Walkthrough for Syrtis Software's Micro Gold Adventure Never mind Abersoft and/or Melbourne House, _this_ is the best version of Colossal Cave a.k.a. Adventure for the ZX Spectrum! All the text is there - as far as I can tell, not a word was omitted - and no unnecessary puzzles were added, either. Reaction times are good, too. In other words, if you want to play Adventure on a Spectrum, this is the one to play. Since it is this faithful to the original, any general solution should work and this solution should work for any other correct port, as well. In fact, most of it was taken from a walkthrough for the original version, with some minor changes for convenience. I'd credit the original author, but he didn't see fit to sign his work. My changes are as follows: - I've optimised the lamp usage slightly. This should not be necessary, but better safe than sorry. - Where this walkthrough uses room names to move, I've added the individual moves which would duplicate this one move between [square brackets]. This version doesn't need this, but there are ports - some of them to rather more powerful machines than the Speccy - which omit these verbs. - In the pirate maze, I've added a section to improve your chances if you haven't met him yet at that point. Even this does not guarantee victory, but it does make life a bit easier. Speaking of the pirate, he is one of two features of this, and any other true, version of Adventure which are randomised and may make your game unwinnable. Unfortunately no walkthrough can get rid of these. The problem with the pirate is that you _must_ meet him to finish the game, but you can't be sure to do so before your lamp's batteries run out. If you're efficient it's highly likely that you will, though. If your luck fails... nothing to do about it, start again. If he does appear, he steals whatever treasures you may be carrying. This is not a real problem (you will get them back in the end) but may make it necessary to change the order in which you collect the others. It's only the trident and the eggs which are a problem here - he can only nick the pillow if he also takes the vase at the same time - so if he steals either of those, skip forward to the Pirate Maze part (marked with *** below), and do that first to retrieve them. The other random factor are the dwarves, and these need a bit of attention. The first one you meet will throw an axe at you. Pick this up and take it with you. _When_ this happens is unpredictable, so it isn't shown in the walkthrough. Just keep in mind that, for your own safety, you must take the first dwarf's axe. Subsequent dwarves will throw knives, which will disappear. These may kill you. It's not very likely, but if they do, again, nothing to do, start over. If the knife misses, this is where the axe comes in. Throw it at the dwarf. You'll probably kill him. If not, take back the axe and try again. If you do succeed, take back the axe anyway: there will be more dwarves. Keeping that in mind, and from the end of the road: Go east, take the lamp, and enter the magic word "plugh". Yes, that works without you having learned about it. Then enter "plover". Ignore the emerald for now; you won't get it out this way. Go ne, light your lamp (this can be done using just the command "on"), get the pyramid, off, go south, plover. On, go south, get the silver, north, off, and plugh. Drop the pyramid and the silver bars. Take the bottle, plugh, on, go south and down, and enter "bedquilt", which will take you to the room with that name [or if you're playing another version which doesn't recognise this, go west, down, west]. Then slab [or keep going south until you do end up at the Slab Room], south and down. Water the plant, go up, west and up, reservoir [or north twice]. Get water; south twice, down, south, down, water the plant again. Go up, east and down, get some oil, and go up, west and down. Climb the plant, then go west and north. Oil the door and drop the bottle. Go north, take the trident, and go west, down and se. Leave the vase here for now - it's not safe to take (or rather, drop) yet! Instead, go north and west, and drop your lamp and trident, and the axe if you have it. With empty hands, go east. We've been here before; this time, do take the emerald, then go back west. Take everything you dropped here. Go nw and south, _now_ take the vase, go se and east and take the pillow. Go west, ne, east and north. Open the clam, go down twice, take the pearl, go back up twice, then south, up, east, up and north. Off and plugh. Now drop the pillow _first_, then drop the vase, trident, pearl and emerald. Now for the final, most famous magic word: xyzzy. East, get the cage, west, on get the rod, west twice. First drop the rod, then get the bird and take back the rod. Go west and down twice, and drop first the bird, then the cage. Go sw and west, kill the dragon, and answer "yes". Take the rug. Some more easy treasure now: east twice and west, get coins, east and south, get jewelry, north, up and west, wave and drop the rod, west, get diamonds, east twice and south, get gold, north, y2 and down [or up and north twice], off, plugh. Drop the rug, coins, jewelry, diamonds and gold. Take the food and keys. Plugh, on, south and down, bedquilt [or w, s, w], west thrice, down, climb the plant, west, get eggs, north twice, west and down, sw and up. The troll wants some treasure, but we don't want to give him any. There's a way around that, though. Throw the eggs - we'll be able to get those back. Go ne twice, barren [or east, se, south], east. Throw the food. Unlock and get the chain, then take the bear. No, you're not really carrying him; he'll start following you around. Go west twice, north, ne and east. Take the spices, and go west, south, west twice and sw. There's that rotten troll again, and we have no treasure we want to give him! Well... drop the bear. Go sw twice, down, se twice, west twice, down, climb and west. Now note what's written on the wall: enter, as four commands: fee, fie, foe, foo! Hah - there they are. Take the eggs, then go all the way back south, down, up, west, north, east, up, east, up, north, off, and plugh. Drop the spices, chain and eggs. Now for the pirate. Plugh, on, south twice, up, west thrice, and south. *** You are now at the first location of the Pirate's "All Alike" Maze. *** From here, go east, south, south, south, north, east (you're at Brink of Pit) east and nw. If you've met the pirate - regardless of whether he managed to steal anything - there is a treasure chest here. If not, go se, north, west, west, west, east, east, west (you're now back at the start of the maze) and repeat from *** until either you meet him and find the chest, or your batteries run out, in which case it's game over. Take the chest, then go se, north and down out of the maze, then east twice, off, and xyzzy. Drop the chest - you now have all the treasures, but still need the Last Lousy Point - plugh, and on. Go south, down, west, down and east. Take the Spelunkers, east, and drop them. Then go north, and keep going north until you stop going in circles and get back to the Anteroom. Now for the End Game: keep wandering about the cave until you end up in the Repository. Don't leave the cave, though! Don't use either "plugh" or "xyzzy", and don't go up the grate (not that you could, it's still locked, but just in case you unlocked it for some reason - don't go up it). Finally, in the Repository, go sw, get the rod, ne, drop the rod, sw, blast. And that's it: you've won the first ever adventure game! -- Richard Bos, August 2014