Let it not be said that I just whine about problems without solving them. I spent a sick day this week converting a 1998 Anchorhead walkthrough into rot13 InvisiClues, and then playing through the 2018 Anchorhead and making separate InvisiClues for that version.
I put them up on IF Archive and added a link to IFDB. ifarchive.org/if-archive/soluti … iclues.zip
I also made a map of the 2018 version. ifarchive.org/if-archive/soluti … 18-map.png
Enjoy!
Having assembled these clues, I still think most of Anchorhead’s puzzles don’t entirely make sense even in hindsight, especially the main puzzle for 80% of the game: “what do I have to do to end the day?”
• Breaking into the real-estate office, surrounded by red-herring puzzles. Why am I doing this?
• Proving that the bum lied about William. Why am I doing this?
• Spying on Michael in the wine cellar. The “correct” hole shows darkness, until randomly it shows what you want to see in the morning of Day 3, and only in the morning)
• Putting the black disk in the rectangular slot in the telescope (the disk isn’t rectangular!)
• Opening the back exit to the sewer
• Finding the hidden entrance to the paper mill
• Returning the bear to get a mill key
• Picking the lock after the ritual (with no training; no other locks in the game are pickable)
Nice! A few corrections and alternate solutions to the 2018 version that you might want to implement:
[spoiler]REAL ESTATE OFFICE
BEHIND THE WALLS/PEEPHOLES
to 4
\
\ ____
|__2_| to 1
/ | \ /
____/ _|__ \____ /
|__1_|-|__5_|-|__3_|
/ \ | /
/ \ _|__ /
to Study |__4_|
\
\
to 2THE PUZZLE BOX
THE DESK KEY
THE BROKEN STAIRS
THE TEDDY BEAR
THE DINGHY
FACTORY FLOOR
THE TOOL POUCH
THE MADMAN
THE MOB IN TOWN SQUARE
WILLIAM
I’m interested in your thoughts on the 2018 version; though I gather you were still unsatisfied, several of the changes made were specifically meant to address some (though not all) of your complaints about the original.
Questions to clarify my InvisiClues:
All of that could be done on Day 2 by stealing Michael’s faculty card, but honest spouses can do it on Day 3 by finding Michael’s wallet.
Am I right in remembering that you can smash the puzzle box with the train in 1998 Anchorhead? But that no longer works in 2018 Anchorhead? Similarly, the meat hook didn’t open the box in 1998 Anchorhead, but works in 2018?
Are the office drawer and the shackles the only two pickable locks in this game?
Am I right in remembering that in 1998 Anchorhead, you had to see the the hobo (Dr. Rebis) die in order to get the amulet back, and that means you had to hide in the side alley?
Is it now possible to spy on Michael all day?
Regarding the finicky parser at the Wharf:
Applying the oar to the boat required “PUT THE OAR IN THE OARLOCK” and not not simply “IN THE DINGHY”. “ROW” is synonymous for “GO”, so “ROW DINGHY” doesn’t work. (“You can’t see any such thing.”) If you “ROW” in the tied dinghy at the Wharf, you exit the dinghy. If you “ROW” when Out at Sea (without an object), it doesn’t work unless you’ve put the oar in the oarlock, even if you have both oars.
It’s also easy to accidentally exit the boat by typing “WEST.” If the dinghy is untied when you do that, you lose the dinghy.
Changes I’ll make:
Here are my thoughts on each puzzle I mentioned above.
The first night’s dream is about discovering the secret passage and spying on Michael, but you can’t do that until the third day. The second day ends when you solve the hobo/Rebis puzzle, for no clear reason.
The second night’s dream is about discovering the well, which is fine, but then you have to play the flute in the Burial Mound to regain access to the real-estate office via the sewer tunnels; your only lead is the dream line, “Michael’s in the cellar, doing something bad.” Only once you get back to the office do you have a “mission” again, to break into the paper mill.
A) Breaking into the real-estate office. Other than adventure-game logic, there’s nothing in this game that says, “yes, you should break into the real estate office.” Michael recommends waiting. The game never says, “that’s it, you’ve waited log enough.” And there are plenty of other buildings to discover that you can’t break into yet, especially including the Church, the Mill, the Asylum, the Sewers, and the Courthouse.
It is intriguing that Michael will propose breaking in if you ask him for help. IMO the “PERSON, COMMAND” syntax is now so rare in modern games as to be undiscoverable without an ABOUT page recommending using it, but “ASK MICHAEL ABOUT HELP” (or “FOR HELP”) also works. The problem is that this requires guessing that Michael will respond to that topic, when the text never explicitly mentions the word “help.” I think there’s no good reason for players to guess that “help” is a valid topic here. This “guess the topic” puzzle is at least as hard (and at least as unfair) as the puzzle we’re trying to solve in the first place.
