Author Archive
I have been trying to detangle the history of Adventure — the Crowther / Woods game — so I know which ports I should be playing in which order for the All the Adventures project. This turns out to have been very complicated as information is spread over a tangle of websites and not all of it is accurate. This is my best attempt to sort everything together.
This document will likely get edited as I tangle more things out. Looking at the full list of modifications gives a small glimpse into the insanity.
Adventure Family Tree, by Nathanael CJE Culver based on work by Russel Dalenberg
I link to sources whenever I can.
1975
In the 1975 academic year Will Crowther starts what we know as Adventure. [Source.]
All Crowther family testimony is consistent with the 1975-76 date range. Responding to a direct request via e-mail, Crowther (2001) dated his original “Adventure” to 1975, “give or take a year.”
— Dennis G. Jerz
1976
Will Crowther stops work on Adventure. The game is noticeably incomplete (there is a sign mentioning maintenance in a lower section of the cave where advancing further causes the game to crash). [Source.]
The most likely timeline places Crowther ceasing work on his original game in early 1976.
— Dennis G. Jerz
Original source code here
Windows compiled version here
1977
Starting March, Don Woods discovers the source code and starts working on it. He produces a 250 point version [source] on his way to finalizing a 350 point version several months later.
I’m relying solely on memory which tends to be fallible (see above: the dwarf ‘vanishes’, not ‘disappears’) but my best recollection is that ADVENT.EXE first appeared on the PDP-10s at ADP (the old First Data in Waltham, Mass.) in 1977. It was an incomplete version which only had about 250 points worth of treasure. I seem to recall that there was nothing past the troll bridge but an ‘under construction’ sign or some such. I believe our copy came from WPI, but word at the time was it was developed at Stanford. Two or three months later we got the full 350 point game.
— John Everett
This version is then ported, in a fairly literal way, by Jim Gillogly into C. [Link to source code.]
The original 350-point version is separately ported July 1977 by Kent Blackett. [Source]
ADVENT.FOR: C REV. 17 ADVENTURES MODIFIED BY KENT BLACKETT ENGINEERING SYSTEMS GROUP DIGITAL EQUIPMENT CORP. 15-JUL-77 ORIGINAL VERSION WAS FOR DECSYSTEM-10 THIS VERSION IS FOR FORTRAN IV-PLUS UNDER THE IAS OPERATING SYSTEM ON THE PDP-11/70″.
This is followed by Bob Supnik, circa October (date given in his own source code). It has 366 maximum points and the cumulative efforts of Blackett and Supnik (probably) represents the first modification of the game past the Woods version.
Stephen Lidle’s version of Bob Supnik’s code modified for modern compilers, based on a SCOPE version by “R. Emerson, W. Wirth, S. Hobson, W. Hein, S. Connard”, et al.
There’s also a version of Bob Supnik’s port on if-archive, although I have been unable to confirm if it is exactly the same as the 1977 code.
Source code of Bob Supnik version
Kevin Black’s compilation of Bob Supnik’s source for DOS
1978
Gordon Letwin made a 350 point version available by August 1978. It was the first version available on a personal computer — the Heath. [Source] It was not a literal port. [Source]
The version I played was written in FORTRAN. One of the treasures was an African gray parrot in a pirate aviary, accessible by a rubber raft. There was also an office of some kind with the words “how do you spell relief?” on the wall, and after you read the message, you could use “Rolaids” to teleport to and from the well house. I think the magazine at Witt’s End might have been a copy of Byte magazine.
–Carolyn VanEseltine
While this version has been lost, there is a downloadable Osborne port which may be derived from the same source although I have been unable to test it as of yet. The actual 1978 version seems to be a this archive.
Don Woods expands upon his own work, producing a 430-point version with 5 new difficult-to-find treasures.
David Long at University of Chicago starts on his own modification of Adventure (a process which goes on until at least 1980), although no versions from this year exist.
