Readme file for "Skipping Breakfast" source code
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"Skipping Breakfast" is a short text-only Interactive Fiction game.

It was written using version 2.8 of the ALAN interactive fiction
authoring system.

"Skipping Breakfast" is Copyright (1999) by Stephen Griffiths.

I wish to retain copyright on "Skipping Breakfast". I don't want anyone
to release a new or modified version of "Skipping Breakfast".

However I encourage you to make use of the Alan programming concepts,
techniques and examples contained in the source code in your
own Alan programming.

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The .ala and .i files contain the source code for "Skipping Breakfast."
skipbrek.ala is the primary file. All the other files are automatically
included when skipbrek.ala is compiled.

The .i files are modified versions of some of files from the Alan Standard
Library (version 0.1) by Thomas Nilsson. (You need the rest of the Library
files as well to compile "Skipping Breakfast". More details are provided
later in this document.)

You need an Alan 2.8 (or 2.7) compiler program to compile the game.

Alan 2.8 compilers are currently available for:

  Microsoft Windows and MSDOS PC's
  Apple Macintosh
  Linux
  Sun Solaris 1 & 2

Alan 2.7 compilers are available for Amiga and HP/UX.

If your computer system is included in that list, you can download
the Alan software for your computer system, free of charge, from any
of the following Internet sites:

  The Alan WWW home page
      http://www.pp.softlab.se/thomas.nilsson/alan/

  The Interactive Fiction Archive
      ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/programming/alan/executables/

  USA 'Mirrors' of the IF Archive
      http://ifarchive.org/
      http://bang.dhs.org/if-index.html

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Skipping Breakfast uses the Alan Standard Library.

To compile "Skipping Breakfast" you need to have the Library source
code files as well the "Skipping Breakfast" source code itself.

You can download the Library from the Alan homepage or the IF Archive.
NOTE: keep the Library files in a separate directory from that containing
the "Skipping Breakfast" source code. (Some of the "Skipping
Breakfast" files have the same name as files in the Library because they are
modified versions of the Library files.)

Skipping Breakfast was written with version 0.1 of the library but
is compatible with the current version (0.2) also. It may not compile
without modification with future versions of the library.

If you don't already have a copy of the Library and don't want to download
it you can use the copy of 0.1 included with the Skipping Breakfast
source code in the file lib01.zip. NOTE: Store the lib01 files in a separate
directory from the Skipping Breakfast files. Uncompress the Lib01.zip file
with the 'use directory information' option of your compression program.
This will automatically put the Library files into a subdirectory called
'lib' for you. Eg:
        pkunzip -d lib01
(Overwrite "compile.bat" with the version in lib01.zip but remember not to
overwrite any of the Skipping Breakfast .i files with the Library .i
files.)

You must compile Skipping Breakfast using the "-include" compiler "switch"
to tell the Alan compiler where to find the Library files. Eg:
        alan skipbrek -include "c:\alan\lib"

See the example MSDOS batch file "compile.bat" for more information and the
readme file from the Standard Library for more information.

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I hope you find this source code useful. Remember when looking at this code
that "Skipping Breakfast" is the first IF game I've published. My code should
certainly not be considered a paragon of Alan programming skill! I'm
publishing the source code as a small contribution to overcoming the
shortage of Alan games available in source code form.

Two features of "Skipping Breakfast" that I haven't seen yet in other
Alan games are the score notification feature (see the 'checkscore' event
in meta.i) and the adaptive hints (in hints.ala.)

I look forward to hearing any comments and better ways of programming things
that you may have.

My email address is sg@xtra.co.nz

Regards,
Stephen Griffiths
June 1999