paid video game tester

Well, my fears around the challenge offered by Space Quest III were unfounded, as would come as no surprise to all of you that ripped through this game in the last few days. I haven’t quite finished yet, but that’s only because I wanted to get this post out while the experience was still fresh. My last post finished with me finally gaining entrance to the space ship submerged in junk upon the garbage freighter. As soon as I did that I was given an over the shoulder view of the ship’s internal setup. There were only three things I could do inside, being exit, look at the ships status monitor, or hop into the cockpit. Looking at the monitor revealed the power was critically low as the auxiliary reactor was not on-line. I of course had a reactor in my possession, so I typed “use reactor” (5 points). “You drop the reactor into the hole. In attempting to reconnect the cables, you find that one is much too short.” I had some wire too, so I typed “use wire” (5 points). This was all that was needed to get the ship’s power unit back online, and I was given a view of all the ship’s sections along with a message telling me they were all “nominal”.



With that all sorted, I hopped into the cockpit and looked at the computer screen. There I found eight menu options, which were 1. Engines, 2. Navigation System, 3. Takeoff, 4. Cruise, 5. Light Speed, 6. Attack Speed, 7. Radar and 8. Weapons System. I pressed 1 to turn the engines on, and heard a whirring sound as the ship prepared for launch. I turned the radar on and tried to use the navigation system, only to be told that it was “inoperable while not in flight”. I received the same message when I tried to view the weapons system, so I simply tried to takeoff instead. “The ship rises several meters, then stops abruptly. An alarm from the computer attracts your attention.” Looking at my monitor revealed that my ascent was halted due to an obstruction. I was a bit confused by what that obstruction might be until I realised it was the room’s ceiling! My memory told me that using my weapons system was the solution, and while I wasn’t yet very trusting of my memory, I gave it a shot anyway. I brought up the weapons system screen, where I could turn my front or back shields on or simply fire away. I pressed fire, and was given a view of the outside of the freighter as my weapons blew a hole through the side of it!



The smile of victory on my face was quickly eradicated, when a message popped up saying: “Unfortunately, your inadequately protected ship is struck and subsequently destroyed in the bottle neck of metallic objects striving to pass through the same relatively small opening.” The solution of course was obvious, so I restored and went through the same process, this time putting my front shield on first. This worked, and I was free! I brought up my navigation system and ran a scan. A cursor passed across my surrounding space sectors, revealing locations of interest as it did so. I could visit Planet Ortega in sector 82, Planet Phleebhut in sector 39, or Monolith Burger Fast Food Dive in sector 62. I vaguely remembered each of them, but not enough to make a judgement on where I should go first. I therefore selected the first one (Ortega), and set my ship to light speed. I watched as my ship took off at light speed, but was then surprised to find another ship gradually appearing (it must have been using some sort of cloaking device) close to where mine had been! The close-up of a robot face appeared on the screen, and computer generated messages began appearing in the reflection of his shades. “Identity confirmed... Roger Wilco... Case OU812... Wilco wanted for vending machine fraud... Plaintiff: Gippazoid Novelty Co.... Judgement: TERMINATE”



The Terminator’s ship took off at light speed in pursuit of my own, which didn’t bode well. I wasn’t particularly stressed though, as I clearly recalled how I took him out when I first played the game. I knew what to do when the time came, so I focussed on the task at hand. After a short trip, a message popped up on my screen, telling me that I was in orbit above the planet Ortega. I chose to land on the planet’s surface, and watched as my ship spiralled down towards the volcanic planet. Exiting the Aluminium Mallard, I soon realised that I’d made a very poor decision in coming to Ortega first! “My, my, this is one hot planet! Hopefully you’ll last more than a few minutes.” I didn’t, and watched as I fell to the ground and simply melted into nothingness! “You sizzle into oblivion. This planet wouldn’t be so bad if you could keep cool somehow.” Well at least now I knew that I needed some form of heat protection before coming back to Ortega! I restored my game, and this time chose to visit planet Phleebhut. After the same cut scene with the terminator setting off in pursuit, I quickly found myself departing my ship onto a purple landscape with green rock formations. There appeared to be a storm brewing, but thankfully I didn’t seem to have any issue with the environmental conditions.


Another cut-scene interjected, with the terminator’s ship also landing down on the planet Phleebhut. I was given a close-up of the Arnold Schwarzenegger lookalike robot exiting his craft, then pressing a button on his belt that caused him to disappear. Footprints forming on the sand leading away from the ship clearly referred to the fact my pursuant was damn well invisible! I set out from my own craft, exploring the alien landscape and trying to avoid the various deadly creatures that inhabit the planet. While I was methodically mapping out the area, I was killed by a venomous scorpazoid, some pulsating pods that dropped down from a cave roof and ingested me, and some sort of huge serpent that ate me whole! It appeared for a moment that I was also going to be confronted by a Godzilla-like monster, as I could see one chomping away in the distance! As I got closer though, I realised it was merely the World o’ Wonders souvenir shop, built into the base of a huge Godzilla replica named Mog. My memory told me that there was a second entrance to the building around the left side, so I went to check before entering the shop proper. It was there, just as I remembered, but since I knew the time for its purpose had not yet arrived, went back and entered the front door.

