Crash Dive!

by Brian Moriaty

24K Cassette 32K Disk

You're on maintenance duty aboard the USS Sea Moss, patrolling the icy North Atlantic waters with an arsenal of twenty nuclear missiles.

The Sea Moss is no ordinary sub. She's the first to carry the Navy's new experimental sonar-jammer that can make her "invisible" to even the most sophisticated enemy sensors. The 5o-kiloton cruisers in her missile bay are the pride of the Pentagon: fast, silent, incredibly accurate.

The enemy would love to get their hands on the Sea Moss and her secrets. It's not likely to happen, though. The only way they could possibly breach the hull would be from the inside - and your fellow crewmembers have been carefully handpicked for their unswerving patriotism and utter lack of imagination. No "moles" in this bunch of sailors. No, sir!

The intercom in the equipment bay clicks to life. "I've got a bad line in the forward escape tube, " a voice from the command deck crackles. "Wanna come up here and take a look at it?" You grab a screwdriver, scoot up a ladder and slam the hatch of the escape tube behind you.

It's all over in a few seconds, The General Quarters klaxxon blares to life. You hear the shrieks and choked coughing of friends as they stumble through the passages outside, and a single hoarse shout: "Gas!" Some poor sucker pounds weakly on the escape hatch. Then the alarm cuts off as suddenly as it began. Everything is silent as death. Frozen with fear, you sit trembling in the airtight escape tube, knowing that now it's just you and the Sea Moss against whoever shut off the alarm.

The game.

Crash Dive! is a machine- language text adventure that pits you in a race against time. As the sole survivor of a terrible act of naval sabotage, you must find a way to keep your ship out of the hands of The Enemy. No sacrifice is too great to achieve this important goal. The question is, how do you get rid of a giant nuclear submarine and everything in it?

As the start of the game, the Sea Moss is assumed to be cruising along the surface of the ocean. Your mission is as follows:

1. Find a way to survive in the submarine's poisoned atmosphere.

2. Get the sub under water, so that enemy ships will not be able to reach it easily. You have a limited number of moves after the game begins to accomplish this, or the Enemy will capture the sub and kill you on the spot!

3. Find a way to completely destroy the Sea Moss.

Some of these goals will be relatively easy to accomplish. Others will require careful thought and a little bit of resourcefulness. Don't forget that there may be somebody left alive on the Sea Moss besides yourself - and that somebody might not be very friendly!

We'll discuss the details of playing Crash Dive! in a moment. First, let's take a look at the program itself, and how to get it up and running on your computer.

Typing it in.

Listing 1 is an Atari BASIC program that will create an auto-booting version of Crash Dive! on disk or cassette. The DATA statements are listed in hexadecimal (base 16) in order to make the program as small as possible. It makes typing a little more difficult, but it's a necessary evil.

Listing 1 will not fit in a 16K Atari system. You'll need at least 24K of memory if you're using cassette, or 32K if you're using disk. However, the machinelanguage file created by Listing 1 does fit in 16K. If you only have 16K in your computer, ask a friend with a larger system to help you type in and RUN the BASIC listing. After the boot tape or disk is made, you'll be able to enjoy the game on your 16K system. Listing 2 is the assemblylanguage source code for Crash Dive!, created with the MAC/65 Macro Assembler. You do not have to type Listing 2 into your computer to play the game (thank goodness!). It's provided for those readers interested in learning how the program works.

Follow the instructions below to make either a cassette or disk version of Crash Dive!

Cassette instructions.

1. Carefully type Listing 1 into your computer (remember, you need at least 24K to do this). Use C:CHECK (page 30) to verify your typing.

2. When C:CHECK says the program is perfect, type RUN and press RETURN. The program will prompt you with:

MAKE CASSETTE (0) OR DISK (1)?

Type 0 and press RETURN. The program will now begin checking the DATA statements, printing the line number of each as it goes. It will alert you if it finds any problems. Fix any incorrect lines and re-RUN the program as necessary until all typos are eliminated.

