>DRINK BOTTLE
Just the smell of it makes you nauseous. Drinking it would make you quite ill.
The rest all get parser errors or generic refusals.
Part 16 - Visions of the future
We failed (in a couple of shorter posts following the last proper update) to come up with a way to steal Fred’s bottle of booze as evidence of his decline into alcoholism, but let’s see if we can just find a way to tell him about what we’ve seen instead.
In the sandwich shop
Fred, the sandwich guy, is standing at the counter.
Fred swats away a pesky fly.
>TELL FRED ABOUT HOUSE
You tell Fred what you know about the frame, but it doesn’t amount to much, and the conversation sort of ends there.
I meant to tell him about “the state of my house in the future after he’s wrecked it”, but the game picked a different object that can be referred to as “house” - the partially-constructed timber frame from the near past time period.
>TELL FRED ABOUT FUTURE HOUSE
I don’t see any future house here.>TELL FRED ABOUT DRINKING
You tell Fred what you know about the alcoholism, but it doesn’t amount to much, and the conversation sort of ends there.
This is clearly a generic response, but doesn’t bode well for being able to get across what we’re hoping to.
>TELL FRED ABOUT FUTURE
You can’t think of anything interesting to say about that.
Sure, we’ve been to the future, but it’s not a big deal, right?
>TELL FRED ABOUT HIMSELF
I don’t know the word “himself”.>TELL FRED ABOUT FRED
There’s not much you can tell Fred about himself, unless maybe you meant to tell him about a different-era version of Fred.
… or wait, is this a glimmer of hope after all?
>TELL FRED ABOUT ALCOHOLIC FRED
Fred looks slightly uncomfortable as you tell him about the old wino.“Um, look,” he says. “You come for a sandwich, fine. You come and ask me about whatever, that’s okay too – it’s a slow night. But now you’re trying to tell me about some crazy drunk living in your house – in the future – and that it’s me?”
Fred stares at the counter, idly swabbing it with a cloth. “I mean, I don’t know whether to throw you out or punch you in the nose. Whoever you met, it’s not me, okay? That’s not my future. I’m going to be manager of this place, get married, settle down. That’s my future, okay?”
He looks briefly up at you, his eyebrows furrowing. “Okay, so you’ve told me you have a time machine. I don’t really believe you, but if this is something I can see for myself, then I want to see it.” He starts to put things away, packing up food and stowing utensils. “It’s about ten minutes till closing, but I’m gonna close a few minutes early so you can take me to whoever – or whenever – it is you’re talking about. Okay? So just wait out front and I’ll join you there after I lock things up.”
Fred escorts you out of the front of the shop, looking very preoccupied as he locks the doors from inside and flips the “Closed” sign.
Okay, we might be getting somewhere with this after all!
In the village
>Z
Time passes…>Z
Time passes…
Uh, is Fred actually coming?
>Z
Time passes…You see Fred turn out the lights in the sandwich shop.
>Z
Time passes…>Z
Time passes…>Z
Time passes…
Guess he’s dragging his feet over what we might be about to show him?
>Z
Time passes…You start to wonder what’s keeping Fred.
>Z
Time passes…>Z
Time passes…Fred comes wandering around from behind the sandwich shop. “Hey, there you are,” he says. Either he’s decided to take this less seriously or he’s just trying to hide what he’s feeling.
After a slight pause during which neither of you take the initiative, Fred claps his hands and rubs them together. “Well, where to?” he asks. “Lead on, MacDuff.”
Let’s go!
>S
Bend in path
You see a sewer grating here.
Fred says, “It’s not very far, is it? I’m not wearing my best pair of walking shoes.”
We’ve been happily wandering back and forth from our house to the village throughout the game, but both Laura and Fred have made a big deal of how far it is, so this might be a more substantial trek than I was picturing.
>W
Sidewalk
You see a mailbox here.
Fred follows you.
>SW
Driveway
You see a little car here.
Fred says, “Hey, this is your house? Huh. Must be nice not having any neighbors.”
>SW
Front of house
You see a doormat here.
Fred follows you.
>SW
South of house
Fred follows you.
>SW
Path in the woods
Fred looks around. “Hey! I know this place,” he says. “There used to be a little creek running along here. I remember playing in it when I was a kid.”
I don’t think we ever got to the bottom of why the stream dried up, did we?
>SW
Clearing
You see a time machine here. Sitting on the time machine platform is a moose head trophy, a garage door opener, a deflated soccer ball, a broken tire pump, a can-opener, an old pillowcase, a newspaper, a school pencil, a crowbar, a library book, a tourist map, a biology book, five empty jugs of miracle-grow, a desk lamp, a screwdriver, a tire, and a rare book.
Fred gapes at the time machine. “Whoo-aaoo,” he says, stumbling closer to it. “Does this really work? I mean, it looks real, you know? Or are you just putting me on?” He stares at it for a few moments, and runs his hand across it. “It feels cool to the touch,” he says.
