Renga in Blue   Interactive fiction and the All the Adventures project

(Prior posts here.)

Well, I’m geographically close to the end. With this game that might mean I’m still far away.

From the Japanese FM 77 AV version of the cover, via Mobygames.

As a bit of a mental break I decided to test out the text version of the game. It seems fairly similar except it is missing the key from MOVE BODY at the beginning, meaning I can’t open the suitcase, meaning I can’t get at the mask and the magic button. Since the button allows travel into the tunnels I was stuck earlier than the other version of the game. Given how complete everything else feels I think it’s just a matter of the puzzle getting changed.

Four changes of note, though:

1.) the player shoots the assassin dead with six shots rather than knocking him out; that’s better at explaining why the gun is empty at the start

2.) the telegram is slightly less nebulous

IT READS: “DISREGARD “ZILCH”
NEW WORD IS “ZORCH”.
P.S. – BOMB SET FOR 6:15 –
GET OUT OF THE HOTEL BEFORE THEN!

that is, ZILCH is simply the old password, superceded by ZORCH, although I’m curious on the whole reason for the bomb in a plot sense, since my original assumption was the assassin himself planted the bomb, otherwise, why have him go there in the first place?

3.) the beggar at the zoo explicitly is asking for treasure

4.) the note from the popcorn vendor is very different

Point 3 turned out to be helpful. I was ready to approach the beggar and just give each and every one of my inventory items to see if any would get a reaction, but since I knew the original game had him ask for treasure, I tried the LEWIS CARROLL book.

The dollar can then be used to buy the popcorn. I already had in mind to take the popcorn to the bird to feed it, and while it consumed the popcorn happily, there was no other visible change. Still, I decided the bird + snake combo from Adventure was worth another try:

This leaves behind the rock and a ticket. The ticket is for the movie theater.

The theater just has the lobby, a bathroom…

…and the lair of Mr. Topp.

The slit ended up falling into what I call a plot-dependent puzzle. This is a puzzle where the solving of it involves applying some information obtained by paying attention to the plot. Many adventure game puzzles are not plot dependent and if you port the exact same items over but with a different scenario nothing gets affected. (Realizing what the Dungeon Master wants in Zork III is plot-dependent; getting by the grues in the dark room is not. While the grue section creates a memorable plot event, it could easily have been tossed in Zork I with no changes, whereas realizing the motivations of the Dungeon Master requires transplanting essentially the entire plot of Zork III.)

I think the most spectacular variant of this is the central puzzle in Spider and Web, where you have to understand where the entire plot structure of the game was leading. Here is a similar moment. I’d been bouncing around more or less trying to get past the next obstacle, but I realized up to this point I had substituted for and was pretending to be the assassin; that was the masquerade of the title. That is, the assassin is summoned via a telegram and isn’t “in the club” yet; we’ve tracked the assassin and either killed or knocked him out depending on what universe we’re in, then not only took his mask and used it but gave his password out, followed by giving another password and receiving the flower to let the criminal organization know we were “safe” (even if we looked like a detective otherwise!)

Hence I deduced what could go in the slot was the assassin’s business card.

Plot-dependent puzzles tend to be extremely satisfying (and unique for adventure games!) This only has the flaw that it is quite possible to brute force through (just test every item in the game on the slot and eventually you’ll get through) so it isn’t like the Zork III or Spider and Web instances where you can’t get through via luck.

The ruse falls apart if you try to go in.

So the question here is: does this mean I need another “disguise element” so Mr. Topp is off guard? (Maybe literally take the assassin’s face like in Asylum II?) Or does this mean my disguise is now “complete” and I need armor and/or an appropriate weapon?

Whatever is going on, I’ve got a few loose threads left. I still never found any method of surviving the elevator or reaching the grates in the tunnels. I’ve managed to kill the gorilla by throwing him the flower (!) but that doesn’t seem to have any use.

You can then use the magic button to safely enter but the cage gets locked behind you, and there’s no new items or the like.

You can, weirdly, throw the rock in the monkey house and it will “roll under the gorilla” as opposed to flying off like it does everywhere else, but I have found nothing useful come from this.

I haven’t gotten into the office of the zoo yet either — still getting stopped by sercurity. My suspicion is there’s some control in the office that turns off the electric fence, revealing another route.

Rather more importantly, I haven’t found any real “alternate solutions”. Remember, part of the setup on this game (according to the ADVENTURER from the text version) is that you can use up items in “wrong ways” to solve puzzles in different ways than the real route. That doesn’t mean for sure I’m doing things wrong — maybe I lucked out! — but I still nevertheless am missing a chunk of content for the game.

Winning post either next time or four posts from now, who knows.