Castle By Peter Langston For Wander interpreters Solution by Garry Francis ---------------------------------------- This is a minimal solution. You can't examine anything, so don't bother trying. Some optional (but significant) commands are shown in parentheses. These can be omitted once you know what to do. There is no score. Your objective is to rescue the damsel in distress and she will "reward" you. (It's up to you to work out what the "reward" is.) Alternatively, you can choose to rescue the prince and he will "reward" you. The choice is yours. I was not able to rescue both as the code makes this impossible. There is a lot to explore, including a couple of mazes, each with one or two random exits. The exits in each room are not always given, so you need to try every exit (N, S, E, W, U, D, NE, NW, SE & SW), just to make sure that you haven't missed any. Exits are added at various points if you do the "right" thing, but they are also closed off if you do the "wrong" thing. Some exits don't allow you to leave if you are carrying a particular item, such as the damsel or a weapon. All of this adds up to a game that is very difficult to map. The real killer in this game is the hunger daemon. You start with an energy of 50. If I'm reading the code correctly, the energy is decremented every time you try to move to a different location, even if the move was unsuccessful. When the energy drops to 25, you can replenish it by eating food. The wild strawberries increase your energy by 15, but the energy expended to find these (because of the random exits) is not worth the effort. The apple increases your energy by 25 and the potatoes increase your energy by 60. In other words, if you eat all the food, you must complete the game within 150 moves, or 135 if you skip the wild strawberries. When your energy drops to 15, you're told that "You're getting awfully hungry". This is the hint that you need to eat something. In case you miss that message, if your energy drops to 6, you're told that "You are near starvation". If your energy drops to 1, you die, but the game doesn't end. You just can't do anything. If you want to cheat, you can bump up your initial energy by changing variable 1 (near the bottom of castle.misc) from 50 to (say) 500. NOTE: Once you get to the armory, there are several ways out of the castle. The shortest and easiest is via the drawbridge. However, this requires the mace and a bug in the source code that I used caused the game to crash when you drop anything in the armory. To fix this, open castle.wrld, go to room #44.0 and change the two instances of %INP_OBJ% to %INP_W2%. You should also add a blank line before room #44.1. If you don't want to fiddle with the source code, see the map for a couple of other routes. (I) (you're carrying a channel selector knob & Wander instruction guide) S TAKE APPLE N W N TAKE BOAT E N (using the boat) N TAKE ROPE S (slip of paper says magic word is xyzzy, forget it, it doesn't work) S E (the boat gets left behind) S S TIE ROPE D (someone has scratched "Can you dig it?" on one of the walls) TAKE KEYS U N N UNLOCK GATE DROP KEYS (so that you don't drop them in the outhouses) E N TAKE BALLOON S W W W S W (using the balloon) S TAKE SHOVEL GO UPRIVER (if you guessed that, you're a genius) E S NE D DIG (with shovel, opens tunnels to N and NE) NE NE E U U PRESS BUTTON (tapestry opens & you're transported to king's bedchamber) N (if you haven't wasted any moves, you should get hungry here) EAT APPLE (From this point on, there are two solutions - rescue the damsel or rescue the prince. You can't do both.) Solution 1: Rescue the damsel ----------------------------- NW (E) (TAKE POTATOES) (W) U U TAKE WIG D E E U CARRY DAMSEL (exit closes, take damsel to crossroads & she'll reward you) CLIMB WIG (the wig falls apart) W W D S W (TAKE MACE) (it won't budge, strange force is holding it in place) (READ SIGN) (it says, "Danger -- Shock Hazard") DROP KNOB (KABOOM! all exits destroyed bar one, you can now get the mace) TAKE MACE E (drawbridge is held up by iron chain) BREAK CHAIN (with mace, the dawbridge slams down) S W U W LOOK (you're transported to nirvana) SCREW DAMSEL ***THE END*** Solution 2: Rescue the prince ----------------------------- D E NE W TAKE MATCH NW U (E) (TAKE POTATOES) (W) S W (TAKE MACE) (it won't budge, strange force is holding it in place) (READ SIGN) (it says, "Danger -- Shock Hazard") DROP KNOB (KABOOM! all exits destroyed bar one, you can now get the mace) TAKE MACE E (drawbridge is held up by iron chain) BREAK CHAIN (with mace, the dawbridge slams down) S (S) (the portcullis blocks your way, we'll have to do something about that) W U S D N N U LIGHT MATCH (sign says open door, then duck) OPEN DOOR (you hear the hum of machinery below you) DUCK (you duck into missile control & it prompts you to choose target) ENTER PORTCULLIS (the display flashes "Press button to detonate") PRESS BUTTON (you hear a distant boom) U (you're back at the crossroads) E N E E S (portcullis is now open) S S S TAKE FROG N W N W LOOK (frog turns into a prince & you're transported to nirvana) SCREW PRINCE ***THE END***