(Continued from my previous post.)
Related to Star Trail, the CRPG Addict recently produced a list of “conventions” that a CRPG game has that need to be worked out (“the part I enjoy least”) with issues like “What kind of karma meter does the game have? What are its consequences?”
A similar situation exists with text adventures, despite their apparent consistency. Issues like:
a.) can you refer to things that aren’t mentioned in the description? do you need to?
b.) can you refer to the player’s body parts and/or clothing, even if they aren’t mentioned?
c.) can you do things while in darkness, or is essentially all action shut down?
d.) is there always going to be an indication if there is a hidden object?
e.) are any seemingly essential items actually red herrings?
All five elements I’ve singled out above have the potential to increase difficulty; if you need to start pressing explicitly at floors or walls, for instance, that represents referring to a noun that might be implied in the game but is never directly referenced. Allowing action in darkness makes for puzzles like the lamp in the first dark room of Philosopher’s Quest; referring to clothing is so out-of-scope that one game used the idea to make an “impossible puzzle”.
In Intercept, all five elements go the hard way. I’ve finished the game, but I needed to check the walkthrough a large number of times. Brace yourself.
Before diving in, I should mention Rob’s observation that one of the Michael Wile games I haven’t gotten to yet (Merlin’s Treasure) gives enough clues to locate the man; he lived in Massachusetts and spent his career doing technical layouts for textbooks. I’ll give a little more detail next time we visit a Wile game, one that hopefully is a smidge more solvable.
Last time I had a theater (where I was thrown out by an usher wanting a ticket), a cottage (with an enemy agent that kills me) and two obstacles in an “Eerie Mansion”: some bats guarding a paper and a spider guarding an arch.
To handle the bats (who can see in darkness) you need to turn off the flashlight. This will plunge the room entirely back into darkness, but you can still refer to the page (even though it seems like you shouldn’t be able to!) and also go south to leave. The first time I tried this I messed up by going “down” from the attic rather than south and that led to death when I turned the flashlight back on.
I was still stuck with the spider; it turns out back at the statue (no clue at all you can do this, and the statue already hid a key … which turns out to be a red herring!) you can TURN STATUE to reveal a secret passage.
COMMAND—> look statue
I see
nothing special.
COMMAND—> turn statue
Stairs
raise
The new room has some suction cups and a fusebox. Doing LOOK FUSEBOX reveals fuses; if you try to TAKE FUSES the game queries if you want to pull them or replace them.
Taking them disables the spider. If you now LOOK SPIDER, you see a switch that wasn’t there before, and PUSH SWITCH will disable the spider (it isn’t clear this is the right verb, and pulling doesn’t work). You can then go back to the fuses and REPLACE FUSES to put them back on (you’ll need to in a moment).
As an extra kick in the pants, if you tried to DROP FUSES or PUT FUSES, they’ll end up in the room, but they won’t be properly “replaced” so the game is now softlocked. You might think to PULL FUSES again but the game will just say you’ve already done that.
Back to the spider and arch, past that is a laboratory. There’s a red button that opens a case, which is why you needed to put the fuses back.
(In principle, the sequence is interesting: shut down power to a whole section, use the opportunity to shut off one thing individually, then turn power back on. The actual implementation which requires seeing a previously invisible switch, using the right verb with no feedback, and having the fuse-softlock issue makes it a drag.)
The case has some test tubes and a beaker. The test tubes have acid, and the challenge is getting them out. You can go back to the chute that sent you to this area and climb up with the suction cups, but if you are carrying the acid this will result in an unfortunate accident. The right action is COVER BEAKER (!!!) while holding the stopper stolen from the Chief’s wine (how did we know it was the right size? … and of course the verb choice is absurd).
The whole point of that sequence, other than getting the page, was getting some acid. Now we’re able to tackle the theater. Just as a reminder, we were stopped by a ticket-taking usher; we also found an empty soda bottle in upstairs seats.
The usher asks for a ticket, and the way through is to show your id card.
??
I guess it indicates some kind of authority, but it isn’t described in the game! (As a general rule, the game has rooms and items where you are just supposed to guess things that are there.)
With that done, now we can apply the acid and melt the padlock (pour acid / on padlock), and the usher doesn’t mind.
Eventually you can reach “stage left”.
Curtains. Ladder. Ropes and levers. Stage manager.
The “ropes and levers” does technically mean there are ropes, but combining the items suggest they stay as a unit; instead, you need to refer to the rope individually.
You need to BREAK BOTTLE (this only works if you’re holding the hammer, apparently) which is sharp enough to CUT ROPE. The whole reason to go through this sequence is to get a rope.
That’s the whole point of coming here: going backstage and stealing a rope by cutting it via a sharp bottle. Adventure game logic can lead to some bizarre object use, but this seems almost ludicrously absurd; we don’t have ropes back at headquarters? (Yes, Time Zone had you travel across millions of years just to get things like a ladder, but there’s a sense there of “the time machine knows where it is best to go” which isn’t present in this game.)
