No, it’s too big to fit in the shredder. I tried that first, and then when it gave a non-default failure I remembered that the game kept drawing our attention to the loose handle.
Also, while it is possible to put the game in an unwinnable state, it seems to make a reasonable effort to avoid sequencing gotchas like being able to destroy the pail before getting the tubes from the hive.
Hmm, have we tried loading a tube with water (from the trough)? Mist/fog might also do the trick.
Yes, that’s the first thing I tried. It doesn’t seem to do anything. Unless there’s some active command needed to aim the spray in a particular way to confuse the guns, but I have no idea what it would be.
Oh yeah, that’s right – I blame jet lag. Huh, that’s four things to put in tubes, then, which feels like it should be enough, but maybe one of them is a red herring? There have been some guess-the-verb issues in the past but it seems like just loading the tubes in is working as it should, and per the conversation above it sure does seem like this is meant to be a self-contained puzzle, so I admit to being rather stymied.
Ok, this one is on me, although the game could have been a little more helpful.
Except:
>Z
Time passes.Spraying glowing purple liquid seems to have done the trick, and you’ve escaped detection by the sentry guns – for now.
I thought when I tried it earlier, I’d stuck it out right to the bitter end, but apparently I wrote off that playthrough a turn too early. It seems that whatever we put in the cannon, the guns start beeping and turning to aim at us; it’s only on the turn when they would otherwise shoot us dead that we get to find out if we loaded the right thing to fool the sensors.
I’ve been away for a couple of days, so new proper update coming soon!
After a few false starts and misapprehensions, we have what is hopefully a complete plan for getting past the sentry guns. Let’s try putting it into action.
Animal Farm
Closest to you are the pigs: genitically modified, fat ones that guzzle water from their feeding trough.
You can also see a rusty iron pail (which is empty), two empty plastic tubes, a tube of glowing purple liquid and a tube of liquified pig poop here.
>TAKE TUBES
Which do you mean, an empty plastic tube, the tube of glowing purple liquid or the tube of liquified pig poop?>ALL
empty plastic tube: Taken.
empty plastic tube: Taken.
tube of glowing purple liquid: Taken.
tube of liquified pig poop: Taken.>TAKE HANDLE
(putting the empty plastic tube into the carrier bag to make room)
You snap the handle off the rusty iron pail.[Your score has just gone up by three points.]
>S
Storage Silo
A nasty contraption that looks like a paper shredder but probably isn’t sits by the wall, close to the northern entrance.
>PUT EMPTY TUBE UNDER SPOUT
(the empty plastic tube under the compost shredder)
You place the empty plastic tube underneath the spout.>PUT HANDLE IN SHREDDER
You place the pail’s handle in the funnel. The shredder’s blades whirr into action, slicing and dicing. After a minute or so, the spout dispenses iron flakes into the plastic tube.>TAKE FLAKES
Taken.>N
Animal Farm
Closest to you are the pigs: genitically modified, fat ones that guzzle water from their feeding trough.
You can also see a rusty iron pail (which is empty) here.
The game put the remaining empty tube into the bag for us a moment ago, so:
>TAKE EMPTY TUBE
Taken.>FILL EMPTY TUBE
You fill the plastic tube with water from the trough.>I
You are carrying:
a tube of water
a tube of iron flakes
a tube of liquified pig poop
a tube of glowing purple liquid
a carrier bag
a datastick
a camera pen
a fake antiviral inhaler (which is closed)
a Waterline Club member’s pass
a painted steel rose
this year’s calendar
two subbuteo pieces:
Tania Rourke
Natalia
a hi-tech digital wristwatch (being worn)
a Utopia Technologies bodysuit (being worn)
Four tubes in hand, their contents running the gamut from alarming to repulsive, we head once more to the skies:
>E
Wheat Field
Scarecrows are so old news; Utopia protects its crops with automated, ceiling mounted sentry guns. This area has good cover, but further east you’d be right out in the open.
The Utopian equivalent of a crop duster has landed in the field, flattening a patch of wheat in the process.
>GET IN DUSTER
You get into the crop duster.>TURN IT ON
The crop duster’s antigrav drive whines into life.With you in the pilot’s seat, the crop duster takes to the skies-- well, the space above the fields, seeing as you’re indoors. The machine heads eastward, and soon you’re over…
Bare Terrain (in the crop duster)
Devoid of crops and livestock yes, but not of security precautions. You’re certainly on the right track; the path through this section of open, undeveloped, cover free terrain is guarded by automated sentry guns and a laserfence similar to the one you saw at the landing pad. Whatever’s east of the barrier must be important.There’s no way to circumnavigate the laser beams – you’ll have to shut them off to pass.
Utopia’s not relying solely on machines for protection. They’ve stationed a USF guard by the fence. Fortunately he’s looking ahead and not up, so he hasn’t spotted you yet.
>Z
Time passes.The crop duster flies eastward. You’re still a good kilometre away from the laserfence.
>Z
Time passes.The sentry guns begin to hum. You notice beams of purple light directed from the turrets. The sensors are performing an optical ultraviolet scan.
So, apparently, the way to fool ultraviolet sensors is with something that glows purple:
>PUT PURPLE LIQUID IN CANNON
You load the plastic tube into the spray cannon, and it begins shooting glowing purple liquid in front of the crop duster.You hear repeated beeping from the automated guns. They begin to rotate.
>Z
Time passes.The sentry guns have finished rotating, and are now aiming directly at you!
Stay strong, Alice!
>Z
Time passes.Spraying glowing purple liquid seems to have done the trick, and you’ve escaped detection by the sentry guns – for now.
We’ll need to switch out the ammunition for the cannon to fool the next round of sensors, so we need to remove the radioactive berry juice:
>TAKE PURPLE
You unload the plastic tube from the spray cannon, which is now shooting harmless thin air.The crop duster flies eastward. You’re moving towards the laserfence, though its still quite some distance off.
>Z
Time passes.The sentry guns begin to hum. You notice thermal sensors drop from the roof. Your body heat will give you away!
I guess the cool water masks our body heat? (I feel like five litres might not be enough, but that’s all we have to work with, so let’s hope it works!)
>PUT WATER IN CANNON
You load the plastic tube into the spray cannon, and it begins shooting water in front of the crop duster.You hear repeated beeping from the automated guns. They begin to rotate.
>Z
Time passes.The sentry guns have finished rotating, and are now aiming directly at you!
>Z
Time passes.Spraying water seems to have done the trick, and you’ve escaped detection by the sentry guns – for now.
Two down, two to go—but despite not having tested the remaining two, I’m having a hard time seeing how they could be wrong.
>TAKE WATER
You unload the plastic tube from the spray cannon, which is now shooting harmless thin air.The crop duster flies eastward. You’re about halfway to the laserfence.
>Z
Time passes.The sentry guns begin to hum. You notice sniffers extend from the turrets. Those things are highly sensitive, and can detect human body odours at extreme distances.
This isn’t a command I was expecting to have to use when I started this game:
>PUT POOP IN CANNON
You load the plastic tube into the spray cannon, and it begins shooting liquified pig poop in front of the crop duster.You hear repeated beeping from the automated guns. They begin to rotate.
>Z
Time passes.The sentry guns have finished rotating, and are now aiming directly at you!
>Z
Time passes.Spraying liquified pig poop seems to have done the trick, and you’ve escaped detection by the sentry guns – for now.
>TAKE POOP
You unload the plastic tube from the spray cannon, which is now shooting harmless thin air.The crop duster flies eastward. You’re getting closer to the fence.
>Z
Time passes.The sentry guns begin to hum. You notice radar dishes activate on the turrets. If you don’t jam them, you’re a dead woman.
