UNDEAD Game DETAILS

Have you ever been trapped in a nightmare from which there is seemingly no awakening? Maybe you aren’t asleep at all, not asleep, not awake, just undead!

You have found yourself on a strange timeless land populated by tortured souls and carrying an overpowering feeling of dread.

Work your way through the dark scenes, uncover the clues and solve the puzzles. Remember to question the inhabitants, if you dare.

Together, maybe one day, we will awaken from this macabre dream…

Your mission is to explore the Land of Dysphoria and to solve the puzzles you will encounter on your way in order to find a way out of this dreadful nightmare.

System Requirements

UNDEAD runs on an Apple //e enhanced or better
with the following minimum system requirements:

  • Apple //e Rev B, //e enhanced, IIc, IIc+, IIgs

  • 6502 CPU and min. 128 kB RAM, minimum 65C02
    required     for MockingBoard music

  • 3.5” Disk Drive or emulated ProDOS device. Mass storage devices with a SCSI II card should be using Slot #7. The game can be installed on a HDD.

  • Joystick or Mouse recommended for best playing experience, keyboard control only is also possible but tedious.

  • MockingBoard recommended (no soundtrack without MockingBoard - but the game is playable) - MockingBoard auto enable on the Apple IIc and IIc+ if installed.

Key Features:

  • Apple ][ Double LORES adventure game with
    mouse, joystick, keyboard and
    MockingBoard support

  • Point and click adventure with

    • Steerable pointer for interfacing with the
      navigation menu

    • Over 80 places to visit and fulfil quests,
      several NPCs to talk to

    • Changing quest goals during the course of the game when entering different levels after solving the puzzles

    • Hidden Easter Egg

    • MockingBoard PT3-soundtrack (if MockingBoard is installed)

Gameplay

  • Objective: You wake up with a bad feeling at an unfamiliar place and your nightmare begins! Your mission is to find a way out of your dreadful situation!

  • NPCs: Be sure to speak to everyone you encounter. Some people will be helpful, some not so much.

  • Menu screen: Press a key or wait about 20 s to proceed from the title screen to the game menu. You can choose to read through some information about the game, start a new game or quit the game from here. You can also press Ctrl-L to load your last saved game.

Key Action

M

 Toggle the music ON / OFF.
CTRL - S SAVE GAME:  Will save the current state of the game to disk, which can be recovered at anytime with load game action.
CTRL - L LOAD GAME: This can be used as soon as the game starts, and will return you to the exact last state and location when you last used save game action.  CAUTION: Current progress before pressing CTRL - L will be lost!
CTRL - Q  Quit the game and return to the menu screen.  You can restart your quest or quit the game entirely from the menu.
CAUTION: using this option will delete your progress of the gameplay and you will be starting from the beginning if you have not saved your game before!

 

Game Controls

The game uses a combined control interface that makes a seamless control of the cursor by mouse, joystick and keyboard possible. The game detects whatever device is connected to your computer and allows game control of each device at the same time without changing an option in the game.

Joystick/Mouse:

  • Movement: Controls the pointer. Hover to the bottom of the screen to see the navigation menu.

  • Button: Mouse or fire button to select menu items or to leave info/talk screens.

  • Navigation Menu: Appears at the bottom when the cursor is moved to the bottom of the screen.

    • Movement Directions are shown in the middle with a compass dial. Click on the white triangles to the left and to the right of the shown direction in order to change it. Possible directions are denoted by “N, S, E, W”. Click on the desired direction to move through the dark land of Dysphoria. NOTE: if a direction is not shown it is not available!

    • Information Button: Click the button I to receive more information about the current scene. A simple click returns you back to your current location.

    • Talk Button: Click the button T to talk to whatever creature you meet on your way. A simple click returns you back to your current location.

  • Items: On some screens items are hidden that can be picked up to solve a puzzle! Note: some places might be locked others not!

Keyboard Commands:

  • Cursor Keys: Will also move the cursor around if mouse or joystick is not working properly or you unluckily have none of them

  • M: Toggles soundtrack playback on/off

  • Ctrl-S: Immediately saves a game at your current position. An existing savegame will be overwritten!

  • Ctrl-L:I mmediately loads a savegame. Your current progress will be lost

  • Ctrl-Q: Quit to the menu screen - restart or quit the game from there. Your unsaved progress will be lost!

Tips & Hints

Strategy:

  • Go and search all possible places for quest items. Some places might be locked.

  • Talk to everyone you encounter. Also talk several times to people you meet. Their answers might change.

