Solution for Les Howarth's Micro Puzzle (or Micropuzzle...)
This Basic program was published in Usborne Publishing's Weird Computer Games.
It was written in a "common" dialect of Basic, with various changes to be made
for different home computers. You may therefore find versions of it for all
those systems. The logic remains identical, so this walkthrough should work for
all of them. Beware, though! One commonly available version of this game for
the ZX Spectrum has a bug. Luckily, it's an easily repaired one: in line 210,
if the code you have says LET w$=q$(i+i TO), change this to LET w$=q$(i+1 TO).
Then RUN the game as usual.
It's still a Basic game, though, in any version, which means not a great deal
of flexibility. You can't abbreviate anything, except directions, which you
have to. It's also verb-noun only, which isn't unusual, but at several points
you will be asked questions to get around this; to these you must answer with
another noun. All input must be in all lower case or all upper case, depending
on the computer used and how the listing was typed in.
e, n, w, take thread, w, w, take cheese, s.
tie thread - you'll be asked to what; answer tree. climb thread.
s, e, e, take key, w, w, put key. To "where", answer train. press switch.
n, n, w, s, leave cheese - "drop" isn't recognised, and "put" doesn't
work here
(and by the way, yes, you can figure out why you need to do this).
s, s, take bottle, d, open bottle, d, open box, take paper, read paper.
e, take key, e, n, take remote-control (yes, you have to type the whole thing).
s, e, unlock computer, examine key, type 111, type grocer, n.
point remote-control - answer maximiser - examine remote-control, press button.
-- Richard Bos, October 2014