Little does he know that we used this machine not long ago to reheat one of his sandwiches!
>STAND ON PLATFORM
Okay, you’re now standing on the time machine platform.Fred clambers onto the platform, looking awestruck and excited. “Well, here we go, huh?” he says bravely.
>SET KNOB TO 4
Okay, it’s now turned to 4.>PRESS BUTTON
You push the big red button. Click!The time machine vibrates and heats up like a toaster oven. A bright blue light envelops you. The world around you spins into a wild vortex that suddenly vanishes, leaving you to find yourself in a …
Clearing
You see a time machine here. Sitting on the time machine platform is a moose head trophy, a garage door opener, a deflated soccer ball, a broken tire pump, a can-opener, an old pillowcase, a newspaper, a school pencil, a crowbar, a library book, a tourist map, a biology book, five empty jugs of miracle-grow, a desk lamp, a screwdriver, a tire, and a rare book.
Despite his excitement a moment ago, Fred doesn’t seem to comment on the fact that we just travelled in time.
>NE
(first getting off the platform)
Okay, you’re no longer on the time machine platform.At the rock
Fred follows you.
>NE
South of house
Fred follows you.
We’ll take the shortest route to future-Fred, just so that we don’t have to look at the miserable state of the house all over again.
>NE
Front of house
Fred follows you.
>NW
North of house
Fred follows you.
>S
In the garage
This room is a stinking mess, in a totally new and horrible way than the mess you were used to. A soiled mattress is lumped into one corner, surrounded by filth and discarded bottles. A door leads south into the kitchen. The garage door is to the north is open.Future Fred is here, sitting on a soiled mattress.
As Fred enters the garage, he holds his nose and says, “Whoo-ee, what crawled in here and died?” Then he sees future Fred sitting on the mattress, swigging from his bottle of cheap liquor, and is struck dumb.
Fred turns a blotchy shade of white, and his lower lip quivers a bit. “That’s me,” he says. “That’s me.”
Future Fred belches and squints at his former self. “This is what I get for mixin’ my drinks,” he mutters. “Good thing I decided to quit drinkin’ the cheap stuff.” He goes to take another swig, but Fred snatches the bottle out of his hand.
Handily, we can concentrate on present-Fred’s reaction to seeing future-Fred rather than the converse, because future-Fred just chalks this meeting up to being drunk all the time
“This is what Dad used to drink,” Fred says, staring numbly at the label. “This is exactly the --” Future Fred grabs the bottle back, letting out a wheeze. “Get yer own bottle,” he says.
“No,” Fred says, the color returning to his face. He seems to have become very still and quiet, but you can see the muscles in his cheeks twitching. He opens a white paper sack and withdraws a sandwich. “Here,” he says. “Eat this.”
I do love the fact that Fred the sandwich guy apparently has an emergency sandwich with him at all times.
“Lemme guess,” says future Fred, taking it. “Roast beef on wheat, with mustard and tomatoes. Bingo.” He sets it aside. “My stomach don’t take food so good no more,” he says, taking another drink. “Makes me sick.”
Fred’s head falls, his chin resting on his chest. Everything is quiet.
>Z
Time passes…Fred looks at you and says, “I’d like to go back now, please. I have a lot of thinking to do.”
We’ll go with doing what Fred asks, so we leave the garage at this point. Fred continues to follow us in silence until we make it back to the clearing.
>STAND ON PLATFORM
Okay, you’re now standing on the time machine platform.Fred follows you.
>SET KNOB TO 2
Okay, it’s now turned to 2.>PRESS BUTTON
You push the big red button. Click!The time machine vibrates and heats up like a toaster oven. A dull orange light envelops you. The world around you spins into a wild vortex that suddenly vanishes, leaving you to find yourself in a …
Clearing
You see a time machine here. Sitting on the time machine platform is a moose head trophy, a garage door opener, a deflated soccer ball, a broken tire pump, a can-opener, an old pillowcase, a newspaper, a school pencil, a crowbar, a library book, a tourist map, a biology book, five empty jugs of miracle-grow, a desk lamp, a screwdriver, a tire, and a rare book.
>NE
(first getting off the platform)
Okay, you’re no longer on the time machine platform.Path in the woods
Fred says, “Okay, I can find my way from here.” He shakes your hand. “This is really heavy-duty, you know? But thanks. Thanks.” He starts to walk away through the woods. You hear Fred mumble to himself, “That’s not what I want. That’s not the way I want my life to go.”Just before he disappears into the trees, he points up at the sky and calls out, “Beautiful night, huh?” With that, Fred is gone.
[ Your score just went up by 7 points. ]
7 points is almost how many we were short by when we tallied up the remaining things we had to do. And this scene looks like it might be a pretty good candidate for saving Fred from his miserable future. So we’re going to go finish the game again and find out whether we definitively won this time!
