S U S P I C I O U S C A R G O ********************************* THE STORY & THE MANUAL Jonah was stood in the dark. The two guards had awoken him, and half dragged, half carried him here blindfolded from his cell. He tried to focus, but with nothing piercing the darkness, it proved impossible. The room felt big though, felt cold, and for certain didn't feel welcoming. 'Jonah Halfbright Aloysius Beehive Telemachus Hayes', a voice boomed, 'You have been found guilty of non payment of the mortgage on your craft. You are four months in arrears, with no indication that you can either maintain payments or make good the lack of payment so far neglected.' A spotlight hit the authoritarian figure who was speaking, as his voice continued to boom and echo around the cavernous room long after he had finished speaking. Two guards suddenly appeared, as did a dock, in which Jonah found himself stood. He was handcuffed to both guards. The Judge, as the voice had now become, continued to read out the charges. 'You are also charged with transporting illegal cargoes through the known systems, of theft, of deception, of passport forgery, of.. of... oooh, all sorts of nasty stuff.' As he spoke, the Judge changed into Jonah's mother, his most hated teacher, his flying instructor, to a policeman and back to the Judge again, before starting the whole cycle over once again. It struck Jonah as not being quite right. He was clever like that. 'How d'yer plead Hayes?' boomed the figure, as it changed into the shopkeeper who had caught the fourteen year old Hayes stealing a bag of bullseyes from his shop. Hayes looked him in the eyes. A bit difficult as they kept changing position every time the figure mutated. This was his moment, his chance to defend himself, to speak out against the terrible travesty of justice that was taking place, to make a stand for the little people, the people like himself with no power, and no recourse to justice. He raised his head, threw back his shoulders, and cleared his throat. Then he broke wind. Not quietly or discreetly, but in a way that insured that the Judges voice wasn't the only thing booming and echoing around the chamber. The two guards began to slowly shuffle away from Hayes, the cuff's clinking as they did. The Judge turned a funny sort of purply red colour, and screeched: 'Hayes, your contempt of court is sufficient to ensure that you will be punished severely, without recourse to the charges already brought against you. You will serve ten years in the reverse time zone. You will be forced to live your childhood once again until such time as you are seen fit to return to civilised society. Guards!' Jonah's stubbly chin dropped. 'Here, no, hang about! A touch of indigestion your honour... Mother.. Sir..a glass of Andrews and I'll be fine.... Gerroff...lemme go. Oy! Stop that. Ow, that hurt.' The two guards, now armed with electric cattle prods, were forcing him out of the dock and into a long corridor, at the end of which beams of light were emanating from a barred door. As they reached it, the door sprung open of it's own accord, and Jonah fell in. The door closed with a loud slam. and a slow humming began. Jonah, dripping with sweat, spun round, threw himself against the door, and began pounding on it. Then he heard a slow grinding noise join the ever louder hum. He turned, and realised that the walls were closing in on him. 'Ooh no. Oh blimey. Heavens to Betsy. Warg...' The walls got closer and closer, squeezing in on him. He tried to push against each wall in turn, and to bust the door, but all without success. The walls continued to close in, getting closer and closer, tighter and tighter. Within a minute they were inches away from his face. He could feel them getting closer, his breath forcing back into his face, see the tiny cracks, the mortar, as they began to squeeze him, force the breath out of his body. Hayes awoke screaming, his limbs bashing against the sleep coffin walls. He sat bolt upright, and immediately smashed his head against the coffin roof. 'Ow. Ouch......Blimey. What a nightmare.' He laid back, the relief patently clear on his face as he allowed his usual imbelic smile to cross his face. He cleared the sleep from his eyes. 'Oh well, on with another day in paradise.' L S D P R E S E N T S U S P I C I O U S C A R G O M A N U A L Typed by SIDEWINDER/LSD. Supplied by TORCH/LSD. BACKGROUND Suspicious Cargo is an adventure game. It is set in the near future, against a background of space travel and mega-corporations. World wide chaos and disorder was the consequence of the Hyper-Z virus which swept the planet towards the end of the 20th Century. As the virus spread, several medically based corporations developed antidotes and instead of racing to be the first to mass produce it, acted together to protect and exploit their monopoly of the vaccine. As a direct consequence of this stranglehold, these corporations manoeuvred themselves into positions of influence and power. Only they could provide any country with the vaccine, and it wasn't cheap. In addition, one very convenient side effect was the addictive nature of the vaccine, which meant that more and more was needed everywhere. Soon the megacorps were in a position where they were able to dictate to governments