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Chapter 6 - In which we cheat ourselves out of spiritual developmentquote:
Last time, we really lost our head! Let's leave the knife alone until we're a bit more prepared. We wouldn't want to get ahead of ourselves. We have three new rooms that would probably be good to check out at a slightly more leasurly pace. Naturally, we'll start out by ignoring them completely. > remove ring posted:The ring is stuck on your finger. We really need to do something about this ring. It's stuck, but we have a healing gun, so no point wasting time on half measures. > south posted:
Moving south until the sword is calm: > cut off finger with sword posted:You begin to move the sword towards your finger, then hesitate. The pain would just be too much, you think. Come on, there's extenuating circumstances! Let's see if there's anyone else nearby who can help us out. quote:Big cave Remember this guy? We've actually been able to solve his puzzle as soon as we entered the cave. > hover posted:You don’t know how to do that. Maybe there is some way to fake it. We don't know the trick to hovering, but all we really need to do is make the old man think we know how to hover. > remove coat posted:You take off the coat. And it's just that easy. > take coat posted:You decide to leave the coat. You can’t think of any other uses you can get from it. We'll be traveling in our boxers from now on. An experienced adventurer knows the importance of leaving behind inventory items that aren't used in future puzzles. > talk to hoverist posted:“Could you teach me some more?” you ask. Well, no more stalling. Let's lose a finger! > cut off finger with sword posted:You hesitate. The pain would just be too much, you think. Then you remember what the Hoverist taught you. As you move the sword towards the finger, the sword starts shaking like crazy. Worried that you are going to cut off more than you bargained for, you quickly move the sword away from your finger, and it calms down. The sword must have believed itself to be a danger. > cut off finger with crossbow posted:The arrow is not really a proper tool for cutting off a finger. Or not. Well, I'm sure the pain resistance will come in handy later. We'll drop our sword and head back to the diamond room. quote:Huge cave Let's take a closer look at the surrounding rooms. We'll go in the same order as last time, starting to the west. > west posted:
Now that we're not bleeding to death, we can spend some time on the important stuff. > read page 2 posted:So, you have spotted a monster. How many legs does it have? I don't think we're testing that one this month. > read page 61 posted:It is a Troll. They are extinct so don’t worry about them. Good to know. > talk to tall troll posted:“So what is this game called?” you ask. > read golem posted:They are very old runes and the only one you understand means “saxophone”. For now, it seems like the only thing of interest is the saxophone. We can't take it ourself because the golem stops us when we try to leave. Maybe our buddy will have better luck? > sidekick, take saxophone posted:The goblin takes the stone saxophone. Nope. We'll have to either incapacitate the golem somehow, or sneak the saxophone out in a way it can't detect. We'll think about it. In the mean time, let's keep exploring. > east posted:
Let's see what the book has to say about this trio. > read page 2 posted:So, you have spotted a monster. How many legs does it have? Gods love hanging out in random caves, I guess. What do they have to say? > talk to cat-headed man posted:“Who are you people?” you ask. > point cow-o-meter at cat-headed man posted:According to the cow-o-meter, the cat-headed man has seen 4590666 cows. Any inventory items for the taking? > take cube posted:Your hand goes right through the cube as if the cube is made of air. The grail seems interesting, but it doesn't seem like we can take it while the flamingo god is right there. > think posted:You think “That toga-chick looks kind of hot. Except for her head. OK, her head looks a little hot too.”  > talk to sidekick posted:“What should I do now?” you ask. If there was any doubt, our friend's intuition confirms that the grail is important. But how can we deal with the god of comedy? > touch flamingo-headed man with staff posted:You hit the flamingo-headed man with the staff. He giggles and says, “Magic doesn’t work on gods.” Once again, brute force has failed to get us anywhere. Maybe if we give him a valuable gift? > give cow-o-meter to flamingo-headed man posted:“That’s not funny! I don’t want it!” I think it's funny He also mentioned that stage was his altar, what's up with that? > stand on stage posted:You get on the stage. It makes us do comedy acts. An appropriate form of worship, I suppose. > get off stage posted:You get off the stage. Hmm, Pjyldoflopp seems to still be watching the stage. Can we just... > take grail posted:You attempt to take the grail. Betrayed by the hot armadillo godess  We'll leave the gods alone for now. Let's take another look up the ladder. > up posted:
There's an easy solution to this, of course. > sidekick, open chest posted:“No way! Didn’t you see the sign?” Come on, the healing gun works on you! > take chest posted:The chest is stuck. It doesn't seem like there's much we can do from this side. We've seen the goblin guard on the far side of the teleporter, so we'll probably have to deal with her over there, first. Let's head back to the central cave. quote:
There's one direction left. > north posted:
The dialogue's a little different, but the gremlin has no trouble turning them against us. We were interrupted last time, but now we should be able to do some research. First the Hippoman: > read page 2 posted:So, you have spotted a monster. How many legs does it have? > read page 95 posted:Other books by the same author: I'm not sure this author is entirely impartial on the subject of hippomen. How about the genie? > read page 2 posted:So, you have spotted a monster. How many legs does it have? I... don't think we can tell just by looking? > talk genie posted:You ask, “If you drank tea, how many lumps of sugar would you use?” I guess let's just look at both options. Two lumps? > read page 15 posted:What form of art does it find most delightful? Uh, Opera? > read page 16 posted:In its opinion capitalism is best described as... Lesser evil? > read page 17 posted:It is a Minor Brazilian Quantum Genie. It feeds off math. If you draw an equation on a blackboard it will eat it. If you include some logical flaw in the equation, the genie will choke on it. However make sure the flaw is subtile, because if the genie, which is a math genius, notices the flaw it will not eat the equation but rather get upset and tear you into atoms. A mere fad? > read page 18 posted:It is a North Canadian Sensitivity Genie, one of the few creatures capable of having fatal emotions. Simply show it a photograph of it as a baby while remarking on how cute it looked, or read aloud from a love letter it wrote as a teen and it will likely die of embarrassment. And what if it prefers interpretative dance? > read page 19 posted:What does it think of the early poetry of Jasper Wull? We'll just look at both > read page 20 posted:It is a Mock Tropical Cerebral Genie. It only respects creatures that are smarter than itself. Simply stand close to it and do something impressive like invent an antigravity device or discover a cure for the common cold, and it will not harm you. None of those really sound like our genie. I guess he must drink his tea with three lumps. > read page 22 posted:What word best describes its taste in furniture? Conservative? > read page 23 posted:To what degree does it think correct attire for any occasion is important? > read page 24 posted:It is a Half-Scandinavian Chaos Genie. It is colorblind and shapeblind and can only see sizes. By having the exact same size as one or preferably several objects in the Genie’s vicinity, you may confuse it so much that it will not attack you, though a more likely outcome is that it will attack both you and everything your size. What about the genies with a fashionable taste in furniture? > read page 26 posted:How would it prefer to spend a leisurely moment? > read page 27 posted:It is a Moldavian Christmas Genie. It is not allowed to hurt anybody on Christmas Eve. Just detain it until the 24th of December, and then trick it into killing somebody and it will cease to exist. We'd need some sort of Transdimensional Brain Chip to coordniate like that! We know the weaknesses of lots of different types of genies now, but we'll need a lot more information to narrow down which type he is, and a lot of those weaknesses sound pretty difficult to take advantage of. Ignoring the genie for a bit, let's examine the other things in the room. > open chest posted:Just as you are about to open the chest, the genie rushes towards you swinging his sabre. You jump back. The genie says, “That is my chest!” So we'll need to deal with the genie before opening the chest. Let's try the usual > kill genie posted:You throw yourself against the genie. He closes his eyes and mutters something. His cloud begins to grow, and soon it fills the entire cave! You can’t find the genie; in fact you can’t see anything. And it is so cold! When the cloud lifts, you are lying on the ground hugging yourself, with chattering teeth. You get up. As expected, none of them - wait, no, the staff actually worked that time! > open chest posted:Just as you are about to open the chest, the woman starts hitting you with her placard shouting, “I won’t let you open the genie’s chest while he’s not here!” Buuut it's not enough on it's own. We'll let the genie back out for now. > touch slimy fish with staff posted:The slimy fish vanishes. What about those runes on the wall, what do those say? > read runes posted:“Danger of falling rocks. Please don’t make any loud noises, as people OR MONSTERS might get hurt. And you wouldn’t want that now. Wow yeah that would be > shout posted:You shout as loud as you can. This may be our toughest puzzle yet. That's all we can do in the room for now. There's also that sharpening machine in the back, but we don't have any weapons that need sharpening. > south posted:
