conquering one bit where I had previously tried a verb correctly, but not on the sub-noun the game wanted, revealing a new area
using an item from the new area to bust through the bricked-up door, but it’s pretty esoteric; this leads to the treasure-deposit room
solving one final puzzle in the treasure-deposit room which is really esoteric
For the sub-noun issue, I warp back up to the bathroom with the gold taps.
I had tried TURN BATH with the notion of perhaps running the water (and to be more literal, RUN WATER) but was running into the generic refusal message so moved on. I was instead supposed to type TURN TAPS. (Which, sure, I guess the game suddenly wants to start referring to sub-nouns now! That will come back again shortly.)
LOOK TOWN advertises one of the co-author’s other games:
IT’S SO FAR! FOR A CLOSER LOOK YOU WILL HAVE TO BUY MEXICAN ADVENTURE!
I tried hard mucking about the roof to see if I could fly the broomstick anywhere, but no dice. In the process, though, I tried to BURN BROOMSTICK (well, at least it is a verb I knew works) and the game informed me I needed a draught in order to start a fire.
If you recall, the bricked door help mentioned a draught, so I brought the broom down and tried burning there:
There was no real coherent thought otherwise; I wasn’t solving a puzzle as much as solving a trail. With the door busted open I could enter the final room, which is a dungeon with a skeleton. LOOK SKELETON reveals a NOTEPAD, and looking at the notepad indicates the treasures go here.
Our task is to collect the house’s treasures and make them harder to find.
So I dropped the treasures I had (bottle of wine, gold ring, bracelet, book) and I was informed by SCORE that I had only 69 out of 100 points. I did a large search (more than an hour) across the house trying to wheedle out more treasures, including trying to unscrew the gold taps (since they are described as gold).
There was really only one treasure remaining, at it was there at the dungeon the whole time.
I don’t think there’s a “reasonable” way to solve this. I had the intuition something unreasonable was happening so I checked the source code. The only time I recall seeing a comparable puzzle was with Avventura nel Castello where I had to pick up a bone from a skeleton (even though a bone isn’t described).
You don’t pick up a bone. You pick up the skull. I combed over the source code and there’s no hint for this, and there’s no message that happens when you get the skull — it just lands in your inventory. You can then LOOK SKULL and find it has a golden bullet, which lands in the room you’re in (probably the dungeon).
Now typing SCORE confirms we have all 5 treasures and the win.
As I predicted, the source code includes a big pile of bespoke commands. I don’t recommend anyone coding a text adventure like this ever.
This screen is from the later MZ-700 version, which doesn’t change anything other than the starting room (you begin at the pond rather than the rock).
This is still fascinating in a historical sense because it might seem all the various tutorials we’ve seen (like the Ken Rose ones) are maybe being a little overmuch about the difficulty, but clearly here is a pair of authors who couldn’t conceive of a different way of handling a parser other than listing every single verb-noun combination a player might possibly type.
Except: remember, Secret Kingdom did have a decent parser! It must have come after this game. I think we can now assume the publishing order matches this ad listing’s order:
Game 3: Haunted House by A.J. Josey and Geoff Clark
Game 4: Secret Kingdom by Geoff Clark.
…meaning I’ve been going in reverse order. (I figured out what the G. stood for as it gets listed with Mexican Adventure. Still not sure about Josey, but you’ll notice Dark Star is solely that author’s work.) After combing over the source code, I don’t think Colditz is connected (other than the Sharp programmers in general were clearly struggling to write a parser).
I weirdly had fun puzzling this out, but that’s mainly because Rob joined me in the comments to similarly take whacks at it, and I was thinking in a meta-sense of this being a mysterious artifact. I never got any sense of being in a haunted house. The game does try for random atmospheric messages and there’s even a bit where a ghost can steal your treasure if you try to wear the bracelet or drink the wine, but given the vast majority of what I typed in gave error messages I was not “engrossed” in a story sense, but rather as a historical challenge meant to be conquered.
No source code diving yet. I managed get at least part of the “vibe” of the parser, although some authorial decisions still mystify me.