and countries the terms of new legislation and rulings in exchange for more supplies of the vaccine. Over time, the governments became puppets of the corporations. The megacorps, each believing their position to be unassailable, soon began to argue and fight over the best ways to exploit their position. Eventually, a break-up ensued, and an all out war between the many factions began. They were obviously in a position to utilise conventional weaponry against the territories that each dominated, but being based in medicines, many sought to exploit the expertise and information they already had. One such corp, Universal Products (U.P.), has been developing a genetic mutant warrior on Titan. It has reached the limit of its research capabilities and must transfer the mutant to Earth to continue work. Unfortunately, both the development and transportation of genetic mutants is strictly forbidden. In addition, if any other megacorps learned of their plans, they would doubtless attempt to sabotage the mission and destroy the mutant. U.P. has therefore decided that smuggling is the only remaining option to keep the project secret as long as possible. The only problem is that it would take someone incredibly stupid, or without a lot to lose, or more probably both, to even consider such an endeavour. That man is Jonah Hayes: smuggler, part-time confidence trickster and all round anti-hero. Jonah is, by coincidence, also on Titan, holed up in the cheapest coffin hotel he could find. He is struggling with his repayments on his ship, the Lucky Lady - a converted passenger liner, and faces a bleak and uncertain future. Makes your heart bleed, doesn't it? You assume the role of Jonah as he is forced to smuggle the cargo from Titan to Olympus Space Station in orbit around the Earth. It won't be an easy journey though. On the way you must answer a distress call from a crashed ship; deal with an illegal pet alien; face a pirate attack; avoid UP thugs checking up on you; escape Galactic police; fool customs; and finally prove your innocence to authorities on Olympus. A difficult task surely, but with Jonah at the centre of things, some would say impossible. ADVENTURING 1990's STYLE For the uninitiated, an adventure game is one where the player interacts in a realistic manner with a computer controlled environment. The player will 'ask' the computer to carry out an action, and the computer will then present the result of that action on the screen. If, for example, the player types 'GO WEST', or 'WEST', or 'W', the computer will move the player a designated distance to the west, then stop and describe what is found when the player gets there. On a more sophisticated level, the player might ask the computer to 'TAKE THE WOODEN CLUB FROM THE TRAVEL BAG AND HIT THE GORILLA WITH IT'. Again, the computer would carry out this action and relay the results via the monitor. This doesn't mean, however, that if you can't type the game will take forever. Suspicious Cargo can, in fact, be solved without typing a single word. This is because the game has been designed to be as intuitive and user friendly as possible. Even if you are an adept typist, you will find that some operations are a lot easier when the mouse is used, because it's faster, and there are no typing mistakes. Apart from the keyboard, your mouse pointer will be the means of interaction. All aspects of the game are controllable by the mouse, and it even allows you to configure the game to your particular requirements. How the main screen works is explained in the following section. THE MAIN SCREEN This is the screen via which the vast majority of your actions are carried out. Although at first it might look very complicated, in reality a quick guided tour should be more than sufficient in showing you how to find your way around the game. +---------------------------------------------------------+ A | | +-------------+-------------+--------------+--------------+ | | | | | | | | | | B | | | | | | | | | | +-------------+---+---+-----+--------------+--------------+ | | | | | | | | | | | | C | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | +-----------------+---+-----------------------------------+ D | | +---------------------------------------------------------+ The screen can be subdivided into four main horizontal sections, which are, from top to bottom, the Environment and Graphic Icons (A), the Monitors (B), the Main Module (C) and the Direction Icon (D). Each section is used to control a particular aspect of the gameplay, and makes playing the game very straightforward. THE ENVIRONMENT AND GRAPHIC ICONS These icons allow the player to affect the way that the game looks on screen, and to carry out certain actions. The three icons on the left are Environment Icons, and allow the layout of the screen to be changed as desired, from the standard screen to a text only screen, for example, F1, F2 and F3 will also activate these screens, and you should experiment with them to decide on the screen layout you prefer. The right three icons are graphic icons. These are, from left to right, for the map system, location graphics and interactive puzzles. Again, they can be activated when appropriate by using F4, F5 and F6. The map system icon, which is only available