INFONOTES: SERIOUS INFOCOM TRIVIA - Part 1 Some incredibly niggling facts about Infocom games by Graeme Cree (gramecree@aol.com) When I was very young my father read Tolkien's The Hobbit out loud. A couple of years later, after learning to read and reading the book on my own, I was very puzzled to find that a couple of minor things I remembered were missing. I specifically remembered a mention that Hobbits were larger than Lilliputians, and a mention that less friendly neighbors said that one of the Took ancestors had married a goblin, but these things simply weren't there, leaving me to wonder if the book had been embellished during the reading, or if I was just imagining things. It wasn't until years later, when I turned up a second edition of the book, that I realized that these things were in that edition, but deleted in the third, which I had read later. This led me to compile a couple of pages of other minor changes in the book that I kept until a complete list was published in The Annotated Hobbit years after that. Infocom games are subject to the same syndrome, especially Zork 1, of which no less than 12 different versions exist. People who played this game on their old Commodore 64's and TRS-80's who now try to play it on a PC with Masterpieces of Infocom, Lost Treasures of Infocom, The Zork Anthology, The Zork Legacy Collection, et al, may have the same kind of phantom memories -- along the lines of "Wait a minute, I could have sworn that Zork I gave credit to Colossal Cave! Wasn't the bat supposed to be from Wumpus?" In maintaining The Infocom Bugs List (http://members.aol.com/graemecree/infobugs/), I have had to play through most of the games many times, and in so doing have come across several oddities and changes to the various games that did not qualify as bugs, but still seemed worth mentioning. Most of them involve changes made to the programs over time, but there is also an assortment of observations, and miscellany. To some people, this stuff might seem incredibly niggling and unimportant, but to others it might just save their sanity. Items brought to my attention by others have been so credited. This list is a work in progress, and like the Infocom Bugs List may be updated periodically. As with The Infocom Bugs List, commands that should be entered into the game verbatim are in all caps and bold face. Direct quotes from a game are in bold monospace (in quotes if within a paragraph, and blockquoted otherwise). ------------------- General comments ------------------- 1. FORMERLY AN INTERLOGIC GAME: Infocom's first 9 games, Zork 1, Zork 2, Zork 3, Deadline, Starcross, Suspended, The Witness, Planetfall, and Enchanter, all bore an additional trademark that described them as Interlogic games. This can usually be seen by issuing the VERSION command, or watching the copyright information at the beginning of the game. The first four games after the Zork Trilogy have the Interlogic trademark in all known versions of the program. However, Planetfall and Enchanter have it in some versions, but not others. Enchanter is an Interlogic game in versions 10, 15, and 16, but not in versions 24 and 29. Planetfall is an Interlogic game in versions 20, 26, and 29, but not in versions 37 or 10. The Zork Trilogy itself is a special case. The original blister pack versions of all of these games describe them as Interlogic Games on the cover of the manual, but none of them have the word mentioned inside the program itself (Although, "Xe Zoork triloojee" are all described as being "Inturlajik" games in the Lawanda Complex's computer in Planetfall). With Infidel and all succeeding games, the Interlogic trademark was gone for good, however three versions of Planetfall and Enchanter compiled after Infidel's release still retained it. ------------------- Arthur: The Quest for Excalibur ------------------- 1. A CLASSIC STYLE GAME?: Arthur is the only one of the .z6 games that can be made to look exactly like one of the .z1 - .z5 games. Zork Zero and Shogun both look garbled if run this way. Journey is readable, but still retains the screen layout of the graphic version. Arthur has a built-in function to make the screen look like a classic game, but this still uses the .z6 graphic font. However, if you start the game in text mode (i.e. frotz -d 1 arthur.zip), then hit F6 on the first turn, the results will be virtually indistinguishable from a classic Infocom game. Of course with Frotz being continually updated, Arthur may not be the only game able to do this for long. ------------------- Ballyhoo ------------------- 1. GUESS THE VERB: One of the biggest foibles in this game is the fact that the command WHIP LION is completely different from HIT LION WITH WHIP. The first will work, the second will tell you that you