(Continued from my previous post.)
I’ve done, as promised, some serious mapping, and can share the layout and the initial obstacles. But first, a look at the verb list:
This is quite a wide coverage for this era and feels more aligned with Infocom than a Commodore PET game (as this originally started as). While Goblin Towers had very little change between the two versions, I highly suspect Cornucopia had serious additions to at least the text; not only are there a fair number of lengthy room descriptions, it more “fun” messages than usual while messing around with verbs the game understands, mirroring Zork’s multiple “jump” responses for instance:
>JUMP
Well done.
>JUMP
That is really childish!
>JUMP
I suppose you want a medal for that.
>JUMP
Wheeeeeeeee
SMELL and LISTEN are also notable (and do, in fact, get used, sometimes for pure environment); PRAY is good to keep in mind given the theological theme, and PLUCK is the most unusual of all the verbs (although it seems to just be a synonym for “TAKE”).
Now, a grand tour of the map, where I’ll start with a meta-map. (This is arranged by connectivity between regions, where each region is a set of rooms.)
The player starts at the cottage which I showed the map of last time; let’s take the route entering the giant fungus first. You step in an “elevator” and there’s a small alcove briefly visible (I have not been able to interact with it yet) before landing at:
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.
The west is a “solid gold” card with “Admit one only” on one side and “that will do nicely” on the other; I assume it is a treasure, but we’re about to consume it in a moment.
To the east there’s a culvert that leads up until a grate:
The culvert ends here in a blank wall and the water disappears down a grating set in the floor. The culvert extends away to the west along a narrow ledge. The grating is of a fine mesh, such as to catch most things that would be brought along by the current of water, if there was any.
Heading down the culvert has an unfortunate side effect: the player starts getting thirsty. The “green bottle” the player starts with seems to be empty, but even with a fountain later the command FILL BOTTLE doesn’t seem to be understood, so I’m not sure what’s going on. I suspect visiting here first is out-of-order of how it is supposed to be.
Heading north from the landing point of the dried brook is a “countryside” where “you are walking through some green countryside, but don’t seem to be getting anywhere.” Dropping an item (like the SWORD) causes it to “disappear from view” but from mucking about I decided every direction except back south to the dried brook simply loops the player. I became highly suspicious:
>CAST DISPEL ILLUSION
As the illusion fades you find that… You are in a large well lit cavern. The roof soars away so as to seem almost as high as the sky. You are near the west wall of the cavern and can see an exit carved into the very rock. To the south you can make out the small brook you crossed earlier. A sword which is quite rusty but in a useable condition.
(The sword is the item that was dropped earlier, which had previously disappeared.)
This has the side effect that I likely don’t need to keep hunting for possible illusions elsewhere, although it may be that this entire route is wrong and the illusion should be ignored in favor of getting through the grate somehow.
Removing the illusion allows going west, whereupon the player is trapped and can’t even go back east.
You are in a lit chamber about twenty feet square. The dust is very thick on the floor. The chamber is partitioned-off half way across with a transparent crystal wall. Behind the wall you can see several chairs, all but one of them has a skeleton sitting in it. A sign above the skeletons reads ‘TROPHY ROOM’. On the north side there is a closed door and beside it, at about waist height, there is a small slot. There is an inscription on the door which reads as follows:- AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.
However, the gold card can be put in the slot:
>PUT CARD IN SLOT
From deep within the walls you hear a whirring sound and a voice says ‘That will do nicely’ and at the same time a door slides open, the gold card is drawn into the slot and disappears.>N
You are in a hall orientated north to south. It is about sixty feet long by some twenty feet wide. On either side of the hall is a row of doric columns, carved from solid marble. These support a high arched ceiling. The south end of the hall leads nowhere but the other looks to open out into a large chamber. The walls are decorated with countless heraldic shields, depicting the magnificent lineage of the former owners of this place.
This jumps to an area on the meta-map I called Throne/Kitchen…
…but let’s wait on visiting there and go an entirely different route, levitating up the tower. I’ve already shown off the troll at the very bottom. I still haven’t gotten anywhere with that route, so let’s step out of the tower into a series of passages.
There’s not anything to see here — it’s just a 4 by 3 grid — and if this was Infocom I’d be highly suspicious of some geographical-placement puzzle afoot, chasing or evading some creature. As things currently stand the only extra item of interest is a statue.
You are at a junction of an east-west passage with a north-south one. At the centre of the junction a large stone statue stands on a pedestal, the statue is facing the west.
>GET ALL
pedestal : You can’t take a pedestal.
statue : You can’t take a statue.
As I mentioned in my last post, the GET ALL trick is extremely handy for parsing what’s useful here; I might normally have just tried to examine the statue but not the pedestal, missing a treasure in the process.
>EXAMINE PEDESTAL
You notice that there is a slight gap between the heel of one of the statues legs and the pedestal, in this gap a small gold necklace has been concealed.
The gold necklace, according to the spell, is not magic, so likely not used in a puzzle otherwise.
The west-facing statue is highly suggestive that we might be turning the statue around (like Hollywood Hijinx or Whembly Castle), but attempting to do so just gets a joke from the parser:
>EXAMINE STATUE
The statue stands on a low pedestal in the middle of the junction, the statue faces west and has a somewhat expectant look upon its face. One of its arms also points in this direction, as if directing someone.>TURN STATUE
Hmm, zo zis is very interesting, do you get zese urges very often hmm!
