Five on a Treasure Island

 

Loading

Reset the machine.

Tape: Press the F7 key and then press play.
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Disk: Press the F9 key. Users with the original rom press F9, then type CALL
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229385 (or CALL 491529 for 512K machines). Press F9 again.

256k disk users should leave the disk in the drive while playing. 512k users
may remove it after loading.

NEVER LEAVE THE DISK IN THE DRIVE WHEN YOU RESET OR TURN THE POWER OFF. YOU
COULD DAMAGE THE DISK. ENIGMA CANNOT BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR DISKS DAMAGED IN
THIS WAY.

The story
 

The plot and characters in FAMOUS FIVE are closely based on Enid Blyton’s
book “Five on a Treasure Island”. No knowledge of the book is assumed
at any point, enabling people who have never read any of the Famous Five
hooks to get to grips with the game without difficulty.

The Famous Five are Julian, Dick, Anne, their cousin George (short for
Georgina) and George’s dog Timmy. At the start of the game, George’s mother,
Aunt Fanny, has invited them to stay with her in the seaside village of
Kirrin, during the summer holidays.

You start the game playing the role of Julian, but you may assume the
identity of any of the four human members of the five, swapping between them at
will, and even splitting up ! This will be explained in detail later on.

Playing the game
 

FAMOUS FIVE follows most of the conventions of adventure type games. The screen
is divided into two windows. The top window displays any graphics, the location
descriptions, and gives detailed descriptions of any actions performed by
yourself or any other character present. If more than one screen full of text is
generated at any one time, the flashing message ” more” will appear, and the
program will wait for a key-press before continuing. The lower window is used to
display your input text, or instructions to the computer. If the program has any
problems with obeying your commands for some reason, then any appropriate error
messages will also be displayed here ( in inverse ).

FAMOUS FIVE was written using the “Worldscape” technique. Worldscape allows
for the existence of many characters in the game who are fully independent
and animated. The flexibility of the system ensures that any character (
personality permitting ) is capable of doing anything that you can !

Entering commands

FAMOUS FIVE has a very sophisticated parser which can understand most of
your commands in everyday English! Commands should be typed in when the
flashing arrow prompt is visible at the bottom left corner of the screen.
Asa general rule, sentences should contain a verb and a noun e.g.

PICK UP THE BOX or just TAKE BOX

Where an instruction does not concern an object, just the verb can be
used

e.g. WAIT

English grammar applies, and usually, the order in the sentence of different
parts is not important e.g. GIVE DICK THE SANDWICHES or GIVE THE SANDWICHES TO
DICK have the same effect.

Prepositions such as ON OFF INTO OUT etc can alter
the meaning of some verbs such as : TURN ON THE WIRELESS SET, GO INTO THE ROWING
BOAT, GET OUT OF THE TRAIN.

Using “AND”

You may use the word “AND” ( or the character “&” ) in the same way as you
would in English. This means that you can perform more than one action at a time
such as : TAKE THE BOX AND THE MONEY or DROP THE MONEY AND GO NORTH.

“THEN” may he used in a similar way.

Multiple entries may also be entered by placing a comma between your
instructions such as - EAT SANDWICHES, GO NORTH, CLOSE DOOR. It is very
important that there is a space after each comma.

Using “ALL” and “EVERYTHING”

The words “ALL” and “EVERYTHING” may be used alone with any verb,
toperform that verb upon all objects present or carried by you. e.g. DROP
EVERYTHING, OPEN ALL. “ALL” and “EVERYTHING are usually only effective with
“TAKE” and “DROP” ( if at all ! ) on most other adventures. FAMOUS FIVE will
allow you to use these with almost any verb !

Abbreviation of commands

Directions can be abbreviated to just their first letter.

eg. N for north, NW for north-west.
If space is a bit short ( or if you’re just feeling plain lazy ), you may
abbreviate all words to their first four letters. eg. TELL UNCLE QUENTIN TO
EXAMINE THE WINDOWS could be typed as TELL UNCL QUEN TO EXAM THE WIND. The
verb EXAMINE may he shortened to “X”.

The only limitation with your input, is that it should not be more than
62 characters long, or contain more than 16 words. If there are more than 16
words, then the computer will only act upon the first 16.

The DELETE key can, of course be used to delete mistakes, and the EDIT key can
be used to pull hack your last input, and allow you to alter it.

To help save you needless typing, the function keys have been predefined with
the following useful commands -

F7 - BECOME, F8 - EXAMINE, F9 - Repeats last input, F4 - TAKE, F5 - DROP, F6
- INVENTORY, Fl - VERBS, F2 - SCORE, F3 - LOOK, FO - WAIT.

When SHIFT is pressed as well, the function keys become direction keys -

F7 - GO NORTHWEST, F8 - GO NORTH, F9 - GO NORTHEAST, F4 - GO WEST, F5 - GO UP,
F6 - GO EAST, Fl - GO SOUTHWEST, F2 - GO SOUTH, F3 - GO SOUTHEAST, FO - GO
DOWN.

Objects
 

While playing the adventure, it will become necessary to pick up objects and
carry them with you. Often, they will be food or drink, or they may help you
to overcome some problem which you come across later on. Sometimes, they may
have no use to you whatsoever! You will find some objects just lying
around, but others will be hidden, or kept inside cupboards etc, which will
have to be opened first.