>PUT FLAKES IN CANNON
You load the plastic tube into the spray cannon, and it begins shooting iron flakes in front of the crop duster.You hear repeated beeping from the automated guns. They begin to rotate.
>Z
Time passes.The sentry guns have finished rotating, and are now aiming directly at you!
>Z
Time passes.Spraying iron flakes seems to have done the trick, and you’ve escaped detection by the sentry guns – for now.
And we’ve made it past all four rounds of sensors. What now?
>Z
Time passes.The crop duster flies eastward. You’re almost on top of the laserfence now.
>Z
Time passes.The crop duster has reached the eastern point of its spraying run. You’re now hovering directly above the USF guard.
Well, at least the crop duster didn’t fly straight into the laserfence and get chopped to pieces. I guess now we’re meant to do something about the guard?
>Z
Time passes.The crop duster begins to turn around.
I don’t much fancy waiting while the crop duster flies back past all of those sensors again, so let’s try something dramatic:
>JUMP
Timing your jump to perfection, you leap down on the USF trooper. You bend your legs and use the man’s body to cushion your fall. You’re not heavy even by female standards, but a two footed lunge with such momentum is enough to break the guard’s neck upon impact. His body falls face down into the dirt, just in front of the laserfence. Now you’ve crossed the field, the sentry guns don’t pay much attention to you, though you imagine they would if you hiked back west.
Kapow!
That guy sure fell for you, Alice.
Unless I’m mistaken, this is the first time we’ve actually killed or even injured any of the USF, so maybe Nanci has been waiting all this time to reveal his true purpose: dishing out Bond-style one-liners when we win a fight. This is a pretty mediocre first offering, but maybe he’ll hit his stride if we beat up a few more goons.
[Your score has just gone up by six points.]
>X FENCE
Energy towers stationed one metre apart span the entire field from north to south. When active, the beam generators create an impassable fence of crimson laser beams. Unlike flawed security systems in heist holovids, there’s no way through, over, under or around this barrier.>FOCUS FENCE
Too bad those beams are so close. I’d love to watch you squeeze through there.
This is the same description we had when we looked at the laserfence from a kilometre away, before our flight in the crop duster.
>X GUARD
One less Utopia goon to worry about. The man’s neck is twisted at an odd angle, helmet visor half buried in dirt. He’s holding a rod shaped device, clinging to it dearly even in death.>FOCUS GUARD
Utopia must have its own cloning machine for producing these disposable henchmen.
Well, we need to get past the laserfence, so it seems handy that the guard appears to be holding a remote control for it.
>TAKE ROD
The guard’s grip is too tight.>X ROD
The rod is black metal, of similar size to the morphtool but not as shiny. Looking the device over, you see a simple switch, three adjustable rings engraved with the letters A to Z, and an infrared emitter. Reading in order from bottom to top the rings spell TOE.>SWITCH ROD
The switch doesn’t move. Maybe you need to be holding the control device to operate it.
It would have been nice if we could have ignored that whole “clinging to it dearly even in death” part, but I guess we have to find a way to get the rod away from the guard after all.
>FOCUS ROD
Machines come and go but remote controls stay the same.>PULL ROD
Nothing obvious happens.>HIT ROD
Violence isn’t the answer to this one.
I’m going to point it out again: it’s been the answer several times so far in this game.
>HIT GUARD
Rest assured the guard is quite dead.
Well, yes, but can we apply enough brute force to get the rod out of his hand?
Rather than start looking up ways to deal with rigor mortis, we note that the description of the dead guard seems to be drawing attention to his helmet:
>X HELMET
Standard issue for all USF troopers, this helmet offers full head protection and anonyminity thanks to its oneway helmet visor, see through from within but opaque black on the outside.>TAKE IT
You bend down and pull the guard’s helmet off his head. Unmasked, the man is a thick necked blond Jock, lots of muscle but few grey cells. He’s the type who has to write crucial instructions down in case he forgets.
Seems like a hint, given that the rod needs a combination to activate it.
>WEAR HELMET
You put on the USF trooper’s helmet.>FOCUS IT
Now, why would a beautiful woman like you want to hide her face?
Someone should probably have explained the concept of disguise to our handler before this espionage mission.
>X GUARD
One less Utopia goon to worry about. The man’s neck is twisted at an odd angle, helmet removed to expose his ugly face. He’s holding a rod shaped device, clinging to it dearly even in death.
The description now mentions the guard’s face, but we can’t examine it; the game thinks we’re referring to the face of our wristwatch.
>SEARCH GUARD
Bodysuits don’t have pockets.>SEARCH HELMET
You can see quite clearly.
I guess it would be easier to search the helmet while we’re not wearing it.
>REMOVE HELMET
You take off the USF trooper’s helmet.>SEARCH HELMET
Someone’s scratched some text on the helmet’s interior: BEAM COLOUR. A clue of some kind?
Well, the beams that make up the laserfence are RED, which is a three-letter word, matching the number of rings on the rod, so that seems like a pretty good bet.
>X RINGS
(the infrared control device)
The rod is black metal, of similar size to the morphtool but not as shiny. Looking the device over, you see a simple switch, three adjustable rings engraved with the letters A to Z, and an infrared emitter. Reading in order from bottom to top the rings spell TOE.>SET RINGS TO RED
(the infrared control device to)
That would be easier to do if you were holding the control device.>TAKE CONTROL DEVICE
The guard’s grip is too tight.
Ok, we’ve got the combination, but we need to get this rod out of the guard’s hand somehow. Unlike the helmet, his hand isn’t implemented as a separate object; examining it repeats the description of the guard himself.
If we can’t pull the rod out of his hand, can we do anything with this conveniently-located laserfence?
>TAKE GUARD
You’re not strong enough to lift the man’s body fully off the ground.>PUSH GUARD
You drag the guard’s body a few metres, accomplishing little.>PUT GUARD IN FENCE
You need to be holding the USF guard before you can put it into something else.>X FENCE
Energy towers stationed one metre apart span the entire field from north to south. When active, the beam generators create an impassable fence of crimson laser beams. Unlike flawed security systems in heist holovids, there’s no way through, over, under or around this barrier.>TOUCH FENCE
You got a death wish?>PUSH GUARD INTO FENCE
You grab the dead USF guard by his legs and drag him eastwards through the mud. Maneuvering him towards the active lasers, you spin the corpse so it comes into contact with a crimson beam. It slices clean through his gloved fingers, freeing the control device from his hand. Objective achieved, you let the man slump to the ground.
It took a couple of goes to get the phrasing right, but our plan was dead on; let’s test out that combination.
>TAKE CONTROL DEVICE
(putting the tube of water into the carrier bag to make room)
Taken.[Your score has just gone up by three points.]
>SET CONTROL DEVICE TO RED
You’ll have to specify which ring: top, middle or bottom.>SET TOP TO R
(the infrared control device to)
You adjust the top ring to the letter R.>SET MIDDLE TO E
You adjust the middle ring to the letter E.>SET BOTTOM TO D
You adjust the bottom ring to the letter D.>SWITCH ON DEVICE
(the infrared control device)
You press the switch on the control device, but nothing noticable happens as a result.
Drat! That clue seemed really obvious; what did we miss?
>X DEVICE
(the infrared control device)
The rod is black metal, of similar size to the morphtool but not as shiny. Looking the device over, you see a simple switch, three adjustable rings engraved with the letters A to Z, and an infrared emitter. Reading in order from bottom to top the rings spell DER.
