enchanter.txt

			 Enchanter
			 ---------

			Introduction

"Enchanter" is a new adventure game in the Zork tradition,
but in a different setting and with a different overall
philosophy.  The emphasis in Zork was on treasure and
fighting, but in Enchanter the emphasis is on magic.

This document describes the game as currently envisioned.
Comments are welcome; send them to Dave (PDL) and Marc
(BLANK).

		      General Comments

The viewpoint character is a low-level magician.  He has a
few abilities represented by spells in his spell book.  The
goal of the game is two-fold.  First, to become a better
magician.  Second, to defeat an evil magician who is taking
over the dungeon, repairing the damage he has done.

			 The Milieu

The dungeon is deteriorating, from the point of view of
anyone reasonable (such as you, we hope).  Rooms are
darkening, passages choking off (via magic and rockfalls),
monsters are being released to prowl the halls.

			The Warlock

The evil magician is "the Warlock."  He just recently moved
into the neighborhood and began taking it over, and you were
sent by the Council to clear him out.  He is much too much
of a wizard for you to take on directly until the end of the
game, and if you try (which should be possible), you get
fried for your trouble.  The Warlock is possibly also the
priest who sacrifices you in the Temple scene.  The
Warlock's Tower (which is nonetheless underground) is at the
top (bottom?) of the Endless Stair, and guarded by nasty
creatures with nasty sharp teeth, etc.  They are probably
evilly magicked bunny rabbits.

		       The Adventurer

The Adventurer may come to your assistance after you magic
him over from the other side of the mirror.  He is from the
Zork world, effectively, and comes equipped with an Elvish
sword and various other paraphenalia.  He will be turned
against you by the Warlock at some point and have to be made
friendly again.  He will be needed to perform some task
which is too physical for a cerebral type such as you. 
While he is turned against you he is like the thief in Zork,
and may even attack you.

			  Monsters

There are lots of nasty, sharp-toothed creatures wandering
around.  Eventually, you can avoid them via "Protection from
Evil."  If you don't, you will get destroyed pretty quickly,
or perhaps captured by the bad guys for sacrifice to their
even nastier dieties.

			   Spells

Magic plays a big part in this game.  There are several
magical objects, magic spells (which you learn as you go
along), and your spell-book, which is all-important. See
"Spells, Detail" below for more on spells.

The ultimate action in the game is going to be to say some
number of spells sequentially at the Warlock, which will
banish him and restore the dungeon.

Some spells (English names):

 *Light (makes a light wherever the caster goes)
  Open (opens something closed; a passage, a box...)
  Resurrect (restores something dead to life)
  Charm (makes someone friendly to you)
 *Write Magic (allows you to copy a spell into book)
  Fly (lets you fly around)
  Haste (makes things go fast)
 *Talk to Animals (lets you talk to turtle)

and others. * marks spells you have at the beginning.

		      Events/Problems

			  Darkness

As the game begins, you are in total darkness, having just
entered the underground (perhaps you were teleported there
by the Council).  You have only your spell book. 
Fortunately, the words written in such books glow in the
dark, so if you open the book you can read the spells you
have, one of which is "Light".

			 Sacrifice

This is probably the only overt reference to the Zork
trilogy, as it is based on the Viewing Table scene in Zork
3.  You are captured by the followers of the Warlock and
dragged to the Temple, where you are sacrificed in a rite
horrible and bloody.  You are left lying on the altar, the
magical sacrificial knife stuck in your chest.  If you had
the foresight to cast a "cheat death" beforehand, you revive
a few moves later.

			Gordian Knot

An ornate box is wrapped securely in a magic rope which you
cannot cut or untie.  In fact, if you try to untie it, it
reties the next move.  Like the original, this knot must be
cut, but with a magical blade (it's a magical rope, after
all).  The blade is the sacrificial knife from the Temple
scene.  The prize here is (naturally enough) the "Open"
spell.

		       Endless Stair

The entrance to the Warlock's Tower is an infinite stair.
It is literally infinite, in that you can go up or down it
any number of times (keep a count and a table of objects and
locations in case twit drops things).  Now, it isn't really
infinite, it's only an illusion, and by casting that "Dispel
Illusion," you discover it's actually only a round room
which you have been marching around in for hours, and has an
exit opposite the entrance.

		       Malleable Maze

There is an area of about ten rooms in a traditional Zork
maze configuration.  There is a (magic?) map of this area
with none of the connections shown, only the rooms.  As you
roam about in the maze, the connections appear.

Interestingly enough, there is one room you can't get to.
Fortunately, there is also a (magic?) pencil which you can
use to draw in connections in this area.  If you use it to
draw the connection to the final room, you can retrieve the
scroll contained therein, but also disturb the monster which
guards it.

The monster chases you and can catch you if you don't erase
an appropriate connection or two, trapping him.

The map and pencil can be used to vary the maze in any way
you choose, erasing and drawing passages.  Perhaps the maze
should even be generated randomly in each game.  It would be
represented by ten tables of eight elements (or ten, if we
include up and down as directions).  You would draw by
saying "Connect Red Room to Blue Room," and erase by saying
"Disconnect Red Room from Blue Room."

			   Sleep

"Sleep" is both a spell and something you must do from time
to time.  By sleeping, you recover the energy used to cast
spells and can rememorize spells.  Also, you get a vision in
a dream that either gives you a spell or a clue to solving
one of the puzzles.  This could even be a "Hint" facility if
we wanted it to be.

		      Purloined Letter

This is the problem the silly adventurer is useful for.
There is a huge door, decorated with magical runes and
obvious enormously charged with power.  It might even say
something on it like "Magician, Keep Out!"  If you touch it,
you get seriously frotzed, and "Open" fizzles against it.
This door is warded to the hilt.  However, if you ask the
adventurer to open it, he has no trouble, not being a
magician.  In fact, he doesn't even see it as a formidable
door, just a random dungeon door.  If you ask him, he will
tell you.  "Dispel Illusion" will reveal this, and waste the
spell.

		       Rainbow Turtle

This huge, brightly decorated creature wanders around on the
beach.  See "Gears" for more.

			   Gears

Huge grinding gears and pounding machinery fill a certain
room. Things are being thrown around in here, all the time,
and if you try to get across the room to get the spell
scroll clearly visible in an alcove, you are speared or
crushed by the pounding machinery.  The turtle is impervious
to the spears but is crushed by the pounding stuff.  But, if
you cast "Talk to Animals" on him, you can ask him to
retrieve the scroll.  If you cast "Haste" on him, he can get
across between "Crunch!" and "Crunch!", otherwise he is
smushed.

		     Faberge Easter Egg

This is an object of great beauty and enormous complexity. 
It has lots of little twisty handles and knobs and stuff in
the filigree (which you see if you examine it).  They
presumably open it (and in fact they do, if all turned or
pushed or whatever).  However, if the Egg is opened that
way, the stuff these frobs are connected to inside destroy
the scroll contained within.  You must use the "Open" spell
to actually open it safety.


		       Spells, Detail
	    (Theory and Practice of Thaumaturgy)

[Much of what follows is adapted from "real" D&D.]

Spells are ways of performing magic.  They are either
general in their effect ("Light!") or specific ("Open!").
Spells have an English name and a one-word nonsense
incantation to invoke them.  For example, "Light!" might be
invoked by "Krebf!" and "Open!" by "Frotz the door!"  You
may encounter the incantation word without knowing the
associated English for a spell!  It is therefore possible to
invoke a spell without knowing for sure what it will do.

You have a spell book.  Your spell book records the spells
you learn.  There is a distinction between learning a spell
and memorizing it for use.  Only a small number of spells
can actually be memorized at one time, and you must rest and
rememorize them to use them again.  A spell written in your
spell book can be memorized again and again.  Once you have
memorized a spell, you can use it without having the spell
book around.  When you use a spell you have memorized, you
forget it.

You might have a spell book containing ten spells, but only
be able to memorize five of them at one time.  Correct
selection of spells to memorize is one aspect of the game.
If you lose your spell book, you are in deep trouble.

