompts from the game. On the right half of the screen you will see a box
labeled "Inventory". All the objects you are currently carrying will be dis-
played here. A maximum of six objects can be displayed at once, but by
clicking on the up and down arrows you can scroll through your entire
inventory. Moving the pointer over the name of the object will highlight
the text and then by clicking on that name will perform the following. If
your current input is empty then a description of the item will be printed
in the text window. Otherwise, if there are enough characters in the line
to accomodate the word, the object's name will be inserted at the current
cursor position. For example if you had typed "Throw" and clicked on the
word "Coconut" then your input would now read "Throw Coconut". A space is
added if one is not already there. For a better understanding of how to
input your commands read the next section. You can also list the items you
hold by typing "Inventory". Instead of using the inventory gadget you may
type the object's name. Before you pick up an object you will have no
choice but to type in it's name, if a list was displayed of all the objects
in the room, it would be too easy to find the items.

HOW TO INPUT INTO THE TEXT WINDOW
When the cursor appears on an empty line the program is waiting for input.
Type whatever commands you want to enter into the program, and they will
appear in the window. You can type in upper or lower case, there is no dis-
tinction between them. The maximum you can input for any command is 52
letters. When the cursor reaches the end of the line, the program will
accept no more input for that command. Apart from the letters, the only
characters that are accepted for input are "&" or "'" or ".". You can in-
clude numbers in your save game names, otherwise the number keys serve a
differnt purpose as described in the next section on special keys. The
cursor can always be repositioned at any part of your typed command using
the cursor keys.

If you notice a misspelling in a command you just typed, use the left arrow
to move the cursor to the mistake. Use the backspace or delete key to remove
the misspelling and anything you type will be inserted at that point. The
program automatically formats the text as you type. Only one space or period
is allowed between words. A period is used to separate different commands
just as "and" is used. You can type "get book and go east" or "get book.go-
east", both work the same way. The program's parser allows for multiple
commands, and with some verbs multiple nouns can be used. With "get" or
"drop" you can specify "get key and pen" or even "get all but knife". The
text window displays a maximum of eight lines at once, when full, a prompt
will appear for more. Press any key or the mouse button to scroll the text
to the next section.


SPECIAL KEYS
HELP - The help key displays a brief explanation of what each special key
does, much like this section.


FUNCTION KEYS
The first five function keys (F1-F5) are macros. Press shift with that
function key to define the key. These keys are predefined but can be used
to store any frequently used commands. When you are defining the function
keys most of the other special keys are dormant but the cursor keys will
still allow you to edit the text. The previously assigned function for that
key will be displayed above the input prompt. To keep the same macro press
return without typing anything, otherwise press the return key after you
have entered the new function.

Pressing function keys F1-F5 will insert that function's macro into the
current command, starting at the cursor. If the length of the macro plus
the length of the command exceed the maximum size of input, then nothing is
added to that command.

The other function keys are defined below:

F6 - Takes you to the restore game menu.
Shift F6 - Takes you to the save game menu.
(READ THE RESTORE/SAVE GAME SECTION FOR MORE INFORMATION)

F7 - Clears the screen and moves the cursor to the top line.
Shift F7 - Clears the line and moves the cursor to the beginning of the
line.

F8 - Clears the text after the cursor.
Shift F8 - Clears the text before the cursor and shifts the remaining text
to the beginning of the line.

F9 - Moves the cursor to the end of the line.
Shift F9 - Moves the cursor to the start of the line.

F10 - Turns the graphics on.
Shift F10 - Turns the graphics off.


CURSOR KEYS
The left cursor moves the cursor back one character. Using the shift with
the left arrow will move the cursor to the beginning of the current word or
the beggining of the last word.

The right cursor moves the cursor forward one character. If you are at the
end of the current input then the cursor won't move until another character
is typed. Pressing shift with this key will cause the cursor to jump to the
end of the current word or the beginning of the next word.

The right and left cursor keys are also used to select between different
objects. If the program isn't sure which object you want to use, for example
"iron key or silver key", it will give you a choice between the two objects.
Use the cursor keys to switch between the objects and press return when
done. Select abort if you don't want to use that command.

The up cursor key actsmuch like pressing the first five function keys. But
instead of inserting a defined macro it inserts the last command that was
followed with a return. So if you make a mistake in typing a command,
simply press the up arrow and edit the command.

The down cursor key is similar to the up cursor key. It, however, does not
insert the last command but erases the line and prints the last commands
entered. The second to last command is printed first and by continuously
pressing the down arrow the previous five commands are scrolled through.
Please note that your current input will be erased when using this key.


MISCELLANEOUS KEYS
ESC - Allows you to quit your current game and restart. A prompt appears
asking if you really want to quit. Just press the "N" key if you accidently
pressed escape.

TAB - Dims the colors of the screen to half the intensity of the normal
palette or returns the palette to normal if it was laready dimmed. This is
helpful for reducing eye strain when playing in a dimly lighted room.

(.) Turns the sound on/off.
(=) Turns the wipes on/off.
(') Switches between two available fonts.

Imported by Midnight Maniac & Mayday on 15/1-90

H A V E F U N ! ! !