Peter Luckett and Jack Pike finish “Adventure II” by the end of 1978. [Source and executables]
1979
George Richmond (“with the support of Mike Preston”) makes a 500-point version of Adventure in Pascal. [Information source] [Source code]
David Platt writes yet a different modification of Adventure into a 550-point version. [DOS version]
Microsoft Adventure is released as a commercial game for TRS-80 computers, with both v1.0 and v1.1 dated as June 1979. Gordon Letwin, who wrote the Heath port from 1978, is the one responsible. [Info from the Game’s Manual] It includes some slight modifications which mirror the 1978 Heath version somewhat. [Downloads for v1.0 and v1.1]
This year has a “501 point” version of David Long’s code (“Version 5.2/2, October-79”) although it rather confusingly this might be a “side release” by an anonymous contributor. Even more confusingly the version might actually be intended as 500 points (?) and the vanilla compile goes to 496 points (??) although the version online is fixed to be at 501. [Source code] [501 point version compiled for online]
The David Long story gets very messy past this point into the 1980s and I’m not going into every variant from his code, but I should mention the last version from David Long himself was at 751 points. While this version was playable on Compuserve for a while, it now appears to be lost except for a remake by Carl Ruby into QBASIC.
One of the games I have on my radar is Joel Mick’s Burial Ground Adventure, which is from 1979 and not that hard to find.
However, the game mentions a followup work called “Damsel in Distress” which I haven’t been able to find anywhere. It is mentioned in this comment from 2014:
I found the complete Odyssey series by Joel Mick (Damsel in Distress, Treasure Island, Journey Through Time) on Marmotking’s Vintage Computer Site, although it appears to be down at the moment. I tried the first game, but I don’t think I’m as patient as you when it comes to tackling primitive parsers. The game gets confused with the objects Horses and Horseshoes, for example. I didn’t get very far.
Marmotking’s Vintage Computer Site appears to be completely defunct, and archive.org barely has a few shreds. Since it’s a game that apparently was on the Internet at some point, I figured I’d throw out a request — anyone know where I can find this?
I expressed in an earlier post disappointment that most games in the adventure genre copied their model from Crowther and Woods meaning we didn’t get as many odd experiments as early CRPGs.
However, there is one person who seems to have gone completely his own way: Robert Lafore.
He wrote five games in an “Interactive Fiction” series published by Adventure International (the Scott Adams company) which are unlike most anything from the era.
Interactive Fiction 1: Six Micro Stories (1980)
Interactive Fiction 2: Local Call for Death (1979)
Interactive Fiction 3: Two Heads of the Coin (1979)
Interactive Fiction 4: His Majesty’s Ship Impetuous (1980)
Interactive Fiction 5: Dragons of Hong Kong (1981)
The dates are very definite because they show up in the source code from the author himself. It appears Six Micro Stories was written third, even though it was published as if it were first. The ad copy suggests it is a good introduction to the format, although I find it weirder and more experimental than the 1979 games.
Speaking of the ad copy, I think it’s interesting enough to reproduce in full. This is from the Summer 1980 Adventure International catalog; keep in mind this is not referencing their entire library of adventure games, but just these Robert Lafore creations.
INTERACTIVE FICTION
WHAT IS IT?
Interactive Fiction is story-telling using a computer, so that you, the reader, can actually take part in the story instead of merely reading.
HOW DOES IT WORK?
The computer sets the scene with a fictional situation, which you read from the CRT. Then, you become a character in the story: when it’s your turn to speak you type in your response. The dialogue of the other characters and even the plot will depend on what you say.
IS IT A GAME?
No. In a game the situation is rigidly defined and you can select from only a limited number of responses. But in Interactive Fiction you can say anything you like to the other characters. (Of course if your response is too bizarre they may not understand you.)
IS IT IMPORTANT?
Interactive Fiction is the artform of the future. Just as the birth of the novel had to await the invention of the printing press, so does the widespread use of micro-computers make possible Interactive Fiction.
In all previous literature the information flow was one-directional: from the work (novel, story or poem), to the reader. Now the computer provides the medium to change this. The reader, instead of merely absorbing it, can now influence the story, explore it in his own way, become a part of it. The story will be different each time, blending the imaginations of reader and writer. And this is only the beginning. Technology will soon permit Interactive Fiction to become a verbal medium, as synthesized speech and speech recognition techniques eliminate the need for typing and reading. The user will be able to actually speak with the other characters in the story. Later, holography and animation will permit the user to “see” the characters he is talking with and we will have Interactive Movies!
