Paid Video Game (New)

This week, I am finally returning to a short series I started playing about a year ago, with William Demas' Forbidden Planet Part II, a.k.a. Forbidden City, published in 1981 for the TRS-80 Model I/III computers by Fantastic Software.  Forbidden City is, of course, a sequel to the earlier game, Forbidden Planet Part I, and is dedicated onscreen to the University of Nevada Las Vegas computer department.  Fantastic Software and Mr. Demas were both based in the Vegas area at the time.


Bill Demas had several games published by Scott Adams' Adventure International, and was heavily involved in Adams' Adventure #12, Golden Voyage.  The two-game Talking Adventure series appeared in 1981 for the TRS-80, and since playing the first one, I have learned both games were remade in 1985, under new titles for the Apple Macintosh computers, with the digitized voice removed, a new mouse-based interface and hi-res black-and-white graphics added.  I plan to document the Mac editions in the future, but wanted to finish the series on the humble TRS-80 first.


So why did it take me so long to get around to playing this sequel?  Well, I had started it shortly after the first game, and was making good headway, but I got hopelessly stuck very near the end of the game (details below, in the spoilers section).  Fortunately, after I ran a short article with some new information received from Mr. Demas, reader Gaël got in touch -- he's a French Macintosh game enthusiast who was trying to track down this series' author, in hopes of finding a copy of the Mac game Utopia, the remake of Forbidden Planet Part I.  And Gaël's published walkthrough for the Mac sequel, Futuria, a remake of this game, gave me the information I needed to finish the TRS-80 original!  So I owe a big debt of gratitude to a very dedicated adventure fan, William Demas, and the Internet.

The game follows the established Talking Adventures model, but the voice samples are briefer this time, and I did not run into the "play beyond bounds" audio bug/glitch I encountered with the first game.  The voice samples are used more appropriately here, often when announcements are played or robots are talking, which makes the audio more atmospheric than the first game's parser feedback.  And we hear both female and male voices, another pleasant change, though most adventurers will still want to turn off the voices after a while.

As always, I encourage interested readers to sample Forbidden Planet Part II before proceeding here.  It's a decent escape-in-the-space-ship adventure with some interesting and logical "alien" puzzles, and it provides a good level of challenge.  Beyond this point, be forewarned that there are guaranteed to be...

***** SPOILERS AHEAD! *****

Forbidden Planet Part II is a fairly straight sci-fi tale, without the cameo appearances by ogres and centaurs seen in the first game, and most of the gameplay consists of figuring out the switches, keys and levers scattered around the map. 

We begin this second game game exactly where we left off at the end of the first, standing on the shore of the strange lake.  The lake is still poisonous, of course, so trying to GO LAKE remains a bad idea.

There's a door with a small speaker nearby, and a sign gives us... an encoded password?  What about the one we were given at the first game's conclusion?  Ah -- this is an optional puzzle that we can use to decode the correct password if we don't have it; that's a nice touch.  We can't SAY the wrong thing to the automated door's query, either, as the parser simply responds with I don't know what "[entry]" is if we misspeak.

Once cleared for entrance, we have to travel some distance west in the long metal tunnel -- and we eventually reach an advertising sign reading, "Have you completed part I of "Forbidden Planet" yet?", which would be a pointless question if not for the password clues.

 


We keep traveling W until we reach a point with an opening, and after we go through the opening, it seals behind us.

We can try to go through a steel door nearby, but a voice (and the text onscreen) says: ZAP! I'm electrocuted! I'm dead! Play again?  I'm not sure who's speaking here, as "I'm dead!" is a particularly difficult sentence for anyone to utter.  But we will need to start over or restore a saved game after quitting.  (There are pirated versions of this game online that lack a functional SAVE GAME command, but a proper edition provides a convenient set of 10 game saves with descriptive entries, so we have plenty of freedom to experiment.)

Further down the street, a graphic of a robot appears, holding what appears to be one of those drinking bird novelty gadgets, at least as portrayed by the TRS-80's limited graphics.  But we are informed that Robot has a gun, and if we are unlucky, Robot shoots me!  I'm DEAD!  So we will be dealing with random attacks again, and should focus on trying to find some means of self-protection against these trigger-happy machines.


The city's transportation center has a crystalline cube with a red button, and a monorail.  If we PUSH RED, a cube begins whining, and eventually explodes; we can escape the danger by hiding in the monorail, but what we really need to do is GET CUBE and use it to blow up the robot by throwing it before it blows up.  Just before he goes to the great Radio Shack Discount Bin in the sky, the Robot says "Stop" or "Stop alien", but we will ignore his directive, given the gun in his mechanical hand.

Inside the monorail, a rusty lever won't budge; the blown-up robot leaves behind some unspecified Robot parts, laying in a pool of oil.  We can't just GET OIL though, so the lever will remain rusty for a while.  The monorail also has a control panel with a green button, a lever, and a slot, but we don't have anything to put in the slot just yet.

The southern part of the map contains a Repository, a thin beam of light, and a steel door which cannot be opened in the traditional fashion.  Nor can the red cube be used to blow up the doors, but we can TOUCH BEAM to get them open.  The Repository contains a token and a plastic rod; if we TWIST ROD, It begins to glow.  But the light does not last very long, so need to save it in case we find ourselves dancing at a rave later on (though that seems unlikely, given that this Forbidden City seems to be populated entirely by homicidal androids.)

A nearby Laboratory area contains a strange (portable) device, some chemicals and a beaker.  We can MIX CHEMICALS, but doing so is fatal.  We might be able to use the beaker to obtain the oil, and we can if we are successful at wrestling with the parser --  GET OIL / WITH BEAKER doesn't work, but FILL BEAKER does.

With the lever oiled and the token inserted in the slot, we can settle in to WAIT quite a while (six turns) before the monorail reaches its destination.  A robot waiting at the other end of the monorail starts following us after we arrive, though he is patient about taking us out.  A control panel in the grotto nearby has a yellow button and a slot, but we can't INSERT TOKEN here; we can, however, PUSH YELLOW to enter a dark area and find some more tokens.  (We are expected to use the rod for lighting purposes, but if we know our way around we can safely maneuver in the dark.)  Now we can escape the robot by getting on the monorail and using another token to go back where we came from.

Piloting the monorail requires a little bit of effort -- we have to PUSH LEVER initially, but for the  return trip, we can PULL LEVER.  And can PUSH LEVER a second time at the first stop to go to a construction site (which is lit).  There's a strange structure here, being assembled by robots -- it appears to be a nuclear reactor, and we can pick up a canister made of lead.  Exploring the area turns up a plastic card, which seems magnetic, a green key, and a storeroom containing a very handy laser pistol.

The laser pistol has a knob and 80 charges; SHOOT ROBOT vaporizes any armed robot in the vicinity.  We have to do this a lot at the construction site, as they just keep coming, but we must be careful to SHOOT ROBOT one at a time; if we try to SHOOT ROBOTS they attack en masse and we're dead.

Before we leave the construction site, we actually need to step inside the reactor, where we find a red key, which we will need, and some atomic waste, which is the last thing we need.  It doesn't take long before I feel sick, and later My hair is falling out, and finally I die of radiation poisoning.  We could probably use some protection, but there doesn't seem to be anything useful in the area.

