Renga in Blue   Interactive fiction and the All the Adventures project

I have finished the game. For reasons you will discover I may have been the first person to finish the game since the author.

(You can read my entries on Uncle Harry’s Will in order here.)

The copyright date on this game is 1981 although it may not have been published until 1982 (when it first shows up in the Dynacomp catalog). This is the year of the first Cannonball Run movie, sort of like the Gumball Rally movie but even sillier.

When I left off, I was enormously stuck on either crossing a collapsing bridge or getting by a locked gate. As I guessed, the bridge was just a trap, and the gate was the way to go. What I did not guess is that the locked gate would open more or less by magic.

This was down where there was a volcano erupting and lots of ash. You could PLAY RADIO (as hinted at by a sign nearby) to hear an update on the volcano:

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

I had also found to approach further I needed to not be holding the shovel (“YOU ARE ON ROUTE 14 / A GREAT PILE OF ASH BLOCKS THE ROAD HERE”) and for some reason I was able to get by, which was clearly a bug, since holding the shovel means the player is stopped. Playing around with the bug some more I finally was able to SHOVEL ASH and get a message about clearing the ash away, and progress is possible.

Studying the radio message carefully, while I knew I had already checked every exit from every room in the volcano area, I wondered if I had checked any of them before listening to the radio, with the idea that hearing about “COUNTRY ROAD T8” might be the trigger to find such a road in the first place. I tested every exit and while I was at it tested the locked gate, and…

YOU ARE ON COUNTY FIRE ROAD T8
T8 LEADS INTO THE HILLS TO THE WEST
TO THE NORTHWEST IS MOUNT ST. TROY
SMOKE AND ASH POURS FROM THE MOUTH OF THE VOLCANO
THERE IS A LOUD POP! YOU HAVE A FLAT TIRE!

…what? Somehow the radio (plus the shoveling, I think?) was enough to trigger the door being open, which makes no sense at all. I’ve certainly had games with secret passages not revealed until you have the relevant info (as I had been testing here) but I’ve never had that be what triggers a lock to open.

Ugh. My first time through here, I didn’t have the spare tire replacement and had to re-do my steps so I had one before going through the tire-blowing. It happens both east-bound and west-bound so once through you can’t go back the same way.

Next is just a small maze-area of intersections, including a picnic table with a transit coupon you need to get through a toll gate later.

Also, if you like death scenes, there’s a volcano if you go the wrong way.

YOU ARE AT THE BASE OF THE VOLCANO
PLUMES OF SMOKE AND ASH RISE INTO THE AIR ABOVE YOU SUDDENLY, THE VOLCANO ERUPTS! PYROCLASTIC FLOWS POUR OVER THE RIM OF THE CRATER. GREAT BLACK CLOUDS OF ASH AND SMOKE COVER THE AREA. YOU ARE CHOKING! THE TEMPERATURE RISES TO 800 DEGREES. YOU ARE PAR-BROILED.TOO BAD
BETTER LUCK NEXT TIME!

Heading past the maze north runs you into “T5 WESTBOUND THROUGH A FOREST” where going west results in “A LOG BLOCKS YOUR WAY”. Fortunately, I had a chainsaw at the ready (my very first item picked up in the game) and did SAW LOG.

The road then turns south to an ENDLESS TUNNEL and this is a sort of gag to the player who might be wondering “did the code turns this into an infinite loop so it really is endless?

YOU ARE ON THE COAST ROAD
THERE IS A TUNNEL AHEAD TO THE SOUTH
A SIGN READS: ENDLESS TUNNEL
>S
YOU ARE IN THE ENDLESS TUNNEL
>S
YOU ARE IN THE ENDLESS TUNNEL
>S
YOU ARE IN THE ENDLESS TUNNEL
>S
YOU ARE IN THE ENDLESS TUNNEL
>S

It is not literally endless and you end up in the small town of Endless on the other side. The only things to do in Endless are take a toll road east back to Bordertown (using the coupon from the picnic table) or take a ferry ride over to the next town.

You may be thinking, “didn’t we use our ferry ticket already to get at the gas station card and be able to fuel up the car?” You’d be absolutely right. Fortunately, in the throes of being stuck on other things, I combed back over the original towns and found that if you use the ferry ticket up, it (“another one” I mean) magically re-appears back at the dump where it first appears.

