Renga in Blue   Interactive fiction and the All the Adventures project

(Continued from my previous post.)

Shabti of Seti I, via The Met. Found in the Valley of the Kings. These would be inscribed with a spell to bring them up in the afterlife in order to do the work for the ruler.

Some background points to get through before diving into the game itself–

First, I’m putting the author name as Dian Girard. I am doing this because on the previous Dian games we’ve covered (Hermit’s Secret, Phantom) there is ad copy that says they are by “Dian Girard”. The games themselves do not give a credit. The article she wrote later (where she is credited with the 1983 games) uses the last name Crayne, but it also says she writes her fiction under Girard, so my assumption is she is including “interactive fiction” under her pseudonym.

Second, quoting her from the aforementioned article:

My own adventure games are built from two basic parts: the driver program and the text files or “script.” The script contains all of the vocabulary words that the driver recognizes, plus the object and place descriptions. There is also a builder program that converts the text in the script to machine-readable tables. Because the games are script-driven. I can build 70 to 80 percent of a new game without ever touching the actual program source code.

The original engine seems to be based on a Charles Crayne port of Adventure, so subsequent uses of the engine keep the same elements. There is always a pirate (in Valley of the Kings, tomb robber) stealing treasure; there are always dwarves throwing axes (in this game, a “slender young man with a rather fanatical gleam in his eye”). There are always “magic words” that jump you around; here, they are given as instructions to the tour guide rather than “real” teleports. Phantom managed to creatively put in a plot despite the constraints; this game doesn’t try as hard, but does manage to build an atmosphere of Egypt that is more linked in reality than other games of this time period.

The Curse of the Pharaoh (1982), for instance, had a pyramid and a mummy, but was mostly freeform (giant clam with a fuse in it, pit with a snake); the cultural touchstones of ancient Egypt imagery without any of the content.

By contrast, in Valley of the Kings, to the west of the start point, near a “souvenir shop”, there’s a tomb of “Thothmes I” made by “the architect Ineni during the Eighteenth Dynasty”. Ineni was a real architect from Ancient Egypt we have biographical information about.

Inspection was made for me, I was the reckoner. Source.

Just inside is the “ushabti room” (see top of this post) where

Display cases hold the collection of ushabti, or “answerer” figures that were found in the tomb.

(Also called “shabti”.) Realistically for a random tomb in the Valley that’s easily accessible, the sarcophagus is no longer there.

This is the sarcophagus room, where the coffin holding the pharoah’s mummy was placed. The only exit is to the northwest.
Someone has left an interesting old silver charm here.

(The charm is a treasure, though!)

To the west of the room with the charm is a room purely there for scenery.

This large chamber was probably used to hold the great king’s hunting equipment. Nothing was found in it, but the paintings on the wall show the pharoah hunting antelope from a chariot. A doorway in the north wall is the only exit from the room.

There’s one other section of the tomb that’s also been cleared out, although someone left a hacksaw (remember that for later).

There are enough small touches that I get the impression the author at least touched an archaeology book at some point, rather than making everything up. This is comparable to Crystal Caves, which had a realistic cave at the upper level (including a park ranger that would follow you around), and you had to solve a puzzle in order to get to the “magic section”.

From TT81, also known as Ineni’s Tomb. By unbekannt, Maler im Alten Ägypten – Eberhard Dziobek: Das Grab des Ineni. Theben Nr. 81, Tafel 13, FAL. Source.

The “magic” in this case is in the tomb of Thothmes I, a piece of paper with the shabtis:

Hmmm. It’s a prayer of some sort — “Lion of the Sun, hear my prayer …” It’s written in Coptic, and looks very old.

I’ll use this at the end of the post. (Also, another small touch: would our previous Egyptian adventures reference “Coptic”?) In the meantime let’s get familiar with the aboveground, starting with a metamap.

This simplifies the overarching map structure into its general areas. You start at the tour guide, you can go south to a “desert” area with a pyramid and temple, north to a “Valley of the Kings” area which has its own downward entrance, go west to the Thothmes tomb (already seen) and the base camp (ditto, from the last post). The mountains interconnect everything and they were enough of an annoyance to mapping, I sometimes just marked an exit in red if it went to mountains. Finally, the Sphinx I was unable to reach by conventional methods (…maybe if I bothered to map the mountains more…) but could only reach via the tour guide.

Near the “Thothmes tomb” is a “parking lot” which has an “iron key” to the north (I haven’t used it yet), a “wilted carrot” within, and the Nile to the south with a “crocodile”.

There is a large asphalt-paved parking lot here. Driveways to the north and east lead out onto a paved road. The banks of the Nile river are south, and mountains rise to the west. There is a large orange carrot here, wilted from the heat.
S
You have reached the bank of the Nile, at a narrow cleft in the surrounding rocks. The Valley of the Kings is north of you, and the river bank stretches off to the east. Across the river you can see the modern buildings of new Luxor. A twenty-foot crocodile is resting lazily on the bank, sunning himself. He looks asleep, but his beady little eyes are open.

The crocodile snaps at me if I try to go east. It is not hungry for carrots.

Going over to the Valley of the Kings next, where you’ll see some of those red-exit-means-mountains spots:

The map has a lot of loop-back-to-the-same-room exits, so many I marked them as stubs rather than with arrow-loops.

You are at the Visitor’s Center in the Valley of the Kings. A dark-skinned tourguide, wearing a bright red fez and a white linen suit, bows and asks, “Where would you like to go?”
N
You are wandering around in the Valley of the Kings.
W
You are wandering around in the Valley of the Kings.
There’s a piece of rare coral here, carved into a fish.
SW
You are wandering around in the Valley of the Kings.
There’s a piece of rare coral here, carved into a fish.

