Solution for Barsoom Adventure #1: The Lost City ================================================ Game (c) 1989 by Susan Beth Schnitger. Solution (c) 2002 by Fredrik Ekman (ekman@lysator.liu.se). Barsoom Adventure #1: The Lost City for the CP/M operating system is, in spite of an old-fashioned two-word parser and a few minor bugs, a very charming adventure from days past. The prose is well-written, the plot is a variation of "gather the hidden objects" with one or two little twists and the problems are mostly very logical. In spite of the title there were no sequels. It is not a very difficult game, so veteran adventurers should only need to refer to this solution occasionally. The game is rather non-linear and therefore this is not a straight walk-through. Instead each problem in the game is treated under a separate heading. Contents -------- The Desert The Thirst The Windy Courtyard The Labyrinth The Body in the Labyrinth The Roc on the Pillar The Statues The Gob of Goo The Tube The Domed Room The Tiled Courtyard The Brazen Grill The Fountain The Blue Knob The Control Panel Scoring Bugs The Desert ---------- Lost in the desert and no idea what way to go. This may look like your standard adventure labyrinth, but it is not. If you go N then S you will usually end up where you started. The only thing you must do to find your way out is to go WEST, WEST, WEST from the starting point and you will find a ravine. Also, after the second WEST you will find a chest. OPEN CHEST and your companion forthwith, Ijjit, will fly out and greet you. When you have reached the ravine, just follow it SOUTH until you reach a bridge. Cross the bridge. The area east of the ravine will not hold anything more of interest for you. The Thirst ---------- Throughout the game you must make sure to drink regularly, or you will die. Do _not_ drink the water! The only liquid useful for drinking is the wine produced by the autodispenser in the hopper. You need to have the bottle (found in the same room). The correct command sequence is OPEN BOTTLE, FILL BOTTLE, CLOSE BOTTLE, DRINK WINE. Each time you fill the bottle it will last for three sips, then you must fill it again. Never, ever, use the bottle for carrying water. It will be contaminated and the next time you use it for wine you will be poisoned. (As an interesting aside it may be illuminating to consider the amounts of alcoholic beverage consumed during this adventure, which takes less than a day. The adventure takes not much more than 737 time units and you must drink about once every 35 units, that is one bottle every 105 units. A small squeeze bottle contains about one-half litre, so that means three and a half litres total, or almost five full-size wine bottles. Enough to make anyone see cubist dragonflies.) The Windy Courtyard ------------------- In the far north-east corner of the city is a windy courtyard filled with rubble and partly covered with a sticky substance. In order to discover what the sticky substance forms you must do the following: Get the bowl from the hopper's hold. Take it outside the ship and FILL BOWL (with sand). Go to the courtyard and EMPTY BOWL. You will then find a raised brick. PUSH BRICK. The Labyrinth ------------- The labyrinth under the windy courtyard (far north-east corner of the city) consists of eight identical rooms and one almost like the others. Each room has three exists (north, east, south), a rat hole, and three torches (one by each exit). The ninth room contains a dead body. The trick to map the labyrinth is to EXTINGUISH TORCH, one, two or three for each room, which will make them distinguishable. You do this using the CUP from the hopper's hold. The fastest path from the first room (south of the entrance) to the room with the dead man is EAST, SOUTH, EAST, SOUTH, NORTH. The fastest path from the room with the dead man to the exit is NORTH, SOUTH, EAST, NORTH. The fastest path from the first room (south of the entrance) to the exit is SOUTH, SOUTH, EAST, NORTH. The Body in the Labyrinth ------------------------- The rats have stolen the dead man's knob and dragged it into their hole. You need to be in the room containing the dead man and you need to have the scepter. Now all you have to do is PROBE HOLE using the SCEPTER and then TAKE YELLOW (knob). The Roc on the Pillar --------------------- In the far southeast corner of the city stands a fluted pillar and on that pillar sits a hungry roc. In order to get atop the pillar without being eaten you must have the loaf from the autodispenser room and the net from the hopper's hold. First you need to EMPTY NET. When you get to the square with the pillar, go UP. Timing is now of the essence and the rest of the sequence must be executed exactly in this order and without delay: DROP LOAF, DROP NET, UP, TAKE PURPLE (knob), DOWN, DOWN, WEST. The Statues ----------- When solving the riddle of the statues you, too, must become a vandal. Bringing the chain from the hopper's hold, PULL STATUE using the CHAIN and targeting the GARGOYLE. Now you can TAKE BLACK (knob). The Gob of Goo -------------- The gob of goo which you find at the Martian inn contains, of course, a knob. In order to obtain it you must have the bowl from the hopper's hold. Go to the pool and FILL BOWL. Then DROP GOO. You can now TAKE WHITE (knob). The water will have turned into paste. Save it! You will need it later. The Tube -------- Quite far to the east there is a tube crossing over the canal. Before you can solve the problem with the tube you need to figure out what