Renga in Blue   Interactive fiction and the All the Adventures project

The first moment I was absolutely gleeful in Cornucopia was when I opened a spell-book in the starting area.

>OPEN BOOK
Opening the spell book reveals :- detect magic spell; dispel magic spell; purify water spell; dispel illusion spell; detect illusion spell; levitate self spell; detect evil spell.

This is what you start with! This game is going to take a while. I have the rest of January blocked out.

I recently played Brian Cotton’s game Goblin Towers, which was his second published after Catacombs by Supersoft, and it was quite simple, to the extent it may have been written first. (Read those two posts if you would like the historical background on the Cotton games.) Cornucopia returns to a more complex world, and in fact is allegedly Cotton’s most complicated game, trying to go for a full Zork experience (or I guess Enchanter, except Enchanter wasn’t out yet when this game was released!) Remember, it was clear from Goblin Towers that Cotton was thinking of Zork, not Crowther/Woods or Scott Adams as most other writers were.

From the Classic Quests catalog, via the Museum of Computer Adventure Games.

There’s reference in Cornucopia to Goblin Towers right at the start, which makes me think it is in the same universe. Before showing off what I mean, I should mention that this game (like Catacombs) was lost until the Classic Quests version for DOS showed up; also just like Catacombs, this game was originally broken and unable to be finished. However, Cornucopia has a fix! If you want to play, use the Fixed Game link here which makes the game completable.

Having commited a heinous crime against the Gods (spitting on the steps of the temple, I think), you are summoned before them. This is an extremely rare occurrence, as most offenders are summarily executed with a lightning bolt! As you cower before the Gods, half blinded by their splendour, they reveal why they have spared you – temporarily. They have a small task for you to perform: ‘Find the Cornucopia and bring it here’ they boom.

While we have a designated collect-the-treasures spot, just like Cotton’s other two games, there’s a secondary objective now of getting a specific Cornucopia for the Gods. I like the “spitting on the steps of the temple, I think” — it’s as if our main character has committed so many crimes against the Gods the narrator isn’t sure which one is considered the heinous one. Either that, or the narrator is like a storyteller making things up on the fly that never entirely filled in that detail.

You are outside a small cottage, a doorway leads into it although there doesn’t seem to be a door. The cottage is surrounded by a forest made up of huge and grotesque growths of fungi, a damp dismal mist shrouds the ground making everything quite indistinct. The outlines of a path leading south can just be made out.

Just like Goblin Towers, we start outside a cottage, and from the cottage there is a forest and a tower. Assuming it is the same forest, it is now a different maze and overgrown with fungus (see how Adventure Quest has the “degenerate forest” following the normal one of the first game).

Going in the cottage:

You are inside a small cottage, little better than a hovel really, the only exit is to the north. There is a huge wooden table in the middle of the room, it appears to be extremely old and is obviously well used. Sitting on the wooden table is :- spell book; rusty sword; battery lamp; small note; green bottle.

A couple subtleties here with how items work: you can examine items, but they won’t always give more descriptions. However, the “lying on the ground” descriptions are a little more complete than the one given in the list here.

A battered battery lamp is here with what appears to be an everlasting battery in it.

The sword has both an ground description (“quite rusty but in a usable condition”) and an EXAMINE description.

This sword is in very poor condition and has obviously been used by a hacker, by the state of the blade, it is rusty and pitted. A sword which is a disgrace to its owner.

The other important detail is that not only does GET ALL work, but it seems to give away every referrable item in the room. That makes it easy to tell what should be zeroed in on in each description (some games try to prevent this, but given the allegedly difficulty here I’ll take any advantage I can get).

>GET ALL
wooden table : The wooden table is beyond your strength to lift.
spell book : Taken.
rusty sword : Taken.
battery lamp : Taken.
small note : Taken.
green bottle : Taken.

The table can incidentally both be looked under and broken, so there’s a fair amount of physical simulation going on. For the last items: The green bottle, cryptically, contains nothing. The small note reads “leave treasure here”. The spellbook has a description of the outside, and must be opened to be read:

>READ BOOK
The spell book is large with thick padded covers. The covers have runic designs around the edges and particularly ornate bits in the corners, the whole is decorated with small gemstones and gold leaf. It must be worth a fortune.

