A note about the Easter egg in the 1984 text-adventure game L -- A Mathemagical Adventure by The Association of Teachers of Mathematics for the 8-bit BBC Micro computer This document was created by "ahope1" in February, 2015, and can be found at the Classic Adventure Solutions Archive (CASA): http://solutionarchive.com/game/id%2C5360/ Document version 1.0 CONTENTS a. An Easter Egg in L b. Walkthrough c. Spoiler d. Links a. AN EASTER EGG IN L The game "L -- A Mathemagical Adventure" is, for an educational text adventure, rather long and rather complicated. A full -- or nearly full -- walkthrough is available at CASA. At least one other walkthrough is also available online. (Links below.) What most players and walkthroughs of L don't seem to realise, however, is that the game conceals an Easter egg. This document reveals how to find that Easter egg and also tells you exactly what the Easter egg actually is (in the Spoiler section, below). The reason the Easter egg seems to have gone unnoticed is probably that you need to have access to the original manual for the game to know that the Easter egg even exists. The manual is the one place where you'll find a particular coded message printed across a double-page spread, and the only way to discover that there's an Easter egg hidden in the game is to decode that message. The manual for L was unavailable online until recently, when I, being mildly obsessed with the game, acquired, scanned, and uploaded it as a PDF. (See the Links section, below.) The encoded message printed in the manual is as follows: &337 -$.=@ >*= />3$= \&!0 9$ >*= /3->* "!@> 3, >*= 5!8= Note that there is a (deliberate?) typo in the message as it is printed in the original manual! b. Walkthrough The following walkthrough assumes that you've just begun a new game but haven't made any moves yet. The walkthrough takes you through the process of decoding the message printed in the original manual. Take care when typing in the walkthrough. Don't do it too quickly or you might miss the appearance of a Drogo robot guard, which will capture you unless you defeat it by immediately typing in the square root of the number emblazoned on its chest. [Walkthrough begins] IN N N E U E E E E E S W &337 -$.=@ >*= />3$= \&!0 9$ >*= /3->* "!@> 3, >*= 5!8= E N W W W W W D W S W W N E MOVE CHEST D N E E E S S S GET SLAB [Walkthrough ends] c. Spoiler If you follow the walkthrough above, up to and including the final command, GET SLAB, then you should see the following message: _>_>_> The stone slab is very heavy but you can just lift it a few centimetres. Underneath it, a message scratched in the mortar reads:- "You'll be wondering why this adventure has the name L. For an explanation of this, and for more ideas on how to get nowhere in an interesting way, write to MIME, ATM, Kings Chambers, Queen Street, Derby DE1 3DA." <_<_<_ And that's the Easter egg in L. A bit of a let-down, isn't it? ;-) d. Links This document can be found at the Classic Adventure Solutions Archive (CASA): http://solutionarchive.com/game/id%2C5360/ A walkthrough for L, written by Darren Izzard, is available at the address above. A different walkthrough is available here: http://www.8bs.com/othrdnld/manuals/game/L-solution.zip The original manual for the BBC Micro version of L: http://www.stardot.org.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=5224#p104554 A disc-image of the game, suitable for playing in BBC Micro emulators, can be found at Stardot: http://www.stardot.org.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=5224 BeebEm, the BBC Micro emulator, for Windows: http://www.mkw.me.uk/beebem/ BeebEm, the BBC Micro emulator, for Mac: http://www.g7jjf.com/beebemmac.htm A beginner's guide to interactive fiction (or text-adventure games): http://pr-if.org/doc/play-if-card/ Video playthroughs of L and other BBC Micro text adventures: http://www.youtube.com/user/ahope1/playlists