(by Peer Schaefer, peer@wolldingwacht.de)
Anybody out there remembering the good old hints-system in the text-adventures of "Magnetic Scrolls"(R), like The Pawn and The Guild of Thieves? You had to type in silly things like <5x rf mz g0 5b rx oo po> (that are provided in the manual) on the command-prompt, and the program decoded that into a short hint to get you unstuck.
This module provides a very similar hints-system. To encode a hint into a code-sequence you can use the new verb "encode" that is only available if you compile the game with debug-mode on. In the manual/documentation of your game you can provide several code-sequences that you have created in this way.
Example:
You can include the following text in the manual of your game:
"How can I open the small chest in the throne room?
42 17 60 49 26 77 6c e1 e2 f7 88 55 24"
To decode such code-sequence your players can use the new verb "hint".
Example (cont.):
Typing in
>HINT 4217604926776ce1e2f7885524
on the prompt will result in "use a hammer".
What's the point?
The great advantage of such hints-system is that the hints are
not included in the game itself; the game only contains a decoder
for the hint-code-sequences. That allows you to publish new hints
for your games without changing the game itself.
An here are the downloads:
Bug-reports, suggestions, corrections of my bad english (or just congratulations) are welcome! Send to Peer Schaefer, peer@wolldingwacht.de.
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