Hi aaron.

the game shouldn't be crashing when it gives you one of those messages, the status line should say something like "press c to continue" which is exactly what you have to do. If this doesn't work I'm afraid you really have got a problem somewhere, sinse fallthrough uses a lot of those moments, whenever you read a sign or notice, or attempt to carry more than your load (something which happens to me a lot sinse there are no measures of incumberence or weight of general objects in the game).

To give to peasants just type give rall, give water or give food.

the game really isn't nice to new players at all, sinse there isn't an indication of what you should do, and you don't really have the cash to even feed yourself or the where withall to fight very well even if you find a warrior you can fight. Also sinse the speeches work at random, it can take you a while to get the info you need. I actually ended up restarting about four times before I have the game I'm playing now (which i'm actually a ways through).

To give a miner spoiler, the hunting spot is 30 east, and 25 north from or'gn.

On my 4th game (the one that worked), the first items I bought were a backpack, knife, canteen and about 6 pounds food.

A backpack has a carrying capacity of 52 rather than 29 pounds, and thus is much better for carrying the proceeds of hunting.

I then hunted enough to buy myself an axe, lamp, flint and bottle of oil.

After a bit of hunting, I got good with throwing my knife, and could then try fighting, ---- assuming I met a warrior who I thought I had a vague chance of beating, which gave me a litle bit of cash.

I then setout to a certain location which had a dungeon and the chance to get some treasure, -- as a hint, try typing info on locations (even if someone doesn't explicitely say to go there),  which then let me buy a sword, some armor and a burro, this let me start challenging warriors to fights, which is a better way of earning cash.

I'll give another piece of advice though, for something I did very wrong which I won't do next time, a certain item I didn't buy when I had the money, but which would've saved me a lot of time and trouble, ---- where I went for another item which at that stage I didn't need particularly.

For what this item is, I'll just advise you to explore 10 west of or'gn (actually north west, but staying on the roads is probably a better bet sinse you can visit farms for water and less easily get lost), and also to talk to peasants and warriors, ---- sinse though I've never seen a hint about the item itself, there is a hint about the place where you can get it.

With that item in hand though and enough cash to support yourself, other things become a lot more fun, though I stil admit the item handling is a right royal pest sometimes. imho this game would've been much better if you could've just naturally held 8 lb food and 1 full canteen, ---- or bought a container to do so, and so always be able to eat, drink or give food and water to peasants without huge amounts of hastle every single time, ---- sinse you'd only have to refill or replace the canteen or pick up more food when your personal stock ran low.

When you right a command like read notice, the notice text will be displayed at the bottom of the window under the status, and it'll say "press C to continue" As I said, your best off reading the screen with the jaws curser, Hal's virtual focus or whatever the window eyes version is called.

From then on, it's just a case of inputting each command and pressing enter, accept when you have to press C (you don't need to press enter then).

so to go north, just press N and enter, to read notice type read notice enter, then press C when you've read the text.

fallthrough is a rather old Dos game and thus the display is slightly more clunky than in some titles, stil it's worth it if you have the patience.

Hth.

As I said, patience is deffinately a necessity with the game, ----- particularly in some of those mazes (some of which i've not cracked myself). But it is hugely rewarding.

Sorry for restarting this post but I thought it might be easier to raise this post than start my own.

I have found and loved this game for a number of years, but after these number of years I still have not finished this game. When I first played it I got rather close, but then around two years after not having a computer at all, I forgot all about the game till 3years ago and have started to try and get it done... However I still have not done so.

For those who may have just started the game, I do have some of my personal advice. I would suggest doing nothing at all except keeping yourself feed, and helping peasants. I tend to go five east, five west, five south.... and repeat many times till I met a stranger that rewards you for your kindness. Take that item to one of the starting locations and get 100 ralls.

I agree with Dark that before fighting you should learn hunting. The reason for this is that it helps with fighting when you gain confidence with it. When you get to a stage where you can take down a animal without even needing to hope, you get the chance to throw your knife at the target, in which means you get a first hit bonus. Having a knife is vital in this game as it allows for hunting and carving meat.