Now that we've investigated the surroundings, let's take another shot at grabbing the knife. > save posted:Ok. Now, we can't shoot ourselves because of the magic ray-redirecting ring, and can't get the ring off. Can we do something about one of those problems? > cut finger with knife posted:The knife is too dull to cut off a finger. There's a sharpening machine right next door! Just head north, and then: > put knife in machine posted:As you are about to put the knife into the machine, the hippoman punches you in the stomach. “I won’t let you use my machine,” he says. We have to stop the Hippoman from attacking us somehow. (The staff doesn't work - the woman just stops us in his place). Now, this part is very tricky, and a lot of you probably missed the subtle hint we found earlier, but we actually have something the Hippoman might want. > give helmet to hippoman posted:The hippoman takes the helmet and manages to squeeze it down on his big head. “Don’t think this means I have forgiven you,” he says. Nice and safe from any falling rocks! And now that the Hippoman is behaving heroically... > put knife in machine posted:Just as you are about to put the knife into the machine, the hippoman approaches you angrily. He lifts his hand as if to hit you, but suddenly stops and yelps. He looks startled for a moment. Then he tries to tear off the helmet, but it is stuck. You put the knife in the machine. The knife slides in until it is completely out of view. The machine beeps. And now all we need to do is wait  > wait posted:Time passes. It seems there is a small flaw in our plan. (We can start sharpening the knife a couple turns faster if we're 100% efficent, but it's not enough to finish sharpening before we bleed out) Let's wrap up by learning about some creatures with 8 legs or more. > read page 2 posted:So, you have spotted a monster. How many legs does it have? Eight legs: > read page 87 posted:Is it heavier than a cow? Forty eight billion and five legs: > read page 90 posted:It is the very strange Grafflefjald. They only exist in the hallucinations resulting from eating pinkwart mushrooms, but can nonetheless kill you, and will be very eager to do so. You will not have time to wait for the hallucinations to wear off, instead eat more pinkwart mushrooms. You will then stop hallucinating about the Grafflefjald and instead start hallucinating about the even weirder Penguin Men, which will usually refrain from killing you as long as you don’t stare at them for too long, make any sudden moves or talk, burp or hiccup. Please note that your body soon will get used to the effects of pinkwart mushrooms, therefore you will have to eat increasingly more of them to maintain your high. Also note that pinkwart mushrooms are highly fattening and rich in cholesterol and so to survive you will have to start exercising daily and excessively. Variable legs: > read page 91 posted:Why does the number of legs vary? > read page 92 posted:It is a Jingo Dingo, a dog that eats nothing but its own legs. It should therefore have no interest in attacking you, but it will do so anyway just to be naughty. To escape it, try to make it think of food: lick your lips with delight or hold a pan with fried sausages under its nose. Hopefully it will get so hungry that it will eat all its legs at once, and thus not be able to follow you until it has grown new ones.
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May 14, 2022 03:31
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Have we tried shooting the gremlin with the healing gun? (as someone suggested earlier)
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May 14, 2022 03:52
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The Lone Badger posted:Have we tried shooting the gremlin with the healing gun? (as someone suggested earlier) Not yet. But really, what are the odds the fine folk at Snuffelburg & Co. would include a design flaw like that?
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May 14, 2022 03:59
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think I see how to get the saxophone, and the (sharp) knife. Guessing: Saxophone: Have sidekick take the saxophone, put sidekick in staff, leave the room, retrieve sidekick+saxophone from staff when convenient. Knife: Give the Hippo the helmet, get the knife, put the knife in the machine, put self in staff, repeating last step 'til knife is sharp enough to use.
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May 14, 2022 06:56
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Chapter 7 - In which there is a LOT of bloodquote:Tremendous Cave Last time we bled to death while waiting for the sharpening machine to sharpen the knife. > talk sidekick posted:“Aaaaaaaaaaargh! I’m bleeding!” you say. Our sidekick makes a good point, as always, but what can we do? We never tried taking the grail before (It's the hippoman's and he would stop us if we tried) but maybe now that he's heroic we can grab it and, uh, hope that it's the true grail from Indiana Jones and will heal us? > take grail posted:As you are about to take it, the hippoman approaches you angrily. He lifts his hand as if to hit you, but suddenly stops and yelps. He looks startled for a moment. Then he tries to tear off the helmet, but it is stuck. You pick up the grail. Suddenly you feel a terrible pain in your hand, and you drop the grail. You hear somebody hissing, and look around. It is the gremlin. He is stabbing his cigarette into his own hand. He is clearly in pain. He removes the cigarette from his hand, and the pain in your hand disappears. He puts the cigarette back in his mouth and laughs at you. That's strange on two counts. First: We were only told the rings transferred magical rays, but apparently they transmit pain, too. Second: The rings are two way? > shoot gremlin with healing gun posted:You pull the trigger. A white ray shoots out of the gun and hits the gremlin. Suddenly a good feeling fills your body. You notice the blood has stopped. You feel your head. It is whole again. Great! Now we can get the knife, so that we can cut off our finger, so that we can be healed, so that we can survive getting our head cut open, so that we can take the knife! > wait posted:Time passes. Whatever, an inventory item's an inventory item. Several people called the "shoot the gremlin" solution earlier. There was also this suggestion: Arcanuse posted:Give the Hippo the helmet, get the knife, put the knife in the machine, put self in staff, repeating last step 'til knife is sharp enough to use. With no time pressure there's a couple threads we can follow up on now. Since we've already come all this way, let's start by seeing if we can sharpen the knife. We know the gremlin will try to sabotage the machine when we use it, but we should be able to stop him somehow. > sidekick, kill gremlin posted:The goblin tries to jump up at the gremlin, but fall shorts. Then the goblin tries to claw himself up the wall, but gets nowhere. He's too high up for us to hit him with anything except the healing ray. But the rings work both ways, so we don't really need to hit him physically anyway. > put knife in machine posted:Just as you are about to put the knife into the machine, the hippoman approaches you angrily. He lifts his hand as if to hit you, but suddenly stops and yelps. He looks startled for a moment. Then he tries to tear off the helmet, but it is stuck. You put the knife in the machine. The knife slides in until it is completely out of view. The machine beeps. > wait x 10 posted:The machine hums. > stuff nosehairscrew in nose posted:You put the nosehairscrew into your nose. Pain is temporary. Inventory items are forever. > take knife posted:Taken. (That last item is optional - we could have healed ourselves before it was created) And now that we have the sharp knife, we can finally unequip the ring! > cut off finger with knife posted:You begin to move the knife towards the finger with the ring on, then hesitate. The pain would just be too much, you think. Then you remember what the Hoverist taught you. You cut off the finger. Blood starts gushing out of the wound. You begin to feel weak. Obviously, getting your finger cut off is far more deadly that having part of your head cut off. I sure hope we're getting hazard pay or something for all this. > undo posted:Tremendous Cave A nice touch is that the room description gets updated as you keep bleeding out. We're currently at > look posted:This place looks like a particularly unhygienic slaughterhouse. > take severed finger posted:Taken. And now that the gremlin can't stop us: > take grail posted:As you are about to take it, the hippoman approaches you angrily. He lifts his hand as if to hit you, but suddenly stops and yelps. He looks startled for a moment. Then he tries to tear off the helmet, but it is stuck. You pick up the grail. The only thing left in here is the ice genie's chest, but he still won't let us open it, and in fact has no reaction at all to the horrifying spectacle of blood and self-mutilation he just witnessed. I guess you probably get used to this stuff when you live in Treasure Cave Mountain, adventurers are crazy. > touch genie with staff posted:The genie vanishes. We know that the woman will still stop us if we try to open the chest now, but maybe we can find somewhere to drop the genie off where he can't mess with us. > south posted:
