Conversational adventures are usually games based on EXPLORATION and on the USE or MANIPULATION of objects that are within the immediate reach of the protagonist.
For the EXPLORATION the player is oriented by cardinal points. The commands GO NORTH, GO SOUTH, or simply the abbreviations N, S, E, W will move in that direction. Occasionally UP, DOWN, ENTER or EXIT will also work.
The command LOOK (or its abbreviation M) redescribes the location present, while EXAMINE “object” or its abbreviation EX, serve to give a description of that particular object.
For the USE or MANIPULATION of objects, simple commands of the form “VERB + OBJECT” are used: TAKE “object”, LEAVE “object”, EX “object” (as we saw before), etc…
The INVENTORY command, or its abbreviation I, gives a list of the objects you are carrying.
If you meet another character, you can try to talk to him with the SAY command. It works by typing SAY and then putting whatever you want to say in quotes. Ex: TELL CHARACTER “HELLO”
With SAVE and LOAD you can save and load the game to tape (real or emulated). RAMSAVE and RAMLOAD will do the same thing in the computer's RAM memory, although each time you do RAMSAVE you will delete the game that you had saved in RAM before.
As a good game created with the DAAD, El Cetro del Sol admits chained commands, the use of “TODO” in the actions TAKE and LEAVE and the verbs ending in LA/LO. Sentences like “TAKE EVERYTHING, LEAVE THE BOX AND OPEN IT” would be valid.
Knowing this you can start to get by with ease and advance a few screens. As soon as you practice, you will learn for yourself other verbs that can also work, actions that involve several objects such as “USE OBJECT with another OBJECT”, etc…
… but if you still feel lost or stuck, feel free to ask for help in the usual retrocomputing forums or contact us through Zona FI's twitter. Perhaps you have discovered a bug, in which case we are the first interested in knowing about it (and you will have our eternal thanks)