Re: Veritus (umm, that's VERITAS)


16 Feb 1995 19:51:26 -0800

In article <3hulvb$b9n@cantua.canterbury.ac.nz>,
Brendon Wyber <cctr120@cantua.canterbury.ac.nz> wrote:
>Howdy,
>
>I just downloaded the machine independant version of Veritus but it comes
>with no introductions of what the game is about... Since ftp is expensive
>down here in NZ I am not keen to download the mac-only version
>just to get the instructions. Can someone just post the text file to
>me?
>
>Thanks in Advance...
>
>--
>Be seeing you,
>
>Brendon Wyber Computer Services Centre,
>b.wyber@csc.canterbury.ac.nz University of Canterbury, New Zealand.

Here it is for everyone, since I've been getting tons of requests for the game:

(From the brochure/map which comes with the registration):

Veritas: A Harvard Game of Interactive Fiction

Welcome to Harvard College! Your experience in higher education has
passed by so quickly--why, it seems like just yesterday you were a green
Freshman/woman/person unpacking your bags in the Yard, eager to explore the
realm of high intellectual thought. Now, however, you have somehow progressed
to Senior year, and bigger concerns weigh upon your mind. Namely, how in the
world are you going to graduate, and what are you going to do after life at
the Big "H."
The first question is answered quickly, as you discover a memo from
your Senior Tutor enumerating the rather eccentric requirements for graduation:

(1) A 2" x 2" picture of yourself.
(2) A copy of the Freshman Register.
(3) A Scorpion Bowl from the Hong Kong Restaurant.
(4) A thesis (double-spaced and laser-printed on nice bond paper).
(5) A ticket to the Harvard-Yale Game.
(6) A Gutenberg Bible.
(7) A date just kidding--everybody knows that it's impossible to get a date
at Harvard).

The eighth "requirement" is, alas, too smudged to be read, although a
passing reference to the Fogg Art museum is discerned.

In the course of satisfying your Tutor and earning that oh-so-valuable
diploma you will travel in, around, and under the Harvard campus. You will
encounter an irritable roommate, a mad wizard, a (sometimes) friendly Ogre, an
inflammable rodent, and a host of intellectual challenges. Throughout, you
will be accompanied by your best friend, whose help is invaluable, and largely
overcomes his hindrances.

You can spend hours wandering around in the richly-detailed virtual
Harvard: Examine the statue of John Harvard, muse over the butter pats stuck
to the ceiling of the Union, stroll through the various Houses, get lost in the
stacks of Widener Library, swim in the Adams House pool (clothing optional),
and swing on the famous Winthrop House tire swing. No knowledge of the real
Harvard is needed (but it certainly doesn't hurt, and several jokes will have
more meaning for you Cantabs out there).
Veritas was developed with TADS: the Text Adventure Development
System. The sophisticated parser responds to most common English sentence
structures; online help is available by typing "INSTRUCTIONS" at the command
prompt.



About the author
James T. Reese grew up in a small town in Ohio, escaping to Harvard at
a tender age. He somehow managed to convince his Senior Tutor to allow him to
graduate magna cum laude in biology in 1988. Not willing to enter the real
world he traveled south to New Haven, and miraculously survived long enough to
graduate from the Yale School of Medicine in 1992. Having had enough of the
frigid East Coast winters, he thereupon moved west to begin his neurosurgery
residency at Stanford. Veritas is his first work of interactive fiction.