For example, what does he think about the very hot cave? > touch slimy fish with staff posted:The slimy fish vanishes. We just straight up murdered a guy. How did he like his tea? What were his thoughts on the stultifying compositions of Edvard Grieg? No one will ever know, now. That woman is 100% correct about adventurers. Anyway, time to continue stealing stuff. > sidekick, take saxophone posted:The goblin takes the stone saxophone. > take fish posted:(the slimy fish) The golem can't detect the saxophone while it's inside the staff, so we can just walk out without incident. (Props to Arcanuse, who called this solution exactly) > south posted:
Apparently Snurgelfjekk lives right next door to his altar. Judging from the runes we need to play the sax while putting something on it. We can't make out what goes on there, but considering the altar is surrounded by fish bones and its god has the head of a cat, we can probably make an educated guess. > put fat fish on altar posted:You put the fat fish on the altar. Well, that definitely did something, but we didn't seem to benefit from it. Maybe I'm just not a good musician? > put sluggish fish on altar posted:You put the sluggish fish on the altar. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fo6aKnRnBxM&t=23s He's definitely better with a sax than us, but the result's the same. Let's see if ol' Snurgelfjekk has anything to say. > north, east posted:
But we just did! Why is the God of bullies such a jerk? It seems we're still missing something with the altar. Let's leave that there for the moment and go back to the north cave - now that the genie is gone we should be able to open that chest. > west, north posted:
I'll admit, it's not what I expected. Why did the genie have this guy(?) locked up, anyway? What does the book have to say? > read page 2 posted:So, you have spotted a monster. How many legs does it have? > lick fairy posted:You bend down towards the carrot, sticking out your tongue. The carrot doesn’t fly away. You lick the carrot. It tastes carroty. Suddenly your eyesight is marginally better. Of course you already had pretty good eyesight. Well what do you know? Our buddy had trouble reading some runes earlier, maybe this can help? > sidekick, lick fairy posted:The goblin licks the carrot. “Hey,” says the goblin. “My eyesight! It’s good again! I can see everything clearly now!”  Let's go read those runes. > south posted:
Oh  It looks like the carrot only gives a temporary boost. We'll have to either move the fairy closer, or make the goblin's enchantment last longer. Running back to the north cave... > touch fairy with staff posted:As you approach the carrot, it flies out of your reach as if it knew what you had in mind. That doesn't work, so we'll just have to do things the other way around. > sidekick, lick fairy posted:The goblin licks the carrot. “Hey,” says the goblin. “My eyesight! It’s good again! I can see everything clearly now!” Heading back over to the western cave... quote:Enormous cave Nice! As a reminder, that's the bottle that says this: > read sauce posted:The makers of Dante Tomato Sauce take no responsibility for any throat pain, heartburns, ulcers, ruined tongues or death that may be caused by the sauce. We might be able to find a use for that. But on that note, there's one last puzzle we could have solved right from the start. We'll drop the sauce here and go grab the sword, then head back to the teleporter room. quote:Vast cave Now we just run back to grab the sauce, and... Vast cave posted:This cave has an exit leading outside to the southwest. In the middle of the ceiling, high above you, is a round hole. On the floor, directly under the hole, is a pile of hay. We can ride the teleporter together!  > east posted:
Good luck, buddy! I'm rooting for you. > sidekick, talk to goblin woman posted:The goblin looks annoyed and says to you, “Boss, don’t embarrass me.” Alright, no need to be a third wheel here. Let's leave them alone. And since they're not looking at us right now... > northwest posted:You sneak out. The goblins don’t seem to notice. And this must be the room on the other side of that trapped chest. She has a pretty nice crossbow. Not as nice as ours, but I suppose there's some niche situations where you might not want to reload automatically. We can pick it up: > take royal posted:Taken. > southeast posted:Just as you are about to leave, the Royal crossbow flies out of your hands and lands on the table. Let's see what else is in the room. > take spear posted:The spear is too heavy for that. We won't be leaving with any new inventory items, but maybe we can leave one behind. > take royal posted:Taken. With any luck she won't notice the difference until it's too late. > southeast posted:You sneak back. Sorry pal. Maybe once we're not on the clock. Jumping down the hole and running back around to the trapped chest... quote:Titanic cave That's five whole coins! That's... not nearly enough for even the cheapest item in the vending machine, but it's progress. Finally, let's try the other use of the sauce. quote:Gigantic cave You know it's a real adventure when you kill a god. Let's see what the damage is. quote:Bumper cave Where indeed? > talk to armadillo-headed woman posted:“Is it a good book?” you ask. The other gods are pretty unflappable and don't seem to care about their fellow god's fate, but it looks like his death blew open a path to another part of the cave. > northeast posted:
Another new animal! > read page 2 posted:So, you have spotted a monster. How many legs does it have? > turn crank posted:As you approach the crank, the lizard shoots a fireball downwards from its mouth. You jump back, unhurt. It looks like we'll have to find a way around the lizard on our own. We've made a lot of progress (and are getting pretty close to the character limit), so we'll stop there for now. Let's conclude by learning about more winged creatures. > read page 2 posted:So, you have spotted a monster. How many legs does it have? With beaks: > read page 38 posted:What color are its feathers? White and black: > read page 39 posted:It is a penguin man. See the entry on Grafflefjalds, page 90. Brown and gray: > read page 40 posted:It is the Spot-billed Uzi. This small bird uses its eggs as a weapon. It can lay an egg with such force that it lands a thousand meters away going at a speed of ten thousand meters a second. The Spot-Billed Uzi can lay 200 eggs in 20 seconds whilst flying. The eggs are half the bird’s body size. To defeat it, take cover. Then throw things at it to startle it and make it use up all its ammunition. It will then be too exhausted to fly and you can easily kill it. Be warned that sometimes it will only pretend to be out of ammunition. Pink and blue: > read page 41 posted:It is a Curse Sponge. This Finnish bird is rumoured to suck up any curses it comes in the vicinity of, and spreads them out in a small area around its body, causing many accidents. Because of this, many give them as gifts to people they don’t like. If you see one, run away. If someone tries to give you one, make up some excuse for not accepting, like being allergic to terrible disasters. And the stuff without beaks: > read page 42 posted:Does it have a head? The headless one is the vegetable fairy we saw earlier. What about the ones with heads? > read page 43 posted:It is a Destiny Sucker. These large talking bats are very hard to catch, and thus considered extremely valuable and often given as gifts among the very, very rich, even though they are completely useless and potentially dangerous. They are able to bite other creatures and suck out their destiny. Afterwards the bat will be destined to do everything its victim was destined to do. This explains why an ugly male bat won the Miss France competition two years ago, and why another one keeps getting elected prime minister of Belgium. Since taking on others destinies can be unpleasant, the Destiny Suckers usually only bite someone if they think their own life is in danger (one cannot die before ones destiny has been fulfilled, unless ones destiny is to die). The victims are left without any destiny and usually they either die soon after having been bitten or become idle couch-potatoes. On some very rare occasions the victims live some very interesting lives. Sometimes a Destiny Sucker goes mad (but only after biting a former future madman) and bites everybody they see. Afterwards their lives get very busy. To avoid being bitten, convince the Destiny Sucker you have a dismal future. I like to assume these things are canon to Hitmen for Destiny and just never came up.
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May 19, 2022 04:14
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I bet that god of knowledge would enjoy reading the monster dictionary we have.
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May 19, 2022 09:19
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Hm. Well, I would think we can use our newfound coin to gamble with the trolls for more to use on the vending machine, but somehow I doubt it's going to be as simple as that. Aside from that, I note there are two (2) grails we've seen, so they probably have something to do with one another, somehow. Maybe the god of comedy would think us swapping the two without them noticing would be funny? 