when you are on board your ship, is explained in more detail later. The other graphic icons will flash and bleep when there is a relevant graphic to be viewed, or an interactive puzzle to be solved. If, for example, your current location has an illustration, or there is an interactive puzzle to be completed, the appropriate icon will flash, and a 'bleep' will sound notifying you of this. MONITORS Below the Environment and Graphic icons are the monitors which display pictures of all the characters in the current location. Each individual monitor can be turned on or off by placing the mouse pointer over the little switch on the top left hand corner of each, or by using F7 to F10. THE ICON DRIVER +---------------+--+------------------------------+ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | +---------------+--+------------------------------+ A B Beneath the monitors and to the left hand side of the screen is the icon driver (A). The display varies according to the space available. A scroll bar to the right (B) enables you to scroll up and down the list in pages, or item-by-item. The icon driver is hierarchical, in that the commands are built up sequentially, then an item list; and a preposition list. Initially, the icon driver is at the top-most level, displaying the icons representing all the current actions available. Clicking on an action brings up a list of items which are relevant to the action and the situation of the player. So, for example, should you click on the OPEN icon, a list of all the openable objects in your current location will be presented. If you click on an action icon and nothing happens, then that action is not currently available. If, for example, you click on 'OPEN' and there is nothing to open, then the icon will be inactive. The sentence which is being constructed is displayed at the top of the window. This line will also inform you of the actions which any icon will carry out, should you be unsure as to what a particular icon is. If you click on it, the action it carries out will be displayed here. Below the current sentence is a list of items, consisting of an icon and the item name. An item can be selected by simply clicking on either the item icon or item name. Some actions allow prepositions such as in/on/under/with etc. and these can come before or after the item. An EXECUTE option will do just that: execute the current command without using further preposition words. So should there be a choice, for example 'SEARCH DRAWERS', or 'SEARCH DRAWERS IN THE RED DESK', where the first searches all the drawers in the room, and the second searches the drawers in the red desk, in order to carry out the briefer command from the icon menu, you would need to end it with the EXECUTE command. Also, many actions you will want to carry out will have two items, with a preposition separating them. So, for example, you could 'PUT BAG IN CUPBOARD'. The icon driver automatically handles the sequence of Action-Item-Preposition-Item. At any stage, you can use the CANCEL option to return to the action icon list. All this might make using the icon interface sound very complicated, but after a few minutes experimenting with the icons and their effects, you should find them extremely convenient and easy to use. Consider this practical example. The first action you must carry out in the game is to 'PUSH PAD'. So, first of all, find the icon for 'PUSH', which is the fifth icon down on the left hand side. Click on this, and the word push will appear on the top of the icon panel. The icons will now be replaced with a list of objects you can push. Select the 'PAD', and then click on the 'EXECUTE' icon. Simple as that. The following diagram and list shows you exactly what action each of the icons represent, and the sub-menus. +----+----+----+ | 1 | 2 | 3 | 1. TAKE 2. DROP 3. INVENTORY +----+----+----+ | 4 | 5 | 6 | 4. LOOK 5. EXAMINE 6. SEARCH +----+----+----+ | 7 | 8 | 9 | 7. ASK 8. TELL 9. READ +----+----+----+ | 10 | 11 | 12 | 10. PUT 11. USE 12. TURN +----+----+----+ | 13 | 14 | 15 | 13. PUSH 14. PULL 15. MOVE +----+----+----+ | 16 | 17 | 18 | 16. OPEN 17. CLOSE 18. WAIT +----+----+----+ | 19 | 20 | 21 | 19. GIVE 20. SHOW 21. HIT +----+----+----+ | 22 | 23 | 24 | 22. WEAR 23. REMOVE 24. FIND +----+----+----+ | 25 | 26 | 27 | 25. EAT 26. DRINK 27. TASTE +----+----+----+ | 28 | 29 | 30 | 28. SCORE 29. DISK 30. SYSTEM +----+----+----+ DISK OPTION: When you choose the disk option, you will be taken to a secondary sub-menu, which will offer the following choices. +----+----+----+ | 1 | 2 | 3 | 1. LOAD 2. RAMLOAD 3. RESTART +----+----+----+ | 4 | 5 | 6 | 4. SAVE 5. RAMSAVE 6. CANCEL +----+----+----+ In this sub-menu, clicking on Cancel will return you to the main menu. SYSTEM OPTION: Again, choosing the System Option will take you to another sub-menu, where you will be able to alter the game system. The options are as follows: +----+----+----+ Text | 1 | 2 | 3 | 1. BRIEF 2. NORMAL 3. VERBOSE +----+----+----+ Information | 4 | 5 | 6 | 4. SCENERY 5. EXITS 6. SCORE +----+----+----+ Text | 7 | 8 | 9 | 7. SIZE 8. COLOUR 9. CANCEL +----+----+----+ In the System Sub-menu, clicking on the Cancel option will take you back to the main icon Menu. THE TEXT WINDOW The text window to the right of