I’ve made a smidge of progress nibbling at the edges, enough for an update.
The tough thing about writing about adventure games is how often progress isn’t plot really as much as baby steps not made with any continuity, and certainly not delivered in a way that lends to clean narrative.
For example, one of the things I tried that failed was handling the spider and web. I had a matchbox and I thought perhaps I needed to bring it over to causes a fire (I’ve set many a web on fire now in adventures) but I hadn’t opened the matchbox yet. It only contains one “spent match”!
Additionally, the web and spider both were parsing LIGHT in such a way I suspected fire was the wrong direction (LIGHT WEB: “The web can’t be lit.”) so I decided to go a weapons route instead.
So, a sword isn’t a weapon? That’s curious. (Neither is a wooden stake, which I’ll get a hold of later.) The parser message does suggest that the right weapon will work, as trying to kill random objects doesn’t provide a similar response (“I think you should see a psychologist about your kill happy tendency!”)
The next thing I had earmarked to try was filling the glass carafe with holy water, which I had more success with: it worked! I then took the holy water over to Dracula, where I struggled for a while with verbs (POUR WATER didn’t work, either before or after waking DRACULA) finally coming up with throwing the entire carafe (you can’t just throw the water):
The wooden stake is the only thing achieved from this, and I haven’t used it for anything yet. I still have the suspicion Dracula gets some other use before getting taken down.
Despite what seemed like a fairly robust parser, I was running into enough verb difficulty I decided I need to do my big list again:
That’s pretty sizable, but it is interesting how much I’m still running into gaps; for example, there’s a puzzle with a geyser and a hole (still haven’t solved, but it seems like the hole needs blocking) where I tried to INSERT CLOAK (which of course isn’t understood).
I incidentally went on and tried my “extended comedy list” of verbs that I’ve really only seen in one place (mainly because it was discussed in comments recently), and guess which verb I found?
I suspect this is fishing and not sailing a boat, but with this game who knows?
One other extended verb I tested was STAMP, being hinted at from the inscription at the catacombs. I had originally assumed an item that you then stamp things with, but the response indicated STAMP was standalone:
Little happens except your foot is smarting a bit.
Oho! I expected to try it in the catacombs and die (given the warning) but I got the same response. Not Subterranean Encounter style to the warnings, then. After some experimentation I found STAMP worked at the Cube rooms, allowing teleportation from one room to the other.
This doesn’t unlock anything new (you can simply walk between the cube rooms), but I suspect later there will be good logistical reasons to do this.
Having done all that, I browsed back in the sea of green verbs and looked for anything helpful. I was staring at the very first word (CUT, I have no idea why I have it first) and realized I could try it back at the grass at the Elysian Fields:
If you try to visualize in a completely literal way this makes no sense — an entire supernatural field, and scissors will really reveal a secret item? — but I think this suggests not to get too fixated on physical reality in this game, and as long as two things go together in some sense (cutting and grass) they might be a solution to a puzzle.
Speaking of puzzle solutions, another verb that struck me was PRAY, which for some curious reason I hadn’t tried yet at the lost souls.
The failure to enter the gates shown above might be necessary at some junction for logistics purposes, but there is a way through the gate — you just need to open that Good Book from the church.
Yes, the furry ball seems to mostly serve as a way to prevent you from picking up objects, much like my own cats. If you go down you’ll land in front of the church.
To recap what’s needed for this part of the narrative
a.) you need to hand a coin to Charon to enter the land of the dead
b.) you need to cut grass at the Elysian Fields, the immortal rest place where the heroes go, with some scissors, in order to find and take a large diamond
c.) you can then pray to get sent to heaven, and use a Good Book to enter within
d.) then use the opportunity just to swipe a golden harp and get away
A fun clash of kleptomaniac adventurer and religion. (Although remember all treasures go to the altar! The instructions even chidingly remind you that the treasures aren’t really yours. I think it best not to read too much into the symbology of it all.)
I’m not left with much to ponder over: just the spider and the geyser and the small creature. Maybe the creature and the spider will fight, I haven’t tried that yet. However, being a hunt-the-object adventure there are no doubt some hidden puzzles, so I should probably comb over the whole map again looking for things to poke at.
If nothing else, I should try putting together gathering all the treasures I’ve managed so far into one “run” to see where I’m at scoring-wise (technically out of 250, although remember due to bugs potentially only 240 are possible). The inventory limit is pretty tight so this is one of those games where you solve the puzzles first and then do the “real walkthrough” where you only take the items you need when you need them.
Renga in Blue 
Part of me is confused by the logic surrounding the “get stake, throw carafe with holy water” part. I know it’s just “adventure game logic”, but why can’t you just pour the water over the inert dracula and then safely pick up the stake? Why was he just lying there incapacitated when there was vampire killing holy water just a few rooms away?
I like adventure games in general, but it’s stuff like this that really prevented me getting into these earlier text adventure games… Without really seeing what’s in front of you, succeeding depends more on trying to get into the developers head than your own perception (or at least, even more so than in more modern graphical / point and click adventures). Kind of ruins the immersion.