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May 19, 2022 11:29
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I'm guessing the above two posts are probably connected: the goddess reacts to the grail before we'd have a chance to swap it out, so we need to distract her, but I'd bet that even once we do we can't just walk out with the grail unless we plant a decoy.
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May 19, 2022 13:39
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This is great, thanks for doing it
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May 19, 2022 18:13
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Chapter 8 - Thinking with Last time we killed both a genie and a god before being stopped by a vicious shameleon. We've more or less exhausted the rest of the stuff we can do in the caves, so we'll have to try and figure out how to get past him with the items we have. Before we do that though, let's pay another visit to the adventurers out front. quote:Spacious cave They've taken up some new pastimes since we saw them last, but these two were waiting here to buy treasure from other adventurers who came by. Maybe they'd be interested in something? > give grail to barbarian posted:The barbarian smiles and says, “That is a good treasure.” He attaches the grail to his belt. Then he gives you five gold coins. Then he jumps forwards, summersaults through the air, and lands on the back of his horse. It storms out to the south. Nice, more gold! We could have given the grail to the dwarf instead, but the result is pretty much the same: > give grail to dwarf posted:The dwarf grabs the grail, stuffs it inside his chain mail, and pulls out five gold coins that he throws to you. Then he gets on the donkey, and rides away to the south. Either way, we get 5 coins and one of them leaves. And, you know, now that we have some money there is something we might be able to do with it. quote:Prodigious and very hot cave > talk old troll posted:“Can I play?” you ask. We can play with the trolls now! This could be a way to make a bit more money - let's give it a shot. > sit on rock posted:Just as you are about to sit down the old troll says, “Ur, have you got any money?” That's a lot of rules, but it's basically just betting on if you think you drew the highest card or not. There's no minimum bet so we can always fold without losing anything if we draw a low card - let's give it a shot. > take card posted:You pick up your card, it’s the king of rocks. What a shame, we had a great card but they all folded right away - they must have all drawn really bad ones. We'll try again. > take card posted:You pick up your card, it’s the three of rocks. There's only one card lower than ours and two players still in, so it's literally impossible for us to win. We'll fold. > fold posted:You fold. Hmm. It's definitely not the best card, but we've got a shot. Let's try it. > stay posted:You stay. Oof, a big loss. It's alright though, we can win it all back. > take card posted:You pick up your card, it’s the queen of rocks. We draw a great card again, but the trolls all fold before we can get any winnings from it. One more try. > take card posted:You pick up your card, it’s the jack of rocks. There we go! A good card and a chance to play! We're going all in! > stay posted:You stay.  You have to hand it to them, those trolls have some fantastic poker instincts. They always seem to know exactly when to fold. We should be able to play some more if we can sell another treasure to the dwarf, but will we be able to win against them? > east posted:
She has a new book! Is it any good? > talk to armadillo-headed woman posted:“Is it a good book?” you ask. I've got a great one here, tons of useful info about all sorts of creatures. > give manual to armadillo-headed woman posted:“I have already read it. It is utter rubbish. The bit about gods is true though.” I think she must have it mixed up with some other book. We should keep it anyway, who knows when we'll need to look something up? > northeast posted:
Back at the lizard. He won't let us turn the crank, so we have to do something about him first. > throw knife at lizard posted:You throw the knife. It hits the lizard, which cries out in pain. You don’t seem to have done any real damage though. That's more cows that I would have expected, to be honest. Anyway, the lizard is ultimately just a tutorial to make sure you know that you can do this: > throw staff at lizard posted:The staff smashes into the lizard. We'll be getting a lot of mileage out of the staff this update. > take slimy fish posted:Taken. > northeast posted:
A chasm! There's a couple ways to press that button, but we'll go with the easiest. > jump posted:The abyss is too wide to jump across. Okay, second easiest. > throw fish at button posted:You throw the slimy fish at the button. There is a click, and a narrow stone bridge shoots out from the west wall, just below the west ledge. The bridge extends until it meets the east wall, just below the east ledge. Any adventurer worth their salt can hit a button with a fish from 50 paces away. We could have thrown anything for this one, but the fish seemed most appropriate. > east posted:You walk across the bridge. Another chasm! > throw fish at crank posted:You throw the slimy fish. It hits the crank before falling on the east ledge. And sadly we won't be able to use the same trick this time. Luckily there's some handy equipment already in position. > sit in catapult posted:Nah, you figure you are just a tiny tad too heavy to be thrown across the abyss by the catapult. Good work buddy! > sidekick, turn crank posted:The goblin turns the crank. There is a click, and a narrow stone bridge shoots out from the west wall, just below the west ledge. The bridge extends until it meets the east wall, just below the east ledge. > northeast posted:
A third chasm! But this time, there's no convenient catapult for us to use. > think posted:“Why on earth has anybody made all this effort with the bridges, and the cranks, and the button and the catapult? Doesn’t make any sense!” > throw goblin posted:(first taking the goblin sidekick) How can we get a person to the other side when we can only throw items?? > touch goblin with staff posted:The goblin sidekick vanishes. Once again, our ability to throw fish very precisely saves the day. > sidekick, turn crank posted:The goblin turns the crank. There is a rumbling and the cave shakes. A vertical strip of light appears on the north wall. The strip widens into an opening. Light shines through it. It is an exit to the outside. The exit is reachable from the west ledge. The goblin looks perplexed. “I thought there was going to be a new bridge,” he says. Then he looks a little scared. “Er, boss I hope you have a way of getting me off this ledge.” Right, I, uh, of course I do. > sidekick, take staff posted:The goblin takes the staff. We could head north, but let's see if anyone can help our friend. Running back to the room with the sharpening machine... quote:Tremendous Cave And running back to the ledge... > throw staff east posted:You throw the staff. It lands on the east ledge. Come on, you couldn't give him a lift?? We can repeat the process with anyone we can put in the staff. quote:The sluggish fish vanishes. What about the helpless goblin I trapped on the wrong side of an abyss, doesn't he count for anything?? quote:Confused, the barbarian says, “Where is Grirgr now?” He pulls out a long rope from his shorts. He ties one end of the rope to his sabre. quote:The dwarf starts running back and forth on the east ledge. He works up an amazing speed. Then he runs straight up the east wall! When he is close to the ceiling, he kicks mightily with his legs, and is thrown towards the west! He does a couple of back flips in the air and lands perfectly on the west ledge! Then he kicks you in the rear end, and runs off towards the southwest. quote:The tall troll and the short troll walk in from the southeast. The tall troll is carrying a long chain, which is wound many times around his right shoulder. That last one is the same no matter which troll you trap, just with the roles swapped out. We could trap the hoverist too, but he doesn't actually have a unique interaction and just hovers away like usual. It seems that for now we'll have to leave the goblin alone and check out the new door we opened up. > north posted:
A new animal! You know what that means: > read page 2 posted:So, you have spotted a monster. How many legs does it have? More helpful info. Let's give it a shot. > pet hamster posted:You bend down to pet the hamster. “Hello, little buddy,” you say with your friendliest voice. The hamster bites your finger. The little creature is hanging from your hand. > pet hamster posted:“Don’t be afraid. I won’t hurt you,” you say with your friendliest voice and carefully reach out your hand. The hamster jumps up and bites your finger. > pet hamster posted:Your friendly voice is sounding a little strained as you say, “Calm down. Why don’t you let me pet you? I just want to be your friend.” > pet hamster posted:There is nothing very much friendly in your voice as you say, “Don’t bite! Sit still! For the love of all that is holy, don’t bite!” Very very very slowly you reach down towards the hamster. > pet hamster posted:Your arm is shaking as you reach down towards the hamster and you scream “BE CALM DAMMIT!” > pet hamster posted:Ok. New tactic. This time you won’t say anything to the hamster. You will just pet it real quick, before it has a chance to attack. Then it will love you, oh yes it will! > pet hamster posted:Maybe if you hold it with one hand, and pet it with the other? > pet hamster posted:No! You have had it! And that manual is not getting a favorable review! It doesn't seem that we'll be making any friends today. Unless... quote:The hamster runs up the goblins body, and starts biting the goblin’s nose. The goblin screams and pulls the hamster away from his nose, only to have the hamster bite on to his hand. The goblin screams some more and waves his arms. The hamster comes loose and is thrown across the abyss. It lands, teeth first, right in your face. You scream and smack the hamster as it is trying to eat your face. The hamster falls down on the ledge, takes a small bite from your toe, and runs off to the north. Nope The hamster attacks us if we try to continue east while it's here, so we'll trap it in the staff and continue. > east posted:
