by Robert Hagenström
robert.hagenstrom@ebox.tninet.se
Alternate Reality: The City and Alternate Reality: The Dungeon
are copyright Philip Price.
Alternate Reality is a registered trademark (in the United States)
of Paradise Programming, Inc.
CONTENTS
--------
1. Revision History
2. Introduction
2.1 What is AR?
2.1.1 What is The City?
2.1.2 What is The Dungeon?
2.2 About the authors of the games
2.3 The history of the games
2.4 The complete plans for AR
3. Playing the games
3.1 General tips for The City
3.1.1 Combat, experience and levels
3.1.2 List of monsters
3.2 General tips for The Dungeon
3.2.1 Walkthrough for The Dungeon
3.3 Using Emulators to play the games
3.3.1 About TOS rom images
3.3.2 Regarding disk images
3.3.3 Rundowns on the different emulators
4. Items, locations and other things
4.1 Items in The City
4.1.1 Clothes
4.1.2 Food and Drinks
4.1.3 Weapons and Armour
4.1.4 Treasure
4.2 Items in The Dungeon
4.2.1 Treasure
4.2.2 One-of-a-kind Items
4.3 Establishments in The City
4.3.1 Taverns
4.3.2 Inns
4.3.3 Banks
4.3.4 Guilds
4.3.5 Healers
4.3.6 Smithies
4.3.7 Shops
4.3.8 Other locations
4.4 Locations in The Dungeon
4.4.1 Guilds
4.4.2 Fountains
4.4.3 Transporters
4.4.4 Other Special Locations
4.4.5 Special Areas
5. Secrets and cheats
5.1 Secret Codes in The City
5.2 Secret Codes in The Dungeon
5.2.1 Secret Items in The Dungeon
5.3 Cheating with the Emulators
5.3.1 Manipulating The City
5.3.2 Manipulating The Dungeon
6. Miscellanious AR questions
6.1 What or who is Xebec?
6.2 What are the Deathtraps?
6.3 What is this 'secret area' in The City?
6.4 How do you kill the Great Wyrm?
6.5 What can I do about the Devourer?
6.6 I remember FBI Agents in The Dungeon?
6.7 What does 'you are TOAST level 1.1' mean in The Dungeon?
6.8 What is this AMP engine?
6.9 What AR artifacts exists?
6.10 Are there any AR-like games today?
7. Other sources of AR information
7.1 The Alternate Reality Mailing List
7.2 #alternate-reality on IRC
8. Appendix
8.1 Reference card for The City
8.2 Reference card for The Dungeon
8.3 The letter from Trilog
v1.05 21/04/99 Updated the emulation review section with the new WinUAE release.
v1.04 31/01/99 * New mailing list email, and corrected majordomo-command errors.
* Added preliminary memory locations for The City.
* Added price list for food and drinks for all Taverns (City).
* Removed all the NEW: tags (since they weren't new anymore).
v1.03 20/11/98 Had an extensive online chat session with the man, Philip Price himself
and was able to update several sections! Search for NEW: to find them.
v1.02 01/11/98 Found that all the Transporter coordinates were reversed and fixed it.
v1.01 30/08/98 Removed a huge Dungeon spoiler, got a new provider and put the FAQ online!
v1.0 16/08/98 Finally! All (well, almost all anyway) sections are in place! More soon...
v0.9f 16/05/98 Uploaded a preliminary update due to the long wait for a final version.
v0.9e 06/05/98 New sections and new and more detailed lists.
v0.9d 22/04/98 Spellchecked the entire FAQ and made minor updates here and there.
v0.9c 21/04/98 Rewrote some old item/location lists and added some new ones.
v0.9b 19/04/98 Added some notices and requests for info where it was needed.
v0.9a 03/03/98 Added preliminary lists of all items found in The City.
v0.8b 20/02/98 Added new PacifiST and City 1.2 info, check it out!
v0.8a 05/02/98 Added two new sections describing in detail The City and The Dungeon.
v0.7a 04/02/98 Finished the emulator section with Atari ST, C64 and Apple II emus.
v0.6a 08/01/98 * Added reviews for some Amiga emulators.
* Waiting for new version of PacifiST to review (along with WinSTon).
* Waiting for info on a possible working AR C64 disk image!
v0.5a 10/12/97 I cleared up a serious problem regarding Emus, and rewrote some reviews.
v0.4b 09/12/97 Corrected and updated some information on Xl-it and Rainbow.
v0.4a 04/12/97 Added some Atari 8-bit Emulator information.
v0.3a 26/11/97 General Tips sections complete, solution for The Dungeon was added.
v0.2a 20/11/97 Some articles are added and the structure is touched up a bit.
v0.1a 16/11/97 Work on the FAQ begins, structure is laid out, not much information wise.
2. INTRODUCTION
Right, here's the part where I present some vague history behind this FAQ and some other
meaningless mumbo-jumbo (ie. this part is completely optional to read):
In 1993, when my school got it's first Internet connection, I decided that I wanted to create
a homepage. But I didn't want to put up some informative nonsense about myself, my pet or my
family and other similar hugely interesting stuff. So I considered other things. I wanted to
have a page that would be informative to others, but still fun for me to work with; pherhaps
something to do with some hobby of mine, or something similar. I tried a page about music and
Terry Pratchett books, but those never got off my local harddrive. Then I considered doing
something about the Ultima games, something with alot of my own artwork in it, but I soon found
out that I knew way too little about those games compared to what was already availible on the
web. I think it wasn't until I found my first Atari emulator that I remembered that 'gee, I
know a hell of a lot about The City and The Dungeon', and there sure wasn't any Alternate
Reality pages out there that I had found, so that was what I was going to do.
The page started off as a black and white little affair, with only a few tips and some hand
drawn maps. Then I got contacted by Gary Gilbertson (who gave me Philip Price's email address,
whom I actually had to look up in the manual to understant who he was the first time) and also
Ken Jordan. They were extremely helpfull and very nice to me in their letters (hough I
occasionally got a little carried away with my questions to them, which I still get
sometimes). Anyway, the page now took off as The Original Alternate Reality Homepage, in full
color and with new material from Philip Price and new music from Gary Gilbertson, and graphics
and info from Ken Jordan (and Dan Pinal also). Soon, I began hearing from fans too (more
frequently than before) and I could even say that we had something of an active AR community
going on there for awhile, which is still going strong, I might happily add.
In 1996 however, my highschool days were over and the swedish airforce had found a place for me.
I no longer had as much time to maintain the page, and the whole AR thing was no longer just
about the games, but about the emulators, the mailing list, irc, the new ARO game and lots of
stuff around other things too (and the fan mail was increasing, with lots of questions now,
since the emulators had gotten so good that more and more people found the games playable on
them). So I decided to write an FAQ. It took some time after the decision to actually get it
going (I hadn't done anything like it before), but I was determined that all questions would be
answered so I could get back to playing around with my page again. So, how did I do?
2.1 WHAT IS AR?
Alternate Reality (or AR, for short) is a Computer Role Playing Game concept by Philip
Price. The first, out of a series of totally seven planned games, was released in 1985
as a 1st person 3d non-linear CRPG. The AR concept is to have a virtual place to entertain
yourself in and explore, which should be as true to real life as possible.
2.1.1 WHAT IS THE CITY?
Alternate Reality: The City, is the first ever released AR game. It was released in 1985
for the Atari 8-bit line of computers, and it was entirely coded by Philip Price; with
music by Gary Gilbertson and graphics by Craig Skinner.
The City was an incredible piece of code, stretching the 48k availible to a maximum. It
featured a smooth scrolling 3d graphics engine (using a mirror effect to reduce load; it
only rendered the objects above the horizon, then mirrored them to the rest of the screen,
which is also what's causing some of the strange effects seen in some emulators today),
and luscious 4 channel sound (using a music engine called AMP, Advanced Music Processor,
which could tie events to sound, letting Gary Gilbertson compose lyrics which got highlited
at the correct notes, something unique for a game, even today).
4 channel sound was another thing unique for the Atari; the C64 had only three channels
and so did the Atari ST (it wasn't until the Amiga and PC that four and more channels
were availible again), but that was not all. The famous room with the spinning stats featured
an incredible amount of 63 colors on screen at once (4 colors per line), compared to the
8 colors which were normal at the time (in game graphics had roughly 45 colors depending
on what time of day it was and special locations could have over 50, and through a palette
shift, establishments gained night and day pictures too). Needles to say, these effects
weren't easily acquired, and most were lost in the translations to other systems (which
weren't done by Philip Price).
All this and we haven't even begun talking about gameplay! The City was the heavy weight
champion of features. You character had 6 different stats plus a number of hidden ones
which all had an impact on how well your character survived in The City. In addition, your
character had several different conditions he could be in; he/she could get a number of
different diseases (which acted differently, had different incubation times and were given
by different monsters), curses (which could be removed at guilds) and one could even get
the character drunk (which had various funny effects).
As the hours went by, the sun moved accordingly in the sky, and then things would gradually
get darker. It could start raining and you could hear the wind blowing, at various strengths,
around the corners (which also made your character go freezing, if you didn't have proper
clothing on). There was even a transparency effect on the sun and the rain, created by
switching frames at a very high speed creating a transparent color illusion.
There were also alot of places to visit, ranging from Taverns (which all featured
their individual songs with lyrics, individual menus with prices varying from tavern to
tavern, and other specialities and suprises which would show up from time to time) to
Banks (where you could deposite an amount of money for interest, and depending on how high
interest rate you chose, the risk of the bank getting robbed also increased). And then
there was those cursed doctors who never were in.
Alot of different monsters also showed up all the time, all with their own graphics
and a small tune to give you a clue wether they were evil or not (the game featured about
50 different monsters). These monsters sometimes had treasure, ranging from the standard
money and jewelry, to Potions and magical weapons or armour which couldn't be found in
shops.
It was a wonderfull place to explore, even though it didn't have any quests at this stage.
Then of course came the 16-bit versions for Atari ST and Amiga, which had even more
features, like spell casting and the ability to finally join the guilds (though some
strategical features of Philip Price's combat system were mysteriously dropped).
