Renga in Blue   Interactive fiction and the All the Adventures project

(Continued from my previous posts.)

One thing to keep in mind with mainframe adventure games is they were often experienced by players of that period in a state of “under construction”. This started directly with Crowther who left a literal “under construction” sign in the lower parts of his cave, where one of the exits simply crashes the game. This was kept to an extent by Woods (who left “under construction” in at Witt’s End) but Woods also had one release that included his own “under construction” sign, where the troll bridge would later be.

David Lebling’s map of the “250 point” variant of Adventure, at his GDC 2014 postmortem of Zork.

While the most recent version of a game (as complete as the authors have made it) is generally what modern players have, someone playing Acheton in 1978 (directly on campus at Cambridge) would not have the same gameplay as someone playing Acheton in 1981. It’s easy to forget we aren’t dealing with static works but moving targets, and David Lebling (see image above) only played a partial version of Crowther/Woods before starting on Zork.

This causes an extra issue: is what we are seeing not working because the author hasn’t implemented it yet, or is it a puzzle to be solved? In exploring the regions visitable by the train in Thissala (two very small, one very large) this question came up multiple times.

It’s not common to see literal Under Construction signs in games any more, although this area blocking off one direction of a street is from the 2026 demo for Nirvana Noir.

Before getting to that train, one issue that Rob mentioned in the comments (which I hadn’t even really dealt with yet due to a bug). Specifically, this has to do with the donation box at the church, which has a CHEVY key inside. As long as you don’t take the key, you are able to pick up the box.

Inside the old church
You are standing inside of an old village church. The interior of the church is lit from light filtering through the stained class windows high in the roof. Towards the front of the church you can see a small pulpet, behind which are rows of benches. Immediately in front of you is a small, brown, walnut table, that stands about 3 feet high.
On the table, is a beautiful veneer box, with a slot cut in the top.

SCORE
You currently have 0 out of 750 points, requiring 13 moves
You current classification is ABSOLUTE MORON.

GET BOX
Taken.

SCORE
You currently have 5 out of 750 points, requiring 15 moves
You current classification is ABECEDARIAN.

The change in points means it counts as a treasure (which goes… ???) Trying to make it out with the box results in death.

OUT
Old Church

NE
There is a loud crash of thunder, and as the sound reverberates through the lands, echoing off Minor and Major mountains, a deep dietal voice rumbles “THOU SHALL NOT STEAL”. There is a flash of lightening and as the bolt strikes you you find yourself still outside the old church …Unfortunately, you are now a pile of ashes, or to put it more simply … you are dead.

Notice there’s an extra turn here for you to do something (suggesting maybe there’s a puzzle-action here to survive) but is there really? Or is this an incomplete puzzle? Especially suggestive of the puzzle being unfinished is the fact that taking the CHEVY key out results in the player not being able to pick up the box (it is now described as fixed in place) which is clearly a bug, and putting the key back in doesn’t fix the problem.

Given there’s no clear place where treasures go I’m fine stalling on thinking about this anyway and moving on to the train station. I never was able to win the fight against the three enemies in the “niche” so I don’t know what clearing that space out does.

ATTACK PIRATE WITH SCIMITAR
Though you hit the pirate, it is still alive
The pirate, with an evil gleam in his eye, strikes and slashes, but you still live.
The giant rat circles … He bites you squarely … and you feel the life running out of you

The niche is not important for boarding the train; you can just wait at the regular station for long enough and it will show up. It seems to be on a two-hour cycle. When the game’s time is on 1:00 (or 3:00, 5:00, 7:00, etc.) the train visits the main station. At the half hour, it reaches “River’s End”, at the next hour it reaches “Dry Gulch”, and at the next half hour after that it reaches “Stark Beach” before returning back to the main train station.

WAIT
It is now 13:0
Now arriving on track number one, the VS+EL local train.

BOARD
Welcome aboard the VS+EL Railroad. Have a nice trip.

