Renga in Blue   Interactive fiction and the All the Adventures project

(Continued from my previous post.)

I did finally get to grips with the monstrous map, and I even included the whole thing so far as a 4143 by 2839 image file, but first a few words on rallies vs. races, and the tradition of “gimmick rallies”.

There’s a very important difference between rallies and races which is best exemplified by the final leg of The Gumball Rally movie:

It looks like Franco’s team loses by just a few seconds (thanks partially due to a stop for Linda Vaughn). In reality, this is a rally, and the thing that counts is overall time. There was a time difference of 10 seconds at the start, meaning he actually won!

Rallies (needing to travel along real roads) are asynchronous and are scored by all sorts of things. I already alluded to the use of puzzles in “gimmick rallies”; they often track ability to navigate more than speed, which is why rallies tend are done in teams (one driver, one navigator). For a recent real life example, here’s a clip from a gimmick rally cued up to some directions being read:

This is all relevant to Uncle Harry’s Will because I think the poem that serves as instructions really does give the vibe of the slightly-corny directions you’d get in a gimmick rally. They were certainly around in 1981; Jean Calvin’s Rallying to Win (still available in an updated edition) was first published in 1974 and mentions different species like the photograph rally (where all directions are in the form of photographs of locations), the scavenger hunt, or what the book calls the “grand old man” of gimmick rallies, the poker rally:

The instructions call out route-following procedure, but ordinarily there is no tight time schedule. There will be an elapsed time for the entire run, and along the route either five or seven checkpoints. Instead of receiving a time at the control, each team draws a card from a standard deck of playing cards. At the finish, the team with the best poker hand is the winner.

Here’s the map I mentioned; click the image to view its high-resolution glory. Dark blue marks positions that hold items, showing how few objects there have been so far.

The freeway took an enormous amount of time to map but it was the kind of map where I wasn’t discovering new things but just figuring out what looped back to where, and then repositioning multiple times to have the map make a modicum of sense. It’s still incredibly messy.

There are two gas stations (marked in orange). It takes much longer to happen than with Gumball Rally Adventure but your car does eventually run out of gas, essentially the equivalent of the lamp in Adventure. It takes so long it no longer has the incessant simulationist feel of the previous game. However, while the gas station lets you buy GAS, OIL, and a TIRE (letting you get by that one road I mentioned last time) it initially tells you that you have no money.

I was able to find a way to get access to the gas station’s services which I’ll show off shortly. Note on the map the Border Crossing on the west side. Just a bit to the east there’s a Passport Office with a border pass you can use:

YOU’RE OUT OF YOUR CAR
YOU ARE IN THE PASSPORT OFFICE
HEAPS OF OLD PAPERS COVER THE COUNTER
THERE IS A BORDER PASS LAYING ON A COUNTER HERE

However, as you can see from the map, the border doesn’t really go anywhere! All you can find is a “BOTTLE OF COKE”, and if you try to take it with you it turns out to be the other kind of coke.

YOU HAVE BEEN CAUGHT WITH A BOTTLE OF COCAINE. YOU GO TO JAIL!
GEE WHIZ! JUST WHEN YOU WERE GETTING SOMEPLACE!
WELL, BETTER LUCK NEXT TIME. AT LEAST YOU’LL KNOW
BETTER THAN TO DO THAT AGAIN!

Turning over to that poem now, the first part of the poem seems to indicate the final destination:

BEHIND THE WALL, BELOW THE RISE,
IN THE ROOM MY TREASURE LIES
IN ALL DIRECTIONS YOU SHOULD DRIVE
TO FIND IT, YOU MUST STAY ALIVE
ON YOUR WAY ACROSS THE NATION

I think this might be the house right at the start; if you go around to the back there’s some stairs down and a second locked door. (“Below the rise”?)

YOU ARE ON THE WALKWAY AT THE BASE OF THE FRONT PORCH
STEPS LEAD WEST TO THE FRONT PORCH
ANOTHER WALKWAY LEADS NORTH AROUND THE SIDE OF THE HOUSE
>N
YOU ARE ON A WALKWAY AT THE NE CORNER OF THE HOUSE
THE WALKWAY CURVES WEST AND SOUTH HERE
THERE IS A WIRE FENCE ALONG THE BORDERS
>W
YOU ARE ON THE NORTH SIDE OF THE HOUSE
STEPS HERE LEAD DOWN TO THE BASEMENT
THE WALKWAY HERE LEADS EAST AND WEST
>D
YOU ARE AT THE BOTTOM OF THE STEPS
A SMALL DOOR IS SET INTO THE NORTH SIDE OF THE HOUSE HERE
THE DOOR IS LOCKED FROM THE INSIDE

The next part of the poem refers to a “station”, presumably a gas station, and says there is a “smoky hill” that will lead the way.