*facepalm*
>SET BOTTOM TO R
You adjust the bottom ring to the letter R.>SET TOP TO D
(the infrared control device to)
You adjust the top ring to the letter D.>SWITCH ON DEVICE
(the infrared control device)
You press the switch on the control device. The energy towers all beep at once, and the laserfence shuts down with an echoing, low pitched hum.
And there we go!
>E
Other Side Of The Fence
At first glance, there’s no difference from the field to the west. There’s the same barren terrain, the same well defined paths across the soil (here they lead southwest and southeast), and the same open endedness. What sets this region apart, besides the laserfence, is the hemispherical covered, secure area to the south. That’s a sealable biodome; whatever Utopia’s growing in there, it sure isn’t wheat.You’ve temporarily deactivated the laserfence.
How do you know this area is secure? Well, the two armed USF troopers stationed outside the dome give the game away. You’re some distance from the entrance, and it’d be a good idea to keep it that way until you have a workable plan for getting by the sentries.
The energy towers reactivate, and the fence is once again a deathtrap of crimson beams.
[Your score has just gone up by two points.]
So we’ve made it to the entrance to the fabled biodome; Professor Zacharias was pretty certain there was something suspicious going on inside, so assuming that we can find a way past these guards, we should hopefully shortly be able to find out what!
One more thing that I should highlight from this update:
>SCORE
You have so far scored 212 out of a possible 400, in 1907 turns, and attained the rank of corporate saboteur.
We’re more than halfway through the game!
It’s been a long time since I played but this sequence unlocked a memory of the whole tube thing. I was well into following the walkthrough at the time and remember thinking, “How on earth would anyone figure this out?” I guess now I know!
I think I missed the part where it explains why you aren’t flying directly through the cloud of poop that you just blasted into the air. (Same with the hot radioactive berry juice, but somehow I find that less disturbing.)
Since it’s a crop duster, I’m guessing the sprayers are aimed downward enough that we’re not flying directly through the cloud. But then again, the sensors are specifically above us, right?
My best hope for this is that the spray cannon sprays whatever it’s loaded with forwards in an arc, so that it’s fallen below the level you’re flying at by the time you catch up to it? But I don’t know if this interpretation would withstand a thorough analysis of the aerodynamic properties of aerosolised pig faeces.
We’ve finally made it past some unusually heavily fortified wheat fields and arrived at the entrance to the biodome. Professor Zacharias said he thought there was something sketchy going on here and asked us to investigate it in return for—actually, I can’t even remember what he offered us, except that we’re probably being played and almost certainly have to go along with it anyway.
Incidentally, if anyone is feeling bad about that guard we killed in the previous update, you might want to tap out for a bit; our espionage mission has been pretty bloodless so far (apart from our own repeated deaths), but that’s not going to last.
Other Side Of The Fence
At first glance, there’s no difference from the field to the west. There’s the same barren terrain, the same well defined paths across the soil (here they lead southwest and southeast), and the same open endedness. What sets this region apart, besides the laserfence, is the hemispherical covered, secure area to the south. That’s a sealable biodome; whatever Utopia’s growing in there, it sure isn’t wheat.There’s no way to circumnavigate the laser beams – you’ll have to shut them off to pass.
How do you know this area is secure? Well, the two armed USF troopers stationed outside the dome give the game away. You’re some distance from the entrance, and it’d be a good idea to keep it that way until you have a workable plan for getting by the sentries.
Well, let’s start with the old disguise-yourself-as-one-of-the-guards approach:
>WEAR HELMET
You put on the USF trooper’s helmet.>S
You approach the biodome, hoping to bluff your way past the guards. “You’re not cleared for this area!” the woman yells, pointing at your bodysuit jewels. “You’ve wearing citizen colours!”With your cover blown, you’re out of options. Hoping to surprise the guards, you charge the woman and engage her in hand to hand combat. Your attack is swift, and you knock her to the floor. Before you can attack the man, he presses his plasma gun to the back of your neck and squeezes the trigger. The shot burns straight through, killing you instantly.
*** You have died ***
In that game you scored 212 out of a possible 400, in 1909 turns, and attained the rank of corporate saboteur.
Ok, that didn’t work terribly well, but it looks like the problem is our bodysuit jewels make it clear that we’re not a USF trooper. We don’t have any obvious way to do anything about that right now, so let’s explore a bit.
Would you like to RESTART, RESTORE a saved game, UNDO your last move, give the FULL score for that game or QUIT?
> UNDO
Other Side Of The Fence
[Previous turn undone.]>SW
Oil Fields
So called experts predicted crude oil supplies would run out in the twenty first century. But whenever there’s money at stake, company executives always find a way to cheat the odds. This is Utopia’s solution to the problem; what they can’t drill for they grow instead. Black, juicy vines thrive in nutrition tanks, from which biofuel is siphoned off into underground pipes to support the booming hovercar and aerospace industries.
Curse those greedy executives, replacing fossil fuels with engineered sustainable biofuels! These vines are presumably storing energy from the artificial sunlight, which means that all that’s really being accomplished here is moving energy around inside the Arcology, but I guess Utopia never came up with sufficiently advanced battery technology to beat the energy density of combustible fuels for their flying vehicles?
>X VINES
The oil growing operation is big business.>FOCUS VINES
Where there’s Utopia, there’s a way.
Any attempt to interact with the pipes or tanks gets redirected to the vines. There doesn’t seem to be much we can do here, although since we’re in an oil field, it would be remiss not to try to:
>DIG
(the nutrition tanks)
The ground is too hard to dig with your bare hands.
Let’s check out the other direction.
>NE
Other Side Of The Fence
There’s no way to circumnavigate the laser beams – you’ll have to shut them off to pass.
How do you know this area is secure? Well, the two armed USF troopers stationed outside the dome give the game away. You’re some distance from the entrance, and it’d be a good idea to keep it that way until you have a workable plan for getting by the sentries.
>SE
Work In Progress
Utopia lied! The Arcology isn’t complete. Empty fields don’t remain empty for long; when the company has something secretive to build, where better than a high security zone in their steel fortress? Construction is well underway, the foundations of the new building already laid. Whatever its future purpose, you can be certain it won’t be for the good of humankind. Rubble blocks your path in all directions except northwest.The excavation droids must be on holiday, forcing Utopian workers to adopt a more primitive approach. One of their number has left a titanium pickaxe behind in the field.
Having just visited a location where we were lacking an appropriate tool to do some digging, this seems like a happy coincidence!
>TAKE PICK
Taken.>X IT
The shaft and head are both solid titanium. This is a brawn over brain tool meant for clearing heavy obstacles.>FOCUS IT
They still use those things?>X BUILDING
That’s not important to your mission.
This area seems to exist pretty much in order to have a pickaxe lying around in it, so let’s get back to the oil field.
>NW
Other Side Of The Fence
There’s no way to circumnavigate the laser beams – you’ll have to shut them off to pass.
How do you know this area is secure? Well, the two armed USF troopers stationed outside the dome give the game away. You’re some distance from the entrance, and it’d be a good idea to keep it that way until you have a workable plan for getting by the sentries.
>SW
Oil Fields
>DIG
(the nutrition tanks)
You strike the ground with your pickaxe. With your agility and body strength, one blow is enough to rapture an underground oil pipeline. The black liquid sprays up, covering your bodysuit from the neck down and concealing your brown jewels. Just as you were starting to enjoy your oilbath, automated repair molebots plug the leak and refill the dirt. The stuff on your suit is so sticky its automated cleaning procedure is having trouble getting rid of it.Pure black gold. You’ve struck it rich, baby!
We’re now coated in sticky black oil, which would be gross except that it might prevent us from being recognised as a civilian, so let’s see if we can get into the biodome now.