It contains, as I already showed off, spells; here’s the details on each one:

detect magic spell (CAST DETECT MAGIC ON OBJECT, tell you if an item is magic)
dispel magic spell (CAST DISPEL MAGIC ON OBJECT, remove magical abilities of object)
purify water spell (CAST PURIFY WATER, will cleanse nearest body of water)
dispel illusion spell (CAST DISPEL ILLUSION, will remove any illusion close by)
detect illusion spell (CAST DETECT ILLUSION, will inform the player of any illusions close by)
levitate self spell (CAST LEVITATE SELF, rise vertically)
detect evil spell (CAST DETECT EVIL ON OBJECT, determine if an object is “based in evil”)

Now, the big catch here is that the spells disappear when used, at least sometimes. I’m not clear the conditions, for example, using CAST LEVITATE SELF when in the starting hut:

You rise into the air and hover around for a while before slowly dropping back down again, quite good fun in fact.

The spell is now missing from the spellbook. However, there’s a part I’ll show off shortly where levitate self helps solve a puzzle, and the spell remains! Maybe there’s a “if it is useful, you hang on to it” rule? It makes the DETECT ILLUSION spell a bit dicier to use (since the whole point is a binary yes or no, and if you already know yes why not go straight to dispel?) However, I’m early enough in the game I might be misunderstanding what’s going on; it may also be possible to find a way to replenish spells or even add new spells.

In the forest there are two ways to exit (unless some random maze room has an illusion that needs dispelling or whatnot — I haven’t gone through and tested it everywhere yet since saving and loading will be needed). The first is a large fungus just to the south of the cottage:

You find yourself in a strange forest of giant fungus growths, they create an eerie feeling. No particular direction seems to suggest itself to you here. There is a particularly huge specimen here, with what appears a dark opening in it.

>ENTER FUNGUS
As you enter the fungus you get a weird sinking feeling You are in a circular room, above and below you it is dark. You have a weird feeling of falling.

The inside is described as an “Elevator down” in the short room description, and there’s a “sensation of falling” until arriving at a countryside.

>WAIT
Time passes……
You are on the edge of a small brook, which has long since dried up. A path follows along the course of the brook to the east and west. Across on the other side of the brook you can see lush rolling countryside.

>W
You are at what was once the source of the brook but is now just a tangle of broken boulders. The only way out from here is to the east. There is a small slim oblong piece of card here.

>EXAMINE CARD
The card is solid gold with an ebony edging and writing on one side in a bold gothic script which reads ‘Admit one only’. On the other side in almost microscopic letters it says ‘that will do nicely’, the meaning of which seems quite obscure.

There’s a wide open space I have yet to fully explore, so I’ll get back to y’all soon on that. The same is true for the other route out, which involves finding the tower in the forest. You can’t climb due to a lack of “handholds”, but the levitate spell works.

>CAST LEVITATE SELF
You rise up and up and up, the top of the tower seemingly getting no closer. The power of the spell seems to be wavering but still you are rising and just as the spell runs out of steam you find yourself… You are in a small room at the top of a tall tower. In the centre of the room, which is circular, there is a staircase leading down into darkness. The room is lit with the light that comes through a single window. Through this window you have a somewhat dismal view over a large area which is covered with huge fungus growths. This view is only broken by the sight of a somewhat delapidated cottage. Against the wall opposite the window is a large wardrobe, this was apparently at one time used as some sort of a bedroom.

The wardrobe has a Fabergé egg (our first treasure).

Again, the map spreads out quite extensively, and just a clipping to show what I’m dealing with:

I’ll get into the details next time, although let me draw attention to the troll at the bottom of the stair (if you just keep going down the stair after levitating into the tower you’ll find him).

You are at the bottom of spiral staircase which has opened out onto a small landing. It is very dark here and with the state it is in, it has been used as a toilet by some large animal, it smells abominable. To the east is a low tunnel.

>E
You are in part of a trolls lair, all manner of stuff is strewn around, including parts of its previous meals. To the west is a low tunnel and to the south what looks to be a tiny cavern. A huge and hairy troll stands here blocking your way.

>KILL TROLL WITH SWORD
The troll being a rather dull creature just grabs the rusty sword from you and without further ado eats it.

This reminds me quite a bit of the Zork I troll that eats things that you toss at him (although you can wield a weapon without it, too, being eaten). My guess is I need to find some kind of poison or sleep drug and it will do its work.

For now, quite a bit of mapping to do. This feels like the most “dense” game I’ve played for All the Adventures since Dungeon Quest.