                        MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000 #1
                                  AGT version
                                by Graeme Cree
                            72630.304@compuserve.com
                               graemecree@aol.com

                    Original Inform version by Chris Forman
              Original AGT version of Detective by Matt Barringer



     Here is my AGT port of the Inform game Mystery Science Theater 3000 #1,
which was itself based on the AGT game Detective.  I created this new version
for four reasons:

     1) I thought MST3K1 would look a lot better if the comments of Mike and 
the bots were in different coloured lettering than the text from the
Detective game.  I knew this couldn't be done with Frotz, and didn't know
enough about Inform to be able to rewrite the source code there, if it was
even possible.  This new version is a lot more colourful.  The Detective text
looks just like it did in the original Detective game, and the commentary is
set apart in green and brown.

     2) I wanted a coding exercise after writing Mystery Science Theater
3000 #2.  MST3K2 is a rather simple game; it's primary coding trick merely
involves having the room and item descriptions change the 2nd and 3rd times
that you see them.  MST3K1 has many more sophisticated tricks, that I wanted
to figure out how to implement in AGT in case I ever needed to use them for
MST3K3 or other projects.

     3) To expand the horizons of the much-maligned AGT compiler.  While it
is true that AGT doesn't match up to TADS or Inform, it is still capable of
doing much more than we generally see from it, especially in the Master's
Edition.  In fact, one of AGT's faults is that it encourages the production
of unpolished games, simply because it is possible to use it to create
"working" finished games with much less work than you ought to put into it.
There are a lot of features that can be implemented with AGT than we
generally see, but since the game "works" without them, many authors don't
bother.  There were several tricks in MST3K1 that I had never seen in an AGT
game, and wanted to see if they could be implemented there.  Unfortunately,
it was not possible to stretch the capabilities of the parser itself in a
similar manner.  Being based on Detective, this game, by necessity still has
an extremely simple parser.

     4) Since I had written MST3K2 in AGT, I wanted there to be AGT versions 
of both games.

     The final result is (as far as I can tell) a complete port of MST3K1.
Everything in this game works as it did in the original, with the single
unfortunate exception being that AGT has no UNDO command.  In one or two 
places, where Detective and MST3K1 disagreed, I made it look like 
Detective.  For example, in Detective, when you try to take the phantom 
knife, the response is "What knife?  There is no knife here?"  In the Inform 
version of MST3K1, the response is "You can't see any such thing."  In this 
port, you get the first response in that situation.

     At the beginning of an AGT game, you get a message asking if you want 
to read the instructions.  For most games, this consists of a long text 
file explaining how to play a text game (for people who have never seen one).
Since MST3K1 has a rather long introduction, and since most people who will 
download this already know how to play interactive fiction, I have put the 
introduction in this space.  If you say "yes" when asked if you want to see 
the instructions, you will get the original introduction to the game (with 
the addition of the lyrics to the MST3K love theme at the beginning).  Saying 
no, will send you right into the game.