2.1.2 WHAT IS THE DUNGEON?
Alternate Reality: The Dungeon revised the way we percieved AR. The cold and very real
world of The City was replaced with the (strangely) brighter and somewhat more cheerfull
The Dungeon. We now had a mission and a goal to look forward to, and twice the size of
The City to explore, and a dozen of new locations to visit.
No longer was there a need for the mirrored 3d effect from The City to create the wall
graphics; The Dungeon was rendered with an incredible new sharpness (again, looking more
like a cartoon, than the gritty and realistic City graphics). It featured details such as
small windows in the doors, archways to cross under and new and amazing textures to be found
in secret places of The Dungeon (such as Egyptian drawings in hidden tombs and icicles in a
beautiful Crystal Cavern).
The menu systems and other interactive aspects were also 'cleaned up' and made more user-
friendly. Disk swapping was decreased and the game could take advantage of the new 128k systems
to lessen the swapping and loading even more.
The hidden real world details of The City now became very real, as every item you picked
up now had weight, and you got very tired very fast if you carried too much (and sometimes
you even got immobilized). Diseases, curses and poisons rained down on you, but also new
and exotic weapons and items were introduced (among others, a whole range of exotic asian
weapons).
Combat, although featuring a similar simplified system like the 16-bit versions of The City,
was also taken to a new height, were you could face multiple enemies, each with their own
set of inventory items they could use. Some could even call for help or had other
specialities (like Gnomes who you could peacefully talk to, and who then suddenly hit you
for fun). You could also be struck down (and then rise again), get stunned (and become
unable to act for a turn or two) or your weapon could be hurled from your grasp. And monsters
could of course also be struck down or stunned (giving you time to either aim or charge).
Interaction was also improved; you could now give items to those in need, and get response
from them, just as you could ask others for clues, and buy services from a few (some times,
if you were in need, you could even get help from other monsters).
Alignment was also refined, where every monster now could be either evil, netral or good.
New ways of improving alignment was also introduced, and it was no longer just down to
what monster you killed or didn't kill.
Guild wars was also introduced in a small way; when you joined a guild, you instantly
became enemy with another opposite guild, who's members would taunt you in combat
(though, of course, you also gained you fellow guild members as allies).
An interesting point to be made is that while most of the songs in The City was about
wanting to go home, the songs of The Dungeon were more relaxed and invited you to
enjoy and explore while you were there, creating yet another gap between the harshness
of The City and more adventure friendly place of The Dungeon.
All in all, The Dungeon has an incredible amount of depth and detail, and I could easily
dare to say that both the Alternate Reality games probably are the most detail filled games
ever, since even today, more than 10 years after it's initial release, people (including
me) are discovering new hidden secrets, things, features and aspects that nobody has
discovered before.
2.2 ABOUT THE AUTHORS OF THE GAMES
Philip Price and Gary Gilbertson created the Alternate Reality concept back in 1984.
They had done one other game together earlier, The Tail of Beta Lyrae, and had plans for one
other; F.A.C.E of The Galaxy (though Philip Price had made other software and unpublished
games earlier, and the AMP engine which Gary Gilbertson used to create music for games for
another company called Datamost). They both lived in Hawaii and created their games under
the name Paradise Programming.
After 1986, when the AR escapades with Datasoft ended, Philip Price went to work on the B2
Stealth Bomber for the US Airforce, and Gary Gilberston toured with various bands on Hawaii
(along with Chuck Berry amongst others).
The other two main authors, Ken Jordan and Dan Pinal, who did most of the work on The
Dungeon for Datasoft back in 1985, now work together at a company called Mass Media.
(A interesting point to be made, is that one of the artists on Alternate Reality: The Dungeon,
Bonita Long-Hemsath, today makes art for the beautiful Might and Magic games from New World
Computing.)
2.3 THE HISTORY OF THE GAMES
The first AR game was Alternate Reality: The City for the Atari 8-bit line of computers,
released early in 1985. It was a result from a joint effort by publisher company Datasoft
and Paradise Programming (Philip Price and Gary Gilbertson). However, due to unfortunate
events, Philip Price did not receive any royalties, and was forced to leave Datasoft to
seek an income elsewhere.
Philip Price left much of his concept and ideas behind to Gary Gilbertson, so that Ken Jordan
and Dan Pinal (employed by Datasoft, which also by this time, went by the name
Intellicreations) were able to continue the series, and release Alternate Reality:
The Dungeon for the Atari 8-bits (and also Commodore 64 amongst other formats, together
with a C64 conversion of The City) in the late 1985.
By this time, Datasoft was bought by Software Toolworks, which resulted in Ken Jordan and Dan
Pinal having to work on AR on their free time. Plans for the third installment, Alternate
Reality: Arena, were made and they got as far as an 80% complete version of The Dungeon
for the Amiga, when they suddenly both got layed off.
Thus the only games that ever made it to the public of the original Alternate Reality
game series were the following:
Alternate Reality: The City for the Atari 8-bit computers
Commodore 64 port of The City
Apple II port of The City (?? version)
Machintosh port of The City (?? version)
Atari ST version of The City (16-bit version)
Amiga version of The City (16-bit version)
PC port by The City (not made by any of the original authors) (16-bit version)
Alternate Reality: The Dungeon for the Atari 8-bit computers
Commodore 64/128 port of The Dungeon
Apple II port of The Dungeon
2.4 THE COMPLETE PLANS FOR AR
Even though not all of the planned games were ever released, many people remember vaguely
about the other games since they were mentioned alot in the documentation for The City and
The Dungeon. So I've obtained a complete rundown on these games written by Philip Price,
(parts which are from previously confidential material), so you can really know what they
were going to be about:
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Tue Jan 02, 1990
from Philip Price
Okay since I am a notorious procastinator. I will give a brief outline of
what was the main parts of AR as originally conceived.
The idea behind AR was a place to entertain but also to enlighten/educate
oneself. I desired to have as realistic of a world possible, but still a world
that was filled with the unknown. I knew I couldn't do it in one product so I
plan to develope it through a series.
City/Dungeon (Something originally planned as one)
You are thrust into a new enviroment and have to first learn to survive.
You have to learn to discern to a certain degree. Free will is of course
permitted, monsters and people react to your moral decision. Traps are laid
both physical, mental and moral. Multiple ways to resolve problems are
avaiable. The first clues to why things are the way they are are given.
[Further details on the clues I will disclose further in this letter].
Arena
Original game would be patched to add slaver bands (you could be shang-hi'ed
into the arena amongst other ways in). [Original game meaning City/Dungeon].
The arena would permit combatting your characters against other peoples
characters or against computer run characters. The ultimate goal if you had
been abducted would be to regain your freedom, if you are free then it
would be to gain nobility and a title. A choice would be given if this was
accomplished that would retire that character to a life of luxury [and
boredom].
Palace
Palace intrigue and the ability to modify the city layout. You could climb
the ladder to greater power and responsibility, wielding it as you saw best or
worst. Again if you climbed to the pinnacle you had a option to retire the
character to a life of luxury, power and the thrill of trying to stay one step
ahead of future wouldbe kings.
(To become king you have to defeat the current king which at first is a
computer character, though once overthrown or disposed/killed/poisoned etc. it
would be someone else, possible a player character [retired].)
Wilderness
The wilderness would be the start of a pilgrimage to find the
truth of AR. There would be traps, tricks to waylay the adventure and to turn
him from his or hers true quest.
Revelation
Hidden in the depths of a cave behind the immense waterfall that
can be seen even from the city is a metallic door requiring a pass card to
enter. Once open it reveals corridors gleaming with technology far beyond our
own. Further investigation reveals a room that has immense windows/portals and
a view, a view into space.
Destiny
Fighting with high tech equipment (from both revelation, destiny and
if you run into the aliens that politically are friendly to you plight, the
weapons the riddler has from the dungeon). Searching further this immense ship
you discover a chamber filled with metal cocoons. Using wit and knowledge gain
through other locations you decipher the controls and the display. You learn
that these cocoons hold bodies, the bodies of all of those captured. The
machines keep the bodies physically alive and fit, but imprisoned. The minds
of those entrapped are tapped and fed with images. The ships computer can even
permit the images to interact with solid/material components of the ship. You
are an image. What is reality? You body lies in a cocoon. Your mind sees what
the image sees. What is a soul? What is experience? You experience, you feel
what this image you have been controlling since you kidnapping feels. Again
there are choices to make. In the end you are left with many choices, continue
to live in you image body, a nearly immortal life, but knowning that these
aliens have done this to you and can watch, feel, experience whatever you do
whenever they want. You are their entertainment. They have become jadded by
luxury, power and knowledge and use lesser beings to regain some of the
passions of life. You can cut off this channel, though they may also destroy
the ship, or earth. You can escape in a smaller ship than the entertainment
world and go back to earth (hoping to evade the future capture ships these
beings send to gain more 'entertainment'. You could destroy the planet [and
hope that they are not a multiplanet race] You can take the entertainment
world (that was orbitting the alien's planet) and bring it back to earth to let
the scientist learn from it [and hope the aliens don't trace it]. You could
blackmail the aliens. You could sell out humanity. You could try to bluff
them. There are many choices, life isn't easy and some of the most important
decision are the hardest to find a best answer in.
There were other details I haven't gotten into here (Like a lot of the fun
things to do in each scenerio other than the main plots). And there were/are a
lot of little details to be left until the scenerio each were to be produced.
But from this you can see the main plot and the main suprises that were
originally planned.
Take Care,
Phil P.S.
I think I have mentioned this before... For Atari 8 bit City owners if you
type fiat as you character name (while holding down the control key) you get
into another menu which allows some game changes. The only command I remeber
from it allows changing the speed of the numbers spinning by before you walk
through the portal. The command is cela saute aux yeux. I hope I spelled that
right.
Acrinimiril's gate was a portal into a true parallel universe. Acrinimiril
was/is a being from another universe, who had a habit of adventuring/travelling
into many dimensions and universes and getting himself into heaps of trouble.
He was a complete unknown to the aliens and caused them all sorts of problems.
