Alien Fires: 2199 AD 1986

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HINTS

This text is intended to help someone who has not yet finished this adventure. I hope the hints below will give you enough guidance to get through it.

This game is essentially about locating Kurtz and the Time-Transportation device (however, in the actual game it is called a Time WARP device. Something that is a bit confusing towards the end). You do not achieve this goal with lots of finesse or even elaborate problem solving. You do it by being larger and carrying bigger "sticks" than any of the characters who might get in your way. In that sense, this is more or less a sci-fi "Bard's Tale" with one character and less than satisfactory combat system. (I picked up all sorts of items along the way, pass cards, remote control units, signs, etc. that I never had any use for at all). You therefore have a decision to make from the very beginning: do you develop your character slowly over time, getting killed a lot at first but achieving the satisfaction that you EARNED the good character? OR do you hack the game from the very beginning, starting out with a decent character?

I warn you, if you want to develop your own character, you'll spend a lot of time on the first few levels getting killed and re-booting your machine (thanks to the fact that Jagware didn't put more sophisticated save and continue and restore and continue commands into the game).

If you do want to edit your character, however, it is VERY possible. The 9th to 15th bytes in any character file contain your character's Fighting, Marksmanship, Diplomacy, Dexterity, Understanding, Tracking, and Quickness in that order. If you can get your hands on (and are confident about using) a binary file editor, such as NewZap, you can make your character as powerful as you like. The game is much less frustrating this way.

The other difficulty with this game is mapping, which is a nightmare. Unless you are VERY experienced at mapping and have a LOT of patience, I suggest you put aside the normal graph-paper and pencils and use this method:

Every time you enter a new room, note the room colour (i.e. Dark Pink, Red, Light Blue), the number of doors in that room and the directions in which those doors lead. Draw a room that is approximately the shape of the room you are in on a piece of paper and lines away from the walls to represent doors (in the appropriate directions). Move through a door, connecting the next room through the line you drew and continue the process, much as if you were mapping an Infocom game.

This method isn't neat, but it keeps you from getting lost, and I found it more than adequate for finishing the game.

There are three levels on the colony and then three levels on the space station. The secret to finishing the game is finding a ladder or elevator on each level to move to the next level, blowing away all hostile aliens that get in your way.

If you have questions about something in the game, I find it helpful to ask friendly characters (Angel, Jessica, etc.). They can often help you, but of course they aren't available on the advanced levels. In general, any time you meet a character, look at them and ask them who they are.

Any time you encounter an item, look at it and take it. The GUM MACHINES are an especially helpful item because they restore your hit points. There is one on every level (after the first) and it is usually near the entrance to that level. Beware, however, because if you have low Understanding, you may be poisoned and die!

The most important rule for this game is... SAVE OFTEN. I know it is frustrating to continually be re-booting (you shouldn't have to) but the odds are you will die at least once on every level (unless you edit your statistics to astronomical heights).