Renga in Blue   Interactive fiction and the All the Adventures project

(Continued directly from my last post.)

ZX Spectrum cover, via Mobygames.

I’ve managed to map out and “clear” most of the opening area. I will show the map in a moment but I do want to first show a part of what it was like in progress.

This is showing the initial room (End of Road) with the stream going south, and the forest maze to the west as far as I had mapped it. At the time I was still having trouble with the wolves (another thing I’ve now managed to clear up) so I was only able to do the object-dropping method a little bit in the Lost in Forest area before dying. Both “Valley” and “20 Foot Depression” on the map also enter the Lost in Forest area, but I had no idea where to link them.

This reflects one of the major mapping difficulties I’ve had in the past, not correctly drawing in new rooms, but connecting up rooms that get entered from an alternate direction. Both Empire of the Overmind and Kadath had this issue; Empire probably unintentionally, Kadath muddled with and played with the idea. The curious thing is that this seems to be a text-adventure only idea, I can’t think of any moment during a graphical adventure or 3D adventure where I had a similar issue.

Amidst the forest I eventually found a tree I could climb which had a silver ball (see above). This got me the idea — due to 1.) silver + werewolves being a thing 2.) dogs + balls being a thing — to try throwing the ball at the wolves to see if anything would happen.

OK. The wolves are startled and run off.

This turned out to be “right solution for the wrong reason” because you can throw any item (or at least anything I’ve tried) and startle the wolves that way. So the wolves turn from a deadly enemy into an annoyance as (while in the initial forest area) you have to throw something every 10 steps or so.

With the silver ball not actually being needed for wolves, I decided (given it is described as valuable) to try giving it to the unicorn instead.

The unicorn snorts disdainfully.

At least the action was acknowledged, suggesting giving the right item is the right action. The next most logical thing to try seemed to be the rare orchid (the one I could get by bringing in a table in order to stand on to reach high enough):

The ball is “very valuable”, the orchid is just “probably valuable”. This isn’t a Treasure Hunt but I still may need to keep an eye on this.

Following the unicorn, I found “a grove of tall trees” described as relics of the original Great Forest, a medallion, and some pan pipes.

The medallion is the Talisman of Life spoken of in the scroll I received last time, and just as a reminder (to both you and myself, since it is clue-laden) I’ll quote the whole thing:

Take the Talisman to the Black Tower through the four elements twice. It can defeat the Demon Lord, but only a companion can bring victory at the end. The Talisman is nearby, but you will also need four Stones to gain entry and these are guarded by servants of the Demon. The blessing of Typo, God of Adventures, goes with you.

It appears the next phase is to find the four “servants” being spoken of, although to be honest I’m just bouncing everywhere the game lets me go. Here’s my mostly-complete map of the starting area:

I say mostly because there’s still the darkness going down in the building and there still may be something found, and of course it is always possible I’ve missed something (the cliff to the far south, for instance? … although I get the vibe it is just a barrier).

Moving on to the north is a wide trackless desert.

As the second screenshot implies, there’s a sandworm that prowls around. You hear sliding sand approaching and getting louder over a number of turns before you get eaten. One approach is to simply run back to the edge of the desert on rocky ground to be safe.

Of course this doesn’t allow exploration. I’ve found, rather oddly, that I can stall the worm a little bit if I WAVE TALISMAN — that Talisman of Life from the grove — which will give me an extra turn, but the worm still won’t leave entirely.

The desert also has scattered pillars, as shown. The white dot clearly matches the white dot at the building from the start of the game, but I haven’t gotten it to react to anything.

I have not entirely mapped the desert out but I did find if you go far north and then west enough steps you can go north one more step to arrive at a canyon. Following the path of the canyon you can finally go inside into safety, passing by a sphinx on the way.

Once inside the valley the worm stops appearing, although you still have to deal with thirst. There’s a handy oasis but a Djinn who harasses you.

Weirdly, you can just go south again and the Djinn will teleport you to the place you are trying to go.

However, the Djinn will still threaten you for entering the oasis a second time. For example, if you go south in the water you can find a trident, but if you then go back north you’ll get teleported somewhere else entirely.

This second scene was after I had picked up the “oriental lamp” from the oasis and was carrying it, so it isn’t as if the Djinn is restricted to the lamp. I’m not fully sure what to do here, but this seems like a good moment to leave off.