Instructions for

Valhalla

Legend, 1983

Written by Chris Owen, HTML'd by Arnt Gulbrandsen.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Controls

Keyboard

Aim of the game

As a minor deity in the home of the Norse gods, Valhalla, you must rise on
the social scale by completing six quests.

Game play

Valhalla is rather like a soap opera - the inhabitants behave in their
various ways and get on with their own lives without any interference from
you. They all have their own characters - Loki is sneaky, Thor is violent
and so on. The six quests you must complete are to find various magical
objects. A clue or two may help:

   * Ofnir - the key. "Darkness in Midgard."
   * Drapnir - the ring. "So many choices - you could sink into the pits of
     despair."
   * Skornir - the shield. "A peculiar start - a difficult decision - the
     bald man needs defence."
   * Skalir - the sword.
   * Felstrong - the axe.
   * Grimnir - the helmet.

Finding these is far from simple and some, if discovered, must be deposited
safely as you can't carry all of them together. As well as that, if you die
you are sent to Hell and your objects are randomly scattered around the
various locations, so you will have to start all over again. You will
however keep any special objects, with the exceptions of Ofnir and Drapnir.
(The same applies to the other characters). You can only have one helmet
and one sword at a time, and can only carry one axe or one sword - not both
together. This of course means that you can't carry Felstrong and Skalir at
the same time.

As well as this you must interact with the other Valhallans, who will
either regard you with favour or hostility depending upon your actions. You
can offer to sell or buy objects since you have money, swords, axes, shield
etc. (although these are merely ordinary, non-magical ones). Be careful -
it is all too easy to start a potentially lethal fight! You can butter up
characters by giving them presents - for instance, typing GIVE AXE TO THOR
might make Thor better disposed towards you. You can also buy objects off
characters (the local currency is the crown) with commands like BUY AXE
FROM THOR FOR 20 CROWNS. If someone is reasonable friendly with you, they
might help you - for instance, by doing something for you (such as ODIN GET
THE RING). Some cupboards and chests are too stiff for you to open, even if
you've got the key, so you'll need to rely on the goodwill of other
stronger characters to get them open.

All of this activity is shown on the screen. If you type commands - for
example "DRINK THE WINE" - you will see your character carry out that
action. Moving from location to location is simply a matter of entering the
compass point direction (N, E, S, W) and a WHERE command will list the
available exits. Moving around within a location is done using L (left) and
R (right). If you have a (ordinary) ring, you can use celestial ringways to
transport to different locations. To enter a building, GO NORTH; you cannot
however enter huts.

Other helpful commands include WHAT, which tells you what objects are
present on the current screen - including anything in an open cupboard or
chest - and WHO, which tells you who else is on the screen. HOW will give
you a report on your current strength, while LIST will give you an
inventory of your money and possessions. HELP may give you some
assistance... but then again, it might equally not. PAUSE is self-
explanatory, as are SAVE and LOAD (but you'll need Gerton Lunter's Z80
emulator to make use of the latter two commands). PRINT will dump events,
as reported in the text window, to the printer; NOPRINT turns this off.
COPY will dump the entire screen to the printer.

Comments

"An excellent program all round."

Rating

81.5% (CRASH #1, April 1984)

Now

A classic adventure game. VALHALLA is rather unforgiving but is still not a
bad game for adventure fanatics to play.

Commands:

   * ATTACK
   * BUY
   * CLOSE (chest, cupboard)
   * COPY
   * DRINK (wine, water, etc)
   * DROP
   * EAT
   * GET
   * GIVE
   * GO
   * HELP
   * HOW
   * JUMP (allows you to travel by ringways using ring)
   * KILL
   * L (move left)
   * LIST
   * LOAD
   * LOCK (chest, cupboard)
   * NOPRINT
   * OFFER (e.g. OFFER 10 CROWNS TO ODIN FOR AXE)
   * OPEN (chest, cupboard)
   * PAUSE
   * PRINT
   * PUT (e.g. PUT RING IN CHEST)
   * R (move right)
   * SAVE
   * SELL
   * SHUT (chest, cupboard)
   * SUMMON (e.g. SUMMON THOR)
   * TAKE
   * THROW
   * UNLOCK (chest, cupboard)
   * WHAT
   * WHERE
   * WHO

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nettverksgruppa, 5/10-94, www@nvg.unit.no