So keep an eye on that I guess? Actually going to the west leads to a room with many colored tiles…
You are in a room which is wider at the east end than at the west end, its length is greater than its width even at its widest point. Strangely there is a powerful draught blowing from this end of the room towards the smaller end, it is probably something to do with the rooms shape. The floor is covered in gaily coloured tiles; red, green blue and yellow ones. The walls are coloured to match and the whole makes your eyes fairly boggle.
…where just trying to walk across is failure.
You cross the floor not caring which you tread on, and stepping on a tile of each colour at least once. You suddenly realise that you are back at the position you started from, although the transition back to the wide end of the room came unnoticed by you.
You can instead WALK ON RED TILES (or YELLOW, BLUE, or GREEN) in order to get to a room. There’s one for each color. The red tiles lead to an armory with a rune sword, the yellow tiles lead to a gallery with a painting, the blue tiles lead to an empty room, and the green tiles lead to a “gadget room”.
You are in a small rectangular room, it is quite unremarkable having no special features at all, even the exit to the east is plain. In the centre of the room is a large stone casket the top of which has been forced open and fallen to the floor where it has shattered. The stone casket contains:- user manual; emerald rod.
The manual is enigmatic:
This is not so much a manual more a diatribe on the brilliance of the inventor of a device which enables one to transport oneself virtually anywhere. This device is apparently box-shaped with a selection of dials and buttons on its upper surface. Reading between the lines it seems there was at least one prototype which was limited in its transport abilities using only a series of buttons for control.
So that’s fun to look forward to! (I also don’t know what the emerald rod does yet either.)
Hopping back to the passages, going east leads to the Throne / Kitchen area, the same area reachable via using the gold card.
The throne has another secret item (a green gem). To the east there’s another elevator, this time one that goes up and lands the player in the fungus forest. Going up there’s an odd pair of lavoratories where there’s a snake that sticks its head out; the player can attack it with a sword and make it disappear, leaving them free to grab a sapphire rod.
Heading down leads to a kitchen instead.
You are in what appears to be the old kitchen. There is a flight of stone stairs leading up and doorways in the east and west walls. In the northwest corner a spring enters the kitchen and pours into a large granite basin. The water level in the basin is kept constant by a drain hidden from view.
>E
You are in what was the kitchen’s grain store, all that is left is a pile of rotted cereals. The exit is to the north. There is a giant rat here gorging itself on the grain.
I have not managed to do anything with the rat yet; there’s a plain sack just lying about heading the other direction.
From the throne room you can also head straight north (passing by a torch on the way which can be picked up) and find a garden.
Resolving the slightly maze-like aspect, there’s a compost heap to the west (haven’t found a use yet) and a whistle to the east. To the far north there’s a fountain with deadly fish.
You are in a part of the formal Royal Rose gardens. Nearby you can hear the tinkle of water from a fountain.
>N
There is a lovely carved stone fountain here, it is quite a rude design. The jet of water is so large it could easily support a small object if placed exactly right. The pool at the base of the fountain has many gold coins that have been tossed into it. There are what appear to be goldfish swimming about in it.>EXAMINE GOLDFISH
On a closer examination the goldfish are in fact piranha.
(I have not found anything that properly goes onto the jet of water yet.)
Finally in the middle there’s a tree that has some deadly goo. Or if you hang around it is deadly. Or climb the tree it is deadly.
You are at the centre of the Royal Gardens, there is a tree here in full bloom, the blooms are pink. The perfume from the blooms is very heady. The base of the tree is circled by some kind of goo, within this goo there appear to be many jewels.
Heading back to the throne area, there’s a different exit down that leads to some “cells”.
Some have various things scratched in them (see the map) and there’s also some magazines where you can play Spot the Typo.
You are in a room with three exits. There is an extremely unwholesome smell here. The walls seem to have many deep and long scratches in them. There is a large pile of discarded magazines here.
>GET ALL
pile of magazines : Taken.>READ MAGAZINES
The pile of magazines contains the following – Torturers Weekly, 101 Ways to Torture an Elf, Inflicting Pain Monthly, Bone Choppers Annual, Computnig Toady and Torture for Fun and Profit.
I’m sure something elaborate might happen here (maybe after we “ring for service”?) but it’s a pretty empty area so far. Heading down even further goes to a cavern with a stone dragon.
You are at the north end of a large and apparently very old cavern. A narrow tunnel leads away to the north. High overhead a forest of stalactites, some of them huge. To the south you can see a large and unusually shaped rock formation.
>S
You are at the south end of a large cavern. To the south the cavern narrows down to a small passage. Crouching and facing the narrow passage is a large rock formation which looks exactly like a dragon.
You can climb in the dragon and find some buttons and levers and I’m sure the controls are just lovely, but I hit this point right at the end of my last session and I knew my post was already going to get rather long, so I decided it was a good point to stop. Still, let me show what happens if you try to just ignore the dragon:
As you approach the narrow passage a huge gout of flame shoots from the Dragon’s mouth incinerating you. From your sitting position you can see through a glass screen into a room that looks strangely familiar. On either side of you are further skeletons, they have a somewhat glum look on their skulls just as you do. You are dead and have become yet another trophy for the long departed owners of this place.
You incidentally still are playing from here except you are now in the skeleton room, but dead. I do wonder if this has an Acheton-like scenario where dying is required, but it may just be meant here as a bit of worldbuilding as we fall victim to the long departed owners.
Despite the conglomeration of events feeling randomly put together, I still feel like there’s some coherence; not quite the full lore of Zork, but at least enough of a consistent mood I started to feel like I was in a “real environment” rather than just a series of puzzles. I have yet to try seriously solving anything though, so who knows what wonders / terrors / bad comma splices will eventually unfold.
Renga in Blue 
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