Escape From The ASCII Trolls Walkthrough
4This was a game that I made when I was learning how to program in my 6th form years.
The readme explains:
Game Pieces and their meaning:
O : This is you.
! : This is a troll... If they touch you then you die,
if they touch each other then they die.
# : This is a wall.
* : This is a pushable block.
Walk into this to move it assuming there is no obstacle on the other side.
@ : This is an Endless Pit Of Despair. Fall down this and die.
Push a pushable block down this to get rid of it (it = the pushable block).
/ AND \ : Toxic slime... Walk into this and die.
You can push a pushable block onto this and it becomes walkable on.
. : Hot coals... Step on this and it will decrement your health by 10 points.
" AND : : These are locked doors.
You will need to find a key to open these..
^ : This is the lift to the surface....
Run into this and you have completed the game...You then win an ASCII trophy
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ITEMS:
You cannot hold more than 10 items at one time!
Using an item counts as a move, trolls will move in a relevant manner.
{ : This is a bow. You use this to engage trolls in battle.
A : This is an arrow. You use these with your bow.
You cannot have more than 9 arrows held at one time.
You cannot drop arrows.
P : This is a potion. When used it increments your health by 20.
K : This is a key, it opens a locked door.
£ : This is money. It is the root of all evil.
If you give in to temptation and pick it up you will die.
~ : This is a suicide pill.
Take this when you are depressed and you feel there is no hope.
D : This is a shield. It will stop the next troll arrow from doing any damage.
? : A tasty ASCII troll corpse, eating it will increment your health by 1.
F : Full health.... Gives you full health.
TROLL TYPES:
There is no way to tell these trolls apart visually,
you must determine the type by their movements.
Type 0 : The standard ASCII Troll
You met these in the game 'Attack of the ASCII Trolls' ...
These trolls mirror your movements.
Type 1: The lone psychopath.
There is only 1 instance of this troll in the whole game.
He is rather confused and moves in a random direction.
Type 2: Unholy Trolls
These trolls lust after your blood. They try and run after you,
but luckily they are far from perfect...
You need to exploit their imperfections to win.
Trolls who share the same square will eat each other...
If trolls pass through each other, they will eat each other.
If you come into contact with a troll, they will eat you.
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ENGAGING IN BATTLE:
The weapon in this game is the Bow. You can shoot arrows with it,
assuming you have any.
All bows have a range of 5 squares. Bows can only shoot in straight lines.
If you are in line with a troll 5 squares away you can fire,
but he can also fire at you.
An enemy bow will knock of 20 health...
To select the bows direction, use the buttons you usually use to move around.
To cancel the shoot press escape!
The probability of you successfully hitting a troll depends upon your health.
It varies, there is an 85% chance of hitting while your health is green,
25% when it is red and the other colours are inbetween.
After all, when you are tired and near death,
your aim is not going to be very good.
Trolls have a constant 50% chance of hitting you with every shot that they take.
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You can get the game from here http://www.dosgames.com/dl.php?filename=http://www.dosgames.com/files/escapetrolls.zip
Known problems:
If you run it under DOSBox, it seems that the game crashes if you use the horn. This is unfortunate, but its not essential to the game.
The autosave and the scarcity of arrows means that you can find yourself stuck with no arrows and so no way to progress through the few rooms that mandate fighting, meaning you have to restart. This was a bad design flaw. As an innocent kid, I expected that people would try to solve everything without fighting, so scarcity of arrows would not be a problem. Playing the game on easy would probably be the best option, given that you get more stuff. Don't play the game as if it were an action filled shooting game.