BLAKE'S 7: THE TEXT ADVENTURE User manual Version 1.00.23 ================================================================ The rights to Blake's 7 belong to B7 Media (www.b7media.com). This game was made as a homage to the series. It is completely non-profit and no selling of any kind is permitted. Original game (c) 2018 Chema Enguita. This text adaptation (c) 2026 Intangybles. WHAT THIS IS This is a text adventure version of "Blake's 7 - The Adventure Game", written for the Oric in 2018 by Jose Maria Enguita and based on the BBC television series. The Oric original is a graphic adventure that you play by pointing and clicking. This version tells the same story in words, and you play it by typing. It follows the path of the original game, in three episodes, with the same rooms and the same puzzles. You start in the first episode, "The Way Back", and carry on along the storyline from there. The original instruction booklet is included as ORIC.TXT, with a printable copy in ORIC.PDF. It describes the television series, the characters and the story, and all of that applies here. Read it for the background; read this file for how to play the text version. WHICH PROGRAM TO START There are three programs in this folder. They are the same game and differ only in how wide the screen is: B7 for an 80 column screen B740 for a 40 column screen B736 for a 36 column screen Type the name at the CP/M prompt and press ENTER. Pick the one that matches your display. CP/M machines vary a good deal in how wide a screen they give you, so it is worth knowing yours: a NABU is 40 columns, a Coleco Adam under T-DOS is 36, and a CP/M emulator running in a window on a modern machine is usually 80. If you are not sure, start with the one you think fits and look at the opening screen. If lines run off the edge or wrap in the middle of a word, try the next size down. Nothing is harmed by trying, and your saved games work with any of the three. The game needs the data file BLAKES7.B7A in the same place, and the artwork for its width. Keep the whole folder together. HOW TO PLAY You type a command and press ENTER. The game describes where you are, lists the ways out and lists anything you can see. [Blake's Room] A room with a bunk and a table. Exits: hallway Visible: Mug, Ball To move, use GO and the name of an exit. This game uses named exits rather than compass directions, and every room lists its own, so you never have to guess. GO HALLWAY leaves the room above. THE COMMANDS Type HELP at any time for the full list. It is: LOOK also EXAMINE, X, L LOOK on its own, describes the room again GO also ENTER, WALK GET also TAKE DROP TALK also SPEAK, ASK USE USE ON GIVE TO also OFFER OPEN also READ, UNLOCK CLOSE PUSH also MOVE PULL SEARCH what is loose in the room SEARCH ROOM the same thing INVENTORY also INV, I SCORE HINT GUIDE ON GUIDE OFF SAVE SAVE LOAD LOAD VERSION QUIT Upper case is used here for clarity. You can type in either case. LOOKING AND SEARCHING These two do different jobs and it is worth knowing which. SEARCH turns up what is loose in a room - the things you could pick up or open, which are not always mentioned in the description. LOOK followed by a name studies one thing closely. That is where most of the detail is, and several puzzles are solved by looking at something carefully rather than by picking it up. Look at everything. The game rewards it. TALKING TO PEOPLE TALK and a person's name starts a conversation. Where there is more than one thing you could say, the game offers a numbered list and you answer with the number. The list changes as the conversation goes on, and a choice you have already used may disappear, so read it each time rather than remembering which number you wanted. CARRYING THINGS GET picks something up and DROP puts it down. INVENTORY lists what you are holding. There is a limit to how much you can carry. If you reach it, drop something you have finished with. Anything you drop stays in the room you left it in, and you can go back for it. SAVING AND LOADING SAVE on its own saves the game. SAVE and a name saves it under that name, so you can keep several: SAVE REV16PRE Game saved to REV16PRE.SAV LOAD and the same name brings it back. LOAD on its own loads the unnamed save. LOAD REV16PRE Game loaded. The game is long and in three episodes. Saving at the start of anything that looks dangerous is a sensible habit. A save made by this version will still load after an update, so you do not have to start again when a new version arrives. IF YOU GET STUCK HINT gives you a nudge about where you are now. Asking again gives you the next hint for that room, and once you reach the end of them it returns to the first, so you can read through the lot. HINT Hint: You already have something edible. Someone further along the corridor may want it. GUIDE ON turns on automatic nudges, which arrive as you go rather than being asked for. GUIDE OFF turns them off again. Both are there to be used - the game is not scored on whether you needed them. SCORE shows how far you have come: Progress: Episode 1: 0 of 7 complete Episode 2: 0 of 9 complete Episode 3: 0 of 6 complete Overall: 0 of 22 milestones. READING LONG SCENES Some scenes run longer than one screen. The game stops at [Press any key to continue] and waits, so nothing scrolls past before you have read it. Press any key to carry on. IF YOU NEED TO REPORT SOMETHING VERSION at the game prompt, or -V on the command line, prints three lines: v1.00.23 data 2026-11-08c engine 2026-11-09b Quoting those three identifies exactly what you are running, which is the first thing anyone will ask. A screenshot or text copy and paste would also be of great help! Send comments, questions and anything that looks wrong to: b7text@gmail.com A typo, text running off the edge of the screen, a puzzle that would not budge, or simply something that read oddly - all of it is worth hearing about, and there are no forms to fill in. THANK YOU This version exists because people played the beta versions on their own machines and said what happened. Scripted testing can prove that the game reaches the end and that every rule works. What it cannot do is run on your machine, with your display, your disk and your way of playing - and that is where the things worth fixing were found. So a particular thank you to the beta testers who sent their log files back. Those logs are the only record of the game running anywhere other than the author's own system, and they found faults that no amount of testing here would have reached. Several of them changed the game rather than just the notes. And thank you to Jose Maria Enguita, who wrote the Oric game in the first place and made all of this possible.