Renga in Blue   Interactive fiction and the All the Adventures project

I’m at the point where I have a mostly complete map, so I’m in the “logistics” phase where I am planning what order to visit the rooms and gather treasures.

It’s fairly tricky because of the thief. Just like original Zork, there’s a “lean and hungry gentleman” who can go most places on the map and will try to take any treasures you have (or ones that are lying around), and possibly stab you with his stiletto while he’s at it. You can eventually fight the thief with your sword, but it takes a higher point score to manage (like “experience points” in Dungeons and Dragons I suppose) so the fight has to wait until later in the game. Here is a result of trying to start the fight early:

Someone carrying a large bag is casually leaning against one of the walls here.
He does not speak, but it is clear from his aspect that the bag will be taken only over his dead body.
Your sword has begun to glow very brightly.

> kill thief with sword
A good slash, but it misses the thief by a mile.
The thief draws blood, raking his stiletto across your arm.

> kill thief with sword
You charge, but the thief jumps nimbly aside.
The thief just left, still carrying his large bag. You may not have noticed that he appropriated the valuables in the room.
Your sword is no longer glowing.

The other tricky element is perhaps the most clever finesse in the game, and one of the very first thing that happens.

> move rug
With a great effort, the rug is moved to one side of the room, revealing the dusty cover of a closed trap door.

> open trap door
The door reluctantly opens to reveal a rickety staircase descending into darkness.

> d
You have moved into a dark place.
The trap door crashes shut, and you hear someone barring it.

It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Your sword is glowing with a faint blue glow.

I’m not referring to the iconic “you are likely to be eaten by a grue” (which is indeed lovely) or “your sword is glowing with a faint blue glow” (which always happens with enemies nearby, and gives a nice texture to the world-building even if it is cadged from Tolkien).

Iconic enough someone made a cupcake. From Steelhead Studio.

I’m referring to the fact the way you came in is locked behind you, so you cannot take the same way out.

First: who barred the door? One might think the thief, but at least in this version of Zork, he never gets into the upstairs house. It can’t have happened on its own (“you hear someone barring it”), which is what I imagined when I was a child. Spoiler theory in rot13 (from a later Zork, so don’t reveal if you only know this game): gur qhatrba znfgre sebz gur irel raq bs gur gevybtl oneerq gur qbbe, gb sbepr gur cynlre punenpgre gb rkcyber engure guna whfg eha njnl.

Second is simply the design finesse of forcing the player to look for another exit. And there are plenty, including one a couple steps away: a chimney which is too narrow to carry much of anything, including a large treasure that is in the same room.

I overall count four distinct methods (not including the fact the trapdoor eventually will stay open), which really gives the feel of player choice. There are enough routes and it is non-obvious what the most efficient one is (I’m guessing every walkthrough of this game is very different).

One last catch is that while most of the edits from original mainframe Zork seem to be simply rooms removed (along with exits that don’t exist any more) there is one section that is changed enough I’m not sure what to do.

> e
Dome Room
You are at the periphery of a large dome, which forms the ceiling of another room below. Protecting you from a precipitous drop is a wooden railing which circles the dome.

> tie rope to railing
The rope drops over the side and comes within ten feet of the floor.

> d
Torch Room
This is a large room with a prominent doorway leading to a down staircase. Above you is a large dome. Up around the edge of the dome (20 feet up) is a wooden railing. In the center of the room sits a white marble pedestal.
A piece of rope descends from the railing above, ending some five feet above your head.
Sitting on the pedestal is a flaming torch, made of ivory.

The rope is too high to climb back up, and there doesn’t seem to be any normal exits.

There’s a few other locations with the torch room, but otherwise this seems to be a dead end (note the rope is too high to climb back up). There’s a granite wall that I recall should let me teleport with just >TOUCH GRANITE WALL, but it doesn’t work. My theory is I need to defeat the thief first, because the other end is in the thief’s lair, but it’s possible there’s another angle altogether I haven’t thought of.

This is unfortunate because the torch is the “unlimited turns” light source of the game; the lantern will eventually run out of battery and go dark. I’m confident there was a lot of intention here on the part of the authors; they probably felt like being able to walk anywhere with an unlimited light source too early would undercut the tension they did a good part building by barring the initial way out. (I remember my childhood self having particular dread of the dark in this game, especially the time my lantern winked out and all I was left with was a book of matches.)

I’m otherwise in the clear on all the rest of the puzzles, so it’s possible I’ll have won this by next time I report in.