Newly found spells may be written into your spell book using
the spell "Write magic!"  Sometimes a spell is too powerful
to be used more than once, and it appears in the book in a
different form.  Such spells disappear from the book after
being used (the book "forgets" them).

Once a spell is written in your spell book, its English name
becomes apparent.  In fact, reading your book probably would
look like:

	Spell Book

	Frotz - perpetual light
	Ozmoo - open a closed object
	Fweep - charm an unfriendly creature
etc.

There will be a command ("Spells") which will inventory
those spells you have memorized for this day.  It is
possible to memorize a spell more than once; you get "more
than one copy," in some sense. If you try to memorize more
spells than you can remember, you will forget the first one
memorized.

Magic spells usually have a duration, and sometimes a cycle
time (meaning that you can't do them many times right in a
row).

In addition to the Spell Book and Spells, there is going to
need to be a sort of crib sheet giving enough detail for the
player to get started.  The rationale is that having just
graduated from Wizard School, you are still a little shakey.

	       Spell Implementation, Details

You want syntaxes like:

	<spell>.		FROTZ!  ("Light!")
	<spell> <object>.	FWEEP DOOR!  ("Open door!")
	Cast <spell> spell.
	Cast <spell> on <object>.
	Cast <spell> spell on object.

SPELL is the main synonym, so:

	>Cast spell
	Which spell, the foo spell or the bar spell?

You should also be able to

	>Learn <spell>
	>Frob <spell>	;Where "frob" is "write magic"
	>Memorize <spell>
	>Memorize <spell> twice  ;Frill?

I see a "spell" as being the following;

	<OBJECT FOO-SPELL
		(IN SPELL-BOOK)
		(SYNONYM SPELL)
		(ADJECTIVE FOO)
		(MEMORIZED 0) ;"count of times memorized"
		(ACTION FOO-SPELL-F)
		... >

There is also a GLOBAL-FOO-SPELL, which is not put in
GLOBAL-OBJECTS until you first encounter/learn "Foo."
GLOBAL-FOO-SPELL has its ACTION property the same as
FOO-SPELL's, and so all checking is done in the same place.
The command to check your memorized spells can just wander
down the list of all spells and tell you which have
MEMORIZED properties greater than zero.



		 Other Possible Characters

Dwarves -- these guys are getting out, and might tell you
about the Warlock and about the Terror if you ask.  They
would be comic figures like those in Steve's book.  They
might also give you a weapon (which you can't use, being a
magician).

Cultists -- worshippers of the evil Warlock.  They would be
the ones to capture you and take you to the Temple.

		Other Possible Problem Ideas

;;This problem is superceded by the Malleable Maze, but is
;;left here in case we can salvage a smaller problem from
;;it. 
;;		       Maze of Glass

;;This is a large room divided into small rooms by glass
;;partitions, some of which are there, some not, to produce a
;;maze.  You must have the "Fly" spell to solve it, because
;;some of the exits are "Up".  There is a spell scroll as a
;;prize. Implementation is analogous to that of the Chinese
;;puzzle in Zork 3.  Depending on how nasty we want to be,
;;this could be a 3x3x3 up to a 5x5x5 cube.

"Coal Chute" - adapt Coal Chute problem from original Zork. 
Use magic rope?  Gist is that you can hang on for a limited
time and carry a limited weight, and there is an exit in the
middle of the chute.  This may be too "Zorkish" for Enchanter.



		    Summary of Problems

-Specific Problems-	-File-	-You Need-

Darkness			"Light"
Sacrifice		TEMPLE	"Resurrect"
Gordian Knot		KNOT	Magic Knife
Malleable Maze		TERROR	Magic Pencil and Map
Adventurer			"Summon" and "Charm"
Purloined Letter	PURLOINED Adventurer or "Dispel Illusion"
Faberge Easter Egg	EGG	"Open"
Sleep			SLEEP
Gears/Turtle		GEARS	"Talk to Animals" and "Haste"
Endless Stair		STAIR	"Dispel Illusion"
Warlock				everything

-General Problems-	-File-	-You Need-

Protect Self			"Protection from Evil"
Protect Spell Book		"Protection from Evil"?
Magic/Learning Spells	MAGIC	"Write Magic"