For one since he wasn't run from the computer, he was not traceable. Also he had
a lot of experience in these situations. Unfortunantly he wasn't always very
bright about keeping a low enough profile. And after killing an alien (and
getting it's passcard) the aliens were then able to trace him and finally entrap
him for further study. Not all aliens were for this 'entertainment', and there
was planned to have ways to resolve the ultimate questions through interaction
with these aliens also. And it was also was going to be allowed to go through
acrinimirils gate into other universes at destiny's end.
----------------------------------------------------- End of Phil's message
Advantages of having City Disk and Quest Logic within Dungeon
- IN WHOLE OR PART... NOT FOR AR NEWSLETTER USE -
It is our intention to allow people to play the Dungeon without owning the
City. However, it is also our intention to make owning the City an extremely
advantegous to seccess and enjoyment of the AR series. To this end, the
Dungeon shall have the following "goal/reward" features.
Life in the Dungeon will be very difficult for characters created in the
Dungeon. To truly make progress one should introduce an experienced
character from the City.
As we discussed, the Dungeon will be more goal or quest oriented. You must
make it to the forth level of the Dungeon, along the way encountering the
various "one time only" monsters and of coarse finding the special treasure
rooms. In the forth level of the Dungeon you will encounter one of the
actual Aliens. Now Aliens carry a type of beam weapon that is more than a
match for anything you might have. Consequently, the encounter will end
with your demise.
There will be, however, a way to change this rather dim scenario. Be sure
to find ALL the "one time only" treasure rooms. Be sure to defeat all the
"one time only" monsters. Doing this will trigger the possibility to
acquire a rather unusual object, "...lest with you've brought that which to
come...". The item is a Portal Acces Card (PAC). This card will be in the
possession of a very special Wizard* somewhere on the forth level. After
rescueing him/doing him a favor, he will offer you a choice of rewards. All
of the choises save one will be of obvious value, (gold - jewels etc.).
The unusual choice will be a white plastic like card. Those that choose
the white card will find they possess a modified "PAC", the best ticket
available to Revelation. Now, it will be possible to obtain a PAC in the
Wilderness. The advantage, however, of securing the Dungeon PAC is this:
It has been modified to jam the Alien Security Systems Entity Monitering
capabilities. With this card in your possession, you can not be
electronically tracked by Alien Security. Knowing this, you can see how
your encounter with the Alien at the far reaches of level four could be
different. Alien Security would be unable to alert him of you approach. You
would have the element od suprise working for you and this time you may well
survive the encounter. Once the Alien's out of the way, further exploration
will lead you to a doorway at the end of a hall. Passing through this door
you will be asked to insert: "the REVELATION DISK".
Passing into REVELATION from the Wilderness is easier than from the Dungeon.
The Dungeon entrance connects to a maintenance area of the Alien's ship.
It is always crowses; encounters are frequent and death is common.
The Wilderness on the other hand has a portal that connects to a part of the
ship that is rarely used and out of the way. This gives the character a
chance to orient himself and possibly find the tools necessary for survival
in this realm. If he has added advantage of the Dungeon PAC... well he'll
have it just that much easier. However, as explained on the block diagrams,
the entrance to Revelation will be advantegous later in the series.
*VERY SPECIAL WIZARD
The Wizard's name is Acrinimiril. Those with extensive knowledge of Xebec
will recognize the name as the same given to a gate on the NW quadrant.
The significance of... the events leading to... etc. will be explained soon.
---
Entries pertaining to the "Acrinimiril affair" as logged by:
The ASSISTANT to the SPECIAL AGENT in CHARGE [EED][8944839]
XEBEC SECURITY
1400 day3 THE LAST FALL shipyear 39 >>>>>........................
<<<<< I have just been notified by Dungeon Four Maintenance
Techinician [3257858], that the fatally injured body of Equipment
Designer [3292000], has been located in the system. Awaiting
Furhter information. >>>>>.....[EED].............................
1423 day3 THE LAST FALL shipyear 39 >>>>>........................
<<<<< The Death of Equipment Designer [3292000], has been
confirmed. The cause of death has been attributed to spell
casting. [3292000] was most likely killed by a character in the
system. Having the computer reconstruct area traffic during the
period and from there will plot the whereabouts of the killer.
As [3292000]'s PAC has not been found, I am posting double guards
at all Dungeon Portals. >>>>>.....[EED]..........................
1655 day3 THE LAST FALL shipyear 39 >>>>>........................
<<<<< Completed interview of Dungeon Four Maintenance
Techinician [3257858]. He informed me that [3292000] was play
existing as a champion in the system. I'm also told that the PAC
he carried was modified with a sensor jammer. This explains why
the recent computer report did not even show [3292000] to be in
the area. I must now assume the killer is in possession of a so-
to-speak cloaking device. Security has been notified to program a
map/scan/plot of singular character death activity. If i cannot
scan for this killer pherhaps I can plot his movements by the
deaths of his victims. >>>>>.....[EED]...........................
2000 day3 THE LAST FALL shipyear 39 >>>>>........................
The computer has failed to turn up any prime suspects in the
[3292000] killing. I have ordered the sensor cross check
monitering of all traffic in or out of the Fourth Level. I am
proceeding on the assumption that our killer has yet to leave the
area. A similar sensor cross check has been ordered for traffic
in and out of the Sanctuary on Level Four. >>>>>.....[EED].......
2345 day3 THE LAST FALL shipyear 39 >>>>>........................
I have just been informed that a Wizard has entered the Level
Four Sanctuary without sensor confirmation. His present
geographic location has been fed to the computer for entity
analysis. This is no doubt our killer, I have requested further
instructions from XEBEC COMMAND. >>>>>.....[EED].................
2351 day3 THE LAST FALL shipyear 39 >>>>>........................
I've been ordered, {XCO-MAC213\RN4321}, by XEBEC COMMAND to
terminate the killer Wizard and recover the modified PAC as soon
as he leaves Sancturary. >>>>>.....[EED].........................
2353 day3 THE LAST FALL shipyear 39 >>>>>........................
Results of computer analysis indicate Wixard in question is not
of this system. Word of this and the complete analysis have been
sent to XEBEC COMMAND. Termination order {XCO-MAC213\RN4321}
has been recalled... will continue monitor suspect.
0028 day4 THE LAST FALL shipyear 39 >>>>>........................
Received word from XEBEC COMMAND that the Wizard'c Character name
is Acriminiril. He first became in the system of the CAROLINUS.
COMMAND is unsure as to how he managed to appear in the XEBEC
system. COMMAND also indicates that his being of elsewhere is
what made sensor scan impossible and sees no reason to belive he
is [3292000]'s killer. While COMMAND checks with the CAROLINUS,
I've been ordered, {XCO-MAC213\RRN4324}, to dispatch a
Securityman with a GLFU, (Geographic Location Freeze Unit), to
Level Four. After Acrinimiril clears the vicinity of the
Sanctuary, the Srcurityman is to follow him until he moves to a
low traffic area. At such time he is to activate the unit and
maintain Acrinimiril in "geofreeze" until COMMAND can confer
with the CAROLINUS. >>>>>.....[EED]..............................
1211 day4 THE LAST FALL shipyear 39 >>>>>........................
Acrinimiril has left Sancturay and is on the move. Securityman
[3256679], disguised as a Mage is following Acrinimiril awaiting
the order to engage the GLFU. >>>>>.....[EED]....................
1248 day4 THE LAST FALL shipyear 39 >>>>>........................
As of this moment Acrinimiril is in "geofreeze" on level Four at
location =d4-28|05=. The search for [3292000]'s killer
continues. >>>>>.....[EED].......................................
1700 day4 THE LAST FALL shipyear 39 >>>>>........................
Guard post on Acrinimiril reports he's retained his ability to
speak although deep in "geofreeze". Curious. Have dispatched a
team to Sanctuary on Level One to conduct sensor cross check on
traffic there. It would appear our killer is moving back toward
the City. >>>>>.....[EED]........................................
=================================================================
The SPECIAL AGENT'S Log contained many more entries over the
day and a half period covered above. Had he known what
ultimately would happen in the Acrinimiril affair, he probably
would have started his report with the the following entry that
had appeared a couple of days erlier.
=================================================================
1631 day2 THE LAST FALL shipyear 39 >>>>>........................
Sensors indicate the first humanoids from the Planet Earth, (1186)
are starting to move into Level Four of the Dungeon.
=========
Acrinimiril's Own Story
It is true, I am not of Xebec. I became here, after I became elsewhere.
I see, however, no reason to dwell on the before. Xebec is the now and
the now must be your concern.
To recount my experiences in the city streets of Xebec would be of
little value. I would comment, however, it was during this time I realised
that when I became here my powers were greater than when I became elsewhere.
As soon as I found the way I entered the Dungeon. It was there, while on
the fourth level, that I first saw the creatures that control the here.
Now, as time passed I came to realize I had a power unlike anyone of Xebec.
These creatures acted as though they where totally unaware of my presence.
I'd watch as other life forms would attempt to sneak up behind a creature;
at the last moment the creature would spin around and terminate the
attacker with a kind of pulsing light weapon. They had no chance at all.
At first, I too though myself to be at the mercy of these creatues.
Then I had a near encounter with one where it should have sensed my approach.
I had just rounded a corner and there one was. It was looking in the other
direction, cut I was very close... I could've touched the thing. I did not belong
here and apparently these creatures sensors are not programmed to pick
me up. They have to actually see me to sense my presence.
Although I found it comforting to ponder this nre hypothesis,
I could see no reason for testing it.
Days later I came upon a most unusual situation. I saw a Champion appearing
to carry a conversation with one of the controller creatures. He was obviously
unafraid and made no attempt to escape. Stranger yet, the controller
creature kept his weapon harnessed. Having encountered numerous Champions,
I decided to follow this one after the meeting came to an end.
I had followed him for a good distance when my curiosity could stand no more.
I had to talk to this humanoid. Quickening my pace to close in on his
position, I called to him. To my suprise he swung around and came at me with
his sword raised high. I dearly wanted to speak with him, but I was not going
to die trying. When it was over I stood over his lifeless body whishing our
encounter had been friendly. I decided to search him for clues.
To my amazement he had no money at all. Here he was in the 4th level without a
copper piece to his name. then I found a most curious object. A flat white
card about half the size of a humanoid hand. It was unlike anything I'd ever
seen. I put it with my things and prepared to remover the champion's
headgear. The wearing of jeweled earring was not an uncommon practise
and I'd yet to find anything of value to this character.
