ARROWBRIDGE II - THE GUARDIANS OF DARKNESS v2.20
An ATDT DOS door package
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WHAT THIS IS

  Arrowbridge II by Gargoyle Productions (1996-99), packaged and
  pre-configured for the ATDT DOS door system. Multiline play,
  four nodes, ready to run.

  The game's one-time setup has already been performed, so this
  IS a drag and drop install even though the original was not:

    - AB2TOOLS SETUP was run: drop file DOOR.SYS, FOSSIL mode,
      COM1 locked at 38400, game path D:\, nodes 1 to 4 all
      configured.
    - AB2TOOLS CREATE was run: all game files, the world, and
      the MAPS, DUNGEONS, PLAYDNG, IBBS and OUTBOUND folders.
    - INSTALL.BAT was run: all 24 dungeons installed to
      DUNGEONS\.

  The player file is virgin. No characters exist yet.

INSTALL

  1. Drop this ab2 folder into dosdoors\ right off wherever ATDT
     is installed (on the demo board: /atdt/dosdoors/ab2/).
  2. Console, then DOS Doors, then Scan. Enable the door.

  That is all.

WHY IT SHIPS PRE-CONFIGURED (READ BEFORE RECONFIGURING)

  The game itself plays perfectly over the ATDT stack. The setup
  tool does not: with a FOSSIL driver resident (and the ATDT
  machine always has one), AB2TOOLS reads the local keyboard
  through the FOSSIL and treats number keys, Enter, Backspace
  and Escape as console controls instead of typed text. Its
  prompts eat those keys. In 1995 a sysop simply ran AB2TOOLS in
  plain DOS with no FOSSIL loaded; on an ATDT board there is no
  such place. The setup here was done in the ATDT door lab with
  keystrokes injected below the keyboard, and the finished
  result is what ships. If a setting needs changing later
  (node count, time per day, seasons), ask for it rather than
  fighting AB2TOOLS at the maintenance machine keyboard.

  One cosmetic note: when AB2TOOLS CREATE finishes a game reset
  it prints "Error # 75 in AB2Tools" AFTER the line
  "> Arrowbridge II creation complete!". On ATDT this trailing
  error is cosmetic. The reset has already completed.

FOR PLAYERS

  - This is a big world adventure: a wilderness map, 24 dungeons,
    towns, castles, armies, jousts and duels. Movement is on the
    number keys (the game will remind you about Num Lock; on the
    web terminal the number row works fine).
  - Multiline is live. (W)ho in the wilderness shows every line
    and what its player is doing. (S)end online message sends a
    note to another player by carrier pigeon; it is delivered
    when they change screens.
  - (R)etire in the wilderness ends the session and saves; you
    resume exactly where you slept, with your turns counter
    where you left it.
  - Each character gets 60 minutes and 1500 turns per day
    (AB2TOOLS defaults).

WHAT WAS TESTED ON ATDT

  Boot from DOOR.SYS at 38400 through the ATDT FOSSIL, new
  character creation, the town, the wilderness map, movement and
  turn accounting, monster combat, retire and resume across
  reboots, a second simultaneous caller on node 2, the live
  (W)ho list showing both lines, and a cross-node online
  message, sent and delivered. The unregistered version notice
  is the game's own shareware banner; registration codes from
  Gargoyle no longer exist, and the game is fully playable
  unregistered.

FILES

  ab2\dosdoor.json     the ATDT manifest
  ab2\files\           the game, exactly as DOS sees D:\
                       (runs as AB2 /NODE%NODE% /PD:\; ATDT
                       fills the node number in)
  ab2\files\AB2.TXT    the original player manual
  ab2\files\SYSOP.DOC  the original sysop manual
