Renga in Blue   Interactive fiction and the All the Adventures project

(Continued from my previous posts here.)

I made progress last time mostly on the giant towers full of traps.

From a Your 64 article specifically about the Level 9 trilogy, written by Bob Chappell (author of Cracks of Doom). He raves particularly about their text compression algorithm.

Before getting too deep in, I should mention I’ve now played around with a third port, thus looking through the puzzles I’m stuck on again in a fresh context.

This is the DOS Hercules version. (An early high-res graphics card that came out the same time as CGA, but black and white only.) I’ve always been a fan of black and white and some of the colors in this game have been quite odd, so I thought it’d be worth a try. This is again from the Jewels of Darkness version, so that means I have running:

the 1982 BBC original, from tape
the 1986 Atari 8-bit version, from the Jewels of Darkness compilation
the 1986 DOS version using Hercules display, from the Jewels of Darkness compilation

The Atari version has had shortened text; this is not an issue with the DOS version, which had more space and so is uncut. It essentially is identical in text to the original (still haven’t found any Tolkien references besides the one in the manual, I think it’s only the second game that made them part of the plot) but includes the slight parser improvements (GET works instead of just TAKE, and you can also GET ALL). There’s also the practical circumstance of being able to see more text in the lower window compared to Atari.

The screen above represents one of my discoveries. The valuable dragon-slayer sword, remember, is seeking a dragon to kill, and will not be happy if you try to drop it (it will drop anyway if you eat the shrinking-mushroom). You can still give it to the troll and it counts. This almost feels like a bug, and it isn’t really necessary — whatever treasure you hand over lands in the troll’s room which you need to get into anyway.

I also managed to figure that part out, and this might be one of the toughest puzzles in the game. It required a jump of faith in terms of parser control. The text explicitly says the troll “sees you” so it made me wonder if I can turn invisible somehow. There’s another room just a little to the north where “you keep bumping into objects you can’t see” which is suggestive of a hidden item or group of items.

I typed something like that out in an early draft of this post (really!) and added, as a parenthetical afterthought, (like mushrooms?)

Huh, that isn’t actually a bad idea…

…oho! This is sufficient to sneak in to the troll and re-take your treasure, as well as some “rare spices” that count as a treasure and a red collar.

The pink mushrooms “taste fantastic” but don’t otherwise seem to have an effect. Also, I’m suspicious about the red collar being there, given how I already figured out the mechanism in such a way it doesn’t seem useful to have. I have got red, orange, yellow, and blue; technically speaking blue should be all I need since it gives access to all the other types, and surely this would be one of the later puzzles someone solves. So maybe collecting all the collars is important.

Also, here’s the black and white version of the same room so you can compare.

Staying in the mushroom area, I also managed to figure out the ants. This was the puzzle where I had a shrinking mushroom which enabled me to pass an ant nest, and then on the other side of the ant nest there was a growing mushroom. Shrinking is useful in unlocking one area, but growing again was causing me to get stuck at the other side of the ants.

The resolution remind me of my discussion of Starcross, and how someone who is used to science fiction might have an easier time than someone who prefers fantasy, because the rules of Starcross follow (to an extent) real physics whereas fantasy can have arbitrary rules. The rule I missed was eating the mushroom a second time grows the protagonist even bigger. It’s not an unfair puzzle by any means, but it requires a willingness to experiment with “fantasy physics” that is less predictable than Starcross was.

With the second growth spurt, you are now large enough to simply squish the giant ants by walking into the room. Then you can shrink back down with the original mushroom to normal size (unfortunately you’re too giant to leave and cause carnage elsewhere).

(All remaining shots are in color. Welcome back to Oz.)

Almost ready for trap towers! However, I did make one more discovery via the return of my old nemesis, missing a room exit. How do you miss a room exit in a game that has an EXIT command which lists them, you might ask? There are quite a few “duplicate exits”, like how going “east” and “out” will map to the same thing, and they get listed separately. In one area in particular — with the skeletons and the dwarf — there were multiple exits that went a direction and either up or down.

A demonstration.