the icon driver is where all the commands you issue will be printed, and where you will be presented with the result of an action in the form of text. The way that the computer does this is by using what is known as a 'parser', which interprets your commands. Originally, parsers were very simple and rudimentary, but things have moved on, and the parser in Suspicious Cargo is a fully- featured sentence analyser which accepts commands in English sentences. Each sentence must have a verb (or action), and must be similar to an English command, such as TAKE THE CREDIT CARD; EAT THE GREASY HAMBURGER; PUT THE MING VASE IN THE SMELLY SACK; ASK THE OLD STOOPING MAN FOR A DIME. Sentences can be separated using the standard full-stop, comma or semi- colon. The parser will understand far more commands than the icon driver, but it should be noted that all the commands to complete the game are available on the icon driver. Pronouns (it, them), plurals and prepositions (in, from) are all accepted and understood. In addition speech, exceptions and positional references are accepted. CONVERSING WITH OTHER CHARACTERS Conversation is generally handled by using one of the following two phrases: ASK PERSON ABOUT (or FOR) SOMETHING TELL PERSON ABOUT SOMETHING Other words can be used, but if you stick to the above methods of phrasing, the chances are you will be understood every time. In certain cases you may not be specific enough about an item, in which case you will be prompted for more information. If there were two pencils, for example, a blue pencil and a green pencil, then typing: GET PENCIL Is not specific enough, and you would be prompted: WHICH ONE? THE GREEN PENCIL OR THE BLUE PENCIL. to which you could type: THE BLUE PENCIL BLUE PENCIL BLUE You may also be asked: WITH WHAT? WHAT DO YOU WANT TO PUT THE ITEM IN? Again, these questions should be answered by typing in the appropriate answer. If you want to carry on, you can ignore the question and type another sentence. There are a number of special editing commands, all of which are listed, at the end of this document. THE MOVEMENT PANEL The final section of the main screen is the movement panel. This displays all the exits from the current location as flashing arrows. The player can move in any direction by clicking on the appropriate arrow. The directions available are the eight main compass points, and Up, Down, In or Out. If you cannot move in a particular direction or are blocked, you will be informed so. A list of available exits can be displayed if you type EXITS. If you know your destination then the shorthand GO and RUN commands can be used to move anywhere very quickly. The form is simply: GO BRIDGE RUN COFFIN HOTEL The only difference between the two is that GO describes locations on the way, whereas RUN only describes the final location and events on the way. Should anything happen on the way, the action is stopped. In addition, the map screen can be used to move around the ship. THE MAP The map system has two functions, firstly displaying the layout of the ship (to save manual mapping), and secondly to allow fast and easy movement. It is invoked by clicking on the map icon, available once on board the ship. The first map you will see is a side plan of the ship, with indexed boxes showing the ships decks. Jonah's current position is represented by a 'J'. The positions of other characters are represented by their respective initial letters. By clicking in any of the indexed boxes, a deck plan will be displayed showing all the possible locations on that deck. Simply click on the desired location to move there. The main screen is re-displayed and, barring any obstacles, the player is moved to the desired location. ARCADE AND PUZZLE INTERACTIVES Throughout Suspicious Cargo there are 'interactive', arcade and puzzle orientated diversions from the main game that can either be completed, or simply skipping if you prefer. The interactives are dealt with according to their type. The three action interactives are automatically entered, whereas the two logic interactives use the Interactive Icon. This icon flashes to indicate that there is a logic puzzle in the current location. The logic puzzle can be entered and exited at any time, and should be treated as a visual representation of a text puzzle. Before each interactive, you will be presented with a menu telling you the name of the interactive. Simply click on the first option box, containing the name of the interactive to play it, or on the box labelled 'Bypass' to skip it. 1. BYPASS Mouse Operated. When you enter this puzzle, you will find a square circuit board made up of four by four circuit sections, sixteen sections in total. In the top left hand corner you will find four different coloured symbols, each of which is at the top of a pile of four, again, sixteen in total. You must place the sixteen coloured symbols on the squares of the circuit boards in order to complete the sixteen lines of electricity flow, four vertical and four horizontal. Each symbol is picked up by clicking on it with the left mouse button, and is placed by moving it over the appropriate square and clicking the mouse button again. When a line is completed, a black flashing line will appear behind the symbols. The puzzle is