3. When all DATA lines are correct, the computer will "beep" twice and prompt you to READY CASSETTE AND PRESS RETURN. Insert a blank cassette into your recorder, press the PLAY and RECORD buttons simultaneously and hit RETURN. The message WRITING FILE will appear, and the program will create a machine-language boot-tape version of Crash Dive!, printing the line number of each DATA statement as it goes. When the READY prompt reappears, the game is recorded and ready to play. CSAVE the BASIC program on a separate tape before continuing.

4. To play Crash Dive!, rewind the boot tape created by the BASIC program to the beginning. Turn your computer OFF and remove all cartridges. Press the PLAY button on your recorder and turn ON your computer while holding down the START key. If you have a 600XL or 800XL computer, you must hold down the START and the OPTION keys together when you turn on the power. The computer will "beep" once. Hit the RETURN key and Crash Dive! will load and run automatically.

(click for high-detail 187KB JPG image)

Disk instructions.

1. Type Listing I into your computer and use D:CHECK2 (see page 30) to verify your typing.

2. When D:CHECK says the BASIC code is perfect, type RUN and press RETURN. The program will ask:

MAKE CASSETTE (0) OR DISK (1)?

Type 1 and press RETURN. The program will begin checking the DATA statements, printing the line number of each statement as it proceeds. The program will alert you if it finds any problems. Fix incorrect lines and re-RUN the program as necessary until all typos are eliminated.

3. When all DATA lines are correct, the program will prompt you to INSERT DISK WITH DOS, PRESS RETURN. Put a disk containing Atari DOS 2.0S into drive #1 and press RETURN. The message WRITING FILE will appear and the program will create a binary AUTORUN.SYS file on the disk, displaying the line number of each DATA statement as it goes. When the READY prompt reappears, Crash Dive! is ready to play. Be sure the BASIC program is SAVEd out to a disk before continuing.

4. To play the game, insert the disk containing the AUTORUN.SYS file into drive #1. Turn your computer OFF, remove all cartridges and turn the computer back ON. Crash Dive! will load and run automatically.

Assuming everything went okay, you should now be looking at the Crash Dive! title screen, which includes the following prompt:

Press START to play new game
Press OPTION to restore old game

Crash Dive!

You haven't played the game before, so press the START key. Your TV screen should now look like the screen shown above. Note that the screen is divided into seven distinct sections or windows. From top to bottom, they are:

Event Window. The EVENT # counter in the top right corner keeps track of how many "events" have transpired since the start of the game. In general, each movement or other action you take during the course of the game counts as one event.

Location Window. This window contains a brief description of your current location.

Exit Window. The Exit Window tells you which directions you can go from your current location. Six vectors of movement are allowed: N (North), S (South), E (East), W (West), U (Up) and D (Down). "North" is towards the front of the submarine, "South" is aft, and so forth. If you can't move from a given location for some reason, the Exit Window will read "None."

Visible Items Window. This window displays a list of all the things you can see at your current location. Up to six items may be present in a location at any one time. Unoccupied locations will contain "Nothing."

What Happens Window. The What Happens Window reports on the results of your actions and lets you know if anything interesting is happening on board the Sea Moss. Keep an eye on this window - it may offer valuable information you will need to complete the adventure.

Response Window. This 2-line window is the communications link between you and the game. The commands and sentences you type into the Response Window tell the computer how you want to proceed. Each new line scrolls up into the top half of the window after you hit RETURN, so that you can see what you just typed. A blinking green underline keeps track of your position.

Inventory Window. Look here for a list of all the items you are carrying. Up to six items may be held at one time. If you're empty-handed, the window will say "Nothing."

Talking to Crash Dive!

Like most text adventures, Crash Dive! understands twoword sentences in the form:

VERB NOUN

The single space character between the verb and the noun is required. Don't worry about capitals vs. lowercase, numbers or funny characters - Crash Dive! has a "smart" keyboard handler that will snarl at you if you try entering anything illegal.

The best way to learn how to talk to Crash Dive! is to play with it. Let's use the opening screen as an example. The Location Window says you're in the escape tube, with no obvious exits and nothing in your inventory. You can "see" a closed hatch and a tiny screwdriver. Type the sentence TAKE SCREWDRIVER and you'll see the screwdriver vanish from the Visible Items list and reappear in your inventory. Simple, right?