So at the skeleton room, I had mapped UP to one of the other exits, but it went up to an entirely new room:

With dragon-slaying sword in hand, the sword “fades away” if you kill the dragon, leaving a golden bed (which shrinks if you pick it up) and some dragon’s teeth (which are magical, and I haven’t found anywhere to them yet, throwing them in a random place does nothing). Unfortunately, the sword is a treasure. I’m unclear if this is the right action and you’re supposed to find the sword later, or if I’m doing something entirely wrong. (I confirmed the sword does not warp back to where you originally found it.) My suspicion is that the dragon was “too easy” a fight and there really is a gimmick I’m missing.

For completeness, I should say there’s a “left eye socket” and a “right eye socket” connected to the dragon room. The layout here has been a face, with the goat guarding a horn (that I still haven’t resolved) at the “stone dome”. There might be some gimmick regarding the face similar to the invisible mushrooms where an action at the right place causes a special effect.

And that’s nearly it for unsolved puzzles outside the trap towers! I also am getting blocked going southeast from the skeletons…

A hurled flint splinters in front of your face, driving you back.

…and I still don’t have a replacement light source (or at least, fuel and a wick for the lamp). The light is short enough that I don’t have a good save file yet with every item in the game stored (I run out of driftwood light before getting them all), making it annoying to test out quick theories.

Finally, on to the towers. Remember, this is an (apparently) self-contained puzzle area entered via a one-way path. With the collars worked out I can teleport out if needed but I haven’t found that useful. (I now suspect the teleport is the only exit, though. The pedestal is in “darkness” and can only be teleported from, not to.)

I tried my best to compress a map here: the stacking means “up/down”, not “north/south”, and the second tower is tall enough I had to split it into two parts. Anything marked light purple has a gem I’ve found, and the goal is to get to the door that asks for “9 or 10 gems”. (This is true in both the DOS and Atari versions, but the BBC version only asks for 9 gems.)

You are on the ramp. A doorway bears the following message: “To escape the dungeon, collect 9 or 10 gems and go through this door. Leaving without the gems will cuase your death”. Clearly you must be in the central dungeon of the Demon Lord.

The salt cellar has a “salt pig” and if you go over to the saltwater and drop it, you can find a pearl. The topaz and emerald are not gated by traps and easy to get, and pushing the sculpture at the top of the smaller ramp lets you get a rhinestone. A sapphire comes from the “reward room” where you needed to avoid the temptation of picking eternal life or world peace.

Now things get trickier. The next thing to resolve is two black spheres that appear nearer to the top of the large tower; one is by the pedestal, and one is in the room where you need to close your eyes to maintain your sanity (“myriad moving images of writhing tormented creatures”). If you keep your eyes closed, you have enough time to leave the top floor room with the black sphere following, make your way down to the other sphere, and enter. The two black spheres will annihilate each other. (Another anti-Starcross moment — this felt like a natural action to test, following the rules of fantasy logic, but I imagine some hard sci-fi types hated it.)

Heading back to the top lets you get a diamond and a shield. The shield can be used on a “door with holes” that lets out spikes. Inside is a corpse with a leather gauntlet and leather blindfold.

Mixing things up, no gem.

The gauntlet can be used to pick up a “gold-red ring” that otherwise sucks your blood like a vampire; it’s enchanted but I haven’t found a use for it. The blindfold can be used to protect yourself from acid, entering another room with an enchanted brooch.

The brooch unleashes a real elephant if you throw it but the room is generally too small for one. Normally that’d be a signal to go to an open space, but the idea here is to go to an “executioner” who is stopping you from leaving a room with an amethyst.

The executioner leaves a hood behind where if you try to wear it you are now the executioner. It might just be a trap. There’s also still a box that unleashes a snake if you open it; I still haven’t found a use. I did manage to get into a room with a “crusher” via a wooden wedge near where one of the spheres was. This gave me a topaz.

The only room where a (non-portable) trap remains is one with a hand pointing at it. Trying to go in has the hand strangle you.

I might think the hood could somehow protect here, but no luck. Maybe we finally bring in an outside item? I’ve got a stick that makes a whistle I haven’t used yet, those dragon teeth, and a … magical inflating golden bed? Nothing I’ve thrown out seems to work.

I hope to get to at least the endgame next time! If there even is one. Maybe it’ll be a single-room ending rather than something extensive, but the room count suggests at least one more area.