We need to go back to the near future first, as it happens, because we still haven’t nabbed the last thing we’ll need for the endgame. So we make a brief diversion to:
Locksmith shop
You see a motorized grinder here.
>UNPLUG GRINDER
You unplug the motorized grinder from the socket.>PUT GRINDER IN CASE
Done.
The grinder is pretty bulky and tends to fill up our inventory as soon as we try taking it, but putting it inside the case means we can carry it without difficulty.
We return to the time machine and head to the far future:
>STAND ON PLATFORM
Okay, you’re now standing on the time machine platform.>SET KNOB TO 4
It’s already set to 4!
Right, we just went from present to near future and now we’re going from near future to far future.
>PRESS BUTTON
You push the big red button. Click!The time machine vibrates and heats up like a toaster oven. A bright blue light envelops you. The world around you spins into a wild vortex that suddenly vanishes, leaving you to find yourself in a …
Parking lot
You see a time machine here. Sitting on the time machine platform is a moose head trophy, a garage door opener, a deflated soccer ball, a broken tire pump, a can-opener, an old pillowcase, a newspaper, a school pencil, a crowbar, a library book, a tourist map, a biology book, five empty jugs of miracle-grow, a desk lamp, a screwdriver, a tire, and a rare book.
Oh, wait, this is still the bad version of the far future, because while we picked up Laura’s envelope ages ago, we got distracted before we got round to actually going and giving it to her.
Instead of waiting for seven or eight turns for the machine to cool down before we can jump again, we UNDO and then make a twenty-year jump followed by a ten-year jump, ending up in the distant past. Then we head to the bank.
New accounts
Laura, a bank employee, is sitting at the new accounts desk.
>GIVE ENVELOPE TO LAURA
Laura reacts with curious surprise as you hold out the sealed envelope to her. “What’s this?” she asks. She gingerly breaks the red wax seal, trying to preserve it. “How fancy,” she says, drawing out a letter written on brittle, translucent stationery.Laura begins to read the letter. Before she even finishes the first page, she abruptly stands up, her hand going to her throat. She looks at you, and you stare blankly back. “Did …” she starts to say, but breaks off. She reads the remaining two pages, then folds them back into the envelope and closes it.
“Could you excuse me for a moment? I think I have to quit my job now.” She looks like she’s in a state of mild shock as she turns on her heels and walks, almost in slow motion, from her desk and into the back corridors of the bank.
[ Your score just went up by 10 points. ]
Being limited to jumping a maximum of twenty years at a time has mostly not been a big deal, because most of the action of the game takes place in the middle three time periods. But this is one of the rare occasions where we need to travel in time by a whole forty years at once, so after returning to the time machine we have to jump forward by twenty years, let it cool down and then immediately jump another twenty, ending up once again in the good version of the far future:
Pretty garden
Light pours prettily onto the grounds of a small garden, bursting with flowers wild and rare. A fountain pool graced by a whitewashed bench adds to the charm of this little area. A footpath leads northeast to a fresh green lawn, and beyond that, a white building.You see a time machine here. Sitting on the time machine platform is a moose head trophy, a garage door opener, a deflated soccer ball, a broken tire pump, a can-opener, an old pillowcase, a newspaper, a school pencil, a crowbar, a library book, a tourist map, a biology book, five empty jugs of miracle-grow, a desk lamp, a screwdriver, a tire, and a rare book.
[ Your score just went up by 5 points. ]
I’m pretty sure I remember something relevant about this pool:
>X POOL
The fountain pool is full of clear water, spraying and tumbling gently from a sculpture of tiered, natural rocks placed at gentle angles. Water splatters into a round pool with a mosaic tiled bottom. Shiny pennies and other small coins wobble beneath the rippled surface.>THROW PENNY IN POOL
There’s no sense in getting your possessions wet.
I was sure throwing the penny in the pool had to be good for something. Why would the game take specific pains to give us an otherwise-irrelevant item which can be purchased for 99 cents and then add the penny change to our inventory as a discrete item rather than lumping it in with the rest of our cash? And then include a pool whose description makes it clear that people have been throwing pennies in it?
>NE
(first getting off the platform)
Okay, you’re no longer on the time machine platform.Lawn
A manicured lawn, watered frequently by a built-in sprinkler system, surrounds the building, which seems to be your house, only a story taller. A large rock sits in a circle of gravel adjacent to the footpath, and a plaque has been affixed to it near the bottom. A footpath leads northeast to the south side of the white building, and a pretty garden is to the southwest.>NE
South of house
The ground slopes here slightly, with cobblestones leading southwest to the path through the lawn. A little window sits high above in the wall, which has been painted a demure white. A couple of flagstones and some tiny hedges make the landscaping complete. A fence prevents passage northwest to the rear entrance. The path leads northeast to the front of the building, and the lawn lies to the southwest.
