Re: Q: Crimson Crown (aka Transylvania II)

[Holger Picker <pickerh@uni-muenster.de>]

On Thu, 20 Nov 2003, Jeff Thomas wrote:

> Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2003 01:27:34 +1300
> From: Jeff Thomas <a2forever@usa.net>
> Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2
> Subject: Q: Crimson Crown (aka Transylvania II)
>
> I am attempting to play "Crimson Crown (aka  Transylvania II)" on Apple
> IIe.
>
> My main difficulty is getting Erik or Sabrina to perform certain
> individual tasks, like: "Erik, take sword". Use of diacritical mark ( ,
> / - *) produces "?Extra Ignore" message understandably as parser was
> possibly not designed to handle such characters. By simply typing "Erik
> take sword" it replies "It is stuck fast.". Without the sword being
> removed, I am unable to goto the next scene and I tried notorious other
> word combinations including getting Sabrina to do it. Strangely, all the
> other versions on different computers (Macintosh, PC, etc) of this game,
> will happily accept those commands!
>
> Does anyone know what the correct syntax would be?
>
> Thanks!
>

Hello,

I had the same problem a while ago. It has nothing to do with the syntax,
IIRC it's simply that the disk image of "Crimson Crown" is corrupt. I took a
look into the code and found that the one byte that stores the ',' key the
parser is looking for was replaced by some garbage key. I do not remember
which key that is, it may even be some kind of control key. May I suggest
downloading two (probably) different versions of "Crimson Crown" (I'm sorry,
I can't tell you from where I got mine, but it might be one of them): either
the image found at the usual completely unknown asimov place or _legally_
from the publisher, Mark Pelczarski, himself, who kindly offers old AppleII
software for free download (http://www.magictree.com/polarware/compadv.htm).
Maybe you're lucky and a working copy is among them. Otherwise you would have
to repair your disk with the right ',' key. (Hmmm... Come to think of it I
might have done that...)
Kindest regards

  Holger