Renga in Blue   Interactive fiction and the All the Adventures project

Every decision is scored. The Island keeps you under constant surveillance and monitors your every movement. The score is set to zero at the start of the game and is incremented or decremented based upon whether or not your actions are those of an individual. The more individualistic you are, the greater your score will be. This score is revealed only upon winning, losing, or suspending the game and is closely linked with your chances of escaping. Many doors will be closed to you until your score reaches a high enough value. Since this score is mostly invisible to you, you must weigh and verify your own decisions to determine if they are in your own best interests. The authorities (i.e., computer) will give you no help.

From the front cover of the original manual.

Prisoner 2 has at least four versions out there, probably more. This ends up being important later.

For Apple II, there’s versions 1.0 and 1.01. I started with 1.0 (which gave me a code of 444 to start) and switched later to 1.01 (which gave me an entirely different code, 314). 1.0 seems to always give 444 as a starting code while 1.01 changes it. There’s also versions for the Atari and MS-DOS. The DOS version is lost, but the v3.0 of the Atari port is available.

Here’s Highretrogamelord playing through the opening on Atari:

The bit at the start with the airport (where you try to type a destination but the game types “THE I” for you before cutting off) is in 1.01 but not 1.0.

The opening maze was simply a top-down invisible maze in the original The Prisoner, but it is a much odder 3D-maze here. I’ve heard it compared to Wizardry, but Wizardry lets you turn around. In this maze you are always facing north, while using F, B, L, and R to move north, south, west, and east respectively. Here’s my map from playing 1.0:

Star is the start. F is the finish. Up-arrows are teleports that jump you back to start, saying “WHAT COMES UP…”

The weird effect of not being able to turn is that you can move “south” without seeing it, meaning there’s an extra layer of obfuscation to the game. At least with this map you have to discover the issue quite quickly to get anywhere (the third turn goes “south”) but check out this map I got playing 1.01 (note this is generated randomly, so if you play it will be different):

Yes, there’s a key not present in the other version.

With this map, just going straight east will result in getting teleported back to the start. I could see someone getting frustrated thinking there is some trick to skipping the teleport as opposed to realizing you can make a turn.

Also interesting about the new map is that it is more or less a straight shot to the exit, meaning players are likely to miss the key.

I don’t know if that means the key is elsewhere in 1.0, or that feature got removed. I did check the map quite thoroughly so I don’t think there’s a hidden exit.

You exit at 6 (just as the show, and the original game). The map is in four rows, buildings 1-5 on top, 6-10 on the second row, 11-15 on the third, 16-20 on the bottom, and is surrounded by a picket fence.

I mashed together screenshots like one of the old maps from Nintendo Power.

If you attempt to climb the fence, a bouncing ball appears (I assume meant to represent Rover from the original show) and you get warped back to the start.

The bouncing ball is not that menacing in Apple II format, but I’d recommend taking the minute to see the original from the TV show if you haven’t:

Moving on: you can CTRL-C out to “put the game in stasis” whereupon it will give a score. I started with a score of -3. You can also get a “hint” at a cost of 25 points.

I then tried all 20 locations.

1 — HOSPITAL

There are doors with a choice of Free Association (press L for left), Shock Treatment (F for forward), and Psychomotor Skills (R for right). B exits. I believe these were separate buildings in the old game.

Psychomotor Skills asks you to push the buttons the game asks for.

Shock Treatment asks for … I’m not entirely sure.

You get asked why did you resign, which I guess you can game over with if you like by typing your code.

However, if you type anything else, you are just told the subject is easily shocked and sent on your way.

Free Association is a slightly colorful version of the original, where you are supposed to say words in response to other words.

If you type FREEDOM you hit an Easter Egg of sorts.

This shot was taken with v1.0 and the old code.

Huzzah! I only found this post-game in the first version. The point is to make you think the game has crashed and you respond with the usual Apple II syntax of LIST 444 to debug the code. It is slightly less believable here, since the game doesn’t feel like it is about to crash otherwise, but I still can see an Apple user from the time being fooled into typing the code.

2 — CARETAKER’S HOME

It tells me I need a keyhole.

3 — TOWN HALL

It tells me I need a toga (which can be obtained at the clothing shop at the southwest of the island). Once inside:

I can type one of the number options but nothing happens and I get booted out.

4 — SWITCHYARD

I only found out the name of this thing by buying a MAP from the general store later and doing LOOK while in the room. This also gives the “official” names of all the rooms.

Once entering: there are a series of three doors, and there’s a letter in the middle left.

I don’t know yet what any of these mean. There’s no equivalent to this in the original game.

5 — CARNIVAL

You need a clown suit (again from the clothing store) to enter here. Then you can add weights to cause a clown to go flying and lose some score. This is just as inscrutable as it was in the original game. I seem to remember there was intended some way to “break out” but it didn’t even work for me?

6 — CASTLE

This is where you come out at the start. If you go back in the map resets.

7 — BANK

This asks for an account number. You don’t have one.

8 — COURTHOUSE

You are asked upon entering if you will put yourself on trial. If you do so it starts a game of hangman.

This is the only way I’ve found to increase score (it helps that the score is on the display as you are playing). The score boost seems to be better with less mistakes to the letters. If you lose you get a GUILTY verdict and thrown out and the “doubling” part (DECREASE SCORE BY X, INCREASE SCORE BY Y) gets reset. I’m unclear what relation the prosecution/defense lines have to the game, because I hit “guilty” once with the prosecution being all the way up to “reset to new game” and nothing happened.