Last time we went in through the secret passage, but let’s actually check out the front door this time.
>NE
Front of museum
You are in the front of your house, but you can see from here that it is no longer a simple residence. A signpost hanging above the stoop says that it is a laboratory museum. A footpath leads southwest. The driveway is to the northeast. The front door, as always, is to the west.You see a familiar doormat here.
>LOOK UNDER DOORMAT
You find a small note, which you take.>READ IT
It is addressed to you. It reads, “We’ve been expecting you. Please knock to let us know you’ve arrived. We have something you’ve been missing.”
I guess it’s a running joke among the time travel research crew that we lost our key that one time and they had to distort the entire timeline to fix it?
>KNOCK ON DOOR
You knock loudly on the door. You hear a voice inside say, “I think our guest of honor has arrived, right on schedule.” More loudly, you hear the voice call out, “Coming!”A young man opens the door wide. His smile is even wider as he says, “It’s you! Look at you!” and, laughing, embraces you with his strong young arms.
“Sorry, I guess you weren’t expecting that,” he says. “Come in, come in.” He steps back inside the house, waving you to follow.
>W
Museum lobby
The lobby of the museum is homelike and welcoming. What used to be a tiled floor has been replaced with polished wood, and tasteful decorations hang on the walls. A visitor information desk has been set up here, but no one is staffing it at the moment. The front door is east, and hallways lead south and north. A wide staircase leads up.The young man is here.
The young man says, “So, what do you think? Pretty nice, huh?”>YES
The young man laughs. “I bet it’s a bit different than you remember. But after today, you’re probably used to that,” he says. The young man rocks back and forth on his feet. “Hey, I know. Would you like me to show you around?” he asks. “Should I give you the grand tour?”
I wonder if we’ll be allowed to show ourselves around instead if we ask, but it’s not to be:
>NO
The young man laughs again and says, “Oh come on. You might like it. You’re the one who – oops. Never mind.” He fidgets with his hands in his pockets. “Anyway, follow me. I’ll show you the place.” He starts by leading you upstairs.
We get the same description of the tour as we did the previous time we reached the ending, up until this point:
He leads you to a door at the east end of a hallway full of golden afternoon light. He raps his knuckles on the door and says, “We’ve invited some guests today who were anxious to greet you,” he says, smiling enigmatically. “You ready for this?”
This time it’s “guests” in the plural, which bodes well.
>YES
The young man says, “Okay, brace yourself.” He opens the door into a large salon of paneled wood and tasteful chairs. Sitting in the chairs, and rising as you enter, are two people you recognize and three you do not, including two children.Laura, looking mature with her silvered hair but as vibrant as ever, approaches first, giving you a hug. “Apparently we’re somewhat beholden to each other,” she says, with a bright twinkle in her eyes. “You put me on quite a different path forty years ago, one of environmental activism and fighting corporate interests. I know you’re probably curious what that letter said. All I can tell you is that the first part was full of secrets that I never told anyone, and the second part was a set of warnings, and the third part was a set of wishes.” She idly picks a bit of lint off of your shirt. “Good wishes, from a bad person.” She gives you a small kiss and steps aside.
Unsurprisingly, the other person is Fred, looking trimmer than you’ve ever seen him, but with the same smile, below the same cheesy mustache, on his tanned face. He gives you a hearty handshake and introduces you to his wife, Carla, and their two kids, Gary and Fred Jr. “Sandwich shop’s still open,” he says, looking for small talk to fill the strange awkwardness of the moment. “In fact, we’ve got local franchises now. I’m running a couple of them.” He roughs up Fred Jr.'s hair. “Gotta keep these hungry mouths fed. Heh heh, what can you do?” He draws his hand several times across his chin, staring at you. “Man, can you believe this? Same as ever. Same as ever.”
I guess this means that no great disaster befell the sandwich shop; rather, Fred was always destined to lapse into alcoholism, but our intervention prompted him to become more conscious of his drinking and as a result he was able to stay on a better path?
I wonder how come we were able to visit the locksmith shop in the near future after our intervention with Fred, given that the sandwich shop should apparently still have been there, but I’m not complaining because otherwise we’d have had to do the whole section again after making sure to nab the grinder first.
There is another few minutes of idle chit-chat, but the young man breaks in. “We’ve gotta go folks, thanks for coming, though.” Fred says, “Yeah, we gotta get going, too. Thanks for the invite. Nobody believes me when I tell them that this museum is for real, but you got my vote, I’ll tell you that right now.”
The young man escorts everyone back to the lobby. Laura, Fred, and Fred’s family wave and depart.
“So,” the young man says. “One more place to show you.” He leads you to the south.
The rest of the endgame is all familiar from last time.