Sharpsoft User Notes, via AbeBooks. Books 3 through 6 cover 1982.
“GO” (as in “GO NORTH”, “GO UP”) seems to be purely for directions, and furthermore, the way the parser works is to simply strike the verb out and just look at what was typed for the noun. This means GO EAST works the same as EAST. However, this also means other perfectly natural GO statements won’t work; for example, typing GO UNDERGROWTH gets parsed as UNDERGROWTH and hence:
I DON’T UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU MEAN BY THE COMMAND ‘UNDERGROWTH’
Earlier when I was trying to GO POND and it wasn’t understood, the game is simply wanting ENTER there instead.
YOU FIND A DEEP HOLE IN THE POND AND HAVE DROWNED!!
(Für Elise plays, mourning our player avatar’s loss.)
The purpose of the hollow log is simply as a floatation device, so as long as a player is holding the log, they won’t die going in the pond, and will be able to find a key instead.
Using the key you can then unlock the (otherwise not-visible) door at the front of the house, and go inside. Despite the threat from the rock, we are not trapped in.
The Sharp speaker is used here to add a “catcall whistle” sound to this moment.
I don’t yet have a full map of the inside, but at least I’ve got more to explore than last time.
Just to the north is a COMPUTER in a drawing room, and we are told it is a SHARP MZ-80K. I tried to insert my tape a few ways and was having trouble, so just went straight to HELP which told me to LOAD CASSETTE.
It’s unique for the desire to acquire treasure to be a secret objective that requires revealing a little ways in. I’m still not sure where we are supposed to drop the treasure; not outside, which suggests perhaps we aren’t taking the treasure with us, like how The Great Pyramid had us simply sort the treasures in a particular room. (On the other hand, Katakombs initially asked us to take the treasure to a Dark Crypt, but in the end a golem broke open the way so we could take the loot away for ourselves. I guess we “passed the test” so the denizens acquiesced.)
Heading up the stairs next, I found a library with a book that has gold leaf. This book does not let you open, read it, or interact with it anyway, so it’s just a treasure. (This is one of the vibes I mentioned — the game is cheerful about simply not letting you mess with a thing outside the context it is intended for.) Also upstairs is a study containing a desk with matches.
With the matches in hand you allowed to try to BURN things, but a ghostly voice stops you and says it is dangerous to play with fire.
Present in the hall upstairs is a LAMP, which foiled my attempt at taking it with “A STRANGE FORCE”. Again, interpreting the vibe can help: this means you shouldn’t be thinking of taking the lamp at all, but doing something else with it. Indeed, if you look at the lamp, it is described as “oriental”, implying the right action is RUB LAMP.
Upstairs there’s a bedroom with a window you can enter, taking you to a ledge with a bracelet (a treasure) in addition to a bathroom with a BATH that is described as having GOLD TAPS, imply treasure-ness, but I haven’t been able to scavenge anything.
Down at a “Parlour” there’s a cupboard that is enterable, and a green knob. Typing PULL KNOB reveals a basement area.
Inside the basement there’s a bottle described as valuable (still don’t know where the treasures go) and the room that is currently mystifying me:
I haven’t found a way to refer to the supports (and burning doesn’t work). Typing HELP indicates there is a “draught” but I’m not sure what to do with this information. Whatever is supposed to be done here seems to be entirely bespoke (that is, I need the exact two-word phrase in order to move further).
I realize for you just reading along, it may not be apparent how badly the parser is doing. It absolutely is awful. Even ENTER (which I thought before was honestly coded) gets befuddled here; when I tried to ENTER BATH the game says I DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU MEAN BY THE COMMAND ‘ENTER BATH’. With essentially no reassurance than any verb in particular might work, the game has a much stronger aura than normal of “guess what the author wants”. In this case I’m not even sure if the magic phrase will involve DOORWAY, DOOR, SUPPORT, SUPPORTS, or BRICKS as the noun. So it might be possible I run across a solution but don’t pair it with the noun the game is hankering for. To find something worse I have to go the very bottom with games like Deathship which didn’t even bother to describe what happened if you did an action successfully.