So it's back to the monorail and on to our next stop at the outskirts of the city.  A building off of a forlorn road has a red button, and a small box found lying in the road has a red button and a green button.  We will leave it alone for a moment -- our most immediate goal is to PUSH RED inside the building, at which point an announcement says, "Decontamination complete."  This future technology can apparently actually repair radiation damage already sustained, and we need to do this if we hope to continue the adventure.  And we need to do it quickly -- there isn't a move to spare, and if a robot decides to start pursuing us we just have to hope we can get decontaminated before he shoots us.


I discovered that we don't actually have to close the door in the monorail -- we can travel safely with it open, which saves a few moves, and it's handy to keep inventory items inside the railcar until we need them.  Other experiments established that we should not open the lead canister found at the reactor site, as the glowing stone inside is highly radioactive, and that if we TURN KNOB on the laser pistol, it self-destructs.  This explosion won't destroy the numerous robots at the construction site though, so we shouldn't do this either.  And the strange device we found early on is just a radiation gauge -- it glows bright red in presence of atomic waste, in case we are unfamiliar with the dangers of said nuclear byproducts.


We can pick up the small button-bedecked box from the road -- if we PUSH RED, nothing happens, and if we PUSH GREEN, we hear a -CLICK-... ?  I realized after trying to figure out why this response was being given that I was on the monorail at the time, and the parser was getting confused between multiple green buttons.  (I wish I'd remembered this later on when I got stuck!)

I was starting to get a little bit stuck here, running out of ideas, and I was glad to find a scan of the hint sheet published for the original game at TRS80Stuff.net.  This helped me for a while, but was of no use when I got stuck very near the end (are you seeing a trend here?)

Returning to the small grotto, we can use the red key in the slot to turn power on in that area (INSERT RED, TURN RED, PUSH YELLOW.)  We can also try to INSERT the GREEN key -- and the voice is actually helpful here, as the screen display says simply, Sorry but the voice further explains, "It doesn't fit."

With the power on, a light beam allows access to an underground room.  The control panel here has a two-position lever and a green button, there's a screwdriver in the steel chamber to the north, and we find a metal platform in a small metal room.  A storeroom contains a deactivated robot, with an empty slot.

The metal platform turns out to be an elevator, with buttons marked 2 and 3, and we can INSERT CARD to activate it.  Level 2 has many dangers -- the security outpost is staffed with numerous robots, and it is very likely that Robots spot me and attack! I'm DEAD!   What's worse is that using the platform appears to consume the plastic card, but in fact, it somehow ends up in the hands of the deadly robots.  There's a green light beam here, but TOUCHing it vaporizes our hand, so we don't want to do that.  We also need to pick up a cartridge in this area.

We seem to be stuck here, but if we LOOK FLOOR we can find a vent, and with the screwdriver from Level 1, we can OPEN VENT / WITH SCREWDRIVER.  A robot can still follow us into the narrow vent, and it seems there is no way out, until we learn to CRAWL.

This takes us to the Security Control Station -- we can INSERT GREEN (key) here, and PUSH RED, to deactivate all the robots!  Whew!  And our pass card gets returned to the slot on the platform.

Now we can INSERT CARTRIDGE into the deactivated robot, and it follows us.  With the robots deactivated, we can use the exploding laser to blow up the security door on Level 3.  The control panels become a bit repetitive -- there's not much variety here -- but we want to use the yellow key found here back in the security control station on Level 2, inserting the key and pulling the lever to open a door on level 3.

A force field still blocks access to the Lead Room on level 3, but the robot, once activated, can make sense of the nearby switch room with its overwhelming number of levers and buttons.  We can only GO FIELD after the robot helps us out here.

As it turns out, we can't transport the lead canister on the metal platform, which is more of a matter-transfer device than an elevator, because Radioactive material causes a malfunction.  I materialize extremely malformed, which is not a good thing.  We need to revisit Level 1 and use the green button there to transport the canister to the Lead Room.  There is some transuranic waste here, and it's deadly, so we should SAVE GAME before we start experimenting and figuring out how to dispose of it with various combinations of PUSH LEVER or PULL LEVER and PUSH GREEN on Level 1.


If we leave an activated enemy robot wandering around, we can't shoot him later after we've deactivated the security 'bots -- once we have activated the "good" robot and it follows us, the game will no longer let us SHOOT ROBOT.  So we should mop up any stragglers before turning off the security robots that are NOT following us around.

Once we have the canister safely transported to Level 3, we can GO into the force FIELD.  This leads to a corridor with a window, where we can see outer space.  We GO PLATFORM to reach the Launch Control Station, which sounds like it may help us get out of here at last.  We find the hangar doors open, and the space ship closed.  PUSH YELLOW opens the space ship, but touching the lever seems fatal.  If we TOUCH BEAM past the force field, then I'm sucked out into space. I'm DEAD!  This does not seem to be based on the space ship's closed/open status, so we need to PUSH RED and PUSH GREEN on our control box in this area to fix the situation.  PUSH RED closes the hangar doors, and PUSH GREEN opens them.  With the hangar doors closed, we can open the ship's door safely, and then GO SHIP.  Aboard the space ship, PULL LEVER closes the door, and we can PUSH to open it again.

Here's where I got stuck.  It seems clear that the glowing stone in the lead canister is needed to power the ship, and we can enter an empty compartment with the friendly robot in tow.  If we DROP CANISTER there, PUSH RED causes the robot to take the glowing stone; this ought to be a good thing, but we die of radiation poisoning immediately thereafter with no chance of decontamination.  I felt like I must be close to the end, but I couldn't quite figure out how to get the stone into place without dying from the radiation.  PUSH RED didn't seem to work outside of the fueling compartment, and if we try it in the room with Many colored buttons & levers, the command pushes something else and the ship blows up.

Fortunately, Demas' later Mac port Utopia and Gaël's walkthrough saved me after several hours of beating my head against this puzzle.  The parser confuses the box's red button with the remote control unit's red button, and the button on the box takes precedence only outside of the space ship's compartment room.  So while I was trying to PUSH RED in various locations, it only seemed to work in the radiation room and not anywhere else.  I could witness the robot taking the glowing stone out of the canister when I pushed the remote control's red button at that location, but then, of course, I died of radiation poisoning, and I couldn't seem to use the remote to trigger this action from anywhere else.  As it turns out, we have to get rid of the two-button box to fix the parser's confusion, and ultimately PUSH RED on the remote control unit from a safe distance back at the launch control station, which is the only other place that the remote will work.  With all this straightened out, the robot now announces that the ship is now fueled and we are ready to go.

All we have to do now is go back to the ship, close the doors and push the green button (which apparently opens the hangar doors as well as launching our ship) -- and victory is at long last ours!



Forbidden City was quite an adventure -- it was fairly challenging to explore and learn how everything was supposed to work, and the constant barrage of enemy robots requires constant attention to what's going on.  Sadly, there were no more Talking Adventures published, but the existence of the later, retitled Mac versions means I will be revisiting this world at some point.

My walkthrough is available at the CASA Solution Archive, and is included here, below the fold.


**** WALKTHROUGH ****


Read more »

Recent forays into the Apple II adventure game library, with many early and exclusive titles,
has brought me to this weeks subject: Mummys Curse.  It was released in 1981 by a small publisher variously known as Highland Computer Services and Highlands Computers Inc. -- the company published several Apple II graphic adventures written by Butch Greathouse and/or Garry Rheinhardt in the early 1980s.



