TASKMAKER VERSION HISTORY For Public Release ------ CHANGES FROM v2.2.3 TO v2.2.4 Friday, January 17, 1997 * All player files and preferences are now checked for resource structure damage before opening. Damaged preferences are automatically thrown away, and damaged player files won't be opened. * The preferences have gained a more accurate checksum routine to detect external changes. * When in the background, TaskMaker no longer centers the cursor or checks the network. * Previously, hitting a creature could temporarily leave some visual residue on the screen. * A zombie with bad grammar has been corrected. * Moved the Technical Support menu item above the Product Information and Register menu items in the File menu. * The retail version of the register dialog included a "How Do I Order" button by mistake. * Storm Impact's internet address and web site have been added to the contact information. * A slight improvement to the compression algorithms reduced the size of the pictures by 3K. * Updated list of Macintosh model names. ------ CHANGES FROM v2.2.2 TO v2.2.3 Monday, July 29, 1996 * After choosing Other Spell To Invoke or Edit Place Description, later dialog boxes would include extraneous text such as "What Other Spell To Invoke?". Thanks to Steven A. Tolbers. * The "watch" object had the wrong image number, causing it to look like something other than a watch, and also causing it to blink. Thanks to Noah Desch for taking the time to report it. * ResEdit fans couldn't add their own Magic Mouth 'TEXT' messages without causing the build-in virus protection to trigger. Thanks (again) to Noah Desch. * Somebody disassembled and posted an Other Spell To Invoke which was reserved for technical support. We wish the spell had remained a secret, and we kindly ask you not to type a spell which begins with "starlight". * Added product and vendor strings which can be read by help programs. * Updated list of Macintosh model names. ------ CHANGES FROM v2.2.1 TO v2.2.2 Tuesday, April 9, 1996 MISCELLANEOUS HARDWARE EXCEPTION ERROR #11 * A handful of PowerPC 601 users reported that TaskMaker crashed with system error #11. This bug had been present since v2.2, but we believe we've found it! It turns out that TaskMaker was temporarily changing a "read-only" memory location and then changing it back. For most users, the "read-only" memory location was actually in writable memory, so no crash occurred. But, for a few users, the "read-only" memory location was on disk, and definitely "read-only", so the processor crashed with the highly generic bomb message "Miscellaneous hardware exception error #11". Not that we're shirking complete responsibility, but we would have caught this much sooner if Apple's bomb message had read "Read-only violation", "Write to code in virtual memory", or something like that. Special thanks to Tony Martin at Connectix Corp. The biggest problem in catching this bug was that we couldn't get TaskMaker to crash at Storm Impact. Several users had reported conflicts between TaskMaker and Speed Doubler, and even though Tony Martin couldn't reproduce the conflict at Connectix, he sent copies of RAM Doubler and Speed Doubler for Storm Impact to try. The combination was just enough to force the "read-only" memory to disk, causing the crash, which made finding the bug easy. For the record, TaskMaker v2.2.1 was at fault, and TaskMaker v2.2.2 works just fine with Speed Doubler and RAM Doubler. TEXT * Josh Juran pointed out that Pentamerous contained a spelling error. Our APOLGIES. Also, Thoreau breathes after his own fashion, not breaths, especially in Enitsirhc. Thanks Josh! * Cure Disease, in the Spells menu, has been changed to Heal / Cure Disease. * In the product information text, "40-page manual" has changed to "printed manual" since we've moved the registration pages from the manual to a cover letter. * We've removed the text regarding the TaskMaker v1.0 upgrade from the order form, although the upgrade is still available. It confused a lot of new users, and less than 1% of our orders were upgrades from v1.0. * In the future, we may be distributing our software by CD-ROMs (in addition to floppies). That choice has been added to the order form, along with a few other minor changes. TASKS * You can now receive a replacement "head" from the Head Rebel even if he's already in a happy mood. Thanks to Mike Montgomery. * For the Island Prison, "You're not strong enough to enter." has been changed to "You cannot enter until the TaskMaker allows you to do so." MASTER * Unpausing by keyboard now works even when the Master menu option "Keyboard Changes Floor" is selected. Thanks to Joe Ansingh. * If a Master picks up a "task" object, but the TaskMaker doesn't want it for the current task, you will no longer get the message "This is the item the TaskMaker wants!". * If a trap or exit was connected to an destination outside the current place, the confirmation message would incorrectly state that the connection was in the current place. OTHER * Previously, a guard or local person would not become alerted (angry) if that person was last in memory. Also, it appears people in viewing range of an attack were not being selected properly to determine if they should get angry. * When the AppleTalk code takes over for a few seconds, and the watch cursor is centered in the window, the cursor will not be returned to the original location if you have subsequently moved the cursor. ------ CHANGES FROM v2.2 TO v2.2.1 Thursday, February 1, 1996 EXPIRATION DATE * TaskMaker v2.2 mistakenly contains a timer which deactivates the entire application after a certain date. The timer was supposed to be for pre-release (beta testing) versions only. Unfortunately, the public version of 2.2 shipped with the timer still active. Thanks to Richard Pastore for having the wrong date set on his Mac, so the bug was caught before affecting most users. MISCELLANEOUS HARDWARE EXCEPTION ERROR #11 * A handful of PowerPC 601 users have reported that TaskMaker crashes with system error #11. Despite considerable effort on everyone's part, the actual source of the bug has not been found. A few tweaks and a new version of the compiler may eliminate the problem, but David would still like to know the actual cause or at least be able to reproduce the crash in Storm Impact's labs. Tweak: Don't fill, paint, or frame any rectangles that have a left side greater than the right. Tweak: Dispose of text before closing the Product Information dialog. Tweak: Zero out a few AppleTalk variables at startup, just in case. Compiler: Recompiled using Code Warrior 8, which refers to a bug fix regarding alignment of PowerPC structures. WEAR/WIELD * Clicking very quickly within the Wear/Wield screen should no longer move the window or flash the menu bar. Thanks to Bill Mayes' insistence that it was NOT the result of a tiling or window layering system extension. MASTER * Masters can now pick up beds, toilets, stains, etc. * Masters using Enhanced Examine should now consistently be able to see special attributes immediately after they are installed, removed, or connected. TEXT * Restored the end of the Player Info sentence "Task x: Return to Castle Hall " by adding "to speak with the TaskMaker." * Trying to place a ship in Castle Hall using the ship creation spell now results in the message "We do not tolerate that here." * Josh Juran discreetly pointed out that the TaskMaker doesn't really want his items removed "discretely." OTHER * When the AppleTalk code takes over for a few seconds, the watch cursor is centered in the window. * The hand cursor now appears briefly after TaskMaker has finished loading, which indicates that the user can click to immediately dismiss the startup screen. * Mute will automatically be turned off if the sound file was missing the last time TaskMaker was played, but is now present. ------ CHANGES FROM v2.1.2 TO v2.2 Saturday, January 20, 1996 ADDED FEATURES * You can now use the mouse for player movement by clicking on the tile in the direction you wish to move. * Doubled maximum score from 1,000,000,000 to 2,000,000,000. * If there aren't people or objects in the way, Examine will now indicate the player's horizontal and vertical tile location. * Examining a town or village now displays the actual name of the town or village rather than the generic name of the floor. * All compartments can be used to store things (space is allocated for the item on the fly). * Wishing for a key adds to the number of keys owned, instead of creating a key in your pouch. (Even still, it is an incredible waste of a wish.) and.... MASTER MENU'S NEW FEATURES! * The Master menu has a lot of new features: Keyboard Changes Floor, Edit Place Description, Remember Destination, Teleport To Destination, Connect Destination To Trap, Town, Or Switch. * Masters can now Undo, Cut, Copy, Paste, and Clear. Holding down the option key while choosing Clear will erase the special attributes at that location, but not the floor. * Masters who Change Floor to a Magic Mouth and also have a 'TEXT' resource (of the same ID as the 'LAND' resource) with sayings on each line can choose which line the Magic Mouth says. * Masters who Change Floor to a "counter" (i.e. a shop counter) can associate the counter with a shop. * Masters who enable Enhanced Examine are now told the details about any special attributes at that location