Don’t miss this opportunity to participate in the birth of a new artistic medium.
For the game I’m going to be discussing:
Local Call for Death is a detective story in the style of Lord Peter Whimsey. Considerably more challenging than the above program [referring to Six Micro Stories], this one will put your analytic skills (and social savoir-faire) to the test.
The Scott Adams adventure games show up earlier in the catalog. Esentially, the writer(s) of the catalog considered the concept of Interactive Fiction an entirely different idea than adventure games.
So, back to the game — it feels like an evolutionary route from the genre of “solve it yourself” mysteries that date back to at least 1929 with Ellery Queen’s The Roman Hat Mystery. I was also reminded while playing it of reading one of the old Two-Minute Mysteries books.
All responses are “open prompt” where you are essentially typing what the main character says.
Later on, the game is even very picky that conversations have in complete sentences. I admit this won me over and had me role-playing reasonable wodges of text, even though I am certain (via the most advanced AI a TRS-80 can muster) the game was simply responding to key words.
To start the game off, though you are prompted for a name, gender, and background location
and then thrown into a setting that tries very hard to be British.
There’s the occasional prompt for verisimilitude (asking what you do in America, and if you play bridge) but otherwise the opening scene runs on a straight track.
Later there’s a crime scene:
At this point you are allowed to type single words corresponding to examining items in the scene. (Hint: Type ROOM to go back to looking at the whole room if you get stuck.) This gives a feel of an actual investigation.
I shall quibble that about half the words I tried were unrecognized, but this section was otherwise solid. Then Sir Colin starts asking you probing questions. This is where the complete sentences come in. You have to attempt to logically justify various arguments about who did the crime and what the evidence is.
And part of the time, the magic worked — I typed a totally logical argument, and Sir Colin not only understood it the way I meant but it advanced the plot.
There were also times here I struggled to communicate, but it honestly wasn’t as bad as some guess-the-verb experiences I’ve had (typing >GET UP from the opening room of The Count still burns). If you struggle for too long Sir Colin will even prompt you with suggestions.
There are also moments where you will be prompted to go back to examining the scene to help make more deductions.
I am intentionally being a little vague with spoilers (please note the game makes the identity of the murderer terribly obvious, so I’m not spoiling there, the proof is the hard part) because this game was enjoyable enough I’d recommend it for playing. (I’m quite serious — I was shocked by how good it is.) Even though it’s a circa-1979 TRS-80 game there is fortunately an easy way to play:
When asks for date, just hit ENTER. Then type BASIC, and ENTER again. There will be two prompts (“How many files?” and “Memory Size?”) where you can hit ENTER leaving them blank. Finally, type RUN “STORY” and ENTER one last time. Things will take a moment to load.
There is no save game feature so give yourself about an hour before you sit down with it. You’ll want to take notes.
The end is worth getting to — Sir Colin does a very satisfying period-mystery-appropriate spiel where he lays out all the facts.
If you like the era, Christopher Huang has very recently written two interactive fiction mystery games set in the same era (and a traditional book, if that’s more your style).
Cheerio!
I was indeed close to a win last time, although I did need a hint to pull it off.
First off, while staying awake with the no-doz pills I went to have a face-off with Dracula, but he never came out of bat form.
This led to some tense chasing about the castle, but unfortunately I realized Dracula would not be trappable in bat form. I did find after he left his coffin I could go in …
… and I suspected I could fiddle with the lock somehow, but none of my objects worked.
This is the point I needed a hint. If you recall I mentioned an oven with “sunlight and heat” and I suspected I had to toss Dracula in somehow. I had a visualization problem, because it never crossed my mind I could *enter* the oven. It’s a solar oven that only works during the day, and going in night revealed a nail file.
This bit of annoyance led to the most clever moment in the game. You can make it in Dracula’s coffin on Day 2 and break the lock with the file, and then come back in Day 3 after he has gone to sleep and open the coffin (which is no longer locked).
Using preparation to outsmart Dracula felt like a perfect merge of action and narrative.
