INSTRUCTIONS FOR PLAYING 'WHAT PERSONAL COMPUTER - THE ADVENTURE'

Before you adopt the role of a harassed freelance journalist trying
to obtain a review copy of a new program, you may need to know a
little about how to play the game.

Adventure gaming is a test of the player's intellect.  Success calls
for a mixture of logic and lateral thinking - not to mention mapping
and a dogged determination to Examine every object in case it contains
a clue to solving some particularly knotty problem.

The adventure is an interactive narrative.  That's to say that you 
respond to the text by typing in your commands and if the program
understands those commands it acts upon them, whether for good or
bad.  You can get quite complex in your commands, specifying several
actions in one go, using pronouns and linking verbs with 'and'.  
The program will usually deduce what you mean.  However you should try
to observe the rules of 'logical' English.  For example, 'Give sausage
to policeman' would be okay, 'Give policeman sausage' is not.


This adventure has quite a large vocabulary and it will tell you
if it doesn't recognise a word or if it needs an adjective to
differentiate between identical nouns.  You'll find clues to words
it recognises in the the object descriptions and text.  Directions
are indicated by a capital letter, though just because there's a door
doesn't always mean you can proceed that way... at least not immediately.

Apart from directions, which consist of the four main points of the
compass plus Up and Down, you'll find Examine (or its abbreviation, Ex)
useful.  You can also read certain items.  Though you won't have time to
Examine everything if you want to meet the deadline (you only have 240 
turns) you might want to look around just for the fun of it at first.

This brings us to another vital pair of commands.  Save and Restore
allow you to save a game position then return to it if something fatal
happens or you think you've made a mistake.  As the game contains a
few nasty surprises, you're advised to save at regular intervals.  This
also allows you to try certain silly commands just to see what happens.




Your score will go up and down as your progress but the maximum number of
points available is 300.  However you'll lose 10 points every time you ask
for help after the first few turns (once you reach the High Street) and
for other unsuitable behaviour... which you can discover for yourself.

Other special commands include: Score, which gives you your current
status; Inventory (abbreviated to I) to see what you're carrying;
Wait; Brief or Verbose for different amounts of descriptive detail;
Look (L) to get a room description again; Help (H) to request a hint, 
though you may not always get one; Script and Unscript to direct the
text to your printer, providing it's connected.  Quit (Q) ends it all
if you're really stuck.

During the adventure you'll meet a number of other characters who'll
either help or hinder you.  You may wish to Talk with them.  If so just
type Talk To... whoever and they'll respond.






If all this sounds like a lot of typing you'll be glad to know that
there are short-cut keys.  You can use the arrows to move around, with
the numerical - and + keys for Up and Down, and Insert and Delete for
Enter and Exit (a room).  The function keys are also dedicated to 
macros: f1 Get; f2 Drop; f3 Examine; f4 Read; f5 Open; f6 Close;
f7 Inventory; f8 Look; f9 Score; f10 Help.  All you need to do is
follow the verb with a noun as required.

Remember, Go everywhere, Examine everything, Open anything that
can be opened and most importantly...

                                 enjoy!