Hey, that must be the door that leads to the goblin's side of the chasm. > open door posted:The door is locked. But it looks like we can't meet back up just yet. What's written on the crate? > read crate posted:“To: The king of Norway Treasure, you say? > open crate posted:You open the crate. It contains: > take book posted:Taken. Huh, it seems that the crate closes itself thanks to the wind. Anyway, it's clearly time for some tactical espionage action. Treasure Cave Mountain? Goblin Sidekick trapped on ledge? Who cares about that stuff when there's a king to rob? > open crate posted:You open the crate. It is empty. For most of this section, touching the staff gives us the museum ending, since the goblin is trapped on the ledge. If we do it while inside the crate, however... > touch orb posted:
We end up in the castle! The king must have touched the orb after opening his present. > take staff posted:Taken. Not now, talking bat. I need to rob the castle! > west posted:As you begin to walk one of the guards angrily shouts “Bli hvor du er!” You reckon they don’t want you to leave. And they have bows. Ah, I guess it would be rude to leave the party early. > talk bat posted:“What am I supposed to do?” you ask. > read large tag posted:“To the King of Norway > read small tag posted:“Til kongen av Norge Oh hey, that's a curse sponge! We learned about those last time. > talk queen posted:“Are there any treasures around here?” you ask. > talk princess posted:“Hey, nice party,” you say. > talk guard posted:“Better put down your crossbows. I am a mighty wizard!” you say. > talk crowd posted:“How are you doing?” you say. You know, we should probably just chill out until the party ends and all these guard leave. It can't take that long. > wait posted:Time passes. It's cool, I'm just waiting for the guards to leave. It should be any minute now. > wait posted:Time passes. Come on, I just got here! It's fine. > wait posted:Time passes. Why on earth would they do that!? > wait posted:Time passes. Wow. The hospitality in Norway is terrible. Luckily we've got a trump card up our sleeves. > undo posted:Ballroom So long, suckers! > touch orb posted:
Snake Maze fucked around with this message at 06:28 on May 27, 2022 |
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May 27, 2022 06:24
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Is... this supposed to happen? Like, is there an ending where we stay in the cave system?
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May 27, 2022 06:36
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Well. It could be worse I guess? Jail's better than all the dying and reincarnating and whatnot.
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May 27, 2022 09:00
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Now I am morbidly curious as to whether or not exposure to the god of knowledge would kill the genie.
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May 27, 2022 09:08
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The minor name changes for the chambers of the 
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May 27, 2022 12:37
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Mini Update - Easter Eggs and other things ACG has a number of joke commands and other small interactions. Most of them don't have any ingame hint, and just rely on the player guessing they're verbs. For example, we could try invoking some ancient words of power: > xyzzy posted:Suddenly everything looks as if it is made of butter. Just as suddenly all is back to normal. But you get a strange feeling that somehow, somewhere, something has changed. Or have our sidekick invoke them: > goblin, xyzzy posted:The goblin says, “Xyzzy” and suddenly turns into a sheep. Just as suddenly he has turned into a goblin again. We could try some more mundane actions: > sing posted:Absolutely not. On your last product-testing mission you had an accident involving a bunch of drunken cultists, a defunct Mind Control Ray Weapon and a mutant sacrificial goat, and therefore you happen to be the high priest of the Temple of Tentacles, and thus any singing you do would result in the summoning of He Who Must Not Be Mentioned (Hastur). Our sidekick is willing to sing and dance on command: > sidekick, sing posted:“Like a virgin. Hey! Touched for the very first time.” But he's quick to establish professional boundaries if we tell him to do anything farther than that. > sidekick, taste me posted:“My job does not include that!” Presumably in this timeline the magazine faces a pretty serious lawsuit once the game is over. Changing subjects, we can try to get some divine intervention to help us out. > pray posted:You have to pray to somebody. You can try again after killing a god > pray to Morgeldindo posted:Nobody answers. but nobody came. What if we try praying to some exotic, foreign gods? > pray to yahweh posted:Nothing happens. I bet he is one of them lazy gods who only help those who help themselves, and then swoops in and takes all the credit. No help, any of them. (Achieving enlightenment in this way has no effect on what we're reincarnated as when we die) There's also a couple verbs we only learned near the end, but which we can technically use on anything. What if we pet stuff other than the hamster? > pet me posted:You pet yourself on the head. Your shrink told you doing this would give you more self-esteem, but you don’t know. What if we lick things other than the vegetable fairy? quote:> lick me Invigorating. As a minor note, the cat-headed man's description is just the default message you get for tasting something with no unique description, like random inventory items. I assume he's missing a unique description, due to either an oversight or a bug. Next: While it's not a verb per se, it's possible to use our staff to drag people onto the God of Comedy's stage. quote:The barbarian appears on the stage. It's not actually possible to put the hamster on the stage - we need to swap places with the goblin, since fish can't be put on the stage, but once the hamster is available the goblin is trapped on the ledge. Finally, let's check out the rest of the monster manual. > read page 2 posted:So, you have spotted a monster. How many legs does it have? First: creatures with no legs: > read page 3 posted:Which of the following body parts does it have? We learned about the things with fins already. What about branches? > read page 8 posted:Does it move about a lot? Tentacles only has two entries. We already (failed to) read the entry on that tentacle monster in the staff, but there's also this: > read page 12 posted:It is an Electric Land Squid. They live in trees and move very fast by throwing themselves from branch to branch. They attack in flocks. If you use something long, which doesn’t conduct electricity, you may be able to push two of them together, thus making them short-circuit. Electric Land Squid are the main power source in Scotland. Stuff with no legs and none of the above: > read 29 posted:What pattern does its skin have? There's only one one-legged creature: > read page 35 posted:It is a Yuckmaster. This tiny creature lives off of vomit. If you come across one, it will do something really disgusting to try to make you puke. Though one of the least popular animals in the world, it is fairly harmless. Just look away and try to think of something nice. There's only one three legged creature: > read 62 posted:It is a Porridge Fiend. They form spontaneously in hot porridge. They have deadly telekinetic powers. They explode if they see their own reflection. And there's only one six legged creature: > read 86 posted:It is a Strangler Fly. When a swarm of Strangler Flies attacks you, two of the flies will fly high up in your nostrils, while the rest will fly into your mouth. This will prevent you from breathing. Do not chew the flies as they have strongly acidic blood. It will be impossible to get out all of the flies from your mouth, so concentrate on the ones in your nostrils. You will not be able to reach them using your fingers, so use a pair of tweezers. Once you have removed one fly from a nostril, kill it, and quickly take a deep breath, because immediately one of the flies from your mouth will fly up to replace the one that was in your nostril. Continue to pick flies out of your nostril until all the flies are dead. With that, we've read every entry in the Monster Manual! Congratulations to Arthur Hippoman for putting together such a comprehensive, accessible, and useful guide. Next time: Treasure! Snake Maze fucked around with this message at 04:05 on May 30, 2022 |
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May 29, 2022 21:26
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Wow, that's a ton of detail. Some of those slapstick shticks were pretty great. Have you observed any long-term consequences of invoking IF-standard magic words? The message suggests that they have some kind of consequence.
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May 30, 2022 02:31
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:Wow, that's a ton of detail. Some of those slapstick shticks were pretty great. I did a quick run through the game after using them and I couldn't see anything different. It's possible there's some subtle change I missed, like a minor word change in a description, or a change to one of the random interactions you can have with people. It's also possible the game is just lying to screw with you, it'd hardly be out of line for a xyzzy response. I'm curious myself, but unless the answer is tucked away in an old forum thread somewhere I'd probably have to decompile the game file to find out for sure.