Exhibition room
What used to be your master bedroom is now an exhibition room, full of colorful photographs, as well as a video projection providing a family-friendly documentary about the museum. The lobby is back to the north.“Let’s see if I can remember how to do this,” he says. He steps on a secret switch in the floor and knocks on the wall. A secret door opens. “I love that,” he says. You follow him through, into the secret passage, and down the stairs at the end.
Laboratory
From the look of things, time machines are built here. The room is thirty feet square, with a fifteen foot ceiling. Rows of refrigeration ducts and sealed-off tubes poke through the wall on the north side. Along the east wall is a set of poster-sized pictures detailing the development from the first, room-sized prototype to machines that look similar to the ones you have been using. Drafts of engineering blueprints are tacked to the remaining walls. A busy workdesk is set up to one side. You see various unrecognizable machine parts and prototypes in various stages of assembly, and one unused electrical socket. A carpeted staircase to the south leads up.The young man is here.
We already know what we have to do, so we might as well get started while he finishes talking.
>PUT GRINDER ON DESK
Done. “This is where it all begins,” he says. "Well, sort of. It’s a long story. A retroactive effort was made – or will be made – to preserve the crystal cavern that used to be here in this spot. He searches a drawer of the workdesk and withdraws a small tube of plastic. Sealed inside the tube, preserving it, is a shimmering blue crystal, about an inch long, with perfect hexagonal symmetry. He plops it back in the drawer. “Can’t have you running off with that,” he says. “That’d really screw things up, let me tell you.”
We never figured out what the deal with the crystal was, did we? Is it related to the time machine somehow?
He looks at his watch. “Speaking of which, we’ve got to wrap this up and send you home. Oh!” He fidgets in his pocket. “First things first, though.” He withdraws a key and puts it on the workdesk.
“I’ve been instructed to tell you that you can’t take this key back with you,” he says apologetically, “but I’ve been led to understand that you’ve come prepared to make a copy …?” He starts to head back upstairs. “I’ll be waiting in the lobby. Just bring the original back to me when you’re done. Thanks.” He takes a long, funny, grinning look at you, and hops up the stairs three at a time.
>PLUG GRINDER INTO SOCKET
Okay, you plug the motorized grinder into the socket.>PUT KEY IN GRINDER
Done.>PUT BLANK IN GRINDER
I don’t see any blank here.
Having thought I’d planned everything out perfectly, the blank is still stashed in the pillowcase in the junk pile back where the time machine is, so we exit the museum (via the secret passage) and go and grab it.
LaboratorySitting on the laboratory workdesk is a motorized grinder.
That missing line break isn’t my error, incidentally; that’s how it looks in the game. I am not familiar enough with the workings of TADS to know how this arises.
>PUT BLANK IN GRINDER
Done.>TURN ON GRINDER
You turn on the grinder, and the lathe goes to work, slicing the blank key into a duplicate of the original front door key.Its work done, the motorized grinder automatically turns itself off.
[ Your score just went up by 5 points. ]
We’re now on 149/151, so close!
>TAKE ORIGINAL KEY
Taken.It’s a key to your house, all right, but it doesn’t look like the original one that was missing from your doormat. And yet, it’s an old key from the looks of it. It has the markings and smoothness of having been used for many years.
I’m guessing that this “original” key is actually the new key that we’ve just cut, except after twenty years of use?
>TAKE NEW KEY
Taken.>U
Secret passage
>W
Exhibition room
We can’t interact with the video projection or the photographs in this room, incidentally.
>N
Museum lobby
The young man is here.
>GIVE ORIGINAL KEY TO MAN
You hand the original front door key to the young man, who smiles and puts it back in his pocket. “It’s been great having you visit,” he says. Spontaneously, he gives you another hug. “I’ll see you soon, I think. Sooner than you’ll see me again.”
Is there anything in the game that’s supposed to give us a clue as to who this young man actually is?
He stares at his feet for a moment. “Okay, well, no use getting sentimental. I’m gonna go now. You probably should too. I guess you can find your way back to the garden by yourself.” He checks his watch again. “Yeah, you really need to go. Bye!”
With that, he dashes off. He’s right. It’s time for you to go home, finally. You head back to the time machine.
Pretty garden
You see a time machine here. Sitting on the time machine platform is a moose head trophy, a garage door opener, a deflated soccer ball, a broken tire pump, a can-opener, an old pillowcase, a newspaper, a school pencil, a crowbar, a library book, a tourist map, a biology book, five empty jugs of miracle-grow, a desk lamp, a screwdriver, a tire, and a rare book.
Time for one final time trip!
>STAND ON PLATFORM
Okay, you’re now standing on the time machine platform.>SET KNOB TO 1
Okay, it’s now turned to 1.>PRESS BUTTON
You push the big red button. Click!The time machine vibrates and heats up like a toaster oven. A deep red light envelops you. The world around you spins into a wild vortex that suddenly vanishes, leaving you to find yourself in a …
Clearing
You see a time machine here. Sitting on the time machine platform is a moose head trophy, a garage door opener, a deflated soccer ball, a broken tire pump, a can-opener, an old pillowcase, a newspaper, a school pencil, a crowbar, a library book, a tourist map, a biology book, five empty jugs of miracle-grow, a desk lamp, a screwdriver, a tire, and a rare book.
