----------------------------- WELCOME TO PASTORAL PITFALLS! ----------------------------- PASTORAL PITFALLS is a text-adventure game, or as some like to call it, a game of "interactive fiction." PASTORAL PITFALLS, however, is different from other similar games you may have played in the past. Instead of trying to rescue the princess or find the pirate's treasure, your goal in this game is to perform various pastoral acts (that is, jobs done by a pastor) during the course of a "normal" day. For those of you who are pastors, this may not seem a very exciting topic for an adventure game -- and the same thought probably occurred to those who aren't in the public ministry! But it is the hope of the author that this game may serve both as a pleasant diversion for parish pastors and (perhaps especially) as an instructive bit of entertainment for those who are not. You will take on the role of a pastor of a Lutheran congregation with about three hundred souls. The congregation maintains an elementary school which currently employs five teachers and has just under a hundred students. It takes a lot of prayerful work to keep a congregation of this size running smoothly. You, the pastor, have been called to be the spiritual leader, teacher and counselor for this diverse group of people who sometimes have only one thing in common: they all believe in Jesus Christ as their personal Savior. You will find that you have a good-sized list of things that you need to accomplish today so you better get started immediately. At times you may have to decide how best to spend your time because there are only so many hours in a day, but feel free to look around and explore. Just don't get too side-tracked by distractions or you won't be able to finish everything! ----------------------------- How To Play PASTORAL PITFALLS ----------------------------- COMMANDS AND VOCABULARY: The PASTORAL PITFALLS game understands a wide variety of commands. However, it has only a limited vocabulary, totaling approximately seven hundred words, so it can get confused. If you give it a word that it doesn't understand, it will tell you what word it doesn't know. Try entering your command again using a different word in place of the one the game objected to. Your commands should generally be in the format: verb - noun - preposition - object Some examples of valid commands: READ BIBLE EXAMINE DESK GET THE BLUE BOOK GIVE COMMUNION TO LOIS OPEN BRIEFCASE UNLOCK DOOR WITH KEY BAPTIZE BABY PRAY To communicate with other people (which is a necessary part of this game), the simplest way is with commands such as these: TALK TO HENRY ASK SECRETARY ABOUT THE COFFEE At some points in the game, you will be able to give orders to other characters. To do this, simply type the name of the person (or creature) being addressed followed by the command you would like to give them. Here are a couple examples: SECRETARY, POUR COFFEE FIDO, FETCH THE BALL Note that not every character in the game can be ordered about this way -- nor do all of them particularly appreciate it! DIRECTIONS: To maneuver around the game, you must enter the direction in which you want to go. Possible directions include: NORTH, SOUTH, EAST, WEST, NORTHWEST, NORTHEAST, etc., plus ENTER, EXIT, UP and DOWN. Since these commands are used often, you can abbreviate them as N, S, E, W, NW, NE, etc. SPECIAL COMMANDS: HELP. . . . . . May (or may not) give you a hint. CLUE. . . . . . Will offer help on tougher puzzles (for a price). INSTRUCTIONS. . Will redisplay these instructions during the game. SCORE . . . . . Will summarize your progress, so far. RANK. . . . . . Will give you a ranking of your progress. INVENTORY . . . Will display a list of the items you are carrying, and those items you are wearing. LOOK. . . . . . Will give you a full description of your current location. LIST EXITS. . . Will list the obvious (visible) exits from your current location. There may be other ways to exit than these -- but they may not be obvious. SAVE. . . . . . Will save the current game status on disk. RESTORE . . . . Will restore a previously saved game from disk. QUIT. . . . . . Quits the current game session. FUNCTION AND CURSOR KEYS: The function keys have been predefined to stand for several of the most frequently used commands. Similarly, the cursor keys have been predefined to correspond to the appropriate compass directions, i.e., the up arrow is NORTH, the PgDn key is SOUTHEAST, the "-" key is UP, the "+" key is DOWN, the Ins key is ENTER, the Del key is EXIT, and so forth. The predefined function keys are: F1 -- GET F5 -- OPEN F8 -- LOOK F2 -- DROP F6 -- CLOSE F9 -- SCORE F3 -- EXAMINE F7 -- INVENTORY F10-- HELP F4 -- READ Hitting the '?' key will display a diagram of the definitions for all of the function and cursor keys if you need a reminder. GENERAL SUGGESTIONS: EXAMINE absolutely everything you see in the room descriptions. If you come across something useful, GET it. If you find something written, READ it. If you're carrying too much, DROP something you don't need anymore. When you meet a new character, TALK TO them. If you want to discuss something, ASK the person ABOUT the topic. Don't forget to keep an eye on the TIME. REMEMBER: If you want to read these instructions again during the course of the game, just type: INSTRUCTIONS or INSTR.