YOU ARE AT THE ENDLESS FERRY
A BOAT IS WAITING TO LOAD
HAVE YOUR TICKET READY
>W
YOU ARE ON THE FERRY TO GOLD ISLAND
THE SEA IS ROUGH AND YOU ARE SEASICK
THE FERRY FINALLY DOCKS ON THE SOUTH SIDE OF THE ISLAND
TO THE NORTH CAN BE SEEN A SMALL TOWN

The town of Yellowbar is large, annoying to map out, and a lot of it consists of recently built homes on “Simba Estates”. To be fair this describes my experience sometimes in navigating such communities. Would it kill them to use a grid?

>NW
YOU ARE ON GOLDEN DRIVE
THERE IS A CAR PARKED HERE
A SIGN TO THE NORTH READS:
SIMBA ESTATES
>N
YOU ARE AT THE INTERSECTION OF GOLDEN DRIVE AND ANDERSON
THERE ARE MANY NEW HOMES HERE
>W
YOU ARE AT THE CORNER OF MARCUS AND ANDERSON
>N
YOU ARE AT THE INTERSECTION OF MARCUS AND BARBER

With the “CAR PARKED HERE” I should put up a reminder we’ve been chasing the directions of a poem.

STAY ON THE ROAD OF THE GOLDEN BAR
‘TILL YOU FIND THE PLACE WITH THE PARKED CAR
FOLLOW THE LION ‘TILL YOU FIND THE SCHOOL

I guess Uncle Marcus is highly confident the parked car is just going to stay there forever. In a planned community? Maybe it’s one of the slacker Home Owner Associations. (To be fair, we’re in Imaginary Country Gamma, not the real United States or Canada or whatever.)

I spent a while searching for a “lion” and the general feel was oddly like a real road rally scavenger hunt as I went through the variety of road names (Jones, Miller, Johnson, Adams, Jackson, Barber, Anderson, Murphy, Thorp, Lomac, Todd, Owens…) searching for a potential pun, but no luck. However, I hadn’t tried messing around with the railroad tracks yet.

There are a couple points where there’s a railroad crossing, and trying to go along the railroad says you can’t go in a car. You have to disembark here and walk. Going in a tunnel collects another death.

OK, YOU’RE OUT OF YOUR CAR
>E
YOU ARE ON A W-E SET OF TRACKS
THERE IS A MOUNTAIN TO THE SOUTH
>E
YOU ARE ON THE TRACKS
THERE IS A TUNNEL ENTRANCE TO THE EAST
>E
YOU ARE IN A RAILROAD TUNNEL
IT IS VERY DARK BUT TO THE NORTH
YOU CAN SEE A LIGHT. IT IS GETTING CLOSER AND CLOSER. IT IS A TRAIN!!
YOU ARE RUN OVER. TOUGH LUCK!

However, one part of the tracks leads you to a “roaring” noise that surely is what was meant by the lion.

YOU ARE ON THE TRACKS EAST OF TOWN
THE TRACKS SWING SE AND WEST HERE
>SE
YOU ARE ON THE TRACKS SOUTH OF A LARGE MOUNTAIN
A SIDING TO THE NORTH PARALLELS THE TRACKS HERE
THERE IS A CABOOSE SETTING ON THE SIDING YOU CAN HERE A ROARING SOUND COMING FROM THE OTHER SIDE OF THE CABOOSE
>N
YOU ARE AT THE EAST END OF THE CABOOSE
THERE IS A DOOR INTO THE CABOOSE HERE
THE ROARING SOUND IS LOUDER HERE
>W
YOU ARE IN THE CABOOSE
THERE IS A DOOR AT THE EAST END
THERE IS A SMALL CROWBAR LAYING HERE

The roaring is not a train about to run us over (as the game intentionally seems to indicate) but a waterfall.

YOU ARE ON THE EDGE OF A CLIFF
IN A CANYON BELOW TO THE NORTH IS A RAGING RIVER FILLED WITH ROCKS A HIGH WATERFALL TO THE NE POURS TONS OF WATER INTO THE RIVER
A BOILING CLOUD OF MIST RISES FROM THE BASE OF THE FALLS
THERE IS A TRAIL LEADING INTO THE CANYON TO THE NW

The trail leads to the penultimate section of the game.

A fork in a trail leads one way to Bradley Academy (abandoned) and the other way to a baseball field (also abandoned).

