GATEWAY TO THE SKIES Solar Software, 1983 ==================== Solution by Exemptus - August 2022 Overview and general hints: --------------------------- This is an old-school treasure quest peppered with puzzles, mazes, objects, red herrings, and general ill will against adventurers. We have to find the Six Golden Treasures of Zalea across the land and bring them all to the Palace of King Zalea; there is really no more story to it. Why has the game taken so long to be solved? The puzzles are low to moderate difficulty, so that is not it. Most of the difficulty comes from an accumulation of devious design details. First, the game is linear through segmented zones: once you pass from a zone to another, there is no way back. Inventory space is fairly generous, but since there is no Treasure Room (as we need to carry the six treasures to the endgame with us) we need to be careful with objects to carry, which there are plenty of. Not knowing which are useful is part of the trouble, compounded by most of them actually being useful. And out of these, almost all have a single use, but a few have more than one. One of the required objects is a lamp, which we need as light source, and another important one cannot be dropped once picked up without destroying it, and it is used rather late in the game. The BBC version is split into two parts for memory reasons, emphasizing this segmentation, but it's functionally identical to the Spectrum version. In addition, there are some situations which are cleverly presented as puzzles, but in fact are red herrings. Possibly the trickiest one involves a treasure (the golden key) which is duplicated, therefore can be ignored, and actually *ought* to be, but there are several contextual clues strongly pointing at it being a puzzle. It is not. Many a player has been flummoxed by this, I'm sure. More yet: the game is mostly deterministic save for a couple of random situations, but one of these (the dwarf) is really, really tough to overcome, and will tax the player's patience, as it's also disguised as a puzzle. There are several mazes in the way of the player which can't be ignored. They are annoying as they all have a no-escape location which absorbs connections, so there is a single path and typically no way back through. The Spaghetti Tree Maze is particularly infamous because it triggers two separate timers which will insta-kill the player unless very few turns are used to negotiate it, which makes it irksome to map, but at least there are no random connections. There are exactly six treasures, all of which have the adjective "golden". They can be found at each of the six milestone "Halls of Enlightenment" the player needs to go through, so there is no confusion about what is a treasure. This helps, because there are some other objects (diamond, platinum, silver, etc) which look valuable, but they have other uses. The diamond is particularly vexing, as it takes some work to get and I'm convinced the designer planned it so the player would conclude that it is a well-concealed red herring after all, since it is difficult to find a use for it and there is an obvious use which goes nowhere, but it takes time to realise this. And, as it turns out, the diamond does have a use after all, but it's likely the player will be tricked into thinking otherwise well before the right time comes. Six directions (NESWUD) suffice and INV gives the inventory. No major vocabulary quirks, but some verbs are very specific to puzzles and are used only once. No abbreviations are used: words have to be typed in full. There's no EXAMINE or SEARCH so objects can't be inspected, but some can be READ for clues. The lamp is a light source, but has another use as well. About a third of the locations are dark, even those outside, for some reason, although in the second half of the game all locations are lighted. This offers some relief with inventory juggling. Once on, there seems to be no way (or need) to turn the lamp off, as it lasts indefinitely. In fact the lamp can be discarded halfway through the game, although this is far from obvious. All valid directions are indicated on screen at every location, except for *one* room: the very first one, where we start. There is no indication of an exit to the West, but there is, and a very necessary object is in there. This is, of course, deliberate: designers love a chuckle at the player's expense. Walkthrough: ------------ [We begin in the village square, carrying nothing. Our most important priority is a light source, which we can get very easily, and we can explore most of the initial area quickly. There are a number of objects here which we will be taking and using as soon as possible so they don't get in the way later.] N [Gift shop; they have free lamps] GET LAMP S [That was easy enough, but we can't light the lamp yet. Let's go find more objects.] S S [Police station] [From here DOWN there is a fake no-exit one-location maze, also reachable through the supermarket. Some