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From: nelson@vax.oxford.ac.uk (Mathematical Institute, (01865) 2-73525)
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: New Release of "Curses" now out
Message-ID: <1995May22.123250.32646@oxvaxd>
Date: 22 May 95 12:32:50 GMT
Organization: Oxford University VAX 6620
Lines: 78

As "Curses" opens, you're hunting about in the attic of your family home,
looking for a tatty old map of Paris (you're going on holiday tomorrow) and
generally trying to avoid all the packing.  Aunt Jemima is potting daisies
and sulking; the attics are full of endless distractions and secrets; Greek
myths, horoscopes, sixth-century politics, a less than altogether helpful
demon, a mysterious bomb plot, photography, ritual, poetry and a dream or
two all get in your way; and somehow you keep being reminded of your family
through the ages, and all its Curses...

...could it be that even you are Cursed?

Curses, Release 14
==================

To celebrate the second birthday of "Curses" (slightly belatedly), a new
release is finally out.  Release 14 incorporates an enormous number of
(well, several hundred) improvements, almost all contributed by players. 
I'd like to take this opportunity to thank all those who have written to me
since the last release (12) was made, on 1st June 1994.

Several new alternative solutions to puzzles have been added, and I've made
it more forgiving of bad early decisions (e.g., the awful puzzle at the East
Annexe has been reworked - I'm sure players will know the one I mean). 
There are two new locations, which need only be found if the player visits
certain areas of the game "out of sequence" and needs a way back.  The game
has about 10% more text, giving it many more responses.  There's a bit more
of a treat at the end, also.

That's on the outside.  Inside, the entire game has been "digitally
remastered", i.e., re-implemented in modern Inform 5 code, using the Library
properly.  There are many fringe benefits of this, such as neater inventory
lists and better parsing, but the real reason is that the "Curses" source
code had got into in an horribly illegible and incorrigible state, of Inform
1 mixed right up to Inform 4, full of obselete syntax and untidy
amendments, with a long-outdated form of the library.  This meant rewriting
18,595 lines of code, but actually I've enjoyed visiting the old Hall again.

I suppose one inevitable result of this rewrite is to put new bugs in, but
they should be easily fixed.  Anyway, players are positively encouraged to
complain to the author in person.

There are now seven ways to open the medicine bottle.


"Curses", for those who will otherwise email me to ask, is a game designed
to run on any Infocom-standard interpreter.  The game is a single file,

  if-archive/infocom/compilers/inform/curses.z5

  (but, for the moment - i.e., until it's filed away - look instead at

  incoming/if-archive/curses_release14.z5)

at the FTP site ftp.gmd.de.  (This file must be downloaded in _binary_, not
the default (text) mode.)  However, to play it you do need an interpreter. 
General (very portable) ANSI C source for these can be found in
if-archive/infocom/interpreters, as can executables for some machines.  It
is not difficult to get an interpreter going, and once you have you can also
play the story files from the "Lost Treasures of Infocom" games, so it isn't
a total waste of time even if you hate "Curses".

If you can get it for your machine, the best interpreter is one called
"Zip", by Mark Howell.  The next best is that of the "InfoTaskForce", or
"ITF".

"Curses" is not shareware, it's free: I wrote it for fun and to write a game
"as games should be written" (he said arrogantly).  It may be freely
distributed provided you aren't making a profit on the deal; I have allowed
several magazines to put it on cover discs, so feel free to get in touch if
you have that in mind.  But it _is_ copyright, and the source code is _not_
public.  So far, nobody asking for the secret debugging commands has offered
a large enough bribe.

Graham Nelson
Oxford University, UK
22 May 1995