Main station (aboard the VS+EL)
This is the main station of the Very Short and Extremely Local railroad (the VS+EL RR). There is a small station house to the east of here.

WAIT
It is now 13:5
Main station (aboard the VS+EL)
This is the main station of the Very Short and Extremely Local railroad (the VS+EL RR). There is a small station house to the east of here.

WAIT
It is now 13:10
In the tunnel (aboard the VS+EL)

WAIT
It is now 13:15
Emerging from the tunnel (aboard the VS+EL)
You are emerging from a large tunnel dug in the base of Major Mountain. Behind you, you can see the entrance carved from the rock. In front of you is a large field.

For reasons that will become quickly clear, I’m getting River’s End (first stop) and Stark Beach (third stop) out of the way first before discussing Dry Gulch.

This map is the entirety of River’s End:

I wish I could say this area is clue-laden or at least filled with potential, but this really comes off as a stub that the authors intended to get back to.

Oceanside station
There is a small station platform here. To the distant south, you can see the ocean
Sitting at the station is the VS+EL local train

SW
Access trail
You have reached the access trail to Oceanside station. The station is on the branch line of the Very Short and Extremely local railroad

SW
Winding path
The path heads northeast/southwest

SW
Oceanside beach
You are standing on a small sandy beach along the shore. There is a trail heading northeast from here

Maybe there’s a boat or some other secret with the beach? DIG is a verb although the game very specifically asks you to have a shovel.

Stark Beach is similarly barren map-wise…

…although at least there’s more work put into the room description.

Stark Beach Station
Stark beach is known for it abundance of nude bathers and party people. To the west is a path that leads off to the beach.
Sitting at the station is the VS+EL local train

W
There is a rumbling sound and a distant whistle from a VS+EL RR train.
Stark Beach
Directly in of you, though seperated from you by a chain link fence, is a sandy white beach. Many beautiful women, and handsome men normally can be seen bathing in the nude, running around the beach, playing games of tag, and thoroughly enjoying themselves. There is a large bar at one end of the beach, where more naked men and women usually lounge and sipping tall cool drinks. At the other end of the beach there is a series of small tents where various men and women can go off to be alone. This is a way of life here at Stark Beach … when it is sunny … but it is overcast … threatening to rain … there is no one to be seen … and the fence is closed … too bad.
Lying in the sand here, is a beautiful silver bracelet, obviously dropped by a bather in a hurry to get to the fun.

I can’t tell if this is meant as a puzzle, a stub for further expansion (that never occurred), or a complete encounter. At least this location does dispense a treasure (the silver bracelet) although I have no way of getting it back out of the mountain past the gnomes. (You would think the teleporter from the parking lot at the start would do it, but I still have yet to get that working.)

In wild contrast stands the second slot in between the two beaches, Dry Gulch. In fact, while I would normally provide the full map, in the interests of actually getting a post out, I’m just providing part of it. There are parts that just keep going and lots of exits that lead to a boulder maze so testing every exit takes a while. Keeping in mind I’m not done interconnecting yet, here’s the general meta-map I have so far:

Leaving the train station just gives a straight shot to the north for a while:

Path in the middle of the Desert
You are standing on a north-south path in the middle of a bare and otherwise trackless desert. All around you are drab and dun-coloured sand dunes which stretch as far as the eye can see to the east and west. The sun is blazing down, and the air over the dunes shimmers with heat. A warm dry breeze is blowing, driving a layer of fine gritty sand and dust across the dunes and the path. There appears to be a range of mountains to the distant north, but it’s difficult to judge distances in the heat-haze; the image shimmers so much that it could be a mirage.

N
Path in the middle of the Desert
You are standing on a north-south path in the middle of a bare and otherwise trackless desert. All around you are drab and dun-coloured sand dunes which stretch as far as the eye can see to the east and west. The sun is blazing down, and the air over the dunes shimmers with heat. A warm dry breeze is blowing, driving a layer of fine gritty sand and dust across the dunes and the path. There is a range of mountains to the north, and it’s not too far away !