>NE
Other Side Of The Fence
There’s no way to circumnavigate the laser beams – you’ll have to shut them off to pass.
How do you know this area is secure? Well, the two armed USF troopers stationed outside the dome give the game away. You’re some distance from the entrance, and it’d be a good idea to keep it that way until you have a workable plan for getting by the sentries.
Your bodysuit is winning the fight against the oil. The jewels won’t stay black forever.
Looks like we’re on a time limit, but there’s nothing else we want to do before heading in anyway, so:
>S
You approach the biodome, hoping to bluff your way past the guards. “Can’t let you through,” the male guard says. “You know the rules, trooper. Nothing but the clothes on your back and head.”Oil drains into the ground. Another minute, and you’ll be an average brownie.
>DROP ALL
titanium pickaxe: Dropped.
infrared control device: Dropped.
tube of liquified pig poop: Dropped.
tube of glowing purple liquid: Dropped.
carrier bag: Dropped.
If the guards have any thoughts as to why we might be carrying these things, they’re apparently keeping them to themselves.
Your bodysuit cleans itself, burning away the last traces of oil.
Come on, suit, you couldn’t have given us one more turn?
>TAKE PICK
Taken.>SW
Oil Fields
>DIG
(the nutrition tanks)
You strike the ground with your pickaxe. With your agility and body strength, one blow is enough to rapture an underground oil pipeline. The black liquid sprays up, covering your bodysuit from the neck down and concealing your brown jewels. Just as you were starting to enjoy your oilbath, automated repair molebots plug the leak and refill the dirt. The stuff on your suit is so sticky its automated cleaning procedure is having trouble getting rid of it.>NE
Other Side Of The Fence
There’s no way to circumnavigate the laser beams – you’ll have to shut them off to pass.
How do you know this area is secure? Well, the two armed USF troopers stationed outside the dome give the game away. You’re some distance from the entrance, and it’d be a good idea to keep it that way until you have a workable plan for getting by the sentries.
You can also see a carrier bag (in which are a tube of water, a datastick, a camera pen, a fake antiviral inhaler (which is closed), a Waterline Club member’s pass, a painted steel rose, this year’s calendar and two subbuteo pieces (Tania Rourke and Natalia)), a tube of glowing purple liquid, a tube of liquified pig poop and an infrared control device here.
Your bodysuit is winning the fight against the oil. The jewels won’t stay black forever.
>DROP PICK
Dropped.Oil drains into the ground. Another minute, and you’ll be an average brownie.
>S
You approach the biodome, hoping to bluff your way past the guards. “All right, trooper,” the woman says. “Go on through.”
Result!
Biodome
A greenhouse to rival the size of most national parks, the biodome is a contained growing environment with temperature, lighting and air pressure controlled from a bank of consoles. There are dozens of nutrition tanks, but only one species in cultivation: an exotic, dark green leafed tree native to Colombia. You recognise it from news footage of the war – it’s the source of the Zavor virus, not eradicated as Utopia claimed, but alive and well.There’s an emergency medical locker which is presently closed, and as the name suggests, locked.
The control consoles are supervised by a female researcher.
A vial of pale green liquid rests on a labstation workbench – one guess what it contains.
Your bodysuit cleans itself, burning away the last traces of oil.
The Zavor strain? Utopia is cultivating the Zavor Strain!? All that talk of how they saved the world from the virus – it was all lies. I should’ve known, but-- How deep does their deception go? This is the proof you need. Get that vial, and get it to Professor Zacharias.
[Your score has just gone up by two points.]
Ok, so this is pretty clearly the secret that Zacharias wanted us to uncover. We’ve had to make our way through a lot of security to get here, so the next question is how can we get hold of the vial and smuggle it out with us?
>X VIAL
Such a small bottle, yet so deadly.>FOCUS IT
The Zavor strain. A war. Four billion dead. Any of this ring a bell?>X RESEARCHER
The girl is young, far too young to be involved with something so monstrous as the Zavor virus. She’s wearing a labcoat over her Utopia Technologies bodysuit.>FOCUS HER
What’s a beautiful girl like that doing in a Godforsaken hellhole like this?>ASK HER ABOUT VIAL
You’re not here for conversation.
The researcher doesn’t seem to be a lot of help, so let’s look at what else is here:
>X LOCKER
Being in a laboratory, this tall locker is lead shielded to protect its contents from toxins and radiation. In an emergency situation, one doesn’t always have time to remember a combination. Hence the locking mechanism is a simple passcard reader.>FOCUS IT
I’d class this as an emergency. Wouldn’t you?>OPEN IT
It seems to be locked.
Nothing immediately obvious to do with the locker either. Is it possible that we can just …
>TAKE VIAL
Ever so carefully, you collect the vial from the workbench. You’ve been briefed on the Zavor virus. Mere contact with it results in paralysis and death within five seconds. Exposure to contanimated air is slightly less dangerous – in that situation, you get a full two minutes to administer an antidote. But those are concerns for the future; right now you have to worry about the silver suited, plasma rifle bearing woman who’s just walked in.
“So, the spy reveals herself,” Ruby Eagle gloats. “The Director knew the Chinese would send someone. I saw you coming, but then my vision’s always been exceptional. I see you’re curious about the Zavor virus. Let me show you what it can do.”
She raises her rifle, deliberately slow as if to savour the moment. The female scientist watches in horror as Ruby takes aim at the vial in your hand.
Of the four executives we’ve encountered so far, Ruby Eagle is probably the one who seems the most dangerous. That might be something to do with her having been the only one who killed us (several times) in attempts at earlier sections.
Anyway, we’re either about to get our hand shot off or let her blast this vial and splash us with a virus that we’ve been assured will kill us in five seconds, so let’s write off getting out of here with the vial and put up a fight:
>THROW VIAL AT RUBY
You hurl the vial at Ruby’s face. Reacting to the new threat, she leaps backwards, aims her plasma rifle, and blasts the incoming bottle to pieces. The Zavor virus spills onto the lab floor and evaporates. An alarm siren sounds and an airtight titanium seal drops across the entrance. Ruby slides back, lying her body flat to slide under the falling door. The scientist isn’t so lucky – she’s trapped in the biodome with you.“You stupid woman,” she chastises you. “Do you realise what you’ve done?”
Killed you? That’s what you get for playing God, lady.
[Your score has just gone up by two points.]
Ok, well, we got Ruby Eagle out of the way; can we avoid dying to airborne infection by the Zavor virus?
>ASK SCIENTIST ABOUT VIRUS
(the researcher about that)
You’re not here for conversation.The scientist rushes over to the locker and swipes a security card through the reader. Stuffing the card in her labcoat pocket, she opens the door, grabs a green capsule from inside, and slams the locker shut.
She’s got the antidote! Don’t think, Alice. You’ve a mission to accomplish. This is live or die. It’s her or you.
Can we have that, please?
>TAKE ANTIDOTE
The scientist backs away, not letting you near the green capsule.The woman swallows the green pill, looking somewhat relieved.
Shucks, apparently Alice is too mild-mannered to force the issue when we tell her to take the antidote away from the scientist. Better hope there’s another helping in the locker, then.
>SEARCH LOCKER
You can’t see inside, since the medical locker is closed.Against an enemy as formidable as the Zavor virus, you’ve lasted two full minutes longer than expected, but even your endurance has its breaking point. You had the means to save yourself within your grasp but for whatever reason, you decided not to.
You feel your face go soft and soggy. Green fluid covers your eyes, and you collapse vomiting on the floor. What follows is a slow, agonising death that leaves you begging for the end to come. When it does arrive, there is nothing except darkness.
