After Shock

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.