Other items you should get as soon as you can are: Flyr, compass, buro, tourch, bow and arrows to fire.

If anyone has more tips or would be willing to share how they remember the game to get it complete I would be most grateful.

Thanks

I know I had all but the gold jewellery and the locations of the "Ways" (Silver and golden way). But for some reason I believe you need one golden jewellery piece to open the cave on the Struck Beach and the light needs to be turned on - but I'm not sure if that was actually how the game went or if that's what I tried to get there. I know that place near the beach Oden (IIRC) mentions the silver way, which in my view is a clue that it has to be in that area. Hopefully not the mesa!

I know Hole-in-the-wall is a repeating dungeon, that is you can go east all the time and end up at the entrance again. I haven't yet gotten to that stage of the game, want to get 1k before I get the key (which I think is south of Or'gn IIRC) But I think there is a trick of needing a shovel in there - not sure if that's part of the main event in hole-in-the-wall or not, but I can remember digging forever in that location. I know one of the dungeons (think its the mesa) actually drains your health for how many 'tiles' you moved and another dungeon actually passes time for how many tiles you have moved. If the mesa is the one that drains your health I believe (but haven't confirmed) that the golden amulet will allow you to visit there as a normal dungeon, or at least stopping the heath drain. It negates poison and heals the player - that I am sure of, its one of the comments strangers will make.

I did have the opal scimitar when I first played the game many years ago when I was still at high school, and had the power to wield it (break the chains on the door in Or'gn) but not the power to defeat Zugg I think his name was (the end boss).

From a vague memory you have to go to the ridge that blocks the upper terrain from the lower desert (LONG way east of hole-in the-wall) and you come to some mountain terrain that you can look around at the expanse. The trick here is to actually descend down, but at a high level and you will actually find a cave... thou getting back up you find it turns into what I believe to be another rolling dungeon, that is you have to make sure you read all the text to find the correct path to take out of the ruin.

Forgot to say in my first post, that after getting the 100 ralls, I buy 20 odd food and go all the way west to Oden, and save (and backup the game so I can have 'two' saves so that I can save in the current game and not have to restart the game) then start heading out looking for oil deposits. Do bring along at least 5 canteens, fill them up and you will get around 50 ralls a pop. Get up to like 500, return to or'gn and buy a burro (to use a burro use its name, the first is Pecos, so commands are "Mv fr here to pecos") If you buy a pecos first then head to the oil you can get even easier ralls and the burro holds 16 canteens at one time, which I think is like 250 rall on each trip.

Then go back to Or'gn, and head west a number of tiles, till you find the first "Unsigned road" leading north, around two clicks past the north, south roads that you come across first.

I must say that I really love this game, with the tools of the game its well over the size of most games similar to the age, never the same, and have you tired to find those desert oasis?

I don't know if this is allowed to be posted here, but since fallthru is largely text-based and the macro provides no way of making the game easier, I will post the details below. I don't macro everything, but I do like to have some control over the game since I do have problems with my hands.

I use autohotkeys to do this, and just have different instances set up.

A script example would be:

; On {Ctrl}+{3} send the MOVE command from HERE to PECOS for C02-C17
; Command Keys:  # WIN    ! ALT    ^ CTRL    + SHIFT
^3::
SEND, mv fr here to pecos c17 c02 c03 c04 c05 c06 c07 c08 c09 c10{ENTER}
SEND, mv fr here to pecos c11 c12 c13 c14 c15 c16{ENTER}
RETURN

Because I kept C01 as a water canteen on my HAND C01 is not listed above, for some reason I spilt the command at C10 as that aligns the text nicely in the text editor and the game character limit isn't maxed. No macro function of SLEEP (or WAIT) is needed as the game processes the text as fast as the macro can provide the keystrokes.

If you have problems it is always because something isn't right in the text you sent, for example starting at C01 in the above command when C01 isn't located in HERE but HAND will result in the game producing the error "16 can't begin a command". Because the C is used to "Continue" the game when a error is found.

Funny enough I don't have a macro to provide food water or sleep...

Well, I've restarted the game, and am at the moment not exactly progressing as well as I would like.