I want to take a moment before moving on to praise Scott Adams’s use of absence to tell a story. Secret Mission had the opening briefing describe a manila envelope that was not there, implying something had gone wrong. The Count takes this even further with an omitted first act (what did happen before the first day?) and nights where the protagonist sleeps while other things go on — items are stolen or removed, and the PC is harmed. This leads to a plot where half of it is reconstructed by evidence in a way unique to the medium.
Certainly The Count is the most coherent of any of the games I’ve played so far. Alas I didn’t find it quite as fun as, say, Voodoo Castle, or even Zork. The sparse structure led to too many moments were I felt completely constricted and couldn’t come up with any action at all that was helpful. Additionally, while the timed structure of The Count is very clever in retrospect, in practice I had a lot of annoyances of having to save and restore and restart and save and restore and restart. So while I might recommend a play, and it isn’t even that hard a game comparative to other works at the time, there would be no shame in using a walkthrough to see it to the end.
So my best reconstruction of the plot is that the main character was sent to destroy Dracula (see: angry peasants outside who kill you if you try to leave) but there is some sort of vampire-spell when Dracula is awake that forces the PC to sleep. The first time around results in just being tucked into bed and the tent stake in our inventory being overlooked (maybe there was other equipment, too, so he was busy with that). The next day Dracula senses his mistake and makes sure the stake goes away (unless it’s hidden; more on that below). He also gets hungry (maybe our neck was secretly smeared with barbecue sauce and it needed 24 hours; maybe the day before Dracula already ate) and our neck is bitten, with vampirism resulting in 48 hours.
We’re hence either on a suicide mission or killing the source will cure the vampirism — either way it’s safe to say the end result of this game will be killing Dracula, meaning I need to find him during the day. Well, I found him, although the pun injury is severe:
I am fairly certain I am close to the end and just need to get my sequence of actions down. I have a set of items that seem kind of vampire-hunting-ish:
Tent stake
Rubber mallet
Dusty clove of garlic
Torch
No-doz tablets
Sulfur matches
Cigarette (that summons the coffin)
Note that the cigarette is from a package that arrives on the second day, after the neck bite, hence a first day kill would be impossible.
At the moment I can’t open the coffin:
Sorry I can’t do that
Its LOCKED from INSIDE!
I suspect this part is simply a matter of timing; I think Dracula himself will open the coffin and I need to use the no-doz tablets to be awake for the event.
I did manage to figure out how to keep the stake from being stolen. There’s a locked door downstairs, and I managed to PICK LOCK with a paperclip helpfully attached to a postcard that arrives the first day. Inside are the no-doz tablets on the list above. If I leave the stake in the room and lock it behind me, the stake is still there the next day.
There is one more item which may aid in vampire-killing, which involves an oven.
I am unclear why an oven would emit SUNLIGHT but that seems strangely specific to mention. I could foresee somehow getting Dracula upstairs and … tossing him in? Maybe the stake immobilizes but doesn’t kill (there are so many vampire mythologies it is hard to know what’s getting used here).
In any case, I hope to have BIG WINNER attached to my next post on this game. Fingers crossed.
A chronology —
Day 1: I have no neck bites and a tent stake in my inventory. If I look into a mirror I see:
TODAY I look healthy…
A bell rings part of the way through the day (“DING-DONG”) at which point a postcard arrives just outside the castle.
At the end of the day after the sun sets, I fall asleep and end up in bed.
Day 2: I now have neck bites (98% sure these are guaranteed to happen), and my tent stake no longer in my inventory (“I’VE A HUNCH I’VE BEEN ROBBED!”; 50% sure this is supposed to be hidden somewhere to prevent this from happening).
A bell rings again and there’s a letter and a package.
Day 3: I awake in bed again. If the cigarettes or blood from the package were in my inventory, those are now gone (although if I have a single cigarette, that remains).
There are no new special events that I know of.
Day 4: I am a vampire! (Game over.)
I did make a bit of progress — I managed to get to a room underneath the starting room by tying a sheet to the bed. This leads to a room with a Dracula portrait that can be moved to reveal a dark tunnel. Unfortunately I have no portable source of light. If I try to light one of the cigarettes the game complains that I don’t have any matches. I’ll have to search around; my guess is there’s a secret item somewhere. Other than getting a source of light, I’m trying my best to find a hiding place for the tent stake.