As I pulled the helmet from his head I jumped back in suprise.
You see, inside this champion's armor was a controller creature.
Instantly my mind filled with answers to why this so-called Champion was
speaking with an Alien and why he refused my frienfly advances.
Such thoughts, however lasted for mere seconds. They were quickly
replaced with the reakization that this deed would not go unnoticed.
I sprang to my feet and began to quickly move of the scene.
I wanted to put as much distance possible between me and the...
As I neared the stairway up to Level Three rational thought began to return.
I knew I would need to seek the Sanctuary soon. Eventually the effects
of weariness catch up with everyone. I would have to woek my way to
Sanctuary on Level One or remain here on Four. I reasoned that if they had
the power to find me, they would find me on One just as easy as on Four.
As I turned to leave, I noticed two mages appearing ro rake up guard on each side
of the stairway. I would have though nothing of it except that one rarely
sees Mages moving about in pairs and I'd never heard of them being employed
as guards.
About four hours had passed before I rounded a corner and stood at the
entrance to Level Four Sanctuary. As I opened the door the sound
of story telling and laughter filled my ears.
Blending into the crowded room I could feel tension leaving my body.
I really did feel safe here. It really felt like Sanctuary.
After resting a number of hours I moved back through the noisy main hall.
Nothing had changed, it was as though the same party was in progress.
I left Sanctuary telling myself thegreat truths would be found by probing
deeper into Dungeon. The events of yesterday should be forgotten.
I... I can speak, but I cannot... seem to move. A mage has put some kind
of spell on me. I don't un-der-stand. He is nearby holding some kind
of box. He won't... speak to me. I can't move.
I've lost track of time, Occasionally the Mage seems to leave. Just when
I think he is gone for good, he reappears. I have to come to the conclusion
that my predicament is the work of the controller creatures.
Nothing else makes any sense at all. I am totally helpless in a kind of
cage that is exactly one square building unit in size. My jailer has made
no move to touch me. In fact he has gone out of his way to prevent anyone from
touching me. He has not attempted to search me for treasure... nothing!
This has got to be some sort of punishment for killing that controller.
I have a plan for escape. Should a character pass by during the time the
controller is gone, I will plead with them to try and touch me.
I have the feeling that once the cell membrane is penetrated it will
collapse. I wait patiently for my escape. I will offer a rich reward for
helping me escape. I wait patiently. I'll give them anything I have.
I wait...
3. PLAYING THE GAMES
Alot of detailed instructions and very good tips can be found in the Manuals for
The City and The Dungeon and the Guidebooks for The City and The Dungeon (availible
transcribed at http://user.tninet.se/~lan3180/alternate-reality/). The following information
will deal mainly with issues that are not mentioned in either the manuals or the guidebooks.
3.1 GENERAL TIPS FOR THE CITY
The City is a very hard game. You should back up your character disk as described in
the manuals and cluebooks very often, (in the beginning, backing up after each succesfull
combat is a very good and safe thing to do), so you don't loose your character. Let's start
from the very beginning:
When you are at the portal with the spinning stats, there are some things you should know
in order to figure out what stats you want to keep an eye on. Naturally, Hit Points should
always be a priority, even though these increases alot with levels, since you tend to take
alot of damage on early levels too. Anything (and this goes for all stats) under 10 is not
very good. Strength increases with combat, and you will do alot of that, so if you want,
you can chance skipping a few points there. If you want to buy a dagger or something, you
should try to keep you money above about 150 coppers too.
After you have passed through the portal, a number of hidden stats will also be set. The
physical speed can immideately be found out by visiting The Blue Wizards guild at 18E, 47N
(they will raise your Speed by 1 and also tell you how much you've got). Noticeability can
also be figured out by the number of monster encounters you receive. If these are painfully
high, you probably have a high noticeability too. There is also a stealth stat which
determines wether you can suprise a monster or not. This will have to be estimated in
the same way as the noticeability (and though it can be increased at Assassins Guild at 55E,
2N, they don't tell you how much it is).
There are also two hidden stats that start with set numbers. The Alignment stat, which
starts at 128 (0 being evil, and 255 being good) and the Treasure Finding stat which
starts at 0. You can, however, find treasure anyway, so don't worry. Also, according to
the cluebooks, the treasure stat can only be raised by potions, after wich it decreases
as normal when you have found treasure. I don't know how gaining levels affect this stat
(alignment does not go up with levels).
So, now you are in The City of Xebec's demise. Anything can happen now. If you want buy
that dagger, find your way to Occum's Weaponsmiths at 19E, 32N, as your chance to find one
at an affordable price is highest there (haggle if you want to, but he will throw you out
if you make an "outrageous offer").
Have in mind wether you want to play evil or good; there is NO way in The City to increase
you alignment once you've commited an evil act. Killing Commoners is evil, but they are easy
prey in the beginning and have more money than some other monsters (see the Cluebook for
a list of evil monsters, and note the music for unlisted ones). Muggers are easy prey
for good characters in the beginning, having around 13 Hit Points and giving about
75 Experience. Also, if you dare to venture out at night, Gremlins are just as easy (if not
easier) and almost always carry treasure. Beware for Thieves or Cutthroats though, and
Warriors or Knights who will kill you at an instant (and rob you and then kill you if you
try to run away).
As you will notice, money is vital. The cheapest place to sleep is Sleeping Dragon Inn at
60E, 6N where the common floor costs 5 coppers. And at The Tavern (20E, 62N accesible
through the far northwest city wall) you can even get free water, which actually costs a
couple of coppers in other taverns. Food packets and Water flasks are sold randomly at the
taverns across town, and are consumed automatically in The City.
The Cluebooks also warns you about entering Banks after year one. This is a known bug. The code
lacks a line which stops the banks from counting months after the year ends, so what happens
is that the game calculates interest (and failures) for months 12-255 until it reaches
month 0 again (which is quite alot of calculations for an Atari computer). So either,
if you're extremely lucky, you will have received 243 months of rent, or more likely, your
accounts have failed and you've lost all your money (ie. it's best to withdraw all your money
in the month of Lights).
A final note: As stated in the cluebook, if you disengage from a monster, it may steal from
you. However, what it doesn't say is that EVERYONE will steal from you. No matter what
monster it is, there is a very good chance that it will take you money! (Trust me, I've
seen Commoners, Ghosts and even Knights steal, and the first thing they nag is all your
gems and jewelry.) Food packets and water flasks can also be stolen, in addition to
valuables.
3.1.1 COMBAT, EXPERIENCE AND LEVELS
In addition to what has been said in the general tips, and what is written in the cluebook
and manual, there are some hidden features which has been, until now, undocumented.
Some of the more experienced players may know that a character's strength may increase
during a fight. The secret behind this feature has now been revealed and it is startling.
The strength increase is infact a part of what may be the first ever skill based character
improvement system in a computer role playing game!
Here is how the system works. Every time you carry out a succesfull roll on a "skill"
(attacks, trick or charm) you get an increase of 1/255 of a full stat point. Get 255
more succesfull rolls and you get the full one point increase of your stat. This works
for attack, lunge, parry, which increases strength; trick, which increases intelligence;
and charm which increases charisma.
Another thing with combat is the disengaged and engaged menus. Engaging doesn't count as
an evil act, and if you want to stay good, you must take the first hit before attacking,
something which you can't always afford. And when you encounter good monster, do watch
those menus as the L key can be both (L)eave and (L)unge and pressing that last key by
mistake can produce very frightening effects if you encounter the wrong monster.
Another important factor is experience. The exact way in which you acquire experience is
the following. You get 1 experience for each 1 point of damage you inflict on an opponent.
You get a (fixed?) amount of experience for killing your opponent. You get 1 point of
experience for each Silver and 10 points for each Gold you find (finding Coppers doesn't
earn you any Experience Points). You get 120 experience for finding a Potion, 255 for each
Jewel and 128 points for each Gem. There doesn't seem to be any experience given for finding
weapons and armor (even magical ones).
I have tried to put together a chart describing level gains and experience points, however,
this has been done by trial & terror so these are only estimated numbers (there may be
a difference on +/- 100 experience points).
Level Experience
1 250
2 500
3 1,200
4 2,400
5 4,700
6 9,300
I will fill this table in with more numbers as my character grows in strength.
3.1.2 LIST OF MONSTERS IN THE CITY
*** IMPORTANT NOTICE: *********************************************************************
Monsters have a number of abilities tied to them: Day or night appearences, good or evil,
chance of treasure, amount of experience and hit points, attack strength and so on. The
exact value, or nature, of these abilities are currently unknown, and though research is
being made, progress may be slow. If you think you posess enough knowledge to be of
assistance, please contact robert.hagenstrom@ebox.tninet.se
Wizard Novice Archmage Mage
a weak spell
a spell
a enchantation
a strong spell
a dazzling spell
a over-powering spell
Giant Rat
it's foaming teeth (rabies)
it's yellow claws
Giant Wolf
it's sharp teeth (rabies)
it's claws
Night Stalker
it's claws
it's blood sucking fangs (-2 strength)
Specter
moans
janges invisible chains
festering touch
soul wrenching grasp (LEVEL DRAIN!!!)
Apprentice Acolyte
weak spell
spell
Merchant Courier
long dagger
short sword
Gremlin
it's claws
it's teeth
Black Slime
acidic slime
corrosive goo
nauseating gunk (slimed)
Skeleton
sickle
Imp
it's claws
it's poisoned tail
Wraith
crushing blow
bone-chilling scream
Brown Mold
burst of spores
Zombie
loses piece of flesh
strangle hold (gangrene)
Ghoul
claw (gangrene?)
sword
Assasin Weapnsmaster
poisoned shri-ken
strangling wire
poisoned dagger
nanchucks
longsword
sword
Troll
large knurly club
claw
teeth
IT REGENERATED (regenerates)
Ghost
let's out a heart-breaking moan
bolt of lightning
bone chilling touch
Orc
short wavy sword
Small Green Dragon
it's claws
it's teeth
it's tail
a scorching breath of fire
Guard
greatsword
Dwarf
sharpsword
Gnoll
a dagger
Master Thief Brigand Mugger Thief Cutthroat Robber
sword
switchblade
shortsword
dagger
Pauper
bare hands
Nobleman
magical sword
Commoner
dagger
Hobbit
shortsword
Giant
war hammer
Goblin
siletto
shortsword
Champion Gladiator Fighter Warrior Swordsman Knight
sword
longsword
greatsword
3.2 GENERAL TIPS FOR THE DUNGEON
The Dungeon is, IMHO much easier than The City. First of all, you get much higher stats in
the beginning of the game. Second, there is a newbie area where you start with virtually
no dangerous monsters at all. Third, if you know where to go, you can find killer weapons
right from the beginning.