I can do the hunting bit fine and get enough cash for a better weapon and a lamp, but at that point things get irritating sinse I keep having to drop the weapon before holding a canteen, ---- also sinse things are worked out on weight, you can quite often be able to carry a half empty canteen but not a full one so need to do considderable jugling around.

Weapons wise, I first bought a mace, but that was pretty pathetic, so restarted the game and switched to an axe which worked better, and despite the description didn't really seem much heavier than a mace, though it did far better in combat.

I did go and see about oil carting, and about buying a spear, but didn't have the cash for a spear, couldn't find the oil, and couldn't get back before the felven turned up and made things impossible, which was slightly irritating sinse I fought a warrior and for some reason got two rubies from him, ---- but ah well I'll restart.

Speaking of oil, the filling lamps thing seems incredibly! clunky, sinse you can't use the fill command, and need to buy one oz of oil in a bottle, pour it into a lamp, then buy another, which gets plain annoying.

I did try the maze of time, but ran out of light before I could work things out.

I think it'll take me more time to get back into the game again, particularly the item handling, but I'll give it another go, as I'd very much like to get the silver key and get some of the more specialized items which make things fun, ----- though thus far I can't even recall where the bronze key is ;D.

Appologies for the double post, but I'm feeling more smug than another eddit would require.

I've done it! after literally sitting up all night I've got that bloody key!

I'm actually kicking myself, sinse all I had to do to get out was head sw from the demon room, which got back to the entrance (which I'd marked).

Kicking myself sinse the entrance is sw!

Well, now to see what the "silver way" has to offer!

grrrrr!

Well I think the silver key will prove useful when I've got te silver ring, but I'm having a ruby shortage problem at the moment, ---- I really do need to check if you can change ralls into rubies, sinse I deffinately have enough cash.

As to vanishing elements I've actually seen this happen, sometimes things aren't whre they should be, when I first found the room in slavhos with the peg the bronze key wasn't there, and I had to go away and come back later, then  the first time I went up the odetn tower I didn't get any notification about the grassy mound at all! and had to wait until the next day, ----- and it stil doesn't seem to be showing up.

stil though, as far as I can gather, finding any of the dungeons or ruins in the wilderness is exactly what a weyring is for, this makes it very necessary for progress.

if I do have one general problem with the game it's one of order. By the time you actually make it to places where you can go biven hunting or gather sand say, you don't need to actually do it sinse your strong enough by then to make a good amount of cash from fighting warriors, and really don't have to worry about other cash methods.

I know the creator in the audeasy issue said something about writing a stratogy document for the game, ---- I'll have to try contacting him about it, and if not maybe we can put something together betwene us sinse the game really is worth playing despite the frustration.

Also, it seems that getting into any of the dungeons is reserved for quite a while later on in the game, where as I was hoping all those locked doors and such in various villages lead to interesting places to find treasure.

As far as I can determine, all the settlements are on trails or roads, however with the exception of the hole in the wall and the slavhos catacombs, all the other dungeons are hidden out in the wilderness somewhere and thus require a weyring to give you directions sinse the hints you get such as being south east are only general.

I do sometimes wish there was more random content out in the wilderness to find, just because trecking across it gives you such a great feeling of distance and ladscape, especially with keeping your supplies.

however, though there isn't any guess the syntax or hidden exit puzles, you are looking for one room in several thousand stil.

I'd love to see a game employ a similar system but have significantly more stuff to find out in the wilderness, such as randomly generating dungeons or more natural resources.

Another thing i really like about fallthru is the random npc hint system and info command, though as you said yourself, this does wear a litle thin due to the fairly sparse story on some occasions. that's why I think it'd be great to have this system in a mud or web game, sinse you could keep adding new hints to new content.

In fact, it may be possible to use one of those mud scripting and creation engines to make a single player fallthru style game which could be downloaded and run on someone's computer, using a similar system and mechanics, but with the advantage of extras in the wilderness, classes and maybe additions to the game later.

If I ever get the chance to learn programming it's actually this sytle of game I'd like to make myself.

I'm intrigued. Please do keep us updated on this, the Fallthru game concept could really stand to be used more extensively.