Via Ira Goldklang.
I’ve been pulling out all the stops in terms of listing available verbs and puzzles, trying to be as systematic as possible. There’s a little pleasure in at least documenting things out, although it would be more enjoyable if I could solve … at least something?
Speculation is welcome from people who haven’t played before; if you have beaten this game or seen a walkthrough, please hold off on any hints for now.
TIMED EVENTS
52 moves: “My bones ache” message starts appearing; I’m guessing this is just physically sensing the hurricane is coming.
67 moves: “Hurricane Alexis hits island”
At this point the palm log on the beach can land (“CRASH!”), although which exact turn it happens seems to be random; sometimes it happens on move 67, but I’ve seen it happen as late as 120 or so.
It also becomes unsafe to move outside after this time, and (at random) the hurricane can kill you.
217 moves: “Getting dark”
247 moves: “Sunset”
After sunset, the room description is simply “Its too dark to see!” It’s still possible to move around (as long as you don’t go in any invalid exit directions, which causes you to trip and fall).
?? moves: “I hear cannon offshore”
I haven’t tracked how many moves this is at exactly, but it isn’t too long after sunset.
No other timed events seem to occur. It’s possible more get triggered by being able to SLEEP after sunset, but I haven’t found anywhere safe to sleep. I either get a.) blown away by the hurricane b.) eaten by wild animals or c.) both, which makes you double-dead as the excerpt below demonstrates.
Not safe
I’m attacked by wild animal
I’m DEAD!
Not safe
to move in hurricane
storm lifts me out to sea
I’m DEAD!
I did find one place where I could SLEEP successfully without being attacked by wild animals
West of the lake on a secluded ledge on the volcano wall
but unfortunately, this place is not safe from the hurricane so I can’t use it to wait out the storm.
It’s certainly possible the intent is to win the game within 247 moves (that’s a lot of moves for a Scott Adams game) but the hurricane hitting at 67 moves makes moving around deadly very early, so I’m not sure.
VERBS AND NOUNS
The available verbs I’ve found are
CUT, DIG, CLIMB, SWIM, READ, BREAK, PUT, PUSH, PULL, TOUCH, TURN, MOVE, OPEN, ASK, SAY, DRINK, EAT, YELL, WAIT, SLEEP, MAKE, KILL, FEEL, FILL
although both DRINK and EAT have glib responses
Sorry
I’m a bottle baby
and KILL is highly suggestive of “don’t bother”.
Sorry
If you like to kill monsters play “MACES & MAGIC”!
Nouns that work include KNIFE, BUTTON, LEVER, and KNOB, although I haven’t found any of those four in any location.
Nouns NOT included: LIGHT, LAMP, TORCH, COAL, LAVA, CANDLE, FIRE. It’s still possible there’s an aforementioned BUTTON or some such to turn on lights, but I suspect the darkness is either just simply left as darkness, or there’s some “natural geography” resolution. (I’ve thought about: the cave’s opening is to the east, and there’s a basin, so if we get water in the basin maybe on sunup the sun will reflect off the basin and shine light into the dark maze. Maybe? I’d have to survive sleeping first, though.)
PUZZLES
Puzzle #1: Opening the coconuts
Objects/locations involved: The Coconuts start at Top of a Tree on the east beach
Likeliness of being a real puzzle: High
Description: The response to OPEN COCONUT or BREAK COCONUT is “How?” which requires a WITH (noun) response; WITH HANDS doesn’t work.
There might be an item that will work, although I’ve wondered if they could just break themselves open in the right circumstances, i.e. being blown off a tall cliff and landing where they get smashed.
Once open, I suspect they could be used as a container for water (since FILL is a verb). That would be a portable way to wash off sweat, plus something that could be used to fill the stone basin.
Puzzle #2: Handling the bear
Objects/locations involved: The bear starts in a cave, but can go outside next to the lake or deeper inside into the dark maze.
Likeliness of being a real puzzle: High
Description: The bear moves about more or less at random but will track the player if nearby. It licks and eats the player if they are sweating. Sweating can happen from either physical exertion (initially climbing the volcano) or from just being around the bear (being nervous).
The bear is described as “sickly”, and since the game is pretty spare with descriptions, that seems it should be a significant hint.
There’s some fish bones in the cave that seem like they should distract the bear, but I haven’t been able to get any reaction.
In an earlier Scott Adams game we were able to knock a bear off a cliff, so I do wonder if geography can somehow be used to our advantage; haven’t seen the bear get carried away by the wind or anything like that, though.
Puzzle #3: Digging in darkness
Objects/locations involved: The dark maze under the bear cave
Likeliness of being a real puzzle: High
Description: Last time I wrote about the dark maze, and how one of the rooms let you DIG with a response of YUCK! the first time (and only the first time). It’s faintly possible the intent is to play literal guess-the-noun to figure out what was dug up, although a way of bringing light into the cave would of course alleviate the problem.
Puzzle #4: West in the darkness
Objects/locations involved: The dark maze under the bear cave
Likeliness of being a real puzzle: Low
Description: In the same room that digging is possible, the west exit is blocked off. This may simply be the portion we can GO CREVICE to escape, but it’s faintly possible there is some obstacle in the darkness, like a crack that must be jumped over? JUMP is a strange verb in the game; you can JUMP any noun you want to, and it will just say OK. The only time I’ve seen JUMP work is a spot where you can get from the volcano area back to the opening beach.
Puzzle #5: Surviving the night
Objects/locations involved: Everywhere
Likeliness of being a real puzzle: Medium
Description: After 67 moves, hurricane-force winds start; after 247 moves, sunset hits and sleep is required to bring back the day. I haven’t found anywhere safe to sleep. It may be that there is no safe place to sleep, so the game must be beaten before sunset, or a light source (?? can’t imagine what now) needs to be found.
Puzzle #6: Sand
Objects/locations involved: The starting beach
Likeliness of being a real puzzle: Low
Description: For completeness, I should mention the opening beach has SAND. You can DIG SAND followed by WITH HANDS and get an OK message; however, nothing changes in the room. Perhaps there is a more efficient way to dig, or you need to dig at the right time?
Renga in Blue 
What about digging in the sand?
Oh, okay.
Can you look at the sand after digging?
Yeah!
At least in the Speccy version, if you look at the sand you can see a hole.
http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0006924
If you look at the hole, then the description changes, showing a bottle. You can empty it…
Just like me to get stuck on something not even intended to be a puzzle.
Anyway, that broke things open: I took care of the bear and survived the hurricane. Not sure what my next step is (I got up to hearing cannon offshore).
Will keep plugging away.
I got stuck on the same thing this time, even though I actually finished this game twenty years ago or so. It was so long ago I played a Scott Adams adventure that I had forgotten that the key to solving one is to repeatedly LOOK and GO every noun.
Ubyq Oerngu gura Fjvz Qbja to recover items dropped in the lake.
(Disclaimer: I’m playing along on the Spectrum version, which is different from your one, so I don’t know if that’ll work for you.)
Having finished both the Spectrum and the ScottFree versions of the game, I feel like the absence of darkness in the former is probably a bug which removes a pretty important challenge from the game. The illustrations are pretty nice, though.
“MACES & MAGIC” was, as its name implies, a D&D-like hack-and-slash game that appeared in Adventure International’s catalogs at the time. Scott Adams was basically putting an ad for a game that he sold, in another game that he sold.