The money is also of less importance here, since food packets and water flasks are cheap at
the Damon and Phytias Shoppe (46E, 59N) and you can offer any amount of coppers you wish
at the Reatreat (55E, 60N) for a cheap rest. (You can also sell loot from monsters at the
Dwarven Smithy on the second floor, but be sure you have joined a Guild first to get rid of
any curses the items may bestow upon you.)
There is also another great thing in The Dungeon, namely Crystals and Wands! A Healing Wand
is worth it's weight in gold, since it heals more efficiently than any healing spell, and
never fails. Wands uses Crystals which can be found on Humunculi and Dragons (and others),
or they can be spawned by The Star (which 20 Crystals for each card). Also, by comparison,
if you charge your Guild Ring with a Crystal (which gives you 10 Charges, just enough for
a Healing spell) you'll get about 10 Hit Points (or a backfire) compared to the Healing Wands
40 or so (no backfire, though it'll break if you run out of Crystals).
One of the easiest ways to get a good start is to buy a torch at the D & P, wield it as a
primary weapon and then make you way southeast to the secret area containing the Razor Ice
(61E, 23N) which is one of the best weapons in the game, making both Sharp and Cold (magical)
damage. And if you make it back to the Well Lighted Area (watch out for disease spreading rats
in the sewers on the way) you can kill almost anything (including the Wraith at 60E, 58N which
will be affected by the cold damage). Also, if you unequip Razor Ice and enter the room at
51E, 59N you'll encounter a Doppleganger, which you then can defeat by readying the sword in
the middle of combat (since the Doppleganger will then still use his bare hands).
A difference from The City here, is that you don't get much by slaying Paupers or
Apprentices, compared to the Commoners in The City (if you want to play Evil that is). Paupers
will fight for their lives, and can be very tough (also watch out for the Shaolin Monks which
looks like paupers but who "strikes with a hardened fist"), and Apprentices carry only cursed
weapons which you shouldn't pick up until you have joined a Guild.
Another difference in combat is also the Experience distribution system, which only gives you
half of the dealt damage in Experience Points, rather than The City's full.
Also, don't kill Healers when playing Evil. There are only three wandering Healers in the
entire game. There is a freelancing one and there are two employed by the Physicians Guild
(working day and night shifts). If you kill them you will get Assassins after you with
messages like "greeting from a friend". Heirophant Cards will still work though.
You have probably noticed by now that alignment affects more things in The Dungeon than in
The City. You can lower your alignment in the usual manner, but there are also a number of
ways to raise it. Praying the Chapel raises your alignment by 1 (works once every 24 hrs),
yielding passage for Knights raises it by 1 (until they start yielding for you), and
giving money to a Pauper also raises your alignment by 1 (but only when you get the message
"Bless your kind, sir!").
If you could manage to become incredibly good (it is unconfirmed, but you probably needed
255 in Alignment), you would then be invited to the Chapel Sanctuary where you were offered
free food and sleep, and also got a weapon called ST. Percival's Mace and the spell Dispel
Evil worth 50% (note that you can only use the mace if you remain good, otherwise it will
scream at you ("I was meant for better than you!") and drain your Hit Points).
In The Dungeon, luckily, monsters act a bit (okie, they act a hell of a lot) more
intelligent than in The City. Only certain monsters steal from you here, and it is also
monsters you expect to be stealing that does it. A note of warning though: If you get
anything stolen, or even if you drop anything (if your weapon is hurled from your grasp)
during combat, and the foe escapes, it will be lost! The only way to retrieve it will be
if you are lucky enough to find a Master Thief who carries the item.
Finally, if you have gained a few levels, you could try this tip for loads of experience:
Encounter a Flame Demon (Sword of Demons), Vampire (Unholy Sword) or Liche (Sceptre of Chaos)
and pick up it's respective special weapon after defeating them. It will scream at you
("Miserable do-gooder, you shall pay!") and drain your Hit Points, but it will also summon new
demons/vampires/liches very, very frequently. This is a great way to get alot of experience,
but prepare for furious combat, especially if you stole the Sword of Demons since the Flame
Demons call for more help almost all the time during combat (though a standard Flame Demon
attack of 4 demons give you a good 1,000 Experience Points, and you generally only have to
fire away two sets of Cold Blasts to calm them down). Also beware of the Vampires, since they
are extremely hard.
3.2.1 WALKTHROUGH FOR THE DUNGEON
General Notes
All the quests are acquired by tossing atleast 5 gold pieces into the
flames of the Oracle. You should do this between every quest.
Quest One
You must find a Master Thief and slay him (Master Thieves are often found as
wandering monsters). Take the Silver Key you loot from his body and go to the
Palace on level one. Find the Prison (hidden door from the Sewers) and free
the prisoner. Accept the spell he offers to learn you (not a must, but it's
good). Take the Staff Piece he offers you. You'll be teleported to the Puzzle
of the Three Doors. Go middle, left, left, middle, middle. Find Acrinimiril's
Tomb and give the Staffpiece to him.
Quest Two
There are two ways to solve this quest:
1) Go to the Troll King or the Goblin King and fight them. Take their
two ring halves and go to the Dwarven Smithy at level two. Take the
reforged ring to the Oracle and toss it into the flames.
2) Go to the Troll King or the Goblin King and fight one of them. Take
his ring half and offer it to the other king. Fight the king. You can
now loot the reforged ring of the dead king's body and toss it into
the flames of the Oracle.
Quest Three
There are several ways to solve this Quest:
1) Find the Shrine of Monsters on level one and defeat the 3 Wraiths.
Get Morgana's Tiara. Go to the Hall of Mirrors on level two and offer
Morgana's Tiara to the Clothes Horse. Get the Mirrored Shield.
2) Go to Damon & Phytias Shoppe and buy a Heavy Leather Jacket or a
Flowing Purple Cape. Wear it. Go to the Clothes Horse and trade
it for the Mirrored Shield.
Quest Four
Go to the River Stonz at midnight and offer the Ferryman two coppers.
Kill the seven knights on the other side. Visit the Undead King and you'll
receive the second Staffpiece. Take the Staffpiece to Acrinimiril.
Quest Five
Go to the Fearsome Gargoyle on level three (the Riddler). Answer his
questions as following: Shipwreck, Oracle, Bloodstone and Shingor (the last
answer isn't necessary, it's actually to complete a Wilderness quest).
You'll be teleported to the Basilisk. Kill it with your bare hands and
use the Mirrored Shield as protection. Give the Bloodstone to the Dragon
(or kill him) to get the last Staffpiece. Take the Staffpiece to Acrinimiril
and get the PAC Card. Go do Death's Door and use the PAC Card to enter level
four. Use the Mirrored Shield in the Alien Control Room and you have
completed the game!
3.3 USING EMULATORS TO PLAY THE GAMES
This has become more and more popular lately, and for some, it is the only way in fact,
to be able to experience the old classic versions of the Alternate Reality games again.
However, the road to nostalgia is filled with hazards that one has to overcome. Hopefully,
this section will clear some of the problems out.
3.3.1 ABOUT THE TOS ROM IMAGES
These are the ones that cause most of the trouble. They are files that contain dumps of
the operating system rom chips of a computer, and they are highly copyrighted, even if
the computer isn't sold anymore and even if the company who made the computer doesn't exist
(I believe a patent lasts 50 years or something if not renewed).
So, the only way you legally can own a TOS rom image, is by owning it's correspondant
computer too (or if you have purchased the rom separately).
However, one can then debate wether emulators (which mostly are freeware) are legal or not too,
since they use the copyrighted processes from those very same computers.
Most of the times, you will find the roms somewhere near (probably linked) the homepage
of the emulator you want to try out, but beware of asking the emulator authors about them;
that is to break an unwritten law on the internet, and can have horrible consequences.
3.3.2 ABOUT DISK IMAGES
Disk images are files that contain dumps of real disks from other computers. If they
contain copyrighted material, such as a comercial game for example, they should be
considered illegal too, if you do not own that game.
However, Philip Price, the copyright holder of the Alternate Reality series has granted
free distribution of all versions of the original two AR games. That means that anyone can
enjoy them for free. But original copies, manuals and such, still may hold a certain affection
and nostalgic value. Disk images of the original Alternate Reality games are therefor not
illegal to possess even if you do not own the real game.
You will find Alternate Reality disk images for all of the below mentioned emulators at
ftp.ksk.sala.se/pub/ar/ (this archive contains atleast one copy of both AR games for every
system they were every made for or ported to).
3.3.3 RUNDOWNS ON ALL THE EMULATORS
These emulator reviews are mostly from Windows 95 versions, since they are generally easier to
use (and if you know how to use a Dos emulator, you probably don't need to read these reviews
and tips anyway). I know that these are not _ALL_ the emus out there; I have ignored some
(like, Xformer 98, which costs money and doesn't work anyway, and Gemulator 98, since that also
costs money and even needs hardware to run). If you have any comments or corrections, please
don't hesitate to mail me!
Also note that the emu scene is constantly changing very fast and I can't possibly keep up with
reviewing every new version of all the emulators that all these wonderfull programmers keeps
producing.
Download the emulator and refer to it's manual for details on installation for each
individual system. Place TOS rom files in the Xl-it directory. If you have a joystick, make
sure you calibrate it (in the menus of the emulator) before the first time you try to start
a game.
To play The City with Xl-it 0.18, you must first make a little configuration change to get
it running. Go to the Enviroments menu and make sure that 130XE mode and Basic Cart is off
and set the old 800 mode to on (this will change the "please insert disk" font to the basic
font the first time prompted, but more importantly, it will accept the disk you insert,
rather than crash). The old 800 mode has to load to memory a few more times than 130XE
mode, but it's more stable with Xl-it.