The intro explains that the scenes are DONE IN HIGH RESOLUTION GRAPHICS (not yet common in 1981, though the illustrations are fairly simple) and the game uses a two-word parser.  Our goal is TO RECOVER THE SOLID GOLD DEATH MASK OF KING RUTTATUTTUT WHICH IS GUARDED BY THE MUMMY.  Were also informed that we will encounter a number of amulets and must use their individual names for differentiation, and that we must bring the gold mask back to the Oasis to win.  Sounds straightforward enough!

As always, interested readers are encouraged to face the Mummys Curse firsthand before continuing into my playthrough notes below.  I found the game fairly challenging -- the map is large and maze-infested, and while the puzzles are generally straightforward its not easy to find everything thats important; I had to avail myself of some clues at the CASA Solution Archive to finish this one on deadline.  Beyond this point, for the sake of documenting these games, I will be detailing my experience from start to finish.  That is, there are sure to be...


***** SPOILERS AHEAD! ****






As the game begins, we find ourselves at a Desert Oasis WHERE ALL TRAILS CROSS.  There appear to be a couple of palm trees near a pool here, but we cant LOOK TREE or LOOK POOL, or CLIMB TREE; we cant DRINK POOL, but we can DRINK WATER -- AHHH THAT WAS GOOD.  I try to DIG, but YOU HAVE NO SHOVEL, suggesting that were likely to run across one at some point.

Heading north from the Oasis brings us into the Great Sahara Desert, with the sun beating down on the dunes.  Continuing north for the moment, we see some mountains in the distance, and North again brings us to a location with LUSH MOUNTAINS AHEAD and a stick lying on the ground.  Well follow adventuring best practices and GET STICK in case it comes in handy later.

Im just plowing forward here, seeing what the map looks like, and heading N once again we find a branch in the path through the mountains.  North again shows us the Nile river off to the west, and one more northward step is as far as we can go for now, as we encounter a Great Wooden Door that is locked.

Ill backtrack south to the Oasis again, and head South to see Shiek Mazurkas Small Palace.  Heading south again here loops back to the desert location just north of the Oasis.  I always like to map the world out before we get into the story, so now Ill head east from the Oasis to discover a Small Village on the edge of the desert.  It looks like the map is a little more constrained than it appeared to be at first -- heading east from the village takes us to Shiek Mazurkas palace again.  But we can go north into the village, where two stucco huts lie to the east and west.  A similar location to the north contains another pair of huts, and then loops back to the main Sahara desert location if we continue north.

Before I check out the huts interiors, I want to map the desert a bit more -- we can go East from the main Desert to another similar location, then north to an Ancient Temple.  We can enter the temple to see an inscription on the ceiling -- it reads, "FIGURE ME SOUTH. ONLY TWO PITS = DEATH. FIGURE ME IN FIGURE ME OUT."  Hmmmm.  Cryptic!

Were still traveling light, inventory-wise, so lets see if we can find anything useful in those village huts.  In the villages south end, the small western hut is vacant but the large eastern one is a Trading Post.  Its operated by a stereotyped Chinese merchant named Woo Fooy, and he has... wait for it... a KNIFE AND SHOVEL FOR SALE.  We are prompted DO YOU WANT TO BUY THEM?..Y/N.  Ill answer Y -- after all, I do want to buy them -- but of course, WOO FOOY SAYS AW FOOY YOU NO GOT GOLD COINS and kicks us out of his establishment with its wonderful but limited wares.  At least weve learned something about the coin of the realm, and we can keep an eye out for some gold coins.

The northern end of the village is similarly laid out.  In the small western hut, we find A MYSTERIOUS MAN WRAPPED IN A BLUE SHROUD who shouts "BEGONE AMAHD," and a great wind drives us back out of the hut.  Interesting.  We can also reach the same Trading Post here, it apparently spans the north-south length of the village.

Our map is filling in bit by bit -- now Ill explore the region west of the Oasis, where we see the PYRAMID OF SATSOP II on the horizon.  The map, which is never too straightforward, gets even more convoluted here, with two different rooms where it LOOKS LIKE A HUGE PIT AHEAD.  We can work our way around the pyramids other side to the west, and fall fatally into the huge pits if were not careful with our navigation.  It took me a while to figure out whats going on here -- it seems there are also multiple locations where THE PATH HEADS SOUTH AND EAST/WEST, and one of them leads to THE ENTRANCE TO THE PYRAMID, but this only seems to happen after weve circled the pyramids western side without falling into the eastern or southern pit.

Anyway, weve reached the pyramids entrance and can now attempt to explore it, which seems exactly the sort of thing one should do in an adventure titled Mummys Curse.  We enter it by traveling south into an entrance/exit area, and the pyramid presents a substantial mapping challenge.  Immediately to the east of the entrance is the CONFUSED YET? room.  Theres a long hall south of the entrance which leads to (I think) a different CONFUSED YET? room, but I die of thirst before getting too far and have to restore and visit the Oasis to rehydrate.

The map is designed (and maybe forced by limited disk space) to confuse the player by featuring multiple identically named and illustrated rooms, but the geography is generally consistent and naturalistic.  Our main objective here seems to be to find some useful items.  A dead end in the southeast corner of the pyramid contains some matches.  Another in the southwest area provides the gold coins we need for supply purchases.  Theres also a dead end with a FULL EWER.  The pyramid maze is messy to map, but eventually I manage to find my way back outside so we can head into the village to buy some supplies.  We dont have to make any choices here -- we buy the knife and the shovel in one turn when we answer the prompt in the affirmative with gold coins in hand.

I dont have a use for the knife yet, but I spend some time digging in the various locations on the map.  This proves fruitless, but in touring the map Ive drawn so far I realize I have not visited the Nile -- theres still nothing to dig up there, but we can try to CROSS NILE... nope... GO NILE?  Nope.  SWIM?  YOU GOT TO MIDSTREAM AND RAN OUT OF BREATH AND DROWNED.  Whoops!

I also see that I missed a northeastern part of the desert, where THERE IS SOMETHING BURIED IN THE SAND.  Eureka!  DIGging here reveals STAIRS LEADING DOWN INTO A CRYPT!  Its the only part of the game so far where traveling Down is an option, so there we shall go...



THE EYE OF HORUS IS PAINTED ON THE FLOOR here.  To the west we see a rather large portrait of Cleopatra on the wall, and there dont seem to be any other rooms we can explore down here yet.  I try to PUSH WALL and TOUCH WALL and EXAMINE CLEO and TOUCH EYE and KISS CLEO, but nothing seems to have an effect.  The ewer is full of water, but that doesnt suggest anything.  I try to LIGHT MATCH and LIGHT STICK, but the parser is obstinate: WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO BURN THAT?  I poke around a little bit, but thirst sets in and I die on the way back to the Oasis before realizing I can DRINK WATER repeatedly from the ewer, as its magically always full of water.

Anywhere else we havent been?  The path that splits in the mountains has a westward branch that leads to a cliffside where we can see THE MUMMYS TOMB.  We cant get to the tomb from here, but we can climb northward to the top of the mountain, where we find the AMULET (SMA).  Entering an old stone shrine here lets us acquire some incense, and were told this was used as an alternate location when the priests couldnt find the crypt.

