Renga in Blue   Interactive fiction and the All the Adventures project

We’re back in France with this game; the most relevant prior game to read about is La maison du professeur Folibus.

As observed in my posts on Folibus, the ZX81 had a stronger impact in France than in its country of origin (the UK); while the competition landscape was one likely factor, a major one was the French SECAM format for televisions worked with the UK’s hardware in black and white (ZX81) but was a pain for color (ZX Spectrum). (SECAM’s main difference from PAL and NTSC is that PAL and NTSC have color signals sent by amplitude modulation — how “tall” the electromagnetic waves are — whereas SECAM uses frequency modulation — the “width” of the waves.)

This ramification of this was that the French-translated version of the The ZX81 Pocket Book by Trevor Toms had more an impact than the English original, and La maison du professeur Folibus became the “origin adventure” of France even though it literally wasn’t the first.

Interior of a French ZX81 box, via Sinclair Collection Site; the two tapes came with the set.

Just like how Omotesando’s early status led to further Japanese adventures in building break-ins, the “death-maze house” design of Folibus had a little cloning. By death-maze I am not just meaning a game with lots of ways to die (like, say, Time Zone) but rather that the plot follows a restricted path where one action is right and most others lead to death.

Today’s game is such a clone, and we don’t have a year or even an author.

Via the ZX81 France Facebook group. See the fourth game in column B.

It was rescued by French ZX81 enthusiast XavSnap off an old tape and may have been a “private game” originally meant for family and friends. It seems extremely likely is was made somewhere within a year of Folibus but there’s no way to be certain.

Plot: the protagonist has been kidnapped by a maniac and put in a house full of traps.

The title, as shown above, is Cauchemard-House (Nightmare-House) so that’s what I’m using, but the “d” is a typo; when the good folks at Brutal Deluxe Software ported the game recently to Apple II they not only added an English version, they also changed the title to Cauchemar House.

While this is a Folibus offshoot, there’s one innovation straight away:

That’s a top down view! That’s us (the “o”) with two arms (“(” and “)”). The text just says

YOU ARE IN AN EMPTY ROOM

THERE’S ALSO:
– LASER GUN
– TOOLS

WHAT DO YOU DO?

Scooping up the items and heading north, er, NORD:

No death yet! But soon. There’s no “room description” (I suppose the image is the description.)

THERE IS AN UNPLUGGED SPEAKER
A TROLL APPEARS.
TO THE EAST THERE IS A DOOR WITH A TAPE RECORDER WITH TWO BUTTONS AND TO THE SOUTH THERE IS A RED BUTTON

THERE’S ALSO:
– SUIT

Trying to go NORD results in

UNE FLECHE VOUS TRAVERSE

that is, “an arrow goes through you”; the same result happens in any other direction (other than west, where you just get stopped). You can push the button and the game says it’s just a “projection”; push it again and then the arrows stop happening, although only east is available.

This is a mini train station with three wagons, and an acid flask. Guess what happens if you pick up the acid?

The bottle was leaking, your hands are eaten away, you immediately catch leprosy (LA LEPRE).

For a game to be a death maze it needs death with this kind of frequency. Catching leprosy somehow from a flask of acid is optional.

And … now I’m stuck because of the parser. I’ve been alternating between the French ZX81 version and the translated Apple version (both are on Github) and I haven’t been able to refer to any of the wagons, and I’m still puzzled by the room with the tape recorder (it refers to the recorder having buttons, but I haven’t been able to press either). I also can’t find a way to refer to the troll (although the troll is gone if you go in the wagon room and then come back).

There’s a walkthrough provided by the Apple version so I can certainly muscle through but I’d like to try to puzzle things out a bit longer. While I suspect this is more a parser battle than an object-based one, I’ll still take suggestions in the comments if anyone has one.