Status: U Date: Mon, 21 May 2001 03:20:59 -0500 (CDT) From: Denis Hirschfeldt To: emshort@mindspring.com Subject: Your mysterious telegram Dear Ms. Short, The telegram you posted to r.a.i.f. surprised and delighted me. I instantly recognized the game in question: "A Venture", Hyeronimus Quain's only known work of interactive fiction. Quain was a man of many interests, of course. He was an expert finger tapper and a theoretical cat thief, a connoisseur of Midwestern wines and a translator of the Codex Seraphinianus, the poet laureate of Scranton, PA and a founding member of both the "Association for" and the "Society for the Prevention of". He was also a sensitive and compassionate human being; I think it is not a coincidence that his disappearance coincided with the first use of the word "chocolicious" in a TV ad. Another one of Quain's many activities was hardware manufacturing. His masterpiece was the CRP-79, an early microcomputer which was ahead of its time in many aspects, such as its shocking pink case and the use of a paper-clip as a helper (in the CRP-79's case, the paper-clip helped keep the screen together). I believe I am one of only two people to have bought CRP-79's, the other being Professor Otto Klaberjass, the renowned subtechnologist, who is surely the sender of your telegram. My own reasons for buying a CRP-79 were not as lofty as Professor Klaberjass's; I had been under the impression that it was a space heater. As it turns out, I was not far off the mark. "A Venture" ran on the CRP-79. It was written in that computer's unique language, Aural Basic, and required a complicated set of swaps of the seven vinyl records on which it was stored, due do the CRP-79's modest 15 kilobyts of memory (a byt being equal to three and a half bits). Unfortunately, my CRP-79 has not been functional since its meltdown a few years ago. (It eventually surfaced in New Delhi; perhaps you read about it in the papers?) But I do have an old transcript of "A Venture", which matches the walkthrough in the telegram precisely. (I believe that Professor Klaberjass sent you the telegram on the correct assumption that you would make it public, thus motivating me to share my transcript with the IF community. He refuses to communicate with me directly since the day I accidentally addressed him as "Professor Herr Klaberjass" instead of "Herr Professor Klaberjass".) Best, Denis Hirschfeldt ----- Preliminary Notes: 1. "A Venture" does not contain a maze. This is interesting, since the CRP-79's operating system did. 2. "THINK" is _not_ part of the walkthrough; it is an exhortation with which Professor Klaberjass ends all his communications. If one typed "THINK" at any point in "A Venture", the game would respond with "You ponder your predicament for a while. Your brain, unaccustomed to the exercise, cramps, and you die." This was one of the 73 (by my count) ways to die without warning in the game. Surely this was Quain's subtle way of making an important philosophical point. 3. I have included a few explanatory notes, indicated by numbers in brackets. These may be found at the end of the transcript. Ah, another beautiful morning in sunny Acapulco! There's not a cloud in the sky, and a soft breeze helps keep the temperature just right. The flowers are in full bloom and the birds warble merrily. Unfortunately, you're stuck in Frozen Gulch, North Dakota, where it's 40 below and dropping. A VENTURE By Hyeronimus Quain Your Living Room You are in your living room, modest but humble. A few wobbly chairs and a sofa in need of repair remind you of your insignificance. As do the scuffed coffee table, the frayed rug, and everything else in the room, except for the wall clock. That reminds you of your mortality. You are minding your own business, eating some mayonnaise out of the jar, when suddenly there is a flash and a buzz, and two men materialize in the middle of the room. They introduce themselves as Johannes Dryver, Upholster to His Majesty, King Henry the Fourth of England; and Zrblm, Frumjobjoler to the Yppedy of Kloop. > X UPHOLSTER Johannes Dryver is a small and unremarkable man, dressed in what you assume are medieval clothes, though you always get the Middle Ages confused with that other time period, with the guys who went "Forsooth!" and such. He looks at your sofa with interest. "Excuse me," says Zrblm, "but I am a little tired. Spatio-temporal dislocation and all that, you know. Mind if I take a seat?" > SEAT ZRBLM You show Zrblm to a chair. "Thank you," he says. "And now let me explain what we are doing