  • Some comments might be more helpful than others, some might be misleading!

  • Try to inspect everything in every room to find clues for solving locks you might encounter on your quest.

  • Watch out for a demon that might come across your way and might take you away.

  • Try to get as much information at every location you pass by.

  • The game consists out of several levels that require to solve a puzzle before you are able to proceed to the next level. However, in some levels you can travel back and forth between them as soon as you have solved the puzzle.

  • Beware: things may change when you travel in between the levels!

The History of the Land of Dysphoria

Many moons ago there was a beautiful wedding between two celebrated royal figures, Duke Aamon the 13th and Dutchess Hecate of the house of Dysphoria. The house had reigned for many peaceful centuries and the land surrounding their residence was a bucolic and harmonious place. That night, as the wedding festivities roared until the early hours of the morning, a conflict occurred out of the spotlight.

A nefarious witch emerged from the shadowed forest on the outskirts of the land and, being offended by the late-night merrymaking and jealous of the gaiety of the townspeople, placed a curse upon the House of Dysphoria and its citizens.

As morning rose, the once cheerful locals became restless and disturbed, and began to resent the Duke and Dutchess for their pain. Life was sucked from the land, and the souls of their dead could no longer rest.

The people slowly left, journeying far and wide in solitude in hopes of rediscovering their lost feeling of contentment, and the land began to decay. It is now inhabited by very few people; including the Duke and Dutchess, still praying for the return of their picturesque kingdom, and – as legend tells us – the lost and sleepless souls of the undead as they wander aimlessly through the crumbled streets.

by Ashton Henderson

Known Bugs & Limitations:

  • Toggling the soundplayer with key M can sometimes freeze a IIc/IIc+! The reason for that is unknown.

  • The mouse port interrupt conflicts with the MockingBoard interrupt on the IIgs when starting the game from GS/OS! Hence music playback via the MockingBoard is only possible on the IIgs when starting the game directly.

  • Running the game from a real floppy disk is possible and might be a special feature for the purists, however, music playback will be interrupted every time there is a disk access. This is not a bug but disk system design related! This will also be noted when using a floppy emulator or hard disk device/emulator, however, interruptions will be very short and acceptable. If you still are annoyed by this fact, then you might need to switch the music soundtrack off.

  • The game won’t run properly with the FastChip accelerator turned on due to problems with AUX memory access when having the accelerator activated. Other accelerators might also lead to problems with the game crashing. Please switch them off. The game runs smoothly @1MHz!

  • Some people have been reporting issues with some combinations of mouse and Apple II computers with a fidgeting and unstable cursor behavior when moving the mouse. This seems to happen when using some early Apple II mice on Apple II computers. If this is the case with your setup, we are sorry but then you need to use another mouse-computer combination or the joystick as control.

  • On some systems movement of the mouse cursor by keyboard shows some interference with the use of joystick and mouse at the same time. The cursor hangs when trying to move it by cursor keys until you do another movement by the mouse or joystick. This behavior has also been reported on emulators like Virtual II and AppleWin. If you have a joystick or mouse installed, you should use this as primary input. Keyboard cursor key support was provided for those folks which do not have a mouse or joystick available.

  • FuJiNet allows playing the game, however, it is not possible to do a save game over the FuJiNet. Trying so will generate a ProDOS error and crash the game.

  • If a disk error occurs you will be notified. The game then exits back to Bitsy Bye or GS/OS. Choose STARTUP to restart the game. Sorry, but your unsaved progress will be lost. A disk error is serious and should never happen when playing the game. Please check your device for integrity and failures.

  • When using the MockingBoard you might not be able to return to Bitsy Bye after quitting it due to a late coming IRQ from the 6522 VIA chip even when the IER register has been reset accordingly. The IRQ will then not be caught by the interrupt handler and lead to a ProDOS RESTART-SYSTEM $01 hang message and requires a reset. This hardware behavior shows up occasionally.

  • MockingBoard music requires a 65C02 CPU. If you try the game on a 6502 system with MockingBoard it is likely to crash!

  • MockingBoard music playback can decay over time when using Virtual II or AppleWin’s or any other emulator’s MockingBoard emulation. This behavior has not been reported to happen on real hardware.

Credits

  • Game Design & Graphics: Dan Henderson

  • Game Engine and Mouse/Joystick Interface: Marc Golombeck

  • Beta Test Center: Jonathan & Max Adar, Sellam Abraham

  • Music: different artists from the 90's

  • Additional Advice: Dr. N. H. Cham

  • Hosting & Disk Distribution: 8-Bit-Shack

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