The experience overall is far from anything I’ve played so far; Secret Agent had a few dramatic elements like The Count, but still was a collect-a-thon at heart; with this game it feels like the author intended a narrative where the puzzles are incidental, as opposed to designing a puzzle sequence with some narrative attached.
I could go back to Warp some more, but I’m rather exhausted of gathering treasures. The next Scott Adams game off my list has a reputation for being experimental and not just a treasure grab, so I decided to go for it next.
Despite the “what are you doing here” setup from the cover this does not seem to be amnesia.
Rather, this is a case where the in-game character has knowledge that the player doesn’t, and part of the gameplay is simply deciphering what’s going on. It’s quickly established The Count means the vampire Dracula.
(Footnote.)
The objective is (probably?) to destroy him
but if that’s the case, why are we sleeping at the castle? And how does that match with the cover which indicates this might be a love story of some sort? Perhaps the main character intended to destroy Dracula but fell enamored instead? If so, is this voluntary or involuntary? If involuntary, why did we get “tucked in” apparently by Dracula without any physical damage?
Also experimental: the main map is tiny even for a Scott Adams game
and it seems like the main notion is that time advances to sunset, at which point you get sleepy and awake in bed. Day Two below:
Is the neck bite necessary to the story, or am I supposed to prepare Day One so it doesn’t happen?
It’s highly disconcerting to play a game without even knowing the player character’s motive (or if there was an original motive that changed). It’s a dream where you are dropped as an actor in a play and everyone else expects you know the lines but you have no idea what’s going on.
The only thing resembling a “puzzle” is there is a room visible underneath the window of the opening room, and it appears like the game wants you to get there somehow. Still, the whole thing is refreshingly odd and I might just spend some time mapping out if any changes happen when time passes. I’m suspecting an Infocom-mystery-game setup where certain things only happen at certain times and it’d be useful to get a map of the schedule.
Footnote: This is a bit of a side rant but I have to say — what’s up with the spelling and capitalization of Scott Adams games? “ADVEWNTURE?” This isn’t even version 1 I’m playing; nobody ever noticed the extra w? And why does “afternoon” have the spelling “AFternoon”? More than once in the game? And why does that sort of odd capitalization happen in multiple games? Is there some genuine technical reason? It’s been driving me bananas in every Scott Adams game. Also, tip for future players: the way to get out of bed is GET UP. Not STAND, UP, OUT, GET OUT, EXIT, or a dozen other variants that would seem to work. I spent about 40 turns at the start of this game just trying to do basic movement. It’s the first time in a while I hit a genuine guess-the-verb puzzle that took me more than one extra turn to resolve. My journey through the 1970s in general has hit much less guessing of the verb than the reputation of old text adventures suggests.
(Click the image below for the complete map, except for mazes.)
(Click here if you’d like to read the whole sequence of posts leading up to this point.)
I actually rattled this game around a few times in the interim period since I made my last post, but got enough nowhere that I finally consulted a walkthrough. Fortunately it turned out to be one of those chains-of-causality situations where a single hint led me through nearly the entire game (except for two bits at the end which I will share soon). The game is one of those where items and things don’t necessarily exist until they are ready to, and I had simply never quite got through the first part of the “quest chain.”
The chain starts with the Victorian lady wanting her dog. I am certain you don’t remember what I’m talking about, so here’s a clip:
> make tea
You drop the teabag in the cup, add boiling water, and brew up a fine cup of tea.
> n
An old lady in a wheelchair glares at you as you enter a living room. Her gaze softens as it alights on the cup of tea you’re carrying. “At last!” she exclaims. “How I’ve waited for a decent cup of tea – even if it doesn’t have a saucer,” she adds. She grabs the cup from you greedily and drains it. “Aaah, that’s better. And now I wonder if you could be so kind to little old me and find my little lost dog for me? He ran out a while before you came in. I’m very worried because he hasn’t had his din-dins yet. I do hope he hasn’t gone to play up the cliffs again. Do find him – I would be SO grateful.” She shoos you gently back into the kitchen again.