THE TRAIL HERE RUN N-S
TO THE EAST IS THE ROARING RIVER
TO THE WEST A HIGH CLIFF RISES 200 FEET
>N
YOU ARE AT A FORK IN THE TRAIL
THE NW FORK LEADS UP THE SIDE OF THE CLIFF
THE NE FORK CONTINUES ALONG THE WEST BANK OF THE RIVER
A SIGN TO THE NW READS: BRADLEY ACADEMY
A TRAIL LEADS SOUTH
>NW
YOU ARE AT THE TOP OF THE CLIFF
THERE IS AN OLD SCHOOLYARD HERE
THE SCHOOL BUILDING HAS BEEN TORN DOWN
SOME SCATTERED LUMBER LIES ABOUT HERE
TO THE WEST IS A LARGE BOULDER
TO THE EAST IS THE EDGE OF THE CLIFF
A FENCE BORDERS THE OTHER THREE SIDES OF THE YARD

Just a reminder of the last part of the poem:

FOLLOW THE LION ‘TILL YOU FIND THE SCHOOL
CLIMB ON UP AND SEE THE JEWEL
FROM THE TOP YOU CAN SEE REAL GOOD
THE THING YOU WANT’S BENEATH THE WOOD
TAKE THE THING THAT YOU’LL FIND THERE
THEN GO AND SEARCH; YOU’LL KNOW WHERE

“Climb on up” seems to refer to a fir tree that you can climb.

YOU ARE ON THE SOUTH SIDE OF A LARGE POOL
THE POOL IS A CALM BACKWATER OF THE RIVER
THE RIVER BENDS TO THE EAST HERE
THERE ARE MANY FISH IN THE POOL
A SIGN READS: NO FISHING
THE TRAIL TURNS WEST AROUND THE POOL AND TO THE SOUTH
>W
YOU ARE ON THE NORTH SIDE OF THE POOL
THERE IS A LARGE FIR TREE HERE
THE TRAIL LEADS TO THE EAST
AND WEST FROM HERE
>U
YOU ARE AT THE TOP OF THE TREE
YOU CAN SEE A BASEBALL FIELD TO THE NE
ON TOP OF THE CLIFF
THERE IS A TRAIL TO THE NE LEADING UP THE CLIFF
THE BEGINNING OF THE TRAIL IS HIDDEN IN BUSHES
AT THE BASE OF THE CLIFF

Specifically, at right field in the baseball field, you can find a piece of wood and a boulder. At the SW corner of the Bradley Academy, you can also find a piece of wood (a “board”) and a boulder.

YOU ARE AT THE SW CORNER OF THE SCHOOLYARD
THERE IS A LARGE BOULDER HERE
THERE IS A SMALL BOARD LAYING ON THE GROUND HERE

However, despite the crowbar in hand, neither boulder wants to budge (with PULL or PUSH or MOVE) and there is nothing under either piece of wood.

For a time, I felt quite a nice vibe from the game here, as I started searching around both the baseball diamond and the school looking for some way of thinking of “BENEATH THE WOOD” in a less literal way, kind of like the lion. Since I had it mapped out the game felt briefly like a real scavenger hunt.

Unfortunately, yes, “briefly”, especially when I found out what was required. At least I had the right suspicion: home plate at the baseball field.

YOU ARE IN RIGHT FIELD
THERE IS A LARGE BOULDER HERE
THERE IS A PIECE OF WOOD LAYING ON THE GROUND HERE
>W
YOU ARE ON FIRST BASE
>W
YOU ARE AT THE SW END OF THE FIELD
THERE IS A WOODEN PLATE IN THE GROUND HERE
CHALK LINES LEAD TO FIRST AND THIRD BASE

Home plate is made out of wood! The other two pieces of wood were deceptions. This would be classy if the game did not then

a.) require guess the verb

b.) require guess the noun

c.) hard crash upon resolving both a.) and b.)

PUSH PLATE (“NOTHING HAPPENS!”), MOVE PLATE (“I DON’T UNDERSTAND MOVE PLATE”), and LIFT PLATE (“I DON’T UNDERSTAND LIFT PLATE”) don’t work. You also can’t take the item, either. No, the game is fishing for the exact verb and noun LIFT HOME (and yes, it seems like a moment before LIFT isn’t even an understood verb!)

>LIFT PLATE
I DON’T UNDERSTAND LIFT PLATE
>LIFT HOME
THERE IS AN ENVELOPE UNDER HOME
SYNTAX ERROR IN LINE 1730
READY

This could have been the best moment in the game — I really did puzzle the answer out carefully, and the boulder plus crowbar led to enough side-deception to make this work.

1730!V0$\P1=1\X(12)=L\\GOTO300

The double-slash at the end (before GOTO 300) is wrong. There should be only one. This is not the sort of error that would be done by disk corruption; I’m fairly sure this was an authentic author-typo, meaning nobody bothered to test the game to the end (and nobody complained because who would find LIFT HOME?)