The only important spot (other than the coral) is a “rectangle”. Just as a reminder, the base camp tomb included a “shovel”, a “crowbar”, and a “flashlight”; here both the shovel and flashlight are useful.

You are wandering around in the Valley of the Kings.
S
You are near the center of the bleak Valley of the Kings. An eroded rectangle of sandstone, about three feet long by about 10 inches wide shows above the surface of the sands.
DIG
You dig for several hours, moving what feels like tons of sand. Eventually you uncover a flight of sandstone steps that lead down into the ground — the entrance to a hidden tomb!
D
It is now pitch dark. If you go on, something may eat you.

(If you DIG somewhere random, the game says “Sure, go ahead. It’s not going to accomplish anything.”) Applying the flashlight:

The flashlight is now on.
This is a sunken stairway entrance leading down below the sands of the desert, where it roofs over to become a passage some ten feet high by six feet wide that continues down.
D
You are at an open doorway. Through it, to the east, you can see a passageway that leads down into silent darkness. To the west there is a staircase leading up to the sunlit desert. There is a large seal impression over the lintel of the door.
READ SEAL
It’s a picture of what looks like a dog, with nine little men.
E
You start forward, but a shimmering figure appears in the doorway and some mysterious force holds you back!

I haven’t gotten past here yet; I assume some item or set of items is needed.

Anubis, from The Met. I don’t think this is necessarily the dog meant here.

Moving on the desert with the pyramid (and some of the mountains):

The exits off to the west are another route to the base camp; to the far southeast there is a “prehistoric egg” which counts as a treasure. The important point of note is not the pyramid (at least, not that I can find) but the temple a bit south. Instead of using the shovel we’re using the crowbar:

You are wandering through the burning sands of the desert.
S
There is a tiny ruined temple here, its roof long vanished and half of its yellow columns fallen. There is desert all around you, and on the horizon to the north you can see the silhouette of an immense pyramid etched against the blue sky. The center of the floor is made up of one huge sandstone slab.
LIFT SLAB
The end of the bar fits easily into the crack around the slab and, straining every muscle, you manage to pry it up and move it aside. There is a dark passage of some sort down below.

Again, though, we can’t get too far.

D
You are in a small, square, room, hardly big enough to turn around in. A flight of well-worn stone steps leads south. The ceiling slab has been moved aside, letting the sunlight stream in from the desert above.

The steps go down to a “chasm floor” where there’s a “beautiful lyre” (a treasure) but a rockfall immediately after.

This is the floor of a narrow, high canyon, hardly more than a chasm. It used to extend down to the south, but a massive rockslide has tumbled down and blocked the passage. Now the only exit is the chasm floor to the north.

If we can pass through I assume it comes later. (Maybe through the other side; the Dian games have been big on opening up alternate exits throughout the game.) Where the big break comes is instead at the Sphinx:

You are at the Visitor’s Center in the Valley of the Kings. A dark-skinned tourguide, wearing a bright red fez and a white linen suit, bows and asks, “Where would you like to go?”
SPHINX
You are standing between the front paws of an enormous sphinx, carved out of a monolithic sandstone rock. There is a small dark doorway to the north, that leads inside the monument.
N
You are in a tiny room, carved out of the solid sandstone. It is about 12 feet square, and there is an exit on the south. A ancient stone altar, eroded by time, fills most of the space.
READ PAPER
Hmmm. It’s a prayer of some sort — “Lion of the Sun, hear my prayer …” It’s written in Coptic, and looks very old.
PRAY
As you chant the ancient prayer the dim light streaming into the small room gets strangely brighter, and to your amazement the ancient altar slowly turns in the middle of the floor!

This opens the secret temple of the Sun God.

This is the secret Hall of Amon-Re, god of the sun. A dark hallway leads out of the east wall, into a huge chamber.

Upon trying to step in, I was attacked by the “dwarf stand-in” for this game. I guess we’re supposed to be American.

A slender young man with a rather fanatical gleam in his eye runs around a corner, throws an axe at you — which misses — and then runs off into the darkness yelling something about “Yankee imperialism.”

Just to show off the temple a little:

You have reached the secret Temple of Amon-Re. All around you are fantastic carvings and paintings, showing the Sun God on his journeys across the world. The great altar, lit by some incredible light, is to the south. A doorway in the west wall leads to a large hall, and another door goes east.
S
A brilliant flame, giving off a strong scent of petroleum, lights up this end of the vast Temple of Amon-Re. There is a huge stone altar here, with carved figures of the ancient Egyptian gods. The great Temple stretches out to the north.
A roll of papyrus has been carefully set down on the floor.

The papyrus is a treasure, and the game is even clear that it is a fragile historical artifact and you should be carting it over to the archaeologists rather than noodling with it.

Close-up of the Egyptian Sun God, via the British Museum. CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.

Not much farther there are some bars, but here is when the hacksaw comes in.

There is a hint of dampness in the air, and the surprising sound of dripping water. Your flashlight reflects from a tiny natural spring that wells up in one corner of the room. Irregular openings lead out to the north and southwest.
SW
This is an ancient corridor, part natural, and partially finished off by human hands. You can go east or west. A set of heavy iron bars have been set in concrete across the passage to the west. Through them you can see a large cavern.
CUT BARS
The hacksaw is rather dull, but you eventually cut through several of the bars and are able to pry them apart enough to get through.
W
This is the entrance to a complex of ancient caves. There are some marks on the walls that may have been made by stone-age men. A passage goes north, and an ancient corridor leads east. There are strong iron bars across the passage to the east. Some of the bars have been cut through and pried apart.

From here the caves kept going and going and I suspect this is the main entrance to the “dungeon” part of the game so it seemed like a good place to pause. So far the puzzles are straightforward, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing; the atmosphere seems to be more the point this time around than any kind of mental stumpers.