directions are there to be ignored.] GET MONEY [If it is "weird" it's likely to be fake] E GET CARD S [You may ignore the can of juice, and the graffiti can't be read.] D [Dead end] [There is a booby trapped object in this location, which is the filthy sock. It reeks so terribly that in a couple of turns we'll die if near it. One is tempted to look for a clothespin or similar, but there is no such thing: the sock is just a trap. We need the matches, though, because they'll allow us to light the lamp.] GET MATCHES U [W from here there is a location with a violent burglar. Unless we have something he wants (the money), he will kill us, therefore making it a one-time location only. We need to reach the room beyond it, so we need to time it so it won't be a problem later. We double back for the time being.] N [Back to spaghetti tree row] [Do you notice the odd capitalization of the word trEaSUre here? It's a clue for the spaghetti tree maze, giving the right directions to cross it (E,S,U). It is a cool clue, but easy to miss, making the maze later a bit of a nightmare.] W N N E [Market] BUY FOOD [What with?] CARD [Obviously, the fake money is fake] W ON LAMP [Using the matches] DROP MATCHES [We won't be needing to re-light the lamp] W [A secret store room!] GET PICKAXE E S E GET BOTTLE [The bottle will not be needed until a lot later, and once we pick it up, it will break if we drop it, making it a nuisance to carry around - but there is no other way about it.] W S E S W [Furnace room; the robber is here] W [He steals our fake money] [Here we find a laser gun and a mouse that bites if we try to get the gun. To the S we have Inglenook Farm, whose exits (including this one) are blocked by a gaggle of geese. The food allows us to get past the geese - but it turns out that it is also needed for the mouse, and will disappear once used with the geese. So it is possible to reach this room from the other side without going through the Furnace (and spending our one-time pass) but doing so totally prevents the player from getting the gun, therefore making the game silently unwinnable. You have to love the 80s.] DROP FOOD [The mouse takes a bite and falls asleep] GET FOOD GET GUN S FEED GEESE GET FEATHER [The geese left one] S S [A pink hyena blocks passage] TICKLE HYENA [We need the feather for this] DROP FEATHER S [This is the 1st Hall of Enlightenment and our first treasure, a golden sovereign. It's best not to carry treasures until we are ready to leave the zone, as there is no way back, so we'll ignore it for now.] W GET KNIFE E S [By Aladdin's cave] E [The cave is closed] OPEN SESAME [This is fairly natural to try, and it works] E [Kitchen; the porridge is useful, but not immediately] U GET ROPE D S [Lounge] [If we try going D from here, we'll find there is a rubber plant blocking our way. We need the knife to cut it, but it's too blunt, so we have to sharpen it.] E [Broom cupboard with an oilstone] [Good news: we can sharpen the knife with the oilstone here, but there's no exit from this cupboard. Not *conventional* exit, at least] RUB LAMP [We are transported back to Inglenook Farm] [The Aladdin's cave setting before should have suggested the idea.] E [Entrance to diamond mine] THROW ROPE [It attaches itself securely, allowing us to go down] D W [The mine is the first maze, but at least it's short and easy] N E [A diamond-encrusted cave] DIG HOLE [A diamond falls out] [The game is finicky here: neither DIG DIAMOND nor DIG WALL work, or any variation using a different verb.] DROP PICKAXE GET DIAMOND [There is no way to get the pickaxe out of the mine: if we climb the rope with it we'll slip and get impaled on the axe after the fall. This is not a puzzle, we just won't be needing the pickaxe anymore.] N W U [Out of the mine] S S S GET SOVEREIGN [This time we're ready] S E S [You can ignore the map; even if maps are always useful, this one isn't] D [The plant blocks us] CUT PLANT [Well done] D GET LADDER U N GET PORRIDGE U S THROW LADDER [Otherwise going DOWN will be deadly] [DOWN from here we'll go across to the next zone, and there'll be no way back. It is important to check your INV at this point: you should have, if all went right, the lamp, knife, gun, diamond, bottle, sovereign, and porridge.] D N GET SILVER [W of here is certain death, so don't go there] S S W [To the Spaghetti Tree Maze] [The Spaghetti Tree Maze must have one of the top frustration-to-size ratios ever: it's just four locations, but just a wrong step and we'll end up trapped. It also uses an anti-map device in the form of timers that kill us if we spend just a few turns here. Best to use the E,S,U clue we mentioned before and pass though quickly.] E S U [Congrats - here is the 2nd Hall of Enlightenment and the second treasure as well.] GET PENDANT W [There is book of spells here] GET BOOK [If we try to READ BOOK, it will wisely tell us that we'd better do that later, which is correct - that solves a puzzle if done at the right time.] N [There is a