B) Proving that Dr. Rebis lied about William. It’s easier to find William’s coffin now (you can just stumble across it), and that’s probably for the best. The problem is, the hobo (Dr. Rebis) is the centerpiece of Day 2; you must solve his puzzle to end the day, and you specifically have to prove to him that you know that William wasn’t buried in the crypt.
But this task is totally non-motivated. Why does my character want to do this? What evidence does the player have that Rebis is essential to end the day? After I find the skull, why am I showing the skull to Rebis? He’s not even mentioned in the first night’s dream. What puzzle am I solving?
In my InvisiClues, I phrased the question, “What should I ask the man in the Vacant Lot about?” This question is totally unnatural; nobody would bother to ask this question if it weren’t right there in the InvisiClues.
Perhaps the thought is, “you should solve him just because he’s there,” but there are a bunch of NPCs on Day 2 that you can’t gainfully interact with yet, including the locals in the pub, the orderly, and the mom in the Shanty Town. Why am I interacting with this guy in particular?
I think the right fix would be to have the key appear in his personal description. At least then the question could be, “How do I get the key from the man in the Vacant Lot?”
C) Spying on Michael. You can’t see Michael open the mural until the third day. Randomizing the spy holes makes this worse, not better. I have to just guess that persistent surveillance will pay off, even if I get unlucky and see a repeat message in the holes (which happens).
IMO, spying on Michael opening the mural should conclude Day 2. That’s what the first night’s dream is about: opening the secret passage and watching Michael.
D) Putting the black disk in the telescope. The “thin, rectangular slot” is for some reason meant to hold a non-rectangular black disk that is only “like a lens.”
E) Finding the hidden entrance to the paper mill. IMO this puzzle is bizarrely harder now in 2018 than it was in 1998. In 1998 the thickets are described like this:
It requires persistent examination to bother examining the thicket, but once you see it, it’s a pretty clear invitation to search.
Here’s the thicket description in 2018:
That doesn’t sound inviting. It forces me to make a huge leap of logic to try searching the thickets.
F) Returning the bear to get a mill key. The houses no longer have visible street numbers, so even if you manage to figure out that the newspaper could lead you to the right house, it requires a huge leap to guess that you should type “knock on #48” here to access the house.
G) Picking locks. The needle itself requires searching the asylum in a stressful “time is of the essence” section, quite possibly under attack from the madman. But once you get it, for some reason you can use it to open the shackles, but not any of the other locks we care about? The asylum gate? The new church padlock? The lighthouse door?
@dfabulich - I wanted to post my sincere appreciation for the work you’ve done here - and to everyone commenting on this thread, in particular to both BadWolf and jbdyer with whom I largely agree. This discussion is exactly what I’ve been looking for.
I’ve been slogging my way through the original Anchorhead for the past two years (off and on, when I can). And I adore the open exploration and even the frustration of wondering “what do I do now?” The uncertainty makes the experience that much more immersive and discovering solutions that much more rewarding. But there are times when I’m so completely stuck that a hint is exactly what I’m looking for - not a walk through which breaks the experience and makes me feel like I’ve given up. (And I should note, I’ve skipped reading the last two posts to avoid getting too many spoilers.)
I’ve dabbled in writing my own IF, and the thoughts laid out here will be extraordinarily helpful in keeping the game play balanced and accessible. So … thanks!
I just completed Anchorhead 1998 and am definitely interested in checking out the 2018 version on Steam.
Not sure Mike is still interested in comments from the original … but I’m going to share them anyway:
Like many of the people posting here, I also found myself stuck and needing a walkthrough a few times. It’s too bad that there’s not a “hints” document somewhere that can nudge you in the right direction. Myst/Riven have such pages, and it’s really useful for getting you back on the right track if you get lost.
The first hint that I needed: Taking out the skull from William’s coffin.
This is a testament to Mike’s ability to evoke Lovecraft. I was unable to think about puzzles and games at this point, because I started to gag a little. I had found Dr. Tim and talked to him, but it didn’t occur to me that I should actually root around in William’s coffin for a skull, and then carry it around. Bravo to Mike for causing such a reaction.
The second hint I needed: TWIST/TURN SPHERE in the Study. From Michael’s dream: “I don’t know what it opens yet”, which led me to think that the spheres could be removed from the fireplace somehow. As was the case with the Poe book and safe, I assumed that there would be a way to remove the glass spheres from the fireplace. I guess this is a warning for beginner IF enthusiasts to not let your assumptions get the best of you.
