Renga in Blue   Interactive fiction and the All the Adventures project

(Continued from my previous posts.)

I have the first two underground sections (the one from the locked grate, and the one from the cave at the trail) mostly mapped out and connected, so now seems like a good time to pause.

First entrance to the underground.

Second entrance to the underground.

It makes the geography a little clearer to start with the trail entrance, although in my playthrough I started with the grate and only connected it up later.

At the cave entrance there’s a metal door to the east (which is unlocked) and a passage to the west. Go west twice and you’ll end up in the Hall of the Forest King and tossed in a dungeon. I have yet to experiment with this section. (It sounds like they need a bribe; maybe this whole section is forced and it’s possible to retrieve the bribe, but it’s just as easily possible with this sort of game that you can avoid this encounter altogether.)

Prior to making it to the Forest King you can swerve down into a long hall and eventually reach a dead end with a gold door. The doors are helpfully color coded with keys (you’ll need a gold key for a gold door) but I don’t have the appropriate key yet.

Heading back to the cave entrance, and going through the open door, there’s a small section of rooms containing a “short wooden rod”, a “short dagger”, and a “crystal ball”. You might remember the crystal ball from last time; this is the area that links directly with the grate. Near the dagger is a locked bronze door (again color-coded, I’ll bring back the key later).

Also in this area is the part that took the most significant chunk of my time, an exit to a maze. The maze does not have graphics and swaps things to text-only mode.

The text-only mode is partly due to mazes being awkward to show graphics of, but also as a hint, as this is simply an “all different” style maze from Crowther/Woods. This starts in a “turny twisty little maze of passages” and different rooms have different names.

The different names can be used to make a map, but I admit I always find these kinds of mazes a headache. I went with old-fashioned object dropping. Fortunately, the different wandering NPCs don’t seem to want to brave the maze, so it doesn’t have a character like the Thief from Zork I picking things up. Unfortunately, your inventory capacity is too low to map all the rooms, but I remained stubborn and started moving objects to get rooms like “ROD 3” and “BALL 2” as I was mapping things out. Generally, the paths converge on a central area with a witch (if you move at random, you’re likely to eventually reach the witch).

The witch has no visuals attached (none of the NPCs do, but even the maze itself has no visual) so it’s just straightforward text. If you hang out for longer than one turn the witch starts to throw spells, and eventually you’ll die.

I took multiple tries at fighting (using the dagger) and had no luck; it’s possible I was causing damage via HIT WITCH WITH DAGGER but the game wasn’t giving any feedback.

Still, the witch didn’t start immediately attacking: maybe the witch is “neutral”? I had a crystal ball I wasn’t able to use for anything yet, so I tried GIVE BALL.

I still need to experiment with the moods of the NPCs and how far you can push them. There was an elf running around outdoors with an axe (the one the troll normally liked to hold) and I did ASK ELF FOR AXE and the elf just handed it over. I don’t know if “trade value” is a thing and if a series of swaps are possible; maybe the game can be won entirely by “diplomatic victory” rather than getting in standard RPG fights.

With the bronze key claimed, I went to escape the maze (I already had the exit mapped) and unlocked the bronze door. Unfortunately, the troll was waiting for me and gave me a heavy wallop. I fled through the bronze door, then locked the door behind me.

This gave some breathing space, but unfortunately led to a dead end: a stair going to a room with a diamond ring, some gold, and a dwarf. I haven’t tried contesting the dwarf over the treasure yet, but there’s no aggression so I suspect some more trade-swaps might be in order.

One last thing to mention with the witch maze: a side passage, leading to a room with bones:

The room has a shaft leading up to the Hall of the Forest King but it just results in you getting tossed in the dungeon again. I’m not sure if the shaft has a “reason” in a puzzle-solving sense or if it’s just meant to build more environment.

One last wrinkle, because I was trying to be completionist about my map: I already had everything mopped up when I tested one more exit leading back from the skulls to the maze. I didn’t know which room it was going to, but the all-different style of room name still applied, so I wrote down just this room description, then did a quick run through my already-made map to see what location it corresponded to.

I tried moving on to the third underground but it’s another maze. It makes reference to a Desert King, but I already burned my mapping energy on the first maze, so I’ll save that for next time.