*** You have died ***
In that game you scored 216 out of a possible 400, in 1946 turns, and attained the rank of corporate saboteur.
Oh. Looks like we only have the opportunity to get our hands on one antidote.
Let’s find out if violence is the answer to this one. We rewind a couple of turns:
The scientist rushes over to the locker and swipes a security card through the reader. Stuffing the card in her labcoat pocket, she opens the door, grabs a green capsule from inside, and slams the locker shut.
She’s got the antidote! Don’t think, Alice. You’ve a mission to accomplish. This is live or die. It’s her or you.
>PUNCH SCIENTIST
(the researcher)
You decide to throw remorse and morality out of an imaginary window. The scientist made a conscious decision to join Utopia, and will have to face the consequences. You beat her into submission with a couple of punches and snatch the green capsule from her hand. Horrified, the woman claws at your bodysuit. As you watch, green liquid oozes from her skin and soon covers her entire face. Convulsing, the girl dies at your feet.There’s no time to feel sorry. Take the antidote!
[Your score has just gone up by three points.]
I get the sense that Alice is not fully convinced by her rationalising here. We already know that there are people who live their whole lives within the Arcology and are essentially indoctrinated by Utopia at birth, so there’s no guarantee she made a “conscious decision” to join Utopia at all.
>EAT ANTIDOTE
You swallow the pill, hoping the deceased scientist chose the right one.
Well … did she? Do we live, or do we drop dead next turn?
>LOOK
Biodome
A greenhouse to rival the size of most national parks, the biodome is a contained growing environment with temperature, lighting and air pressure controlled from a bank of consoles. There are dozens of nutrition tanks, but only one species in cultivation: an exotic, dark green leafed tree native to Colombia. You recognise it from news footage of the war – it’s the source of the Zavor virus, not eradicated as Utopia claimed, but alive and well.An airtight titanium seal has dropped across the entrance, trapping you inside the contanimated dome.
There’s an emergency medical locker which is presently closed, and as the name suggests, locked.
The female scientist lies dead by the locker, her disfigured face covered in green ooze.
The good news: you’re still alive. The bad news: you’re trapped in here with a murderous psychobabe out for your blood. Don’t panic!
I guess we do live, then. Now, what do we do about the fact that we’re apparently sealed inside the biodome?
>X SCIENTIST
(the researcher)
The girl was young, far too young to be involved with something so monstrous as the Zavor virus. She’s wearing a labcoat over her Utopia Technologies bodysuit.You hear voices from outside the biodome. It’s a man, so it must be the guard. “You’re not going in there, are you?” he asks. “What about us?”
“I won’t be needing you,” Ruby responds. “You let an unauthorised woman into a secure facility. A truly woeful display of incompetence, one that you won’t have chance to repeat.”
There is a blast of energy, cries of agony from the man, screams from the woman, two mores blasts – and then silence.
Guess you don’t need to worry about the guards no more.
>SEARCH SCIENTIST
(the researcher)
She’s wearing a labcoat over her Utopia Technologies bodysuit.The biodome’s ventilation system kicks in, recycling the air.
That’s the filtration tanks removing the virus. As soon as it’s clear, the door will open. You’ll have to hide, but that won’t be easy. Ruby has eye implants. I did an analysis from earlier. Besides excellent vision, she can do thermal scans and X-rays. Even out of sight, you’ll show up on those, unless you can somehow mask yourself.
Sounds like we’re on a timer, then. And we need to find some sort of means to render ourselves invisible to Ruby’s “thermal scans and X-rays” before she comes looking for us. We know that the scientist had a passcard for the emergency locker, so we should be able to find it on her body, right?
>TAKE COAT
You pull the lab coat off the dead scientist.[Your score has just gone up by three points.]
>X IT
A fairly basic scientist’s coat with two outside pockets. It’s woven from white, chemical resistant cloth long enough to cover its wearer’s upper and lower body but totally useless against airborne biological nerve agents-- something like, say the Zavor virus.>FOCUS IT
The good old lab coat. Where would an evil scientist be without one?>SEARCH IT
Searching through the lab coat’s pockets, you find a pink passcard, which you take with you.[Your score has just gone up by three points.]
>OPEN LOCKER WITH PASSCARD
You slide the pink passcard through the reader, and the locker door swings open.>LOOK IN LOCKER
The medical locker is empty.The vents continue to recycle the air.
It’s … empty? I guess we didn’t need to worry earlier about whether the scientist picked the right capsule when she was searching for the antidote, then, since this whole locker is apparently here to store a single capsule. I guess normal protocol is for only one person to be working in here at a time? Or at least, only one person important enough to be saved in the event of a breach?
Unfortunately, this slightly scuppers the plan of hoping that we find something in the locker to help us evade Ruby Eagle. What else is here?
>X SEAL
The seal is two centimetres thick titanium, windowless and designed to completely quarantine the biodome in emergency situations.>FOCUS IT
No response. You suspect Nanci has nothing to say about the airtight titanium seal.>X TANKS
You can’t see any such thing.
Well, let’s see if we can hide in the locker. It was described as being lead-lined, so it should hide us from Ruby’s X-ray vision, at least.
>HIDE IN LOCKER
You squeeze into the locker and close the door to, leaving a tiny gap to see through. It’s quite dark on the inside.Your wristwatch display glows blue, a colour that casts the room in a whole different light – ocean, azure and cyan amongst others. Still, you shouldn’t complain; it’s ample enough illumination to see what you’re doing.
I somehow lost it from the transcript, but while we’re inside the locker, we’re prevented from fully shutting the door—on the grounds that we’d then be permanently trapped inside, which is an objection I can’t really fault.
>Z
Time passes.The virus has nearly been expunged.
We wait a few more turns, until …
With a hiss, the airtight titanium seal lifts open. You hear the clank of metal on concrete as Ruby enters the biodome. “Nice try, Alice Wei Ling,” she says. “I saw the name on your tag, and now I’m seeing blue.”
Against advanced weaponry, the locker offers no protection whatsoever. Ruby takes aim with her plasma rifle and shoots off a bolt. The burning ball of gas sears through your right knee, severing it just below the thigh. Bilking in arrogance, the silver suited woman doesn’t even bother to aim. She fires four more shots: three to remove your remaining leg and arms, and the final one to blast your head off its limbless body.
*** You have died ***
In that game you scored 225 out of a possible 400, in 1964 turns, and attained the rank of adept spy.
Would you like to RESTART, RESTORE a saved game, UNDO your last move, give the FULL score for that game or QUIT?
Ok, that was less than fully successful. Clearly, we didn’t do enough to hide ourselves from Ruby’s augmented senses. Her comment about “seeing blue” implies that maybe she’s seeing the blue light from our wristwatch illuminating the inside of the locker?
We restore to an earlier save, and notice that the room description also mentions a control console.
>X CONSOLE
You look around for a console that has controls you can understand. There’s only one of those; looking it over you see a thermometer, a temperature dial and a light wavelength dial.
Aha! This sounds a lot more promising in terms of finding ways to foil that thermal scan, and hopefully the wavelength dial does something useful too.
>FOCUS IT
Don’t know about you, but I always liked fiddling with controls.>X THERMOMETER
An alcohol in glass thermometer, labelled in Celsius. According to the reading it’s currently 21 degrees C.>FOCUS IT
Time to heat the place up, baby.>X TEMPERATURE
You know this dial is for adjusting temperature because it’s calibrated in Kelvin. It’s currently set to 294 K, and has settings ranging from 275 K to 320 K.
Ok, who designed this place so that you set the temperature in Kelvin, but the thermometer displays it in Celsius?