After a convoluted set piece involving a large plank, I had gotten to the point where I had the dog but the Victorian lady’s house was now blocked off. I had been carrying a dog biscuit to keep the dog from running off, but that turned out to be wrong; I needed to plant the biscuit near the house, so the dog would run off and forge a path through the undergrowth that I could then follow as an alternate route back to the Victorian lady. Whereupon …
The old lady beams as you enter. “What a delightful little doggy,” she smiles, taking it from you. “But my dog was shaggier than that. Could you try again, please?”
As you leave the room, you see the dog running into the dark passage to the north. He yelps once, and is then silent.
… the dog search continues. I discovered fairly quickly the next dog in the danger room sequence of riddles (I had suspected given the empty rooms I was waiting for a quest trigger there) which led to a much more straightforward delivery …
“Another dog!” says the old lady. “But that’s not mine either, I’m afraid. I’ll look after it, though.” She takes it from you. “My dog was much shaggier than that one,” she tells you, as she pushes you back towards the kitchen.
As you leave the room, you see the dog running into the dark passage to the north. He yelps once, and is then silent.
… and yet more dog hunting. Again I found the next dog in short order; it was near the Tower of Babel area in a “Gloomy Cave” that smelled of dog. Surely this is the one?
“Wrong again,” declares the old lady, “but you’re doing well. Give him to me. My dog was extremely shaggy and answers to the name Spot. Off you go!”
As you leave the room, you see the dog running into the dark passage to the north. He yelps once, and is then silent.
This time there happened to be dog footprints leading back to the danger room, so a literal hop, skip, and jump later …
“Oh dear, this is difficult,” says the old lady, ” but this dog still isn’t shaggy enough. Could you try again, just for little old me?”
She takes the dog from you and pushes you firmly towards the kitchen. As you leave the room, you see the dog running into the dark passage to the north. He yelps once, and is then silent.
… and I really started to wonder how far the game is pushing this. In any case, the only dog-related item I hadn’t used yet was a kennel that was empty … and was still empty. However, I could hear happy barking. >GET ALL yielded an invisible dog in my inventory (I swear I am not making this up). Fortunately there was a nearby brown paint trap I had long been dying to know the purpose of, and a few steps later, finally, finally:
“Oh hooray!” shrieks the old lady, grabbing the dog, “My darling little Spotty-wotty! I should have told you he was invisible – no wonder you were having trouble finding him. I’ll make you a beneficiary in my will,” she declares, and writes something on a document. “I’ll just go and blot it,” she says, and starts to wheel her chair toward the passageway to the north. “It’s a pity the lights are so unreliable here – gas lights were so much better,” she mutters as she disappears into the murky passage.
There is a sudden cry of “AAGH!” from the passageway, and an equally sudden thump. Everything goes still.
You are in the living room of the bungalow. The windows are boarded up
in here, too. The only exits are north, through a dark passageway,
and south to the kitchen.
> n
You are in the hall of the bungalow. To the north there has been a small earthquake recently, and a big pit has opened up. The old lady and some dogs are lying at the bottom. She must have stumbled onto the pit in the dark, fallen in, and broken every bone in her body, poor dear! The only safe exit is back south.
There is a will here, naming you as beneficiary.
I’ve heard of amoral adventuring, but this tops anything I can remember, even though the adventurer is actually just trying to be helpful the whole time. In any case, the will can be turned (at a nearby solicitor’s office, of course it can) into a cheque which counts as a treasure.
There is a large, stuffed albatross here!
There is an ancient treatise by Socrates here!
There is a fine silver chain here!
There is a valuable cheque, made out to you, here!
There is a treasure chest here!
There is an erratic but valuable antique clock here!
There is a stuffed platypus here, encrusted with jewels!
There is a valuable platinum-edged portrait of
Maurits Escher, who is portrayed holding
a valuable platinum-edged portrait of
Maurits Escher, who is portrayed holding
……
……
…… here, here, here!
A piece of sausage is curled up here.
There is an inlaid slipper wrought with the finest filigree here!
There is a gold tooth the size of an egg here!
There is a bronze trophy, marked “Riddle Champion of
Brand X”, here!
There is an exquisite ivory tusk here!
> score
If you were to stop now, you would score 289 points out of
a maximum of 300.
After multiple checks, I did indeed have all the treasures; I just somehow lost 10 points. Deciphering the mystery required a complete replay and reference to the walkthrough.