You can interact with objects on the screen much like you can in real life. Type EXAMINE SCREWDRIVER and the What Happens Window will tell you that it "Seems ordinary." Now try EXAMINE HATCH and learn something interesting about the escape hatch. If you try to TAKE HATCH, you'll find out what happens when you attempt something impossible. DROP SCREWDRIVER will put the tiny screwdriver back in the Visible Items list.

You may be tempted to type OPEN HATCH, but if you read my little introductory tale carefully you'll know better than to try it. Think about your situation for a while and you'll discover a way to explore the rest of the Sea Moss without suffocating!

Commands.

Crash Dive! also understands a limited number of singlecharacter commands. These are used to control your movement around the sub, and to perform special "internal" game functions. The following commands are recognized by Crash Dive!:

Movement Commands

N - North S - South E - East

W - West U - Up D - Down

Internal Commands

X - Mark Game Position

Q- Quit/Restart Game

A - Again (Repeat Last Sentence)

The movement commands are easy to use. Just consult the Exit Window to see which vectors are available, and type the initial of the direction you want to go. The program will scold you if you type an illegal direction.

Saving your game.

The "X" (Mark Game Position) command is used when you want to save the current status of your game. Type X/RETURN and you'll see the following prompt:

SAVE GAME TO DISK OR CASSETTE?

If you're using a disk drive, insert a disk containing Atari DOS 2.0S into drive # 1 and press the "D" key. Your game will be saved out in a few seconds and you'll return to the main screen. If you're using cassette, insert a blank tape into your recorder and press the "C" key. The computer will "beep" twice. Press the PLAY and RECORD keys on the recorder simultaneously and hit RETURN. The game will be saved and you'll return to the main screen.

Starting over.

The "Q" (Quit/Restart) command is used when you want to restart the game from the beginning, or restore a game you have previously saved to disk or tape. Type Q/RETURN and you'll see the familiar Crash Dive! title screen. Press the START key if you want to start over from scratch. Press OPTION and you'll be asked:

RESTORE FROM DISK OR CASSETTE?

If your game was saved on disk, insert the game disk into drive # 1 and press the "D" key. Your game will automatically resume at exactly the point where you left it.

If your game was saved on tape, cue the tape to the beginning of the saved game and press the "C" key. The computer will "beep" once. Press the PLAY key on the recorder and hit RETURN. Your game will resume at the point where you left it.

The A command.

The third and last command recognized by Crash Dive! is "A," which means Again. This command re-executes the last sentence you typed as if you had typed it in again yourself. The A command only repeats your last sentence (verb/noun); it will not repeat single-character commands.

Hints for successful play.

1. Draw a map. You'll have a hard time remembering the layout of the Sea Moss unless you draw a map. There are no mazes in this adventure, but a map will help you recall where interesting items are located and how the various rooms are connected.

2. Examine everything. Objects may have important features that will not be evident unless you examine them closely. Most of the items you discover in the game are essential to your success (though I may have left a couple of red herrings lying around... ).

3. Save your game frequently. Use the X command to save your current status after important discoveries and breakthroughs, and before trying anything that might be dangerous. Otherwise you may find yourself starting all over again in the escape tube.

4. Try anything. Don't be afraid to test the game to find out what you can or can't do. The worst that can happen is that you will be captured and killed by enemy agents, shot in the back or cooked by a blast of radiation.

5. Study the clue photo. The photograph on page 46 contains information that you may find very helpful in solving the adventure. The game will refer you to this photo occasionally.

6. Don't give up hope. It is possible to survive in the Sea Moss long enough to destroy it. Really and truly it is! If you're hopelessly stuck, ask for other people's suggestions. A fresh outlook might uncover a solution you didn't think of yourself.

7. Use C:CHECK or D:CHECK on the program before you try to use it. It only takes one byte in the wrong place to make Crash Dive! totally unplayable.

8. Don't call ANALOG. We are absolutely not giving out adventure hints over the telephone! If you're really stuck, send me a selfaddressed, stamped envelope at the following address:

CRASH DIVE CLUES
c/o Brian Moriarty
ANALOG Computing Magazine
P.O. Box 23
Worcester, Mass. 01603