And with luck, that might be the final time we have to read that ridiculous list of discarded inventory items.
>NE
(first getting off the platform)
Okay, you’re no longer on the time machine platform.Path in the woods
>NE
South of house
>NE
Front of house
You see a doormat here.
>LOOK UNDER DOORMAT
There’s nothing under the doormat. It would be a good place to put your spare house key, if only you knew where it was.
We do, now, so we can fix this in a second, just as soon as we …
>UNLOCK DOOR WITH KEY
Unlocked! You can barely believe it.>PUT KEY UNDER DOORMAT
You put the shiny new duplicate house key under the doormat. A sudden sense of satisfaction comes over you, as if you had taken care of the last bit of unfinished business.[ Your score just went up by 1 point. ]
This “last bit of unfinished business” would be a lot more satisfying if it had brought our score to 151/151, rather than 150/151!
>OPEN DOOR
Opened.>W
You have won!
You step into your house at long last, head straight for your bedroom, and dream your dreamy dreams of one day inventing a time travel machine… but they’re no longer just dreams, are they?*** You have won ***
In a total of 2042 turns, you have achieved a score of 150 points out of a possible 151, which means you are almost there – keep going!
You may restore a saved game, start over, quit, or undo the current command.
And there we go! Since we saved both Laura and Fred, I’m happy to call this the winning ending, even though we clearly missed something minor along the way, based on our score:
You have earned the following:
5 points for finding the garage door opener
4 points for climbing onto the roof the first time
10 points for getting to the end of the junk in the garage
5 points for stepping onto the platform the first time
5 points for arriving in the far past the first time
5 points for arriving in the past the first time
5 points for arriving in the future the first time
4 points for giving the bad shingle to the architect
3 points for cleaning out the drainpipe
4 points for making it through the maze to the stream
6 points for planting the acorn in the hole
2 points for fixing the wheel with the screwdriver
3 points for pouring a second jug of miracle-gro
5 points for pouring a fifth jug of miracle-gro
10 points for leaping to the attic
5 points for giving a piping hot sandwich to the architect
5 points for entering the secret passage the first time
7 points for opening a new bank account
7 points for showing Fred his future self
4 points for installing the lightning rod
5 points for buying DibbleBits stock
10 points for giving Laura the sealed envelope
5 points for arriving in the new far future for the first time
5 points for grinding a duplicate front door key
1 point for putting the duplicate key under the doormat
20 points for finding various items
5 Likes
Congrats! This was a lot of fun. From reading the thread, the timey-wimey business seemed like it complicated enough to be satisfying to work through non-obvious puzzles, but not too ridiculously convoluted – is that how it felt to play.
I am very curious about what object is being referred to as “the alcoholism”, I gotta say. And also curious about the last lousy point…
1 Like
now, the Hunt for the Last Lousy Point is officially opened !!
watching the Hunt…
Best regards from Italy,
dott. Piergiorgio.
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I decided that I was not going to succeed in finding one missing point by myself somewhere in an eight-hour game given the time and energy available to me, and had a look at the walkthrough. There is one point in our playthrough where the game implies we did something in a less than optimal way - anyone think they might have spotted it?
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Time to catch up on this!
One thing caught my attention in the ruined house description:
Are you supposed to actually make it to the attic, and then enter the house that way, before encountering Laura?
My understanding is that it’s historically been a lot more offensive in the UK and Australia than in the US and Canada. It was used often and casually when I was a kid and it’s not until I went to college that I learned that it had anything to do with physical disabilities.
(Which doesn’t make it okay, of course, but I can easily believe that the author also just didn’t know.)
Sometimes IF authors contrive elaborate ways to keep you locked into cutscenes, and sometimes they just tell you outright.
Far-Future-Laura, of course, knows that Far-Past-Laura went through a brief obsession with sealing wax and old-fashioned stationery that didn’t last more than a year or two. She’s a very detail-oriented woman.
Not just parser games, for that matter! Isn’t the non-speaking main character kind of a cliché in multiple genres?
I’m shocked that you came up with this phrasing, and more shocked that the game understands this but not ALCOHOL.
Well, just imagine if he needed a sandwich in an emergency, and didn’t have one? That’s no way to become manager of the sandwich shop!
That would have been such a brilliant Last Lousy Point!
The near future seems to be kind of a fixed point, doesn’t it? No matter what we change, that time period is always the same. Unlike the distant future.
Hmm. I don’t think so…the plot thickens!
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Funny you should say that.