Maybe we can BURN INCENSE somewhere in the crypt?  I try this at the entrance -- SMELLS LIKE HIPPY HOLLOW.  YOUR INCENSE IS GONE.  Well, dang, that didnt do much.  But I do notice that we can go further down into the crypt, to a room with a picture of Isis and the AMULET (HORUS) available.  Another passage leads south to an image of the Phoenix, and west is an OLD RELIGIOUS ALTAR with an ax for the taking.

Can we use the ax on the big wooden doors?  Nope -- CUT DOOR just returns PUT YOUR AX AWAY UNTIL YOU REALLY NEED IT.

Standing on the southern bank of the Nile again, trying to find a way to the Mummys Tomb, I try to MAKE BOAT -- YOU HAVE NO ROPE, but it seems this might be possible if I have the right elements.  I try to CHOP TREE at the Oasis, but am advised to LEAVE THESE TREES ALONE.  Have we seen any other wood or rope around?

Maybe I need to explore the pyramid more, its confusing map may be hiding some more artifacts.  I find a flashlight in a linear passage west of the entrance, and I think Ive exhausted the pyramid now.

Can I BURN INCENSE at the old altar in the crypt?  Aha!  The altar opens and reveals a hidden room behind it.  The AMULET (APEP) is here, and a painting of Nefertiti.  I also visit the Temple again, and realize that the drawing on the wall is a rough map of the Pyramid.  Yes, it does look like Ive cleaned that place out.  I try to LEARN MAP and MEMORIZE MAP but it seems to be a visual reference only.

What now?  Can I... MAKE TORCH?  MAKE KEY?  CARVE IT.  Really?  Wow.  CARVE KEY produces a wooden key!  Maybe we can open that massive gate now... and yes, we can!  The only thing behind it is the end of the path, a forested area with some strands of hemp.  I try to BURN HEMP, but fortunately the game wont cooperate, and I try to MAKE ROPE instead, which works.  Can I MAKE BOAT now?  No -- YOU HAVE NO WOOD.  But I can CHOP TREES right here -- clearcutting the whole area, apparently -- and GET LOGS.

MAKE BOAT now allows us to make a raft -- can we carry it all the way to the Nile?  Apparently so!  USE RAFT allows us to cross the Nile, and we are now standing at the threshold of the Mummys Tomb.

The game warns us that theres only one way in and we wont get out the same way, so this is a great time to SAVE (the game provides a single save/restore slot, but Im using the AppleWin emulator so Ill just save the entire machines state instead.). Immediately upon entering, I have difficulty breathing, and shortly YOUR LUNGS EXPLODED IN FLAMES AND YOU DIED ON THE SPOT!  Thats pretty strong stuff, whatever it is.  I try to HOLD BREATH, but that doesnt work.  Maybe these amulets are supposed to help?  WEAR HORUS isnt recognized, the parser thinks we are trying to WEAVE something.  When I USE HORUS, the amulet glows and vanishes AS YOU FEEL ITS EFFECT ON YOU, but I cant really tell what effect thats supposed to be, so well have to use a little trial and error here.

USE HORUS doesnt help us breathe, but USE SMA does and the parser confirms we have been saved by THE POWER OF SMA.  The next room seems to be a dead end -- we are told that "MUMMY DEAREST" was here but hid when he heard us coming?  The other amulets dont seem to reveal his whereabouts, and we cant DIG here, nor can we LIGHT FLASHLIGHT to seek him out.

What have I missed?  Ah -- thanks, CASA!  I never entered the Sheiks Palace, and didnt realize I could due to the map layout -- we go south to reach the Palace, then north to enter it, and I hadnt actually tested navigation in that direction. Inside, we meet ABDUL THE PALACE GUARD.  We cant LOOK GUARD or TALK GUARD, but if we SAY HELLO he lets us enter.

Inside the palace there are stairs going up and a hallway to the north.  The room to the north is empty -- BROTHER THIS GUY DONT HAVE MUCH OF A PALACE, the parser comments -- and the upstairs room contains a STRANGE MIXTURE OF DIRT AND STRAW.  Mud?  Brick?  MAKE BRICK doesnt work, nor does MAKE MUD.  I try to POUR WATER -- and the mixture somehow softens and provides access to a new room, a north/south passage with a ramp heading upwards.

This map is a lot bigger than I expected for a single-disk game -- the ramp leads to stairs, leading up to The Dome Room, though there doesnt seem to be any reason to come up here.  The north/south passage connects to an east/west passage, where we meet the WICKED PRINCESS FATIMA of legendary mirror fame to the east, and find a trap door to the west.

I try to GO DOOR and OPEN TRAP to no avail, but when I try to simply go D the parser suggests that we need to pick the lock with a knife.  PICK LOCK does work, and now we find ourselves in a room with a mirror?  We cant BREAK MIRROR, but if we go N we walk into the mirror... and die.  Its safer to go S, into another east/west passage; a shimmering blue wall to the east takes us back into the palaces upper level, but we should probably restore and explore to the west first.

There are some traps down this hallway -- first, a small but bottomless pit.  We cant JUMP PIT, but if we go N, then THE STRENGTH OF HORUS kicks in and carries us over.  I realize that I must have USEd HORUS earlier when I was experimenting, as I no longer have any of the amulets in hand; fortunately, the effect is long-lasting, and so is the power of APEP that subsequently protects us from a three-headed snake.

Weve reached an orange room, where we find a scepter that we should probably take along.  After finding our way back out the way we came in, it seems like a good time to go see if we can deal with the mummy yet.

In the room where the mummy is hiding, I WAVE SCEPTER -- and we rise to a location where the parser opts for minimal drama and punctuation: YOU HAVE FOUND THE GOLDEN MASK BUT SOMEBODY IS HERE TO SEE YOU.  HEY ITS THE MUMMY.

KILL MUMMY?  YOU UNFORTUNATELY ARE THE ONLY ONE THAT CAN BE KILLED.  BURN MUMMY?  WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO BURN THAT?  Hmmmm, there go all the obvious ideas.  I try to leave the room, but I cant escape and after a few turns of my fumbling about THE MUMMY JUST DID YOU IN.

Something unusual happens here, though.  After I die, Im given the option to keep playing -- and when I do, I find myself back at the Oasis, with a victory message!



Apparently, when we reincarnate we dont lose any of our inventory items, and weve been given the Mask when we entered the room!  So even though we died in the process of reaching our objective, the game thinks weve won fair and square.  But this doesnt quite seem right, so I check the walkthrough and learn that I was supposed to explore an area west of the Pyramid to learn a magic phrase to use against the mummy.  Apparently if we have the flashlight and travel east from one of the LARGE PIT AHEAD rooms, we enter the pit -- and find graffiti on a wall in the passage reading, "HORUS = STRENGTH, APEP = SNAKE, SMA = LUNG," which weve already figured out by trial and error.  The text also tells us that AMAHD means ADVENTURER, so thats what the folks in town have been calling us.  Ah!  The mysterious man says "BEGONE AMAHD" and we are whisked away.  Does that work when we try it?  BEGONE AMAHD yields CLOSE BUT NO COOKIES, but BEGONE ADVENTURER sends us instantly back to the Oasis, with exactly the same victory message.  Basically, dying whisks us back to the Oasis, and so does employing the hard-won magic phrase, so either way we come out a winner if weve made it into the heart of the Mummys Tomb.