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May 30, 2022 03:37
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It would seem entirely in character for this game that the consequence for using xyzzy et al would be a single-character change somewhere in the text. Thanks for checking!
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May 30, 2022 04:20
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I was not expecting an 'I have no mouth and I must scream' reference.
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May 30, 2022 14:40
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Chapter 9 Last time, we left the Treasure Cave Mountains in order to rob the King of Norway. Now, some readers might be concerned that we're leaving things a bit unfinished - the Trolls still have our money, the giant diamond is unplundered, and our trusty sidekick is currently trapped alone on a ledge. Don't worry - this is just a quick detour. We'll be back before anyone even notices we were gone! We'll arrive in the castle the same way we did last time, with one small variation - we'll put a fish in the staff instead of leaving the hamster inside. (We can't try taking anything else in the staff, because we need to use it on the hamster to reach the crate) > touch orb posted:
We get a slightly different reaction from the fish versus the hamster, although there's no changes beyond that. > take staff posted:Taken. Last time we ignored this friendly bat, but it seems like he might be on to something. It seems like a shame to leave so soon after arriving, but let's see if we can't set him free with the ol' reliable. > touch bat with staff posted:The bat vanishes. That's probably fine. > talk king posted:“Happy birthday!” you say. Now we just need to set the bat free. > touch fish with staff posted:You lift the fish up to hit it with your staff. Suddenly one of the guards fires. The arrow hits the fish, which is pulled out of your hand. The guards won't let us use the fish, so we'll have to swap with something else. > touch queen with staff posted:The queen of Norway vanishes. Progress! We could just wait here for a while: wait x 20 posted:The bat says, “Buddy, we are in up to our necks in trouble. You better figure out something.” But that works about as well as you'd expect. What if we try thinking outside the box? > touch bat with staff posted:The bat vanishes. Suddenly you are sitting on the back of the queen. You both fall and spin in the air. You hit the floor first, the fat queen landing on top of you. There is a horrible sound of bones breaking. The guards are rushing towards you. You can feel you are dying. No, it seems like we should really try to keep the bat where he is. > throw fish at guards posted:You throw the fish, but before it hits the target one of the guards fires. The arrow hits the fish. Both fish and arrow disappear out the northeast exit. The guards maintain their vigilent anti-fish sharpshooting. Trying to throw other objects just gives us a warning that we don't have enough stuff to take out all the guards by throwing things at them. Looks like it's time for a shootout. > shoot guards with gun posted:You wave the gun from side to side, shooting white rays at the guards. They wave theirs crossbows at you. > point cow-o-meter at guards posted:You wave the cow-o-meter around in the direction of the guards. The guards have seen 56,12,35,102,33,69,18,4,207 and 45 cows respectively. Nothing else in our inventory could concevibly be used on the guards from here. Back to the one inventory item that never lets us down. > touch bird with staff posted:The bird vanishes. We may not have gotten a new inventory item, but the real treasure we stole from the King of Norway was the friend we made along the way Also we lost the staff and the goblin has been on that ledge for a couple weeks. But on the bright side the door is gone! There's also one slight variation on the escape we could have tried: swapping the king with the queen before we start gets us this: > touch queen with staff posted:The queen of Norway vanishes. Everything after that is the same, just with the fat king taking the place of the fat queen. Anyway, let's give our sidekick the good news of our return. > southwest posted:
Wow, no need to be rude about it. > give fish to goblin posted:You give the sluggish fish to the goblin. Not even some appetizing tomato death sauce is enough to change his opinion on fish. We can't pull a Chrono Trigger and just heal him either. Well, if you remember what the book says about goblins, we do actually have his favorite food on hand, and fairly fresh too. > give brain to sidekick posted:You give the medium sized chunk of your brain to the goblin. Now that he's had something to eat the goblin will follow us around again. If we had a bit more forethought we could have tossed our bodyparts over before we left, which would get us a much friendlier greeting. quote:“Goblin,” you say. “How have you been?” There's only a couple puzzles left to solve, now. Let's try to get the second goblet quote:Bumper cave We know how to distract the god of comedy, but we'll need to stop the goddess of knowledge from telling on us when we do it. I'm sure we can intimidate her into silence with some incredible displays of violence. > sidekick, kill armadillo-headed woman posted:The goblin goes and stands next to the woman. He screams “Hai!”, jumps up, and tries to kick her head, but his foot doesn’t reach high enough. He screams and jumps again, but his kick doesn’t get any higher. He tries one more time, misses, and falls on his back. He must still not be at 100%. We'll take care of her ourself. > punch armadillo-headed woman posted:You hit the woman in the head. She just keeps on reading as if nothing had happened. You hit her again. Still no response. You hit her several times. “Do you mind?” she asks. “I’m trying to read here.” “Sorry,” you mutter embarrassed. Once again, violence fails to be the answer. Let's see what she thinks of the new book we found. > give book to woman posted:The armadillo-headed woman takes the book and starts reading. She reads faster than you have ever seen anybody read before. That's a second god dead, although I suppose the book's author should get most of the credit. With that we should be able to get our hands on the second grail - we just need someone to stand on the stage to distract the god. The goblin's been through a lot lately, we'll go on stage and let him handle the grail-grabbing. > stand on stage posted:You get on the stage. Brutal. We'll have to take the grail ourselves. > sidekick, stand on stage posted:The goblin gets on the stage. We're in the homestretch now. > give grail to flamingo posted:
There's really only one puzzle left to solve now. Let's take a quick look around at the other rooms first, to see what else has been decorated for the holidays. quote:Tremendous Cave The hippoman has really taken to knitting. > give money to hippoman posted:You remember the manual said you should lend money to hippomen. You also remember that the manual was written by somebody called Arthur Hippoman, so no. quote:Spacious cave (They're both here because I hadn't given any grails to them yet on this save - if you gave one before you left then that adventurer would be missing, but there's no other changes) quote:Big cave The hoverist has some ornaments on him. quote:Voluminous cave The monster and dead elf are skeletons now. They can no longer be licked or pet. quote:Capacious cave The goblin woman has some winter clothes on. quote:Prodigious and very hot cave And the trolls are drinking some mugs of hot lava. Now that we have some more money we can try to gable with the trolls again. But how can we win? That last attempt wasn't a fluke - somehow, they always fold if we have a better card then them. Are they using some sort of trick to see our card?? Oh. > remove mirrorshades posted:You take off the pair of mirrorshades. > take card posted:You pick up your card, it’s the king of rocks. With the mirrorshades removed, the goblins can't cheat. We still need to win all their money for real, but since you can always fold without losing anything it's just a matter of fishing for a good card and then going in. Or just abusing undo to know if you're going to win before you bet, the game doesn't do anything to prevent it. > bet 1 posted:You raise to 5. Or you can just draw a great card right away and win all their money. > bet 1 posted:You raise to 2. It took another 10 rounds of folding and drawing to take those last coins, but not we have everything we need. > wear shades posted:You put on the pair of mirrorshades. Our score is almost maxed out now, giving us incredible amount of karma for reincarnation. > stab self with knife posted:You stab yourself in the chest. The king, reborn. > undo posted:Gigantic cave It's been quite the adventure to get this far. We killed two gods, two giant monsters, a genie, and caused a serious diplomatic incident with the King of Norway. It's time for us to head home to our loving spouse, and write a review for all these great products we tested... but let's give everyone a final goodbye. quote:> thank hippoman > put diamond in wheelbarrow posted:You put the diamond into the wheelbarrow. Afterwards it’s only a matter of days before you have managed to transport the diamond back to the Adventurer’s Consumer Guide’s headquarters. Your mission is accomplished. That's it! A bit of an abrupt ending, but I suppose it's about the journey and not the destination. I hope everyone enjoyed the playthrough. It might not be the most revolutionary text adventure but I think ACG has a good sense of humor, especially in how it sets up farcical situations and then lets the player walk into it themselves - stuff like how you naturally go down the list and try all your inventory items against the frog at the start. And it's interesting seeing ideas that would appear again in Thorsby's comics - obviously you have all the weird animals in the manual, and the way Destiny is treated, but there's also the magic staff and very strange Grafflefjald, which would both reappear in a modified form in Trixie Slaughteraxe for President. Final Review: Magical Sword: 3/5 - Impractical as melee weapon, but somewhat reliable as an early warning system and improvised engine Mail-Ordered Staff: 5/5 - A powerful and versitile device with applications in puzzles of all kinds. A must-have for any adventurer Remmingheim Supreme Crossbow: 4/5 - Solid construction and an easy to use design. Auto-reload enchantment may need tweaking. The Ultimate Creature Manual: 3/5 - “A terribly (...) good (...) book.” Snuffelburg & Co. Type F Magical Ring (with paired gremlin): 4/5 - Ring reliably redirects all magical rays even at significant distance from paired gremlin. Side effects manageable. Hustlespleen & Poe Coat of Invisibility: 2/5 - While the coat offers some marginal puzzle-solving ability, most adventurers would be better served with a spool of invisible rope Super Champion Helmet: 1/5 - Adventurers are advised to shoot for more of a "charming rogue" archetype. Goblin from Sidekick Agency: 5/5 - Loyal, helpful, and surprising good with a saxophone. Highly recommended for any adventure that permits a companion. Snake Maze fucked around with this message at 04:35 on May 31, 2022 |
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May 31, 2022 03:24
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You need to review the sidekick too.