Past the halfway point
The opening is close now, a much shorter distance ahead than the distance you have already traversed. The trunk curves into a steeper angle, and the top branches that will be your secure handholds for the last few feet are just out of reach. Just a little more, and you can grab the nearest of them. Just a little more, and this travail will be over.A small wind, so slight that you would not have noticed it if you were on the ground, assails your already-eroded sense of balance.
>N
As you start to move, something feels different. Your mind conjures images of some kind of giant animal, like a forest bear, shaking the trunk below you. But the tree isn’t shaking, you are. Your muscles aren’t used to this kind of punishment, and your arms are starting to quake involuntarily. You feel your body sagging to one side, your weight rotating around the slickened bark of the tree. Panicking, you squeeze tighter and tighter, but you are unable to find friction enough to stop your movement.A sudden twang of reptile-brain fear opens your eyes and puts you into full, unthinking panic. Your body has shifted, and you are starting to fall off the tree. Your fingernails search for a hold, your legs clamp as if to snap the trunk in two, but you can’t hang on much longer.
Hanging for dear life
You are hanging for dear life, with your body slipping around the trunk of the tree. Soon you’ll be upside down, trying to support your weight with atrophied muscles, with fingers that can’t find a grip on waterlogged bark.You feel your body shift again.
Last time I tried to BREATHE here in order to relax us enough to get back onto the tree, but it turns out I should have been more direct in what I was trying to accomplish.
>RELAX
Against all of your instincts, you relax your muscles. This is not easy to do, but it seems to help. You ease up, but you do not fall. In fact, you seem to halt and hold steady, not slipping any more – at least for the moment.You take a deep breath. Maybe you can make it out of this.
>U
Your relaxed muscles seem willing to put in a renewed effort. Your relaxed mind takes an extra second to figure out how best to do this. You’re going to need to let go of one arm and place it differently, so that you have the leverage and strength to pull your upper body up and around.You adjust your legs, locking your feet together so that you can trust them to hold you. You lengthen your arms, then pull as hard as you can, lifting your chest to meet the trunk. Then, fully aware of the gamble you are taking, you release your left arm and swing it around from the far side of the trunk to the nearer, so that your upper body is all on the same side. You haven’t fallen yet. You take another breath.
>U
You pull as hard as you can with your arms, and strain forward with your chin, almost using it as a third hand on a patch of firm bark. With fast, forward slaps, you move each hand a little farther, and pull again. You get your chin up to the top of the branch, and take another short breather.>U
You rotate your left arm back again. Finding steady grips, you give the muscles that pull a needed break and use the ones that can push, lifting your torso up. You relax your locked legs, allowing them to rotate, your hips following your upper body. Not wanting to lose the progress so far, you lean forward and clamp the trunk more tightly again, and cinch your legs around an inch at a time.Before you know it, you are completely on top of the trunk again. Too tired, and still too short of the attic to be completely ecstatic, you take a rest. Finally, bravely, you push back up to a sitting position.
End of the trunk
You are almost there. You can nearly touch the ragged sides of the house wall to your left. Inside, you can see the floorboards. Receded far into the shadows, you see the attic ladder, and that it is open. Just a little farther, and you can go in, you can go down, you can be inside your house, safe.>N
Slowly, slowly, with painstaking care, you shift your weight forward on the thin, drooping upper branches, until you see attic floorboards beneath you instead of open air. Gingerly, you stretch a foot down, but just as your toe makes contact, the branch in your right hand, which was holding your weight and steadying your balance, snaps. You hurtle yourself forward into a roll, desperate to get your mass moving inward instead of outward.Amid a tangle of crackling and snapping noises; none of them your bones, fortunately; you find yourself, scratched but safe, inside the attic of your house. You crawl another foot away from the gaping opening before your fear of falling abates enough to allow you to stand up. You’re safe.
Attic
A little attic space, once barely tall enough for you to stand in, now has a huge, gaping hole raked open in the roof and the southern wall. Silvery rivulets of rain water drizzle down from above, pooling in the uneven floorboards. The twisted top of the tree provides a gnarled support structure for the damaged roof. The jagged, splayed ends of a thick brass pipe jut up through the floor.There is a monkey wrench lying lengthwise here, spanning the gap between two floorboards. A ladder attached to a hatch leads down into the darkened house below.
You hear a car pull into your driveway outside.
The car is, of course, Laura arriving with Carl and Victor. But we don’t get anything out of getting inside the house this way that we didn’t already get out of using the secret passage.
You can also tell him about FUTURE FRED. But I wouldn’t have got either of them without the game hinting “did you mean to tell him about a different version of Fred?”
We’ve changed the near future in several ways. Initially, the house was burned down and the big tree wasn’t there. Putting the new shingles on the roof stops the house burning down when it’s struck by lightning, but planting the tree causes that to get hit by the lightning instead and fall onto the house, destroying the roof. If you plant the tree and don’t upgrade the shingles, the description shows that the lightning initially hit the tree, but that as a result of it falling onto the house, the fire spread to the roof.