to do with the gob of goo (see above). Bringing the bowl of paste, go to the platform (UP the granite stairs) and EMPTY BOWL. This alone does not provide enough friction so go outside the city and FILL BOWL (with sand). Go back to the platform and again EMPTY BOWL. Now you can go NORTH and TAKE ORANGE (knob). The Domed Room -------------- The captain has hidden his note in the ceiling above the domed room north of the large plaza. Here you will need Ijjit's involuntary help, but Ijjit will not normally go in there with you. Go to the autodispenser room and fill the bottle. On your way to the domed room, DRINK WINE exactly twice (or Ijjit will drink himself to death). When you have reached the plaza, OPEN BOTTLE and immediately CLOSE BOTTLE. Ijjit is now inside drinking. Go NORTH, NORTH to the domed room where you OPEN BOTTLE to release Ijjit. Now CLOSE BOTTLE and go EAST. When Ijjit has done his thing, TAKE NOTE. The Tiled Courtyard ------------------- Just east of the northern end of the pool is a tiled courtyard. In order to reveal its secrets you must make the tiles wet. Use the bowl from the hopper's hold. By the pool, FILL BOWL, then go to the courtyard and EMPTY BOWL. You can now go DOWN to the canal. The Fountain ------------ Before you can solve the problem with the fountain you must solve the problems with the tiled courtyard and the domed room. Your first problem will be to reach the fountain in the first place. This requires the panel, but you can get the panel across neither the bridge nor the tube. The remaining alternative is the pool. Go to the south end of the pool and THROW PANEL. You can then go DOWN from the tiled courtyard and follow the canal EAST until you can TAKE PANEL. Go to the northernmost end of the pool and DROP PANEL. Now you can reach the fountain by going SOUTH, SOUTH. But you still cannot take the red knob without using the orb. Take the orb to the mouth of the tube. DROP ORB, then PUSH ORB. Fetch it by the trampoline, bring it to the middle of the panel bridge and DROP ORB. Now you can go SOUTH and TAKE RED (knob). (If Ijjit is with you at this point he will throw the knob into the pool, and it will be forever lost.) The Brazen Grill ---------------- Before you can solve the problem with the grill you must solve the problem with the fountain. When you have solved the problem with the tiled courtyard you can follow the canal to its eastern end, where you will find a brazen grill. PRY GRILL with the STAFF and you will be able to TAKE GREEN (knob). The Blue Knob ------------- Found all the knobs except the blue one (fuel injector)? Have no fear! That one is the easiest of all. Just go the the ship's storage and TAKE SAPPHIRE, then TAKE BLUE (knob). The Control Panel ----------------- Solving the problem with the control panel and starting the ship requires that you have previously solved all other problems in the game. You need all the knobs plus the captain's note and the page from the manual (which you will find if you go DOWN, WEST from the tiled courtyard). As you bring back the knobs to the ship, INSERT BLUE (knob), INSERT RED (knob), etc, until you have all the knobs in their proper places. Next, make sure that you have listened to the entire log (go to the captain's quarters and PUSH BUTTON) and read the manual page. You can now proceed to decipher the captain's note. Just start reading in the top left corner. Read down, then right and follow the text as it spirals counter-clockwise toward the centre. Combining the information from the page and the note, TURN BLUE, TURN RED, etc, until you have set all the knobs to their correct values. The fuel injector's blue knob must be set to 16. The magnetic regulator's red knob must be set to 430. The gyroscopic inhibitor's green knob must be set to 30. The drift adjustor's yellow knob must be set to 180. The wave enhancer's purple knob must be set to 6. The phase shifter's orange knob must be set to 240. The pressure magnifier's white knob must be set to 33. The spindizzy coupler's black knob must be set to 40. Finally, if you feel confident that everything is in order, just PUSH BUTTON and you have completed the game! Scoring ------- The following are the actions that score points and the value of each. Opening Ijjit's chest 50 Pouring water on the tiles 50 Pushing the brick 50 Releasing Ijjit from bottle 50 Taking the blue knob 10 Taking the red knob 10 Taking the green knob 10 Taking the yellow knob 10 Taking the purple knob 10 Taking the orange knob 10 Taking the white knob 10 Taking the black knob 10 Inserting the blue knob 15 Inserting the red knob 15 Inserting the green knob 15 Inserting the yellow knob 15 Inserting the purple knob 15 Inserting the orange knob 15 Inserting the white knob 15 Inserting the black knob 15 Total 400 Bugs ---- The Lost City is not without its share of bugs. Most are harmless, however, and some are rather amusing. Here are a handful of the most interesting. If you slide down the tube with a full bowl, the contents will of course spill all over the place. Even if you have placed the bowl in an entirely different part of town... When you climb halfway up the pillar and drop something it will fall to the ground since there is no surface on which to put it. But if you throw an object instead it will remain hanging in the air beside you. Are you becoming tired of Ijjit's constant remarks? While Ijjit is with you, you can type DROP RUBBLE and have the satisfaction of seeing his dead body on the ground. He will keep up the comments, though.