Also, may “Cast” refer to a magic spell perhaps? “Casting a spell”.
>cast spell
I don’t know the word spell
good theory, though, especially since the wand is still not doing anything (I’m guessing it really is waving the wand, just it only works in one place)
Maybe a specific spell you come across at some point? Like “cast heal”, “cast fireball”, “cast magic thingamabob”, something along those lines? Just speculating Herr though…
“I struggled for a while with verbs” went roughly in the same sequence you mention, yeah
I will say I’m fine plot-wise. One can easily imagine the holy water getting placed in the church specifically by the CRUDI (Catacomb Restoration and Ubiquitous Development Incorporated) because they know of the vampire issue nobody’s been up for definitively solving yet. Given Dracula is just a skeleton with the stake put in, I can also see why it doesn’t work pre-revival.
the fact you can’t just throw the liquid itself though, ugh (but of course, I Play So You Don’t Have To [tm])
Maybe instead of mowing the entire Elysian lawn, we should visualize you’re just cutting a patch of it and getting very lucky? (Although I’m reminded of descriptions in LotR of Samwise Gamgee manually trimming Frodo’s grass with shears, albeit what he’d be using are bigger than scissors.)
Have you found a certain item in the Crystal Grotto? It links to one of the puzzles you have unsolved. I’m not sure how much of the castle you have explored so far…
no crystal grotto discoveries
I managed to swim over to a castle and find an exploding flamethrower and a zombie
everything else I’ve written about
There is also a hidden location from the Crystal Grotto with a misleading name.
One of my big weaknesses in text adventures is missing exits and concealed objects. My memory of this one isn’t great but I do remember finding a) a fixture in the aforementioned location which needs to be manipulated and there is also a hidden room but I can’t remember the commands to find both. In rot13 gurer vf n uvqqra gnc juvpu vffhrf sbegu obvyvat jngre naq nyfb n ebbz gb gur abegu. V’z abg fher vs lbh unir sbhaq rvgure be obgu bs gurfr lrg. V guvax gung gur obvyvat jngre vf yvaxrq gb gur trlfre juvpu unf frireny ebbzf ernpunoyr sebz vg jura lbh ghea gur wrg bs jngre bss vapyhqvat n frjre naq n zvar envyjnl.
found what you meant in the grotto, although it never actually got _described_ until I found it … just I started referring to random things and the game felt like it existed
did you ever manage to dislodge the plug in the water?
I checked the hints currently at CASA and it seems like the other stuff I’m worrying about might be broken (garden + purple sphere + spider) but they weren’t able to get the plug either, however, I’m unclear how you can get 240 points without having solved the plug puzzle
I am pretty sure I used the trident on the plug but how I am not sure yet.
Maybe if you EXAMINE WALL the tap becomes visible? I am not sure now. I remember cutting the grass with the sicissors. Unfortunately I had a PC crash during the really hot weather here in June and some of my unsaved adventures folder seems to be missing (including a beta test for Jim Macbraine’s new version of his old PET game Dark Tower and several other games annoyingly). I only got home late last night but I will get back to you on what I remember anon.
Examine wall is what works, yeah (you can see my update post). There doesn’t seem to be a way to make the wall “visible”, you just have to guess that the noun works.
Slightly off-topic, but I also beta-tested Jim’s Dark Tower! :)
For some strange reason, it never showed up in IFDB: https://ifdb.org/search?searchfor=jim+macbrayne&searchgo=Search+Games
I wonder why? I managed to complete the old PET version and he was piqued to rewrite it for Windows with sound effects etc. I think it is, with Christminster, one of the few games I have ever come across where you have to negotiate a large section in darkness.
It is up on his itch.io with the name “Black Tower”; I’m not sure if it changed or if we are just mis-remembering it. I checked some of the other IFDB entries for his games and they are all more-or-less outdated, since his previous website is offline. Maybe I’ll spend a few minutes later and point them all to the right itch.io page.
Yes I think they have been offline for a while. And you’re right I meant Black Tower. Jim emailed me the games directly a while ago (the updated versions that is). It was quite funny playing through Black Tower as he couldn’t remember the solutions to some of the puzzles himself; I believe he was heavily influenced by Brian Cotton’s Supersoft games – for instance Cornucopia has a forest of strange mushroom-like growths and Jim included them in most of his games. I believe that Jim’s other PET game Excalibur has a bug that prevents you from finishing it. I would thoroughly recommend his games as I’m sure you would. They are tough but very interesting to play.
I suspect that some of the puzzles contained herein were inserted by the author with the intention of being given a solution later but they never were; something like the Secretarial Pool in Warp. The furry ball is one I think; it seems to serve no purpose and you can only get rid of it from the top of the church. Other puzzle solutions seem illogical, like the zombie and the farmer. I am going to revisit the game this week and see if replaying jogs my memory. I know I ercnverq gur synzrguebjre ng fbzr fgntr ohg V pna’g erzrzore ubj nf vg hfrq gb zryg. Cbffvoyl gur cra.