To pick up and carry an item with you, you simply TAKE it, e.g. TAKE THE
POCKET MONEY

To check on what objects you are currently carting around with you, type
INVENTORY or simply I

To get rid of an object again, you merely DROP it, e.g. DROP THE MONEY

You may also give objects directly to other people e.g. GIVE THE MONEY TO ANNE

Other people
 

During your travels, you will meet many other characters, most of whom are
independent and animated. You should know that conversing and interacting
with them will be essential to completing the adventure. Often, other people
may be able to do something you cannot ( due to their personal characteristics
), or might have valuable knowledge about something. Asking someone to break
something might be useful if they are stronger than you, or asking someone
to examine something might prompt them to reveal something they know or have
noticed about the object. You can ask people to perform actions useful to you
by using one of the following formats -

ASK DICK TO TAKE THE ROPE or SAY TO DICK TAKE THE ROPE or TELL DICK TO TAKE
THE ROPE

These can be abbreviated to just the person’s name if you wish e.g. DICK TAKE
ROPE

You can ask people direct questions by using the
word “ABOUT” e.g. ASK AUNT FANNY ABOUT GEORGE or AUNT FANNY TELL ME ABOUT GEORGE

If you just wished to be friendly, you could try - TALK TO GEORGE or SAY TO
GEORGE HELLO

Don’t expect everyone to fall over themselves to help you. In some cases, you
might need to use some kind of persuasion, or do some kind of favour for them
first. Whether someone co-operates with you will depend upon a number of
factors, such as how they are feeling, what they are currently doing, how
they feel towards you etc.

Light and dark

Some locations you visit, will have no natural light, and you will not be able
to see anything, unless you have with you an object which gives off light
such as a lantern etc. You may travel in total darkness if you wish, but
beware, it is very easy to become lost and disorientated!

Changing characters

As mentioned previously, FAMOUS FIVE permits you to become any of the human
characters : Julian, Dick, Anne and George at any time, and continue playing by
taking over their role for the time being. This is done by using the “BECOME”
command e.g. BECOME JULIAN. This feature allows characters to split up, and
lets you switch between them. Indeed, some problems you encounter can only be
overcome by splitting up in this way. To split up, you merely have to ask a
person to move to another location e.g. TELL ANNE TO GO SOUTH

If you should forget which character you are currently controlling, you can
refresh your memory by typing - WHO AM I or simply WHO

Each character will be better suited to some tasks rather than others,
depending upon their personal characteristics. You may find the following
information to be of some help -

Julian - la the oldest and the most intelligent. He is also quite strong.

Dick - Is the greediest and has the thinnest build. He is also quite
strong, but perhaps not as strong as Julian.

Anne - Is the youngest. She is also the weakest and the most easily scared.
Anne tends to look up to Julian.

George - Is the bravest, and has a quick temper. She likes to be treated as if
she were a boy, and is the best swimmer. George can he rather difficult at
times !

Timmy - George’s dog. He adores his mistress, and will do his best to stay
close by her. For a dog, he is remarkably intelligent, but unfortunately
he has a weakness where rabbits are concerned !

FAMOUS FIVE is ideal to play with your friends as a multi-player adventure,
with each person controlling a character, and taking over every few turns or so.

Special adventure commands

These help you to control the game, and use up no “game time”.

VERBS or V - Gives a list of accepted verbs and special commands.

LOOK or L- Fully re-describes your current location. Any people or
objects present will be shown in blue. The program will automatically do
a “LOOK” whenever you enter a location for the first time, or load up a
saved game position, or change to a character in a different location.

INVENTORY or I - Lists any objects which you are currently carrying.

SAVE - Saves your progress so far to tape.

RAMSAVE - Saves your progress so far to RAM ( computer memory ). BEWARE, this
will be lost when the computer is switched off !

LOAD - Re-loads a saved game from tape.

RAMLOAD - Re-loads a saved game from RAM.

SCORE or SC - Gives your score so far as a percentage.

PAUSE or P - Pauses the game until a key is pressed. This
is useful because normally, if nothing is typed after a short while, the
program will assume that you wish to “WAIT”.

QUIT - Quits the game, and allows you to re-start from scratch !

NOPIX - Turns the graphics off.

PIX - Turns the graphics back on again.

BECOME ( name ) - Allows you to control a different character.

Hints and tips:

(1) - Reading the hook “Five on a Treasure Island” will obviously help,
but beware, many new problems have been added, while others have been
changed altogether.

(2) - Have a pen and paper handy, as some messages will only appear once !

(3) - Make good use of the EXAMINE verb to get more information about
objects and people.

(4) - Remember, other people can carry things too.

(5) - Try to change characters regularly. Often, certain characters will
notice or do something in certain situations, which would otherwise be
missed.

(6) - Don’t rush through the game. Not only will you
miss much, but your enjoyment of the game will also he very much reduced.

Good luck, and try not to get on Uncle Quentin’s nerves !

Written and designed by Colin Jordan, based on the books by Enid Blyton, and an idea by Shirleyann Davies. Very special thanks to Shirleyann and Mike for many, many hours of patient play-testing !

Program (C) 1990 Enigma Variations Ltd. Characters and plot (C)1990 Darrell Waters Ltd.

This program, manual and packaging are protected by national and international copyright laws. No part of this package must be copied, lent, rented or hired by any means whatsoever without the prior written permission of Enigma Variations Ltd. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.