here. You see, there has been a disturbance in the space-time..." As Zrblm talks, Dryver walks over to your sofa and begins to play with it, tugging here, pushing there... This distracts you for a while. Eventually, you turn your attention back to Zrblm. "...and as long as you do it that way," he is saying, "you will be all right. Now take the egg and the knife." Zrblm holds out a green egg and a strangely curved knife to you. > TAKE ALL You take the egg and the knife. "OK," says Zrblm, "off you go." And suddenly you are no longer in your living room, but in the Antechamber of Infinity Which, despite its name, is a pretty ordinary room. There are exits in all directions. > N Except that one. Off in the distance, you hear some folks talking. > LISTEN Whom do you want to listen to, the folks or your mother? > FOLKS I should have known. You _never_ listen to your mother. Anyway, here's what the folks have to say: "...but what if Zrblm manages to send someone over here with the egg and the knife and..." "Don't worry. They would still need the bird, and Shifty has it. We can trust Shifty." The voices seem to be getting closer. Someone taps your shoulder. You turn around and see a girl with pointy ears smiling at you. "Hey, how's about it?" she asks. "You distract them marks over there and I pick 'em clean. We split it 50-50, yeah?" She hands you a piece of charcoal, a fan, and a paintbrush, and disappears into the shadows. Two well-dressed gentlemen saunter in from the east. > DRAW SWORD You draw a sword on the wall with the piece of charcoal. The gentlemen stop to admire your artwork. The girl crawls behind them. > WAVE FAN "Ah," says one of the gentlemen, "a nice breeze is just what we needed right now. Thank you, my good fellow." The girl starts to empty the gentlemen's pockets. > DANCE ABOUT The gentlemen watch your performance with delight. The girl has almost finished picking their pockets. > PAINT Your artistic skill amazes the gentlemen. The girl retreats into the shadows just as they turn around and leave to the west. When they are gone, she jumps out again and laughs. "Good job, pardner. Here's your share." She hands you a gold watch, several pieces of jewelry, and a few other assorted odds and ends. Then she sprints out. A few moments later, a man in a loud checked coat slithers in. He is holding a hat and a balalaika, and is leading a ruffled-looking duck on a leash. "How you doin', my friend?" he says, handing you an oily business card. "Shifty's the name and legitimate business is the game. What can I do you for?" > FENCE TAKE Shifty glances around for a bit, then pulls out a jeweller's eyepiece and examines your loot. "OK," he says. "Not great, mind ya, but OK. Tell you what: I like your face, so I'll trade you this hat for your stuff. It ain't just any hat, ya know. It used to belong to uh... that Albert Eisenstein fella. Yeah." > NEXT "Next!" you say, pushing the hat away. "OK, all right, no problem. You don't want the hat. How 'bout this mint-condition small-guitar-type instrument then? Make you real popular with the ladies..." > TURN You turn around as if to leave. Shifty lays a hand on your shoulder to stop you. "Whoa, whoa, not so fast, my friend. I'm sure we can work something out. Let's see... just hold my duck for a second while I think it out, will ya?" You take the ruffled-looking duck and, as you do, Shifty grabs the loot and starts walking away. "That's a great trade, my friend," he says over his shoulder. "You'll really enjoy that duck, I tell ya... Oh, and you can keep this; I don't want any of this plastic toy crap." You look to see what he was talking about: it's a small doll. You recognize the figure as that of the fabled Queen Anestheti. > SMOOTH DUCK You run your hand through the duck's soft feathers. They come off in your hand, and you realize that this is no duck, but a plover in disguise, and a mechanical one at that. The plover is currently switched off. > DOWN ANESTHETI You cover the figurine of Queen Anestheti with the soft feathers. It looks much nicer now. > I [1] You begin to vibrate, softly at first, then with increasing intensity. This causes you to emit a low rumble which increases in volume and pitch until you sound like the world's biggest tea kettle. Shifty wanders back in, attracted by the noise. "Whoa," he says, "seems like you're about to self-destruct there, my friend. Bet you could do with an anti-implosion cookie right about now, eh? Well, it's your lucky day, 'cause I happen to have one right here. And I can let you have it in exchange