>FOCUS IT
Don’t know about you, but I always liked fiddling with controls.The vents continue to recycle the air.
>X WAVELENGTH
According to its tiny label, this dial controls the light in the greenhouse-- or whatever colour it is; at the moment it happens to be green. The digital readout matches the dial’s setting: 522 nanometres.
522nm is smack in the middle of the green region of the visible spectrum, so that checks out.
Anyway, if we want to mask our heat signature, human body temperature is, uh, about 36 degrees, and then we convert to Kelvin by adding 173, so …
>SET TEMPERATURE TO 309
You adjust the temperature to 309 K. It feels unbearably hot.
Ok, so maybe if we turn the lights blue, it’ll mask the blue light coming from the watch and prevent Ruby Eagle from spotting it through the gap in the door of the locker? We pick an arbitrary blue wavelength:
>SET WAVELENGTH TO 450
You adjust the wavelength setting to 450 nanometres, and the lights in the biodome turn blue.>HIDE IN LOCKER
You squeeze into the locker and close the door to, leaving a tiny gap to see through. It’s quite dark on the inside.Your wristwatch display glows blue, a colour that casts the room in a whole different light – ocean, azure and cyan amongst others. Still, you shouldn’t complain; it’s ample enough illumination to see what you’re doing.
And then wait until …
With a hiss, the airtight titanium seal lifts open. You hear the clank of metal on concrete as Ruby enters the biodome. “Nice try, Alice Wei Ling,” she says. “I saw the name on your tag, and now I’m seeing blue.”
Followed by exactly the same death as before.
I spent several very repetitive attempts at this point playing with the wavelength dial, which I’ve cut from the transcript for brevity. Depending on the wavelength we choose, the lights are described as turning red, orange, yellow, green, blue or violet (not indigo, weirdly). We can also set the wavelength slightly outside the visible spectrum (infrared or ultraviolet), in which case the game tells us that the lights in the biodome go out (and our wristwatch lights up). However, regardless of which of the above we choose (I did try all of them), Ruby steps into the biodome and immediately shoots us dead with exactly the same message as above.
For the sake of full disclosure, I did take a look at the hints during this section, because I didn’t quite understand what was happening and I was conscious of having spent a lot of time on the previous segment getting past the sentry guns. The key turns out to be this:
>SET WAVELENGTH TO 300
You adjust the wavelength setting to 300 nanometres, and the lights in the biodome go out, leaving you in darkness.Your wristwatch display glows blue, a colour that casts the room in a whole different light – ocean, azure and cyan amongst others. Still, you shouldn’t complain; it’s ample enough illumination to see what you’re doing.
Now, the wavelength dial is described as having an attached digital readout, which usually shows exactly the same wavelength as the dial is currently set to, because that’s the dominant colour of light inside the biodome. But—here’s the trick—the readout only shows the colour of the dominant visible wavelength within the dome:
>X WAVELENGTH
According to its tiny label, this dial controls the light in the greenhouse-- or whatever colour it is; at the moment it happens to be dark. The digital readout is 463 nanometres, even though the dial is set to 300.
463nm is therefore the exact wavelength of the light emitted by our wristwatch, which is currently the only source of visible light within the dome.
>SET WAVELENGTH TO 463
You adjust the wavelength setting to 463 nanometres, and the lights in the biodome turn blue.No longer required as a light source, your wristwatch display fades until only the time remains.
>HIDE IN LOCKER
You squeeze into the locker and close the door to, leaving a tiny gap to see through. It’s quite dark on the inside.Your wristwatch display glows blue, a colour that casts the room in a whole different light – ocean, azure and cyan amongst others. Still, you shouldn’t complain; it’s ample enough illumination to see what you’re doing.
>Z
Time passes.The vents continue to recycle the air.
And we wait, until …
With a hiss, the airtight titanium seal lifts open. You hear the clank of metal on concrete as Ruby enters the biodome. With her back to you, she walks over to the scientist and kicks the dead woman in the side.
[Your score has just gone up by five points.]
Yes! Take that! We are masters of hiding!
>X RUBY
The tall, blonde woman seems incredibly young to be an executive, yet she’s clearly someone important given how she’s dressed. Her shiny silver bodysuit reflects the light beautifully. There are no chinks in her armour; it stretches from her boots all the way to the ruby eagle adorned choker around her neck. Her eyes are intense, unblinking, and have a faint silvery glint, clear evidence of cybernetic enhancement.Ruby Eagle is carrying an automatic plasma rifle.
Ruby brushes green ooze off the woman’s bodysuit, exposing the purple jewels underneath. Cursing, she turns around with her rifle raised. Ruby has you in her sights, and so long as this eagle eyed killer does, she can’t miss.
Maybe we weren’t quite as great at hiding as we thought. Well, having bought ourselves a turn to actually take an action, can we fight our way out of this situation?
>PUNCH RUBY
You’ll need to get out of the medical locker first.“It’s hot in here, Alice,” says Ruby. “And it’s about to heat up even more.”
Against advanced weaponry, the locker offers no protection whatsoever. Ruby takes aim with her plasma rifle and shoots off a bolt. The burning ball of gas sears through your right knee, severing it just below the thigh. Bilking in arrogance, the silver suited woman doesn’t even bother to aim. She fires four more shots: three to remove your remaining leg and arms, and the final one to blast your head off its limbless body.
Dead again!
First things first: it looks like our success messing with the wavelength bought us two whole turns to take an action before Ruby Eagle kills us. We rewind back two turns, because we definitely don’t want to waste the first one examining her; almost certainly, we should have started with:
>OUT
You step out from the locker into the biodome.No longer required as a light source, your wristwatch display fades until only the time remains.
Ruby brushes green ooze off the woman’s bodysuit, exposing the purple jewels underneath. Cursing, she turns around with her rifle raised. Ruby has you in her sights, and so long as this eagle eyed killer does, she can’t miss.
>PUNCH RUBY
You’re not able to reach Ruby Eagle in time.“It’s hot in here, Alice,” says Ruby. “And it’s about to heat up even more.”
And once again we die.
So, even out of the locker, we can’t actually get to Ruby before she shoots us. Can we run away?
> UNDO
Biodome
[Previous turn undone.]>N
You never make it.“It’s hot in here, Alice,” says Ruby. “And it’s about to heat up even more.”
And again.
> UNDO
Biodome
[Previous turn undone.]
If we can’t go anywhere in the split second we have, can we do anything to throw her aim off? Thanks to the guards making us leave everything outside the dome, the only things we’re carrying right now are the passcard and lab coat.
>THROW LAB COAT AT RUBY
You throw the labcoat over Ruby’s head, diving to the floor. She gets off a plasma boat, but with her vision obscured, the ball of hot gas flies harmlessly overhead. Ruby tosses her coat aside, but you’ve taken advantage and closed the gap. It will take her a split second to retarget you with her rifle. Unless you take Ruby down, that’s how long you have to live.>PUNCH RUBY
You pound Ruby with punches and kicks, but against her full body armour your efforts are futile.Snarling with rage, Ruby aims her rifle and fires. Not wanting to toy with you any longer, she blasts you through the heart. Blood sprays across your vision, then everything goes black.
*** You have died ***
In that game you scored 230 out of a possible 400, in 1943 turns, and attained the rank of adept spy.
Would you like to RESTART, RESTORE a saved game, UNDO your last move, give the FULL score for that game or QUIT?
Well, we got a bit closer that time.
> UNDO
Biodome
[Previous turn undone.]