I found out I went through a particular section called the Garden of Eden wrong. There’s a snake with a tempting fruit you can eat, and eating the fruit causes you to “fall from grace” so to speak and land in the North of Eden – East of Eden area I wrote about once.
I assumed eating the fruit was a necessary part of the script, but it turns out doing reduced my score. After harassing the snake enough times by trying to take it (!) the snake gets mad and leaves and there’s a route to leave the garden of Eden without eating the fruit.
Oif. Replay was fortunately fairly fast (this is not Acheton length) so I corrected my loss of points, returned all the treasures to the correct place, and …
> score
If you were to stop now, you would score 299 points out of
a maximum of 300.
… still didn’t have a CONGRATULATIONS YOU ARE WINNER screen. Huh. At this point I confess to weariness; I went straight for the walkthrough. There’s a magic word “BLACH” from one of the very first rooms that’s been useless the entire game.
> blach
You have scored 300 points out of a maximum of 300.
WELL DONE! YOU’VE CRACKED THE WHOLE GAME!
YOU GOT THE POINT AT LAST!
Mission accomplished?
One, and most importantly, this is a rotten hard and randomly unfair game. In fact, it has the reputation of being one of the nastiest of the Phoenix/ Topologika games, and it thoroughly deserves it. The other games of this origin want you dead; this one wants you dead _now_, and if at all possible, for you to suffer in the process. You can die at the game’s slightest whim.
— Richard Bos
I think you can probably guess I am not going to recommend this game to play. The main quest line is a terrible shaggy dog joke, death is rampant, and the puzzles are filled to the brim with unfair.
Yet —
As a whole experience, to sum up, I enjoyed myself. The world is truly random, but somehow I started to grasp a logic to it where of course a puzzle could be solved with a literary allusion and why yes of course I’m hearing an invisible dog that I need to drop a bucket of paint on. This may simply be a sign I was on this game too long, and while I enjoyed myself, I’m also very glad to move on.
(That includes, by the way, the imaginary worlds gamejam, which has not been forgotten and is at this very moment the subject of a much-edited draft. Soon!)
Progress!
One of my issues from my last post was an albatross that stays tied to one’s neck. Apparently what’s needed to divest it is a story:
> e
Wheeeeeeeee…. Ooof!
As you slide, one of your possessions tumbles away from you. You can hear it falling into the distance.
As you drop into the room, you catch sight of a burly workman carrying three “Caution” signs over his shoulder. “I say,” you begin, “I’ve got this frightfully interesting story about an albatross. You simply must hear it!” So saying, you pour forth your tale. The workman is fascinated and thoughtfully suggests you switch your lamp off while you continue. This you do, and the two of you sit in the darkness for a while. After a while you come to the end of your story. The workman, visibly moved, shakes you by the hand as you relight your lamp, and then moves off carrying his warning signs. The load around your neck feels much lighter.
I admittedly only was down there because I thought the item-falling-away effect from sliding just might apply to the albatross, but I’ll take random luck as a win here.
I’m still persisting, though, and I’ve been thinking hard about persistence when there is no apparent progress. This is an issue that applies to my professional life as well as my hobbyist life.
The main trick, I think, is to make explicit: even when nothing is resolved, eliminating possibilities is still progress.
By that I mean while attempts X, Y, and Z may have failed, in the process we have learned that X, Y, and Z don’t work to solve a particular puzzle. Normally this doesn’t provide any user feedback, unless the user makes that feedback visible.
The Tower of Babel puzzle is on the high end of frustration. Here is my record of trying to solve it.
> n
You’re at the tower of Babel – a most imposing construction that seems to stretch up to the very heavens. Hundreds of people are milling around looking very friendly but confused. The atmosphere is most bewildering; it becomes difficult to understand yourself think after a while. A road leads north and south from here.
> climb tower
Before you can do anything the atmosphere of confusion seems to take control of your senses. You find you can no longer understand the language you are speaking.
You’re at the tower of Babel.
At this point the “>” parser disappears and nothing seems to help.
w
A man in a white coat shows professional curiosity as you make your utterance.
You’re at the tower of Babel.
n
A nearby trade-unionist, straight from the shop floor, bellows ‘Kadima hapoel!’ in your ear.
