So You Want To Be A Guru - Prozess Software on Disk 892
             (Windows text/graphics adventure)

                  Reviewed by Jean Childs

Isn't it strange how these things happen? Just the usual tea-break
at work accompanied by the usual telephone call to Sue. "I've just
received a new adventure writing program for Windows called 'The
Adventurer'. Are you interested?" Sue asked me. Suddenly the day
wasn't normal at all. Sue brought me back to earth with "I'm going
to have a go at it first and review it, and then I'll let you have
a look at it. In the meantime I'll send you a copy of a sample
game to look at and review. It's Public Domain. Is that alright?".
Being my usual patient and polite self I answered "Yes, fine. No
hurry." (Liar, Liar.) "When are you posting it?"

Of course, being Sue, the demo game arrived in record time. There
were a lot of files on the disk which is to be expected as it is a
Windows game which installs to the hard drive. Sue had kindly
written the installation instructions on the disk label but there
is a readme file on the disk that gives instructions on
installing.  It also adds "during the installation if the setup
program cannot find the words "SHARE /L:" it will add
"\WINDOWS\SHARE /L:500" to your AUTOEXEC.BAT file.  The old file
will be renamed to AUTOEXEC.WAS." Once I'd installed the game I
had a quick look at my autoexec.bat file as I always worry about
programs that interfere with the autoexec. Surprise! There was no
change and no autoexec.was file.

The readme file also gives the system requirements which is purely
'A PC RUNNING WINDOWS 3.1'. The only other information was
regarding sound. It said that "Games created using The Adventurer
assume that you have some sort of device capable of playing Wave
files. Even if you don't own a sound card you can play Wave files
through the PC speaker." A copy of the Microsoft Speaker driver is
included on the disk with instructions on how to load it. There
was, of course, a text file 'license.txt' with the usual
disclaimers and licensing jargon regarding the driver. But that
was it! No information on the adventure writing system 'The
Adventurer'. So I was pleased that when I clicked on the Guru
group icon, as well as the game icon appearing there was also one
labelled advert. The advert consisted of a picture that gave a
very rough idea of how it worked, the price (œ39.95), and the p.o.
box address of Prozess Software. It said that 'The Adventurer'
creates text-based games with graphics and sounds that can be
distributed free of royalties'.

Now to the game "So you want to be a Guru" (at last I hear you
say). On loading the game you find the window is divided into four
main sections, plus three drop down menus - Game, Settings and
Help. The largest section is a window that shows the adventure
text. As is usual with text adventures this contains the room
descriptions, the player's input and the usual text that shows
what happens as a result of the player's input. The player's input
appears in a different colour to the program text, but the
difference is that you don't actually type anything in. The
'adventure text' window can be scrolled in the usual Windows style
so you can go back and re-read something. Beneath this window is
the 'objects found' window. This displays cute little icons of any
item in the current room. There is a similar window to the right
of this marked 'objects carried' which displays the icons of items
carried by the player.  Both these windows scroll when there are
more items present than can be shown in the current window. And
this is what you do:-

You double click on the icon of either an item in the room or one
that is carried. Another window pops up which is the 'object
window'. This displays a description of the item with a drop-down
scrolling menu of available verbs, and one for adverbs. You click
on the verb that you want to apply to the object, such as get,
eat, hit etc., select an adverb if necessary, then select 'done'
and the task is attempted. The 'object window' then disappears and
your selection appears as input in the 'adventure text' window,
i.e. "You eat the pot plant" followed by the result of your input
i.e. "You can't do that!".

You don't have to use the verbs 'get' and 'drop' in this fashion
as an easier way is to click on the icon and drag it from the
'objects found' window to the 'objects carried' window, and vice
versa. The input still appears in the 'adventure text' window, it
just means that you don't have to call up the 'object window' for
the most used verbs 'get' and 'drop'.

