Plague Planet
Alpine Software 1988
- Language:
- English
- Authors:
- Philip Hawthorne
- Systems:
- ALPS
- Platforms:
- Archimedes , BBC/Electron
- Genres:
- Science fiction
- Entered by:
- iamaran
- Added:
- 28-08-2010
- Edited:
- 13-03-2020
Synopsis
It is several centuries since the collapse of the Terran Empire and many former colony planets, cut off from contact with Earth and its starships, have reverted to barbarism, their former origins forgotten. In many ways your old colony on the beautiful world of Azura was luckier than most, having settled into a peaceful agrarian economy, until one day...
You are working in the fields near your home. You hear a roaring noise overhead and look up to see a dark object flash across the sky. It disappears from sight and a few seconds later you hear a loud bang.
Notes
Resources (Upload file)
- Clue sheet
- by ?
- Further Info:
- Search at Complete BBC Games Archive
- Search at Museum of Computer Adventure Game History
[+] Users who have solved this game
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[+] Users currently playing this game
Hints here: http://www.stardot.org.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?f=40&t=10644
This is an intriguing game; a hunt the vaccine quest in a science fiction setting. The game play reminds me of the Heyley and Robico Games Stranded! and Escape From Enthar Seven respectively.
Unfortunately the text dumps require you to press the Shift key to read them in full after something like 75 percent of all parser responses; this becomes wearisome after a while in both Beebem and B-Em emulators regardless of display manipulation.
I am attempting this brute via B-em v2.2 and I initially had some problems in running it and getting the emulator's save and restore functions working happily. Initially I tried the BBC Master 128 model setting and it worked fine for a while; however, when I got to the craft operation section of the story my restored game files produced a screen full of "lalalalala" ad infinitum. I tried again selecting the BBC w/1770 FDC and Master 128 options and it seems more stable. It may be a better idea to try Beebem with Master 128 only selected.
Has anyone ever played this? I'm wondering whether there is a bug when attempting to access the files via the vidscreen. There is a file named LAND but you cannot access it as the parser claims "you've already done that!" when it hasn't been opened. It's either a very obscure puzzle or a bug.
OK; after three days' of frustration I have finally worked out what to do when in the space craft and having opened the vidscreen displayed files. Of course one of them is password protected. This is very, very hard (or it was to me, anyway). In ROT-13:
Tb gb gur pbzchgre ebbz. Frnepu gur pvephvg obneqf. Gnxr gur znahny. Ernq gur znahny. Fnl EHA. Jura gur pbzchgre (v'q vzntvarq vg jnf byq naq qrnq sbe fbzr ernfba) nfxf lbh sbe lbhe erdhrfg fnl CEVAG CYNARG PBBEQVANGRF.
No variation on that seems to work. It must have taken me around fifty incorrect entries to arrive at the correct one.
How many times should you have to repeat an unsuccessful action over and over again in the same place before it becomes a case of "you'd never do that?" I can recall Castle Of Riddles needing the same action repeated three times in a certain location for a positive outcome, which may be just about fair given the circumstances. Zork III (or the original mainframe dungeon) requires you to try somthing similar. Well, this game trumps them both. Never assume that something hasn't worked, even after four goes! Almost every puzzle in this game is tough; some fair, some not.