for this little plush doll of yours." You're too busy dying to have much of a say in the matter, so he takes the doll and hands you the cookie. > EAT IT The shaking and the keening gradually subside. As you lean against the south wall, recovering, you notice that your vibrations have caused part of the north wall to crumble, revealing a locked door. > UNLOCK DOOR Most people would have assumed a key was needed to unlock the door, but not you. > SWITCH PLOVER The mechanical plover begins to emit the secret plover call. You hear a noise coming toward you, and suddenly the door bursts open. You find yourself surrounded by a stand of plovers. The birds don't look very friendly... > EGG STAND You throw the egg at the stand of plovers. It shatters with a blinding flash of purple light and a sound like a million incompetent drummers trying to play the solo from "Wipeout" at once. When you recover your sight, you see a very tall creature standing in front of you. It is half man, half bird (though it's hard to tell which half is which), and is dressed in a flowing purple robe edged with ermine. On its head is a golden crown. "Thank you," says the creature. "You have done well. You have returned me, the King of the Plovers, to my rightful place. But now you must finish your quest: First, you must take the knife of truth and..." You notice one of the birds trying to get rid of a piece of gum stuck to its foot. This entertains you for a while. Then you begin to mentally hum "Crimson and plover / over and over..." After a while, you turn your attention back to the king. "... and thus finish your mission," he is saying. "But remember: if you do not heed my words then you will not live much longer. Now go!" The king points to the open door on the north wall, past which is an upward incline. > ON [2] Swing Room This room looks much like its reflection would look if there were a mirror on one of the walls. Hanging from a ceiling hook is a tire swing. There are exits to the east, northwest, and undersouth. From the east, you hear a roar and the sound of a large animal running toward you. > EAST SWING You push the swing to the east just as a lion runs in at full tilt. The lion gets caught in the tire and swings past you. The rope breaks and you realize that the lion can still attack you, despite having a tire around its waist. And even a tired lion would make short work of you. > KNIFE LION You stab the lion in what you hope is a roughly vital area. Instead of blood, sawdust pours out. More and more sawdust comes out of the lion, until all that is left is its skin and a small wooden contraption. It has three poles, on the leftmost of which are fifteen discs of varying sizes, with the smallest on top of the next smallest, which is on top of the third smallest, and so on. > PRAY You pray to Blunt, the God of Pointlessness. There is a flash of lightning, and you notice that the discs are now on the rightmost pole. You are about to fall to your knees in gratitude when it occurs to you that probably all Blunt did was turn the contraption around. You notice a mouse struggling to free itself from the sawdust on the floor. > GET MOUSE You pull the mouse from the sawdust. "Thank you," it says. "Thank you very much indeed. Please accept this small present as a token of my gratitude." The mouse hands you a little matchbox car. Then it jumps from your hand and scampers away. A few moments later it returns and says, "The car is not suitable for children under the age of four." Then it runs away again. > Z You stand around for a bit. After half a minute, the mouse comes back in. "One more thing," it says. "The car will explode in three hours." > NW Drawing Room This is a large and elegantly appointed 18th-century drawing room, with soft pink walls, colorful oriental rugs, and a massive crystal chandelier. Highly ornate chairs and tables are everywhere, and the walls are covered with portraits of grand lords and ladies. There is an undeniable feeling of refinement and politesse about this room. Standing next to a particularly beautiful roundabout chair is a tall man in a black uniform. He is pointing a bazooka at you. > WAKE The world goes hazy and, after a moment of disorientation, you find yourself on the banks of a beautiful river, holding a fishing rod. So it was all a dream! > FISH You fish for a while, and inevitably doze off again. This gets you back where you were, but a few moments later. The wall behind you has been completely blasted away, releasing a torrent of water which sweeps you off your feet. > SWIM By