ZANY ADVENTURE
by Tim Betts / Stephen Parry, 1985
==================================
Solution by Exemptus - October 2023
Overview and general hints:
---------------------------
In this adventure we need to find the 8 Spider Legs of Time in order to become
the ultimate cool and froody being. The scenario is of the abstract / surreal
variety, with eclectic descriptions, absurd humour, and low thematic coherence.
This is in itself a genre, particularly practiced in the early 80s indie UK
school - I suspect influenced initially by Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to
the Galaxy subculture, but in the end unrelated to it.
This game has a number of original but not necessarily good features. It uses
four fixed windows: one for descriptions, another for input / output, a graphic
depiction that uses a stick-man figure to represent player actions and objects,
and a display stating number of spider's legs collected so far, boredom factor,
and whether the descriptions continue past the current screenful. The graphical
display is too sketchy to be of any use and becomes anecdotal. The boredom
factor is a counter: it begins at 0 and if enough time passes without any player
input, it is incremented by 1 (but never decremented). When it reaches 9, the
game ends; so it acts as an incentive to type actions, serving no real purpose
save for annoying the player, as there is no other real-time element at play.
The "further report" indicator is confusing but is nothing else than a "more?"
prompt. Some room descriptions are longer than the screen. If the indicator is a
red flashing "Y" then pressing 2 shows the rest of the description; finally,
MASSAGE is an accepted verb. That is all you need to know to play.
The parser is small but OK, basically verb + noun but admits combinations verb +
obj + noun with GIVE <character> <object>. EXAMINing objects is possible. The
most annoying feature of the game is, however, the deliberate slowness of the
input routine, which bleEeps black-heartedly with each key press and makes
giving commands so painful that the player soon is missing a good dental
drilling as a welcome relief from the nadir of despair promoted by the game.
This is clearly done on purpose, as the adventure aims to frustrate the player,
in alignment with the style of humour. As a design statement, I don't know, I'd
advise to try rug-weaving instead.
Brave adventurers have endured worse, though, and if the player perseveres, the
game is in fact reasonably logical (within the absurdist motif) to unravel. The
eight spider's legs are mostly found by giving some NPCs objects that are
appropriate for them, or doing things that are thematically expected, so it is
really not difficult to solve, only tiresome. The commands FAST and SLOW provide
some solace from the dreadful pace, as the former allows descriptions to appear
by the screenful, all at once; the latter is the default and prints them
character by character. I don't know what the authors were expecting by making
the interface player this hostile. Even if the game cost £1.99 back in the day,
sales figures were probably subatomic. Ah, the good old days.
Walkthrough:
------------
[We start in the room of doors, with a mattress and exits in all directions but
South. If we press 2, the extended description tells us that only really cool
people can go in that direction. We are assumed not to be cool enough at the
start, of course. First let's find about the game's goal, then we'll equip
ourselves to go south.]
FAST [Quick descriptions please]
W [A silver tape is here]
GET TAPE
N
E [There is a computer here]
LOAD TAPE
[We are told to find the 8 Spider's Legs of Time in order to become the Ultimate
Cool and Froody Being. All right. N of here there's a location with a Blaby game
which we can also LOAD here, but that is lethal.]
S
E [There is an umbrella here]
GET UMBRELLA
E
N [There are some green glasses here]
GET GLASSES
WEAR GLASSES [We automatically look cool]
S
W
W
JUMP MATTRESS [We jump south]
OPEN UMBRELLA [We are high up the Eiffel tower and otherwise we can't go S]
S [There is a Hebrew cookbook here]
[We'll keep the open umbrella for the rest of the game, as well as the glasses;
otherwise there's no way to travel again through the last two locations. There
are other ways back, but this one is not reversible.]
GET COOKBOOK [We will use it later]
W [Desert]
N [A mega-fiend's intestine is here]
GET INTESTINE [Will be useful]
W [A letter costume is here]
GET COSTUME
S [Moses and a group of jews are here, but it's not the cookbook they're after]
E
E [Back at M&S]
S [Changing room; there is a postbox here]
[The letter costume is exactly that, a costume to disguise ourselves as a
letter, which of course allows us to enter the postbox.]