Of course, whenever this scene comes up in an action movie, we know that the hero and the villain end up wrestling over the gun:
>TAKE RIFLE
With Ruby Eagle distracted, you run forward and grab hold of her weapon. You engage in a battle of strength with your silver suited opponent, bending your knees to steady yourself. She’s so strong you wonder if she cybernetic arms as well as eyes. Slowly gaining the advantage, she aims her plasma rifle towards you.Gripping hold of the barrel, you swing your legs low, knocking Ruby off her feet. She falls forward, accidentally squeezing the trigger. The plasma ball rips upwards through her head, disintegrating it into ash. Her decapitated corpse crashes to the floor.
That’s impossible! You defeated one of the exec-- Tell me, Miss Eagle. What good are eyes if you are unable to see?
[Your score has just gone up by three points.]
Phew.
I wasn’t sure that we were going to actually end up outright killing her in this encounter; I figured we might end up having to flee again and running into her for a third time later on. I wonder if this means that we’re going to have to go up against the other five Daughters of Eden one-on-one as well before the game is over?
From what we heard, Ruby killed the guards outside the biodome on her way in, which means that we’re no longer under any immediate threat. Nanci wanted us to grab the Zavor virus vial to take it to Zacharias, but that ship has very much sailed. Hopefully, since he only asked us to bring him information, we can still tell him about what we found in here.
>X RUBY
She’s no longer a threat.>FOCUS HER
You did what you had to do, Alice. Don’t dwell on it.>LOOK
Biodome
A greenhouse to rival the size of most national parks, the biodome is a contained growing environment with temperature, lighting and air pressure controlled from a bank of consoles. There are dozens of nutrition tanks, but only one species in cultivation: an exotic, dark green leafed tree native to Colombia. You recognise it from news footage of the war – it’s the source of the Zavor virus, not eradicated as Utopia claimed, but alive and well.With the virus expunged, the airtight titanium seal has lifted.
The medical locker’s door is open.
The corpses of two women lie on the floor: the researcher and the headless body of Ruby Eagle.
You can also see a lab coat here.
I guess this is our cue to leave?
>N
Other Side Of The Fence
There’s no way to circumnavigate the laser beams – you’ll have to shut them off to pass.
The two USF guards are dead, bodysuits scorched with plasma burns.
You can also see a titanium pickaxe, a carrier bag (in which are a tube of water, a datastick, a camera pen, a fake antiviral inhaler (which is closed), a Waterline Club member’s pass, a painted steel rose, this year’s calendar and two subbuteo pieces (Tania Rourke and Natalia)), a tube of glowing purple liquid, a tube of liquified pig poop and an infrared control device here.
>X GUARDS
The guards are dead and their plasma pistols fried – nothing useful here.>FOCUS THEM
The guards are dead and their plasma pistols fried – nothing useful here.>TAKE ALL
laserfence: The energy towers are immovable.
titanium pickaxe: Taken.
carrier bag: Taken.
tube of glowing purple liquid: Taken.
tube of liquified pig poop: (putting the pink passcard into the carrier bag to make room)
Taken.
infrared control device: (putting the automatic plasma rifle into the carrier bag to make room)
Taken.
USF guards: The guards are dead and their plasma pistols fried – nothing useful here.
Our method of getting through the fence should still be good:
>SWITCH CONTROL DEVICE
You press the switch on the control device. The energy towers all beep at once, and the laserfence shuts down with an echoing, low pitched hum.>W
Bare Terrain
You’ve temporarily deactivated the laserfence.
The USF guard won’t trouble you anymore. He lies dead, face down in front of the laserfence.
The energy towers reactivate, and the fence is once again a deathtrap of crimson beams.
We haven’t done anything to permanently disable the sentry guns, so it’s probably a bad idea just to try to head back, but let’s check:
>W
Having done all the hard work getting past the sentry guns, you decide to celebrate with a pleasant stroll through the fields. Too bad you’re interrupted by loud banging from above. Thanks to your stupidity, the soil gets a good soaking in blood.*** You have died ***
In that game you scored 233 out of a possible 400, in 1953 turns, and attained the rank of adept spy.
Would you like to RESTART, RESTORE a saved game, UNDO your last move, give the FULL score for that game or QUIT?
That went pretty much as expected.
> UNDO
Bare Terrain
[Previous turn undone.]>X GUNS
Huge miniguns, no doubt loaded with armour piercing rounds. Utopian bodysuits are defencess against these weapons. They’re on automatic, constantly sweeping the farmland for intruders.>FOCUS GUNS
That’s some serious hardware. Those sentry guns have different detection modes: ultraviolet light, thermal sensors, sniffers and radar. Unless you shield yourself somehow, you’ll show up on all four of them.
We need to figure out something else to do with these guns, then … did we miss anything back in the lab after all?
>E
Walk through an active web of lasers and hope you survive? Great plan, Alice.>SWITCH DEVICE
(the infrared control device)
You press the switch on the control device. The energy towers all beep at once, and the laserfence shuts down with an echoing, low pitched hum.>E
Other Side Of The Fence
You’ve temporarily deactivated the laserfence.
The two USF guards are dead, bodysuits scorched with plasma burns.
The energy towers reactivate, and the fence is once again a deathtrap of crimson beams.
>S
Biodome
With the virus expunged, the airtight titanium seal has lifted.
The medical locker’s door is open.
The corpses of two women lie on the floor: the researcher and the headless body of Ruby Eagle.
You can also see a lab coat here.
>SEARCH RESEARCHER
She’s wearing nothing except her Utopia Technologies bodysuit.>SEARCH RUBY
Ruby Eagle’s gauntlets are empty.
Hang on, if her gauntlets are empty, then what happened to …?
>TAKE RIFLE
(putting the titanium pickaxe into the carrier bag to make room)
Taken.
Oh, sweet.
>X IT
A state of the art automatic weapon that fires projectiles of a different kind: golf ball sized globes of gas, hot enough to melt through all natural and most human made materials.
Upon re-reading the transcript later, I realised that we were actually carrying the rifle all along; when we typed “TAKE RIFLE”, we took it out of the carrier bag (where we’d automatically stashed it when we picked up the rest of our gear outside the dome).
>N
Other Side Of The Fence
There’s no way to circumnavigate the laser beams – you’ll have to shut them off to pass.
The two USF guards are dead, bodysuits scorched with plasma burns.
>SWITCH CONTROL
You press the switch on the control device. The energy towers all beep at once, and the laserfence shuts down with an echoing, low pitched hum.>W
Bare Terrain
You’ve temporarily deactivated the laserfence.
The USF guard won’t trouble you anymore. He lies dead, face down in front of the laserfence.
The energy towers reactivate, and the fence is once again a deathtrap of crimson beams.
>SHOOT GUNS
(with the automatic plasma rifle)
It’s payback time. Steadying the plasma rifle’s butt against your shoulder, you aim at the sentry guns one by one, blasting them into metal junk. The hot gas burns through their internal electronics, rendering the weapons useless.[Your score has just gone up by two points.]
And now, I think, we can just walk out.
>W
Wheat Field
The sentry guns have been reduced to harmless, mangled metal and electronics.
The Utopian crop duster flies over the field on autopilot.
>W
Animal Farm
Closest to you are the pigs: genitically modified, fat ones that guzzle water from their feeding trough.
You can also see a rusty iron pail (which is empty) here.
I’m guessing that most of what we’re carrying isn’t going to be allowed through the transporter ring, so let’s go check what the guards object to:
>N
Transporter Ring
In case you get lost – a strong possibility in such a mammoth construction – information points are located every hundred metres.
“Terrorist!” screams a female USF trooper. Panicing, her fellow officers draw their weapons and fire. Armour piercing bullets and plasma bolts come from all around the transporter ring. You never get the chance to use your rifle, or rue walking around with it in public.