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May 31, 2022 03:41
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The Lone Badger posted:You need to review the sidekick too. Oops, good catch. That guy definitely deserves a good review.
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May 31, 2022 04:36
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> thank LPer
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May 31, 2022 07:16
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> Point Cow-o-Meter at LPer But seriously, thank you.
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May 31, 2022 07:22
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Since I know a bit of Swedish, I could gather a tad of what was being yelled in Norwegian, but is there someone who could give a better translation into English? LP was a rollicking piece of good fun, thanks!
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May 31, 2022 10:49
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One question: you mentioned some impossible situations, such as having a tentacle monster in the staff while at the king of norway's court. Is there any way to cheat or hack the game to bring it to such situations. I'm just wondering if the game has some fallback text for such situations. Wouldn't be surprised if it is funny, too. Samovar posted:Since I know a bit of Swedish, I could gather a tad of what was being yelled in Norwegian, but is there someone who could give a better translation into English? I just threw it all into google translate.
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May 31, 2022 11:13
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Thank you for the LP, Snake Maze! This was definitely a fun experience, and I'm glad the author's humor got a chance to shine
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May 31, 2022 14:30
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Mzbundifund posted:> thank LPer
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Jun 1, 2022 01:52
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Thanks for the LP! I think the thing I appreciated the most about the game was how preposterously violent it got without actually putting you into a failure state. You could get stabbed, scalped, exploded, and more, and for the most part just walk it off.
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Jun 1, 2022 04:02
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Mzbundifund posted:> thank LPer
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Jun 1, 2022 04:20
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Bonus update - Scraping the bottom of the barrel The game is finished, but due to lingering curiosity about stuff like "does xyzzy do anything" I decided to see if I could dig into the game files any. I wasn't expecting to get a full update out of this, but I actually found a lot more than I expected. My first attempt was with glulxtoc, a tool for decompiling glulx files. I don't have any experience with Rust or with Inform source code, but hey, any proper adventure involves bumbling in blindly with tools you only partially understand, right? It... kind of worked?   The logic is there, albeit hard to parse since there's no context for anything and the labels are gone, but the actual text is in some format I'm not sure how to read, making it impossible to get anything out of it. Someone with more knowlege of how the strings would be stored might be able to make some progress, and I might be able to sit down and dig into the gluxtoc code to see how it's parsing it, but it looked like more effort than the casual glance I was hoping for. So nothing too interesting from that approach. But speaking of casual glances, my second attempt was with glulx strings, a tool that just rips the strings from a glulx file, and that one was a lot more interesting. (You can play with it yourself if you have the ACG game file - it's all in your browser, no download needed). The strings are all dumped in a list without context, so some stuff I can only speculate on the context of, but there's plenty of interesting stuff I missed. In no particular order quote:You throw the saxophone towards the exit. The golem suddenly comes to life, jumps forwards and grabs the sax in the air before crashing into the ground with a loud bang. The golem gets up and puts the sax where used to lie. The golem then goes and stands exactly like it did before. quote:You try to wrap the coat around the sax, but there are bits of the sax sticking out. You give up. Two failed attempts to get the sax out of the room. quote:You drop the diamond onto the bottle. The bottle shoots out from under the diamond. It is still not broken! A pretty clever way to try and open the bottle of sauce quote:Ah, just touch the orb. The exasperation is interesting. I generally glided over interface stuff in the lp but when you're using the staff on yourself you specifically need to "touch orb". I assume this message is from trying to use the staff in a roundabout way like throwing it at yourself quote:"Heads up!" you say, throwing The goblin has a special response if you throw the sword at him. quote:The knife hits the man in the chest. He falls forward. Dieing, he pulls out a small black pipe with a handle. He pushes some small lever on the handle, and there is a loud bang. You feel a terrible pain in your chest. Everything fades away. We could have gotten shot to death in the future if we brought the knife there. There's a similar message for throwing the crossbow at him. Interestingly, most of the time trying to kill or attack the people in the museum just gets you tossed outside, which then leads directly into the "missed your deadline" ending - it seems like throwing a weapon is the only way to succeed at doing a violence. quote:Many years ago on a product-testing mission, while you were still working for The Gentleman Adventurer's Monthly, there was an accident involving a pineapple, a faulty Sword of Reptile Powers and a fountain of youth, and as a result you had a second childhood being raised by your very strict daughter. So you never swear. More backstory for our protagonist. We have a daughter! (Are going to have had a daughter?) This is the response for 'drat', but there's other strings with the final sentence swapped out for picking your nose and giving someone the bird. quote:No way. On a product-testing mission three years ago, you had a mishap involving a sexy sleepwalking milkmaid, a mayor in drag and a very unreliable Teleporting Hat and as a result the entire village of Scrumvale was transported into your dreams, from where it can't escape until you die, something which the furious villagers are all too aware of. You drink a lot of coffee these days. And the response for 'sleep' quote:You gently squeeze the fish. Ah, the delights of fish squeezing. 'squeeze' is a verb, apparently. Looks like it's mostly another way to try and fail to do violence to npcs. quote:No, your magazine will pay the goblin. If we had tried to give the goblin some money quote:You don't want to go home before you have found a big treasure. We could have gotten some slightly different refusal reasons if we tried to leave after finding somewhat valuable stuff. quote:"Could you help me with this monster?" you ask. You can't ask about subjects, so I guess this would be from talking to the hoverist while the monster is in the room? quote:slides down on the floor. Items fall off the teleporter if you try to place them on it, and apparently there's a unique message if you try to leave a currently-invisible coat on it quote:A knife I don't think we actually saw the inventory text for the dull version of the knife. quote:"Grirgr will not look at your treasures before you make Grirgr's horse come back!" You can't sell the grails while the adventurers' mounts are in the staff. quote:A wheelbarrow is not a safe solution for moving the sword around. The sword would just shake itself out of the barrow. Nice try though. I like when the game gives you a 'nice try' for something. We saw one of those in the LP for trying to close our eyes. quote:A deep voice from nowhere says: "That's not a proper sacrifice, you idiot!" Sacrificing something other than a fish gets it thrown back at us. (You can see where it substitutes the lines depending on whether it hits you or the goblin - not sure if that's random or if it targets you while the goblin is in the staff). The fun part is this: quote:A deep voice from nowhere says: "That's not a proper sacrifice, you idiot!" A unique variant for sacrificing the invisible coat  We have the full list of room descriptions as they get bloody quote:There is a little blood here. And here's what I assume is the full list of responses to the "think" command quote:"Kill. Destroy. Annihilate." quote:Yeah, that was an interesting trap. It needs to be studied. You put your hand on the surface of the pedestal. Ah, there is that click again. Also; the metal arm with the spinning saw-blade. This time it cuts off your entire head. Not sure exactly what command would do this, since examine isn't a thing quote:"Ur, don't put stuff on our table," says a troll. More invisibility coat handling. quote:Just as you are about to sit down the short troll says, "Ur, no. We don't play without dad." The relationship between the trolls, revealed! quote:"A book by Arthur Hippoman? Never heard of him. Hippoman is common name among hippomen. Anyway, keep it." Most people just have generic "they're not interested" messages if you try to give them stuff, but it looks like the hippoman has something