Return to Eden Manual Introduction Return to Eden is Level 9 Computing's sixth adventure and has taken the usual enormously long time to produce. It's the second Silicon Dream adventure and starts where Snowball left off (though you don't need to have played Snowball first). You play Kim Kimberley and have just saved the interstar transport Snowball 9 from disaster. Unfortunately the control room vidcams show a different story. Kim seems to enter, hurl a bomb and the room is engulfed in flames. The evidence is damning. Forced to flee, you just reach a stratoglider life-boat before the waidroids close in. And one hour later you become the first human to land on planet Eden. Snowball 9 is in orbit, crewed by people who believe you to be a murderer. The only civilisation on Eden is a robot city far to the east. And the planet is reportedly populated by furiously-hostile beings of every kind; only ceaseless vigilance and hi-tech weaponry prevent them over-running the city. Now you know enough to start. Good luck! Scoring There are no "treasures" in Return to Eden. Instead, you score points for doing things which are steps on the way to solving the game. You lose points for getting killed. Eden Eridani A is a binary star-system of a red giant and smaller sol type star (though even this is significantly bigger than Earth's sun (Eden orbits this latter, yellow star.)) It is a most unusual planet, Earth-like and habitable without Terraforming. Its surface is mostly water and climatic extremes are rare. Eden's variety of plant-life is legendary and was the source of a host of documentaries back home until the plants became too hostile to scan. Ecologists speculate that it was seeded by long-vanished aliens. Unfortunately, you know less about Eden than almost any schoolchild back on Earth. The only documentation in the stratoglider is an outdated travel guide containing artists' impressions of the scenery Snowball Snowball 9 is carrying the first 2 million sleeping colonists for Eden and was rescued from flying into the sun in the previous Silicon Dream adventure. The Snowball is now back on course, though several months ahead a schedule, and has just entered orbit around Eden Space Cities Robots have been making all the important decisions since the late 2100s (if not before) and they run the colonisation program. Humans view the whole matter as an adventure on which to base interminable soap-operas. The space robots are doing really well. They are rapidly interesting every chunk of rock in the Eridani A system and their manufacturing potential is enormous. It's easy when you have access to all Earth's knowledge. Their priority is further expansion through the galaxy. The first probes are nearly 100 light-years away by now, and several promising planets have been found. The controlling computers are only waiting for the first generation of colonists to be born on Eden before shipping them out. It would all be a lot easier if people could live all their lives in space, of course, and the space cities are working on this. They plan to use Eden's sister-planets as spacecraft. Acceleration would be meagre, but would be constant and such a starship could travel for ever. Absorbed in their protects, the space cities have little interest in Eden for the time being. You'll get no help from them. Implementation Return to Eden is written using Level 9's ever-increasing library of compression techniques to give you more adventure in the same memory. Thus the game needs much less space than it ordinarily would and we can cram in much more detail than others do. Instructions Read the enclosed card for details of how to start the game and how to save the state of play. The program asks "What now?" whenever it expects you to enter a command. Simply type an English phrase to tell it what to do and press the RETURN (or ENTER) key. The program will act on your request, then ask for the next command and so on. The game knows an extensive vocabulary of English and futuristic words. It scans your command, picking out the words which it recognises and 'guessing' the meaning from these. Only two or three words are used from each phrase; it pays to keep things simple. Words can usually be abbreviated (e.g. NORTH to N and NORTHEAST to NE) and, to help you get started, some possible instructions are summarised below: INVENTORY SCORE LOOK AT COMPASS OPEN DOOR EXAMINE ANTS QUlT WEAR FIG-LEAF DROP COLD LEAF TAKE WATCH PULL LEVER LOOK AROUND EAT BERRY AGAIN (or A) repeats the previous command. IT means the previous object. E.g: LIGHT LAMP and then EXAMINE IT However, the Snowball had been sabotaged and could not be completely repaired. Every signalling device was smashed and there were more important things to do than to jury-rig a radio. The crew have no contact with events outside. Once in orbit a trial was held. The mempak record from the control room was fire-damaged but most interesting. It seemed to show Kim trying to destroy the ship. Kim was found guilty unjustly, as it happens, but no one knew what really happened. The sentence was death. Dragged to the life-boat hanger to suffer vacuum-exposure, Kim had one last chance. Amazingly it worked: Kim broke free, reached a Stratoglider and managed to launch it. The game starts as this life-boat lands on Eden. As Kim, you have escaped a swift fate but your problems are far from over. The crew of the Snowball feel they have a score to settle. CITY The robot city, Enoch, is on an equatorial shore in Eden where four rivers meet. From the outside, all that can be seen is a 3 klom climate-conditioning dome, surrounded by a green moat of farmland and an outer defensive wall. Gun-ships drone round the dome like wasps, swooping low over the surrounding jungle. Inside, you'd think that you were on Earth. A single yellow sun shines through fluffy white clouds in the sky. Green parkland surrounds huge apartment-pyramids and the ground hums with a comforting mechanical buzz. Enoch provides all the comforts of home: only the people are missing. Background Snowball 9 started its journey to the stars from the EEC's Ceres base, one of the fifty giant colony starships launched in the 2190s. It carries the first colonists from Eden, only habitable planet in the Eridani A starsystem. ("Eden" is a short form of Eri-DAN-i with sell-appeal). Cocooned in a sphere of protective ice, the ship sped through the void, carrying its hibernating passengers to their new world. The journey took a century. Meanwhile, robot probes had already colonised the Eden starsystem in their own