Mummys Curse is a more involved experience than I was expecting for a game of its vintage -- the map is very large considering the number of illustrations included, and the puzzles are intertwined and reasonably challenging.  The tricky layout sometimes feels like a bit of a design cheat, but the game is fair enough in its way if were careful to draw an accurate map.  Ill have to try the other Highlands Computers games, if I can track them down -- these small, obscure companies often produced interesting adventures that are well worth playing, even if theyre not well known.

Ive been in a bit of a nostalgic mood lately, so this week Im going to revisit a classic work of interactive fiction Ive played before but not written about here: Steve (S. Eric) Meretzkys Planetfall, published by Infocom in 1983.  I remember straining to read the evocative opening text from a photographed monitor on the cover of Radio Shacks TRS-80 Microcomputer News magazine once upon a time, when my paper route budget could not provide for a disk drive, and wanting very much to dive into its world.  I finally played it on the TRS-80 Color Computer several years later, when Infocom released a handful of its "gray box" titles for the platform.  For this post, Im playing the Release 37 version included with Activisions Lost Treasures of Infocom compilation, using the modern Frotz interpreter.




As most regular readers will be well aware, Infocom pioneered more complex storytelling in adventure games, building on the sophisticated ZORK parser to create a variety of interesting tales.  The companys games were not always difficult, nor always complex, and the Infocom games still suffered from the occasional round of parser wrestling.  But Infocoms titles went beyond basic puzzle solving and pioneered the efficient Z-machine interpreter technology, still in use today by modern interactive fiction authors via the Inform language.

If you havent played Planetfall yourself, you really, really must.  Its funny, its well-plotted, and it took the medium a step forward in ways that should be experienced firsthand.  The game is still commercially available from Activision, albeit only on the iOS platform at present, as part of the current incarnation of the Lost Treasures package.  My comments below, as always, will be rife with...

***** SPOILERS AHEAD! *****

We begin aboard the Stellar Patrol Ship Feinstein, doing our assigned janitorial work as an Ensign Seventh Class (Sierra would later borrow this idea as a jumping-off point for its long-running Space Quest series.)  Theres a certain bleakness to our heros existence scrubbing featureless corridors, leavened by humor as we wield our Patrol-issue self-contained multi-purpose all-weather scrub brush and try to avoid Ensign First Class Blather.  Taking inventory, we find ourselves with a chronometer -- a fancy watch -- and an ID card in our patrol uniform.

A slime-trailing alien ambassador happens by and hands us a brochure, advertising his planets primary export -- the adventure game ** PLANETFALL **, in a self-referential take on the in-game advertisement tradition.  Theres an escape pod bulkhead nearby, but we cant open the emergency escape unless theres an emergency.  Aboardship, we can navigate using PORT/FORE/STARBOARD/AFT, though W/N/E/S are also accepted.

Starboard lies the Reactor Lobby, where we do indeed encounter Blather, who orders us back to Deck Nine.  He keeps us from exploring further, though his threats seem empty aside from issuing us numerous demerits.  We cant ASK characters about anything, it seems.  We can travel U from Deck Nine along a gangway to Deck Eight, although here too we encounter Ensign Blather and cant proceed anywhere else. 

Persistence in trying to explore the ship establishes that Blathers threats are not so empty, and after ignoring him a little too long we find ourselves thrown into the Feinsteins brig, where various limericks about Blather adorn the walls, only one of which we can actually READ.  Suddenly, a massive explosion rocks the ship, and... were stuck in the brig... and as the ships escape pods do what they were made to do, were stuck in the exploding Feinstein.  And so its time to start over and steer clear(er) of Blather. 

This time, we stay at our post, though Blather still shows up to criticize our work.  We pass the time by discovering that we can somehow SCRUB BRUSH with the brush itself, making it slightly shinier, in a rare Infocom parser oversight.  This time, when the explosion hits, we can duck into the Escape Pod to port as the door opens automatically.

Inside the pod, we find some safety webbing, so its probably a good idea to CLIMB INTO WEBBING.  The pod automatically ejects -- so many locations we were unable to explore onboard shall remain forever unexplored! -- and we shortly find ourselves heading toward a human-habitable planet, courtesy of the pods autopilot systems.  We pass through an atmosphere, with the pods climate control systems engaged, and can see a pair of islands dotted with buildings and surrounded by ocean as we approach landing.  Oddly, we cant EXAMINE ISLANDS or EXAMINE BUILDINGS, and EXAMINE OCEAN yields only You cant see any ocean here!

The pod is precariously balanced after it lands, and wed better take the offered survival kit and towel (presaging Meretzkys later collaboration with Douglas Adams) before anything drastic happens.  Of course, the pod falls into the ocean as we leave the safety webbing, and we have just enough time to grab the towel and kit, open the door, and escape the pod before it sinks, swimming up out of the water to reach a Crag in a cliff wall.

Theres a structure above which we can climb -- though we cant CLIMB STRUCTURE, as the parser thinks we want to climb *onto* it, so we can only CLIMB or navigate Upward.  We find ourselves on an octagonal Balcony, where a plaque in a corrupt form of Galalingua reads: "SEENIK VISTA" and describes the Kalamontee Valee and the kapitul bildeeng along the Gulmaan Rivur.

We climb further, up a winding stair to a Courtyard -- Planetfall takes its time (and a good portion of its disk space) establishing atmosphere, and doesnt throw too many puzzles at us just yet.  The courtyard leads to the crumbled remains of the castles west wing, and north is the Plain Hall, branching to the north and northeast.

Traveling north, we find a Rec Area, with games and tapes lying about, and a combination-locked door to the north.  (The games and tapes make passing reference to Double Fannucci, a ZORKian card game which could actually be played in ZORK Zero.)

Heading east rejoins the northeast passage from the plain hall, forming a wide east-west Rec Corridor with additional portals to the north and south.  North is Dorm B, with a SanFac B further north, where we can SCRUB TOILET if we feel like we need to keep our skills up, though nothing interesting happens; a similar Dorm A facility lies to the south.  We cant RUN WATER in the sanitary facilities, as the fixtures are dry, so this establishes more atmosphere, establishing that this building once housed many beings, now nowhere to be seen.

Traveling east again from the Rec Corridor, we enter the Mess Corridor.  A door to the north is padlocked; a doorway south leads to the Mess Hall, where an octagonal canteen can be acquired; if we OPEN CANTEEN THEN EXAMINE IT, however, we see it is empty.  Theres a door to the south, apparently leading to the kitchen based on the sign that flashes if we try to OPEN DOOR.  The door features an adjacent ten-centimeter wide, two-centimeter deep slot that is probably yet another lock mechanism.  We can try to SLIDE CARD THROUGH SLOT, but our Stellar Patrol ID card is an "Inkorekt awtharazaashun kard" according to the sign that flashes up.

Were getting hungry and thirsty, which probably means Ive been paying too much attention to detail along the way and should really have been focused on getting into the kitchen before now.  But were going to need something we dont have yet, we suspect, so lets head further east into the Dorm Corridor.

This area leads to Dorms C and D, with nothing notably different about them at first glance.  Heading E to the Corridor Junction takes a while, and now we are starting to feel faint from lack of food and liquid.  Uh-oh.  Any exploration were about to do will probably be our last, but lets press on until we need to restore a saved game.  The Admin Corridor South north of the junction betrays a glint of light on the floor, but EXAMINE FLOOR and SEARCH FLOOR dont reveal its source.  And now weve collapsed from extreme thirst and hunger, so its time to restore back to the escape pod and make a quicker trip back to this point.