Xl-it version 0.20 can, however, handle The City with 130XE mode, but it is known, in
The Dungeon atleast, to occasionally crash entire Character disks, rendering them forever
unusable with any emulator!
Identify what disk and side each Disk image represents and make yourself comfortable with
the diskswapping in the emu (there are shortcut keys). When everything is set, press Alt-E
or choose Emulate from the options menu. F3 (Start) skips the introduction, and F8 gets you
back to the menus. Please note that if you chose to leave Basic Cart on (in the Enviroments)
you must hold down the F1 (Option) key when you boot the game, just like on a real Atari.
Xl-it is all in all a very good Dos emulator, and has the undoubtedly best sound emulation
of all the other emus. Xl-it is also quite fast and displays very accurate graphics
(although at a resolution which cripples the screen) and crashes very seldom. Xl-it,
however, won't be updated anytime soon, so you'll have to take it as it is (still one of the
best though).
Download the emulator and refer to it's manual for details on installation for each
individual system. Remember to place the TOS roms in it's directory (and see the manual for
proper naming of the roms). Rainbow is only availble free as a limited shareware version
(the full featured one costs $33) and it's Windows 95 or Mac only.
As always, make yourself comfortable with which Disk image represents which disk and what
side. After launch, you have to choose a disk for drive 1 (drive 2 doesn't work in the
shareware version) and then reboot the Atari to get The City or The Dungeon going.
Everything is done from the menus.
There are very little configurations to choose between, which is good. However, almost
none of them are availible in the demo version, which is bad. Sound is also disabled,
except for some samples of the Atari's disk drive loading (which are quite charming, but
also serve as an indication of what's currently happening).
Rainbow is limited in that way that it doesn't save Disk images automatically (nor is
there a choise to do so) so for each time you switch disks, you have to choose Save Image
manually for it to write to the Disk image. This doesn't work in the shareware version,
and has the effect that you can't enter any shops or other establishments in The City
(since, there's a terrible lot of diskswapping, during which the game apparently saves some
info on the disks), nor can you save your character, rendering that game unplayable with
this emulator.
Another bug comes directly upon launch of The Dungeon, where is locks up into an eternal
loop at the cracked intro screen.
All in all, Rainbow has great potential, but locks everything neatly away in the shareware
version. Rainbow is the fastest emulator I've tried, (with some clever frame skipping) and
easily the easiest and slickest one to use.
Thanks to Chris Lam, I can now also happily report that the full version of Rainbow works
perfectly with The City! It is also damn fast, so you might consider slowing it down by
displaying some more frames. Also, when you are loading the main section of the game, it
keeps asking for Disk 2 side 1, even if it's inserted into a drive, but just keep pressing
Start (F3, and be patient) and it'll eventually load (another fun thing is that if you
keep pressing Start at the copyright screen in the beginning, you can skip both the intro
and the loading sequence). And, as it always seems to be with the 8-bit City, the keyboard
sensitivity isn't the greatest.
Since you can use both disk drives now, you can finally have Disk 2 side 1 in drive 1 and
Disk 2 side 2 in drive 2 to be able to enter shops (and make sure you don't switch any of
them without saving, otherwise you'll get thrown out again!) Also, when you want to exit a
Bank, please note that the "joystick down" key is Keypad 5 (with Numlock On). You also get
splendid sound (though somewhat more mellow compared to a real Atari) and if you just
remember to save your Character Disk manually BEFORE you switch disks and AFTER you've
saved, you'll be fine!
Download the emulator and refer to it's manual for details on installation for each
individual system. I'm happy to be able to report that the menus have been cleaned up and the
amount of setting you have to configure in order to get it running properly has been cut down
from previous versions!
This emulator has alot of settings, too many in fact, which was one of the shortcomings and
reasons to avoid it in previous versions. However, things are better in this new release, but
you still need to familarize yourself amongst the menus for awhile before you can start the
emulation (there should really be a 'simple mode' and an 'advanced mode', but pherhaps there
will be). Also, you should know that this emulator is a win32 port of a dos version, something
which also was very visible before (mostly taken care of now, though).
Inserting disks can be done by pressing Ctrl- F1 to F8 for the drive you want to use and
choosing the Disk image file (original idea by me, actually). If you want to use, for
example, four drives in The Dungeon, make sure to enable them before you start the emulation.
Also, press Shift - F5 to reboot the computer with the new disk and note that F4 is Start in
this emulator. Atari800Win also saves disk images on the fly as you would expect (ie. it
handles just like a real Atari).
This is also the first release in which both games (The City and The Dungeon) works fine.
In previous versions of Atari800win, you couldn't pass the Stats portal, since the Spacebar
didn't work in that screen, and if you loaded a game, the movement keys (IJKL) wouldn't function
properly (the joystick would work, however). I have also not been able to recreate the
DirectSound crashes which were very common in previous versions.
Atari800win doesn't set any speed records, however. It is noticably the slowest Atari emulator,
both in-game and when loading. You can run the emu at full speed (F8), but then you loose
sound (I don't know if there's a frameskip option hidden somewhere amongst the menus). Also,
there isn't any indication of wether the emulator loads from a disk or not (no graphical led
and no sound), nor is there any sound when a key is pressed (which was the case on the original
Atari). Also, note that Atari800win saves all it's configurations in the Windows 95 registry
instead of a .cfg file, so make sure you delete all it's entries there if you want to
uninstall it.
So, all in all sound is good, the graphics are very good (no garbled graphics in the stats
screens, but the mirrored mountains are still there), and speed is as we discussed earlier.
By the release of version 2.1 Atari800win has now taken the lead position amongst Atari
emulators (even surpassing Rainbow, despite of it's speed problems), so when you have either
ignored, or set all the options and learned the short-cut keys, this emulator may very well
become a worthy successor to Xl-it.
Download the emulator and run the install file, but DON'T refer to it's manual for details!
The history of UAE is not a pretty one (UAE originally stood for the Unusable Amiga Emulator).
It is originally a Unix build which was converted to both Dos and Windows. This means that
(as with most Unix software) it wouldn't know the concept of being 'user-friendly' even if it
jumped up and bit it in it's rear end, but it gets the job done. Fortunately, in the newest
versions, it's Unix heritage has been masked quite well, so you won't have to use the manual
too much, nor dabble with any command line options.
Since the Amiga is apparently, even by today's standards, a very complicated machine, with
custom chips and stuff, emulating it isn't easy. However, UAE does a pretty good job with it.
Graphics are mostly glitch free, and sound has finally been optimized (atleast it sounds good
on my P2 266), though not always synchronized.
Mouse support and joystick support is also easy to use and it works good (though with Alternate
Reality, you will only be using the keyboard).
You should know that the Amiga version of AR features relatively unique versions of The City's
soundtrack; unlike the Atari ST version (the other emulated 16-bit format), all 4 channels has
been retained from the original soundtrack, and samples are being used to produce the sound,
creating (together with the new 'mixes') a rather new experience.
Unfortunately, since a couple of versions back, a bug called the 'stretched gui bug' has
been introduced into this emulator which I still suffer from. This means that you will get a
ridicously large window on your desktop, with either a very small picture in (although a
correctly displayed one), or you a terribly stretched picture, no matter what resolution you
select (even the fullscreen options suffer from a similar fate).
All in all, the emulator is rather good, the GUI is coming along fine and the speed is almost
acceptible.
Download the emulator and refer to it's manual for details on installation for each
individual system. Remember to put the TOS roms into the directory of the emulator.
It is important to choose a resolution you like in this emulator, since this emulator
produces alot of varied results when displaying different resolutions (sometimes stretching
and sometimes slowing down and so on). Choosing a resolution is accomplished by navigating
it's very easy to use menu system, which is one of the strong points of this emulator.
It has alot of options, some pherhaps obscure to a person who doesn't know that much about
an Amiga, but most of those options can be left alone. Look out for the LED display option
though, as that may crash the emulator if you mess with it too much (you can choose where
you want to see a disk drive indicator which is normally displayed on screen, but can also
be placed on the PC keyboard LEDs). The LED display is otherwise also a very good thing
about this emu (though it doesn't always show up in some resolutions) as it generally shows
you wether the emulator is reading from a disk or not. Another option which you must change,
it seems, would be to add 1mb of Fast Memory in order to get AR running.
Since this emulator emulates the Amiga, only The City is availible, and in it's 16-bit
incarnation (jobs availible, guilds joinable, spells, but simplified combat), and this
version also features two additional tavern songs (Ganthem and an unidentified one).
Playing The City with this emulator works perfectly, saving and all, the graphics are
glitch free (you might want to set frameskip to 1/2 though) and the music is perfect!
Finally, I encountered a curious bug while testing the emulator; all the Stats were 00 in
the portal room, but looked fully normal in the game. While fun, it may cripple play a bit.
Download the emulator and refer to it's manual for details on installation for each
individual system. Remember to put a TOS rom into the directory of the emulator (and there
are alot of different versions of these) and if you don't use a launcher program, remember
to change the path to your roms in the pacifist.ini file!
When you start the emulator you'll end up in the monitor (no, your head will not smash into
your monitor; it's a screen with a command prompt which is called the "monitor"). From here,
you type in different commands for what you want to to, eg. "g" for go and "x" for exit. But
first, you should insert a disk image into your virtual Atari ST. Do that by pressing F12 and
follow the onscreen instructions (look at the bottom right hand corner for the keyboard
commands, and the disk image you want to insert would be the AR one).
NOTE: If you are using version 1.2 of The City, you must insert that disk image into both
drives, or PacifiST will crash (I'm sorry, but I don't know why). You can however, later
switch disk when the game wants you to without the emu crashing.
Now you are almost ready to go, but first, hit F1 to ensure that you have "line" screen
emulation (check the upper left hand part of the monitor). This is to get correct colors
when you later run The City.
If you are playing with the newly releazed Klaupazius version 2.0 of The City (the trained
version), disregard the below sets of instructions; the game runs fine (although
a section of The City which is normally unavailible is opened in this version).
