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SKI(6)				     Games				SKI(6)

NAME
       ski - an	unusual	skiing simulation game

SYNOPSIS

       ski

DESCRIPTION
       Imagine you are skiing down an infinite slope, facing such hazards as
       trees, ice, bare	ground,	and the	Yeti, -- a horrible monster! Each turn
       moves you one screen row	downhill. Unfortunately, you have to put your
       jet-powered skis	on backwards, so you can't see ahead where you are
       going; only behind where	you have been.

       However,	you can	turn to	either side, jump or hop through the air,
       teleport	through	hyperspace, launch nuclear ICBMs, and cast spells to
       call the	Fire Demon. And	since the hazards occur	in patches, you	can
       skillfully out-maneuver them.

       You ski until something bad happens to you. Your	final score is based
       on how far you have skied, how many jumps you made, how many Yetis have
       melted during your run, and how healthy you are when are	finished.

       These characters	represent the things that you see on the slope behind
       you:

       I
	   This	is where you are.

       .
	   This	is normal snow -- always completely safe to ski	on.

       Y
	   These are trees. If you try to ski through trees, you might hit one
	   and get hurt!

       ' '
	   A space represents bare ground with no snow on it. If you try to
	   ski on dirt,	you could fall down....

       #
	   This	is ice.	When you are on	ice, you can't turn, and you might
	   slip	and fall down.

       A
	   This	is the Yeti! As	soon as	he crawls out of a snowbank, he	will
	   lumber directly towards you at one space per	turn, and if he	gets
	   within one space of you, he will grab you and beat you up! However,
	   he has trouble moving through trees.	Steer clear from the Yeti, and
	   he will melt	after a	while, since it	is a sunny day.	If you jump
	   over	him, your jet-powered skis will	help melt him. You can also
	   melt	him with nuclear ICBMs,	or call	the Fire Demon who will	cook
	   him,	but once a Yeti	melts, another one always shows	up after a
	   while. The Yeti doesn't understand about the	edges of the slope
	   either, so you can just cross them to get away from him! And	since
	   he is slower	than you, you can try to ski right past	him before he
	   can grab you!

       *
	   This	represents a nuclear ICBM that you launched. You launch	them
	   from	your backpack, and they	zoom right at the Yeti.

       D
	   This	is the Fire Demon, who is always your friend unless you	call
	   him a bad name and he gets mad at you.

       These are your commands.	You can	type any one of	these letters when you
       have the	"?" prompt on the end of the slope line, or just hit a return
       to do nothing this turn.	Preceding any command with a number does that
       command repeatedly; thus, for example, "4l" is "turn left 4 times".

       r
	   Turn	to the right. If you were going	straight down, this will make
	   you go one space to the right every turn. If	you type "R" again,
	   then	you will go two	spaces to the right every turn.	If you type
	   "L" the next	turn, you will again be	going one space	to the right
	   every turn. Remember	that you can't turn when you are on ice, and
	   if you go off the edge of the slope you come	back into the other
	   edge. You travel farther while you are going	sideways, so you get a
	   better score	if you slalom to the side a lot, but you can never go
	   sideways more than five spaces per turn.

       l
	   Turn	left. Exactly the same as turning right, but totally opposite.

       j
	   Jump. When jumping, you don't have the "?" on the right for each
	   line	you jump over, so you can't enter a command for	it. You	can't
	   fall, hit trees, or get grabbed by the Yeti while jumping, but you
	   might land badly and	get hurt. Since	the Yeti moves one space
	   toward you each turn, you have to be	going at least two spaces per
	   turn	sideways to jump over him without getting grabbed when you
	   land, but your jet-powered skis may melt the	Yeti while you're
	   jumping over	him.

       h
	   Hop.	A hop is half a	jump.

       t
	   Teleport through hyperspace.	This transports	you to somewhere else
	   on the slope, but you might materialize way up in the air and fall
	   down.

       i
	   Launch ICBM with nuclear warhead. If	your backpack is working well,
	   an ICBM will	be launched from it towards the	Yeti, travelling at
	   three spaces	per turn. Launching ICBMs is dangerous,	but once one
	   is going, it	can't hurt you.	If it is launched and loses its
	   negative-infrared lock on the Yeti, it self-destructs.

       d
	   Cast	spell to summon	the Fire Demon to this material	plane. If the
	   alternate universes are in a	synchronous phase, the Fire Demon will
	   appear somewhere on the slope, and move to attack the Yeti at one
	   space per turn, but if something goes wrong while casting this
	   spell, the Fire Demon might get mad and decide to go	for you
	   instead of the Yeti!	If there is no Yeti around, the	Fire Demon
	   will	soon get bored and go home. If you don't like where the	Fire
	   Demon showed	up, you	can try	to recast this spell, so that he will
	   appear somewhere else.

       !
	   Spawn an invisible monster called a Unix shell. You may type	to the
	   shell; it will do strange things with your input, opening a space
	   warp	in the middle of the ski-slope to display them at you. The
	   shell monster is polite; when it is done, you will be deposited
	   back	on your	slope exactly where you	were before.

       ?
	   Display command help.

       Good luck, and happy skiing!

AUTHOR
       Mark Stevans, for Roy's Games, Inc. Python implementation, color
       support and the invisible shell monster by Eric S. Raymond
       <esr@thyrsus.com>.

DIAGNOSTICS
       None.

BUGS
       None known.

ski				  11/01/2025				SKI(6)

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