Returning here, we find another non-functional SanFac E east of the admin corridors southern end.  North is a section of the Admin Corridor, interrupted by an eight meter wide crevice, and a passage to the Systems Monitors room.  We see green monitors for the LIIBREREE, REEAKTURZ, and LIFE SUPORT systems, but PLANATEREE DEFENS, KORS KUNTROOL, KUMUUNIKAASHUNZ and PRAJEKT KUNTROOL appear to be malfunctioning.

South of the corridor junction is the Mech Corridor, leading to Storage East, with some interesting items on hand -- an oil can and a cardboard box containing several electronic components, including a cracked fromitz board, a good bedistor, and K- and B-series megafuses.  The box seems to be too heavy to readily carry, so well leave it here until we know what we might need from it.

Also accessible from the mech corridor is the Physical Plant, a two-location area with heavy equipment for heating and ventilation, none of which we can understand.  We can also reach Reactor Control, with a button-operated metal door and a stairway leading downward to darkness (where, yes, It is pitch black.  You might be eaten by a grue, and yes, we can in fact wander into the slavering fangs of a lurking grue!  So it seems this is the Infocom/ZORK universe, just a different place in time and space.)  We can enter the Reactor Elevator by pushing the button on the wall, and travel up or down -- if we have the right authorization card to put in the slot, which we do not currently have.

The south end of the Mech Corridor branches off into three more locations.  The Tool Room contains a glass flask, an Akmee Portabul Laazur with a notably old battery, a metal U-shaped bar, and a pair of wide-nosed pliers, all potentially useful.  The Machine Shop has a coolant and catalyist dispenser operated by colored buttons; it can also dispense bases and acids by means of round and square buttons, probably in conjunction with the glass flask.

And finally, we reach the Robot Shop, where only one robot, about four feet high, looks even remotely close to being in working order.  It doesnt seem to be operational at the moment, as nothing happens if we try to turn it on, but it does have a compartment containing a magnetic-striped access card for the lower elevator.  As we take the card, the little robot bounds to life and introduces itself as B-19-7, a.k.a. Floyd.  The playful robot wants to play Hider-and-Seeker, he tells us, but were getting parched and famished again.

Floyd is a charming, childlike creation -- he tends to enter the room and announce, "Floyd here now!", and he amuses himself (and us) in quite a variety of ways.  And while we cant quite picture how he manages to be "smiling broadly," its not hard to accept that he is.  And yes, "it" has become "he" in very short order.

The lower elevator access card doesnt work in the Reactor Elevator, but it should be useful in the Elevator Lobby area east of the corridor junction.  The tiny Booth 2 further east features a couple of buttons labeled 1 and 3, which apparently operate teleportation facilities, not currently activated. 

There are blue and red doors in the elevator lobby -- the elevator access card does nothing for us in the blue elevator, but does enable the red elevator, though only for travel down to a Waiting Area adjoining the Kalamontee Platform, where we can enter Shuttle Car Alfie, a large transport with control rooms at either end.  But were dead of thirst and hunger once again, so maybe we should try to solve the mess hall situation before we explore this other stuff.

Checking out the padlock in the Mess Corridor north of the kitchen, we cant OPEN LOCK WITH PLIERS or CUT LOCK WITH PLIERS -- not that I really expected that to work.  Can we get some acid in the flask?  If we PUT FLASK ON FLOOR, it doesnt put it in the right spot and whatever we dispense just evaporates; we cant PUT FLASK BELOW SPOUT, either, but we can PUT FLASK UNDER SPOUT.  We can POUR FLUID ON LOCK to do some damage, but its still locked, and BREAK LOCK yields only, "And, as we go into the next round, its Padlock 1, Adventurer 0..."  A second acid treatment doesnt seem to create any more appreciable damage, so were probably on the wrong track here.

What about the glint of light seen occasionally in the Admin Corridor?  We cant EXAMINE GLINT or EXAMINE LIGHT, and FEEL FLOOR doesnt seem to find anything.  But we can EXAMINE CREVICE to find a shiny steel key... but we still cant GET KEY, as the crevice here is too narrow for our fingers (this is a narrow, jagged crevice in the floor, not the wider chasm further north.)  Its also too narrow for the pliers.  READ TOWEL produces the expected "Dont Panic!" but thats no help here.  Ahhh.. the U-shaped metal bar is in fact a magnet, the key is made of steel, and we can GET KEY WITH BAR.

Past the padlock -- after we unlock and remove it -- we find Storage West, containing a tin can of "Spam and Egz," and an extendable ladder.  We cant open the can, at least not yet.  Were hungry again, though, so maybe its time to open our survival kit and eat... the red goo, I guess, which tastes just like scrumptious cherry pie.  Hopefully this will delay our encroaching hunger and thirst for a while.

Lets go back down to Shuttle Car Alfie and use the controls to travel a bit.  Floyd provides plenty of support and witty comic relief -- after a SAVE, he will occasionally say, "Oh boy! Are we gonna try something dangerous now?"  But our elevator access card does not double as a shuttle control access card, so well have to come back here later.

Oh, and dang -- the elevator access card uses 20th century magnetic striping technology, apparently, so carrying it along with the magnet tends to randomize the data and prevent all further usage.  So we have to be careful here -- I chose to backtrack, get the key and drop the metal bar before dealing with any of the many access cards it seems we will need.

Now maybe we can use the extendable ladder from Storage West to cross the gap in the Admin Corridor.  Its very heavy, so I ended up dropping everything including my Patrol uniform to carry it (oddly, nobody comments on our nakedness later in the game.)  We have to DROP LADDER, EXTEND LADDER (to eight meters, perfect!) and PUT LADDER ACROSS RIFT.

Crossing the rift, signage indicates that we can access the administrative offices, transportation supply room, and plan room (Ill dispense with deciphering the Galalingua spellings from here on in and just use the translated text for the sake of readability.)  We can pick up a kitchen access card -- yay! -- and an upper elevator access card from a desk drawer in the office.  The Plan Rooms map indicates that were in the Kalamontee Complex, and that theres also a Lawanda Complex -- thats probably where the shuttle goes.  The transportation supply room is dark, so we will still need a light source to get in there.

Now we can get into the mess hall -- it contains a high protein liquid dispensing machine with an octagonal, likely canteen-sized niche beneath a spout.  Hopefully this stuff will serve as both food and liquid... and yes, it does, though it works a lot better if we OPEN CANTEEN before pushing the button.

Now we have some immediate needs taken care of, and an upper elevator access card, so we can explore a little more.  The card does indeed activate the blue elevator, although now another physical limitation is encroaching on our adventurous pursuits -- we are feeling weary and ready to sleep, though the dorms should suffice for that when the time comes.

The blue elevator takes us up to the Tower Core, a small circular room with exits northeast, southwest, and up.  We can access a helipad atop the tower, where a weathered copter resides -- we cant GO COPTER or GO VEHICLE, but we can ENTER VEHICLE.  The controls are locked, and we dont have a suitable key right now.

We can also access the Comm Room, with Receive and Send transmission stations.  We can replay the last message received, which is the SPS Feinsteins last communication before -- apparently -- being blasted into oblivion.  The Send Station is malfunctioning due to a coolant issue; theres a manual override hole, described as "funnel-shaped."  LOOK HOLE yields You cant look inside a funnel-shaped hole, no matter how much we may beg to differ.

