The Antagonists

It is the 24th century and Earth is now dominated by insects and ruled by the ants, who have grown to a larger size. In a world where the most species are extinct you follow the trail of Albert Renshaw, the last surviving member of planet Earth to find a way to escape by finding a particular "object" that is guarded by the ants.

The Antagonists is a text adventure where you type in verb-noun commands with the keyboard to interact with your surroundings, such as "OPEN DOOR". To navigate your way through the locations in the game you uses the commands 'EAST', 'WEST', 'NORTH', 'SOUTH', 'UP' and 'DOWN'. In the case of a two-word command, the first word may be one of the following verbs: 'GO', 'WALK', or 'RUN'. The second word must be a direction. 'CLIMB' is only useful for climbing an object or a creature and is a two-word command.

Type 'LOOK' and you get a description of your surroundings. When encountering a creature you can run away or use 'ATTACK' or 'KILL' to weaken them. If you have a tool for this purpose you must also enter the name of this tool. If not the parser will assume that you want to kill the creature with your bare hands which will make your attack less effective. Use 'OPEN' if you want to open the door and 'CLOSE' to close them. If the door is locked, and you have the right key, you can unlock it with 'UNLOCK'. If the door is unlocked, and you have the right key, you can lock it with 'LOCK'. You also have to indicate the tool to be used. With 'TAKE' or 'GET' you get an object in your possession and 'DROP' to remove something from your possession.

When an appropriate object is collected you can type 'EAT' to get one lost energy point in return. If you are carrying an appropriate tool and it is dark you can give the command LIGHT ON for making light and LIGHT OFF to extinguish it. Use 'WAIT' or 'SLEEP' to wait for awhile. 'INVENTORY' (or 'I') tells you what you have in your possession, the amount of weight you can still carry and the number of wounds which you can still survive.

There is an option to save or load the game. 'RESTART' restarts the game from the beginning.

Originally the program was typed in from a book. The first part of the book is entries taken from the diary of Albert Renshaw, the last survivor of Mother Earth. It relates to the discovery of the beta 2 growth hormone, which was expected to solve the world's malnutrition problems and the growth of plants and animals. Unfortunately, also insects, like the ants, grew. They regarded humanity as an enemy and are using their organizational talents as a weapon against the intelligence and so-called creative faculties of the human race. Not only the insects grew but also the movements against the killing of insects. The increased pity for insects was directly proportional to their increased size. It also tells about how Albert Renshaw prepared for his journey to find the means to escape. The second chapter is The Book of Flowers by Prof. Dr. K.J.Th.M. Lanuski. It gives a detailed explanation on what you need to identify plants, an in-depth classification of different environmental divisions and illustrated with a number of examples.

The third chapter is the James Arwell Society’s publication, which among other things describes the Tenins and the Lepries. With all the other mammals extinct, except for certain specialised breeds in zoological gardens, the Tenins, who are similar to Elves, but their moods can change rapidly to become dark and deceitful, and the friendly Lepries, who are characterised by a total lack of physical beauty. They always have looked after the insect farms, and it is probably as a result of this that they are now tolerated by the insect population. Includes drawings by James Arwell and Donald Beamon. The fourth chapter is the guide to INSECTOLAND. It gives information and clues concerning the various giant ants, bees, flies, beetles and butterflies which inhabit the park.

The last chapter is about programming the game. The entire program has been divided into seven steps, one for each day; Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, etc. A basic listing program, named Decoder, that has an error checking routine built in, is included as well.

For those who did not want to type the whole program, it was also available separately on tape.