The third hint I needed: 4-Digit code. This one was VERY frustrating, because engraving your wedding date on a ring isn’t something that all married couples do. My wife and I have engravings in our rings, but they’re not the date.
Because day 2 is spent mostly prowling around town and learning about the mystery, I spent a lot of time trying to find a four-digit code anywhere, assuming that it would be a code that Michael saw someplace in town the day before (like at the Library, or maybe somewhere else in the University … maybe even the Real Estate agent). Then I went through the house multiple times. I finally had to give up and resort to the walkthrough. Even my WIFE thought this was an unfair puzzle, and she could mostly care less about games like this.
The fourth hint I needed: Someone else mentioned it already, but I also got tripped up by the “circular disk going into the square slot” with the telescope. That was not intuitive at all. Also, I think this was kind of a weak way to get the name of the Great Old One into the player’s hands. This one didn’t make me as mad as the 4-digit code, but it was still somewhat annoying.
Fifth hint: I got tripped up by the wedding ring at the end. Edward indicated in his “asylum journal” that Croseus couldn’t bear to be around the amulet: “The old man cannot abide its presence, and must flee all who wear it”. I had originally showed it to Michael during the “mirror sequence” at the top of the Lighthouse, and he smacked it away, hissing. I took from that that I was safe from harm as long as I was wearing it. So I made sure NOT to show it to Michael when the mirror was switched out, and made sure I was wearing it when I touched the obelisk. And it didn’t matter – Michael strangled me anyway. I got completely hung up on this – what other items did I need to have or use in order to get the amulet’s power to work? It never occurred to me that I should just show the ring to Michael. I mean, if the amulet didn’t work, then why would the ring work?
I’m tempted to write my own hint-based walkthrough, but I’m not sure I want to commit to that kind of time sink. Maybe I should just play more IF!
A few other comments following the finish of the game:
Overall, I really enjoyed it. I’m a big fan of Lovecraft, and Mike really captured the mood and horror of the Cthulhu “style”. There were just a few frustrating moments, and I just don’t have the patience to spend days backtracking and replaying sequences. When there’s walkthroughs around, it’s just too easy to look up a clue that puts you back on the right track.
Also – kudos for slipping in that reference to “The Dunwich Horror”. I laughed out loud the first time I crossed the bridge.
Thanks Mike for writing Anchorhead – I realize these undertakings are a labor of love. I hope to play (read?) more of your interactive fiction in the future.
I notice that you are very good at writing hints. Thank you!
I personally prefer hint in the classic InvisiClues-format that Infocom used (a file playable in an z-interpreter). Would you mind if I eventually converted your Rot13-file to this format?
Have you ever contemplated writing hints for Curses! (something I think is sorely missid)? I have a file with a lot of information for dissassembly (and the two walkthroughs) from when I played this winter if you’re interested. It contains, for example
I’ve actually never played Curses!
Most of the invisiclues I’ve written recently have been here on the forum using spoiler text (like this). I might redo the Anchorhead ones in that format in the future.
I’m not a fan of the Z-machine menus. They’re way better than nothing, but it sucks that you can’t click on them.
I can really recommend Curses! It was a great game but huge and difficult at places. Its a shame that there is no invisiclues or hints because the walkthroughs can spoil too much.
Well, maybe a project for at a later date…
I think I have a real problem with linear bottlenecks in games with a vast amount of (currently accessible) locations.
Things like “you have to do x” to be able to progress, because “X” is required for some narrative purpose, and until that area of the narrative is uncovered, then everything else is blocked, often for completely arbitrary reasons.
Now if “X” is clearly signposted, like, “gain access to a cave”, get money for the bus, and if you have several ways to discover your current goal, then it’s exponentially less annoying.
It’s even less satisfying when the game isn’t waiting for a creative act (such as figuring how to solve a puzzle), but waiting for something silly (talking to the landlord of a pub a second time).
The game is essentially paused pending a mind-read of the author.
I find that the most interesting games are one with:
A good indicator of if your game is going to frustrate the player is if the puzzle dependency chart is mostly a linear straight line from top to bottom.
I think that Ron Gilbert’s blog on puzzle dependency charts puts it better than I possibly could:
I think the puzzles in Anchorhead are well-calibrated. This, coupled to a very well written story, makes Anchorhead a gem of Interactive Fiction.
Many years ago I played the 1998 version. I just finished the 2017 version, enjoying it even more.