when examining. Also, marks are displayed to indicate a remembered destination, all traps, switches, towns, teleports, and compartments. * Masters who are ethereal are no longer prevented from getting objects and doing actions (i.e. switch switches). * You must be registered to use and see the Master menu. No duh. But the code to insure that was the case wasn't added until now. GENERAL BUGS SQUASHED * The player now receives money for items sold in Quietwater (bug appeared in v2.1.2). Thanks to Peter Aarestad for reporting the bug. * Sometimes TaskMaker would hang on a PowerMac w/PCI while saving, which should no longer be the case. * Fixed a bug which could cause crashes at startup or after the About Box was closed. David is very embarrassed to reveal that his code has been calling DisposeWindow instead of CloseWindow. It was a juvenile programming mistake, and he apologizes. GOODBYE SYMANTEC * TaskMaker is now compiled using Metrowerks CodeWarrior!! COMPARTMENTS (graves, sand, floor safe, throne, and stone compartment) * If there isn't enough room to uncover a buried object, you'll be told "You need to recycle or sell an object before you can dig up anything else." instead of "You can't find anything." Additionally, the compartment cover won't open or the hole won't be dug (but it will still take strength to try). * Attempting to bury an object in a place that another object was stored in would mistakenly delete the object that wouldn't fit. This bug is fixed, even though there wasn't really a way to actually get it to happen. VISUALS * The disembodied head required for a task had a screen image that looked like diamonds (image #70) rather than a head (image #170). * Renamed TaskMaker Colors to TaskMaker Color Art. * Show the watch cursor whenever checking the network serial number. * Adjusted tiny icon to make it look less like the TaskMaker is tilting his head. Hmm, nope, he still looks like he's tilting his head. * The Sound Manager version information in Technical Support now shows the minor and bug update numbers, not just the major update number. * A single tiny pixel is no longer missing from the lower right corner of the B&W "intellect" bar. * Updated copyright and version information. SPEED * Magic Mouths (especially prevalent in the Tutorial) should speak without delay on slower Macs. * Talking to happy people and attacking fearful monsters before they move away is now easy on fast Macs. To speed things up on slow Macs, people and monsters are still allowed to "borrow" from their next turn while you think about moving your player. * Going into recent dungeons and villages should require less disk access as they are allowed to stay in memory if there's room. Also, all land now tries to follow an internal numbering pattern. * Startup is faster for slower Macs. Fast Macs are too fast to notice any difference. MEMORY * The original B&W cursor (a hand) no longer hangs around, wasting memory, since it is used only once. * In some early Systems, it was possible to get very "colorful" dialogs because the color tables were released from memory while the dialog was still displayed. The color tables for dialogs are now non-purgable. * Memory may be stacked a little better at the beginning of TaskMaker, making it more available while the game is in progress. SUPPORT * Improved the instructions for ordering TaskMaker and added a "How Do I Order" button to Registration dialog. * Moved Product Information, Technical Support, and Register from Play menu to File menu. * Removed the Advertisement menu item. * Changed the area code of all phone numbers to 847. Special thanks to the phone company for playing fast and loose with peoples' area codes. Also removed all non-fax numbers. ------ CHANGES FROM v2.1.1 TO v2.1.2 Saturday, December 23, 1995 * Opening a player character by double clicking or drag & drop works again (the bug appeared in v2.1). Thanks to a bug report by Miles Reid. * If an error occurs while saving a player character before opening a new character, the new character will not be opened, giving the user another chance to try saving the current player. * You can now purchase a Wish For Object scroll (and lots of other expensive goodies) in Castle Hall. Thanks to a bug report by Ann Hollingshead. * Previously, when summoning monsters, if a creature did physically appear, it said no creatures appeared, and vice versa. Thanks to a bug report by Brett Hall. * The dialog to open a saved player character from within TaskMaker no longer shows invisible documents and will not hide visible folders. * Random numbers will be a little more random on startup for PowerPC users. * New Macintosh model names have been added to