(Continued from my prior post here.)
As I suspected, I didn’t have far to go, and it was a matter of verbs, really.
I had to deal with a ghost with the given inventory above. Due to some emulator glitch issues (which were bad enough I had to revert to a prior version of Classic99 to get the program running again) I had to replay to this point where I discovered the purpose of the glowing cube was just to give light to the cellar, so I knew it probably wasn’t the solution to the ghost. (This is definitely a one-object-to-one-puzzle sort of game.)
I had already tried THROWing all my various objects with no luck, until I hit upon, even though the visualization doesn’t make any sense to me, POUR LIQUID.
Maybe this would make sense to me if the ghost was preventing me from going down, but it was preventing me from going up. I get the sense the author didn’t visualize the act as much as think “what’s the action that goes with taking liquid out of a container” and rolled with it.
Above the ghost is where the “grab everything” aspect becomes useful; the chair from earlier can be used for a lift, so you can STAND CHAIR to get up to the attic.
This is a pretty interesting moment (at least for me the most interesting one of the game), as if you try to take the ruby and go down, you’ll get teleported back to the attic. In terms of atmosphere it is the best moment of the game. Except: unless there’s a way I’m missing to drop items — and surely there is, right? — this also represents a softlock, if you don’t have the means to teleport out from here.
As long as you have the chocolate chip cookie from the vampire, you can make a great escape.
This last shot I had to get by unusual means. The screen vanishes too quickly for a screenshot or even reading it (probably the emulator’s fault, not the game’s) which meant I had to replay and start OBS to make a recording. Then I freeze-frame advanced until I could see what the text for winning is. Just like how Aqua Base signaled Haunted House as the next game to play in the series, this one tags Miner 49’er (which seems to be Mr. Morgan’s take on Ghost Town/Greedy Gulch).
The ending screen would have been funnier had I reached the attic without having tried eating the cookie yet, since the game doesn’t even describe the teleportation aspect; you just go straight to the win screen, so somehow you have to infer what it is a cookie did to lead to a great escape.
These “bespoke command only” games can be intensely frustrating but at least this one was easy enough to work; I dread eventually getting up to In Search of the Four Vedas which is supposed to be “expert” level. However, I’m going go ahead and stick with Miner as my next game because I’m feeling “in the groove” of the author and it helps with playing other games; even just remembering that LOOK is the only verb for examining things can take a little while to get the hang of. (I should point out the issue from Aqua Base didn’t happen here — that of deceptive “you can’t do that messages” — simply by virtue of almost no verbs getting implemented in a general way at all. One advantage of only accepting bespoke phrases, I suppose.)
So … that’s it. Not much to report this time! Videogames are good, I guess? Anyone been playing any good non-adventures lately? I’ve got a Baldur’s Gate 3 run going (I picked my character with the Random feature and it gave me a Warlock with a patron of the Great Old One, so Cthulhu basically) and I’ve also been struggling through Void Stranger which is like you took the apparently-linear gameplay of a puzzle game but mashed it with La-Mulana type secrets and meta-aspects and came up with something wild on the other end. Nothing is as it seems. Also I’ve embarked on the Japan-only Wizardry Gaiden series and it still doesn’t quite capture the same magic as original Wizardry but I hear it improves as it goes on. The new Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord remake looks interesting — it literally is using the Apple II version as the “frame code” and you can watch the Apple II version simultaneous with the remake graphics — but I played the game recently enough I’m not itching for another traversal yet.
It’s been a while since we’ve revisited our Spooky Domicile namespace chart, but we’ve had enough new entries I think it’s time:
So the games have been piling into Haunted House, and the only spot left standing without a namespace clash is Haunted Mansion. For today’s game, assuming you’re paying attention to my title line, we’re dealing with Morgan, specifically Scott Morgan, who we saw near the start of our 1982 with Aqua Base, a James Bond-style story with the world’s most ineffective super-villain.
(And more importantly for us, a dodgy parser that pretended to parse things that it didn’t, so PUSH NOUN-THE-GAME-REALLY-DOESN’T-UNDERSTAND says “nothing happens” as if you typed something sensible. Something for me to be alert for.)
His games were all for the TI-99 computer and published by American Software Design and Distribution Co. out in Minnesota. Previously I only had a PO Box (see for example this catalog) but the Haunted House manual links to an actual address in Eden Prarie. It is most definitely a residential area, not a business district.
View of the street via Google, although not at the exact house.
This suggests the business was originally a garage outfit before the proprietor later got a PO Box. I’m not going to say the proprietor is Scott Morgan himself; the catalog lists his name just on the page of adventures, and usually if the owner of one of these distribution outlets that feels like spreading their name around in one place they plaster it everywhere. Still, I get the vibe we’re dealing with a 2 or at most 3 person operation here.
On to the game! Haunted houses, despite not being from the Adventure Ur-text of caves and treasures, lend themselves quite naturally to the adventure game format. It doesn’t take research for an average bedroom coder to fill a house, and having a restricted environment (as adventures usually require) is quite natural for horror. The player has an excuse to get shut in with the general and simple plot concept to just get out. Here, we need to also get a ruby first.
Given the forewarning on the parser, it seemed wise to make a verb list. Here’s how my attempt came out:
This excludes motion verbs, LOOK, and TAKE, but otherwise, that’s really everything: just GO, OPEN and PUSH. DROP doesn’t work. I have not found a mechanism for dropping items.
Unfortunately, it turns out my usual verb-sleuthing method was failing me, because the game has hard-coded phrases. Essentially, rather than understanding individual verbs everywhere, it will them only when given in the right place with the right noun (that is, they’re hard-coded in).
Despite this I managed to get pretty far.
After finding a letter warning you “YOU’LL NEVER FIND IT” and a screwdriver hidden in some bushes, you can go in the open door of the house which vanishes.
The very first thing I found (going west) was a wizard hanging out at a book that he wouldn’t let me read, but where he was otherwise non-threatening. Weird but ok. Wandering elsewhere, I found a glowing cube, some powder, a “door with strange keyhole”, a chair (UNSCREW CHAIR so you can pick it up), and a cellar with a chest containing a “triangle” and a locked door.
Having everything in hand I could manage, I went over to the wizard and noodled with all the objects available. I took the powder and tried to THROW it which caused the wizard to disappear.
(Remember, THROW isn’t understood as a verb generally! Just at the wizard.)
The book doesn’t have any words in it but it does have a key, which I used to unlock a “wine cellar” with an empty bottle. Stuck again, I tried the strange keyhole, and found the triangle was able to unlock it somehow.
Yes, this is a “figure out the arbitrary magic” game.
Past that there was some “pink liquid” I could load up in the bottle, a playroom with “bloodstained walls”…
…a ghost preventing me from going up an exit…
…and a dead body at a guillotine, with a silver cross (if you LOOK BODY).
Silver cross in hand I wandered over to Dracula, in order to steal his chocolate chip cookie.
SHOW CROSS. Again seems to be bespoke-coded for this location.
The cookie, when eaten, teleports the player outside the house. Useful since escape is one of the objectives! But I still don’t have the ruby, and I suspect it is past the ghost, maybe right past the ghost with no more puzzles, but even if I’m just an inch away I can’t get by the inch.
My available inventory. The ghost has no description.
I’ll take suggestions if someone has any. All the other puzzles were “easy” (if involving arbitrary magic) so I suspect I’m overlooking something simple although perhaps with a very specific bespoke verb attached.
Renga in Blue 