Southwest of the Tower Core is the Observation Deck, where we can again see the Lawanda Complex about 20 kilometers to the east.  And were now seriously tired, so well head down to Dorm D, ENTER BUNK, and sleep... perchance to dream, as we experience a nightmare of being drowned by the local bully at age eight... then wake up to an impatient Floyd bouncing at the foot of the bed, anxious for us to resume our exploration.

What now?  The combination lock in the Rec Area can be turned to any number between 0 and 1000; we might be able to brute-force a solution, but its probably better to find the combination somewhere.  Were also noticing that we feel a bit weak and slightly flushed, which is probably not a good sign.  I also discover that sleeping drops all of our inventory, so I have to go back and pick it all up -- thank goodness GET ALL works.  And, seeking nourishment, I learn that the canteen only holds one round worth of liquid, so we should try to conserve it.

Ah -- I didnt notice the Large Office west of the small office in the admin corridor earlier.  Theres a shuttle access card in a desk drawer; we cant SLIDE SHUTTLE ACCESS CARD THROUGH SLOT, as I found too many nouns in that sentence, but we can SLIDE SHUTTLE CARD THROUGH SLOT.  We can now PUSH LEVER UP, and the shuttle starts moving east, accelerating as it goes, 5 units per turn based on the speed display.  A sign suggests the speed limit is 45, so we can PULL LEVER DOWN when we reach that speed for safety.  A trackside sign indicates weve reached the halfway mark and should decelerate, so well do that by pulling the lever down again... this is a little bit tricky, as we hit signs that require us to be at 15, 10 and 5, before we stop at the Lawanda Complex.   I came to a stop too early and had to get back into gear for a bit, subsequently crashing into the eastern end of the line twice before making a successful attempt; we have to keep our speed one move behind the numbers on the recommended deceleration signs, it seems.  Driving the shuttle makes for a fun, and wholly logical, little puzzle.

We are now at the Lawanda Platform.  Another shuttle lies to the north, and we can go up a non-functioning escalator to the east.  It leads to a forking northeast/southeast hallway, which in turn leads to Systems Corridor West and Project Corridor West.

Project Corridor West adjoins SanFac F, which is smaller than the other SanFacs but seems to have no other distinguishing features.  The ProjCon office to the south has a Project Control logo on one wall, and an odd, rippling mural on the south wall; its suggested that a breeze seems to come from behind it, though we cant push or pull or enter it.  East of the ProjCon office is the Computer Room, where we find a pile of computer output, with a Miniaturization Booth to the south. Interesting. 

Floyd suggests that we can teleport into the computer, via miniaturization, and also notes that the computer is broken.  So we will probably need some of those electronic parts from the Kalamontee Complex to fix it.  We can read the last page of the computer output, which suggests the "project" was well underway and almost through drug testing, before something went seriously wrong in Section 384.

Im worried about this weakness and fever that seems to be haunting us; I have no idea whats causing it, though, so well continue exploring until we drop.  The Main Lab lies at the eastern end of the Project Corridor, with a Lab Storage room to the south and some heavy metal doors to the northeast and southeast.  A blue lab coat in the storage room contains a teleportation access card and a piece of paper with the combination for the conference room: 141.  Theres also a fresh laser battery here, sure to come in handy for replacing that old one.

The heavy metal doors in the Main Lab sound a bit scary -- one is a radiation-lock door, and one is a bio-lock door, but we can freely open the doors and enter.  The Bio Lock is a sterilization chamber... does that mean it can cure our fever?  We wont find out right now, as opening the door at the far end reveals a Bio-Lab full of horrible mutations which shortly devour us.  So thats a bad idea.

The radiation-lock area seems equally dangerous -- we need to wear a radiation suit, according to a sign.  Returning to the bio-lock area, Floyd arrives and volunteers to rush in and retrieve a card we need to fix the computer.  "You open the door, then Floyd will rush in.  Then you close door."  And adorably, Floyds voice trembles slightly as he waits for you to open the door.  Unfortunately, this plan doesnt seem to work out, as the biological nightmares still come out when we open the door again, and Floyds metallic scream doesnt sound like success either.  But looking through the rooms window, we can see a card just inside the door... maybe were opening the door too soon?

Ahhhhh.  Ah.  Oh.

Oh, no.  This is the moment I remember so well from playing this game the first time, but Id forgotten exactly how it came about.  After we wait for his knock at the door, Floyd emerges with the card -- but hes badly torn apart from the mutant creatures attacks, damaged and leaking.  "Floyd did it... got card.  Floyd a good friend, huh?"  And, in perhaps the most poignant moment in adventure game history up to this point, we cradle his head and sing him the Ballad of the Starcrossed Miner as his energy ebbs away.  This affected me greatly back in the day, and even though I knew it was coming this time, it still brought tears to my eyes more than 25 years later.  We cant even bear to examine his lifeless form to see if theres anything we can do to repair him -- You turn to look at Floyd, but a tremendous sense of loss overcomes you, and you turn away.

Okay... no sense wasting time, we cant let Floyds sacrifice be in vain.  The miniaturization card he has retrieved should let us into the computer system, though I think well have to go back and retrieve some parts to finish the job.  For now, lets enter the computer and see what there is to see in there.  The miniaturization system requests a sector number, so well TYPE 384 per the computer printout.

Now we find ourselves standing on a metal plate, with another one above us, and a wide metallic strip heading east.  We follow it through several locations, until we reach a micro-relay sealed in transparent red plastic.  Its jammed open by a speck of dirt, and given the red plastic shell, we will probably need the laser to blast it out of the way.  We head back not a moment too soon, as the miniaturization seems to wear off fairly quickly -- or maybe its just automatic when we return to the entry point.

Before we head back to fetch the laser, lets explore the Library Lobby north of Project Corridor East.  Theres a small object nestled among the dust, which turns out to be a green spool, but our load is getting too heavy to add it to inventory so Ill leave it for now.  Theres a computer terminal here, which can be turned on to explore some information about this planets history, culture, and so on.  We have to translate from Galalingua throughout, so while this information is interesting and enriches the backstory significantly, Im not going to say much about it here, except to note that the online material mentions supplemental spools.

The green spool is labeled "Helicopter Operating Manual," so it may be useful to examine its content if we can find a way to do so; we cant INSERT SPOOL INTO TERMINAL or anything, as there seems to be nowhere to put it, but theres another Library room to the west, with another machine featuring a small circular opening.  Reading the spool here informs us that we need a helicopter access card and a control panel key, obtainable from the Transportation Storage area (the dark room at the north end of the Admin Corridor.)  So this may be worth noting as an ultimate escape route.

Were getting sleepy, so maybe we should try to use the Teleportation Booth #3 east of the library to head back to the dorms more quickly than the shuttle will allow.  This works -- we can beam back to Booth 2 near the elevator lobby, and this time well sleep in Dorm C.  We have a fond and sad dream about Floyd, and wake up refreshed, though still a bit sick and feverish according to the DIAGNOSE command.

We can also reach a conference room via teleportation to Booth 1; the door to the south is locked from the other side, presumably via a combination lock, and there doesnt seem to be much we can do here right now.  We can read more in the library, but while the Medicine section claims all diseases are now curable, it provides no ideas about curing our symptoms.