the Technical Support dialog and order form. * Changed "Illinois residents" to "If you live in Illinois" (and some other wording) in the order form because some international customers were including sales tax in their payments. ------ CHANGES FROM v2.1 TO v2.1.1 Sunday, August 20, 1995 * Armor and weapon values were displaying zeros in the Wear/Wield screen on PowerPC-based Macintosh computers. Although the bug was caught before posting v2.1 online, eighty-five users were shipped a copy of v2.1. They were immediately shipped replacement disks. * The small rendition of the TaskMaker icon has been cleaned up a little. * If the color and sound resources are stored within the TaskMaker application itself, TaskMaker will not search for the resources in separate support files. * Recompiled TaskMaker using v8.0.3 of Symantec's C compiler. David is sorry to announce his seven years of loyalty to Think C have now come to an end. After holding out hope, he has finally given up on Symantec, and has ordered Metrowerks CodeWarrior. ------ CHANGES FROM v2.0.3 TO v2.1 Friday, August 11, 1995 ACCELERATED FOR POWER MACINTOSH!!! * TaskMaker now runs natively on 680x0 AND Power Macintoshes. Officially, TaskMaker is now a "FAT binary", but it might be more polite to call it "big boned" or "pleasantly plump". Warning: Don't use any code-stripping utilities to remove either the 680x0 or PowerPC code from TaskMaker. The built-in virus protection will prevent the altered copies from running. * In the Technical Support dialog, either "680x0" or "PowerPC" appears after the Machine Type to indicate whether the software is running in 680x0 or PowerPC mode. NEW ADDRESS * Storm Impact's address has been updated (see the top of the document). INTERFACE * In Wear/Wield, body parts can now be selected from the keyboard (a user sent us this great suggestion). 'h' Head 'n' Neck 'b' Back 'c' Chest 'o' Both Hands 'w' Waist 's' Wrists 'r' Right Hand 'l' Left Hand 'i' Right Finger 'g' Left Finger 'f' Feet You don't need to memorize the above list, because the appropriate letters are underlined in Wear/Wield dialog. DUNGEONS * Hell: Pouches are now emptied on the way out as well as on the way in. Therefore, with one exception, don't bother to load up your pouch with treasure obtained by killing devils. * Fierce Fold: Added an Other Spell To Invoke that flickers off force fields for frustrated Fierce Fold fighters. * Lost Gardens: This new dungeon has been added in the south of Outer Terra and is available to both registered and non-registered players. These gardens contain free potions and no monsters, while good players will find that their wounds heal faster without loss of food. Note: This dungeon appears only for completely New players, not for players created in earlier versions of TaskMaker. * Using ResEdit to swap dungeon names will no longer work. Ha, ha! PLAYER CHARACTER FILES * Aliases and core AppleEvents for player character files are now supported. * Internally, all of the player character file routines have been completely rewritten to use modern Apple file routines. This may fix an untraceable bug which erased saved dungeons. * TaskMaker's author no longer neglects the quiet ioFVersNum byte which previously caused the standard Apple file dialog to act very strangely and not display some files. SUPPORT FILES * We've moderately improved our internal compression routines. As a result, older versions of TaskMaker crash if they attempt to use the new v2.1 color art file (because the new color art won't decompress correctly with the older algorithm). The solution: Don't keep older versions of TaskMaker on your hard drive. This and future editions of TaskMaker will always look locally for the color art and sound files before looking elsewhere on the hard drive. * If the TaskMaker Colors or TaskMaker Sounds files can't be found, a dialog will appear suggesting that the user might have forgotten to download the file if they obtained TaskMaker by modem. You can't believe how many people e-mail us asking where the color or sound file is because they didn't download it. * 800K floppy users only! Pleasantly Plump TaskMaker no longer fits on a single 800K disk. To avoid writing an installer, some art was removed from the TaskMaker application and placed in a file titled "TM Missing Pieces - 800K Floppy". This file is immediately absorbed into TaskMaker (on the hard drive) and is automatically deleted. The final version of TaskMaker on the hard drive is then exactly the same as the one distributed on 1440K floppy disks. ORDER FORM & REGISTRATION * Using AtEase to switch between users on the same computer no longer mistakenly causes TaskMaker to repeatedly