swimming vigorously, you manage to avoid bashing your head against the walls. The current carries you along for what seem like hours, but are actually miles. You notice that you are very thirsty. > DRINK Good idea. Except that the water around you is salt water, so: bad idea. Nearly dead from thirst, you are finally deposited in a small room. There may be many things to see here, but you only notice one of them: a glass brimming with the liquefied fourth stomach of a ruminant. > DRINK READ [3] Ahhhh... delicious! > LOOK Small Room No, there actually aren't many things to see here. A spiral staircase leads up. > UP Beach While not exactly what you expected to find here, this is nevertheless a lovely spot. The sand is fine and white, and the ocean is being sued by Yves Klein for patent infringement. Near you is a counter with a sign which reads: "Ocean Crossing : Book Here" You can see a black uniform, a small cardboard box, a sheet of wrapping paper, a tape dispenser, and a pair of scissors here. > DRESS You put on the uniform. > BOOK SHIP You approach the counter. From behind it, a little man springs up. He looks at your uniform and says "Hooray for Evil!" Then he hands you a ticket without further comment. > PACKAGE PRESENT You put the mouse's present in the cardboard box and wrap it up nicely. You notice a few people are now milling about; most are wearing black uniforms. Some of them start a game of bowls, and a fierce master-sergeant type offers you a shot. > BOWL Amazingly, you land a really good shot, which instantly makes you one of the boys. They don't even notice that you're wearing your uniform inside-out. But before the game can continue, a ship arrives, and you are carried along toward it by what is now a sizable crowd. (Yes, it is strange that a large ship could sail into such shallow waters. I wonder what the talking mouse, the sawdust lion, and the Plover King would think of that.) > DROP TOY You drop the package containing the matchbox car. You board the ship with the others, and a steward shows you to a Cabin This is a tiny cubicle with grey walls, attached to one of which is a cot. > SLEEP You lie down and start to nod off. Just before you are completely asleep, you hear a faraway explosion. Then you drift away to The Land of Nod You are in a place of shifting shapes and sounds. You can see a string bass and a sea bass here. The devil is here, and he challenges you to a bass-playing contest. "Choose your instrument," he says. > PLAY STRING You play the string bass. Not very well, but better than the devil can play a sea bass. "Damn," says the devil, "I knew I should have stuck with the fiddle. Or perhaps the haddock." Without warning, the scene shifts, and the string bass becomes a guitar. It seems that you are now part of a Foggy Mountain Boys tribute band, performing at a state fair somewhere in the heartland. The mandolin player to your left looks familiar... "This is not really a dream," he says, and you recognize him as Zrblm. "Here, take this apple." You take the apple and ask him, "What do I do next?" "Next, you play the `Wabash Cannonball'." > PICK Even in your dreams, you're no Lester Flatt. Everything goes hazy... You wake up to find the master-sergeant type from back on the beach pulling you up. "Come on, soldier," he says. "we've docked. You have a job to do!" He pushes you out of the cabin and all the way out of the ship, which has docked outside a massive stone building, fully forty stories high and so wide that you cannot see where it ends. Near the twenty-foot-high doors is a small brass plaque which reads "Evil HQ". The sergeant marches you past the entrance and through about a hundred tunnels and corridors, until you arrive outside a door marked "Time Control Center". "Stay here and guard this door, soldier!" barks the sergeant and walks away. You look around the Time Control Center Waiting Room There is not much to see here, except for a mirror and a white armchair trimmed with yellow tassels. The Time Control Center door is to the overnorth. > POLISH APPLE As you polish the apple, there is a puff of smoke, and a man in a straw hat materializes in the room. "Howdy," he says. "I'm Put. I mean, that's not my real name, but everyone calls me that, 'cause they say I'm a bit of a country-put, hahuha! Can't say I agree with that, but you know how nicknames are. I have a friend whose real name is Fred, but everyone calls him Bill. Bill's not part of his name at all. It's not like it's his middle name or anything. But everyone still calls him Bill. I asked him