If it may help someone, here’s a walkthrough for it, complete with a scan of the map I drew while playing: https://dr0.ch/if-anchorhead/
Great walkthrough! This will come in handy when I replay Anchorhead in the Illustrated version. Thanks.
Thank you. I’ve tried to add all actions that, although unnecessary to finish the game, give a broader sense of understanding of what’s happening in Anchorhead. (For instance the fate of the husband of the woman that lives in the shanty town.)
The CAAD spanish if community have a comunitary game on fridays at night. We have been playing A N C H O R H E A D for about 8 weeks.
We have ended up with 99 points.
I can say this GAME, in capitals, is amazing, one of the best in if world.
Best regards.
As some of y’all might have noticed, I finally went back and converted my rot13 Anchorhead Invisiclues to a clickable version here on the forum: Anchorhead (2018) Invisiclues Hints
I was struck by @adventuron’s point about puzzle dependency charts, so I tried making one for Anchorhead 2018.
Even without revealing the spoiler blur, you can visually see that this chart is, as Chris pointed out, almost completely linear. For most of the game, there is at most one thing that you can work on at any given time. There are just a handful of puzzles that can be worked on in parallel or out of sequence.
By contrast, look at the map of Anchorhead: it’s an enormous sprawling place. A map like this invites you to try to solve multiple puzzles at once. Did you get stuck trying to enter the real-estate office? Maybe you should try entering the Church or the Mill while you think about it.
This mismatch is a bad thing, IMO, because it means that the vast majority of Anchorhead’s map is irrelevant to the problem you’re solving right now. On Day 1, you simply can’t enter the Church or the Mill, at all. The result is a game where you can never develop trust that you’re working on a puzzle that can be solved right now. Why am I solving a puzzle with the hobo in the Vacant Lot on Day 2? Why him and not Mrs. Greer, or the orderly, or the telescope?
When it turns out that you can’t solve a particular puzzle on a particular day, (e.g. the telescope puzzle on Day 2,) you never say, “ah, of course, I should have known that this puzzle wasn’t ready yet, in hindsight,” but always “I had no way of knowing that this puzzle couldn’t be solved yet.” All of the puzzles look solvable, but only one or two of them are; there’s no fair way to know which ones are which, and that makes the game frustrating, even when you find out the right answer.
The moral I draw from this is that games with big maps should have wide, branchy puzzle dependency charts, or else should have a clear in-game guide telling you “you can solve puzzle X now. It may seem hard, but trust me, if you think about it, you’ll get it.”
And that’s what my Invisiclues are intended to provide. You’re not supposed to read them like a walkthrough, but maybe just read “How do I finish Day 2?” which tells you which puzzles need solving, but not how to solve them. (Of course, if you need that, too, the solutions are also available.)
I think that the invisiclues and dependency chart you created are very helpful, and I think in a way they show me a different moral than the one you found. Looking back at old usenet discussion of games like the ones mentioned earlier in the thread, it seems like a big part of the appeal of open-world games is that there spurts up this community that discusses them and trades hints about them online when someone is especially stuck.
So I’m not sure that ‘open-world game with tons of open problems should be designed with broad puzzles or embedded hints’ is the lesson, necessarily, because the need for such things can spur social discussion of the game, like it has here.
It’s even true for non-puzzle games. Sometimes it feels like half of the CoG forums are people asking how to romance characters in the games, leading to invisiclue hints and discussion there.
I think social discussion is just a feature of big games with lots of puzzles. By contrast, Hadean Lands had a very healthy discussion section, but its puzzle dependency chart is much wider. In HL, if you’re stuck on a puzzle, there probably is another puzzle you can go work on in the meantime.
Some great discussion here!
I made an Anchorhead map while playing it recently. To me it really helps to try to get a sense of geography while playing, so that’s what I tried to convey. (Thanks for the discussion about the Behind the Walls maze earlier, I basically stole that wholesale…)
It’s a bit of a WIP, not sure if all the colors work or if I should just throw those out, but the main thing I tried to do was put the rooms in logical physical relation to each other (especially, of course, the underground locations), with some minor concessions so Trizbort would make pretty lines.
That map is fantastic! Also the first map or walkthrough (that I’ve seen) that gets the behind-the-walls maze right.
@mikegentry Thanks!! But I can’t take full credit for the Walls part, I based it on the topology in the map @dfabulich linked to (although it was missing directionality and one passage).
I’m kinda proud of the rest of the layout though; took a bit of Trizbort wrangling to get the Scenic View to match up with what the game says you see there, to line up the underground rooms with the rest of the world, etc.
Edit: By the way, it’d be great to see any maps you made while designing the game!