ask for a registration number. (Sorry about that one). * Users upgrading from v1.0 need only send a "photocopy" of their manual or disks, not the original. We've changed the word "copy" to "photocopy" in all references to make that clear. * Attempting to open an order form in System 7 without TeachText (or SimpleText) will now display a message directing the user to find "TeachText or a word processor". * Fixed a bug from v2.0.3 which prevented the order form from including the complete note about our change of address. * TaskMaker won't display an error message if you press the cancel button when creating an order form. * When registering, if a user types a serial or customer number (as opposed to a registration number) an appropriate alert informs them of the mistake. WORDING AND ESTHETICS * The TaskMaker now uses the genderless term "child" instead of "boy". * Color "art" file has been changed from color "data" file. * Added Software Of The Month Club as an organization that is specifically prohibited from distributing our software under any circumstances. * Removed disk space requirements and revised memory requirements in opening text. * The indexes on the opening text screen now highlight edge-to-edge when they are clicked. * Enlarged some dialog boxes and dialog text items so they won't get cut off. * Updated copyright and version information. * TaskMaker now ignores the initial mouse click if the click was as a result of making TaskMaker the front application. * Slowed down the conveyor belts slightly. (I couldn't find a better section to put this in.) INTERNAL CHANGES A reasonably sized updater isn't available to change TaskMaker v2.0.x to v2.1 because of the major changes necessary to become PowerPC native. * To decrease the application size and to prepare to switch from Symantec C++ to some other compiler, TaskMaker now uses only Storm Impact libraries - no more ANSI C. * Moved some resources to standard 'STR ', 'STR#', and 'TEXT'. * Updated the list of Macintosh model names. Apple's marketing of different names for the exact same motherboard has made it very difficult to provide the correct Macintosh model names for technical support purposes. The non-Apple clones are going to make the situation even worse. HELP!! Apple needs to create a standard method of obtaining the correct model name (how about putting the Model Name in a pop-up menu in the Sharing Setup dialog, next to the Owner Name and Macintosh Name?) * Extended the built-in virus protection to protect a lot more resources (including the PowerPC code in the data fork). * Improved the AppleTalk functions to hopefully provide all the right parameters and be a little faster. Apple's documentation of AppleTalk is inconsistent and contains errors. * Although releasing a resource once is good for memory, releasing it twice isn't. Whoops! * Thanks to Greg Marriott for EvenBetterBusError, DisposeResource, and DoubleTrouble. Thanks to Ian Hendry for MemHell. These four utilities from Apple found a few errors in our software that would have otherwise been very, very difficult to track down. ------ CHANGES FROM v2.0.2 TO v2.0.3 Monday, September 19, 1994 STORYLINE * Players are no longer required to kill the rebel leader to complete task #7. Since moral departure is unnecessary and can be out of character, players may take the easily discovered, non-violent alternative. INTERFACE * Highlighting, such as in a list, is now shown properly on color Macs that have the highlight color set to black. Previously, under those conditions, the entire highlighted text became completely black. Now it's properly inverted. * The b&w floor safe has been centered within the tile. * The startup picture no longer obscures the PlainTalk speech recognition window upon startup. * The About TaskMaker and Keyboard Help menu commands can now be chosen using PlainTalk speech recognition without instantly being dismissed. SPELLS * The ship making spell no longer works in Castle Hall. Some players were using it to obtain a powerful weapon in an unforeseen manner. * A particular insignificant object can now be used to avoid teleportation by spell (including the spell cast when using the Teleport Scroll). If you're wise enough to figure out the object, carry it in your pouch and you'll really take the bite out of the final bad guy's annoying teleportation defense. * A spell has been added to control the use of the new multi-channel sound routines (which play many sounds simultaneously). Choose Other Spell To Invoke from the Spells menu and type "multisound" to see whether the multi-channel sound routines are currently turned on (the default in System 6.0.7 and up). Type "multisound off" to