Renga in Blue   Interactive fiction and the All the Adventures project

I think my play experience in the last 3 hours (new total, 10.75) is most aptly illustrated by a moment where I found a new area.

The 2082 AD Asia section seems more elaborate than the others because it is broken into distinct sections. You start at a “Civic Center” and can hop on a subway, where you get to — by prompted voice command — choose between North, East, South, and West side stations. When I was first mapping, I went East, and then went South. By going South, the subway returned me to the Civic Center, so I assumed the South Station was simply the one you start at, and moved on.

I was wrong. If you are at a “branch” of the subway, then no matter what direction you specify, you will go back to the Civic Center. I guess it was too much to code having the subway go back be something that happens automatically, rather than require the player say something which isn’t even interpreted correctly.

This meant there was an entire South Side I hadn’t mapped. Exciting! And…

…I found nothing. Absolutely nothing.

There was an enormous amount of poking at things and trying to get something new to happen, and failing. The one puzzle I managed to solve — and I did earnestly solve it, not just luck out — was back in Past Asia at a samurai that was attacking. I had a boomerang that I couldn’t THROW so I had put it out of thought in that area, but then it occurred to me the game was probably looking for KILL (when the aborigines first get introduced you are warned they might kill you with their boomerang) and it worked, yielding me a sword.

Way back when I dug up a piece of jade (this is the temple where they used kung-fu if I tried to steal an emerald, allegedly 50 BCish) I also found I could dig a second time to get a second piece of jade. I have found nobody else other than the rice seller who wants jade, though.

Things I tried included

• Combing over Future Los Angeles with the key again — the one that doesn’t fit in the door that it is sitting at — looking for something, anything, that might budge. I guess it’s a red herring, but it’s more mystifying than even usual (more on those in a second).
• Getting something stolen by the thief, taking the rope, getting the police dog, and going over every square in Future London again looking for the dog to react.
• Picking areas at random and testing map areas in case I missed anything else, like the South Side of Future Tokyo.
• Taking every item I could over to Cleopatra to see if I could get some kind of reaction.

The game is big enough I know there are still things I can test. The sheer size of Time Zone is one part of what makes it resistant to is the “grinding” type puzzle solve. The point-and-click equivalent is where you visit every location and try to “use” every item on every visible object. This potentially is a good thing, if it weren’t for knowing that very likely some of the puzzle solves will be very arbitrary.

A second part that makes it resistant is the “dual realities” problem I’m facing. I still haven’t been able to light the torch without using the sticks that were necessary in the stone age to get a stone hammer. So I can choose between either a hammer or a lit torch. I am 96% certain the Stone Age section is not a red herring and there really is an alternate way to give light, especially because MATCHES is a recognized noun through the game.

(Oh, you know how verbs don’t get recognized across disks? Because the objects can move across time zones, the nouns are more universal, so it’s easier to play guess-the-noun to theorize if something really exists.)

A third part is the sheer number of red herrings in general. While I can’t absolutely confirm anything in particular is a red herring, I had heard before playing there were entire time zones that could be skipped, and I’m assuming some apparent puzzles really shouldn’t be bothered with. For example, the 50BC Alaska Polar Bear does not let you react, at all, and there are very few rooms: does this mean the entire location shouldn’t be bothered with? (On the other hand, cold-weather clothes are needed elsewhere, and it feels like if any placed had some you could steal, it’d be 50BC Alaska.)

I wish there was a way to narrow things down for certain. I have an intuition of what I can just pass by but I could easily be mistaken. For example, one of the South America areas has an avalanche you can hide from in a cave, followed by a gorge that can’t be crossed.

The presence of the avalanche makes me thinks that this is a real puzzle solvable by some item or another (not the rope, I tried it in the screenshot above). But what if the game is mean enough to put puzzle sequences leading to dead ends? What if this happened maybe not even by design, but because they were exhausted from working on the game and needed to get it out the door?

The upshot of all this is I am very close to starting to consult hints. I have not yet, nor do I want to yet, but I’m going to declare that I’ll do two more passes, and if nothing breaks free, I’ll start to declare open season. (If nothing else, I know some of you have been itching to drop hints in the comments. Just a little longer!)

From an old eBay auction.

I’ve been doing some puzzle-solving, but “doing” might be more appropriate, because I’ve had to make an “alternate-universe” save where I do something in what’s likely the wrong place in order to unlock a couple areas. In other words, I’ve probably (intentionally) softlocked my game in order to see into the future.

Ok, yes, this one’s messy. Let me put my “Hours played” up front this time.

HOURS PLAYED: 7.75 (+2.5 change)

Mapping brainlessly and only solving puzzles by lucky shots on the run = fast. Combing over every area and trying to solve things = slow.

I did, as threatened, make a spreadsheet.

One thing I can conclude for near-certain is that objects do not just move forward in time for solving puzzles. Quite a few things go backwards, and in the case of Cleopatra, I was able to

a.) get a bag of rice from 50 BC Asia by giving jade to a peasant

b.) take that rice up two zones to 1400 AD Asia to trade the rice for some silk

c.) take the silk back to Cleopatra in 50 BC Africa.

You normally get stopped by a guard who says you need to bring a gift, but lets you pass by if you have silk. Interestingly enough, if you then try to give the silk to her, you are told she has enough silk already. I’m still not sure what to do.

In the department of really-odd-things, when combing over Los Angeles 2082 AD I found something extraordinarily strange: a key under a mat at a locked door.

And I’m not joking about the strangeness, because the key does not go to the door it is at. Nor does it go to the locked car a room nearby. Or the other locked house. Or the locked padlock in Asia 2082 AD that is the same color. Or the locked door in 2082 Australia. I really don’t know what’s going on. Am I having a parser issue or is this just a bizarre troll on the game’s part?

It would be bizarre for the key in Los Angeles to open a padlock in Tokyo, but the situation is already strange.

My biggest “progress” was, as mentioned before, somewhat illusory. I was nursing a burnt-out torch from the Inca, and trying to look across all time and space for a way to light it (…never mind one of the locations you can stop by is your very own house in 1982…) and tried, on a whim, to skip the Stone Age setup of trading fire for a stone hammer. I brought the fire to 1982 AD instead.

And yes, this works: you can light the torch. (You cannot take the torch back to the Stone Age, it is too far back in time and goes poof.) Having done this unlocks three brand-new dark areas. First is the far-future where I made a smidge of progress to find two grates.

The second grate is too high to reach. Remember I had to sacrifice the stone hammer to get the light, so it would be hilarious if the solution to this rusted grate is to hit it with a stone hammer.

Second is in the Middle East behind the OPEN SESAME cave. I was able to walk in and grab some gold. I can’t get out because of dying of thirst, but I’m fairly certain that’s because I skipped trading for a camel (I don’t know yet what the merchant wants).

Finally there’s a dark labyrinth at Rome. Inside the labyrinth were some tweezers, and I was able to go to the lion and USE TWEEZERS to get a thorn out of its paw. The lion let me by and consequentially I got to a top level area overlooking the arena.

Unfortunately exploring further had me thrown in a different gladiator portion where I died with no sword or shield. I don’t know if that means I will find them in other time zones and bring them forth.

I did make one further discovery not dependent on the torch in 2082 Europe but it didn’t yield me much. I had assumed that getting the police dog is what dropped a rope in my inventory, but no: for some reason when you meet the thief and he takes your stuff (or doesn’t, if you have an empty inventory) he leaves a rope behind. Then you can TIE ROPE to the dog when first getting him and he won’t run away. This lets you walk around Future London with a dog trotting behind, which sounds pretty neat, but unfortunately I haven’t found any use for this. My initial assumption was I would find the thief’s lair, but in no location in down did the dog perk up and start sniffing or the like. I even tried taking the rhea egg (from way in the past, 50 BC Australia) and throwing it at the thief so it would make a trail, but no dice.

This still doesn’t feel like a lot for 2.5 hours, but other than organizing my documentation I hit a lot of things not working. I tried visiting 1000 AD Africa which had logs and a river but where the game said I didn’t have enough to make a raft, and I still don’t, even with a rope and saw. (To be fair to the game, the picture of the rope is kind of small, more dog-leash size than wrap-around-some-logs style.) I had plenty of other simply failed theories. I assume the boomerang gets thrown … somewhere? Even though most places don’t understand THROW BOOMERANG? The only era with a promising message was 1000 AD Europe (with Robin Hood) which had a slightly different message indicating I was just in the wrong room, but I still couldn’t get anything to come from it.

Adam L. asks me what the difficulty is like. I can’t say I’ve solved any stereotypically “tough” puzzles yet, although that doesn’t mean they aren’t there. If there really is some strange finagling with fire, for instance, that’s a circumstance of generally “simple” action (making a fire) being made complicated by forming unexpected dependencies between puzzles. It may be that the sharp stick all the way back in the prehistoric age that I blew on a tiger in the Stone Age is actually also useful in 1400 AD in a “simple” way, but I didn’t have a chance to find out because I already lost the item. So that’s one facet of difficulty, and it does get multiplied by the sheer size of the game making it hard to test theories out.

I don’t doubt there are a few puzzles difficult for their own sake as well, although there is a limit; there’s no complex daemons except for the very occasional bit where an enemy chases our hero (like the slavers on the Ivory Coast). In that case it may be possible to walk somewhere in particular to help with a solve (like how you can outrun a mountain-slide by hiding in a cave) but I don’t expect the same crazy juggling we’ve seen in, say, Hezarin.

I still have many theories to test, so I’m not quite ready to consider hints yet.

I’ve now done a survey of every single era and continent in the game. Oddly, except for the finale area, this means I’ve likely seen most everything in the game. There are a couple puzzles that gate off areas that are very clearly only single-room areas; in a good number of cases there doesn’t seem to be any rooms blocked off at all.

From Mobygames, a disk from the Japanese FM-7 version.

Just as a reminder, I’ve so far tromped through Prehistoric Age, Stone Age, 50 BC, and 1000 AD. Also, the game does make it clear from something later that the dates are approximate landing points; one time landing in “1400” there was explicitly a date given of 1492 (…betting you can guess already what that’s about…) so the time machine obviously is dealing in approximation. That means if a location is off plus-or-minus 100 years I wouldn’t call it an inaccuracy, but don’t worry, faithful readers: there are still legions of historical errors to nitpick over if you’re so inclined.

1400 AD (kind of)

My same map layout as before, with North America-Europe-Asia on top and South America-Africa-Australia on bottom.

North America results in me getting run over by a stampede of Buffalo. There’s also a ravine that appears to require some manner of rope or ladder or the like to travel over it, although I get stampeded before I can test anything.

There’s a herd of dodgy art in the game, but I kind of like this one.

South America lands us in the Andes (again) with a deadly rockslide (you have enough time to hop into a nearby cave)…

…and going down farther leads to a gorge that is (at present) un-crossable. I appreciated that the map wasn’t in a grid!

Europe lands you in 1492, where you can sign up for the crew of the Santa Maria. You explicitly have to say where you want to work (sails, hold, or galley) and I’m pretty sure only one of them is correct, because Game Design ™.

The correct option is to work the sails, because it lets you get up to a parrot and a telescope. Looking through the telescope lets you see a distance farmhouse, which you can’t otherwise find; then leaving the ship and going to the farmhouse yields an “iron bar” which is useful in 2082 AD.

For those looking to change the timeline, no, you can’t attack Christopher Columbus.

If you’re looking at this screen, I’m fairly sure you’ve softlocked the game.

I think you can take the parrot with you too, but I don’t have anything resembling parrot food.

Africa you land in a desert and then die from the heat.

Asia comes to a forest area located near to a “silk shop”. I was able to trade the rice I had gotten from a peasant in Past Asia for some silk. I haven’t used the silk anywhere yet.

That same continent has one obstacle remaining, that of a samurai. Of course, it is possible this is simply a trap and you’re supposed to avoid the place you get attacked? There are a couple deaths that definitely seem to be just for grins, but if there’s a turn pause before death (as happens here) I’m going with the assumption it is a puzzle rather than a premonition of later Sierra products.

Australia is a maze. Just a maze. There is nothing in the maze.

I wasn’t sure until I had the above experience, but I 98% now believe there are continent/time combos which are just absolute red herrings.

1700 AD

North America lands you at the Declaration of Independence.

Also, Ben Franklin is in his “print shop”, and you can’t go back to the back room if you’re not an employee, which suggests we get a job somehow? Also he has bilocation because he is simultaneously with the signing of the Declaration, if you compare the images.

South America is at the Amazon, and there is a river with crocodiles, and a village with “cannibals” who eat you.

The inside image is so bad I’m putting it behind a link.

Europe lands you at Paris in the time of Napoleon. Notably, just southwest of the time machine landing spot some thieves do a spot of robbery. I don’t know if there’s a puzzle there, as they can be easily avoided. Maybe you can later track them down and find a new object amidst their lair?

Napoleon is in a palace. The front is barred, so it may be the only puzzle in this area is to get inside.

The Africa landing spot is the Ivory Coast, where there’s a slave ship offshore and if you wander long enough you get shot by someone with a musket. There’s also a deadly snake that can kill you as well. (There’s a rustling as you are being followed, so I was hoping to time things so the snake grabbed the enslaver who is never seen, but I haven’t gotten that to work.)

Asia lands you in lots of snow, and you die of cold. There’s a bridge leading to a new place so it definitely is a puzzle rather than a trap.

Australia has quite a few grazing sheep, and a man on a horse who will shoot you if you come by assuming you are rustling sheep (not a bad assumption given how adventurers are). There’s also a barn with a padlock you can break with the iron bar from Italy 1492; inside there is a saw.

You can also take the padlock you break off with you.

2082 AD

The future is mostly boring paved streets.

North America, Los Angeles in particular, has as its only obstacle a locked house (and the boredom from mapping streets).

South America is a bit weirder. You land in Buenos Aires where it specifically says the streets are abandoned; I think the assumption in other places is that there are people that just aren’t depicted. If you wander the streets long enough you get shot by a terrorist sniper.

Europe, I’ve already discussed: you can get a rope from a runaway dog, and there’s a thief who stops you with a gun.

Africa drops you in Egypt again where there’s a dam in the desert. A guard shoots you for trespassing if you try to get by.

Asia is in Tokyo, which has a little variety with a subway that you can use to go to four sub-areas. One area has a locked warehouse, and one has a restaurant which requires yen to enter.

It feels weird doing an epoch-making jump across time and space only to be stymied by a lack of local currency and a locked door.

Australia actually looks kind of nice to live in! But the only thing to do here adventure-wise is stare at another locked door, at a house.

Honestly, the future era gave me the impression Williams was running out of ideas, or the company as a whole was running out of time. South America was interesting, at least, but I wonder if that’s another red-herring age.

Oh, and I did drop by The Far Future, where the Main Bad Guy awaits. I won’t do a full write-up yet but I’ll note the first obstacle is needing a light source, which I have yet to rustle up (I haven’t encountered any place to re-light my burnt out torch from South America).

So, that’s it for my grand tour. I am busy now making a spreadsheet listing each time zone as well as obstacles still to be overcome, and then I’ll try testing a bunch of theories. It does feel like (given I managed to squeeze in three complete eras in less than 1000 words) I’m leaving things out, but not really; there just are so many rooms that aren’t classical rooms in the adventure sense, just background fluff. You can sense the same sort of grid design in King’s Quest games 1 through 5 inclusive, but I think the difference with those is that they are packed with content; there are a few “just scenery” places in those games but for the most part every location has something interesting to look at or interact with. (If you’d like to make a more direct comparison, think of the “ocean” squares from some of those games; I remember Rosella swimming around empty ocean looking for just the right spot to find a whale or something.)

HOURS PLAYED: 5.25

There are some games that have loomed as dark, brooding hulks, games I have known about for a long time but have never touched.

I’ve been afraid of Time Zone ever since roughly I knew the All the Adventures project would be a thing, back in March of 2011.

“Audacious” is the right word. After Roberta Williams polished up her trilogy from 1980 (Mystery House, Wizard and the Princess, Mission: Asteroid) she wanted to make a game that kept going and going and going. From a Computer Gaming World interview, not long after release:

It’s not an easy game. And it’s not for beginners. It takes a really long time to get through TIME ZONE; even for someone who knows the answers. If I sit down to test TIME ZONE, it takes me a good week to go through it one time while testing it and I know the answers! Make sure you have GOOD maps. Use your imagination. Don’t give up. It’s going to take a LONG time.

I might get into details on the creation of Time Zone while amidst my playthrough, although Jimmy Maher already essentially has it covered. What I’m more interested in is the story of Roe Adams III, reviewer for Softalk, who (according to Steve Levy’s book Hackers) “went virtually without sleep for a week” to beat the game before declaring it “one of the greatest gaming feats in history.”

Just how plausible is this? Unfortunately, Hackers is a book that must be taken with several grains of salt (and as far I’ve been able to reckon, all later tellings of the story derive from it) but it does seem plausible to finish the game in the 150-odd hours that a week-with-very-little-sleep and no hints whatsoever would have entailed.

I’d like to test the theory, a little. Unlike most of my playthroughs, I’m going to keep a timer. Usually I don’t do this because

a.) I often play “off-and-on” and may dip in a game for five minutes to test a theory before leaving to do something else

b.) Sometimes an insight can occur “off the computer” so there is some element of “playing” even when the game is not at hand

c.) I don’t like time pressure in general

but I really am curious what the actual modern time to beat would be while avoiding hints as much as possible. Now, keep in mind I am using an emulator so I don’t have to worry about load times, but I also won’t have quite the “immersion experience” that Roe Adams III did, so maybe they’ll cancel each other out? One thing I do have going is that Roberta’s last substantial game, Wizard and the Princess, I managed to complete entirely without hints and found it basically fair, despite other accounts finding it much less fair. So possibly, I’m on the right wavelength for this.

The credits have a few more people involved other than just these, but apparently Terry Pierce did the lion’s share of the art.

I am still somewhat a sucker for the “pastoral opening” to an adventure game.

Let’s just go on a walk! And find out quite immediately after that we experienced a vivid dream.

Why we are uniquely able to defeat the evil ruler of the Planet Neburon I am unclear on, but I assume some technology like the TARDIS is afoot, where the time machine always goes where it needs to be.

It begins.

HOURS PLAYED: 0