Quest for Duodecum Files

Quest for  Duodecum
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A command-driven roleplaying game by Mark Tuson.

This software is licensed under the GNU GPL.


Before you start:
	This game is ROUGH, UNFINISHED, and NOT AT ALL PLAYABLE. It's the
starting point for a long-term project, which which is a long way off being
something you can actually sit down and play for real. Please bear that in mind
before coming after me with a pitchfork.


The story so far:
	Magic has been stolen from the Twelve Isles by the demon Maleo, who has
hidden away in his lair on the smallest and most distant of them, the island
Duodecum. You, Hero, have journeyed hard through the other eleven islands, and
have just climbed ashore on Duodecum... to find it's almost completely empty,
because I haven't finished writing the game yet.


Quick guide:
	Don't expect it to be any good at the moment, as I'm still adding basic
features. Everything that's here now works (yey), but it just happens that what's
here isn't a lot. You can walk around, look at shops (locations 13,4 for items;
16,4 for magic; 19,4 for weapons), do battles, equip and unequip weapons, use
items, and that's about it. Just poke around in the command line and it'll tell
you what you can and can't do.
	There are a couple of small test features here that I use for checking
stuff that's too much of a pain to get to by playing through: the main one is
the "gmtest" option, which you enter at the "have you already saved a game?"
prompt on first loading, and which gives you a profile that's fully maxed-out.
I've been using this for testing things like rowing a boat on the river around
where the game starts, and for testing some of the later battle routines.
There is also a well-spring healing spot at the staring location (2,2) which is
there because there are no inns or sleeping bags anything like that, yet.


Misc notes:
	I built the DOS version on a 286 portable from the late 80s, and saw
while testing that there's a noticeable delay in refreshing the HUD. I'm not sure
if I can (or even) want to change this, other than by making the HUD optional
(toggle on/off).
	The file MAP0.DAT *has* to be next to QFD.EXE. I still haven't sorted
out exception handling yet. That's the next thing on the list.