N
Entrance to sandstone Canyon
You are standing at the entrance of a large canyon cleft in the sandstone rocks of a mountain range. The walls of the canyon are steep and unclimable. The high and craggy mountains stretch away to the east and west of where you are standing. There seems to be a faint track leading along the foot of the mountains. A well beaten path stretches across the bleak desert to the south, and extends to the north through the centre of the canyon.

While the game has three authors, I suspect all of this section is by one author, and one who is keen on lovingly describing outdoor geology. Perhaps the thought process went: Crowther made a realistic cave, so let’s make a realistic desert.

Coloured rock canyon
You are standing on a North-South track in the middle of a sandstone canyon. The rock walls on either side are veined and banded with varied hues of sandstone, mainly reddish shades which lie between roseate and ocherous, but with occasional streaks of bluish-gray and green, which seem to indicate the bedding-planes of an upper Triassic, or possibly lower Lias, series of sediments. The colours appear to be glowing in the strong sunlight. It is altogether a beautiful and somewhat awe-inspiring sight.

A map of the central coloured rock canyon area:

The two red-marked exits lead to a boulder maze which I’ll talk about later (other exits lead to the same). While there’s plenty of long descriptions there’s very little here to do, other than swipe a “canvas sack” which seems to serve like the sack from Zork (it increases your inventory capacity). I incidentally tried hiding the prayer box from God by using the sack and it didn’t work.

To the northwest is a ghost town with two buildings, a bank (which seems to be truly and completely shuttered) and a general store. The only reason for the general store to exist, despite it having a map which allows going in an alternate exit…

…seems to be to get a hammer by smashing a case.

In front of store
You are standing in front of the Drygulch Equipment & Clothing (DEC) store, a large building which is partly ruinous and which has obviously seen better days, but which is at least still standing. Behind the wooden boardwalk at the front of the store is an adobe brick facade which is sadly chipped and crumbling. There are two windows and a door in the front of the building.

IN
Inside the store
The inside of this abandoned drygoods store has the musty odour which a wood and abobe structure acquires with long neglect. A high old-fashioned service counter runs north-south across the width of the store, effectively barring entrance to the back from this side. There is sufficient light coming in from the grimy windows and open door in the eastern wall to see the rest of the room quite clearly. Though the frontage is a substantial adobe brick wall, the rest of the store is built from dry wooden planking.
Against one wall of the room is a large glass display case.
It contains:
a geological hammer

BREAK CASE
The glass of the display case shatters into millions of glass splinters that fall between the cracks of the floor

We’ve certainly had game maps before with lots of window dressing (like The Hermit’s Secret) but the long prose means the empty space here feels very different: like the author of this section was making a simulation with game elements as an afterthought (perhaps literally, in that they intended to add things on a later pass). If you bypass the ghost town on a canyon rim path (or go by a hut I’ll show in a moment) you reach a Manager’s House where the incomplete aspect really becomes obvious.

Front of Goblin Mine Manager’s house
You are on a trail which runs along the southern rim of an east-west
canyon. Dug into the dirt of the hill slope beside the trail is the
rather imposing entrance hole of the habitation of the Goblin who manages
the Goblin Mine.

IN
Entrance hall
There is a doorway to the north, and a plain walled hallway extends to
the south.

S
Hallway
The corridor -like hallway extends to the north and south. There is a
doorway on the east side.

E
Study

That’s a room with no description at all! A trophy room and a kitchen are similarly left with no description.

Some of the locations lead to a maze. It is a classical “drop the objects to map” style.

You are lost amongst the giant boulders on a mountain plateau.

W
You are lost amongst the giant boulders on a mountain plateau.

N
You are lost amongst the giant boulders on a mountain plateau.

