THE ASIAN CHALLENGE
Buttonware, 1989
===================
Solution by Exemptus - September 2026
Overview and general hints:
---------------------------
This is an educational game which is part of the many text adventures
distributed by Buttonware as shareware in the mid-80s, most of which were
regular adventures forming a series, and a few were educational and outside that
series. This is the second of those; the three seem to run along similar lines.
Each one takes place across a continent and the goal is for us to gather data
about it, rendezvous with a submarine, and answers some questions about the
continent. All of them are aimed at beginners.
The game itself is very simple. There are plenty of inventory slots (but not
unlimited), a few puzzles, some imitation of NPCs, and a help system which gives
away solutions rather than hints. The vocabulary is identical to other games in
the series and the general dynamic is like the first adventure (South American
Trek). There is not a lot else to say in the way of features.
One important quirk: The parser is case sensitive. All input needs to be in
lowercase. This is particularly important for the final questions.
Walkthrough:
------------
[We start in Istanbul, carrying a compass and a scrap of paper. The paper gives
our instructions: learn all we can and signal a submarine waiting for us in the
Indian Ocean. The compass is needed for travel, without it we can't move, so
it's totally pointless and we'll ignore it. The paper has no other use.]
DROP PAPER
[All right, the general strategy is to get to Sri Lanka, find the submarine and
signal it. For that to happen we need two things: one, money to buy a boat to
sail with, and two, a means to signal the submarine. That's all, although we'll
have to cross the continent sideways to find those.]
S
S [Damascus, there is a steel sword here]
GET SWORD [We'll need this much later]
S
E
E
S [Dead Sea; a parchment is here]
READ PARCHMENT ["If you say fly away, to the sky you will fly"]
FLY AWAY [Doesn't work, we need to find something that flies]
[There is no need to take the parchment, reading it is enough. Those are magic
words, of course, but they need something else to work.]
N
E
E
N [Baghdad, a school teacher is here]
EXAMINE TEACHER [He got lost and needs a kind word to calm down]
SAY WORD
[The teacher is Mr. Piddlebush and will follow us from now on. He seems to
provide no other advantage than to recite random facts in some locations.]
N [Ankara; there is some Turkish chewing tobacco here]
GET TOBACCO
S
E [High mountainous plateau]
GET CARPET
EXAMINE CARPET [Has a tag on it]
READ TAG [Magic carpet]
[Indeed it is. If we use it by saying FLY AWAY in almost all locations, it will
automatically transport us to Cape Comorin (written as "Cormorin") at the
southernmost point of India. If we FLY AWAY from there, it'll take us back to
Istanbul. But there are another two locations where it does something
different.]
N
N [Aral Sea; we can ignore the sturgeon]
N [A small log cabin is here]
GO CABIN [We find some skis]
GET SKIS
E
E
E [Central Siberian uplands]
[We can't go north of here unless we have the skis.]
N [North of the Arctic Circle; there is a bucket here]
GET BUCKET
[South of here we find Ulan Bator, at the edge of the Gobi desert, but we can't
cross the desert yet because we need a camel and there are none on this side.
The camel is on the south side, and we can get there going the roundabout way,
but we need to cross the desert anyway because there is an object there that we
need.]
S
DROP SKIS [No longer needed]
W
W
S
S
S [High plateau again]
E
E
N [Tashkent; there is a watering trough here]
GET WATER [With the bucket]
E [China plateaus, with the camel and the desert north of here]
RIDE CAMEL [We need to fill him with water first]
GIVE WATER [He's ready to go]
DROP BUCKET
RIDE CAMEL [To the desert, there's a key here]
GET KEY
S [We get back, there's no need to go north of here again]
[A fun bug happens here; even if we go south again, our camel goes on north and
will show up in Ulan-Bator as if we had continued our journey. This has no
bearing on the playthrough as we won't need the camel again.]
E [Great Wall of China]
CLIMB WALL [Too high; we are told there's a better way to get across it]
[The wall segments the map into two parts, essentially east and west. Getting
across requires the carpet.]
FLY AWAY [We appear south of the wall; there is a stone tablet here]
READ TABLET [Basically it warns us against using violence on NPCs]
E [Peking, where we see a factory]
UNLOCK DOOR [With the key]
DROP KEY
OPEN DOOR
GO FACTORY [It's a fireworks factory, with some skyrockets]
GET SKYROCKETS
EXAMINE SKYROCKETS [There are 3 of them]
[The skyrockets are what we use to signal the submarine, at the right place. But
we can't light them for the time being as we don't have any matches. Getting the
matches will take the rest of the game.]
S
S
S [Hanoi]
W
W [We can ignore the wild ox]
W
N [Fertile plain in Burma, where there is a pouch]
GET POUCH
OPEN POUCH [Something fell out]
LOOK [50 silver dollars, not bad]
DROP POUCH
GET DOLLARS
[Now there are two places where we need money, but this will unlock only one of
them. We haven't been there yet, so we'll explore the rest of this side, get the
other form of money, and go back.]
S
E
E
E
N [Yangtze River]
N
E
S
E [Samcheok, in S Korea (though written as "Samchock"); a sampan is here]
SAIL SAMPAN [We cross the Sea of Japan]
E
E [In tokyo, where there's a yawl in port]
SAIL YAWL [Pacific Ocean]
S [Philippines north shore; a trading post is here]
[If we go into the trading post and read the sign, we'll be told that they buy
souvenirs from Borneo and pay in gold, which suits us.]
S
S [Manila; a junk is moored here]
[Unlike the other boats, the junk cannot be SAILED right away.]
EXAMINE JUNK [It is tied to the dock]
CUT ROPE [With the sword]
DROP SWORD
SAIL JUNK [South China Sea]
S [Borneo, where we find a primitive Malayan]
EXAMINE MALAYAN [He is holding a shrunken head]
GIVE TOBACCO [He takes it and leaves the head]
GET HEAD
[OK, we got our souvenir. Let's exchange it now.]
SAIL JUNK
N
N
N
GO TRADING
TRADE HEAD [We are paid]
I [We have a gold coin]
[We are essentially done. Let's take the carpet shortcut.]
FLY AWAY [On Cape Comorin]
N
N
N [Kathmandu]
[Here we want to go up the Everest, but we need a sherpa, and sherpas get paid]
PAY SHERPA
GO MOUNTAIN [Here are some matches]
GET MATCHES
D
S
S
S [Cape Comorin again, where there is a dhow that we can buy for sailing]
BUY DHOW [Bought]
[One may wonder whether either type of money will be good for paying the sherpa
or the Indian who owns the dhow. The answer is yes, it doesn't matter as long as
we can pay.]
SAIL DHOW [Gulf of Mannar]
E
S [Southern tip of Sri Lanka, and we see the submarine here]
LIGHT SKYROCKETS [A lookout notices us and takes us to the captain]
[Here the Captain asks us a series of questions that we must answer correctly to
see if we have learnt enough. Remember that you must answer in all lowercase, or
else it won't work. If you mistype and fail a question, you need to light
another skyrocket, which is why there are 3 of them.]
Q: Which is the highest mountain in the world?
A: EVEREST
Q: What is the world's most populous country?
A: CHINA
Q: Give me the name of India's capital
A: NEW DELHI
Q: Which river is Asia's longest?
A: YANGTZE
Q: What is the name of the strait that separated the USSR from USA?
A: BERING
Q: What is the lowest point on any of the continents?
A: DEAD SEA
[End of game.]