Right, press "g" to start the emulation and watch a wonderfull blue screen appear. Then
watch it go black. And black it stays. Time to hit tilde (the key above tab ~) and enter
the monitor again. Try to press Ctrl-T a couple of times and you should see the
emulator step through some addresses and then suddenly come to a loop.
This loop is what causes all trouble and needs to be eliminated. The loop should be at
address 00C204 (00EE7C if you are using version 2.0, but then you must make sure you are
using TOS 2.06 also), so enter "nop C204 1" to get rid of it. Press "g" again, and voila,
life is good.
So, is it worth all trouble? Yes, I think it is. PacifiST is a very good emulator with
extremely good sound and Alternate Reality: The City for the Atari ST is very faithfull
to the Atari 8-bit version, but of course, with all the 16-bit features, such as jobs and
the ability to join guilds, in place. The Atari ST only has three channels of music,
however, but all the songs from the 8-bit version is there, including encounter music,
secret door music and palace famfares and arena fights! There's also the lack of need to
constantly change disks, as with the 8-bit version of The City.
Also, if you are using the untrained version 2.0 of The City (should work with any TOS rom)
the game will think you are running a pirated copy of it, and therefor will treat you in that
way. That is, your character becomes extremely evil and you won't be able to enter any taverns
or save the game. Sneaky? Oh, yes indeed!
NEWS FLASH: PacifiST is a emulator that is constantly being updated (version 0.48 at the
time of writing), and the latest addition of new features is a command that lets you save
the state of emulation and load it at any given time! And this is good news, since it
completely removes the need for hacking the game every time you want to load it (untrained
version only), as demonstrated above and even removes the need for a character disk!
To save, simply type "fz x y" in the monitor, where x is the name of the file (standard 8
characters max, no spaces) and y is a description (more characters and space are allowed!).
Later, to load your saved game, just insert the disk into the emulator and type "uz x" to
restore the emulator to exact state as you left it in the last time!
Download the emulator and refer to it's manual for details on installation for each
individual system. Remember to put the TOS roms into the directory of the emulator.
Now this is as easy as it gets. WinSTon must be the slickest thing the emulation scene has
ever seen, it's simply gorgeous!
When you load it up, you get a perfect, small, easy-to-handle window, that's extremely cute
(it even looks like an Atari ST).
Simply press F12 and click on the first drive and select the file you want to insert into
it, then click the reset button and off you go!
Note the blinking led, and you can rezise the window to any size too!
Okie, so does it run AR? No. But don't worry, it's only version 0.0005 yet, and still, it
looks extremely promising even at this early stage, so I recommend you to stay tuned for
updates on this one (also, it only accepts TOS 1.0 at this point too...).
Download the emulator and refer to it's manual for details on installation for each
individual system. This emulator comes with it's own TOS roms.
Since the version I tried was a Win 95 app, it was a whizz to configure and load. In fact,
the only thing you need to configure is personal stuff, like wether you want fullscreen
or not (and it's all reachable from standard windows menus).
There are then several number of ways to get a game running. You could use standard C64
commands, but Frodo also has a set of very nifty built in features. For example, Ctrl-D
lists the content of an inserted disk image, and F7 loads up the first program from that
disk it finds (you still need to type "run" for that command though).
Even though this is a brilliant emulator, complete with full sid emulation and everything,
it does not run AR. Atleast not the disk images I'm in possesion of. And this will not
change, I have been told. Alteast not until someone figures out a way to get around the
way The Dungeon addresses the disk drive with the built in monitor, like in the Atari ST
version.
APPLEWIN ?? (ftp.ksk.sala.se/pub/ar/)
Download the emulator and refer to it's manual for details on installtion for each
individual system. This emulator comes with it's own TOS roms.
This is a very easy to use emulator. Simply click on the disk icon and enter what disks
you want in what drive and the click on the Apple logo and off you go.
However, there isn't very much to look at. Sure, both The City and The Dungeon runs fine,
you can save your character and all, but there's only four colors, and one channel of
sound. And no, that's not the emulator's fault; that's about all the Apple II had.
What's funny, though, is that even the color blur of a TV is emulated.
All in all, it's a very good emulator, easy to use, runs everything, fast, with sound,
perfect. A Note if you want to uninstall it, though: It saves some of it's preferences in
the windows registry, which need to be removed in case of a manual uninstall.
4. ITEMS, LOCATIONS AND OTHER THINGS
Since The City didn't have any quests or defined goals, other than to stay alive, you might
think that there wasn't much to do. But you are so wrong. Staying alive was enough to keep
you occupied for a very long time. And it's items, treasure, locations, secrets and details
made it a very worthwhile experience.
4.1 ITEMS IN THE CITY
Items were a very treasured thing in The City, indeed. Without clothing, you would freeze;
without food and water, you would go hungry and starve; without weapons, you were an easy
target for thieves; and without money, you mostly couldn't get any of these things.
4.1.1 CLOTHES
One of the first things you'll notice in The City is that you will get cold quite fast
if you don't buy any proper clothing. Apart from that, it is still unknown exactly what
the effect is, apart from a certain dapper value which apparently increases your status.
Here is a list of all the different selections:
Quality Color Fabric Articles
Cheap Black Dragonskin Blouse
Simple Blue Fur-lined Breechcloth
Fine Brown Linen Cloak
Gold Satin Dress
Green Silk Hat
Maroon Wool Jerkin
Orange Pants
Pink Raincoat
Plaid Robe
Purple Scarf
Red Shirt
Silver Skirt
Striped Socks
White Tie
Yellow Toga
Vest
4.1.2 FOOD AND DRINKS
Also, one of the first things you'll notice in The City, is that some of your characters
will get hungry and thirsty very, very fast, and if you leave them that way, their stats
will deteriorate quickly.
Food can be very expensive and not very satisfying if you aren't carefull. The Official
Cluebook has some very good tips that teaches you the ways of the Taverns.
In addition, I can say from experience, that it is going to take alot of money (from an
initial point of view) if you want to build up a safety buffer of food packets, since the
characters tends to eat them whenever he feels for a snack, and if you don't have enough,
it can be hard to find a Tavern which carries them at the time.
In the list below, every meal has a price for every tavern. Please note, however, that I
have not seen each and every one of those meals in all of the taverns, so they may not
be availible there (such prices are calculated, but hopefully accurate).
Check 4.3.1 for complete Tavern names and locations (prices are in coppers):
The Dancing Nymph Tavern has the exact same prices as Mom's Bar.
The Black Devil Tavern has the exact same prices as The Happy Hunter Tavern.
The Flaming Dragon Tavern and The Screaming Siren Tavern
has the exact same prices as the Last Stop.
PLEASE NOTE: None of the Taverns with entrance fees has been covered yet.
4.1.3 WEAPONS AND ARMOUR
Tools of vital importance if you wish to defeat your foes. And there will be foes.
If you are lucky, you will find a good weapon or armor after combat, though, depending on
what character you use, such treasure is very rare. Take note of the Cluebook's notes on
weapon, combat and smithies. In addition, Occum's Weaponsmiths (19E, 31N) usually carries
a cheap dagger in the beginning which is always a good start.
Here is a list of all the different weapons and armour:
Weapons Armor Shields
Battle Axe Banded Armor Shield
Battle Hammer Chain Mail Small Shield
Dagger Leather Armor Spiked Shield
Flail Padded Armor Tower Shield
Long Sword Plated Armor
Short Sword Scale Mail
Stilleto Splint Armor
Sword Studded Leather
War Net
Whip
4.1.4 TREASURE
As the cluebooks tells, you'r ability to find treasure in The City relies on luck,
the hidden treasure finding stat and the type of monster you encounter.
A good way to find treasure in the beginning are by way of killing muggers, and,
if you dare to venture out at night, Gremlins. Gremlins are very weak and almost
always carry some sort of treasure.
Listed below are weapons and armor, both mundane and magical, which can be found after
combat. But you will also be able to find money (gold, silver and copper), precious
stones (gems and jewels which can be appraised at banks) and potions (see the Official
Cluebook for a very good rundown on those).
The Crystal Plate and the Magical Flamesword, which can only be found as Treasure (ie. not
availible in any shops) are considered to be, by far, the best equipment in the game.
Crystal Plate Magical Flamesword Magical Tower Shield
Elfin Chain Magical Battleaxe Magical War Net
Plate Mail Magical Battlehammer Magical Spiked Shield
Banded Armor Magical Flail Magical Shield
Chain Mail Magical Whip Magical Small Shield
Splint Mail Magical Longsword
Scale Mail Magical Sword
Ring Mail Magical Shortsword
Studded Leather Magical Stilleto
Leather Armor Magical Dagger
Padded Armor
4.2 ITEMS IN THE DUNGEON
Sequels are usually better (hopefully) than their predecessors, and atleast for the items
and the inventory, this is true for the Alternate Reality games. All items in The Dungeon
have a set weight, and the inventory is much easier to manage.
Even though The City has many more shops than The Dungeon, and pherhaps just because of
that, items tend to be more easy to come by, and there are certainly more varied ways to
get them. For example, if you join a Guild, fellow guild members will, if you are short on
a vital item, hand you one, or, you can sometimes find special items lying on the floor in
special areas (one of the best weapons in the game, for example, is Razor Ice which is located
but a short walk from your starting point).
Also, another important factor in The Dungeon is that you can sell the items you find,
which you couldn't in The City. This is great in the beginning, if you have joined a Guild,
since you can then go and remove any curse that the weapon has, and then use the stairway
(49E, 46N) near the Well-lit area to reach the Dwarven Smithy (17E, 24N), and then sell the
items for money!
Food and water is also managed in an easier way, being almost always availible at the
Damon & Phtyias Shoppe (46E, 59N) (whereas in The City, you had to chase Taverns which
could supply them), and since they are vital when you plan on making long journeys, you can
choose when to consume them manually. The same goes for torches (also a very vital thing in
the beginning of the game).
