My name is Diamond. Dan Diamond. I'm a private investigator, or at least I used to be. Now I'm a first class schmuck. Sometimes you just can't avoid life's spitballs, and right now I'm batting a big fat zero.

I was in a room, filled with flashing lights, buzzers, buttons, levers and all manner of cockamamie devices. In the corner stood a hunk of tin that looked like a refugee from a Buck Rogers convention. Then it moved towards me...

Lost In Space is an adventure game for one player. Can you, as Dan Diamond, find an escape from a derelict space-ship filled with chatty doors and bored security robots, or will you be doomed to travel endlessly through space. Lost In Space is the second part of the Dan Diamond trilogy. Comes complete with 20 page fully-illustrated case file.

The Storeroom
The Lever Room
The Compass
A Pie
The Greatgargantubrain Link
The Domed Room
The Conference Room
The Junk Food Gizmo
The Nurse
The Bridge
The Gallery
The Library
The Swimming Pool
The Waiting Room
The Weapons Console
The Grill Room
A Cocktail
A Disc
The Armoury
The Solutions Room
Awful Freen Things
The Disco
The Gymnasium
Security

My name is Diamond. Dan Diamond. I'm a private investigator, or at least I used to be. Now I'm a first class schmuck. Sometimes you just can't avoid life's spitballs, and right now I'm batting a big fat zero.

I remember it all started on a hot, damp August day. The sort of day that you need five changes of shirts for. I was just recuperating from a heated discusssion with a crate of Scotch, when she breezed into my office like an Arctic wind in mid-winter.

I shivered. Her face was like an angel cake and her body would make a bishop kick a hole in a stained glass window. When she left, she left me nothing but the morning mail and a bad case of frostbite.

In the mail was a note which led me to a strange, eerie crypt. The sort of place you'd bury your mother-in-law and hope she wouldn't scare the other inhabitants too much. Inside the crypt I found a strange machine called a Stargate. Then I made my big mistake. I turned it on.

Lights flashed, searing the back of my eyeballs like a hot cheese-wire cuts butter. The sound of ringing bells stripped my nerves raw as a rookie cop in Harlem. Somebody somewhere had developed a craving for omelette a la Diamond.

One thing's for sure, I ain't never doing that again. I hadn't felt a kick like that since those seven bottles of Chateau Franklin. Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but I like my stomach the way it is. One way in and one way out.

When my body stopped feeling like Times Square on a Saturday night, I debated keeping my eyes closed. I didn't think I was going to like what I saw if I opened them. I was right.

I was in a room filled with flashing lights, buzzers, buttons, levers and all manner of cocamamie devices. In the corner stood a hun,k of tin that looked like a refugee from a Buck Rogers convention. Then it moved towards me.

I decided that what with discretion being the better part of common sense, and entries in the Yellow Pages notwithstanding, it was time to let my feet do the walking, and beat a hasty retreat out the nearest door.

When I stopped, my hands were shaking. I drew a camel from my pocket and lit it. It ran off down the corridor screaming, so I lit a cigarette instead.

I decided it was time to get out of here and to t.he bottom of things. I wanted things ironed out quicklY, and I wanted things ironed out flat. But I suspected that the nearest Chinese laundry was a long, long way away...

In Lost In Space, you find yourself trapped aboard a derelict spaceship. If you don't want to spend the rest of your life playing electronic halma with the security robots, you must find your way to the bridge and take control of the ship.

This is the second adventure in the Dan Diamond series, and you may find it helpful to have played FRANKLIN'S TOMB first, although this is not essential.

However, you may find clues which will help you in the later adventures.

Lost In Space uses a formatted display. On the left hand side of the screen is a description of the room or corridor you are currently in. The bottom line of this description tells you which exits are available to you (e.g. N, S, UP, DOWN). The right hand side of the screen displays a list of the items you are currently carrying. You are only allowed to carry up to six items. These two displays are always shown so that you don't have to keep asking the computer for this information. The bottom three lines are reserved for user input and the computer's responses.

Lost In Space is an adventure game. As such, it is up to you, the player, to find your way around the maze of rooms, carrying and using any items you find, as appropriate. To do this, you must issue instructions to the computer. These instructions take the form of a verb and a noun, separated by a space. An example would be TAKE WRENCH. When you've finished typing the command, press ENTER and the computer will respond.

When referring to items that you find in rooms, only the last word should be used to refer to the items. For instance, the COSMIC COMPASS would be referred to as COMPASS.

You will also find a number of coloured discs during play. To differentiate between them, they are referred to as DISC COLOURED WHITE, DISC COLOURED RED, etc. If you wish to pick these up or do anything with them, you must refer to them by their colour (e.g. TAKE RED, DROP BLUE, etc.).

Most words can be abbreviated to three letters. For example, SHOUT and TAKE can be shortened to SHO and TAK. The only exceptions to this rule are when giving directions. The cardinal compass points may be shortened to a single letter (N, S, E or W). When giving directions, the verb GO is also optional.

Thus, the instruction "GO NORTH" can also be typed in as "GO N", "NORTH" or just "N". The other exceptions are UP and DOWN, which must be typed in full (but you can still say DOWN instead of GO DOWN).

At any point during the game, you can save the current situation by typing the command "SAVE GAME". Because of the way the Dragon 32 saves files, your cassette must have motor control to use this feature. Before you save the game, make sure that the cassette you are using to save on is correctly positioned.

To restore the game to the saved position, you can issue the instruction "LOAD GAME" at any time during the game.

1. Keep track of where you are and where you've been.
2. Lost In Space has a vocabulary of about 50 verbs and 80 nouns. If the computer doesn't understand one command, try another.
3. Don't take anything for granted. Some useful looking items may be no good at all, and vice versa.
4. Speak your mind.
5. Try some lateral thinking if you get stuck. Don't be afraid to do stupid things.
6. Don't go around doing stupid things all the time.
7. There are sometimes clues hidden in the place descriptions and illustrations.
8. Watch out for red herrings and blue kippers.
9. Don't just save the game when you quit a session. It can save time later if you save the game at various points.

CLOAD (ENTER)
RUN (ENTER)