I have two bits of update from my previous posts on this game that make it worth a bonus post.
One, I have a version of the game which is very near to the intended experience. You can download it here, and be sure when you start to say YES to loading a save game. (In the emulator DCHector, this moves your tape from 31/63 to 32/63. If you want to rewind the tape back a step, go to Tools/Tape Unit and use the single left arrow to move the 32 back to 31. This lets you overwrite the save file with a new one, or reload the same save file on restart without having to reboot the emulator.) The save file is identical to the normal start of the game, except that the beaker in the laboratory is now bubbling, meaning you can skip using the apparatus (which is broken in the machine code somewhere).
Two, possibly more importantly, is that Gus Brasil figured out the last step in the game. I had realized it had to be a reference to the “FOR EVERYTHING THERE IS A SEASON” song/Bible verse and I spent most of my time trying out various permutations of SAY THING with no luck.
Gus had made an observation based on something I provided a screenshot of straight from the hexadecimal.
The very end of the clip (BIG3SMA4TIN5BEL6TUR) is providing nouns. That is, there’s a BIG KEY, a SMALL KEY, a TINY KEY, a BELL CORD, and a … TUR?
This had briefly flitted in my consciousness when I tried SAY TURN, and it did lead me to wonder if I had messed up some other flag in the game and SAY TURN (either done once, or SAY TURN typed three times in a row like in the song) was the key. Knowing Gus had won the game, I pondered the extra possibilities and … surely not?
Yes, TURN TURN wins the game. Even though it’s a two-word parser, TURN TURN TURN also works (the parser doesn’t accept any more characters, so SAY TURN TURN TURN isn’t even typable).
First of all, what is the character actually doing at this moment? Clearly not saying the words out loud, since saying them doesn’t work (as I amply proved lots of times before writing my post yesterday). TURN TURN is an “non-reality” command, kind of like in Warp how the game asked you to REGISTER SHORT ROPE. At least in Warp you were “talking” to the underlying computer running the game, here it isn’t clear at all how to interpret this final act. (You could be a spoilsport and claim that SAY not working is just a bug, and TURN TURN is being said out loud, but there’s enough intentionality going on I am fairly sure this is what the author intended.)
Second, what happens after? Somehow the player has won, but the game doesn’t narrate escape (as Gus points out, while there is an escape message, it doesn’t get printed in the game). Also, just like how the ending of La maison du professeur Folibus left the main character blue permanently, here there is no indication that the shrinking has been “cured” upon escape.
With the Roger M. Wilcox game Derelict 2147 there was a similarly ambiguous ending, where the player seemed to be trapped on the Derelict of the title even though they had won by gathering all the treasures. Roger made the insightful comment that:
The fate of the craft is probably the same as the fate of being stuck on Trash Island with an empty gas tank. Except there was no “Escape from Derelict 2147” sequel (nor did I ever think about writing one). Basically, once you get all the treasures, the universe ends.
With Mysterious Mansion it is quite possible the author never thought through any of what I just outlined — there’s a victory screen, so the universe ended. Don’t worry about what happened after. Maybe the tiny person who escaped from Mysterious Mansion and the blue person who escaped from the world of Folibus team up and fight crime. Your imagination can take you anywhere.
…
Since you’re still reading, a quick bonus: here’s the remainder of the 1982 games before we can declare it done, as seen in my post on the final stretch. There’s already a few games in 1983 I suspect will get pushed back, and some 1980 and 1981 discoveries made that will need to be attended to in the future, but after this list is done we can officially embark on 1983 games. Feel free to guess what the order will be!
Bedlam (TRS-80, by the author of Xenos)
Countdown to Doom (from the Cambridge mainframe that brought Acheton, Hezarin, Avon, etc.)
The Curse of the Pharaoh (Peter Kirsch does graphics)
Enchanted Forest (TRS-80 Color Computer does graphics)
Geheim-agent XP-05 (Early German game)
Grave Robbers (Unmodified VIC-20 game with graphics)
The Hobbit (The famous one)
Mexican Adventure (The last Sharpsoft game)
Misadventures 5 and 6 (Two more bawdy games from Ohio)
Zodiac Castle (follow-up to Windmere Estate)
Renga in Blue 
Still not satisfied with the conclusion that John Stout was the author of these games (mismatched timelines and too many assumptions in lieu of facts) I did more research and am now quite certain I’ve identified the real author: Marv Long. He was another local (Ferndale, MI), who was a fairly early Interact adopter (Fall, ’79), and helped start the Interaction newsletter in early ’80. He wrote quite a few articles and programs for it (including a couple of music programs, showing he also had a musical background), and was well-versed in both BASIC and machine code. He was also an early adopter of MicroNet, and his personal company, Long Playing Software (now the name really makes sense), released a program called the Communicator, as well as several games which were marketed by Micro Video, which included Dr. Doom’s Leap for Life and Goofy Golf, in addition to the two adventures. In ’81, he was tasked with starting and editing Micro Video’s own newsletter, which he did until the Spring of ’82 before turning it over to Sue Denim due to lack of free time. In fact, it would seem that Stout and Matulevich may have been brought in to help fill some of the programming and writing void that Long’s impending departure was going to create, as their timelines dovetail almost exactly.
I ended up figuring this out in a sort of reverse-engineered fashion, by going through the code of a bunch of other Interact game code, seeing Long Playing Software in there several times (proving that it wasn’t referring to just adventure games), comparing those to the later stuff known to be written by Stout and Matulevich, and then combing through all the newsletters again. Once I saw the “Long” fingerprints all over the place, it all came together. It looks like he’s still alive and currently living in Florida, now aged 80.
Speaking of combing through newsletters, this also resulted in a couple of interesting adventure-related finds. I’ll put those over in the Lost Media post.
Nice job! Kirsch has a “signature” to his BASIC source that makes it obvious but it’s harder to tell looking at machine code. Do the Long Playing ones have it on the title screen or just in the code?
I’m not sure about all of them, but I think it’s just in the code. The weird thing is that it’s almost impossible to find a clear, close up image of an individual Micro Video-branded cassette that shows the whole label, but from squinting at a freeze-frame from that guy loading Troll Hole on YT, and blurry pictures of a couple of lots of them, I don’t think they credited the individual developers there either. It’s just something like “(c) 1980 Micro Video Corporation” near the bottom of the labels.
Don’t know if it is necessary to remark on that, but I would bet that Sue Denim is not that person’s real name.
You’re probably right, and for good reason. They printed a couple of letters with guys making creepy comments, asking for a picture of her, etc.
That’s… eww.
(To spell it out, the name is a joke on “pseudonym.”)
Didn’t even catch that! Shameful. Reminds me of my days of digging up and reviewing obscure prog/psych LPs and straight-facedly reporting that one of the band members on an album was named Pipi Furz. Then a German-speaking reader chimed in…
Speaking of LPs, that stands for “Long Play”, obviously, so I think Marv Long was also referencing his musical background there (seems to have been a thing with these Interact guys) as well as his name.
“there’s a victory screen, so the universe ended. Don’t worry about what happened after.”
It’s not that bad if this happens at the end of the entire game, but in TIE Fighter this can (potentially) occur at the end of each *mission*: you achieve the primary objective, you press a button, the mission ends, never mind that the enemies around you would certainly have killed you a second later if you hadn’t pressed that button in time, just get ready for the next mission.
Clearly that’s the “activate previously unseen swarm of backup ships” button!
I’ve been looking forward to your reaching 1983 as that was the year I first discovered interactive fiction myself! I’m also looking forward to your playthrough of Countdown to Doom – it’s a tough game but one of my favourites.