are too scared to do it. I went through a major hassle playing the first time when I had to start over from the beginning, and suddenly could no longer tame the lion even though I knew I had done it before. I then went off on a long false trail, believing that the character had to perform some act of bravery to obtain the courage needed to whip the lion. When everything failed, I got a complete walkthrough from Quest for Clues, which got me past the lion, but left me wondering how it was different from what I had been doing. Only much later, did I notice that the two commands were different. ------------------- Beyond Zork ------------------- 1. Brian Moriarty was very fair in implementing the effect of potions. The rule that they will not work unless you shake them first applies to bad potions as well as good ones (i.e. drink a Potion of Death without shaking it first, and it won't kill you. 2. THE NEW NON-VIOLENT ZORK?: In Beyond Zork it is extremely rare to actually kill an opponent in combat. Most victorious melees end with the defeated monster running away in defeat (the Dust Bunny being an exception). Even the Wand (or Rod, Stick, Stave, etc.) of Annihilation produces this result. The old woman tells you that it produces "Instant death, with few exceptions.", though about the only being that you can actually kill with it is yourself. What was the reason for this decision? Was it to make the game less violent? Or was it merely to provide a more realistic way of disposing of the bodies after combat than having them disappear in a cloud of sinister black fog? ------------------- Enchanter Trilogy ------------------- 1. UNFROTZING: Have you ever frotzed something, and wished that you hadn't? In Enchanter and Spellbreaker you can do something about it with the EXTINGUISH command. In Sorcerer, you're out of luck. In Spellbreaker, trying to EXTINGUISH anything you have frotzed generates the response, "The magical glow fades." In Enchanter, you can EXTINGUISH anything except yourself. EXTINGUISH ME generates the response "You can't turn that off." EXTINGUISH SPELL BOOK (or anything else) generates the response "The [item] is now off." In Sorcerer, trying to EXTINGUISH any frotzed item generates the response, "How? It's glowing by magic." ------------------- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy ------------------- 1. I got a note from Wei-Hwa Huang which described a Games magazine article about Infocom that mentioned a container bug similar to the ones in Zork I, Infidel, and Starcross (this time involving the gown and the thing), which had been caught in betatesting. This bug does not appear in any versions of the game. I tried to reproduce it by typing PUT GOWN IN THING, and then PUT THING IN GOWN, and got the amusing response: "You can't put the thing your aunt gave you which you don't know what it is in your gown when your gown is already in the thing your aunt gave you which you don't know what it is!" ------------------- The Lurking Horror ------------------- 1. Here's an amusing little sequence you can generate at the beginning of the game: >HACKER, GIVE ME THE MASTER KEY. "Fat chance! This is a master key!..." Well, duh! ------------------- Planetfall ------------------- 1. When I originally played Planetfall (my first ever Infocom game, and still the best one IMHO) I was thrown for a while by the fact that the description of the Patrol uniform said that it protected against "radiation and mosquitoes." This gave me the idea that the uniform must provide a way to get the spool in the Radiation Lab, if only I could find a helmet or something. Apparently others had the same problem, because in all versions after Version 20, the description of the uniform is changed to say that it protects against "mild radiation." (my italics) 2. ARE YOU GONNA TAKE THAT?: In versions 20, 26, 29, and 37, if the player gives a TAKE ALL command, while Floyd is present, the game will (understandably) try to pick him up with all the other items, generating this response: multiple purpose robot: You manage to lift Floyd a few inches off the ground, but he is too heavy and you drop him suddenly. Floyd gives a surprised squeal and moves a respectable distance away. In a typical game, the player may see this several times, but fortunately in the Solid Gold version (version 10), Infocom had mercy and eliminated the problem. In the Solid Gold version, if you TAKE ALL or GET ALL while Floyd is present, the game interprets it as if you had typed TAKE ALL EXCEPT FLOYD. 