Tundra is a short, unfinished game by David Dyte that turned up while
I was going through some old files. On contacting David, he provided
the following explanation as to why it was abandoned:

"I kind of left it be because someone pointed out the central puzzle
is already in one of the Monkey Island games, so it didn't feel so
original any more. This after Neil Guy saw Tundra and abandoned his
own WIP with the same central puzzle, too. And now I'm in another
country, far from the hard drive with the source code, so I'll never
get to debug what's there anyway. I think it's fine to upload, though,
if it's bundled with a readme explanation of the alpha-test nature of
the thing, and why it's been orphaned. Neil deMause sent me a
hilarious transcript of him completely breaking the way I was handling
liquids. Oops. Maybe there should be a separate directory for
unfinished works."

That aside, the game should be completable without any major issues.
Hopefully you will find it as charming as I did.

Torbjörn Andersson, April 13 2021


My Testing Notes
================

Alongside the game file, I also found my old testing notes,
time-stamped January 27 1998. Obviously I wasn't as thorough as Neil
deMause, because I didn't find any hilarious breakage. Still, they may
give an idea what kind of issues you can expect to find.

Naturally, these notes contain spoilers. You have been warned.



Digging in the snow revealed a backpack and a leather bound book, but
there was no indication from that message that I actually picked them
up. (Digging in the snow was, actually, one of the first things I did,
but not to try to uncover anything. I was trying to dig a shelter. :-)


I really like the way the status line changes from "Alone" to "Not
Alone?". Nice touch.


At the moment, "LOOK UP BRANDY IN BOOK" works, but not "LOOK UP BOTTLE
IN BOOK". I admit that the former *is* more logical, but perhaps the
latter should at least produce a response about being too vague a
topic, or something like that.


"LOOK UP NEEDLE IN BOOK" produces the same reply as when looking up
the stone. This makes some sense in retrospect, but struck me as very
odd when it first happened.


I find it odd that I can look up my own everyday objects in the book,
but I can't look up the objects described in the book. Well, maybe
that's not always the case, but consider:

   Works                    Mentioned, but don't work
   --------------------------------------------------
   stone, needle            rock, sword, shield
   backpack                 kitten
   wolf, tortoise, tree     Matt
   bottle                   flask


It did not occur to me, at first, to use the brandy to fill the cup. I
wanted to melt some snow to get water, but "MELT SNOW" didn't work,
and "TAKE SNOW" made me throw a snowball. I can see why "MELT SNOW"
wouldn't work, but some sort of response would be nice.


Once I have won, shouldn't the status line be updated again? It says
I'm still "Defying the Storm".


Seeing how I'm alone (or not) in the snow, it seems like "SHOUT [FOR
HELP]" and related commands should produce more reasonable responses.