BATTLESTAR(6)

📦
version 3.3 · 2 versions
, in alpine 3.24, arch rolling

🚀 BATTLESTAR(6) — the games manual, but make it a group chat ✨

okay so bestie, buckle up 💖 you're reading the battlestar page from the Games Manual section, and I'm gonna walk you through the whole thing like we're texting at 2am. no skips, no "tl;dr", every single detail stays. periodt. 👑

🌴 NAME 🌴

battlestar — a tropical adventure game 🏝️✨

💅 DESCRIPTION 💅

so battlestar is an adventure game in the classic style, but lowkey it's slightly less of a puzzle and more a game of exploration. there are a few magical words in the game, but on the whole, plain simple English should suffice to make your desires understandable to the parser. fr fr, you don't need to learn ancient runes — just say what you want. 🗣️💬

🌊 THE SETTING 🌊

okay this part is giving mythology era, I'm obsessed 😭🦋

In the days before the darkness came, when battlestars ruled the heavens...
      Three He made and gave them to His daughters,
      Beautiful nymphs, the goddesses of the waters.
      One to bring good luck and simple feats of wonder,
      Two to wash the lands and churn the waves asunder,
      Three to rule the world and purge the skies with thunder.

in those times, great wizards were known and their powers were beyond belief ✨ they could take any object from thin air, and, uttering the word ‘su’, could disappear. no cap, literally vanishing. 💨

in those times, men were known for their lust for gold and desire to wear fine weapons. swords and coats of mail were fashioned that could withstand a laser blast. 🔥⚔️

but when the darkness fell, the rightful reigns were toppled. swords and helms and heads of state went rolling across the grass 💀 the entire fleet of battlestars was reduced to a single ship. one. ship. the way that fleet fell off, I can't. 😭

🎮 SAMPLE COMMANDS 🎮

here's the cheat sheet, bestie — save it, screenshot it, tattoo it, whatever 🫶

      take    ---     take an object
      drop    ---     drop an object

      wear    ---     wear an object you are holding
      draw    ---     carry an object you are wearing

      put on  ---     take an object and wear it
      take off --     draw an object and drop it

      throw  <object> <direction>

      !       <shell esc>

🍉 IMPLIED OBJECTS 🍉

this is the iconic part, the main character energy of the parser 🧚 it remembers the last thing you mentioned so you can be lazy and it just gets you. iykyk.

      >-: take watermelon
      watermelon:
      Taken.
      >-: eat
      watermelon:
      Eaten.
      >-: take knife and sword and apple, drop all
      knife:
      Taken.
      broadsword:
      Taken.
      apple:
      Taken.
      knife:
      Dropped.
      broadsword:
      Dropped.
      apple:
      Dropped.
      >-: get
      knife:
      Taken.

notice that the "shadow" of the next word stays around if you want to take advantage of it 👀 that is, saying "take knife" and then "drop" will drop the knife you just took. slay, honestly. 💅

📊 SCORE & INVEN 📊

the two commands “score” and “inven” will print out your current status in the game. that's it, that's the whole vibe check on your progress. 🌈

💾 SAVING A GAME 💾

the command “save” will save your game in a file called $HOME/.local/share/battlestar.save. and the saved game will be restored the next time you run battlestar. bestie protection program activated 🫶✨

🧭 DIRECTIONS 🧭

the compass directions N, S, E, and W can be used if you have a compass 🧭 (yes, it's conditional, no cap).

if you don't have a compass, you'll have to say R, L, A, or B, which stand for Right, Left, Ahead, and Back. and heads up: directions printed in room descriptions are always printed in R, L, A, and B relative directions. so like, learn the four letters, it's giving kindergarten but make it adventure. 🙈👑

📜 HISTORY 📜

so the author literally wrote Battlestar in 1979 in order to experiment with the niceties of the C Language 😭💀 most interesting things that happen in the game are hardwired into the code, so don't send any hate mail about it — that's a direct quote, bestie, I'm just the messenger. instead, enjoy art for art's sake! 🎨✨

✍️ AUTHOR ✍️

David Riggle 👑

🌟 INSPIRATION & ASSISTANCE 🌟

the whole squad, shoutout to them 🫶💖

  • Chris Guthrie
  • Peter Da Silva
  • Kevin Brown
  • Edward Wang
  • Ken Arnold & Company

okay that's the whole page, go play it 🏝️⭐ — and one last cute lil sign-off: this is the Debian version, dated September 7, 2000, filed under BATTLESTAR(6). bye bestie, have fun exploring 💜🎀

📦 where this page comes from