Hacker Chronicles 2/HACKER2.BIN/1558.CARTOG.REV

Text File | 1990-11-10 | 5KB | 94 lines

 THE CARTOGRAPHER

 THE CARTOGRAPHER is a DUNGEON MASTER/CHAOS STRIKES BACK map utility
program from DreamPark Development. It lets you load DM and CSB
saved games, print maps of all levels, and save them as low
resolution D.E.G.A.S./D.E.G.A.S. Elite files. Thirty Champion
portraits and a list of Spells can be displayed and printed. Maps
can be changed, saved, and reloaded into DM or CSB, in effect
creating a different game.

 CARTOGRAPHER is a neat idea for a utility program that works fine
for the most part. Version 2.3 had a couple of bugs that have been
taken care of in v2.4 (v3.0 is in the works). If you have a printer
driver -- one that works better than the ST's Epson-compatible ROM
driver -- the program will prove useful. A bonus included on the
program disk is HEADSTART, by Charles F. Johnson and John Eidsvoog
of Codehead Software, which allows auto-booting of selected
programs. The disk is not copy-protected.

 DUNGEON MASTER has fourteen levels. CHAOS STRIKES BACK, if saved
after use of the CSB Utility Disk's Make New Adventure option, will
have ten levels; if you haven't used Make New Adventure, you'll get
the two Prison levels. CARTOGRAPHER is possible because of the way
DM and CSB save game positions: All dungeon levels are saved,
whether or not you've entered all of them.

 The neat thing about CARTOGRAPHER is that the maps it generates
from a save file show only what was happening when you saved the
game. Depending on your progress when you saved the game, doors,
traps, phony walls, and hidden pits will (or won't) appear on the
map: Print a map at the start of a level, then print a map at the
end of the level, and you'll have two different -- perhaps radically
different -- maps.

 Once you've loaded a save-game file into CARTOGRAPHER and selected
a level, you'll see a map display of that level. The map is marked
with symbols indicating dungeon features, such as walls, objects,
pits, doors, spinners, and stairs, which are explained in the Legend
to the right of the map.

 New maps can be created; saved-game maps can be altered. Objects
can be changed. All doors can be changed, that is, you can do away
with keys by making doors button-operated; another alternative is to
make doors transparent, thus letting you see what's on the other
side before opening them. All changes can be saved and reloaded into
DM or CSB. Maps can appear in color or black and white; both are
fine for onscreen study, but on a printed color map many of the
dungeon symbols will be indecipherable.

 The Print feature requires a driver. The setup I use is an Epson
LQ-800 and Tom Hudson's INSTALL desk accessory (INSTAL.ARC in
CompuServe's ATARIPRO Forum). CARTOGRAPHER disables all desk
accessories, so you'll have to load the driver ahead of time. The
Epson-compatible TOS driver in the ST's ROM turned out to be useless
for printing the maps, and it remained useless regardless of the
settings of the DIP switches.

 Maps are sent to the printer from a menu selection. The ALT/HELP
key combination dumps the Spell list screen; the INSTALL driver
printed Spell List and maps clean and clear. An alternate approach
is to save a map screen as a low resolution (PI1)
D.E.G.A.S./D.E.G.A.S. Elite file, load the file, and then print the
map using one of the D.E.G.A.S. drivers. This leads to a bug:
D.E.G.A.S. Elite's refusal to load a map file saved within
CARTOGRAPHER. Version 2.4 fixes this glitch, with one exception:
D.E.G.A.S. Elite bombs out when it tries to load a CSB Level One
map. All other maps loaded and printed fine.

 The thirty Champion portraits on the CSB Utility Disk, the
characters on the E & L Productions NOVELTY CHARACTER DISK, and any
portrait with a .CMP extension can be displayed on one screen.
ALT/HELP will dump these screens to the printer but since the
displays are in color only, the printouts will be something less
than perfect.

 Both DUNGEON MASTER and CHAOS STRIKES BACK (to a lesser extent)
have spawned all kinds of commercial and public domain maps, mapping
utilities, and solution handbooks. With the exception of the
D.E.G.A.S. Elite load bombout of a CSB Level One map, CARTOGRAPHER
works very well. The maps reflect the current state of the dungeon
levels, rather than their solution. If you're a DM/CSB fanatic,
you'll find CARTOGRAPHER a useful utility that works most reliably
with the proper printer driver.

 THE CARTOGRAPHER is published and distributed by DreamPark
Development.

*****DOWNLOADED FROM P-80 SYSTEMS [phone]