YOU’LL HAVE NEED TO FIND A STATION
THE SMOKEY HILL WILL LEAD THE WAY
I KNOW YOU’LL FIND IT, COME WHAT MAY

The hill in question is visible one of the western towns, Lakecity.

Specifically, at the ferry:

YOU ARE AT A FERRY DOCK
A FERRY IS HERE WAITING TO LOAD
ACROSS THE LAKE SMOKE CAN BE SEEN
RISING BEHIND SOME HILLS
>N
YOU ARE ON THE FERRY CROSSING A LONG LAKE
THE FERRY PULLS INTO A DOCK ON THE EAST SHORE
YOU CAN SEE SMOKE BEHIND SOME HILLS AHEAD
THE DOCK IS TO THE NORTH

This leads to a route which culminates in a “paper bag” by a road which has a card for free service at a gas station. Once you get the car you can BUY OIL, BUY GAS, and BUY TIRES while at one. I’m still puzzling over if the card is meant to be the goal of following the ferry directions, or if there’s something else entirely going on. (Or maybe even if the map is bugged. There’s one road where one part is inexplicably one-way such that I’m almost sure it was unintentional.)

If it wasn’t for the direction that makes your tires go flat, you could go to the paper bag in a much more direct way. It only affects the car going westbound, so if you go east you can land right back at the starting town.

I’m also still unclear about the next part of the poem:

FOLLOW THE SUN AT THE END OF DAY
TO GET ACROSS, YOU’LL FIND A WAY
STAY ON THE ROAD OF THE GOLDEN BAR

“Follow the sun at the end of day” surely means that we’re driving west, but there are only two places on the map where I have the opportunity to drive west and are unable to; everything else is mapped out. First, most straightforwardly, is a “RICKITY” bridge near the Passport Office that collapses. I suspect this is meant as a trap rather than a puzzle.

YOU ARE ON RICKITY ROAD
THERE IS A BRIDGE TO THE WEST
A SIGN READS: RICKITY BRIDGE
>W
YOU ARE ON A RICKITY BRIDGE
THE BRIDGE BEGINS TO SWAY AND ROCK
IT FALLS WITH A CRASH INTO THE RIVER
YOU ARE KILLED! TSK. TSK.
GEE WHIZ! JUST WHEN YOU WERE GETTING SOMEPLACE!
WELL, BETTER LUCK NEXT TIME. AT LEAST YOU’LL KNOW
BETTER THAN TO DO THAT AGAIN!

This even happens if you’re on foot! (By the way, the way the game treats walking on the street while out of your car is repeatedly saying IF YOU’RE GOING TO WALK, IT’LL TAKE FOREVER. If you walk over the spot on the map that pops your tire, the game will still claim the tire-popping happens, but you can walk back to the car and drive off like normal.)

The other more likely possibility for going west is back at the lake. If you drive southwest there’s a sign about tuning into the station KXXX, which is a hint that you should try to PLAY the RADIO:

THANKS FOR TUNING KXXX
AND NOW FOR THE NEWS:
MOUNT SAINT TROY ERUPTED TODAY SPEWING ASH AS FAR EAST AS AMIKAY
ROUTE 14 IS COVERED WITH UP TO FOUR FEET OF ASH IN PLACES
BE SURE TO CARRY A SHOVEL IF TRAVELING THAT WAY
MOTORISTS ARE CAUTIONED NOT TO GET TOO CLOSE TO THE VOLCANO
AS FURTHER ERUPTIONS ARE EXPECTED AT ANY TIME
THE NEAREST ACCESS ROAD IS COUNTY ROAD T8
HAVE A NICE TRIP

Just a bit further, a “great pile of ash” is blocking the way.

YOU ARE ON ROUTE 14
A GREAT PILE OF ASH BLOCKS THE ROAD HERE

However, weirdly enough, if you have the shovel with you, the way is blocked (“YOU CAN’T DO THAT”). The way to get through is to not have the shovel. This is 100% clearly a bug; the author must have swapped a logic statement somewhere. (Or there was a very slight corruption of the file which did the same thing, that has happened here before.)

YOU ARE ON ROUTE 14 A N-S ROAD
A DIRT SIDE ROAD LEADS EAST
>S
YOU ARE AT THE MAIN INTERSECTION IN THE
TOWN OF AMIKAY. MOST OF THE TOWN IS COVERED
WITH A FINE WHITE ASH

Going west you are blocked by a “locked gate” and … that’s it. I’m stuck from here. The map is big enough I’m sure it might be worthwhile to check over everything again, but the shovel bug in particular has lowered my confidence significantly and I might poke in the source code before too long.

A “gimmick map” from the 1974 road rally book.