T H E L A N D B E Y O N D T H E P I C K E T F E N C E (C) September 1996 by Martin Oehm, Version 1.0 Welcome to 'The Land beyond the Picket Fence', a text-adventure entered into the Second Annual IF Competition of 1996. Before starting the action, make sure you have all the files you need to play the game. These files belong to the text-adventure 'Picket Fence': PICKET.EXE Programme (TP 5.5) PICKET.DAT Text file for descriptions of rooms, objects etc. These two files are necessary to play the game and must be in the directory from which the game is run. I advise creating a separate directory for 'Picket Fence', e.g. MD C:\PICKET. It is possible to run the game from disk, but it is *much* faster from the hard disk drive. Further, you should have received the following files: HANDBOOK.DOC Brief instructions for use with DOS-Editor README.NOW This file PICKET.SOL Walkthrough (Don't use until seriously stuck!) These files are just documentation and are not needed to play. To run the programme, just enter the directory with the PICKET.* files and type PICKET from the DOS prompt. It is advisable to skip through the documentation in the HANBOOK.DOC, even if it may not provide new information to experienced adventure veterans. One should know the custom commands, though: RESTART starts the game over QUIT leaves the game RESTORE or *R restores a previously saved game SAVE or *S saves a game BRIEF, VERBOSE switches to brief or verbose text mode NOTIFY turn notification of score changes on/off STATUS turn status line at the top of the screen on/off INFO general release information HINT get a hint from the programme UNDO allows you to undo the last command (and only the last!) In the unlikely event of the programme reacting unexpectedly, the programme may be interrupted by pressing Ctrl-C or Ctrl-Break respectively. The author is not liable for any problems caused. This game is provided as Freeware, i.e. you may use and distribute it freely (and only freely!) as long as none of the programme nor the documentation is modified in any way. The game may not be sold except for a small fee to pay the data media. The programme is *not* in the Public Domain. Have fun with your copy of 'The Land beyond the Picket Fence' and vote! Dreis-Tiefenbach, Germany, in September 1996 Martin Oehm