force the multi-channel sound routines to return to the old single-channel method (play one sound at a time). Type "multisound on" to allow the use of the multi-channel sound routines if the Mac has System 6.0.7 or better. The "multisound" spell is really a precaution in case the multisound routines turn out to be unstable. If you experience crashes or high pitched random noises, turn off multi-channel sounds. Your preference for multi-channel sounds is automatically remembered in the TaskMaker Prefs file. EVIL ONES * In v2.0.3, the final bad guy rarely casts a spell when the player is more than ten tiles away. This makes returning to Castle Hall during the final battle much easier. * As a precaution, the final bad guy absolutely can't be generated by the random monster generator (although it's doubtful that he ever was before). DUNGEON IMPROVEMENTS Note: The v2.0.3 improvements to a particular dungeon won't appear for player characters that have already explored that particular dungeon in a previous version of TaskMaker. Improvements appear only for any unexplored dungeons (and for completely New players). * Silver Creek: Removed Pete from a locked, hidden room. Sorry about that, Pete. * Poet's Nightmare: A stairway has been added behind a wall south of the first official exit. This new stairway leads directly to the end of Poet's Nightmare, and should be used to finish task #5 only in cases of extreme frustration. Use an ethereal potion to get to the stairway. SUPPORT * To be consistent in all of our products, some of the commands in the Play menu were moved around and renamed. * Enhanced the contents of the Technical Support dialog, including the addition of the names of the Performas and newer computers. * Changed the order form, including the addition of Discover and American Express. * Added an advertisement in the Play menu for MacSki. * Altered the text in the Product Information dialog for consistency across products. * The register dialog now visually "cleans up" poorly typed registration numbers containing errors. This makes it more apparent that the registration dialog ignores upper/lower case differences and extra spaces. INTERNAL CHANGES A reasonably sized updater isn't available to change TaskMaker v2.0.x to v2.0.3 because of the internal organizational changes standardized while working on our second product, MacSki. * Expanded and separated code resources in expectation of future changes necessary to compile PowerPC native code. * Internally compressed more resources, specifically 'STR#', 'TEXT', and 'styl'. * Made some code and resources generic for use by all of our products. * Improved the initial AppleTalk function call to prevent the system from hanging if a prior application blew out (highly technical term) AppleTalk. * A lot of minor internal improvements and fixes were made to the mutual libraries while developing MacSki. ------ CHANGES FROM v2.0.1 TO v2.0.2 Thursday, May 26, 1994 SOUND * TaskMaker now runs faster on machines with Sound Manager 3.0 or better. The hard disk is no longer accessed every time a sound is played (which was occurring on newer machines such as the Quadra AVs and PowerPC-based Macs). * Information relating to the installed version of the Sound Manager as well as the machine-type number has been added to the Technical Support dialog. * A sound is played in addition to the usual message if the player's strength is too tired to bend bars, dig, or open a stone-wall passage. OBJECTS * Bestow is now much more effective. A player can choose to fight less often, and, in many cases, take the kinder, gentler route of gift-giving (although the game doesn't care either way). Now, less valuable objects (depending on how mad and how evil the monster) may be cheerfully accepted by the monster recipient. In exchange, the monster recipient's health is revived when receiving a gift; so don't try to kill by attacking - bestowing - attacking - bestowing, etc. * The Put All button does not appear when putting objects into a recycling bin. * Only depositable (cash type) objects are listed when putting objects into an Auto Teller. * Fixed a nasty bug in which items that the player didn't possess were capable of being sold, even though those items weren't in the player's pouch. * Increased by 25% the maximum number of objects that a dungeon can hold. SPELLS * Now the player loses ONLY ONE level of experience when casting the Escape To Outer Terra spell, rather than losing ALL BUT ONE level of experience. (Sorry about that.) * The Escape To Outer Terra spell now properly updates the screen even when the player is already in Outer Terra. * The Frighten spell adds to the player's score, even when the