With the rope in hand, you can now:
a.) go back to the cottage where the agent was hiding
b.) set the car to neutral
c.) push the car, which reveals a manhole that the car was covering
We didn’t see the manhole driving in?!?
Then you can tie the rope to the bumper of the car (yes, you need to use the noun BUMPER, not CAR) and DROP ROPE which lets you go down the manhole. There you can find a lever, and pulling the lever opens the front door of the cottage.
Oh, and make sure you DROP SHOES before going in, because a squeaking sound will otherwise alert the enemy agent you are there and they’ll shoot you. The shoes are not mentioned anywhere in the game, you’re just supposed to guess from the description of squeaking that you are wearing some and they can be referred to.
Then, you can sneak up to the (still-awake) enemy agent and FRISK them (??) in order to get a wallet. The wallet has a card with the number 622 (which will be used shortly).
The wallet has a number. If you go to the coat closet, which has nothing in it but coats…
…it turns out you can PUSH WALL, despite no hint indicating this. A safe will be revealed, and then you have to struggle with the parser (again with the impossible codes) and type left six / right two / left two in order to open the safe. (You’ll need to also insert your id card in the slot. Why would an enemy agent safe respond to our ID?!?)
The safe has page number two. Almost done! To get page number three, it turns out after finding two pages, an Actor has magically appeared back at the Stage Left room.
(Event-based drama clocks sometimes make sense. Here they do not.)
To take down the agent here, you need to use the pen from the headquarters near the start. The pen is described as being a tranquilizer dart shooter, so SHOOT ACTOR and then FRISK ACTOR (the stage manager doesn’t care). This yields the third page and now we have a “booklet”.
The thing I found consistently frustrating was that the author was working with some interesting ideas — it was just the implementation fell colossally short. Many of these issues could have been “patched” over (some better hint about the manhole under the car, some more workable synonyms, better descriptions of things being examined, some indicator you can mess with the wall in the coat closet). It feels like the author was going for maximum difficulty without considering what the gameplay would be like, and what aspects of difficulty are fun and unfun to grapple with.
I was going to plunge immediately into the author’s next game, but this is going to need a breather, so coming up: an Apple II game you might know, at least in a different form.
One of the PC-SIG disks. Source.
I don’t consider it that unusual to have an author for All the Adventures so mysterious it’s unclear where they even lived; we’ve had plenty of one-shots, including from people who were teenagers and likely never went into a field resembling games. Where it starts to get a little more unusual is when an author is not only mysterious but published multiple games with five different companies, not including distribution by a sixth company in the public domain. I don’t even know with certainty what country Michael D. Wile is from; likely the United States given the choice of publishers, but Canada is still possible.
Wile’s catalog includes
Intercept (originally 1981 likely for TRS-80, later 1987 for a DOS release)
Mutant Invasion (originally 1982 likely for TRS-80, later 1987 for a DOS release)
Merlin’s Treasure (1982 for TRS-80, Adventure International)
Miller’s Cove (1983, Windcrest Software, both TRS-80 and Timex Sinclair 1000, apparently published later by Tab Books and republished yet again by Pyramid Electronics)
Medieval Quest (1983, Instant Software)
with the last game being for the exceedingly rare Panasonic JR-200. I can’t make a claim of certain comprehensiveness given I just learned about Miller’s Cove this week and it isn’t indexed on any of the usual sites, and I wouldn’t count having an entry on Amazon as usual. Only the first three are listed on CASA as of this writing, with the JR-200 not even existing as a possible computer platform to choose from.
Intercept, while given a 1981 copyright in the game, shows up to us now in a DOS format instead from later in the 80s; specifically, it was on PC-SIG Disk #911 in a compilation of four programs (“Mix It Up”). Intercept and Mutant Invasion are both included, as are PRO LOTTO and POKER by entirely different authors. You can check the entire disk on an emulator here.
Same page as NETHACK: An Adventure Game.
PC-SIG (PC Software Interest Group) were one of the groups that sold access to a “library” of “public domain” software (the terminology “public domain” being fuzzy in the normal 80s fashion). They started quite early, in 1983 by Richard Peterson, one of the first to actually think of transitioning public domain from internal distribution “user clubs” to paid copies, $6 per disk. As Nelson Ford (from one of the later competing groups) pointed out, “BBS denizens thought this was the equivalent of charging for free air”.
One slight difference with other similar catalogs is that donationware is explicitly encouraged as a possibility (“The donation in most cases enables the author to provide software support for the product”); on Mix It Up, while there’s no fee for either of the Wile games, $2.00 is suggested for POKER and $10.00 is suggested for PRO LOTTO. I do not know how much money actually arrived in such circumstances.
Welcome to INTERCEPT. I am agent 68, and I will be your guide through the adventure. You will give me two-word commands to get me through the various rooms. Make sure you have me look at all the objects in the different rooms. Sometimes an object may appear in the room which was not there the first time the room was entered.
Your mission is to recover the stolen pages containing a top secret rocket formula to Mission Headquarters.
Despite the DOS version having some personal flavor to the layout, the game is fairly Scott-Adams-like; “you are in ROOM”, “list of objects separated by periods”, “obvious exits”. In inventory you start with a watch (“346” on the back) and an ID card with your picture on it.
