The in-game help file (data/Uhelp, the ? command) and the upstream README
Your daughter has contracted a strange disease and none of your home remedies
seems to have any effect. You sense that she is in mortal danger and you must
try to save her. Time ago you heard of a land of great danger and opportunity.
Perhaps here is the solution you need.
It has been said that there once was a great magician who called himself
Polinneaus. Many years ago, after having many miraculous successes, Polinneaus
retired to the caverns of Ularn, where he devoted most of his time to the
creation of magic. Rumors have it that one day Polinneaus set out to dispel
an attacking army in a forest some distance to the north. It is believed that
there he met his demise.
The caverns of Ularn, it is thought, must be magnificent in design
and contain much magic and treasure. One option you have is to undertake a
journey into these caverns.
Good Luck! (You're going to need it.)
Help File for The Caverns of Ularn
h move to the left H run left . stay here
j move down J run down Z teleport yourself
k move up K run up c cast a spell
l move to the right L run right r read a scroll
y move northwest Y run northwest q quaff a potion
u move northeast U run northeast W wear armor
b move southwest B run southwest T take off armor
n move southeast N run southeast w wield a weapon
^ identify a trap g give present pack weight P give tax status
d drop an item i inventory your pockets Q quit the game
v print program version S save the game D list all items found
? this help screen C close an open door e eat something
~ auto-explore the level < > walk to the nearest known stairs and take them
Ularn -s list the scoreboard
Ularn -i list scores with inventories
Ularn -n suppress welcome message when beginning a game
Ularn -<number> specify difficulty level
Ularn -o <optsfile> specify the .Ularnopts file to be used
Ularn -c create new scoreboard (requires wizard password)
Ularn -h print out all the command line options
Special Notes
When dropping gold, if you type '*' as your amount, all your gold gets dropped.
In general, typing in '*' means all of what your interested in. This is true
when visiting the bank, or when contributing at altars.
When in the store, trading post, school, or home, an <escape> will get you out.
When casting a spell, if you need a list of spells you can cast, type 'D' as
the first letter of your spell. The available list of spells will be shown,
after which you may enter the spell code. This only works on the 1st letter
of the spell you are casting. You may also type 'D' at any time - this will
show all the spells you know, as well as all the potions and scrolls you have
encountered and identified so far.
How to use the .Ularnopts option file
The file ".Ularnopts", if used, should be in your home directory (see -o).
A sequence of words terminated by whitespace is used to specify options.
Word Meaning
enable-checkpointing turn on periodic checkpointing
no-introduction do not display intro message
no-beep disable beeping of the terminal
no-bold turn off highliting
no-nap eliminate all delays when playing game
no-mail don't send mail after winning game
male choose your sex to be a man
female choose your sex to be a woman
name: "your name" choose your playing name
savefile: savefilename full pathname of savefile
character: character choose your character
monster: "monstname" choose a new name for the monster
Your name and monster names must be enclosed in double quotation marks and may
be up to 34 characters long. Longer names are truncated. Anything enclosed in
quotation marks is considered one word, and must be separated from other words
by whitespace. A space must follow a colon, for example: "character: klingon".
Example .Ularnopts file
character: klingon
enable-checkpointing
no-introduction
no-beep
no-bold
name: "Satyr, the Ularn God"
savefile: /u/philc/savefiles/Usave
monster: "Hippy" # rename Hobgoblin to Hippy
monster: "Jackass" # rename Jackal to Jackass
monster: "loopy dude" # rename lemming to loopy dude
monster: "Aggravation" # rename Ant to Aggravation
monster: "Kop"
monster: "Lucky fool"
monster: "Dipshit"
monster: "bore"
monster: "Creep"
monster: "gack"
Explanation of the Ularn scoreboard facility
Ularn supports TWO scoreboards, one for winners, and one for deceased
characters. Each player is allowed one slot on each scoreboard, if the score
is in the top ten for that scoreboard. This design helps ensure that frequent
players of Ularn do not hog the scoreboard and gives more players a chance
for glory. Level of difficulty is also noted on the scoreboards and this
takes precedence over score for determining what entry is on the scoreboard.
For example: if "Satyr, the Ularn God" has a score of 128003 on the scoreboard
at diff 0, then his game at diff 1 and a score of 4112 would replace his
previous entry on the scoreboard. Note that when a player dies, his inventory
is stored in the scoreboard so that everyone can see what items the player had
at the time of his death.
Ularn was written in 1987 by Phil Cordier at UC Santa Cruz.
It was updated in 2001 by Josh Brandt
Contact him at mute@gweep.net for info regarding the game.This is Ularn 1.5ish, patchlevel 4, as of 19 March 2001.
So, I'm taking his code and making it happier. Currently, Ularn 1.5 will
compile out of the box without errors under linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, HPUX11,
and Tru64 4.0g. It should also work okay on Solaris 7 and IRIX. HPUX11 also
currently requires that you use gcc. Compiling with HP's K&R C compiler
doesn't work-- Ularn is ANSI C. And I get weird linking problems and termcap
doesn't work right when I use HP's ANSI C compiler. I'm not really impressed
with their compiler anyway. You're probably better off with gcc. I may work
on this in the future, if people ask, but I probably won't bother.
Anyway, mail me patches and things if you have them. Fix things in the TODO
and I'll be really happy.
I would appreciate it, if you happen to include Ularn on a compilation or
software distribution of some sort, if you let me know. A copy of the
package you're including it in would also be welcome. If you make any
changes, please let me know, so they can be rolled back into the original.
(This goes for you FreeBSD ports guys, especially. I'd rather you not have
to have custom patches for your port. If you come up with FreeBSD-specific
patches, send them to me! I like FreeBSD! I'll include them myself, so you
can just have them grab the source!)
Anyway, have fun.
-- Josh Brandt (Ularn maintainer)
-- mute@sidehack.gweep.net
---- original readme below
This is the latest and greatest version of Ularn, as of 6/12/92.
It should be much improved over the version that was posted to
comp.sources.games.
-Phil Cordier (Ularn author)
satyr@ucscb.ucsc.edu
philc@netcom.com