dragon here] THROW KNIFE [The dragon is killed] [This is why we brought the knife with us; the laser gun and other hostile or peaceful approaches don't work. So the knife had a secondary use, although no more, so we may leave it here.] E [T-junction] U [The steep side of Mt Zalea] [If we continue climbing, we'll die from exhaustion, which is a hint that maybe we need some kind of pick-me-up.] S [Inn] GET BEER DRINK BEER [The beer allows us to climb the mountain, but it will only work once: we need to be prepared for what's up there.] N U [To the summit] [Here we find a pugnacious orc and a plank, which is a useful object. The orc, as expected, is ready to defend the plank from pesky adventurers.] FIGHT ORC [Only time FIGHT is used, but it works] GET PLANK D D [T-junction again] E [Kennels] [Every time we cross this location, a Great Dane will start following us. This can create problems later, so we need to send the dog away: but we can do it only once, so it's best to wait for the right moment.] S [No Man's Cave; going DOWN insta-kills us] S [Future room, there's a floating electronic eye here watching us] W [The electronic eye won't open the door] [Here we have a confusing puzzle, possibly for unintended reasons: the wording suggests that the eye is the only thing capable of opening the door but it won't do so for some motive. At this point the player naturally infers that there is some object that maybe cannot be carried, or that the eye can somehow be enticed to open the door under some conditions. But what the game really means to say is that the eye is actively *preventing* the door from being opened, as it finds us suspicious. This changes the perspective: the eye is actually a hindrance and the solution should follow not long after this realization.] THROW PORRIDGE [The eye cannot follow us and we are free to pass] [Now we can dispense with the trailing mutt, but we need to double back a bit.] N N W W N [Torture chamber; there are some bones here] GET BONES S E E S [This is a good place, as we have passed the kennels again and won't need to go back.] THROW BONES [The dog goes away] S W [Note the world XYNO is scrawled on the wall, for future reference] S [And we are at the 3rd Hall of Enlightenment, with a third treasure, a golden pen. This marks the first half of the game. Still with me? Get ready for this.] GET PEN D [Basement] DROP LAMP [Believe or not, all locations are lighted from this point on] W [There's a pool of acid and a Mad-Eyed Screamer here] SHOOT SCREAMER DROP GUN [Not needed anymore] GET ACID [We fill the bottle; this is what the bottle was for] E S W S D [Underground vault; a parchment is here] GET PARCHMENT READ PARCHMENT [Seems to be blank] POUR ACID [Aha, it was invisible ink] READ PARCHMENT ["Rub thy bottle, see thy genie": a valuable clue] DROP PARCHMENT DROP BOTTLE [It smashes, but we don't need it now] U N E N [Basement again] [N from here is a coal bunker with a hot piece of coal. Ignore it: if it quacks like a puzzle, then it's likely to be the designer pulling a fast one.] E [The Fountain of Life: against all expectations, it has no use] S [By a river; we need the plank to cross it] DROP PLANK W [The moment we enter this location, a donkey shows up and takes away our silver bar. Should we not have a silver bar, it's curtains. Fortunately we did.] W GET SWORD [Ooh, shiny] E S [To the Maze of Azyz] [Another maze, much like the others. This one does not have kill timers, but another surprise awaits us.] D E [A little dwarf is here] [OK, this is a *very* aggravating dwarf that we need to get past, as he's blocking all exits. He (it?) can only be killed with the sword, but he can kill us as well: the problem is that each turn he has a 10% probability of killing us and so do we, but we drop the sword after each attack and we have to lose a turn to get it again. So effectively the dwarf has the advantage. He is faster, so always swings first. You need the collaboration of your random number generator here: just repeat the sequence KILL DWARF, SWORD, GET SWORD until either is killed. Sure, you may think emulator snapshots might help prevent having to restart the game from the last position, but snapshots (if correctly implemented) will also keep the state of the random sequence, so you will always get the same results from a restored snapshot. The more tech-savvy readers will probably know how to stack the odds here without compromising the integrity of the game play, but I shall assume that luck is on your side.] KILL DWARF [What with?] SWORD [You killed the dwarf! GET SWORD and repeat if not] N W [Out of the maze; there is a wraith here] [Out of the frying pan. Wraiths are fearsome opponents. Only high-level magic works against them. Remember the book?] READ BOOK [The wraith dies screaming, pointing N] DROP BOOK S [Never follow a wraith's directions, you should know that] [Your prize is the 4th Hall of Enlightenment and a fourth treasure. Let's press on.] GET LOCKET D [There is a wizard