Rather than fixing the code (before starting with the RUN command, type that 1730 line but with only one double-slash before GOTO 300) and going through everything again hoping it wouldn’t break, I changed the code to give me the envelope at the very start. The envelope has a ferry ticket (so you can go back across, you can then take the toll road to freeway-country) a latchkey, and a note.

THE NOTE READS: GO SEARCH MY HOUSE IN EASTPORT-WHERE YOU STARTED!

Weirdly, UNLOCK DOOR never works and always claims you don’t have a key, while you’re holding a key. You can just go WEST while at the locked front door with the key in hand, though.

Now we’re in a relatively normal house-searching game! No more driving.

YOU ARE IN THE MASTER BEDROOM
THERE IS AN LARGE OLD BED AND A
SMALL DRESSER HERE
A DOOR LEADS NORTH
>OPEN DRESSER
THERE IS A PAPER WITH NUMBERS ON IT IN THE DRESSER DRAWER
>GET PAPER
OK
>READ PAPER
THE SLIP OF PAPER READS: 22R-12L-45R-7L

In addition to the safe combo in a dresser, there’s a padlock key in a desk. This lets you tromp downstairs through a padlocked door into a storage room and the final challenge of the game: fiddling with the parser, yet again.

YOU ARE IN A STORAGE ROOM
THERE IS MUCH JUNK SETTING AROUND THE ROOM
THERE IS A FRAMED PICTURE OF UNCLE HARRY ON THE NORTH WALL
ON THE EAST WALL IS A LARGE MOOSE HEAD
THERE IS A DOOR TO THE WEST AND SOUTH

I was out of places to go and this came after the locked door and its picture, it ought to be hiding the safe, right? Still, it was infuriatingly hard to come up with the only verb that would work, SLIDE.

>SLIDE PICTURE
THE PICTURE SLIDES TO THE SIDE REVEALING A SAFE IN THE WALL

Fortunately, you do not then have to master a parser syntax for working out how to spin right 22 times etc.

>OPEN SAFE
AS YOU DIAL THE COMBINATION THE SAFE CLICKS OPEN
THERE IS A RUMBLING SOUND
A SECTION OF THE NORTH WALL SLIDES BACK
REVEALING A ROOM UNDER THE OUTSIDE STAIRS
>N
YOU ARE IN A SMALL ROOM UNDER
THE OUTSIDE STAIRWAY TO THE COAL SHUTE
THERE IS A LARGE CHEST HERE
THERE IS A DOOR TO THE SOUTH
>OPEN CHEST
THERE IS A STACK OF TWENTYS AND A LETTER IN THE CHEST
>GET LETTER
I DON’T UNDERSTAND GET LETTER

Sure, let’s give the parser one last quirk. No, just read:

READ LETTER
THE LETTER READS:
CONGRATULATIONS! YOU HAVE PERSERVERED TO THE END OF THE SEARCH! THE MONEY YOU HAVE FOUND IN MY CHEST WILL PAY YOUR WAY TO ENGLAND THERE, YOU’LL FIND YOUR NEXT ADVENTURE. SOMEWHERE IN WHEMBLY CASTLE LIES HIDDEN A HUGE TREASURE OF JEWELS AND GOLD. HIDDEN THERE BY YOUR GREAT, GREAT, GRANDFATHER ALMOST TWOHUNDRED YEARS AGO. MANY HAVE SEARCHED, BUT NO ONE HAS FOUND IT. WITH YOUR LOGIC AND INTELIGENCE I KNOW YOU WILL BE ABLE TO FIND IT! GOOD LUCK!
UNCLE HARRY

“LOGIC AND INTELIGENCE”, eh?

Thus the sequel (published with this game by Dynacomp) is now set up. However, I’m not sure how obvious it was from the size of the maps (and the moments of parser struggle, and the hard game crash): this took a lot of energy to play, so I’m going to kick the sequel (Whembly Castle) further down my 1982 list.

Some aspects had a unique aura. I’ve never seen an attempt (in computer game form) to capture the gimmick rally and while the riddle was not airtight it did give the experience a stronger feel than Just One Map Section After Another. The sheer amount of mapping went far too extreme but I can at least see conceptually what the author was going for. The noble failures of history can be just as useful to look at as the masterworks.

From the Japanese movie poster for Cannonball Run III (aka Speed Zone), via eBay. Cannonball Run (1981) and Cannonball Run II (1984) were followed by one last sequel to make a trilogy in 1989, where the racers all get arrested right before the event starts and the sponsors need to find new drivers.