I’m missing a few exits on my map (given here with the objects I dropped at various spots), but I can say there is nothing here to find.

The sole purpose (other than making the map a pain overall) seems to be to lead to a “Windy view” where there is nothing of note other than scenery.

Windy view
You are standing on a small trail on the shoulder of a mountain. There is a magnificent view from here across a wild and windy mountain landscape composed of many colours of sandstone rocks. The mountains are cut into by a maze of twisting canyons. From where you stand you can go either north or east around the shoulder of the mountain. A very steep rockslide begins here and fans out south and west below you to the bottom of a distant canyon.

Look, I’m never thrilled when yet another maze-mapping happens in one of these games, but at least even a treasure at the end gives some tinge of reward. (Or earlier in this game, it was satisfying to find the mysterious cube at the center of a maze, which turned out to be the “respawn point” after dying.) When the map just exists for its own sake, I feel like I’m spinning my wheels.

I’m going to save the remainder of the desert when I get it finally final, but a few notes:

1. The east side of the central canyon leads to a “slide” which goes by a rusty key (haven’t found a use for yet, including taking back to the post box) and leads through many rooms up to a “tower”. The tower seems to serve no purpose beyond being scenery.

Where two paths meet before a ruined tower …..
High on a lost and rocky mountain ridge, open to the blue and windy sky, two paths from southeast and southwest meet before a roofless tower of broken stone dark built of massive granite blocks, alien to this land of honey coloured stone. The crumbling arch where once a door did swing lies open to the north of where you stand.

N
Inside roofless tower of broken stone ……
The walls rear high, but, shattered at the top, reveal the welcome light of open sky. Here below, surronded by these massive sombre walls, is dark and chill, except where one diffused beam of welcome light reveals the shadowed southern entrance arch.

It’s still possible some of these places will have purposes that eventually reveal themselves, but my game-sense is currently telling me no, there’s a tower here because the author thought it would make good scenery.

2. Near the Ghost Town, to the north, is a hut. Just like the Tower, no apparent purpose.

Hut
You are on an east-west portion of a winding trail which goes along the northern rimwall of a long brownish canyon. There is a small and somewhat delapidated hut beside the trail here.

IN
Hut
Diagonal beams of light from the harsh sun outside come through the cracks in the warped and twisted planks. This place appears to have been at one time the residence of a prospector or miner, now left to fall to ruin.

3. Near a Sweetwater Spring is the mine. I still have more to explore so I will report back later, but so far I haven’t found anything except more rooms.

Sweetwater spring
You are beside a small spring of clear water which bubbles up from the canyon floor. The canyon runs in a southeast-northwest direction. There are small trees growing all over the canyon floor on all sides except the west, where an extremely steep fan-shaped rockslide is piled up against the southwest wall of the canyon. The slide goes all the way up to the rim.

NW
In front of a mine
You are at the end of a canyon in front of a mine with a large iron door, and there is, chiseled into the stone, the legend
“PETEY COOPER’S OPAL MINE”
above the door. Up against the east wall of the canyon there seems to be the ruins of a building. There are piles of rubble and mining spoil all around. A fitful warm wind blows swirls of rock dust around your feet.

N
Inside mine entrance
You are standing just inside the entrance to an opal mine. To the south the sunlight spills in through the doorway onto the rocky floor. The mine passage heads north from here and begins to twist about.

Other than that, I’ve got all the same obstacles from before (skittish hen, post box, bank, curtain, power box, enemies in the niche) and I do suspect at least one of the items I’ve been nabbing in the desert will eventually help. However, I also suspect I’m running out of runway here, and the game is eventually going to reach a hard stop which may or may not be passable. For example, one room has a north exit mentioned in the room description that simply doesn’t work: does it lead to a single place or a full new area? Based on my calculation earlier with the exploration stat, there should be more rooms in the code out there, but that doesn’t mean I’ll be able to reach them.