Eventually after enough wins there’s a “TILT” message followed by WINNING IS LOSING. You can go back in the courthouse afterwards and repeat the whole process.

9 — THEATER

There are slightly unsettling nursery rhymes shown on a loop.

10 — GENERAL STORE

You can buy stuff, including the MAP I mentioned earlier, and a PAPER and BOOK which are useful for the next two places on my list. For some curious reason the shopkeeper will “adjust” their prices when you enter but all they do is increase all of them by one.

11 — NEWS STAND

I can’t get in. First it requests that I have PAPER, but then after it says THEY WON’T LET YOU IN even after holding the PAPER. This is true even when my score is up.

12 — LIBRARY

You buy a book from the general store and go in, where you get to burn books.

13 — SCHOOL

Professor Worm challenges you to spell words. The letters you type don’t always correspond to the letters on your keyboard so this is harder than it sounds. I have yet to get any of the words right.

14 — CAT AND MOUSE BAR

You have an above view where you can move around with U, D, L, and R. You can walk up to the bar and buy a drink, whereupon nothing happens and you reset back to your starting place. You can go to the right to leave.

15 — CHURCH

You can confess your sins, or give out your resignation number, or whatever I guess. There’s an open text parser and there’s ambiguous responses. The text parser has a limit to the character count that the original game didn’t have.

16 — CLOTHING STORE

The TOGA and CLOWN SUIT I mentioned earlier are here. I guess you can buy all the rest of the items and find out if any cause an effect somewhere.

The shop-keeper is in the middle of saying ALLOW ME TO ADJUST MY PRICES. Just like the other store all just go up by 1.

17 — GRAIL HALL

More doors like the switchyard.

18 — RECREATION HALL

There’s a pit you can cross by stepping on platforms without falling into a pit. It is fairly tricky and I haven’t managed yet. It seems (based on other locations) like it might take significant effort but only with the result of my score goes up by 5 or something.

19 — GEMINI DINER

There’s a list of items. If you read the menu and try to buy any of the items it says they’re not on the menu.

20 — CASINO

There are three slots. One slot gives vacuous statements that are either from 1984 or are 1984-esque.

Trying to use the second machine gets the response YOU DON’T HAVE THE MAKINGS. You don’t have a dollar, either.

That’s quite a lot to chew on and I’m not sure what I should be messing with. The original game just let you get into various shenanigans that seemed like escaping but weren’t, but the real way to escape was to go to the caretaker and tell him the right phrase. Here, I need a “keyhole” to even make it to the caretaker, and who knows if the phrase has changed. I suppose I should farm hangman a few more times for points (the word list is pretty small) and buy all the gear from both stores to see if they cause any new effects.

One other thing I should do is comb over the manual more, and in fact, I want to talk about it a little, because it is far more “in universe” than the original manual was, which gave straightforward if enigmatic advice. (“7. Above all, this is a game of psychology. While the Island is trying to keep you off balance, you must try to hoodwink the authorities. From your knowledge of the Island, try to guess how their minds must work. Your one hope for escape is to second guess them.”)

For the new manual, it is written as if from a journalist who is writing about the Island, titling it “A Wolf in the Fold: The Conspiracy Behind the Microcomputer”. The supposed journalist rambles about modern life and technology and mentions a journal that appeared as a mysterious text file called BOTTLE:

I tried to meet this Caretaker — I’m told he represents whomever is in charge. His house was easy enough to find, but his door was locked. I’m not so interested in answers that I’m willing to cool my heels until I’m let in. It’s time for me to leave.

Let’s see, if I can’t confront the top, I’ll sneak out through the bottom. My “official” map says there’s just a white picket fence surrounding the place. Yes, I see it there, down the street. Just climb over and . . . What the Hell is that? I’ve run into watchdogs both animal and electronic before, but nothing like this! It’s after me! I can’t outrun it …

A later section called THE KEY TO ESCAPE has the journalist allegedly explaining the secret:

Perhaps it takes an objective eye to see what one is facing, for I believe that I have discovered, from the bits of information I have gathered, the way out of The Island It’s all so deceptively simple. All one needs to do is CANCEL THIS LINE … CANCEL THIS LINE … CANCEL THIS LINE … INTERRUPT … INCOMING MESSAGE … BEGIN

This is followed by some text which is not from the journalist at all.

For those who don’t want to read all that (you’re tired and this is a long post, you’re on mobile, I’m happy for you or I’m sorry that happened, etc.) I just want to draw your attention to the fact it comments on how game is a remake and the commercialism implicit therein:

Such hypocrisy! Look at how he has succumbed to market pressure by taking a successful game (and don’t believe it is any more than this) and injecting the obligatory sound and high resolution graphics effects, just to make it competitive with everyone else’s product. Where is the originality? And he speaks of individually! Now there is doublethink for you.

I’ll attempt to bust open a few doors next time, or at least get caught by Rover in a more creative way. In The Prisoner 1 I missed an “ending” where you supposedly escaped and yet you really hadn’t (matching the episode Chimes of Big Ben where Number 2 figures out that he hasn’t made it to London but still is in the village). I’m hoping there’s some equivalent in Prisoner 2. I’ve put the relevant episode below with a time-stamp for the ending: