Renga in Blue   Interactive fiction and the All the Adventures project

(Continued from my previous post.)

It turns out — despite multi-line issues to an extent it’s still puzzling what happened — Gus Brasil had already busted through with the power of editing the BASIC lines directly, so was able to put a “fixed” version of the game. This fixed version still crashes at a critical point but it was enough for me to get through to the end of the game. (EVEN MORE EXTRA: Stay tuned to the end — there’s a specific reason all the issues happened.)

I’m still not entirely sure about two of the puzzles, but let’s continue from where I crashed last time…

…which was at the trunk shown, where the game just breaks with a syntax error. The fixed version goes past this, revealing that inside the trunk there is a small chest.

Unfortunately, trying to OPEN CHEST brings up the EXPLOSIONS which got us at the troll cave last time.

The chest-in-trunk is a trap, and one we’ll get back to, as I was able to (with the fix) use the ASK command. The reason the original broke is it set a variable marked ASK, which nameclashed a protected word in Color Computer BASIC (ASC). The exact circumstances here are important not only to fixing the problem (just change the variable name to something else) but also because it seems impossible this would happen with some kind of bad dump error. Yet, how was this game able to run then? There was a review in the Rainbow only two months after the game’s release which didn’t mention any fatal bugs, although the reviewer did have the same problem as I did in figuring out what the graphics were supposed to depict.

Yes. Nice green grass. Pretty green trees. Purple tree frogs. And, oh no. We’ve broken a rule and told you something about the adventure. Yes. that thing is a tree frog.

Well, we weren’t sure what it was. We tried a bunch of things and didn’t get it right. Finally, we went a-hunting in the list of variables (one reason I like Basic Adventures — when I get stuck I can cheat) and figured out it was a tree frog. And, while I still have not found out what to do with the tree frog, at least I know what it is.

The review does, importantly, indicate that the reviewer did not finish the game. Maybe they didn’t try using the ASK command at all?

Oh, by the way, the tree frog is used for nothing. I think. We’ll get back to that later.

With the ASK command working properly, I was able to ASK ORACLE — the wandering old man with the staff and ASK SHINVA, the tree dryad. In both cases they gave cryptic hints.

Speaking of cryptic hints, I’ll mention I knew RUB was a verb that worked (both from using my verb-testing list, but also plowing through the BASIC code later trying to diagnose crashes) and found it applies to the URN.

This technically gives four clues: TRANSLATION OF FIVE WILL GET YOU CASH, U REPLACES K, YKG / KYA (on the urn), and CIRCLE THRICE IF TRAPPED (as “said” by the urn). I have no idea what what the first three clues mean; I’ve finished the game and circling thrice is the only one I “used”.

I spent a long time trying to get literal translations of the word “five” (like “cinq”) to work out to something, but without luck; to be honest I was still leery about the possibility there might be some broken code, so I poked around until I found curious reference to a noun “BOT”. This was in the OPEN section, so I tried OPEN BOTTOM while holding the chest, and it worked, revealing gold coins.

Now, do the unused clues point to this directly somehow? Or maybe the clue about five points was meant to apply to something in one of the items that I never used in the game (to disclose right now I never used: hip boots, mushrooms, stump, lake, fishing net, tree frog) and from that item I would get a second clue suggesting I could have opened the chest from the bottom safely. Or maybe — and this is very very possible — the author(s) had some elements in mind but never bothered implementing them due to running out of space / time / mental willpower.

Fortunately, I had already done ASK TROLL (“MONEY FOR SAFE PASSAGE”) so I knew where the coins needed to go.

That is, while you can kill the troll with a sword, the cave is then trapped with an explosive and you die. All three items carried at the start (sword, food, rope) are red herrings.

This led to a new area…

…and a new background graphic. Finally not the same three trees over and over.

Just this graphic over and over instead.

An offshoot branch leads to a rock blocking the way which I was unable to move. You can try to JUMP ROCK but you hit your head on the ceiling and die.

What’s important to start is an axe to the far west of the cave. With the axe in hand, it is now possible to go back to the ogre and the princess and KILL OGRE (sword wasn’t able to get through the tough skin, I guess).

With the ogre dead you can now ASK PRINCESS and crash the game.

Using video capture I still wasn’t able to get right up to the crash so this is missing a word.

I think the message is about using the nymph’s “name” but after multiple repeats it kept zipping by so I’m not sure. Either way the word SHINVA isn’t useful, but I knew (again from needing to extract the verb list during debugging) that VAN was a verb, so maybe VANISH which is an anagram?

Yes! This let me get down to a small 2 by 2 area of caves with apparently nothing in them.

Going back through the clues I had not used yet (which was all of them at this point) I decided Circle Thrice could apply here so I tried going E, S, W, N repeatedly, doing a circle and seeing if something would happen. On the third time while going west there was mist described visually by giving the word “MIST”.

Then going north led to the key, which landed in my inventory without having to even pick it up.

Thus I was able to get back to the cage, OPEN CAGE, GET PRINCESS, and walk my way to victory (go back to the castle at the start and GO CASTLE).

Twist ending!

Unfortunately we don’t have a copy of The Secret of the Crypt despite it being advertised fairly regularly in The Rainbow up through 1985. Searching references to Genesis Software through the entire run of The Rainbow, there’s one more mention in 1989, in a letter that asks about the company amongst other members of the fallen. Alas,

To the best of our knowledge, the majority of the software companies you mention went out of business years ago and are no longer marketing software for the Color Computer.