The game gets confused with the “car” and “id card” both in the same room.
The phone booth includes a “strange suit” with a “S” symbol in front, and if you put it on, leave, and try to get in the car, the police arrest you and lock you in a padded cell. I guess we aren’t in a Krotts game any more.
The 346 suggests you’re supposed to dial it in the phone booth, but games from this era insist on making combinations / codes / etc. as inconsistent as possible. Call 346, dial 346, type 346 don’t work; neither do the same commands with individual digits. You are instead supposed to spell out three, four, and six as words.
COMMAND—> look watch
346 is engraved on the back.
COMMAND—> dial 3
I can’t.
COMMAND—> dial three
OK
COMMAND—> dial four
OK
COMMAND—> dial six
I feel a sudden jolt!
This lands in an elevator and even more trouble with the parser (not LEAVE ELEVATOR, EXIT, etc. etc…. only GET OUT works). This leads to a desk with a security guard, and I got SHOW ID CARD in one try.
Inside is the Chief at a Desk; a little further is an Equipment Room with a pen and a hammer. The desk has a decanter with wine and the Chief, predictably, resists mightily being talked to. You can open the decanter (which lands a “glass stopper” in your inventory) but the Chief merely serves to take the decanter back if you walk about it. Uh, nothing about a briefing or whatever?
Heading back outside to the car, the glove compartment has a flashlight, and the shift is in park and stubbornly refused to move. Not actually physically, no: just it took me a long time (yet again) to work out the right combination: PUT SHIFT / IN DRIVE. (Even after getting this right, later in the game I often forgot the exact command and tried SET SHIFT, MOVE SHIFT, etc. a few times before remembering.) You then need to DRIVE DIRECTION although with no guidance where; there’s no “exterior view” so it isn’t even clear DRIVE is working. Also, be sure to put the car back in park before getting out!
Car runs over me!
So far there’s been five major “stop points” (putting in the number, dealing with getting out of the elevator, realizing the Chief will never talk and no command will work, changing the shift-stick, getting the car moving to the right place) and the plot hasn’t even really started yet! (Essentially, “false” puzzles where if someone was in the physical location they wouldn’t have a problem. I’m not even counting applying the watch number to the phone, there’s only one number around and one place for it to go.) How will things go when we have to deal with something intended as an obstacle?
There are four driving locations, including the start.
Starting at the theater, there’s a revolving door leading to a lobby, and a “girl” selling tickets.
Our player has no money (yet) so “buy tickets” doesn’t work, but you can “go stairway” (where a “soft drink bottle” can be found amongst the seats). Trying to “go entryway” leads to a “crowded theater” where an usher is getting tickets, and will throw you out without a ticket. You can see the stage and a “padlocked door” but that’s it for now.
The cottage (south of the theater, west of the starting place) has a “puddle” and a “closed door” that is locked.
Heading north leads to nothing but a window, and trying to “look window” results in death as an “agent inside” spots you and shoots you. So the correct starting place is apparently the “eerie house”.
Last up is the “eerie-looking” house. There’s no indication of if we’re even supposed to be here, other than it is a location in an adventure game. Ringing the bell activates a trap door and you fall into a “cellar”.
I am in a cellar. From here I can see:
Chute. Winding Steps. Large crate. Shovel.
The shovel can simply be taken (and I’ve tried “dig” everywhere after with no luck yet); the crate is described as locked but after chewing on what “large” meant I tried “climb crate” and got something useful.
Top breaks from the weight!
I am in a crate. From here I can see:
Oilcan.
Going up the stairs instead leads to a locked door at the top. The door has some hinges; you can apply the oilcan to the hinges, then pull out some pins inside in order to bust through the door. (The parser didn’t give me much trouble here, but this is “bread and butter” type manipulation for basic parsers. My basic principle has been that a not-so-fancy parser can work as long as the actions demanded of the player are relatively simple.)
Through the doorway, you can choose to go east or north. Taking east first…
There’s a “niche” with a “statue”; looking at the statue closer reveals a key (I assume it goes to that cottage from earlier, but I haven’t gotten back to it yet). Going upstairs it is dark and the flashlight (from the glove compartment) needs to be turned on.
The desk contains a paper that is marked “1 of 3” so I assume this is part of the plans we are supposed to be finding (where our “briefing” came before the game started and the Chief just got fussy about taking his wine away). Unfortunately, if you try to take the page, you get killed by the bats.
Going back to the branch and heading north instead…
…the mechanical spider here is guarding the arch. I tried poking at the bones but the spider pounced and ended the game.
To summarize, I am blocked by a.) a mechanical spider b.) some bats guarding a paper c.) a locked door at a cottage and/or an agent inside and d.) a ticket-taker who wants some money. It’s pretty clear there’s more to do at the eerie house but after my last (spider-related) death I figured it was a good time for at least an update. I’m hoping the author has gotten the tricky parser shenanigans out of their system and will stick with straightforward commands from here, but I know my chances aren’t good.
Renga in Blue 