Fester Blatz awaited me inside the World o’ Wonders, hoping to sell me a wide range of junk, collected from all over the planet. Blatz began making suggestions to me, uch as an Orat on a stick, an official Astro Chicken flight hat, and a nice pair of thermoweave underwear that will “keep your internal environment pleasant on even the sweatiest worlds.” The last of those items was exactly what I needed to survive the heat on Ortego, so I tried to buy them. “Everything here costs 25 buckazoids, and you don’t have that much!” I couldn’t remember doing it when I first played the game, but I thought I would try selling him my used up glowing gem. It seemed likely to work, since he had others like it sitting in the cabinet in front of him, and it was the only thing in my inventory at this point. Blatz was very pleased with the rock, and offered me 350 buckazoids! (2 points) That was more than I needed, so I purchased the Orat, the hat, and the underwear for 75 buckazoids (15 points). There seemed nothing else to do in the shop, so I left with my new goodies, ready for what I knew would be coming when I got outside.



The terminator appeared out of nowhere and grabbed hold of me before I had any chance to react. Disappointed with how easy I was to track down, he revealed the purpose of his mission: “Seems you forgot to pay for that Labionian terror beast mating call whistle. Now let’s see... with interest that comes to 400,000 buckazoids. I don’t think you’ve got that kind of cash on you hmm? No... I didn’t think so.” In typical villain style though, the terminator offered me a chance at escape, albeit an unlikely one. “I will count to ten real slow then I track you down. If you make it to your ship I forget I see you. But if I catch you again... I dust you like bundt cake.” I knew from past experience that trying to reach my ship would mean certain death, so I headed straight for the side entrance of World o’ Wonders instead. I guess it’s a sign of how memorable this scene was, since I recalled exactly when it would happen and how to deal with it. After ascending one of Mog’s legs in an elevator, I found myself in a machine room of sorts. There were some gears spinning round and a couple of heavy chains hanging from the ceiling.


The terminator came up the elevator after me and began his slow walk towards my position on the top floor. I waited until he was a few steps away from me, then typed “get chain”. Roger pushed one of the heavy chains into the robot, causing him to fall into the spinning gears, breaking him into many parts (35 points). Investigating the remains revealed that “the terminator’s invisibility belt has survived relatively intact”, so I picked it up (35 points). Blatz arrived on the scene, at first quite cranky that I’d ignored the signs telling people this section was closed for repairs. His mood lightened when he saw what I’d done though: “Oh! I see you’ve gotten rid of that grease swilling android. Never did like that terminator series.” I could see no further reason to stay on Phleebhut, so decided to take my leave. Once I was back on my ship, I put my new underwear on in preparation for visiting Ortega once again (10 points). However, once I accessed the monitor, I realised the closest joint to my current location was the Monolith Burger fast food dive. I set a course for it, dreading the fact that I would soon be required to play the horrible arcade game that is Astro Chicken!



On arrival, I had a giggle at yet another Star Trek reference found in an adventure game, with the Starship Enterprise taking off from one of five entrances to Monolith (clearly a reference itself to McDonalds). My own ship docked, and I was soon walking amongst the numerous strange aliens lining up for greasy food and sugary drinks. I approached the counter and typed in “order food”. I had no recollection of what I should purchase from the menu, or indeed whether I should purchase anything, but the Monolith Fun Meal seemed an obvious choice. With any luck it would come with a surprise item that might be useful (10 points)! The geeky looking employee asked me whether I would like something to drink to go with my meal, and rather hilariously both options available to me were “Yes”! The same joke was applied to whether I wanted Space Spuds and Blattfruit Pie, and eventually I was able to hand over my seven buckazoids and sit down to eat. “OWWW!!! Hey, what’s this in my burger? Oh, it must be my Fun Meal prize! Hey, it’s a swell decoder ring!” (10 points) Awesome! To be honest, I don’t think I found the decoder ring when I first played the game, and had to resort to a walkthrough to decode the message when I came upon it.

It was time to work my reflexes, so I walked up to the Astro Chicken arcade game and reacquainted myself with the controls. If you’ve played the game, you’ll know how frustrating this section is! The idea is a simple one though. All you have to do is continually land the chicken on the landing pad which is surrounded by mines. If the chicken lands with too much speed though, it will bounce onto the mines and explode! The player needs to press the up arrow to make the chicken flap its wings and therefore slow its descent, while also directing it left and right to make sure it lands on the pad. If it sounds easy, then that’s because I haven’t told you how unresponsive the controls are, and how stupendously difficult it is once the chicken is dropped from either of the screen’s top corners. Each time I successfully landed the chicken I received a few points, with the total maxing out at fifty (50 points). At some point the game decided that I’d landed enough chickens to be rewarded with a huge amount of encoded text on the screen. It was just as well, as my finger was cramping up from the exertion!


