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.]