Lets check out Systems Corridor East -- we should have most of the map explored now.  Theres another Physical Plant here, for the Lawanda Complex, and a Course Control room, where lights indicate something has gone wrong and the planet is off course.  Theres also a metal cube here, which we can OPEN to see a fused ninety-ohm bedistor; this is probably why the good bedistor we ran across back at Kalamontee exists.  We can also visit the Planetary Defense room, where a circuit board appears to be out of order; an access panel reveals four seventeen-centimer fromitz boards.  Hmmmm.  Theres also a Repair Room, where we see a broken robot -- theres a robot-sized doorway here, as well, and I wonder if we should have come here before letting Floyd sacrifice himself.

Ah -- theres an Infirmary at the west end of the Systems Corridor, with some medicine and a small red spool.  The spool says that The Disease (which presumably we have) usually results in death in eight to ten days, with symptoms including fever and an increased need for sleep.  Lets try taking the experimental medicine, then -- it doesnt seem to do anything immediate.

Lets see if we can fix the main computer before we tackle these other puzzles.  Our initial attempt to SHOOT RELAY WITH LASER fails, as it puts out a blue beam that bounces off the relay.  It has six settings in different colors -- setting 1 is red, but that doesnt seem to pass through either.  We can see that the relay is red and the boulder is blue... setting 6 is violet, and maybe we should try to SHOOT SPECK WITH LASER -- though that doesnt work very well as now the relay collapses into a heap of plastic shards after its red plastic seal is breached.  So we want to use setting 1 for a red beam, but shoot the speck instead of the relay itself?  Yes, and we need to shoot it several times before the obstruction is vaporized.

Now the sector is about to be reactivated, but our trip back is obstructed by a giant (from our current perspective) amoeba creature.  Its translucent outer membrane is red, so a red beam does nothing to it; we dont have time to do much experimentation, so wed better set it to something else before we start exiting.  And now we see that our (on setting 5) blue beams are wounding the microbe, but its wounds are quick to self-seal again.  We can do this indefinitely, dodging the creatures attacks, but we never quite seem to kill it.  We do, however, notice that as the weapon heats up from repeated firing, the creatures pseudopods seem to be reaching for it.  THROW LASER doesnt quite work, as it just drops it and we are likely to die before we can pick it up again, but THROW LASER INTO VOID once it is quite hot sends the creature plummeting into the abyss after it.  "(Whew!)" indeed!

As we try to return to the computer lab, something malfunctions and we are instead sent to the Lab Office, on the opposite side of where we really want to be.  This station is receive-only, so we will have to go through the mutant-infested bio lab to get back on track.  There are three buttons on the wall, though -- Lab Lights On, Lab Lights Off, and Emergency System.  A memo on the messy lab office desk indicates that the Emergency System floods the bio lab with a deadly fungicide.  Fortunately, the desk can be opened to obtain a wearable gas mask.

Hmmmm... while were working on this, a message over the complexs PA system indicates that revival is beginning, and we can now access the cryo-chamber from the Project Control Office.  My first attempt to dash through the Bio Lab fails, as the mutant creatures catch up with me before I can close the door behind me.  It seems we can run for a little while, but the monsters catch up before we can open the bio-lock door?  If we turn the lab lights on, it seems to slow them down just a hair.  We can even lead them on a merry chase around the Lawanda complex, but they still catch up as soon we need to stop and do something in any location.  Hmmmm.

Can we hit them with a double dose of the fungicide?  Nope, pushing the red button twice doesnt seem to make any difference.  We can dash in, open the lab door, and then come out again, but the lab door closes in the meanwhile so it doesnt buy us any time to dash through more quickly.  With the lights off in the bio lab, we can see through a crack into a lab emitting a blue glow to the north, but we cant go through the crack and this seems informational only.  Aha!  We can make it to the ProjCon Office, where the mural on the southern wall has now vanished to reveal an elevator door, standing open; we can enter and PUSH BUTTON to close the elevator door just before the monsters reach it.  Whew! Again!

Im not at all sure weve done everything we need to up to this point, but were already heading downward in the elevator and clearly the mutants have taken over the area we would likely want to revisit.  And yes, my fears are confirmed, as we reach the Cryo-Anteroom and meet one of the reawakened residents, only to learn that Resida (the planet) is on an irreversible course to plunge into the sun.  Were at an ending point, but this seems far from the best possible outcome:


Okay -- clearly my decision to deal with the computer repair before the other ones was a bad one, as once we fix the relay everything else happens in short, forced order.  Going back to the other complex and picking up a good bedistor, we can replace the fused bedistor with the good one, after we PULL FUSED BEDISTOR WITH PLIERS to get it out of the socket.  A blinking light now reads, "Course divergence minimizing," so that seems to be a good fix.  Is there any reason to replace the fromitz boards in the Planetary Defense room with the cracked one?  I will guess not.

Repairing the computer and fleeing the bio-mutants again, we get a better ending -- but fixing the Planetary Defense system seems to be important as well, as now we learn that a second Stellar Patrol ship was destroyed by the malfunctioning defenses, and we are stuck on Resida forever.

Third time lucky... how do we fix the system when the only spare fromitz board we have found is cracked?  We get a shock when we try to GET FIRST BOARD, and as it turns out only the second one can be removed; after we take it out, we can see that is fried beyond repair.  Replacing it with the cracked fromitz board, however, doesnt seem to repair anything or change the systems malfunctioning behavior.  Can the repair room help?  Yes, we can see a supply room through the small robots-only door, but I am going to need Floyd here I think.  Back to a much earlier save, then!

FLOYD, GO NORTH in the repair room yields a shiny new fromitz board.  Knowing whats ahead, I can save a little bit of inventory juggling by dropping access cards soon to be obviated by the teleportation booths.  I repair the other facilities before I send Floyd to his sad but inevitable doom this time, if only so I can spend more time with him.  Now we go through the final cycle again... and were still not quite successful, as the communications system is still broken and therefore Resida couldnt flag the second Stellar Patrol ship to get us home.

Fourth try luckier?  We have to engage the communication systems manual coolant system override, it appears.  Maybe we need to pour some coolant into the system, as suggested by the funnel-shaped hole.  Since its a blue warning light flashing in the communications room, lets try dispensing some blue coolant.  This is progress -- the blue warning light goes off, but its replaced by a green warning light.  Pouring green fluid in, a black light comes on.  But the black button is a catalyst according to the signs in the machine shop -- do we want to do this?  Yes, apparently, as now the system is functioning properly.

Okay, back to the big finale we go... and now, all seems to be in order!  We are promoted to Lieutenant First Class, a team of mutant hunters has arrived to deal with the bio-lab monsters, were cured of The Disease by a medical robot, and... Floyd is back in working order!  He even hands us a few items related to apparent puzzles we never had to solve.  Victory is ours, with 80 out of 80 points!





I had forgotten much more of this game than I remembered, and it was a real pleasure to revisit Planetfall and work my way through Steve Meretzkys classic adventure again.  It has plenty of atmosphere, tight plotting, logical puzzles, and of course the indelible Floyd, one of the first electronic game characters to elicit a genuine emotional reaction from players.  And while theres a lot to do here, Planetfall is not a difficult game -- I didnt even need any Invisiclues, though I did have to backtrack quite a bit to correct mistakes and omissions Id made along the way.  Now maybe I can finally tackle the sequel, Stationfall... but probably not right away.