I used my decoder ring, and a cipher was displayed at the bottom of the screen, setting me the task of decoding the message manually (although a lot of it can be figured out just by looking at it) (70 points). “Help us! We are being held captive by Scumsoft on the small moon of Pestulon. An inpenetrable force field surrounds the moon. It must first be deactivated. It’s origin is unknown to us. Scumsoft security is armed with jello pistols. We’re counting on you whoever you are.” The message was signed off by “Two Guys in Trouble”. So now I have a new motivation! Before I would consider visiting Pestulon though, it was now time to revisit Ortega. In case anyone is wondering, at this point my inventory contained an Orat on a Stick, some ThermoWeave Underwear, an Astro Chicken Flight Hat, a Monolith Decoder Ring, some Buckazoids, and an Invisibility Belt. If I didn’t know better, I’d figure the game was really about to take off (excuse the pun), but as plenty of readers have already stated, Space Quest III is a very short game. I’ve already got more than half the points on offer, and it’s very possible to next post title could end in Won! Well, I’m about to kick the Aluminium Mallard back into light speed mode. I hope to see you all at the destination!

Session Time: 1 hours 15 minutes
Total Time: 2 hours 45 minutes

Note Regarding Spoilers and Companion Assist Points: Ive written a set of rules regarding spoilers and companion assist points. Please read it here before making any comments that could be considered a spoiler in any way. The short of it is that no points will be given for hints or spoilers given in advance of me requiring one. Please...try not to spoil any part of the game for me...unless I really obviously need the help...or I specifically request assistance. In this instance, Ive not made any requests for assistance. Thanks!

This Halloween week, I'm continuing a recent trend and filling in more gaps in my coverage of the SoftSide disk magazine adventures, with SoftSide Adventure #8 - Windsloe Mansion Adventure, published in January of 1982.  It seems apparent that the game was meant to come out closer to Halloween -- it's filled with traditional monsters and spooky (not horrific) references, and the very plot as stated in the intro text sounds seasonal:  The world famous 'Pumpkin Man' has been kidnapped and is being held prisoner in the dungeon of Windsloe Mansion.



The introductory screen goes on to inform us that the player's goal, as we might have guessed, is to rescue the Pumpkin Man and return him to our starting location, making use of the neighboring Blair house which is connected to Windsloe Mansion.  We earn points for killing or dispelling the monsters and rescuing the Pumpkin Man; the highest possible score is 230.  (It's an interesting historical coincidence that Mrs. Windsloe is reputed to be a known witch, and there's a Blair house involved... more than a decade before The Blair Witch Project.)  There's no onscreen or code-level author credit, but some sources attribute this game to Steven Neighorn.

The game opens with a PLEASE WAIT...INITIALIZING message uncommon to the SoftSide series, and the interface is also quite different, resembling Brian Moriarty's approach in the games he created for ANTIC magazine before he moved to Infocom.  A VISIBLE OBJECTS window alternates with the player's INVENTORY display, and as there's no room for scrolling we usually have to hit the return key to acknowledge messages from the game.

As (almost) always, I encourage interested adventurers to explore Windsloe Mansion independently before proceeding here.  The game's puzzles are not difficult, though the limited parser dictionary causes some issues along with its occasional insistence on single-move solutions; the main storyline can be finished without solving every last puzzle.  My full 230-point walkthrough is available at the CASA Solution Archive, and is also included at the bottom of this post.  In between, I will provide detailed commentary about the game and its approach, which means there will certainly be...

***** SPOOKY SPOILERS AHEAD! *****




We begin standing on a sidewalk outside the Blair house, and we should note our location since to win we have to return the Pumpkin Man to this very spot.  We have some money available, which we can discover only by using the I command, not INV or INVENTORY.

This town seems to have no zoning regulations, as its residential areas are haphazardly intertwined with the commercial district, filled with many shops, none of which have more than a single item on offer, and only a few of which insist on payment, as it turns out.

To the immediate south of our starting point is a Chinese restaurant containing a fortune cookie.  We can't OPEN COOKIE or READ COOKIE or EAT COOKIE -- IT'S BEYOND MY POWER TO DO THAT! in this last case, which seems strange, but maybe that's why this restaurant has no customers.  It wasn't until much later in the game that I figured out we have to SMASH COOKIE to get at the Chinese Proverb inside.  It reads, "DON'T BE FOOLED BY A HALLOWEEN PRANK THIS YEAR. WATCH OUT FOR THEM APPLES!" -- which sounds more like a Kentuckese Proverb.  There's a HALLOWEEN APPLE on the sidewalk outside the Blair house, but by the time I got around to reading this message, I didn't need the clue anymore.  Still, I had to confirm that if we EAT APPLE, then I'VE EATEN A RAZOR BLADE! I CAN'T CONTINUE THIS ADVENTURE!