player is deaf. * Changed the name of the "GO BULLS" spell. EVIL ONES * The player must visit the island prison before the final bad guy will initiate a fight. * If the player happens to kill a rogue duplicate of the final bad guy outside the bad guy's home, the game does not end. * If the player appears in Hell and the devil is immediately adjacent to the player, the devil automatically disappears. This prevents the player from becoming permanently cornered in Hell. KEYBOARD * During normal play, the mute key is now '?' rather than tab. Tab now transacts. * The tab key also switches between the pouch and the shop when transacting. WINDOWS AND DIALOGS * The Keyboard Help window now shows the non-numeric movement keys (which are useful for machines without a numeric keypad, such as the PowerBooks). * The New Player dialog no longer suggests a default player name, because people weren't inclined to override it with a name of their own creation. However, if the player name remains blank when the user clicks OK, a default player name will be suggested. * Modified the "Save changes?" dialog and the Revert dialog to conform more closely to the Apple Human Interface Guidelines. * The "Save changes?" dialog no longer appears if the player character file is unchanged since the last revert. * Revert now displays a "cancelled" message if applicable. * Changed and removed some error dialogs. TEXT * The wording used during Determine has changed from "Minimum health" to "Approximate health," because the creature's true health is not accurately displayed. * The descriptive text generated in the Wear / Wield screen no longer describes which part of the player's body an item was removed from. * Edited some text in the Order Form dialog. * Changed some of the text in the generated order form, and included the machine-type number. * Altered a line of text in the tutorial to remove the first person narrative. * Removed some punctuation and edited some general text. UNINITIALIZED PASCAL STRINGS BEING COPIED INTO A 40 BYTE ARRAY * Now operates on a machine which is missing the Sharing Setup control panel but has AppleTalk turned on. ------ CHANGES FROM v2.0 TO v2.0.1 Friday, December 10, 1993 GENERAL IMPROVEMENTS * Balloon Help menu now displays the correct names for the Keyboard Help, Technical Support, and Order Form menu items. * Modal dialogs should no longer occasionally freeze with the OK button highlighted (such as during Other Spell To Invoke). * Fixed a bug that could have resulted in a bomb if an alert appeared during TaskMaker's startup. * When there is not enough memory to run in the current monitor's depth, TaskMaker runs in B&W and alerts the user as to the proper partition sizes required (this avoids an "out of memory" error message for Thousands and Millions modes). Also, TaskMaker can now run in 16 color mode with only a 1300K partition, as opposed to 1750K. * The "TaskMaker" sound now plays fully during the startup screen for all Macs. * Maybe fixed 840AV intermittent sound bug when a sound would get garbled and high pitched. (It's tough to do when you don't own an 840AV. Hint, hint, Apple.) * A number of minor changes to the Order Form. * Entering an incorrect registration number no longer refers you to the non-existent "registration card." Also, the incorrect registration number is automatically highlighted. * Blank spaces or extra dashes in the registration number are ignored. * Removed some hidden, needless, sample DITL text. * In order to be a little more world friendly, TaskMaker now uses a System 7 function to find the preferences folder rather than creating a folder using the English word for "Preferences". If you live in a country with a different name for the preferences folder (we apologize), be sure to move your TaskMaker Prefs file to the correct folder to retain your Hall Of Fame and registration information. (By the way, if the System 7 function is not available, TaskMaker looks in 'STR ' resource 20000 for the name of the folder. Using ResEdit you can change the folder name as it appears between the two ':' colons.) GAME PLAY IMPROVEMENTS * Added a set of four diagonal movement keys ( [ ] ; ' ) for keyboards that don't contain numeric keypads (like PowerBooks). There wasn't enough room anywhere on a normal keyboard layout for a mock numeric keypad, but at least the newly added keys are grouped logically to make diagonal movements easier. * The bad guy in the final battle is a lot less difficult to kill. His beginning health is less, his self heal occurs a third less often, and the self heal amount is lowered to 10-75 from 50-200. He also attempts to teleport you half as often, and doesn't cast as many spells