4.2.1 TREASURE
*** IMPORTANT NOTICE: *********************************************************************
This area is currently under construction. As each monster in The Dungeon can carry both
standard items (food, money etc.), special items (as mentioned in the Cluebook) and also
has it's own items, this list will narrow it down to the last option (like the Water Sprite's
Trident for example). As there are alot of monsters in The Dungeon, as with The City, work
in progress is slow. Anyone who feels that they possess information that they think would be
a valuable contribution to this section, please contact me at robert.hagenstrom@ebox.tninet.se
These are the true treasures of The Dungeon. A real pain to find, if you don't know where
to look (since there are rarely clues to where to find most of them), but a salvation when
you find them.
The abilites of these items are as varied as they are numerous. The Cluebook for The
Dungeon contains very good descriptions of these items, with the exeption that Melvin's
Helm actually increases damage done to your head, and that the Bolt Gun is missing.
Here are the locations of all the one-of-a-kind items:
Name Locations
Crossbow [03] 6E, 62N Level 1
Thunder Quarrels [10] 11E, 62N "
Whetstone 31E, 62N "
Golden Apple 31E, 59N "
Staff of Amber 11E, 36N "
Six Pack [6] 17E, 48N "
Lodestone 38E, 57N "
Page of Cups 62E, 56N "
Winged Sandals 47E, 45N "
Morgana's Tiara 44E, 45N "
Helm of Light 41E, 45N "
Truesilver Coat 42E, 38N "
Potion of Restoration 45E, 38N "
The Star (card) 48E, 38N "
Sword of the Adept 3E, 23N "
Amethyst Rod 3E, 15N "
Saurian Brandy 9E, 8N "
Map Stone 59E, 28N "
Razor Ice 60E, 23N "
Blue Pearl Dagger 48E, 25N "
Crystal Breastplate 8E, 23N Level 2
Death (card) 19E, 5N "
Robin's Hood 0E, 14N "
Flame Quarrels [10] 4E, 10N Level 3
Junai's Sword 9E, 0N "
Iron Palm Salve 9E, 3N "
Melvin's Helm 5E, 5N Room of Confusion
Cloak of Levitation 19E, 29N Level 2
Beam Weapon [99] 2E, 0N Level 4
See section 5.2.1 on how to acquire the last two items.
4.3 ESTABLISHMENTS IN THE CITY
What other game let you, on a cool but clear night, wander around a city, from tavern to
tavern, and listen and be entertained by good music and dancing and drink from the local
establishment's selection of beverages, and even become a bit drunk.
No other game offered such a widespread selection of shops and inns, and no other game
ever have had such a level of interactivity as The City had (and no other game succeeded
to appeal to one's vanity as The City; why, if not only to get that expensive Fine Gold
Dragonskin Raincoat, do you continue to play the game as a Level 13 character).
Maps to pinpoint these locations, are at http://user.tninet.se/~lan3180/alternate-reality/
and they are dumps from the original source code so they are 100% accurate! (Even showing
certain areas in The City which can't be accesed in a normal game.)
4.3.1 TAVERNS
The Tavern, along with the Smithy, was the peak of the games interactivity. Each Tavern
had different opening times, different menus (that changed from time to time) and
different prices. On top of that, they served different appetizers and had different
music playing too, along with some random events that occasionally occured.
The cluebook has some notes on taverns, which you should read. Also, when you entered a
tavern you got some choises on where to sit. These were as follows. If you wanted to
sit at the bar, you got to listen to the band (and watch the various events that could
occur around that), and from time to time, strangers would wander in whom you could
interact with. If you chose to sit at a table, you still got the band playing, but you
wouldn't be disturbed by anyone entering the tavern. And finally, in the private booth,
you were isolated from both the music playing and any wandering strangers.
Here is the list of all the tavern names and locations:
Name Location Opening hours Membership fee
Flaming Dragon Tavern 60E, 2N
Misty Mountain Tavern 1E, 54N 11:00-03:00 3,000
Screaming Siren Bar 44E, 9N 16:00-04:00
Happy Hunter Rest Stop 7E, 24N 00:00-08:00
Dancing Nymph Tavern 41E, 34N 16:00-08:00
The Club 33E, 53N 18:00-23:00 1,500
Black Devil Tavern 32E, 19N 00:00-06:00
(Lost Oasis) Tavern 20E, 62N
Last Stop 52E, 56N
Tail of the Dog 39E, 29N
Club Babalyon 57N, 33E 10:00-05:00 50,000
Lost Tears Tavern 13E, 12N
Mom's Bar 5E, 35N
Lusty Lloyds 60E, 30N
4.3.2 INNS
The Inns were the only means of sleep you had in The City. And sleep you needed, since the
character realistically got tired if he stayed awake for long times. More importantly, it
was also the easiest way to recover lost Hit Points. This was also the only way to check
the time in the 8-bit version of The City.
As with everything in The City, you had alot of options here. In this case, the options
were where you would sleep and for how long, and depending on what you chose, you got
various healing bonuses.
There are two tables here, one with locations, and one with prices (and the prices of
lodging doesn't change from time to time):
Name Location
Green Boar Inn 9E, 19N
Lazy Griffin Inn 33E, 52N
Sleeping Dragon Inn 60E, 6N
Travellers Inn 31E, 25N
Midnight Inn 32E, 23N
Warriors Retreat Inn 28E, 54N
Royal Resort 31E, 3N
Sleep Green Lazy Dragon Travel Midnigt Warrior Royal
the common area floor 10 16 5 60 30 7 80
a Bed with no bath 20 32 10 120 60 15 160
a Bed with common bath 30 48 15 180 90 22 240
a Room, with common bath 40 64 20 240 120 30 320
a Room with bath 50 80 25 300 150 37 400
a Premium Room 100 160 50 600 300 75 800
a Deluxe Room 200 320 100 1,200 600 150 1,600
a Small Suite 400 640 200 2,400 1,200 300 3,200
a Suite 800 1,280 400 4,800 2,400 600 6,400
Out BEST Suite 1,600 2,560 800 9,600 4,800 1,200 12,800
4.3.3 BANKS
The banking system in The City is a very advanced one. They provide you with interest and
also a risque of account failures. A low risk account has a 0.6% interest per day, and a
0.1% failure risk per day, medium risk has 1.3% interest and 1.0% failures, and high risk
has 3.2% interest and a 3.3% account failure risk per day.
To keep track of things, The City lets you view your balance, your interest rate and even
the account failure history of the bank, whenever you want. You can also appraise gems and
jewelry for a small fee, and then sell them (but always get a second opinion since jewelry,
while more expensive to appraise, can give you up to 100 gold).
Name Location Opening Hours
Grams Gold Exchange 2E, 61N ??
Granite Bank 38E, 27N ??
First City Bank 30E, 6N ??
4.3.4 GUILDS
As you probably know, the Guilds award you a bonus the first time you enter them. This
can, if you want, be seen as the game's first and only quest; to get all the knowledge
the Guilds has to offer.
Also, ignore the highlighted option to join the guild. That only works in the 16-bit
versions of the game, not in the 8-bit (an option which, together with the two hidden
guilds, would be enabled and opened up with The Arena).
Name Location Increase Remove Curse
Thieves Guild 43E, 34N Skill 9,000
Blue Wizards Guild 18E, 47N Physical Speed 3,000
Light Wizards Guild 2E, 4N Wisdom 2,700
Green Wizards Academy 11E, 42N Stamina 3,000
Red Wizards University 47E, 14N Strength 3,000
Dark Wizards Guild 33E, 21N Charisma 3,100
Star Wizards Guild 27E, 11N Hit Points + Strength 2,000
Wizards of Chaos Guild 50E, 59N Charisma 4,000
Wizards of Law Guild 61E, 49N Wisdom 3,800
Guild of Order 57E, 49N Intelligence 4,000
Physicians Guild 5E, 14N Hit Points 7,000
Assassins Guild 55E, 2N Suprise Attacks 11,000
Mercenary Guild 32E, 55N Strength 12,000
Power Wizard Institute 25E, 44N Stamina 2,500
The last two Guilds are not normally availible in the game.
4.3.5 HEALERS
Healers doesn't seem to have any fixed opening times, but rather they come and go as they
please (that is, the cursed doctor is never there when you need him). Neither do they seem
to have any fixed prices on their services, rather prices on cleansing diseases or curing
poisons can range from anything from 200 to 800 (they also increase after purchase).
If you chose to remove a disease and exit and find that the Diseased! text is still
there, don't panic; it will wear of in a few minutes.
Diagnose can only be chosen after you have gotten a disease warning, and it's only effect
is that it names your ailment.
Name Location Opening Hours Prices
One Way Soothers 29E, 29N Random? Random?
Alpha Omega Healers 4E, 19N Random? Random?
4.3.6 SMITHIES
The Smithy is the most complex character in the whole game. All is not known about the smithy,
but atleast we know that he has a memory of you, he knows wether you're good or evil and there
seems to be a intricate system for haggling with him (it is also possible, but I don't know for
certain, that your Intelligence or Charisma may go up if you make a good deal, and that he may
increase his prices if he doesn't like you).
While the Shops had one (or maybe two) major functions, namely providing clothing to keep
you warm (or providing outrageous outfitts to milk you of money), and of course letting
you have the compass for 5 silvers, it is still unknown if there were other purposes.
Clothing are rumored to have a 'dapper' effect, which would affect the way that other
citizens viewed you, but no hard facts has ever been revealed about this.
Name Location Opening Hours
Best Bargain Store 35E, 30N 09:00-22:00
Honest Trader 35E, 24N 08:00-22:00
Exclusive Outfitters 21E, 43N 11:00-16:00
Smiley's Shop 25E, 15N 08:00-21:00
Sunset Market 33E, 55N 09:00-20:00
Warrior's Supplies 26E, 59N 05:00-18:00
Ono Goods 9E, 37N 09:00-18:00
Adventurers Outfitters 3E, 12N 08:00-20:00
Da Place (north) 60E, 61N 08:00-18:00
General Store 55E, 17N 05:00-00:00
Merchants Grotto 52E, 9N 04:00-20:00
Pauline's Emporium 46E, 37N 11:00-17:00
Betelguese Sales 38E, 56N 03:00-23:00
Da Place (south) 19E, 5N 08:00-18:00
Grubron Imports 0E, 13N 10:00-15:00
4.3.8 OTHER LOCATIONS
When The City was made, it was made with the intention that The Arena and The Wilderness
would b