In the Spirit Shop south of the restaurant we find a Ghost Neutralizer, unusual in 1982 before Ghostbusters made the idea popular, and we can use it to NEUTRALIZE GHOST (three of them, actually, though we don't actually have to dispatch them -- being discorporeal, all they can do is slow us down while the game engine makes their presence known.) 

A Lumber Shop contains a wooden stake, so we may conclude that we'll need to deal with vampires too.

Despite the intro text, which mentions a husband and wife owning the Windsloe mansion, a room description later places us ON A SIDEWALK OUTSIDE OLD LADY WINDSLOE'S MANSION.  (We will find evidence of Mr. Windsloe's existence later in the game, however.)  We can't get into the house this way, but a device called an AUDIOTEX III is sitting on the Windsloes' front porch.  We can LOOK AUDIOTEX (there's no EXAMINE verb here, but LOOK works to reveal more detail, unlike other SoftSide games) to learn that it's a UNIQUE SAFE CRACKER.  So that should be handy, should we encounter a safe.

Dave's Tobacco Shop appears to be empty.  The Pharmacy contains a vial of poison, like the old-fashioned apothecary, apparently; the really old-fashioned kind that served the Capulets and Montagues, I mean.  And the Plaid Pantry store contains a can of dog food.

The GUN'S [sic] UNLIMITED STORE has a .45 automatic for sale.  And unlike most of the other stores, if we just go ahead and GET .45, we are busted for shoplifting and the game is over.  We have to BUY .45; in fact, if we try to BUY GUN we are incorrectly told that THE GUN DOESN'T COST ANYTHING!  We can run around and SHOOT things, even if we don't have the gun in our possession yet, which reveals a key detail about the gun's intended use, as we learn that SILVER BULLETS ARE NO MATCH FOR A [whatever it was we attempted to shoot].


Having toured the neighborhood, it's time to explore the Blair house.  Kitchen has a note reading, "GIVE TO DAVE."  Presumably this refers to the note itself, and not to some sort of charity -- and ah, yes, we can GIVE NOTE in Dave's Tobacco Shop to obtain a packet of Tobacco.  We can't OPEN PACKET, but we can LOOK PACKET to find a key.  If we do so a second time, however, the key returns to the floor of the current room, and the game doesn't remove it from the inventory count, which soon causes item limit problems.  So we should try to avoid this.


The Blair house's game room contains a cue ball and some... POISONOUS DARTS?  Interesting games these people play.  The storage room to the south provides a pool cue, and the attic to the north features a crowbar and steel sword.  All of these things seem potentially useful, but our inventory limit grows tight before long and we will need to figure out what to do with some of these things before we haul them around.

The Blairs are hosting a party, apparently, as there is a party room filled with people.  And there's a safe in the Blair bedroom.  The bedroom closet leads into an underground passage, where we run into a ghost, and at the end of the passage we find a storage room, and a tool room with a crucible and mallet.  There's a razor on the ledge outside the tool room, perhaps left there by someone suicidally indecisive.

To the south of the tool room, we suddenly find ourselves inside the Windsloe house's master bedroom.  Another ghost is in the bedroom closet (no skeletons though).  And a book in the library reads, "BURN WITCH WITH FIERY STICK!" -- rather an odd book to have in the home of a purported witch.  There is a convenient stick in the parlor, which seems even stranger.

The maid's bedroom has a bed, but no maid -- all we can do is MOVE BED to find a trap door.  If we choose to OPEN DOOR, then A HAND REACHES UP AND PULLS ME THROUGH THE DOOR. IT'S THE MOSS CREATURE!  We need to act quickly here -- if we try to leave the room or do anything else that the designer doesn't want us to, we learn that THE MOSS CREATURE HAS HUNGRILY CONSUMED ME!  We need the bottle of acid from the Windsloe kitchen - we can THROW BOTTLE to destroy the moss creature, though why it doesn't work on anything or anyone else remains a mystery.

Beyond the Moss Creature we encounter a Vampire, so we can guess that we need the wooden stake and mallet, but given inventory limitations I didn't have them with me at the time.  If we encounter the vampire and are not ready to deal with him, any wrong move means THE VAMPIRE HAS SUCKED MY BLOOD! and the game is over, so I chose to come back here later.