to say about the books. quote:"You better get out of here, or the tentacle monster will get you!" you say. Trying to intimidate the gremlin out of the room with the tentacle monster. quote:You try to read over the shoulder of the woman. There is a very complex sentence apparently describing a test you take to see if you are real or not. You don't understand it, but feel mildly disturbed. Reading over the armadillo-headed woman's shoulder. That's more books than we saw, looks like there's a couple more she could have swapped over to if we waited long enough. quote:She is holding your Supreme crossbow. It is aimed right at you. She fires. Almost instantly, before it has even left the crossbow completely, the arrow returns to the bow. "What?" says the goblin lady. She fires again. The arrow returns again. Startled the lady fires again and again. She begins to swear. You laugh and begin to climb down. But a tentacle grabs you and pull you back up again. You try to squeeze out of the tentacle's grip. The goblin lady says, "Wait a second, this is not my bow. But my bow can't be stolen or destroyed. Which means it must still be here somewhere... Aha!" She disappears from view. You manage to get out of the tentacles grip and run towards the ladder. But another tentacle hits you, and you fly across the cave, hitting a wall. The goblin lady return, this time with her own crossbow. She shoots you through the head. There's a unique failure for trying to steal the money after swapping the crossbows but while the tentacle monster is in the room. quote:"Hello," you say. "You better be careful around me, my brains have just been infected with ghost maggots. Also, did you know I just got engaged to Ruella Twist, the suspected black widow murderer? Oh, and the brotherhood of dark overlords has sworn to kill me, because..." I'm not sure when we would have needed to talk to the bat to get this. quote:Do you really want to touch the orb? If so you must type in that, so I know you are serious. Again, not sure what command would give this response. It's not 'lick' or 'kiss', and 'punch' and 'kick' have their own responses that tell you to touch it instead. quote:Before you have a chance to do it, you get a nasty electrical shock from your helmet. You hear a calm pleasant female voice in your head: "Though fun, it wouldn't be very heroic to torment a caged animal like that." Another mysterious response. There are more normal responses for attack/kill/stab with sword, so I'm not sure what we could do to 'torment' him. quote:That's pretty clever in case somebody tries to bite you. But you can't stand walking around with sauce on yourself; it's too icky. Nice try though. If you try to pour the sauce on yourself, as a way around the hamster. quote:"So are you trying to give me a handful of air or what?" says the goblin. Giving the invisible coat to the goblin. quote:"Hard to do when you are hanging from it, boss." Telling the goblin to take the coat while we're dangling from it. quote:The goblin looks annoyed and says to you, "Boss, don't embarrass me." Telling the goblin to talk to people. quote:The goblin abouts. "Whoa!" he says. "Suddenly my mind was filled with all this information. Like we communicate by "talk to [whatever]". And I know what you and your editor was talking about just before I met you. Trippy or what?" You can tell the goblin to 'about' or 'credits' quote:A tentacle approaches the female goblin. The goblin sidekick screams "Get away from her!", runs up and grabs the tentacle. He manages to divert it away from the lady, but the tentacle throws him across the room, and he smashes into a wall. We could have played wingman with the tentacle monster. (As a side note, I didn't see any dialogue for the tentacle monster interacting with people in the castle or future museum. I don't know what would happen if you hacked it in, but there's doesn't seem to be any funny edge case for it) quote:You stuff the chunk of brain back in your head. You suspect this might possibly not make the brain function properly. Some unsuccessful attempts at first aid. quote:The Hoverist looks at the address written on the crate. He says: "When you reach the twenty-second stage of Hoverism, you will be able to vanquish your desire to mail old men to Scandinavian regents." He hovers out of the crate, and away to the west. Interestingly, it seems like everyone has a reaction to being put in the crate. I don't think it's actually possible to do this in game - as mentioned, the hamster guards the path to the crate and you need to put him in the staff to get by (which would release anyone else, after which they go back to their room) quote:Suddenly you are somewhere else. Aww man, I missed this one. It's the ending for touching the orb while you're riding on the bat. quote:Two men in black uniforms walks in from the south. "Hey!" one says to you. "You can't just take stuff. That diamond should definitely be in the hall of precious stones." The two men take the diamond. They leave the way they come. And there's actually a special case if you go to the future while holding the giant diamond. This would have to be while the goblin is stuck on the ledge. Some cool stuff in there. But all of that is small time. Are you ready for the MASSIVE DISCOVERY that will fundamentally change what you know about Adventurer's Consumer Guide?? quote:Huge cave That's right, it was all a dream! Something about a goblin, and... I think there was a book...? > inventory posted:You are wearing your glasses. No time for dreams now. There's work to do! > down posted:
It's a hard, lonely job, being a spaceman. But someone has to do it. > push black button posted:You push the button. !!! > south posted:
The job is never done until these rubber donkeys are where they belong. > west posted:
Quite the string of bad luck, but nothing that will give pause to an experienced space captain like ourselves. > north posted:
Oh no! > east posted:
drat it all! We have no choice but to abort the mission. > press button posted:You push the button. The ship turns its front 180 degrees around, so that it flies in the exact opposite direction of what it did previously. No time for new glasses - we'll have to do the repairs like this. > down posted:
That's fine. I'm sure I can remember what the order was. > press brown button posted:You push the button. The mission failed Courtesy of the text dump we can see that there's actually a lot of possible fates for our intrepid captain, including returning home safely if we do all the maintenence long enough. quote:The spaceship crash-lands on The Planet of Really Really Good Food. 25 years later you die from obesity. But is that really how our story ends? I feel like there's something else, just on the tip of my tounge... > wake up posted:You awaken from your dream by the sound of an alarm coming from downstairs. You shouldn’t really be sleeping anyway. After all, you are the only person aboard this spaceship, which is transporting 50 million rubber donkeys from The Planet of Happy Toy Manufacturers to The Planet of Slightly Dull People, and it is your responsibility to see to the safety of the ship. Oh. That's right. quote:> wake up We're awake now, for the first time in eons. A new and terrible dawn has come to the world. > east posted:You step into the water. The ship comes towards you and sails right through your stomach. Ouch, that kind of hurt! You really don’t need this kind of thing so early in the morning. Disgruntled you go back to your citadel too sleep a few more eons. Screw it. Five more minutes. And with that, I think we're done for real. Thanks for reading. Snake Maze fucked around with this message at 12:04 on Jun 1, 2022 |
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Jun 1, 2022 04:42
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And no, I still have no idea if xyzzy does anything
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Jun 1, 2022 04:43
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Holy crap, that's a lot of secret content
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Jun 1, 2022 14:26
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I was impressed how much there was to the 'wake up' easter egg, considering how easy it is to miss. The only guide I know of has a whole section for "amusing things to try" and they missed it entirely.
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Jun 1, 2022 14:44
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To have a Cthulhu Easter egg that is basically the story of the Call of Cthulhu from the p.o.v. of the big man himself was unexpected, but welcome.
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Jun 2, 2022 16:35
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That was fantastic--thank you for showing it off! It took me right back to playing Infocom interactive fiction on our C64, especially the Douglas Adams titles. Thorsby really has a knack for this kind of thing. I said "What the gently caress" out loud to no one when you woke up the first time. 
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Jun 3, 2022 22:28
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| # ? May 7, 2024 06:23 |
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Yeah, thanks for posting. I was chronically too far behind to comment on the updates, but I enjoyed reading it. It was a good contrast to reading his comics, and it really did remind me those real old school text adventures more than I expected as well.
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Jun 4, 2022 01:16
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