way. Space cities trawled asteroids for minerals to reproduce themselves, moons were pierced with accelerators, thousands of daughter probes were fired towards nearby stars and, the lowest priority task, a city was built on Eden. At first, city building went well, but gradually problems accumulated, for Eden was already occupied. Not by sentient beings, but by a myriad plants and a host of cunning creatures. Eventually these adapted to fight back.. Normally the robots would have holocausted the surrounding area and solved their problems once and for all. But they were preparing for fragile human colonists, vulnerable to poison and radiation. So a wall was built and the war stabilised. Any machine venturing into the jungle was crushed and no living thing was allowed to reach the city or the Earth-plant farms beside it. Losses were enormous on both sides, but the robots were satisfied. Inside the wall, they work to perfect the city for the arrival of its new owners. But all is not well. The city fathers have been fighting the jungle for decades and the city is beginning to pay the price. Its foundations are broken by a million root-cracks and vermin infest the lower-levels. The dome is repeatedly-patched and spores have attacked the buildings within. The city still looks new, but impressions are misleading. And, what may be worse, is that the robot army has been fighting too long. Their responses are too ingrained. They have problems in recognising the enemy. Events at the start of this game will reinforce their paranoia. Space Base The city of Enoch is linked to the space factories via a colossal space station in synchro-orbit above it. Physical connection is by sky-hook (ie space-elevator) and com-link is by laser. These integrate the city into the overall Eridani A presence. The space station is, like the orbiting factories, constructed from an iron asteroid a few kloms wide. This mass provides the inertial stability required for space-elevator operation' raising or lowering hundreds of tonnes of material between orbit and the planet's surface. Communication is not the only function of the space station, however. It is also responsible for planetary defence... So, when the Snowball 9 enters orbit off schedule and without identifying itself, then ignores all radio messages, and then threatens the city, the space base has a problem. Further attempts are being made to contact the "alien" craft but when these fail a decision must be made: the robots can not risk a hostile presence in orbit. Credits Game Design: Pete Austin Implementation: Mike Austin with Chris Queen Pictures (some versions only): Tim Noyce Adventure System: Mike, Nick & Pete Austin Booklet: Pete Austin & Yannis Kassumis Typesetting etc: A & M Litho Inspiration: A Spell for Chameleon/Anthony/Del Ray Deathworld 1/Harrison/Sphere Hothouse/Aldiss/Sphere I, Robot/Asimov/Panther Brent Force (in The Steam Driven Boy)/Sladek/Panther Level 9 Adventures Our current range of adventures is: 1) Colossal Adventure "Middle Earth" Trilogy 2) Adventure Quest 3) Dungeon Adventure 4) Snowball "Silicon Dream" Trilogy 5) Return to Eden 6) The Worm in Paradise (soon) 7) Lords of Time "Lords of Time" Saga 10) Erik the Viking (jointly with Terry Jones and Mosaic Publishing) 11)Emerald Isle Fantasy Adventure 12) Red Moon Fantasy Adventure Details of all Level 9 Adventures are available from: Level 9 Computing. P 0 Box 39. Weston-super-Mare, Avon BS24 9UR, England [ Blurb from the back of the Gamebox: ] Return to Eden is set in the 24th Century, on one of the weirdest planets around. It has well over 200 locations, with lots of fun and puzzles. And the Amstrad, CBM64 and Spectrum versions have graphics: about 240 pictures each! Level 9 Computing specialise in adventures. Big adventures, with detailed scenery and interesting storylines. This means more enjoyment for you and we'll send a free clue sheet, with hundreds of answers, if you get stuck. If you think that you're losing out on adventure because we've added pictures, by the way: don't! There is as much text and as many puzzles in this game as in previous Level 9 adventures. We've just had to use even better compression techniques and every bit of memory in your micro. You play Kim Kimberley, secret agent. Escaping from false imprisonment aboard a colony starship, you are stranded in the alien jungle of Eden. Your only hope is to reach the robot city of Enoch, said to be fighting a valiant war against killer plants in this spectacular SF adventure. Investigate the air bush, find your roots and watch out for the parrot! The alien corn is tricky, "Pepsy" Koala is mischievous and the least said about the city robots the better. Return to Eden will amuse, bemuse and entertain - and you're doing well if you finish it in less than a month. Good Adventuring! RETURN TO EDEN REVIEW "The appearance of a new program from Level 9 is a flagday for all aspiring adventurers and, in my household, a signal for the cat to hide under the bed for the duration against the inevitable moment when I go rampaging through the flat, a wild look in my eyes, muttering ferociously about bricklaying birds, nudist beaches and the like. Since Return to Eden, the sequel to Snowball is out, the cat may be in hiding until Christmas... One major different between this and former Level 9 efforts is that the Spectrum and CBM64 (and Amstrad) versions have graphics of a very high quality that can be switched off if required. The scope of the vocabulary appears unscathed by this addition. Even experienced adventurers will probably get fried a few times by the avenging engines of the Snowball, before discovering how to take shelter. But, once that hurdle is passed, the real adventure begins and it's a lulu." - Popular Computing Weekly GUARANTEE We'll replace the enclosed cassette/tape/disk/microdrive cartridge if you return it to Level 9. If you have problems in the month after purchase, a re-cement of the same type is free. Otherwise, please enclose œ1 for a re-cement cassette or œ2.50 for a disk./microdrive cartridge. Add œ1 if outside the UK. OTHER GAMES Return to Eden is the long-awaited second game in Level 9's Silicon Dream trilogy. The whole set is: Snowball Return to Eden The Worm in Paradise The game RETURN TO EDEN and all associated software, code, listings, illustrations and text etc are the exclusive copyright of Level 9 Computing. They must not be copied, transmitted, reproduced, hired, lent, distributed, stored or modified in any form without the express written permission of Level 9 Computing. *********