The Entertainment Room has a pinball machine, though we can't seem to do anything with it at first or even find out what sort of machine it is.  Related to this is a head in the bathroom with a sign reading "SHAVE ME."  What does shaving the head get us?  Some puzzle solving, at first -- it seems that having the razor is not enough, but we can CUT the Halloween APPLE to obtain the razor blade inside.  Chilling!  Even with the razor and blade, though, we can't SHAVE HEAD.  We also can't INSERT BLADE or USE RAZOR or LOAD RAZOR -- we must PUT BLADE - IN WHAT? - RAZOR.  Now we can SHAVE HEAD, and... THE HEAD THANKS YOU AND A QUARTER POPS OUT OF HIS MOUTH!  Quite a bit of work for two bits.


A werewolf in the MUSTY DARK ROOM south of the Kitchen tears us apart if we try to go past him, or, again, fail to do exactly the right thing.  I wondered if we could possibly dispatch the werewolf with poisoned dog food -- disrespectful, I suppose, but it seemed like a possibility -- so I went back to the Plaid Pantry and found that we have to BUY CAN, not GET CAN, which again gets us busted for shoplifting.  But with the can of dogfood and the vial of poison in hand, I still couldn't figure out how to combine these items.  And we can't seem to SHOOT WEREWOLF despite the gun's silver bullets -- though this was a red herring, a misleading impression engendered by the game's standard response text.

There's a broom in the Windsloe house's closet, though I never found a use for it.

I was running out of ideas, so I wondered if we could use the AUDIOTEX III to crack the safe in the Blair bedroom.  But it seems we can't CRACK SAFE, OPEN SAFE or UNLOCK SAFE.  Hmmmm.

Back to kill the vampire, it took me several restores to discover that we have to HAMMER STAKE; I died numerous times frantically trying to USE STAKE and STAKE VAMPIRE and USE MALLET, all to no avail.  Once I knew the right command, I learned that we can try to HAMMER STAKE before we run into the vampire to get a hint that most players will find useful only in hindsight: THERE IS NO VAMPIRE HERE, SO WHY HAMMER THE STAKE!

Beyond the vampire, we find a room adjoining the dungeon; the door has a lock requiring a key. 
The Circuit Control Room contains a coil of rope.  The Utility Room in this area contains a toad, and a KILLER DOG, so we can guess that the poison and dog food must be meant for this situation.  Figuring out how to use the poison is tricky, again due to parser limitations and the fact that THE DOG HAS TORN ME TO SHREDS! if we don't know what to do immediately.  The parser uses specific text strings for comparison, and is annoyingly inconsistent here -- we have to BUY CAN (not BUY FOOD) but we have to POISON FOOD (not OPEN CAN or OPEN VIAL or POUR VIAL or POUR POISON or POISON CAN) to produced POISONED DOGFOOD. We cannot, apparently, drop our handiwork after this point -- at least, we can't DROP POISONED or DROP FOOD or DROP DOGFOOD.  All we can do is FEED DOG.

Going back to the safe, I learned that if we try type a long command line (e.g. OPEN SAFE WITH AUDIOTEX) that wraps around the end of the display line, the whole display gets out of synch by one line, looking odd from that point on.  To open the safe, we have to PUT AUDIOTEX - ON WHAT? - SAFE.  This reveals a Magical Amulet, and also reveals that the parser does occasionally get a little more ambitious, but the purpose of doing this is not clear.  We can't WEAR AMULET, and I never found a reason to bother with it -- perhaps it was meant for an idea that never quite got implemented.

Back to the cellar to finish off the moss man, vampire and killer dog, I learned that we can't get out of the cellar until we finish killing most of the monsters down there, and we need the key to unlock the dungeon door.  Or rather, not UNLOCK DOOR or OPEN DOOR or UNLOCK LOCK or UNLOCK DUNGEON, but... INSERT KEY!  Dang parser.  So we need to come down here with a full load of very specific inventory.

And in the Dungeon we find... the famous PUMPKIN MAN!  We never do learn what he's supposedly famous for -- perhaps it's the fact that he's very portable, as we can just put him in our inventory.  But we still need to find a way out of the cellar -- I thought perhaps I'd arrived at the finale a little too early, but we can THROW ROPE (which normally drops it, but it seems we can't SWING ROPE or CLIMB ROPE) to get back up to ground level.  And then we just have to walk back to the starting location -- as soon as we arrive there with the Pumpkin Man in tow, victory is ours!




But we're missing quite a few points, with 135 out of a possible 230, and the clues found along the way suggest that we have some killing left to do.

The descriptive text suggests that we can use the Crowbar on the Blair house porch, which has some suspiciously cracked boards.  But we can't PRY BOARDS or LIFT BOARDS or GET BOARDS.  We have to summon our superhuman strength, or our willingness to delve into the BASIC code, to discover that we actually have to LIFT PORCH -- which reveals some SILVER INGOTS!!!  (Exclamation points not mine.)