here] [The wizard offers a pill that allows us to solve any maze in exchange for the diamond. It looks like this is the right use for the diamond, as it's likely we will find an unsolvable maze later. But no. The wizard is a swindler and the pill does jack all. We *will* need the diamond, but not for this purpose.] S [Zodiac room - there is a pack of card here, which can be ignored] E E [Hall of wizardry, and look, a magic wand] GET WAND [Wands are often useful, although by now we have reason to doubt] D D [Another "vast complex of dungeons" maze. Sounds daunting, but this one is a dud and and can be crossed in two moves.] E E [Dark, narrow passageway] [There is no way back and the two exits are closed doors. Not many options are left to us, so we use one of the obvious ones.] WAVE WAND ["The door miraculously opens", but in fact both doors do] [Let's not discard the wand just yet. Now we face one of the most egregious gambits in the history of text adventures: the room to the N contains a golden key (a treasure) ostensibly under a ladder, another exit up, and we will die if we just get the key and try to exit the room (either way) due to "bad luck", as the ladder falls on us. The room to the E has a rabbit's paw and another exit. What are we to do? Players will fall victim to their own sagacity and try to use the rabbit's paw to change their luck somehow, thereby successfully absconding with the key. and maybe something else is needed, like the pack of cards we found earlier. Well. The truth is that this elaborate setup is all a ruse and a big red herring: there is no way to avoid death once we enter the N room. The whole puzzle can, and should, just be ignored (the rabbit's paw is needed to exit the E room, though). The golden key is indeed a treasure, but, as it turns out, there is another one we can get later.] E GET PAW [We'll die if we go Up without it] U [Summit of Mt Taevo] [There is a time machine here. This brings to mind suggestions of devious time-travelling puzzles like the one in Zork III, but luckily it's just a device to travel to the next area. Here is where the diamond is used, since the description says the machine is "jewel-powered".] INSERT DIAMOND [We travel to the next area] D [We are on a large Persian carpet] WAVE WAND [The carpet magically flies away] [And we are at the 5th Hall of Enchantment now, with our fifth treasure. Just a last push is needed.] DROP WAND DROP PAW GET AMULET S [Dead end: there is a high wall at the border of the Kingdom] [Actually, this is not too difficult, as there is one thing we found we haven't tried yet - the magic word. Remember that it was "scrawled on the wall", which is the same wording used here to describe the wall] XYNO [We get over the wall; there is a zalet coin here] GET ZALET W [Market square; there is potion on sale] S [There is a pego coin here] [So we have coins of two different denominations. Either one buys the potion in the market but only the zalet coin can be used to advance later. We will use it now just to get it out of the way.] E [Coin-operated door] INSERT ZALET [The door slides open] W GET PEGO N BUY POTION N [Beneath Northern Arch] [If we go N we will be killed by a crowd of lepers, which the potion prevents, but it has to be used here.] THROW POTION [The lepers are frozen] N [There's a platinum bar here] GET PLATINUM W E S S E [Taking a quick inventory check: you should have the platinum bat and five golden treasures, nothing else.] E [The Maze of Good News] [Of course, another maze. How lovely. At least this one has no other particular trickery. I guess that's actually good news. We wonder if the clue is that the right path is given by the directions NEWS, but that would be too droll.] N E W S [Oh well] [And here we are, at the Gateway to the Skies. Upwards is the King's palace and the end of the game. But wait - we are yet missing one treasure. South we go.] S U [Here it is, the 6th Hall of Enlightenment, and the golden key duplicate. We now have the full count. But wait, it won't be so easy, of course. If we try to take the stairs holding the key, we will be told that the enormous weight of the key (must be quite large, or otherwise magical) has made the leaning tower to collapse, and we die. So we can't take it directly, but fortunately the solution is neither far not difficult.] U [The roof; there is an old winch here] [The tower has a manually operated lift. It's actually more a dumb waiter, but you get the idea. The winch can be used to move the lift and manoeuvre the key out of the tower.] TURN HANDLE [The description does not mention a handle, but a winch needs one] D GET KEY E [On lift] DROP KEY W U TURN HANDLE D D E GET KEY W N [Directly going U alerts the guard and we are killed as a result, but this guard is on minimum wage, so the platinum will help.] GIVE PLATINUM [The guard takes it] U [We have scored 60 out of 60...] [...and completed the game. The king abdicates and leaves the Kingdom in our capable hands. Well done.]