Introduction
About The Author...
By profession a theoretical research oceanographer - and an occasional anthropologist and magician - Peter Killworth fell in love with adventures when he discovered 'Colossal Cave'. His own first attempt at this new art form (PHILSOPHER'S QUEST, originally published by Acornsoft) sold 25,000 copies.
'The programming,' he recalls, 'was totally functional, and fairly crude by my current standards. But the plot and puzzles were good. It's very easy to write a bad adventure (it just needs hard work); but a good one needs plotting like a novel, the appropriate writing skills, and the ability to create new puzzle types instead of just repeating old patterns'.
His family occasionally see him away from his computer terminal at home. They do not play adventure games.
About The Adventure...
You set off from Earth in your one-man ship, and are soon orbiting Doom.
Doomawangara - Doom for short - with its weird climate that varies from desert to jungle, glacier to swamp; the gome, aeons ago, of the Ancients, whose crumbling dwellings at last begin to show up on your scanners, their images giving you the feeling that they're watching you - not the other way round. Doom, famed across the Galaxy as a potentially lucrative tive source of income, its surface littered with crashed treasure ships, rapidly corroding in the intensely volatile atmosphere.
Only those known as adventurers would dare to land.
You make one more pass over the enticing planet, wondering if you have the courage. The decision in made for you when your ship comes under a sudden and violent attack that sends it tumbling out of control until it hits the surface with a force that could have killed you.
You pick yourself up and survey the wreckage, knowing that both you and your ship are well and truly doomed unless you can find the spares to repair it in time...
GAME SIZE: Medium.
RATING: Medium.
DOOMAWANGAKA. Abbr: Doom. Climate: Varies dramatically from desert to jungle, glacier to swamp. Atmosphere intensely volatile; explorers must guard against rapid corrosion of equipment and spaceship alike. Dangers: Atmosphere, as above. Automatic defence system. Also the Ruins, reputed to have been the home, aeons ago, of The Ancients; none who has entered them has ever returned. Special features: The large number of crashed spaceships littering its surface, many of which had been carrying treasure from one planet to another, make Doom a potentially lucrative source of income for that special breed of Explorer known as Adventurer...
- Extract from INTERGALACTIC TIMES, Vol. 3, Sec. 7, pp 167
You set off from Earth in your one-man ship, and are soon orbiting Doom.
Before you can contemplate a landing, however, your ship comes under a violent attack from Doom's automatic defence system. "No wonder most ships never come back!" you tell yourself as your ship tumbles out of control towards Doom's surface with you playing the controls like the expert you are.
Nothing you can do can prevent the crash-landing, however, and your ship hits the ground with a force that would have killed you had you not jumped at the last moment to absorb some of the momentum...
You pick yourself up and survey the wreckage, knowing that your ship will corrode away in a mere 400 Time Units. Repair it by then or you'll be stuck on the planet forever. Doomed, in fact...
To function properly, your ship needs certain items (see below).
- DILITHIUM CRYSTALS (for power - very dangerous to handle)
- a MOTOR UNIT
- a NAVIGATION UNIT BOX
- a LIFE SUPPORT SYSTEM
- a MEDIKIT
- a NUCLEAR REACTOR
But remember - the corrosion clock is ticking away...
On-line Help
Countdown To Doom comes with on-line help which you can get into by typing HELP (RETURN). The program will halt and wait for you to type in a number so that it knows which 'hint' you want. You therefore need to know which numbers refer to which hints.
Pages 2-4 of this Help Sheet contain a series of questions that players typically ask, like 'How do I get out of the spaceship?'
Various 'key words' have been deleted from these questions - making it harder to accidentally see the solutions to other questions - and are reproduced below. The numbers alongside the words refer to the questions. The number that follows each question is the number to key for that particular hint. Good luck!
ALLODILE 11 FLICKERING 45 POWER 13
ARTEFACT 2,14,28 GLACIER 32 PRESENT 24
BEAM 47 HALL 21 ROBOT 9
BLOB 39 HELMET 1 ROOF 1
BLOWN 8 ICE 44 SCREEN 45
CABINET 15 ICICLE 42 SEESAW 29
CHEST 7 IGLOO 38 SKATES 38
COMPONENTS 51 JUNGLE 19,26 SLUGS 43
COMPUTER 12,24 LASER 47 SPACESHIP 4
27,50 LIGHT 34 SWAMP 6,20,34
CORRIDOR 2 METATERMITES 22 SWITCHES 30
CRYSTALS 16,33 MONSTER 33 THOUGHT 49
DECAPODS 35 MOTOR 48 TIME 40
DESERT 17,18 MYSELF 25 TRAP 19
DISCS 50 OBJECT 46 TREASURE 10
DOOR 21 PAN 23 TUBES 37
DOORS 49 PHASER 5 UNIT 48
EATING 22 PIT 3 UP 8,31
ENTRANCE 28 PLATFORM 13 VOLCANO 31,41
EXPLOSIVE 36 PNEUMATIC 37
Hint
1 How do I get the ****** onto the ****? 43
2 How can I get out of the curving ******** in the ********? 6
3 How do I avoid dying in the ***? 27
4 How do I get out of the ********? 1
5 How can I stop the ****** killing me? 11
6 How do I avoid dying after sinking safely to the bottom of the
*****? 22
7 How can I stay alive opening the *****? 38
8 How do I stop myself getting ***** **? 2
9 How can I stop the ***** taking all my objects? 26
10 How do I locate ********? 48
11 How do I get across the ********? 25
12 How do I avoid dying when I leave the ******** room? 34
13 How can I stop the ******** running out of ***** in the wrong
place? 14
14 How can I not be killed when I enter the ******** from the NE? 4
15 How can I stay alive opening the *******? 38
16 How can I stop the ******** killing me? 17
17 How can I get back from beyond the ******? 9
18 How can I survive in the ******? 7
19 How can I get across the *** in the ******? 46
20 How do I stay alive in the ****? 18
21 How do I get through the large **** in the ***? 45
22 How do I stop the ************ ****** everything? 42
23 How can I stay alive opening the ***? 38
24 How do I avoid getting killed going through doors after getting
the ******* from the ********? 37
25 What should I give ******? 21
26 How do I avoid getting lost in the ******? 12
27 How do I stop the ******** telling me off for killing? 36
28 How can I get into the ******** through the SW ********? 5
29 How do I use the ******? 8
30 How can I get all the ******** turned to ON? 19
31 How do I avoid dying going ** the *******? 30
32 How do I avoid dying of cold on the *******? 10
33 How can I stop the ******* killing me when I try to go past or
take the ********? 16
34 How do I get ***** below the *****? 29
35 How do I stop the ******** getting me? 24
36 How do I get out once I've used the *****? 3
37 How can I avoid getting lost in the ********* ***** maze? 23
38 How do I get the ****** out of the *****? 31
39 How can I stop the **** killing me when I pick it up? 15
40 How can I achieve anything when I'm forward in ****? 20
41 How do I avoid dying going down the *******? 41
42 How can I get the ******? 39
43 How do I stop the ***** killing me? 40
44 How can I stay alive crossing the *** rink? 32
45 How can I stop the ********** ****** killing me? 28
46 How do I enquire about the use of any ******? 47
47 How do I stop the ***** **** killing me? 33
48 How do I get the ***** ****? 13
49 How do I get past the *******-sensing *****? 44
50 How do I make the ******** accept the *****? 35
51 How do I locate spaceship **********? 48