We can then PUT INGOTS - IN WHAT? - CRUCIBLE in the Tool Room.  Presumably this will let us actually make the silver bullets alluded to earlier, since the .45 doesn't seem to do us any good against the werewolf.   We aren't told that there are also bullet molds handy, so it's fortunate all we have to do is POUR SILVER to make this work.  Then we can load the gun with the silver bullets and SHOOT WEREWOLF.... or at least it seems like we should be able to.  We can't actually LOAD .45 or LOAD GUN.  It seems like we really are supposed to SHOOT WEREWOLF, because if we're in the room with the creature, that command yields I CAN'T DO THAT... YET! while anything else leads to immediately being ripped apart by the werewolf.  We have to LOAD BULLETS, then we are finally informed that GUN LOADED!  Now at last we can SHOOT WEREWOLF, and get 20 points for our trouble, and now we can get to WITCH WINDSLOE'S EVIL SPELL ROOM, where we find... an incubator?

The witch isn't here at the moment, but we can surmise that we're probably going to need a way to light the stick on fire.  We can INSERT QUARTER in the pinball machine -- and, oddly, TWO PIECES OF FLINT FALL FROM THE BOTTOM OF THE MACHINE!  So we can presumably make a fire now.  But we can't MAKE FIRE or LIGHT STICK or BURN STICK or START FIRE.  We must RUB FLINT -- and then FLYING SPARKS IGNITE THE ALCOHOL SOAKED RAG ON YOUR STICK!  The Windsloes really don't protect themselves very well, what with all this witch-burning paraphernalia in the house.

What else?  Well, we still haven't done anything with the cue ball, pool cue, sword, or poisonous darts.  LOOK CUE reveals that THE POOL CUE IS A DART SHOOTER!  We can BLOW DART anywhere we please, but it's no good against the giant wasp in Mr. Windsloe's taxidermy room or the werewolf.  The ball LOOKS MORE LIKE AN EGG THAN A BALL!  Okay... now we know what to do with the incubator.

We can kill the wasp with the sword (not KILL WASP, but SWING SWORD) and THE WASP FALLS TO THE FLOOR IN TWO PIECES!  We don't gain anything but points for the effort, however.

There's an incubator in Witch Windsloe's evil spell room.  We can PUT BALL - IN WHAT? - INCUBATOR, and THE EGG HATCHES INTO A HIDEOUS ALIEN.  We can BLOW DART (at last!) to take the alien out with a dart to the heart.

Beyond the spell room is WITCH WINDSLOE'S EVIL WORSHIP ROOM.  There are some chemicals here, along with WITCH WINDSLOE.  As before, if we don't act fast and BURN WITCH, then THE WITCH HAS TURNED ME INTO A FROG!  So we need to have the fiery stick in hand before we enter her lair.

I had to dig into the code again to see if we were now close to done, because there's no way to find out our score without dying or QUITting.  We get 10 points for neutralizing each of the three ghosts; 20 points for throwing acid at the Moss Monster; 15 for staking the vampire; 15 for shooting the werewolf; 20 for killing the dog; 20 points for cutting the wasp in two; 25 points for killing the alien with a poison dart; 35 points for burning Old Lady Windsloe; and 50 points for returning the Pumpkin Man to the starting location.  Committing all of the requisite homicides yields the entire 230 points:



Windsloe Mansion is one of those early, nonsensical adventures -- there are lots of puzzles, but many are incidental to the main plot, such as it is.  The parser is problematic because so many puzzles depend on very specific phrasings, so even when we know what we want to do, it's hard to convince the game to let us do it.  But I enjoyed the adventure and it seemed just the right choice for the Halloween week.  My full walkthrough is below the fold.


**** WALKTHROUGH ****


Read more »

Tex Murphy Journal Entry 3: “I’ve made some decent progress today, questioning John Richards at his office and then coming across a goldmine of information in the warehouse that Linsky had been leasing. John was helpful enough to give me a copy of Linskys autopsy, which revealed an anomaly that might turn out to be something important. In the warehouse I was able to gather the names of a bunch of scientists that may or may not have been involved in this Overlord project that Linsky was working on, and cracking into his computer and reading all his notes has revealed the moral dilemma that the professor was dealing with prior to his death. I have a lot of leads to follow up on now and while I imagine some of them will lead to dead ends, I’m confident at least one of them will give me a better idea whats really going on.”


I was really coming to grips with Mean Streets by the end of my second session, having organised all my leads into a spreadsheet and figured out that collecting navigation codes was what the game was really all about. I therefore entered my third session very eager to get on with questioning more people and hopefully finding a location or two that I could comb for clues. As I’d decided that my tactic to avoid lengthy speeder trips was to visit locations based on NC proximity, I checked to see which of my leads had a code close to Bash Dagot’s (4657). I’d already visited Carl Linsky’s apartment (4660) and the University (4663), so that made John Richards my next target (4670). He was the medical examiner that I was supposed to have already visited before coaxing information out of Bash, but better late than never I say! I hopped in my speeder and quickly made my way to the Medical Examiner’s Office. Once again it was only a couple of miles away, giving me the impression that my navigation code theory could very well be correct.


