The Wade Wars Book III: A walkthrough. Yes, despite its name, this really is the first book. Oddly enough the idea for the Wade War series came to me as a teenager, working in a pizza parlor during the mid to late 80’s. Today, filed deep in my filing cabinet under “Creative Works” I have twelve-year-old scraps of paper and napkins upon which are scribbled most of the text for the currently non-existent Book One, which takes place almost entirely within the pizza parlor from which it was conceived. If I remember correctly, there once existed a portion of BASIC source code for Wade War I (WWI) written to run under TRS-DOS on my TRS-80 model 1. In my twenties, as I began to write games with the intention of distribution, I began to reassess the quality of my games. Slowly, it began to sink in that WWI was not of the caliber that I truly wanted to be known for. The game simply contained too many inside jokes. Events and characters within the game were familiar only to a small group of people, most of whom did not even own a computer. Very few would fully be able to appreciate the tale of my war against Wade. Something geared for a broader audience, a sequel, began to form in my mind. Historically, I have always been one to bite off more than I could chew. True to my nature, I designed the second game to be monstrous in size. It was to be something that had never been seen before. Surprisingly enough, if I were to complete it today, I suspect that this would still be the case. Maybe yes, maybe no. Regardless, the story never saw a line of code before the third book in the Wade Wars came upon me. For reasons I do not fully understand, book three came to me almost in its entirety. Like some strange epiphany it came in a flash. I envisioned in a moment, the entire story. I saw the references to the previous books, the storyline, the puzzles, the ending and a basis for a fourth book. It came to me so completely and took a form that stood so well by itself that it preempted work upon any previous effort. WadeWar3 was my singular focus for some time. It existed once, but no longer, on the TRS-80 model 1, as well as the Commodore 64. In 1993, I released the PC/DOS version to SDN, the Shareware Distribution Network, under the company name “Fish Software”. After a time, my interest waned. Registration mailboxes were closed, source code was lost, and the game, or so I believed, was forgotten. Almost a decade later, in the summer of 2000 I stumbled upon it again on GMD (search engines facilitate things like that). With a little research, I discovered Inform, Frotz, and rediscovered Zork again. The old flame for the now dead Infocom games burned within once more. With a little effort to learn Inform, a bit of code to extract the text from the original WWIII game and a few weeks in front of my terminal and I had produced a young, new version of the Wade Wars, book 3. Are books 1 and 2 to come? Maybe. WWII has been in development for quite some time now, but it is no where near completion as of yet. Still, for those who are interested in seeing where I’m going, there is a work in progress that can be found in the downloads section of OnyxRing.com. Additionally, there are a few ties to the Wade Wars that can be found in other works that I have done, such as my entry in the Mark Musante’s Toaster Mini Comp (“Got Toast?”). Still, the Wade Wars is around fifteen years old (if counting from its conception) There are oh so many other ideas which I may just spend the time to write. Which brings us to this document. Although the information contained herein should work fine for the DOS version as well, it is written with the z-code version of the game in mind. I see no reason why there would be any difference, but just in case there is, this document covers z-code version of the game. Any questions, suggestions, or just plain correspondence should be sent to me at: Jim@OnyxRing.com. And with that done, on with the walkthrough: The point of WadeWar3 is fairly straightforward. You are the nephew of Simon Seamore, a somewhat eccentric scientist and inventor. Uncle Seamore, it seems, has disappeared, as he had before, and you feel compelled to locate him. You begin in his apartment: 1) Prologue (In the Living Room of Uncle Seamore’s apartment) W Read book E N Push red button S E N Notes: A surprising number of players have written about confusion in the apartment. For this reason, I’ve modified the journal description to try and communicate the nature of the huge machine a little more clearly. I hope this helps players. Of course if you’re reading this, then you’re already looking for answers, so I’ll just spell it out here: This game, indeed the whole Wade War series, deals with alternate realities. For this story, neighboring realities are “tied together” at certain locations. Machines such as your uncle’s invention, when used from these places, push the user (in this case, you) halfway between the two realities for a few moments. This halfway world spans the two universes and at the end a three turns, you will be expelled from it and placed in one reality or the other. If you are fairly close to the machine, the halfway world looks familiar enough (although backwards, as though flipped around an axis, marked by your uncle with the yellow line). There, when three turns time is up, you will return to your uncle’s apartment. The further away from the machine you travel, the more differences you will begin to notice (like bark growing on the walls). There are two locations in the backwards world that are far enough from the machine to expel you to the neighboring world after three turns: The backwards bathroom, or “Moorh Tab” and the backwards closet, or “Tesolc.” The Moorh Tab route has the advantage of being the direction your uncle took. Follow this path and you will find your uncle almost immediately. Of course, not being the first to go this way costs you that element of surprise needed to save your life. At this point in the game, passage into Askin through the Tesolc is the only way to go. 2) Chapter 1 (At the base of the black tower) W N W N W W N N N N UNLOCK BOX WITH KEY OPEN BOX GET STONE S S S S E E N N PUT STONE IN INDENTATION Notes At the completion of the above last step, all of your possessions become unreachable (you trade places and inventories with the statue). The game can be completed just fine without most of the obtainable objects in the game up until this point. There is one notable exception, however. The phosphorous crystal (from the phosphorous cave) is needed to win. If you have located and collected the crystal you must drop it before putting the stone in the indentation. You can pick it up again afterwards. 3) Chapter II (In the park, having just traded places with the statue of Lord Urthwin) N E E N PUSH RED BUTTON W S N TYPE 1357 INTO THE KEYPAD S N PUSH RED BUTTON E E N GET CRYSTAL S W S W W S S S W W N N E N N FEED CRYSTAL TO TREE N PUSH RED BUTTON GET BASKET S S PUSH BLUE BUTTON E E READ SIGN PUSH BLUE BUTTON Z W PUSH RED BUTTON W S N PUT BASKET ON LAUNCHPAD EZLWOT TYPE 3823 INTO THE KEYPAD CLIMB INTO THE BASKET Notes: Of course it should be noted that the numbers typed into the keypad are not the result of simple guesswork. The informative number (1357) is written on the scrape of paper formally held by the statue. The launch code sequence (3823) is engraved into the side of the basket. Additionally, it is necessary to actually READ the neon sign to be able to cast the EZLWOT spell. 4) Chapter 3 (In the courtyard on the cloud, in the balloon basket) EXIT S Z Z N CLIMB INTO BASKET S S S S W OPEN DOOR W GET BROWN BAG E E S E GET BLACK BOOK READ BOOK W DROP BOOK OPEN DOOR S Notes Getting the black book is not strictly necessary. Anything can be dropped in front of the guards to send them away. 5) Chapter 4 (In Sibad Edaw’s private quarters, held captive by a gargoyle) FEED BAG TO GARGOYLE ENTER BASKET Z Z Z EXIT GET RING OPEN LARGE DOOR N GIVE RING TO UNCLE Z Z Z Z Z PUSH RED BUTTON W