You’re at the tower of Babel.
s
A young woman is amused by your remark. ‘Rotse lishtot mashehu?’ she asks, pointing towards a hot drinks machine.
You’re at the tower of Babel.
jump
Some children burst into laughter and start copying your accent.
You’re at the tower of Babel.
blach
On hearing your words a passer-by offers you some wurst and asks, ‘Ooluy ata raev?’
You’re at the tower of Babel.
inv
You attract the attention of a passing group of troubadours. ‘Shir itanu!’ one exclaims at which they all start singing (in an assorted collection of keys, of course.)
The only other hint seems to be in a different room.
> d
You are in a smooth corridor hacked out of the living granite (whatever that means… I mean, whoever heard of living granite anyway? Oh, sorry…). There is a hole up, and round passages lead east and west. There are some words hacked out of the living (ahem), which read “WORDS IN TOWERS HAVE OTHER POWERS”.
There’s a few angles to work this problem.
I. Say the right magic word(s)
Other problems in this game have been solved by a single word like THINK or STEINBECK, so perhaps that’s the trick.
think
steinbeck
coleridge
jump
blach
pray (verb not even recognized)
any of the riddle answers
all of the riddle answers in the order encountered
II. Prepare immunity to confusion beforehand
bring gas mask
temporary deafness or blindness somehow?
III. Prepare a “time bomb” to startle out of confusion
Bringing the exploding case to the Tower
The case will eventually explode and kill the player, but it doesn’t help with escaping the Tower.
Lighting a match, having it burn out while at the Tower.
It hurts the player’s finger in another scene but here the match just burns to ash.
bring the shaggy dog
IV. Decipher the statements being made
It’s faintly possible the phrases the characters are saying are not gibberish, but coded language, and deciphering that language will allow escape.
Kadima hapoel! -> trade-unionist
Rotse lishtot mashehu? -> pointing to hot drinks machine
Ooluy ata raev? -> offered wurst
Shir itanu! -> right before singing
Checking every possible rot1-25 rotation
Attempting to say any of the words
Attempting to say any of the words backwards
Supposing a 1-1 cryptogram
. . .
Having the lists not only provides the feeling of momentum, but also prevents an issue I’ve had before: getting stuck on a puzzle because I thought I tried a particular action, but I hadn’t (or at least not in a certain exact way).
Additionally it’s possible the setup requires an item I haven’t seen yet — so it isn’t good for me to linger absolutely — but it means that if I leave and come back I have a better memory of what already has been attempted.
I finally had a session of Philosopher’s Quest where I got nothing accomplished whatsoever.
Such events lead to the downward spiral of hints and eventual clinging to a walkthrough. So I’m going to put my best effort and compiling my ideas and making a plan.
From the manual of the 1987 version of Philosopher’s Quest.
I’m going to list puzzles and places I’m stuck on, although in an abbreviated style; check my prior posts for my details.
Bees: Trying to swim in the ocean results in a swarm of the bees forcing a dive in the ocean. This is ok with the aqualung but I suspect it might be possible to also get by the bees.
Dropped bucket: The giant bucket used in the plank puzzle blocks the way to an entrance I need to get into to deliver a shaggy dog.
Danger room: While I can pass through all the riddle rooms, I haven’t got anything to happen as a result.
Dog cave (& kennel): One room involves a cave where a dog obviously was staying, and another involves a kennel. I haven’t been able to use either.
Albatross: At one point you get an albatross on your neck. It seems like it maybe is a treasure, except it is impossible to get off.
Whale escape: I still get dissolved by acid here.
Tower of Babel: This location leads to my character being confused and not able to go anywhere or say anything.
Brown paint: There’s a room that dumps brown paint on you that flakes off. I haven’t found any effect.
Stars: There are three rooms with painted stars, but responses to magic words or waving items are so random I suspect these might be red herrings.
While it’s possible there’s item reuse (the keys have been used twice already), here are the items I haven’t used yet:
Explosive case: This case will blow up all the items in a room but I haven’t made it useful yet.
Driftwood: I can set it on fire but it burns away immediately and doesn’t seem to be of use.
I also have the magic word “BLACH” which hasn’t done anything and I suspect might also be a red herring.
Plan:
Renga in Blue 