John Richards stood before me with what appeared to be blood all over his hands. It seems that general hygiene goes backwards in the next couple of decades! I began questioning him on all the names I had, including the ones I’d recently added to the list. When asked about Carl Linsky, he had the following to say: “Nothing odd about this one. He jumped off the Bridge, massive shock when he hit, lungs filled with water, dead as a rock. I’ll send you a copy of the Autopsy report.” I really didn’t get much else of interest out of him and since he didn’t appear to be hiding anything, I left his office. As soon as I appeared back in the speeder, the autopsy arrived in the fax. “External Examination: Body is cool to the touch with fixed vigor in the extremities. Neck head brain: A small burr hole in the skull indicates recent surgery. Structure at base of brain intact. Neck shows massive damage to spinal cord caused by severe impact. Internal Examination: The pulmonary system is purple and shows a large amount of blood and frothy fluid in the chest and stomach. Remarks: Death caused by massive shock and drowning. Time of death estimated at between 10:00 PM and 11:30 PM September 20.”


The small burr hole in the skull was an interesting development, particularly as Carl was clearly struggling with his mental faculties when he died. Perhaps someone messed with his brain? I guessed that I would find out eventually. With an NC of 4675, the Bridgeview Warehouse was my next destination, for which I’d discovered a lease in Carl’s apartment. On arrival I faced another shootout with gang members, which was no different to the first one I fought. Once I crossed the obligatory two screens with strength intact, I received a detailed description of the warehouse, and was informed that I entered a “small area closed off from the rest of the building”. At this point I watched Tex walk into a storage area and realised it was time for another room investigation. I began at the back left corner, where I came across a large black floor safe for which I didn’t have a key. There was a box on top of the crates that was apparently partly open, but I was told that I would need a ladder to reach it. I didn’t have one of those, so I moved onto another part of the room.


There was quite a bit to look at on the desk in the centre of the room, and I started with the newspaper. There was a circle around an article describing the death of noted scientist Cal Davis, who apparently died in an accident in his lab. I wrote the name Cal Davis into my spreadsheet, and moved onto the desk itself. I uncovered a message in the fax machine which read: “Professor, they’re on to you. I suggest you disappear fast.” The name at the bottom of the fax message was Sonny Fletcher. I’d seen the initials S.F. previously on the papers containing encoded Nexus passwords in Carl’s apartment, so clearly that was written by Sonny also. Another name for the spreadsheet! It seemed I was going to be calling on Vanessa and Lee for nav codes again soon enough! I tried to operate the computer on the desk but was informed that it wouldn’t operate without a passcard, and the printer seemed useless also.


I made my way to the back wall, where there was another desk next to a file cabinet. In the desk drawer I discovered a gold pocket watch with a street value of $600. I guessed that items like this one and the fruitcake I saw in Carl’s apartment were for selling purposes rather than to solve puzzles, but would hold onto it for a while to make sure. In the check ledger I found a deposit from MTC Corporation and a check to Sonny Fletcher, Private Investigator. So Sonny was also a detective! I then opened up a cabinet and discovered a half full bottle of Pepto Bismol (which Google tells me is medicine for an upset stomach), a can of band-aids, and some radiation pills. Interestingly, when I picked up the band-aids, the message stated “You get the can of assorted band-aids that contained a Nexus passcard.” Huh!? I had no way of viewing my inventory while not in the speeder, so had no idea whether or not I was supposed to get the card out of the can prior to picking it up. I hoped for the best and continued my search.


October the 3rd was circled on the calendar on the back wall, and the word “Doomsday” was written above it. Doomsday? Interesting! When I opened the file cabinet, a message popped up saying: “Using the key found at Linsky’s home, you open the file cabinet drawer.” It seemed Mean Streets was going to apply items to puzzles without any need for me to use my brain. At least it informed me of the key’s use in this instance! In the drawer I came across a list of scientists “that may be working on Overlord.” Their names were 1 – John Klauss, 2 – Maurice Gribble and 3 – David Pope. That’s three more names on the list of leads for which I was going to need nav codes. With another section of the room completed, I walked over to the fork lift and began searching there. Along with the fork lift itself, there was a rat trap along with yet more crates. I swear there are more crates in this game than Half-Life!


I picked up the rat trap, and then looked at the crates. One of them had “an uneven hole near the floor”, so I opened it. “You reach inside the hole to open it further, and a large black rat grabs hold of your finger. You shake it furiously and it finally lets go. When you pull your hand out, a small chunk of your forefinger is missing.” Well that sucks! Was I supposed to use the rat trap on the crate first? Given there’s no way to actually apply items in the game, I couldn’t think of a way that I might have done that had I thought to. Merely opening the crate would have been enough if that were the case surely. Should I restore? Would the bite fester and eventually kill me? The only place that I’ve been able to save my game is in the speeder, so I would have to restore to back outside the warehouse and go through the shootout and entire investigation again. I decided to ignore the bite and hope it was just inserted for dramatic effect. There was nothing to do with the fork lift, so I moved onto the odd looking machine on the right hand side of the room.