logical, but it may take you some time to figure out just how to complete it. Of course, if you get completely distraught trying to solve it, clicking on Exit will take you back to the main game. 2. CARGO BAY Mouse Operated. The cargo bay of the Lucky Lady lies between you and the cold sleep chamber. If you want to get from the main ship to the chamber, to get back to the main ship from it, you must travel through the cargo bay. The cargo bay is represented by a three dimensional view, as well as an overhead view. Both exits from the bay are marked on the overhead view map, and Jonah's position is marked by a J. You will also discover a crate down there. This contains your cargo, who will, at some point, decide that the crate is too limiting and go walkabout in the bay. It's then up to you to kill the alien by shooting it three times with your blaster before it seals your fate, which might be a premature death if you're not careful. Movement and firing is accomplished by clicking the mouse pointer over the appropriate key. Beneath this is a four directional pad, one point of which will be lit. This indicates whether jonah is facing north, south, east or west. If the alien is present, a panel to the right will appear, with a yellow bar which indicates the position and proximity of the alien to Jonah. The wider the yellow beam, the closer the alien. If the yellow bar appears only to the right of centre, it means the alien is just to the right of Jonah, and if the bar is yellow on the left, then the alien is to the left. So, for example, if the yellow bar is extended to the left and right, but only for a short distance, then the alien is directly in front of Jonah, but quite a distance away, but if it is a long bar all to the right of the centre, then the alien is immediately to your right. When you shoot the blaster, remember to allow a little time for recharge, indicated by blaster recharge bar on the panel. There are two exits on the cargo deck, one on the service lift, and one to the cryo chamber. Either exit can be taken by moving towards the relevant door, indicated by name. The panel of six keys can also be controlled from the keyboard by using the following keys on the number pad: +-----+-----+-----+ | 1 | 2 | 3 | +-----+-----+-----+ | 4 | 5 | 6 | +-----+-----+-----+ 3. LANDER The lander has two stages. Landing on the moon, and returning to the ship. Both stages are essentially the same, except for the direction of travel. On landing the shuttle must be vertical, nose to the top of the screen and must have a low velocity. On return, the shuttle must reach the target crosshair which will appear on the screen. The keys are: Z ROTATE LEFT X ROTATE RIGHT SHIFT THRUST P PAUSE ESC BYPASS THE LANDER GAME 4. REPEL BOARDERS A simple shoot-em-up requiring only the faithful blaster. Blaster charge is shown at the bottom in bar form and will be the same as it is the game, as in the alien interactive. Along the top of the screen is a damage bar. jonah can sustain a number of hits before death. In order to repel the boarders all pirates must be killed. The mouse is used to move the crosshairs round the screen. You have a limit of sixty shots, but that is more than enough to kill all the pirates. Pressing the right mouse button will kill all pirates currently on screen, but will cost you five of your sixty shots. 5. AUTO DESTRUCT Mouse Operated. Simply enter the auto-destruct code discovered in the game. Click on the numbers to enter them, 'DEL' to delete them, and the arrow to enter the code. 'Exit' will exit the game. COMMANDS The following commands are all the commands that you will need to complete the game. The text parser will understand other commands and instructions, but these are all the words required to complete the game. GET DROP PUT INV LOOK EXAMINE THROW TELL ASK SEARCH HIT USE PUSH JUMP PULL MOVE TURN OPEN CLOSE WEAR LOCK GIVE REMOVE SHOW READ TASTE EAT UNLOCK DRINK WAIT FOLLOW FIND SAY GO SHOUT RUN SIT STAND FEEL LISTEN SMELL CUT PRESS RUB SHIFT SLIDE ATTACK THROW CLEAN PLAY TALK POUR HOLD SMASH CLIMB KISS LIFT WAIT FOR INSERT EMPTY SHOOT PAY BUY HIDE SWITCH LOOK IN/ON/UNDER/BEHIND/THROUGH TURN ON/OFF SPECIAL COMMANDS INV Inventory. RESTART Restart the game. LOAD Disk Load. SAVE Disk Save. RAMLOAD Ramload. 1 meg version only. RAMSAVE Ramsave. 1 meg version only. TEXTSIZE Toggles the size of the text. SCENERY ON Turns scenery list on. * SCENERY OFF Turns scenery list off. * EXITS ON Turns exit list on. EXITS OFF Turns exit list off. EXITS Displays Exits. BRIEF Brief text mode. VERBOSE Verbose text display mode. NORMAL Normal text display mode. SCORE Displays current score. MOVES Displays number of moves so far. PRONOUNS Displays current pronouns. * In this sense, 'scenery' is any item in the room that may be manipulated, used or examined, but which cannot be moved - a table or picture, for example. EDITOR COMMANDS BACKSPACE Delete left. DELETE Delete right. CONTROL UP Delete a word to the left. CONTROL DOWN Delete a word to the right. SHIFT LEFT Move cursor to start of line. SHIFT RIGHT Move cursor to end of line. SHIFT UP Move cursor to start of text. SHIFT DOWN Move cursor to the end of the text. INSERT Insert a space. SHIFT CLR-HOME Erase text. CONTROL CLR-HOME Delete to end of text. End.