Running the game

Environment

This file is intended mainly for those who are not familiar with the basic way in which text MUDs work.

Imagine a world, complete with continents, mountains, rivers, cities, deserts, forests, and so on. Then, imagine that world divided up into sections of varying size. These sections, called ROOMS, can be of any size, from a nook in a hall to a large section of a desert. Generally, indoor rooms will represent much less space than outdoor rooms but this rule, like most rules, has exceptions.

Imagine yourself standing in a room that is a box canyon. To your west, you can walk back out of this dead-end of a canyon. Or, you spy a small animal trail heading up the side of a precarious, but barely traversable, mountain-side. You could then go either UP or WEST, simply by typing one of these commands. By typing LOOK you will see a description of the room you are in including exits. You will learn more about this sort of thing in later help files.

So then, rooms have exits leading to other rooms. Possible directions are north, northeast, east, southeast, south, southwest, west, northwest, up, down, in, and out. Now, there are also many items and MOBILES (creatures or people controlled by the game) that you can interact with. To see if there are any in the room with you, type LOOK and read what is there. If you can use ansi colour, you can type ANSI ON. Then, items in a room will be a different colour from the description of the room.

One important thing to understand about items and mobile is that they all have a unique identifying number. You may see this number by typing INFO HERE (or just IH) for things in a room with you, or INFO INV (or just II) to see things in your INVENTORY (see below). This number may be substituted for the name of the item or mobile if you wish to specify a particular vial, or a particular sword, for instance.

Finally, you should understand the concept of your inventory. This is basically what you are carrying on your person. Likely as not, you will end up with quite a collection if you play for any length of time. Typing INVENTORY (or just INV) will show you what you are holding.