The large machine was called an Alpha-Wave Processor, although once again I didn’t appear to be able to do anything with it. The crates next to it held 100 rounds of ammunition though, so I happily picked them up. The last section of the room (near the entrance) contained even more crates, a step ladder, and a storage shelf. Within the crates I found 3-1 oil and the key to the safe, both of which I picked up. I then grabbed the step ladder as well and then opened the storage shelf. Inside was a small piece of masking tape with the word “blue-bishop” on it. So just as at Carl Linsky’s apartment, within the warehouse I’d come across a bunch of puzzles that required missing items, only to discover exactly what I needed mere metres away. So far the adventure elements of Mean Streets have been a little on the easy side to say the least! Hopefully there are some more difficult challenges to come!


I took the safe key back over to the floor safe and opened it, revealing Carl Linsky’s life insurance policy from The Transamerica Insurance Company. The beneficiary was of course his daughter Sylvia and the value one million dollars. I was then able to use the step ladder that I’d just found on the other side of the room to get to the half opened box on the top of the crates. Inside I found an antique lamp with a street value of $1500. Another item to pawn for cash! Right, the only thing left to do in the warehouse was to see if I could get into the computer system. I walked over to it and tried to turn it on again. This time Tex swiped the passcard Id found in the band-aid can through the slot at the bottom of the monitor, at which point I was asked to enter the “Blue Password”. The password was pretty frickin obvious after finding the tape with the words “blue-bishop” on it. I entered the word “bishop” and gained access! I’ll insert all the project notes that I discovered in the computer below, instead of reciting them word for word.


By now it was very clear that Carl had wanted out of Overlord, and was concerned that he would be eliminated once his part in the project was complete. I left the warehouse at this point, and immediately gave all the new leads’ names to Vanessa (Cal Davis, Sonny Fletcher, David Pope, John Klaus and Maurice Gribble). She was able to send me information on three of the five, meaning I would need to turn to Lee Chin for the remaining two. She faxed me a news article regarding Cal Davis’ death which described how he accidentally ingested cyanide while conducting an experiment in his Santa Barbara home. The article revealed three useful pieces of information. Firstly, Cal Davis’ NC is 3720. Secondly, the police detective on the case was Smiley Monroe who can be found at NC 3614. Finally, the close friend of Cal’s that discovered his body was named Aaron Sternwood. Man, every lead seemed to be leading to numerous others! I was feeling pretty fortunate to have started my spreadsheet.


Two more faxes came in from Vanessa. The first one informed me that David Pope lives in Eureka at NC 6211 and the second one that Maurice Gribble lives in Palm Springs at NC 8231. I then called up Vanessa again to ask about Aaron Sternwood, only to receive a fax telling me to talk to Smiley Monroe. I figured Id try to collect the whole set of NCs and called Lee Chin to ask her about Sonny Fletcher and John Klaus, whom Vanessa hadn’t been able to tell me anything about. It took a $600 bribe to get her to tell me that I should “Talk to Delores Lightbody. She may know where to find John Klaus. They were lovers once.” It then took a whopping $1000 to convince her to inform me that “Sonny Fletcher stays at some run-down apartment in L.A.. Try NC 5170.”


This post has been of typical length for me, but all I’ve managed to cover is my questioning of John Richards and my investigation at the warehouse (along with the subsequent attempts to track down all the leads I’d uncovered there). Still, I’m determined to stick to the same level of detail that I’ve held for the past dozen or so games on the blog. I guess there are just going to be some games where this level of detail is going to drag things out, for which I apologise. I’m really hoping Mean Streets opens up a bit more; otherwise I could be doing this for about fifteen more posts, depending on how long the game is. Every room has dozens of clues and leads to sift through, yet the majority of them have been used to solve puzzles within the room itself rather than at other locations. There’s an implied level of complexity, but in reality everything has been surprisingly simplistic so far. I’m still very keen to push on though, so hopefully thats a feeling that remains right through to the games completion.


Session Time: 0 hours 45 minutes
Total Time: 3 hours 15 minutes

Note Regarding Spoilers and Companion Assist Points: Ive written a set of rules regarding spoilers and companion assist points. Please read it here before making any comments that could be considered a spoiler in any way. The short of it is that no points will be given for hints or spoilers given in advance of me requiring one. Please...try not to spoil any part of the game for me...unless I really obviously need the help...or I specifically request assistance. In this instance, Ive not made any requests for assistance. Thanks!