But in all versions of the near future where the house isn’t burned, it’s been taken over by winos and junkies. After Fred’s revelation, the future version of Fred isn’t there any more, but the house is otherwise just as much of a mess, indicating that it wasn’t solely Fred who trashed it. But there doesn’t seem to be a way to access a version of the near future where we continued to live in the house ourselves.
As we saw, there’s also nothing in the code that accounts for the possibility of visiting the near future after giving Laura her envelope in the distant past. I saw an interview with the author where he described the game as very linear—I think it’s actually not that linear, but there’s more depth of implementation along the route that the author anticipated the player taking. For example, I think it’s intended for the secret passage to be completed fairly late, which is why there’s all this business with trying to get into the future house by climbing the fallen tree. Here are two more passages from that section which I bet most players never encountered.
Hanging for dear life
You are hanging for dear life, with your body slipping around the trunk of the tree. Soon you’ll be upside down, trying to support your weight with atrophied muscles, with fingers that can’t find a grip on waterlogged bark.You feel your body shift again.
>SHOUT
The scream comes tearing out of your throat, louder than you expected, borne of a terror more real than you have faced before. Your voice pierces the humid air, carrying for miles. In the near distance, you think hear a voice respond. You aren’t sure.You feel your body shift again.
>SHOUT
You scream again, aiming your voice to the front of the house. You hear feet running across wet dirt, slapping into puddles. You can’t see who is below you, but someone is there.A voice yells up to you, “Let go! We’ll catch you!”
You shift again, and are now sideways on the tree and slipping around faster.
>JUMP
You let go of the trunk with your legs, and the weight of them dropping is enough to pull your hands free of the slippery bark.“I got him! I got him!” the hard masculine voice below shouts as you plummet. Instead of a hard collision, the next thing you feel is a pair of powerful arms catching you. Whoever it is sets you back on your feet.
South of house
This is not your house as you expected to find it, but a scene of devastation. The beautiful tree you planted has split from its scorched trunk and smashed into the side of your house. From what you can see, the roof has been torn open by the weight of it, and a terrifying hole gouged out to fully halfway down the wall. However, the fire seems not to have spread thanks to the fire-resistant shingles. Broken splinters of wet and rotting wood lie everywhere, kept moist by recent rains. To the southwest is the old rock and, farther, the clearing. You can walk around your house to the northwest and northeast.You see three people in dark suits, two men and one woman. The man who caught you asks if you are okay, shakes your hand, and introduces himself as Carl. The other imposing gentleman, Victor, tells you that you were lucky they were here.
This is then followed by the usual scene of meeting Laura. There’s also this alternative:
Hanging for dear life
You are hanging for dear life, with your body slipping around the trunk of the tree. Soon you’ll be upside down, trying to support your weight with atrophied muscles, with fingers that can’t find a grip on waterlogged bark.You feel your body shift again.
>PRAY
You pray for help, and you pray with a fervency that comes out of any human soul in a moment of pure desperation.You feel your body shift again.
>JUMP
You let go of the trunk with your legs, and the weight of them dropping is enough to pull your hands free of the slippery bark.“I gotcha! I gotcha!” a gravelly voice below shouts as you plummet. Instead of a hard collision, the next thing you feel is a bizarre and disorienting tangle of arms and legs, some of them probably belonging to you. The voice exclaims, “Oof!” Whoever it is has not so much caught you as acted as a human mattress.
South of house
This is not your house as you expected to find it, but a scene of devastation. The beautiful tree you planted has split from its scorched trunk and smashed into the side of your house. From what you can see, the roof has been torn open by the weight of it, and a terrifying hole gouged out to fully halfway down the wall. However, the fire seems not to have spread thanks to the fire-resistant shingles. Broken splinters of wet and rotting wood lie everywhere, kept moist by recent rains. To the southwest is the old rock and, farther, the clearing. You can walk around your house to the northwest and northeast.You roll off of your rescuer and shakily stand up. Nothing seems to be broken, and you hope the same is the case for him.
“Help me up, help me up,” he wheezes. You extend a hand, and pull the man to his feet. It seems to be an old wino, dressed in filthy clothes that reek of urine and booze. He has a pudgy frame with an enormous bloated gut, and twizzled grey eyebrows. He hasn’t shaved in a long time.
His bloodshot eyes show a brief sign of sparkle when you first look in them. You are horrified when you recognize that this is Fred, the man from the sandwich shop.
The shabby man says, “What the hell were you tryin’ to do? Crazy kid.” He looks away and then back again, and you no longer see the sparkle, only a melancholy darkness. Fred staggers off to the northeast.
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My guess is that the stream got diverted at one point into the cave, and then cleared out the crystals through erosion over time.
This description:
… suggests that it’s the construction work that destroyed the cavern. And there’s no sign of the stream flowing through here at this point, at least.
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