------------------------------------------------------------------------ BALANCES WALKTHROUGH ------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Balances" is a very short game, written by Graham Nelson to demonstrate the capabilities of the "Inform" parser and to show that anything that Infocom could do, he can do too. However, sufficient people seem interested in playing "Balances" seriously for it to be worth writing a solution (after all, "Balances" is considerably longer than some of the games to be found at the IF Archive!). The magic system is much the same as that in the Infocom trilogy "Enchanted", "Sorcerer" and "Spellbreaker". "Spellbreaker" had a number of featureless white cubes that could be written on; it also had a boneyard, a bazaar and a magic carpet (though the carpet was more difficult to operate than the one in "Balances"!). The "filfre" spell to "produce gratuitous fireworks" is a reference to the scroll in Infocom's "Beyond Zork" that displayed the names of the authors of that game. As "Balances" is a demonstration game, the source is available from the IF Archive at ftp.gmd.de in the directory /if-archive/programming/inform/examples/ and should be readable even to people who have never programmed in Inform. Gareth Rees , 12/94 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ We should get get started with some information about the background to the game: inventory examine book who is helistar what is the great change what is a magic burin Then we should do what every seasoned adventurer does, and search everything in sight: search furniture thus uncovering a cedarwood box, which is locked. But a magic spell comes to our aid: learn rezrov rezrov box examine box look in box get grimoire from box examine grimoire what is a grimoire "grimoire" is another word for "spell book", no doubt to prevent the game having to ask you which spell book you mean every time you read one. Helistar's grimoire contains a "lleps" spell that may be cast upon spells you have memorised, and turns them into spells that have the opposite effect. For example, you could learn the "mortin" spell (that causes the immediate death of the caster), "lleps mortin" and then "mortin", in which case you will have ensured your resurrection in the event of sudden death. This is a walkthrough, and we're not intending to die, so there's no need for that (but if you're curious, see the end of the walkthrough). Now it's time to set off on the quest. out north north Our explorations have come to a sudden stop. But we know what to do! search oats examine shiny scroll gnusto it Now we have a spell to make animals grow wings, so following the example of Bellerophon, we grow ourselves a Pegasus and fly away on it: learn bozbar bozbar horse mount horse We've discovered a featureless white cube, but we can't take it yet. Instead, we can explore in search of some help: north learn yomin yomin tortoise "Somewhere inside the tortoise is a sense of wonder at the amazing blue canopy of the sky". It would be hard to have been given a clearer hint! learn bozbar bozbar tortoise get chewed scroll We're not quite finished with the tortoise, yet. If you hang around for a few turns, you'll see a tortoise feather fall to the ground. take tortoise feather northwest take sapphire examine it spells examine book I'm not sure I really understand the reasoning behind the sapphire puzzle (perhaps it was a late night when Graham was writing it), but staring into the sapphire has implanted into your mind the "caskly" spell (for causing perfection). In connection with the chewed scroll, it is obvious what to do: caskly chewed scroll examine torn scroll gnusto lobal So now we have a spell for sharpening hearing, which will come in handy later. In the meantime, we could pick up another useful object: north take carpet south and then enter the cave (but not before we have provided a light source): learn rezrov rezrov door learn frotz frotz burin west We have acquired out first cube! There will be others (such as the one we saw back at the snake), so we need to write a label on it to identify it. take cube write balance on cube Then we need to get the scroll. However, the cave won't let us leave unless the scales are restored to balance, and the scroll happens to weigh just as much as the different in weight between a bronze and a gold (or silver) coin. There are two solutions. We could take the scroll and the bronze coin, and leave the silver coin in place of the bronze. But we'll need the silver coin later, so that's a bad idea. Luckily, it turns out that the tortoise feather weighs exactly the same as the scroll: take crumpled scroll put feather on left pan examine crumpled scroll gnusto urbzig The "urbzig" spell, to "turn a dangerous object into a harmless one", is just what we need to deal with the snake: out southeast south learn urbzig urbzig snake get cube write snake on it Now we need to take a ride on the magic carpet, but since it'll take us to a place where the brandishing of spell books is forbidden, we had better learn the spells we need in advance: learn yomin again drop carpet get on carpet A third cube is one of the prizes in the lottery, and since we haven't much money to waste, we'd better cheat by reading the mind of the poor barker: give silver coin to barker yomin barker again get ticket 2306 give it to barker get ticket 5802 give it to barker write lottery on featureless cube get on carpet There doesn't seem to be very much to do now, but we haven't used the "lleps" spell yet! It might be worth stopping to consider how the "lleps" spell might affect the spells you know about, and experimenting. The opposite of "frotz" causes darkness; the opposite of "yomin" allows other creatures to read your mind; the opposite of "rezrov" closes and locks doors; the opposite of "bozbar" removes wings from an object if it has any; the opposite of "lobal" causes deafness; and the opposite of "urbzig" turns a harmless object into a dangerous one. This last spell sounds the most promising. Let's try it (but not on an object we're carrying, which is lethal): get off carpet drop elephant learn urbzig learn lleps lleps urbzig urbzig elephant Oops! The cuddly toy elephant is replaced by a dangerous cyclops with a mace. Or is it a cyclops with a dangerous mace? Let's find out which: learn urbzig urbzig cyclops learn urbzig urbzig mace Obviously the latter! Now we have a fourth cube. get cube write cyclops on it what is a cyclops Now it is time for the endgame, which involves getting into the giant cubical temple. Let's spy on the monks: east examine temple listen The chanting is too faint to make out? We know what to do about that: learn lobal lobal me listen The monks tell of "one who will some day enlighten their order". Could this be a terrible, terrible pun? learn frotz frotz temple I think so. Lots of disgruntled players complained on rec.games.int-fiction about this puzzle! Anyway, there's not much left to do: examine podium clean podium examine top left socket Obviously the puzzle is to put the cubes in the correct sockets. It was a good thing we labelled them, because otherwise we wouldn't know what to put where. put lottery cube in top left socket examine top right socket put cyclops cube in top right socket examine bottom right socket put balance cube in bottom right socket examine bottom left socket put snake cube in bottom left socket And we have won! Perceptive players will have noticed that by following the above script we have scored 50 out of 51 points. The traditional "last lousy point" may be scored by finding the "filfre" spell and casting it; to do so we could try the following commands near the start of the game: learn mortin learn lleps lleps mortin mortin learn mortin mortin get worthless scroll examine it gnusto filfre learn filfre filfre north ------------------------------------------------------------------------