3. MORE THAN FAIR: Planetfall certainly gives you ample opportunity to win the game. Although you begin feeling the effects of the disease when you wake up after your first night's sleep, it will not prove fatal until Day 9 (you die in your sleep after going to bed at the end of the 8th day). A player who knows what he is doing can easily finish the game on the 2nd day. Even if you're playing for the first time, it will probably not take more than 4 days. As the disease progresses, you become weaker and need more sleep. The medicine will help with this, but will not affect the time that you die. The game may become unwinnable before you actually die if you are no longer strong enough to carry the laser and miniaturization card, but no matter how you slice it, you have so much time to complete your mission that time is really not a factor at all. 4. LESS THAN FAIR: You must actually reach the Cryo- Room in order to survive. Although the rescue ship is waiting for you when you reach the Cryo-Room (assuming you have fixed Planetary Defense and the Radio), if you simply fix the proper items and wait around the Kalamontee Complex for the ship to arrive, it never will. Similarly, if you repair the computer, start the reactivation process, and then just hang around the Lab Office waiting for Veldina's troops to come rescue you, they never will. You must pass through the mutants and go to them. 5. A CHRONIC PAIN: Planetfall (and Stationfall) measure time in chrons. There are 10 chrons in a day. Assuming that a day in these games is still 24 hours, that gives us the following conversions: 1 chron = 2 hours and 24 minutes 1 centichron = 1 minute and 26 seconds 1 millichron = 8.64 seconds 6. Floyd, like the adventurer in Enchanter, will hand you things if you ask for them, even if your load is too heavy to normally accommodate them. This makes solving the rift puzzle a tad quicker, and has been reported as a bug by Chris Lang and several others, although I don't think it is. If you're loaded down with items, holding onto something handed to you is simply not as difficult as bending over to pick it up yourself. 7. SHORTCUT TO RESIDA: The journey to Resida got a little shorter in versions 37 and 10. Try this experiment. Start the game and WAIT until you see the message about the explosion (i.e. "A massive explosion rocks the ship. Echoes from the explosion resound deafeningly down the halls. A door to port slides open."). Immediately go WEST, and then issue WAIT commands until you land on Resida and die (because you never got in the webbing). In versions 20, 26, and 29, you will die after 14 WAIT commands. In versions 37 and 10, it will only be 13. What changed? Well, in versions 37 and 10, the turn where you get the message: Through the viewport of the pod you see the Feinstein dwindle as you head away. Bursts of light dot its hull. Suddenly, a huge explosion blows the Feinstein into tiny pieces, sending the escape pod tumbling away! You are thrown against the bulkhead, bruising a few limbs. The safety webbing might have offered a bit more protection. and the turn where you get the message: As the escape pod tumbles away from the former location of the Feinstein, its gyroscopes whine. The pod slowly stops tumbling. Lights on the control panel blink furiously as the autopilot searches for a reasonable destination. were combined into one turn. ------------------- Sorcerer ------------------- 1. All versions of Sorcerer have two images from Spellbreaker among the selection of images you get when casting the Vezza spell. One of them shows Spellbreaker's opening scene in the Guild Hall, and the other shows a pile of Foundation Cubes, already labeled. Apparently the general plot of Spellbreaker was outlined long in advance. 2. In all versions of the game, the description of your room mentions what an unusual privilege it is to have your own private quarters. However Frobar and Helistar also have them, and no bunkroom is to be found anywhere. Of course, the Guild Hall has probably been condensed for game purposes.... ------------------- Suspended ------------------- 1. Normally, when humans enter a room where Auda is present, you will get the message: "AUDA INTERRUPT: Some talking mechanisms just entered the room." However, in no version of the game do you get this message when the humans first enter the complex through the Sterilization Chamber. Not a bug, but an omission, nevertheless. -- Frederick Ramsberg ------------------- The Witness ------------------- 1. COMPUTER DATING?: Here's a list from the New Zork Times of interesting responses you can get while in Monica's presence (in all versions of the game): >MAKE LOVE TO MONICA (Sorry, but English is my second language. Please rephrase that.) >ASK MONICA TO MAKE LOVE (Your request was incomplete. Next time, say what you want Monica to make the love from.) >MAKE LOVE FROM MONICA "Eat, drink, and make merry, for tomorrow we shall die!" >ASK MONICA ABOUT LOVE "That's between Mother and me." Part 1 is in the next file - o -