WEAR COSTUME
ENTER POSTBOX [We discover a spider's leg]
[We now have the first spider's leg. We have entered a new location, which has a
camera. We can ignore it as it's not useful. E of here there is a location which
will send us away to a random room in the game. This could be fatal and in any
case there's no reason to risk it, so we'll go back the same way we came.]
N
DROP COSTUME [We can remove and drop all in one move]
E
[This location has a description written backwards, which says "This is the
backwards room. Gollum says: When you feel the thirsty blues a small intestine
you should use". Neither logical nor very good poetry, but it's a good clue. The
location also has the quirk that commands need to be typed backwards, because
the parser will reverse anything here. Of course, single-letter commands are the
same. Here there is a mega-fiend trap which is of no use at all, because there
are no mega-fiends in the game.]
E [Galactica Bistro; a barmaid comes over, and there is some cheese here]
GIVE BARMAID INTESTINE [She thanks us and gives us a drink]
DRINK DRINK [It works; we have 2 spider's legs now]
I [We have a tankard]
DROP TANKARD [Not needed]
GET CHEESE
S [Let's ignore the lighter for the moment]
E [There is Ugthug the caveman and some weedkiller here]
GET WEEDKILLER
S [Changing room again]
E
N [Kitchen of a samurai dentist looking for recipes (!)]
GIVE SAMURAI COOKBOOK [He gives us a 3rd spider's leg]
GET SKINS
N [A maze made of hard cheese? Not really]
E
S [There's a hungry mouse here (press 2 for extra description)]
GIVE MOUSE CHEESE [It starts digging and we automatically follow]
S [Wimbledon; there's a lever and an ancient scroll here]
GET SCROLL
[If we pulled the lever, we'd be transported to a trap end-of-game location, so
let's double back.]
N
W [There's a mirror here, which we ignore]
W [A giant plant blocks the way]
GIVE PLANT WEEDKILLER [The way N is now open]
N
[We appear in the "Name That Tune" studios. For the pop-culture challenged, this
was an American TV show where contestants had to do what it says on the tin. At
this time a melody should be heard and we have to identify it. The melody is
random, so it's not possible to say in advance which one it will be, but the
possibilities are only POSTMAN PAT, GREENSLEAVES, MATCH OF THE DAY, WHEREVER I
LAY MY HAT, or YESTERDAY. If we get it right, we get our 4th spider's leg. I
will assume it's "Postman Pat" as an example. And yes, I know the right spelling
is GREENSLEEVES, but the game only acknowledges GREENSLEAVES. So there.]
POSTMAN PAT [Replace with the correct name of the tune; we have 4 spider's legs]
N [There's an egg timer here, which we dutifully ignore]
N [Some ultra-cigarettes can be found here]
GET CIGARETTES
E
S [The desert location with Moses]
GIVE MOSES SCROLL [He gives us our 5th spider's leg]
E
E
S
E
E
S
GET LIGHTER
E [With Ugthug again]
GIVE UGTHUG SKINS [He thanks us and says his tummy is empty]
[This is OK, it's the right move. Ugthug will give us a spider's leg, but he
needs two objects. The skins go first, and then we'll have to find something for
him to eat.]
W
S [To hard cheese "maze"]
E
S [With the mouse gone, we'll be sent elsewhere on entering this location]
[The mouse tunnel location is not available anymore, but this opens a new part
of the map for us. Here we have a brontosaurus rubbing his aching back.]
MASSAGE BRONTOSAURIUS [Remember the hint I gave you before]
N [We are taken before the chainsmoking Prince of Mars]
LIGHT CIGARETTES [This is what the lighter was for]
GIVE PRINCE CIGARETTES [He gives us the 7th spider's leg]
N
[Only one to go. In this location there is a fossilized hamburger, which is
exactly the kind of thing our friend Ugthug would appreciate. N of this location
connects with the initial area of the map, so we go back the long way. This is
why we couldn't drop the glasses or the umbrella.]
N [Closet]
S
S
JUMP MATTRESS
S
S
E
E
S
E [Ugthug again]
GIVE UGTHUG HAMBURGER [8th spider's leg, and the game ends]
[Sort of. Our spider is squashed and the game tells us we have to start all
over, but don't fret: you really finished it. End of game.]