The fourth section contains a group of buttons that are used for
verbs that are not associated with objects. These are the eight
directional buttons north, south, south-east etc., plus one each
for up, down, in and out. The text on these buttons appears in
bold when that particular direction is an available option.  There
are two other buttons, one marked 'commands' and the other one
'wait'. When you click on the 'commands' button, a window appears
that offers a drop-down scrolling menu of other non object
associated verbs such as 'jump', 'look', 'score' and also 'say'.

There is also a drop-down menu of adverbs. If you select 'say' a
further drop-down scrolling menu appears offering a selection of
phrases to be spoken to whoever is there. The other button 'wait'
is self-explanatory but proves very useful in this game where you
have a lot of travelling to do on the underground and you are
waiting around for trains.

Now to the three drop-down headings at the top of the main screen.
The help menu is well written and gives all the information that
you need to find your way around the four sections. It shows a
picture of the screen and clicking on any of the four sections
describes how you use them. The game menu offers 'save', 'load'
and 'exit'. The settings menu lists 'graphics always', 'graphics
1st visit', 'short description' and 'music'. The 'short
description' did just that, it gave short room descriptions as
opposed to detail. But I'm confused about the option of 'graphics
always' or 'graphics 1st visit' as this didn't alter anything. It
didn't stop the icons from appearing, which it couldn't really as
you need those to manipulate the objects. So, I ask myself, is
there an option of using graphics for locations as well as icons
for objects? If so, why haven't Prozess Software used them in this
demo? Only Sue can tell, as at the time of writing she still has
the adventure writing program 'The Adventurer'.

@~Yes, you can have location graphics in BMP or WMF format. In the
@~manual, Dave Home, the author, reckons he's 'graphically
@~challenged' so I reckon that's why he didn't include any.
@~However, he suggests scanning in location pictures; not a bad
@~idea...  Sue

Now on with playing the game my patient friends. In "So you want
to be a Guru" you are Norman from Neasdon, who has just been made
redundant from his accountancy job due to a computerised system
(that YOU were keen on having) making you surplus to requirements.
You received œ50.36 redundancy money and on leaving you bought a
copy of the Guardian and read about the death of L. Ron Huggard
who once said "if you want to make a million, start a religion".
Now two things are obvious here. One, the object of the game is to
start a religion i.e. become a guru. The second is that, as the
only funds available at the start of the game is œ50, the Guardian
must have cost you 36p. Gosh my maths is good.

The money has to be recovered from where you put it for safe
keeping which is simple enough, the main part of the game is
increasing the œ50 to œ200 which is what you need in order to go
to India for training. You also need a passport. The description
of the money is always the same "a wad of œ5 notes".  The details
of the actual amount that you have can be checked by selecting
'score' from the commands menu. In fact I found that if I didn't
call up the score when I had the full amount, the travel agent
told me that I hadn't enough money.

The puzzles were quite easy, though one or two had me thinking for
a while, but it has to be remembered that this is only a demo.
Having all available verbs listed must make this easier than the
normal text adventure, so a game written with 'The Adventurer'
must be entertaining and this one was. It was fun travelling
around the underground and, as I stated earlier, clicking on the
'wait' button was far less of a tiresome affair than typing 'wait'
would have been. Sometimes you would have to wait a while for a
train, and other times three would arrive at once. (Only joking!)
On the occasions when you had to press wait nine or ten times
before a train arrived, it was great to see the train icon
suddenly appear in the 'objects found' window. It was just as good
as watching a real train pull into the station after waiting for
what seems like a lifetime. It definitely added to the atmosphere.

I counted 77 locations, not including the mini mazes, but I may
have missed an odd one or two. You don't need to visit all of them
in order to solve the game.  The game is quite humorous in places,
but there isn't much use made of the music facility. But then it
is only a demo.

I enjoyed playing this game and found that I soon got used to
selecting my input with the mouse rather than the keyboard. It's a
sort of cross between true text only adventures and graphic
adventures, and I'd like to see more games written with 'The
Adventurer". In fact, I'm going to have a go myself. I can't wait,
Sue, I'm sending for a copy today.

@~Jean and I have both started writing games with 'The Adventurer'
@~and we'll let you know how we get on! ... Sue




                              - o -