Again there is the lure of the source code. I don’t think there’s any going back if I check (given what I’m likely to see is a list of complete phrases that lead to completing the game) so I really still want to hold off if I can.
Today we re-visit the Sharp series of computers, and specifically the Sharp MZ-80K, the original built from a kit. Haunted House is the third game we’ve had from Sharpsoft. We’ve already tried out Colditz (1981) and Secret Kingdom (1982). The author of the latter, G. Clark, is listed as a co-author for this game, along with A.J. Josey. However, it is faintly possible (for reasons I’ll get into) that one or both authors also worked on Colditz.
(I realize they’re not technically pseudonyms, but I still always feel like an author is mysterious when they use their initials. If nothing else, it makes it impossible for me to search if they’re on Facebook or LinkedIn or whatnot and still making things.)
From the Museum of Computer Adventure Games.
I don’t have an additional history to throw at you here that wasn’t already in my last two posts, except I found a review that points out “all the Sharpsoft games” are £5.85 and this was considered expensive. We’re getting the deluxe experience, everyone!
The start of the game includes some music, so I’ve made a video to let you get your Beethoven on:
It does not set up this “introductory adventure” as spooky to me, but whatever works.
I know there’s 100 points but not what those mean. “Extensive vocabulary”, heh.
I’m not sure what the objective is yet. Normally with this ambiguity I would automatically say “take the treasure to the right place” but haunted house games do often have an “escape” or “kill vampire” theme so I’ll hold on that until I’ve had confirmation.
There are only four starting rooms, in a two by two square. At the start, to the northeast, is the room shown above with the warning. The rock seems to be unmovable and unclimbable.
To the northwest is some undergrowth concealing a cassette (you can find it with LOOK UNDERGROWTH, looking at the cassette reveals it is a standard C12).
To the southwest is a pond with a log. The log is described as hollow and the pond is described as having shallow parts.
The last room, to the southeast, has a GARGOYLE which is also a GRIFFIN, somehow.
You’ll notice there seems to be no way in the house. The HELP command at the house indicates you should UNLOCK DOOR, and the game does seem to indicate a door is present if you try to unlock it (“YOU DON’T HAVE THE KEY TO THE DOOR!”) and there is otherwise no way to see the door is there. (You can look at the house, but the game just says it looks haunted and you shouldn’t go there.)
Now I suppose I should mention the relation with Colditz —
The parser is dodgy, much dodgier than in Secret Kingdom. I could see a writing progression going Colditz – this game – …. – Secret Kingdom with improvement between games.
To illustrate, here is my verb hunting list:
That’s almost too tiny to do anything, and I think JUMP has an auto-reject message as “A FRIENDLY SPIRIT STOPS YOU.” EAT doesn’t really eat, it just goes EAST; that is, only the first two letters are being used to parse EAst. WE, NO, and SO also all work, suggesting this is a two-letter parser overall, but then if you take that non-visible door and try to UN DO (rather than the full UNLOCK DOOR) the game says
I DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU MEAN BY ‘UN DO’
The phrase “UNLOCK DOOR” is hard-coded in so that you have to be standing in that exact spot for it to work, and you have to type the full phrase.
All the parser reject messages follow that same form (I DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU MEAN) so you can’t puzzle any extra things out other that what is on the list. Despite the pond and log seemingly both hiding something, I haven’t been able to get help from either. I even used my entire verb list specifically on the LOG just to be sure.
Come to think of it, this is in some ways worse than the Colditz parser — even though that was a one-letter parser at least it became clear early on what worked to communicate, and the game tried to hand out explicit command combos. Here, it’s like the parser is pretending to be one that understand things but falls incredibly short even though the game clearly requires some “normal” parser commands to make any progress. At least I don’t have to type LOOK DETAILS rather than LOOK to examine the room.
I’m going to keep taking my best swing at this a little while longer, but this seems a candidate for assuming that puzzling out directly from the source code will be part of the game.
ADD: If someone wants to play and doesn’t want to deal with emulator wrangling, I dropped a copy in the comments where you just need to start the mz80k executable, then load the save state.
Renga in Blue 