DR. BONGO'S SAFARI PARK
Custom Software, 1983
=========================================
Solution by Exemptus - January 2022
Overview and general hints:
---------------------------
An early 1983 affair, written in BASIC, which fits into the Spectrum 16k. This
means that only about 9 Kb of code are available, which is not much. The story
is that you have arrived at evil Dr. Bongo's island, which has a safari park
(better not ask), and the task is to stop him from launching some missiles. This
is a Quest type adventure: the idea is to find and unblock the route to the
missile control room with the right tools to abort the launch.
As can be expected, the adventure is extremely terse, with no real descriptions,
no score, no NPCs and an ad-hoc parser, which looks at the first three letters
of verbs. A deterministic walkthrough is possible, as there are no random
elements at all. Objects can be EXAMINEd, but only a few give useful info. Red
herrings abound, for the small number of objects. There is a HELP facility that
works in a few locations.
An annoyance embedded in the design of the game is that the map is a circular
path, but an early puzzle forces the player to block a section of it, which
then forces the player to go all the other way around to reach locations that
would be otherwise nearby. This does not add to the difficulty; it's just a
drag.
Walkthrough:
------------
[We start at the park entrance.]
E [There is a radio here, but it serves no purpose]
S
S [There is a boat here]
EXAMINE BOAT [It's wrecked, but the boat will be needed later]
S
W
S [Ignore the watch]
S
E [The kangaroo looks like a puzzle, but it's just decoration]
E
N
E
[The honey is useful, but the moment we take it, the location right to the
north will be turn into an insta-kill, and we'll be forced to manoeuvre a lot to
avoid it, so it's better to defer taking this as much as possible.]
N [Ignore the bees]
N
GET AXE
E [Trees and coins are visible here]
CHOP TREES [Wood appears, we'll leave it for later]
DROP AXE
GET COINS
E
E
N [Leave the wallet]
N [And the urn]
E
E
E [And the map]
N
N [There is a gorilla here]
N
N
[The glasses here can be used to read the map, but that has no real purpose.
However, they also allow us to read the book we'll find later, and that is
useful. We'll pick them up later.]
W
W
S
S [There is a box here]
OPEN BOX [Nails, which will be useful later]
W
W
W
N [The wrapper looks like a red herring, but surprisingly, it is]
N
W
W
[This is the Cafeteria, which has two useful objects and a door. The objects
cannot be taken, since they are for sale, which is why we took the coins. There
is also a door...]
BUY BANANA
BUY BUN
DROP COINS [No longer needed]
OPEN DOOR [Now there is a doorway]
ENTER DOORWAY [The chef throws us out, so entry is reserved to chefs]
W
W [There is an elephant here]
HELP [Elephants like buns; well, we have one with us]
DROP BUN [Eats it and moves away, revealing a book]
GET BOOK
EXAMINE BOOK [It's a repair manual]
READ BOOK [It's all a blur; remember I mentioned the glasses before?]
E
E
E
E
S
W [A bear is here]
HELP [Bears like honey]
E
S
S
W [There is a hammer here, which we'll need]
GET HAMMER
E
N
E
E
E
GET NAILS
N
N
E
E
GET GLASSES
WEAR GLASSES
READ BOOK
[Says we need nails, hammer and wood. This will be useful later to repair the
boat. We could in fact do that now, but there is nowhere to take the boat to, so
we'll need to clear the way first.]
S
S [Gorilla garden]
DROP BANANA [Eats it and some gloves are revealed]
GET GLOVES
S
S
W
W
W
S
S
W
W
DROP GLOVES [A bit of juggling; will pick them up later]
GET WOOD
W
S
S
W
S
W
W
N
N
E
N [At riverbank again]
[Now we have the elements to repair the boat, so we do. The boat is needed
elsewhere, in order to reach the perimeter fence, but we cannot reach that
location yet. It is a bit perplexing, but once repaired the boat becomes a
carryable object. It saves a bit of time to position the boat at a convenient
place now, before we take the honey and cut the map in two.]
REPAIR BOAT [A job well done]
DROP BOOK
DROP HAMMER
DROP WOOD
DROP GLASSES [We empty our inventory, as none of these are necessary anymore]
GET BOAT
S
W
S
S
E
E
N
E
N
N
E
GET GLOVES
WEAR GLOVES
E
DROP BOAT [Here is a good place; now it's time to open the last path]
W
W
S
S
GET HONEY [From now on, the location with the bees is inaccessible]
W
S
W
W
N
N
E
N
N
N [At road junction]
N
N
W [Picnic area; ignore the stool and table]
N
N
E
E
E
E
S
W [Bear cave again]
DROP HONEY [He eats it and reveals a hat]
GET HAT
EXAMINE HAT [It's a chef's hat - aha, now we can enter the kitchen]
WEAR HAT
E
N
W
W
ENTER DOORWAY [This time we can, and we are in a kitchen]
GET STEAK [This will appease the tiger, which we haven't met yet]
[There is also a dustbin here, which cannot be taken, examined, or searched.
Tempted as we are to dismiss it as another red herring, we would be wrong, as it
can be LIFTed to reveal much needed keys. This is admittedly a bit left field,
as it is the only time in the adventure where LIFT is used.]
LIFT DUSTBIN
GET KEYS
N
DROP HAT [No longer needed]
E
E
S
S
E
E
E
N
N
E
E
S
S
S
S
W
W
W
S
S
W [This is where we left the boat]
GET BOAT
S
S [Ignore the gun]
S
[The tiger is here. If we try to go east, we will be killed. The gun is a red
herring, since it can be shot, but it triggers a stampede that kills us just
as well. The way to pass the tiger is to use the steak we just procured.]
DROP STEAK [It is pacified]
E
E
E
N [Another riverbank]
HELP [Boats are sailed here]
[We need the boat here as a vehicle in order to cross the river and reach the
last locations. The HELP message is necessary, as otherwise nothing suggests
this is actually a gateway location.]
DROP BOAT
ENTER BOAT [A-sailing we will go]
N [Perimeter fence]
[The gate can be OPENed, but it is electrified, which is why we are wearing
gloves.]
OPEN GATE
E [Control room]
EXAMINE NOTICE [*Abort launch*]
ENTER KEY
TURN KEY
[End of game.]
