# Dark Signs An Introduction... Welcome to Dark Signs! > Read through this quick guide to learn the basics of Dark Signs. You can > refer to it later if you need help, or contact with the information at the > end of this file. It may be useful to print this file. Although Dark Signs is in a sense, only 'text based', it is by no means a boring game. Take the time to get involved, and you will find there is much to explore and learn in the game. COMMANDS If you have any experience with a Unix based operating system, or DOS, you should know what we mean by 'console'. Dark Signs simulates an older style of hacking by letting you type commands into the console. Something flexible about Dark Signs is the fact that it is directory based. Just like windows, you can create folders in the game, and create/move files into them. To get help in the game, type help. To get more detailed help on a specific command in the game, type help [command], replacing [command] with a valid command. Here are some basic commands you can use to navigate and view your directories. pwd Display your current directory list Display all files and folders in your current directory goto [directory] Change your current directory to the specified [directory] goto .. Go down one directory level goto / Go to the main index (root) of your directory structure For a full list of commands, type HELP in the game. As you play and explore, you will find many features in the game. Editor To start the Dark Signs Editor in the game, type... script [filename] Replace [filename] with the name of the file you want to use. To run a saved script, make sure you are in the right directory, and type... run [filename] Replace [filename] with the name of the script. Remember, if you try to run a file that is not a script, you will probably recieve 'Bad Command' error responses. [Tip: Hide Script Commands] When a script is running, and a line is executed, example... trace darksigns.com outputfile.txt The above line will be displayed on the screen as if you had typed it when you run the script. This can make the screen look messy when you are running scripts, and it is often not necessary to see because you already know what is in the script. There is a way to make it so the command line is not shown, but is still executed. To do this, simply add a * to the beginning of the line. So... trace darksigns.com outputfile.txt would become... *trace darksigns.com outputfile.txt NOTE: During an authorization state (where a server is asking you for a username or password, the script will pause. It will resume running as soon as you leave this state. (Either by entering a correct or incorrect username or password). #Start scripts automatically on startup In your user system directory, there is a file called startup.script. You can edit this file and have it run whatever you want at system startup. You can have it display a message, the system time, change the text/back color or start hacking right away. Just edit this startup.script file as you would a normal script. When Dark Signs is launched, it is austomatically executed. #Piping Commands You can use multiple commands in one line, by seperating each of them with the pipe symbol |. Example: system\logs> cd.. | md files | cd files | cd/ Using the line above, the commands will be executed in this order cd.. md files cd files cd/ #Connection Logs Every time you connect to a remote server, all incoming and outgoing data will be logged to a file under your system\logs directory. The name of this file will be the name of the server you are connected to, followed with a .log extension. #Using the wildcard character When deleting files, you can use the * character to delete all of certain type of file. Example: home> del *.script #System files Although Dark Signs will not allow you to delete files in your system directory from within the game, you can modify many of the files to change your system. You can use the edit tool to change different data files to customize Dark Signs. WARNING: Deleting your Dark Signs system files may cause your Dark Signs OS to crash or cause errors while in the game. It is also not recommended to change any system file to anything but what is allowed. #Output to files With any command, you can make any text displayed to the screen also go into a file. You can use the : character to do this. Example: dir : file.txt The above example will still display the directory listing on the screen, as well as outputting it to file.txt. This trick can also be used while connected to a server to output text somewhere in your own filesystem. #Where can I find more information on the game? A large base of Information on Dark Signs J can be found at the website, https://darksigns.pf-control.de, as well as much support to your questions from the developers and other players. # Contact Us If you want to contact us with a question or comment, please use the address below for the fastest response. You will generally get a response within 24 hours. admin@darksigns.pf-control.de You can also post questions on the Dark Signs forums https://darksigns.pf-control.de/forum We hope to see you there! https://darksigns.pf-control.de # Continue to the Mission Tutorial... Back to Index