(Continued from my prior post here.)
As I suspected, I didn’t have far to go, and it was a matter of verbs, really.
I had to deal with a ghost with the given inventory above. Due to some emulator glitch issues (which were bad enough I had to revert to a prior version of Classic99 to get the program running again) I had to replay to this point where I discovered the purpose of the glowing cube was just to give light to the cellar, so I knew it probably wasn’t the solution to the ghost. (This is definitely a one-object-to-one-puzzle sort of game.)
I had already tried THROWing all my various objects with no luck, until I hit upon, even though the visualization doesn’t make any sense to me, POUR LIQUID.
Maybe this would make sense to me if the ghost was preventing me from going down, but it was preventing me from going up. I get the sense the author didn’t visualize the act as much as think “what’s the action that goes with taking liquid out of a container” and rolled with it.
Above the ghost is where the “grab everything” aspect becomes useful; the chair from earlier can be used for a lift, so you can STAND CHAIR to get up to the attic.
This is a pretty interesting moment (at least for me the most interesting one of the game), as if you try to take the ruby and go down, you’ll get teleported back to the attic. In terms of atmosphere it is the best moment of the game. Except: unless there’s a way I’m missing to drop items — and surely there is, right? — this also represents a softlock, if you don’t have the means to teleport out from here.
As long as you have the chocolate chip cookie from the vampire, you can make a great escape.
This last shot I had to get by unusual means. The screen vanishes too quickly for a screenshot or even reading it (probably the emulator’s fault, not the game’s) which meant I had to replay and start OBS to make a recording. Then I freeze-frame advanced until I could see what the text for winning is. Just like how Aqua Base signaled Haunted House as the next game to play in the series, this one tags Miner 49’er (which seems to be Mr. Morgan’s take on Ghost Town/Greedy Gulch).
The ending screen would have been funnier had I reached the attic without having tried eating the cookie yet, since the game doesn’t even describe the teleportation aspect; you just go straight to the win screen, so somehow you have to infer what it is a cookie did to lead to a great escape.
These “bespoke command only” games can be intensely frustrating but at least this one was easy enough to work; I dread eventually getting up to In Search of the Four Vedas which is supposed to be “expert” level. However, I’m going go ahead and stick with Miner as my next game because I’m feeling “in the groove” of the author and it helps with playing other games; even just remembering that LOOK is the only verb for examining things can take a little while to get the hang of. (I should point out the issue from Aqua Base didn’t happen here — that of deceptive “you can’t do that messages” — simply by virtue of almost no verbs getting implemented in a general way at all. One advantage of only accepting bespoke phrases, I suppose.)
Via Pixelpedant.
So … that’s it. Not much to report this time! Videogames are good, I guess? Anyone been playing any good non-adventures lately? I’ve got a Baldur’s Gate 3 run going (I picked my character with the Random feature and it gave me a Warlock with a patron of the Great Old One, so Cthulhu basically) and I’ve also been struggling through Void Stranger which is like you took the apparently-linear gameplay of a puzzle game but mashed it with La-Mulana type secrets and meta-aspects and came up with something wild on the other end. Nothing is as it seems. Also I’ve embarked on the Japan-only Wizardry Gaiden series and it still doesn’t quite capture the same magic as original Wizardry but I hear it improves as it goes on. The new Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord remake looks interesting — it literally is using the Apple II version as the “frame code” and you can watch the Apple II version simultaneous with the remake graphics — but I played the game recently enough I’m not itching for another traversal yet.
Renga in Blue 
Pour liquid makes sense even if it’s above, you’re pouring it on what you can reach. Like pouring liquid on someone’s feet. It just feels obtuse because there’s no place where pour liquid would work that throw liquid wouldn’t also work.
If I had a nickel for every time this week I found out about a game based on an Indian religion, I would have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s a weird coincidence.
What’s the other one?
Tripitaka, the thought lost game from the developers of Cosmology of Kyoto. Formerly so lost people apparently only knew it existed from some developers CV. Now only so lost there’s no released copy on the internet anywhere.
at least they put a video even if they’re not dumping the game!
Maybe the pink liquid is a libation.
I’ve been doing a lot of the Into the Breach expansion! Which probably is old but I only noticed it a couple weeks ago. And I was playing a ton of Bombe, which is automated Minesweeper–instead of clicking on mines and clear spaces, you write rules like “If you have two non-intersecting regions with 1 bomb in each, contained entirely in another region that has 2 bombs in it, any leftover spaces in the larger region must be clear.” (The interface makes that easier to do than I made that sound, though not easier enough.) But I was stubbornly trying to clear a zone instead of doing the other available puzzles, and I got to a point where (a) I cannot even figure out what the next step is, let alone how to phrase it in terms of these rules and (b) I have so many rules making so many regions that the game slows to a crawl when I try to do anything. So I’ve been taking a break from it.
I am also engaged in my usual pastime of looking at all these other cool games people are playing and wishing they had Mac ports, and wondering which of my old games will wind up completely broken when I get my computer replaced! Really hoping they don’t finally break Knytt Underground.
watched some videos of Bombe
brain melted
I think it might be a while before I tackle that one
That’s amazing, a few years ago I had the exact same idea for a game like Bombe, except with path puzzles like Slitherlink/Monorail instead of Minesweeper. I didn’t get too far into implementing it before running out of steam, though. I’m glad someone else made it work!