Renga in Blue   Interactive fiction and the All the Adventures project

(Continued from my previous post.)

From the Museum of Computer Adventure Games. Both the box art and disk use just “Caves” rather than “The Caves” but I’m giving the title screen priority.

First off, just to make it easier to visualize what I meant regarding the graphics (and how it completely ignores the vectors-with-fill paradigm everyone else was following), here is a portion of the game animated:

When I get closer to the end (or so frustrated at the game I don’t care about spoilers) I’ll poke at the source code, at least some of which is in BASIC, and see if I can decipher what’s going on behind the scenes. For now, let’s worry about the gameplay instead which still is drawing heavily off of paradigms I normally associate with gamebooks.

• Single movement commands sometimes imply a long journey
• Has paths that lead to random death
• Starts the player with weapons and a shield device, includes a running energy counter

I’ll discuss all of these, in order.

First, consider the gamebook Fire on the Water (the second Lone Wolf book, where the player obtains the legendary and overpowered Sommerswerd which lasts for the remainder of the twenty books). Every place on the map marked is included in the story.

Given there are only 350 sections, the game cannot afford to have one “step” between sections represent ten seconds or twenty seconds (as might happen in a traditional adventure game). Sometimes the transition between sections involves travelling many miles. By doing this, the game is also (as is traditional) uni-directional. “240: After three uneventful days at sea, you find shipboard life rather dreary.”: the player wouldn’t have three days of travel, followed by backtracking to the previous section. In one memorable series of travel sections, we’re trying to identify a killer (before the player is required to pick out of the suspects and have a confrontation); it doesn’t make sense to repeat scenes.

Here’s a description from the game:

YOU ARE IN

A SORT OF ANTEROOM.
AHEAD OF YOU – TO THE SOUTH – YOU SEE A 5.23 KILOMETER LONG CORRIDOR. TO YOUR RIGHT THERE IS AN EXIT…

On the map below, the 5.23 km encompasses the “Anteroom” going south to an “Armory”.

I don’t think it’s implied that every exit is in >1 kilometer range, but certainly it means some other exits have to be, and while in most adventures going north-then-south would imply stepping back and forth between a door, here it might indicate an hour of travel. This makes the opening I was puzzled about — where we went straight from the outdoors to past the meteorological station into the caves in one move — make more sense. It also makes the one-way passages you see (like the 5.23 km one) feel a little more palatable at least in a story sense, although in a gameplay sense they still made me grumble.

Second, regarding paths leading to random deaths, all the ones marked in red seem to be instant death with no escape. One of them (the Stasis Field) I originally couldn’t enter because I got blasted by a combat-robot, but I managed (after using an item I’ll mention later) to get by, just hitting a second death! This is a tradition back to regular Choose Your Own Adventure, and is a low-mechanics way to make a narrative seem like it has “challenge”.

Three deaths smooshed into one screen.

Third, regarding the weapons and the shield, here are details from the manual:

As the solitary prototype of the Vario-500 line of robot, you are equipped with a Force Field Generator, a Disintegrator, and a Blaster. The generator will keep all attacking objects or dangerous energy discharges from you, unless it becomes overloaded. Normal physical activities will not be impeded by the presence of the force field. This is due to the intellitroller implanted within the generator housing. This device actively controls the force field and instantaneously adjusts for changes in body position and the number of possessions you are carrying.

Your disintegrator will disrupt the molecular-energy bonds of almost any target. This will cause whatever you are shooting at to be effectively converted to an expanding cloud of gas. The blaster will project a high intensity energy beam, melting most any object in its path. Both of these weapons are very effective. Depending on the result desired, one weapon may be more desirable under given circumstances than the other. Your knowledge and deduction will have to be your guide.

I can theoretically type BLAST (melting) vs. DISINTIGRATE (converting to gas) to get different actions, but I haven’t seen anything happen with either in practice. I might even be using the wrong verbs.

I have the force-field figured out, sort of. ACTIVATE FORCE-FIELD changes a message in your inventory to indicate it is on. I only say sort-of because the one place I’d like to use it I get blasted anyway.

The place I’d love to use it is where there’s a Laren (one of the alien bad guys). Trying to shoot him or move past him results in death in every combination I’ve tried, with the force field both on and off.

He’s quicker to the draw.

I’ve solved two puzzles, at least, one which I alluded to already. In the northwest corner of the map there is a “cocoon center”.

Wearing the mask, colorfully, informs us

YOU HAVE CHANGED BACK TO THE EMPEROR OF THE FREE TRADERS!

which is apparently enough to make robots grovel at our feet. Some lore from the manual to help explain:

Before the Laren invaded the star system, you (Vario 500) had hundreds of different cocoon-masks to enable you to take almost any form you desired. Most of the masks are now hidden all over Olympus, useless to anyone except yourself. The Anson Argyris mask was left in the caves after the Emperor had “officially” fled the planet, as it was necessary as an instrument to penetrate key chambers of the caves, should the robot have need to escape. It should be noted that you are only considered the Emperor (Anson Argyris) when you are wearing this mask.

In other words, we helped build the facility but forgot about the details, yet the robots there will remember us as long as we’re wearing the mask. Other than passing the robot (which allowed us to walk right into another death-trap) I haven’t got any useful result yet.

From the Armory I found a micro-bomb which I was able to use on a suspicious part of wall. This opened up a transmitter that I was able to hop in and go elsewhere, but unfortunately, elsewhere turned out to be that Laren death scene. So two puzzles solved leading directly to death!

I’m also facing a less-deadly foe of (probably) the parser. There’s another “wall” that looks suspicious and it seems like I ought to be pass through, but no verb I’ve attempted works, and I haven’t been able to blast it.

PUSH WALL even has a different message than normal: “YOU’RE DOING SOMETHING WRONG!”

Here’s another parser boss:

I don’t know what the clips are exactly, but based on poking through the manual for clues, they might help fix matter transporters, and one of the transporters (just south of the frustrating wall) is broken and kills you if you try to enter. Hence, I’d like to bring one to the other, but the game won’t let me. Yet another hint indicates wearing the mask ought to be sufficient to take the clips, but again, no dice (“THAT’S IMPOSSIBLE!”)

The Anson Argyris mask is necessary to perform certain tasks within the caverns to make escape possible. Some items may only be picked up if you are wearing the mask. For instance, the hairclips used in some identification procedures.

The general summary is I still don’t understand how to communicate with the game or what its norms are. I assume I already have everything I need to fight the Laren but I can’t. The same is true for getting through the wall or fixing the transmitter. Maybe everything will go smooth once I get the hang of it?