Hello, and welcome to Release 1 of VirtuaTech!  I'm your host and
author, David Glasser.  This document explains about my game VirtuaTech,
one of the games in the 1997 Interactive Fiction Competition, which
is run by G. Kevin Wilson (a.k.a. Whizzard, [email protected]).

GENERAL I-F STUFF

So you're new to the I-F field?  Well, I'll do some explaining. I-F,
which is short for interactive fiction, are those "games" also
known as "text adventures".  We I-F fans tend to call them I-F.
Though, in general (as is all this info), we do like puzzle-based
games such as the original Adventure and Zork, we also like games
with less puzzles and more plot: fiction, not adventures.
Of course, there are some of us who are completely one way or the
other, but...  The two main IF programming languages are TADS and
Inform, with Hugo and ALAN catching up and AGT lagging behind.

Some good Internet places for I-F are:

rec.arts.int-fiction and rec.games.int-fiction on Usenet newsgroups
       arts for discussion of writing, games for playing

ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/
       The IF-ARCHIVE!  Everything!  Everything!  If you can't get on
       because it says something about your IP address not being
       mapped to a DNS address, try this site, which mirrors daily:
ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/doc/misc/if-archive/
       If you can't use ftp, the wuarchive site can be accessed
       through http (i.e. your web browser).
       Here are some of the important subdirectories of /if-archive:
       /if-archive/programming/: the programming directory for programmers!
                                                         Each language has subdirectories, and
                                                         run-times (as well as compilers) are located
                                                         there.  In the /tads/executables directory
                                                         are the TADS run-times required to run
                                                         VirtuaTech.
       /if-archive/infocom/:     Infocom made some of the first and greatest
                                                         I-F.  Though none of the games (being
                                                         commercial) are there, you can get hints, info
                                                         and (most importantly) the interpreters which
                                                         are used for running Inform and Infocom games.
                                                         The interpreters are in the interpreter subdir;
                                                         my personal favorite Mac one (which just got
                                                         an upgrade!) is Andrew Plotkin's MaxZip, in
                                                         the /infocom/interpreters/zip directory, and
                                                         a good Windows one is WinFrotz in the
                                                         /infocom/interpreters/frotz directory.  If
                                                         you use a different type of computer, chances
                                                         are you can find an interpreter or two that
                                                         will work.
       /if-archive/games/:               The games!  In the tads directory are TADS games,
                                                         with a suffix of .gam, and in the infocom subdir
                                                         are Inform games, with a suffix of .z3, .z5, or
                                                         .z8.  In the competition97 subdir are games from
                                                         the competition that this is entered in.
       There are many other subdirectories, including solutions, magnetic-scrolls,
       level9, download-tools, info, unprocessed, and more.

http://tafa.base.org/ (aka http://members.tripod.com/~tafa)
       My programming/IF web site!  (TAFA stood for Text Adventures For All!, but
       I usually just say my games are by David Glasser.)

http://glasser.base.org/ (aka http://come.to/glasser.base or
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/6028/)
       My other web site, with info on my personal interests.  A bit of
       programming stuff.

http://www.xyzzynews.com/
       XYZZYnews, one of the two main IF 'zines.  Run by Eileen Mullin.

http://www.ifcompetition.org/
       The IF competition homepage.

http://www.afn.org/~afn55673/spag.html (aka http://www.pobox.com/~whizzard/)
       The SPAG home page.  SPAG is one of the two main IF 'zines.  Until very
       recently (September 1997), it was run by G. Kevin Wilson, aka Whizzard.
       It is now run by Magnuss Olsson.

STUFF THAT ACTUALLY HAS TO DO WITH VIRTUATECH

VirtuaTech is a TADS game.  It is NOT stand-alone.  It requires a runtime to
use.  Here are some good runtimes:

MacOS:
ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/programming/tads/executables/Max-Tads.hqx
       A very good TADS runtime by Andrew Plotkin.  Much better than the other
       Mac runtime, which even contains several bugs.

DOS:
ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/programming/tads/executables/pc-go32.tads2exe.zip
       Though there are several TADS runtime/compilers for DOS, some of them
       can't play big games, some only work on some computers, and some have a
       bug in which saving games and then restoring can screw up a lot of
       things.  This one is the only one that has none of these problems.  In
       short, get this one.  Versions older than a few months ago do have the
       save/restore bug, so get the new version if you haven't already.

Other:
ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/programming/tads/executables/
       Look around this directory.

All the files above can also be accessed through this:
ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/doc/misc/if-archive/programming/tads/executables/
http://wuarchive.wustl.edu/doc/misc/if-archive/programming/tads/executables/

This game comes with a walkthrough, WALK.TXT.  It also has built-in hints:
type HINTS for info.  Info for the game in general can be gotten by typing
HELP at the prompt and hitting enter.  Type INSTRUCTIONS for general
instructions for TADS games.

ME

I'm David Glasser.  You can email me with hints requests, fan mail, bug
reports, flames, etc. at [email protected], or, for a limited time only,
[email protected].  I'd really appreciate your feedback on this,
my first game.  Feel very free to tell me what you think about it.

Farewell, and may we meet in another readme soon!

--David Glasser
9/27/97
[email protected]

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