when frightened. However, he can now summon monsters. * Also, he should no longer appear in Hell prematurely. * Mary no longer says "I shouldn't be telling you this..." because people thought she had more to say. Ha, ha; She never did. * Names and comments have been modified for several people and monsters. * The TaskMaker clearly repeats the gist of tasks when asked a second time. * You won't get a valuable response if you transact with anyone while you're repulsive. * You can't talk to the TaskMaker if you're repulsive. * Guards no longer leave their posts just because you're repulsive. * You can't transact with a shopkeeper if you are repulsive or invisible. * The Determine command now includes the creature's approximate power rating and minimum health. * Changed the tired attribute pattern from gray to diagonal stripes for easier viewing. (By the way, if you still don't like the pattern, TaskMaker uses the first pattern in 'PAT#' resource ID 1000. Using ResEdit you can change the pattern to whatever you'd like.) * Wear / Wield can now display armor / aim / damage numbers up to four digits long. * The B&W picture for Wear / Wield has been slightly improved. * Intermittent menu bar flashes no longer occur when clicking on various body parts. * Removing items in Wear / Wield now correctly calculates powers like x-ray vision. * Under certain conditions, some of the magic scrolls resulted in a negative base armor class (and possibly negative base aim and damage). The bug has been corrected, and afflicted v2.0 characters are now automatically repaired when opened. * Wielding wands no longer exaggerates your power rating. * Added a missing B&W graphic mask for the wand shape. * Books can now be used to gain intellect. (David says: Now why didn't I think of that?) * Increased the effectiveness of the food ring. * Holy Light now includes some armor protection. * Changed the name of "Chest" to "Old empty chest" to show true worth. * If a bug occurs when attempting to sell an object, you'll automatically exit the shop. * No need to "press a key" in Examine if you are already at the end of the list. * The scroll rate of lists has been slowed to an acceptable rate on faster machines. * In list mode, users without page up, page down, home, and end keys can use [, ], {, and } respectively. This is an undocumented feature which was also present in version 2.0. * A sound is played if you fail to successfully cast a spell. * You can no longer try to teleport if you are in a ship. * Experience points are now properly removed by the Escape To Outer Terra spell. * Other Spells: Added a ship making spell, as well as (for Masters) Kill and Teleport. * You can win or lose only up to 500cp at a time when gambling. * The spell for resetting the entire world now works. * The spell for resetting a single dungeon does not save to disk until Save is chosen. * Wishing for an object (by spell or scroll) treats both straight ( ' ) and curly apostrophes ( ' ) the same when matching object names. For example, wishing for "Wand o' Frost" will now correctly give you a "Wand o' Frost". DUNGEON IMPROVEMENTS Version 2.0 players note: The v2.0.1 improvements to a particular dungeon won't appear for v2.0 player characters that have already explored that particular dungeon. Improvements appear only for any unexplored dungeons (or, of course, for New players). * Tutorial: A square symbol wall has been placed adjacent to one of the switches and its associated force field floor to indicate the connection between them. * Outer Terra: A teleport is available next to the Island Prison. * Castle Hall: Removed touchy Ooze from switch room. (Even though I still don't think he started all of those fights.) * Castle Hall: Far left bank teller counter now operates. * Castle Hall: Moved cool stuff away from the sides of the inner sanctum to prevent Grasping, and replaced inner sanctum's side doors with impenetrable walls. * Skysail Village: Removed "2 DIG" message because SOMEONE thought he was supposed to dig somewhere around there. * Skysail Village: Removed Trish the Dish, because she appears elsewhere. * Poet's Nightmare: The ethereal cheat has been prevented by the addition of a required switch near the conveyor maze. A minor addition to the gray room allows players to go back if they miss the switch. * Poet's Nightmare: Added a few secret messages. * Poet's Nightmare: Expanded some of the openings in the conveyor maze. * Fierce Fold: An exit is immediately available. * Lupercelia Lemma: An exit is immediately available. * New secret dungeon: A short, cute dungeon available to new Masters only. That's all folks. ------ ORIGINAL v2.0 RELEASE Tuesday, October 5, 1993