once why that is, and it turns out it has to do with this one time when he dressed up like George Washington for a school play. Now, it might have made more sense if people had called him George from then on, but there was already this kid in his class named George, and that would have been confusing. I mean, not necessarily. I have two friends named George, and I never get them mixed up. Well, except for that one time when I wanted to call my one friend George to invite him over for dinner, except I got confused and called my other friend George instead. That was pretty funny, 'cause it took me ten minutes to figure out I was talking to the wrong George, and by that time I had already invited him over to dinner, so I had to have dinner with the wrong George, hahuha!" > EYE MIRROR In the mirror you catch a glimpse of the sergeant looking at you from a distance. It seems that he can't see Put. "Anyway," says Put, "here's what I'm supposed to tell you. Zrblm sent me, you know. He's a strange one... Just the other day he was talking to me and he said, `Put, I might need your help to save the universe.' I thought he was joking, but then again, I don't think I've ever heard him crack a joke, so maybe I shouldn't have thought he was joking. But I did, so I said, `You're joking,' and he said, `No, I'm not,' and so today he comes up to me and says he needs my help after all. He tells me I should tell you that the door to the command center won't open for anyone except a senior officer. Now, you don't look like a senior officer to me, so this might be a problem. But then again, I don't know much about what's going on here. Nobody ever tells me much, to tell you the truth. I once complained to Zrblm about that. He said, `The less you know, the more useful you are,' in a really meaningful kind of way. It reminded me of my cousin Larry. He's always saying things that are supposed to sound deep, like `No man is an eyelid,' and `the more things stay the same, the more they change'..." > POSE You snap to attention and try to look as much like a soldier of evil as you can. Satisfied, the sergeant walks away. "Oh, right, I'm supposed to give you these," says Put, slapping two epaulettes on your shoulders. "But Zrblm also said you have to look older, or the sensor things won't let you in. Machines are funny. I know this guy who owns a tractor that won't start in the morning unless you kick it real hard a couple of times. He's gotten so used to kicking that thing that one time, when he had to drive into town, he kicked his car like it was the tractor. And he was wearing steel-toed boots, so it put a big old dent on the door. It was a brand-new car, too. He tried to get the insurance company to pay for it. Made up some story about the car getting kicked by a mule. But the problem was that the insurance guy knew about the tractor somehow, and he put two and two together, so they never paid up." > UNDO TRIM You pull out the armchair's trim, revealing a corset. "That looks like a lady's corset," says Put. "Reminds me of my Aunt Betsy. She was real old-fashioned, so some people said she probably still wore a corset, hahuha! One time she went to some fancy store to buy silverware, except they didn't have the kind she wanted. They said they didn't make that kind anymore. She wrote a letter to the company that used to make that kind of silverware but she never got an answer, so she found out where the company was, and she went there. All the way from Omaha, Nebraska to Cincinnati, she went, just 'cause she thought they should know that there were still people who liked the old style of silverware. Now, when she got there, she asked to see the president of the company. They told her that the president was out golfing, so she went to the country club, but he wasn't there either. It turns out he had gone off to lunch at this famous restaurant in town, so she went to the restaurant, and..." > CORSET PUT You slam the corset over Put's head, making sure that it covers his mouth. > GREY Bringing all your powers of concentration to bear, you pace around the room, willing your hair to turn grey. Of course, it doesn't work. But you do manage to run into a wall. This causes a pile of chalkboard erasers to fall on your head from a shelf you hadn't noticed before. > ON You walk confidently toward the door. You hear a buzzing sound and a couple of clicks. Then the door opens and you proceed up a long ramp, eventually arriving at the Time Control Center This room is a little disorienting, in that the walls, floor, and ceiling have