I’ve found other Genesis Softwares, including one in Missouri founded in the 90s, but that’s a fairly popular company name so I don’t think they’re any relation; the trail goes cold for now.

Thanks to everyone in the last thread who helped with prying open this game’s secrets. I am still Secret Agent-ing in German so we’ll get back over to the normal TRS-80 next time.

EXTRA: Gunther has the extra issue worked out (one of the lines was too long) and has a download here. This version of the game works with no crashes.

In order to fix that issue, he modified the princess dialogue line to cut the apostrophe-S from the word “NYMPH”:

Also, all the spare clues have now been resolved. Gus Brasil found that if you LOOK CHEST you get an additional picture with helpful information:

These letters shifted (translated) by five will get the command OPEN BOTTOM as needed to open the chest safely.

Regarding the urn’s text, as noted by John N…

…applying the “U for K” clue gets ?U? U?? which is close enough to RUB URN that it seems like the game is meaning the player to jump the rest of the way (the similarity to OPEN BOTTOM helps). I had skipped needing this information as I had solved the puzzle by simply knowing RUB worked and it ought to be tried on things that looks magic.

EXTRA EXTRA: As BB Durall observes in the comments, ASC is not a protected word while loading from tape rather than disk. Gunther tried extracting the BASIC and using that to be in no-disk mode and was able to get the game to run without modifications. Download the BASIC here, then run with xroar -m coco -no-machine-cart -run ENCHANT.BAS which will load the file “off tape”.

Source.

Genesis Software — at least the version of the company we’re talking about here, not the business software company from Washington — started advertising in The Rainbow in October 1982.

The magazine was, essentially, the central information outlet for the TRS-80 Color Computer all the way up to 1993. Nearly everything for Color Computer went through its pages. The only evidence of Genesis Software’s existence outside of its games is from its ads in the Rainbow. They were based in Manchester, Missouri, and since they used a PO Box and no other identification in their source code that’s all I can say. In addition to Enchanted Forest which we’re playing today, they also published two more adventure games in 1983 (Bigfoot, Secret of the Crypt) but neither is currently available on any archive.

While we’ve had adventure games dating back to Mystery House that imply objects solely through their pictures, there’s still text scattered throughout. This game has the unique aspect of wanting to show all the action solely through pictures.

This might be completely fine with a high-end enough system (or even an Apple II with a skilled enough artist) but let me give an example of what I was dealing with in Enchanted Forest:

Is it a jellyfish? Tiny yoda? An alien blob? This is a TREE FROG. Fortunately the game gives an extra command (WHAT) to let you know what’s nearby, but the fact an extra step is required suggests the author genuinely hoped it’d be unnecessary.

So if the TREE FROG is there, where are the lake, stump, and mushrooms in the picture? This game also features directionality, akin to The Haunted Palace: you can LOOK NORTH, LOOK SOUTH, LOOK EAST, and LOOK WEST. Most directions just have the three trees; in the location above typing LOOK EAST shows a different scene.

If you walk a direction (north, south, east, west) you will automatically be facing that way when you enter a new location. In the place you start, where there is a castle in the distance, you start facing south; you only see the castle if you re-enter the same room going from south to north or LOOK NORTH while standing there.

Here’s the overall map I was able to reach:

My particular phrasing of “was able to reach” usually indicates this is going to be a part 1 of x post. Unfortunately, I was stopped because the game — at least the copy of it available — is very broken. There are numerous crashes at essential points and it is clear there’s something corrupted in the lines preventing progress. An picture to illustrate, where the game crashes in the middle of drawing a graphic of an open trunk:

This is followed by

SN ERROR IN 1255

which is just a long list of drawing commands.

I can at least give a general idea of the gameplay. You start with a rope, sword, and food; your inventory limit is 3 so you can’t pick anything up without dropping something off first.

The Enchanted Forest of the title is very open; available just from walking around are a lantern, old urn, fishing net, and hip boots. One room has Shinva the Wood Nymph (where I would love to ASK SHINVA but that command crashes the game)…

…and a troll guarding a cave (which is easy to KILL while holding the sword from the start of the game).

Unfortunately, entering the cave kills you with EXPLOSIONS.

The princess we’re looking for is out in the open, past a sign that says BEAST IS EAST.

Because of the directional views, if you approach this room from the south (and don’t LOOK EAST) you won’t see the sign.

The tree frog I mentioned earlier is a wandering creature, as is an ORACLE who can appear in any the normally empty rooms.

ASK seems especially pertinent here, but again, game crash.

I tested this with all the different CoCo versions and multiple emulators but no dice; the crashes feel “authentic” to me in that I think the emulator is reacting appropriately to the code that’s in the file. That is, something went wrong in the process of dumping the disk. It might even be possible to repair the damage but it isn’t just a single line causing the crashes, so this goes back on the technical issues pile for now.

I did want to document this game, because directionality-graphics are quite rare for this time and it seems like everyone who used them came up with idea on their own (the only game in the category that because famous was Asylum II; however, that was designed around an RPG-style maze so isn’t quite the same gimmick as Haunted Palace and this game). Rather than the graphics being like pages of a book giving a full view of a location, they resemble more the actual perspective of the avatar in the world.

Coming up: Geheimagent XP-05 — Abenteuer-Spiel in deutscher.