HUNTING THE ELAND
Dave Dubin, 1986
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Solution by Exemptus - October 2026
Overview and general hints:
---------------------------
In this adventure we are on the streets of Metropolis, and the goal is left
undefined. This is a social satire kind of game, where the idea is to put across
a cultural critique of contemporary US society, but it does not go very far or
does it any subtly. The game is clearly a companion to "Revenge of the Eland",
although they can be played independently.
The actual goal is to bring a VCR to our parents' home. The two main obstacles
are getting enough money to buy the VCR and reaching home itself, which is not
immediately accessible. The game is basically segmented into two parts, with a
physical point of no return.
We start with nothing but will find money, although it will be not enough to buy
what we really need. We'll need to find more, and there is a non-obvious way to
do this.
Vocabulary is minimal: we move with GO <direction>, INV for inventory, and no
spurious verbs except SIGN, which is evident when to use. There is no HELP but
the game provides useful clues. Exits are marked except one, but this fact is
also hinted at.
Walkthrough:
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[We start on a street corner. To our E is a busy highway and we will be
instantly killed if we try to go there. In spite of this, there is a way to go
that way, which will also kill us but not end the game. This is one of the
tongue-in-cheek details around. Once we can do that, we won't be able to get
back, and we'll be right in the endgame, so it will have to be left for last.]
GO WEST [East Dreg St]
GO WEST
GO WEST
GO WEST [West Dreg St]
GO SOUTH
GO SOUTH
GO EAST [There is an ATM here and $20 in cash]
GET CASH [You now have $20]
[Now let's take stock. The locations we can access are not many. If we explore a
bit, we will find: (1) A convenience store north of E Dreg St which sells juice,
crackers, and three different comics; (2) A chemist's south of Dreg St which
sells pills, but we can't buy them because they are prescription only; (3) A
shopping centre north of Dreg St that we can't access because our tacky trousers
are not cool enough; (4) A restaurant west of N Shell St which sells a meal and
a coffee; and (5) A clothing store west of S Shell St which sells jeans. It's
likely that the jeans are the way to get dressed up for accessing the shopping
centre, so we can try that.]
GO WEST
GO SOUTH
GO WEST [Clothing Store]
BUY JEANS [We don't have enough money]
[Now what? This is the main sticking point of the game. It doesn't say, but the
jeans actually cost $50 (and the VCR costs $90, by the way, so it must be a
*really* good sale). There is no obvious way to get more money, we can't sell or
steal things, and the cash machine won't produce more on its own. I even got to
consider at one point that this was it and the game was not really finishable,
but just a joke making the point of the futility of hunting the elusive elands,
an elaborate metaphor for the cultural ills of consumerism in a meaning-starved
society. But no, the author was not that Promethean (I don't know whether to
deplore or to commend this). This is a puzzle and has a solution.]
[The three comics that we can buy at the convenience store can be EXAMINEd and
each provides somewhat foggy clues to the puzzles in the game:
(1) MEGAMUCK COMIC: "The Joneses buy a VCR, and Alan casts his bread upon
the waiter"
(2) RANCID ROMANCE COMIC: "Susan learns the tax on crackers is too high. She
has trouble finding the rest room"
(3) CREOSOTE COMIC: "Lazarus is unimpressed by card tricks. Jiffy slim-down
reducing pills advertised"
"Alan casts his bread upon the waiter" is a reference to the biblical verse
"Cast your bread upon the waters, for you will find it after many days" in
Ecclesiastes 11:1. There is a waiter at the restaurant, and "bread" is of course
another word for money. This suggests that giving money to the waiter may be
rewarded. Let's get a meal and do that.]
GO EAST
GO NORTH
GO NORTH
GO NORTH
GO WEST [Restaurant]
BUY MEAL [It cost $5, so we now have $15 left]
EAT MEAL [It had a prescription inside]
GET PRESCRIPTION
GIVE MONEY [How much?]
15 [The waiter takes the tip and thanks us]
[This is counterintuitive, but it turns out that whatever the money we give to
the waiter, 20 times that amount will materialize at the bank machine. So this
generates $300. We can repeat this ad libitum, but there is no need: $300 will
be plenty.]
[Before we pick up the dosh, remember another comic clue: "she has trouble
finding the rest room". This is literal: there is a rest room in the game and it
is hidden because the corresponding exit is not marked. And it's where you'd
expect a rest room to be, here in the restaurant.]
GO NORTH [Rest room: there is an organ donor card here]
GET CARD
EXAMINE CARD [It's unsigned]
SIGN CARD
[More about the card later. Now we can get the dosh.]
GO SOUTH
GO EAST
GO SOUTH
GO SOUTH
GO SOUTH
GO EAST
LOOK [There is $300 in cash here]
GET CASH
GO WEST
GO SOUTH
GO WEST
BUY JEANS
WEAR JEANS [They will never fit, they were designed for Homo Anorexus]
[OK, so we have the jeans but we need to slim down to wear them. This is what
the pills are for, and now that we have the prescription we can buy them.]
GO EAST
GO NORTH
GO NORTH
GO NORTH
GO EAST
GO EAST
GO SOUTH [Chemist's]
BUY PILLS
EAT PILLS [We now conform to standards of beauty]
WEAR JEANS [They fit now]
[We can get into the shopping centre and buy the VCR now.]
GO NORTH
GO WEST
GO NORTH
BUY VCR
[Now what? If we tried before to go E from the starting Street Corner location,
we'd be run over by a car and die. Remember the hint "Lazarus is unimpressed by
card tricks"? It's the organ donor card that it's referring to. Lazarus is, of
course, another biblical reference, to resurrection this time. The gist of it is
that while we carry the organ donor card (signed), we will still die but our
organs will live in another person, and the game does not end. So...]
GO SOUTH
GO EAST
GO EAST
GO EAST
GO EAST [We are struck and killed by a car, but wake up in hospital as another]
[Our objects are here. Once we have gone to hospital we can't go back, but if we
have the VCR we don't need to.]
GET VCR
GO SOUTH
GO EAST [Home sweet home]
[Your parents say their kid was killed in an accident, why should they let you
in? Why, because you have a VCR, what else.]
GIVE VCR [At last they can keep up with the Joneses, welcome to the family!]
[End of game.]