all been painted blue. A white stake has been stuck into the floor not far from the only entrance. You can see a can of blue paint, a paintbrush, and some rags here. From the undersouth you hear voices. They're hard to make out, but it seems like one is asking, "Which way did he go?" > BLUE STAKE You quickly paint the stake blue. Not long after you finish, a tall man runs in with his gun drawn. You recognize him as the one who tried to kill you with a bazooka, and are relieved to see him run straight into the stake and collapse. A lighter falls from his pocket. You hear footsteps approaching from the undersouth. > LIGHT FIRE You use the lighter and the rags to start a small fire, which causes the automatic fire door to slide shut. Part of the wall detaches itself and walks toward you. Or so it seems, but it is in fact a man dressed all in blue. "Did Zrblm send you?" he asks. "Good, good. My name is Plotwist; pleased to meet you and all that. Now, did you bring back the Plover King? Good. And did you kill the sawdust lion and solve the tower and all that? Good, good. I know you blew up the beach. Kaboom and all that. Yes, good. Now all we need to do is pull this lever, but I can't seem to..." > HELP Together, the two of you manage to pull the lever. A section of the wall opens to reveal a control panel. "Good," says Plotwist. Suddenly, bells start ringing everywhere, and a voice blares out from hidden loudspeakers: "Red alert! All men to their stations! This is not a drill! I know that's what we always tell you, but this time it's really not! Honest!" The door slides open, revealing several men in uniforms much like the one you're wearing. Plotwist makes a run for the control panel, but before he can get there, one of the men grabs him. "Not so fast, Plotwist! We're on to you and your evil little plan to stop our evil little plan. You, there," he says, pointing at you, there, "man that station!" > MAN STATION The control panel is full of buttons, switches, knobs, dials, read-outs... It is totally incomprehensible to anyone over the age of twelve. On the panel is a stopwatch, which is currently running. > STOP WATCH As you stop the stopwatch, you watch time stop. (Neat, huh?) The future and the past begin to blend; events grind to a halt. The feeling is indescribable, except perhaps in terms of watching a baseball game. You realize that, much as on laundry day, there will soon be no change at all in the universe. > XYZZY You utter an ancient word of power, which, since all times have begun to run together, actually has an effect. What that effect is you can't really tell, since you pass out. You come to in your living room, where Johannes Dryver and Zrblm are smiling at you. "Welcome back," says Zrblm. "I see you have succeeded admirably. Congratulations! But I assume there is still much that is unclear to you. Let me explain: Everything began when..." It occurs to you that today is rent day. This reminds you that the gas bill is past due, which in turn gets you wondering whether you can afford to buy an extra space heater for the bedroom. After an interesting chain of thought involving a comparison between the temperature and your bank account, you turn your attention back to Zrblm. "... ten bucks, same as in town," he is saying. "So you see, everything makes sense after all. Well, we must be off now. Thank you again for your help. The universe owes you one." The two men begin to dematerialize. Just before they disappear, Dryver turns to you. "By the way," he says, "I've repaired your sofa." *** you have won *** Would you like to see something AMUSING? [4] Notes: 1. In "A Venture", "I" did not mean "take inventory". It meant "implode". However, this was the only point in the game at which the command was useful. Trying it any other time yielded intriguing results. Assuming one finds instant death intriguing. 2. "ON" was an abbreviation for overnorth, a direction halfway between north and northup. 3. This was a slightly tricky guess-the-noun puzzle. "DRINK STOMACH" would cause you to try to drink your own stomach, with horrible results. I cannot quite remember what "DRINK FOURTH" would do, but it was equally nasty. And I would rather not get into what happened if one tried "DRINK GLASS". 4. Here, the correct thing to do was to turn off the CRP-79. Otherwise, the game would not let you quit until you had agreed to "see something AMUSING", at which point the computer would spray you with some rusty water from a nozzle carefully hidden in the corner of the monitor. Try doing _that_ in Inform!