Background

It is the year 2003. The player is a secret agent for a private investigations organisation with its Headquarters in New Washington, a new city, built to support Washington's overspill of political and administrative affairs and to house the expanding population of the megalopolis that is North East USA.

The player is an agent of SIF, the Secret Intelligence Foundation, whose members have code numbers "AA" (double A), in true James Bond fashion. The agent has had his well-earned vacation in the Maldives abruptly broken off as a result of the emergence of a major drugs organisation, headed by the Mafia.

Update

The date is Monday, August 7th, 2003. Your chief hands you a confidential report which, you are told, must be read and destroyed. You decide you may as well read it. In fact you've got no choice but like to think you have some say in the matter.

The report reads:

"The drugs organisation deals in every type of drug you'd care to mention and the lengths it will go to get what it wants are limitless. For instance, the complete body laceration of persons unwanted, who are burned immediately afterwards in a paraffin bath.

"The Mafia's dealings with this organisation stretch primarily to Cuba, Mexico and Chile and it is expected that a massive hidden drug processing and refining factory exists in a secluded spot deep in a forest in Cuba.

"You will assume civilian status on this mission and will therefore have no ID and will hence be treated by the authorities and the like as a normal civilian.

"Your first task is to set up a meeting with the organisation whereby you will exchange a briefcase of their drugs (probably "crack") for a valuable artefact, a description of which it is not possible to give you at this moment. You should attain some hard evidence of this exchange by whatever means possible and produce it at the end of the three days assigned to you.

"There are two further parts to the mission, information of which you will obtain at a later date."

The report ends there.

Playing The Game

As the adventurer progresses through the game they will attain a higher score and a higher SIF rating. The latter is to be found displayed in the centre of the lower graphics area as a coloured square. The colour rating changes from white (initial) through to dark blue (mission complete).

The player has a choice of three agents with differing "Skill" and "Mortality" levels which may be important as the adventure progresses:

1. Mick Hammelford: S 81 M 52
   The pure, thoroughbred American, brought up deep in the core of the Big Apple. Highly skilled in most main lines of defence and a proficient marksman. Brute force, however, is not his greatest attribute.
2. Louis Chorbenski: S 38 M 95
   The Polish giant. Emigrated to America as a child and was trained in the Army, which hardened and extensively developed his strong physique. He is however definitely a case of all brawn and not a lot of brain.
3. Ed Macpherson: S 67 M 66
   Born in a tiny village in Hertfordshire, England, he was trained and brought over to New Washington three years ago. He has no outstanding qualities save being a steady worker and reliable agent.

Play begins at the agent's apartment on the thirty-second floor of the Damascus building in Washington Avenue. The agent is Wearing only underwear and has destroyed the report in routine fashion. His faithful assistant, Dwight Stables, in whom he has complete trust and authority, hovers at his shoulder.

The player is advised to eat and sleep at the appropriate times; failure to do so will ultimately result in terminal hunger or exhaustion, respectively. A warning message will appear if food or sleep are becoming necessary. As a rough guideline, the player has about 12 moves after a warning message before their skill or mortality levels start diminishing.

The agent's assistant Dwight can be told to follow the player or "stop following"... etc and further advantages of his services will become apparent as play progresses.

Technical Features

This adventure is packed with many features that greatly enhance play and enjoyment. It was written using PAW - the Professional Adventure Writer - and as such accepts most logical sentences with a verb and one or two nouns though occasionally only a word, be it a verb or noun, is necessary. Useful commands are as follows (abbreviations in brackets):

Verbs:
TAKE, DROP, WEAR, REMOVE
EXAMINE (EXAM)
TAKE ___ OUT/OFF, ___ PUT IN/ON

These can be used with ALL (or EVERYTHING) in place of ___ to initiate a command with all objects where possible.

EXAMINE ALL gives a screen displaying descriptions of any obvious points of interest plus descriptions of any items present.

LOOK IN/UNDER etc ...

Compass directions:
NORTH (N), SOUTH (S) EAST (E) WEST (W) UP (U) DOWN (D) ENTER EXIT

Talking to characters:
SAY TO [character] "..." or simply [character] "..."
e.g. DWIGHT "FOLLOW ME"

System Verbs:
QUIT
RAMSAVE (RS) (in Mode 2) saves a position into memory. Only two ramsaves are allowed.
RAMLOAD (RL) (in Mode 2) loads a ramsaved position from memory.

REDESCRIBE (R)
DRAW draws the graphics and redescribes (in graphic mode).
AGAIN (A) repeats the last command entered, especially useful for repeating directional commands. OOPS deletes the last command entered. Warning: this will also delete any ramsaved position.
BRIEF and VERBOSE alter the length of location descriptions.
EXITS (X) gives a list of main exits. Note, this will not normally take into account exits created by the player during the course of the game.
OBJECTS (O) lists all visible objects.
TIME (T) gives the time, in 24hr clock.
DATE gives the date (from 7th to 9th August).
HELP gives one of three occasional clues, each in a different code.

Toggles:
GRAPHICS ON/OFF
EXITS ON/OFF
OBJECTS ON/OFF
BRIEF/VERBOSE
MODE 1/2
MODE 1: OOPS feature.
MODE 2: RS/RL feature. This is default at the start of play. A ramsaved position from the previous game can be ramloaded at the beginning.

Graphics

Upper graphics area (left to right):

1. EXITS BOX
   Main exits are highlighted in white over grey.
2. TWO CHARACTER BOXES
   Display small pictures of characters that disappear and reappear as the character leaves and enters the current location.
3. AGENT'S NAME above LOCATION PICTURE
4. TWO MORE CHARACTER BOXES
5. ITEMS BOX
   Number of items held is highlighted as white icons over grey in one of five categories: Carried (Max.4), Worn (Max.4), in Wallet (Max.3), in Jacket pockets (Max.4), and inside Pyramid (Max.2).

Lower graphics area (left to right):
TIME, CASH HELD, SKILL LEVEL, SIF RATING, MORTALITY LEVEL, SCORE, TURNS TAKEN

Game Credits

All text, graphics and literature by Garry Cappuccini, 1989.

Finally

Concerning any correspondence, my address is as follows:

Garry Cappuccini, 34 Pilkington Avenue, Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands B72 1LA.

Trivia

Crack City is #1 in the Snow Dogs Trilogy.