*** You gave yourself away ***
In that game you scored 235 out of a possible 400, in 1969 turns, and attained the rank of adept spy.
Would you like to RESTART, RESTORE a saved game, UNDO your last move, give the FULL score for that game or QUIT?
Oh, right. Most items that we can’t take with us just get us sent back when we try to enter the transport tube, but if we’re carrying something obviously threatening, they shoot first and ask questions later.
We drop the rifle, the infrared control device (which also gets us shot on sight), the passcard, the pickaxe and the tubes for the crop duster, and then try again:
>N
Transporter Ring
In case you get lost – a strong possibility in such a mammoth construction – information points are located every hundred metres.
A USF guard draws her weapon. “You’re no trooper,” she accuses. “Take her into custody!”
If it weren’t for your bodysuit jewels, it would have been a foolproof plan. Impersonating an officer of the Utopian Security Force carries the death penalty, a sentence carried out within five hours of your arrest.
*** You gave yourself away ***
In that game you scored 235 out of a possible 400, in 1987 turns, and attained the rank of adept spy.
Would you like to RESTART, RESTORE a saved game, UNDO your last move, give the FULL score for that game or QUIT?
And of course, because worn items come at the bottom of the inventory listing, I forgot that we were still wearing the USF trooper’s helmet.
> UNDO
Animal Farm
[Previous turn undone.]>REMOVE HELMET. DROP IT
You take off the USF trooper’s helmet.
Dropped.>N
Transporter Ring
In case you get lost – a strong possibility in such a mammoth construction – information points are located every hundred metres.
And we’ve made it out. Hopefully, even though we didn’t get away with the virus vial itself, what we accomplished here meets our goals of “investigating something suspicious”.
Zacharias told us not to return until we’d investigated all three of the areas he sent us to, but of course we go back to check anyway, so after a short journey through the University campus:
If you’re looking for Professor Zacharias, you’ve found him. His office is to the east, through a door protected by a retinal scanner.
>WEAR LENSES
(first taking the yellow contact lenses)
You place the contacts in your eyes. Other than a yellowish tint, your vision is as perfect as ever.>LOOK IN SCANNER
You step up to the retinal scanner and position your eyes over the binoculars. Red laser beams scan your contact lenses, but the door remains closed. Two possibilities: Professor Zacharias isn’t in his office, or he doesn’t want to see you.
So I guess we really do have to wait until we’ve uncovered the secrets of Utopia Studios and the casino before we can tell him about the virus. Anyone want to place a bet on the odds of something bad happening to him, us or both before we reach that point?
It does feel kind of weird how, through this whole sequence, she has to be described over and over as a “female scientist”. It’s not like there’s any other scientists to confuse her with; a woman being a scientist is just considered notable enough to be brought up repeatedly as we murder her.
How in the Director’s name does she sever each limb in one shot without aiming?!
To be fair, most people don’t distinguish indigo from blue unless they’re fixated on the alchemical and theological implications of the number seven, or they’re reciting the rainbow as first described by someone fixated on the alchemical and theological implications of the number seven.
I would never have gotten that, but that’s clever.
The game makes a pretty good effort at diversity of gender and ethnicity, but the writing is very much default-male and default-white: all the female characters are noted as being such, whereas when the text says “a student” or “a guard” without specifying gender, they’re invariably male. I don’t think it’s because it’s unusual for a scientist specifically to be female; rather the game assumes that any character being female is worthy of comment. (Hard to say if that’s better or worse.)
Of course, this game is written in Inform 6, which (unless it changed at some point), also assumes that all animate NPCs are male unless you explicitly specify that they’re female, so …
Second place behind the agricultural level in the pool of where to explore next is the Fame And Fortune Casino, another of the three areas which Zacharias told us to investigate for anything suspicious. This is a fairly short update consisting of some basic recon of the area and its initial puzzles.
>ENTER GATE 29
As you approach the access tunnel for level 29, a USF guard scans you with an electronic handheld device. After a series of beeps, an LED on the scanner turns green, and the trooper waves you through into the elevator tube. A short and exhilerating ride later, you arrive at your destination.>S
Fame And Fortune
Aptly named, for that’s what those who come to this casino seek. You may be the exception to the rule, but the other citizens are drawn to the west by the card tables, sports betting holobooths and fifty credits a go slot machines. Everything here revolves around money; those without capital have to make do with “free” game areas to the southwest, south and southeast, and a retro arcade booth on the east side.A female Hispanic attendant stands by the north entrance, keeping a close eye on the front door and the spiral stairs that lead up to the manager’s office.
“You another citizen down on her luck?” she asks. “A smart woman doesn’t need luck, and the manager doesn’t need lucky women. He employs girls who are observant, that have ingenuity, who solve problems with skill. You got the looks, and maybe you got what else it takes to work here – you seem more alert than most who’ve walked through the door. Free games offer no prizes, but show enough potential and the boss will take an interest.”
Wonderful! More tests. Does anyone ever give something for nothing in Utopia? Forget it – stupid question.
The idea that the casino offers games which you can play for free at all seems the most surprising part of this to me, honestly. Especially if there are real prizes.
>X CARD TABLES
You can’t see any such thing.>X HOLOBOOTHS
That’s not important to your mission.>W
You don’t like to gamble. In any case, you have no money to spend.
Ok, so it looks like the “real” casino is off to the west, but is probably irrelevant to the actual game. Instead, we have the free game areas to the south, the arcade to the east and then whatever lies upstairs, assuming that we manage to earn our passage that way somehow.
>E
Arcade Booth
Strictly for nostalgiacs and gamers, this is a tribute to the classics. Before C-space, interactive holovids and portable consoles, there were token operated arcade machines. The great names are all here: Space Invasion 2500, Backpack Man and Operation Cobra. Their purpose is unclear; perhaps Utopia has built subliminal messages into the code, or maybe the Director’s a fan of Colombian Commando.
The first and last of these sound like references to Space Invaders and Contra (and maybe Columbian Commando is meant to evoke Bionic Commando?) but I’m drawing a blank on Backpack Man. Anyone?
Here’s something for the girls: a trivia machine with the Utopia Freedom women’s soccer team as its specialist (and only) subject.
An energetic redheaded woman braves the perils of The Gauntlet.
“Hi there,” the girl says, too busy with the arcade game to look at you. “Nice to see someone around. I’m Meagan by the way.”
>X MEAGAN
Two character traits are immediately apparent. Meagan’s a fan of the Utopia Freedom, and she’s really into arcade games. Who else would wear the official team jersey over their bodysuit, or spend token after token mashing buttons and wiggling joysticks? She’s been hammering anti-sleep meds too; the teenage girl’s red hair is damp with sweat, and her pupils heavily dilated.>ASK MEAGAN ABOUT GAME
“My favourite’s the Freedom trivia game. The others are all right, too.”>FOCUS HER
That girl sure likes to play. She hasn’t been out of there in months.>X ARCADE MACHINES
You’re not here to play arcade games.The woman wiggles the joystick, all excited and tense.
>X TRIVIA MACHINE
Backed against the north wall, the arcade machine is one big advert for the Utopia Freedom, with flashing signs inviting you to test your knowledge of the team’s history. Players are asked a series of multiple choice questions, and answer by pressing buttons labelled A through D. There’s a slot on front for a casino token.The girl bashes the videogame controls in frustration. “Stupid game!”
I have a feeling that we’re going to have to take this trivia quiz at some point, but it looks like we need to get a token from somewhere in order to play.
>FOCUS IT
Soccer? Don’t know a thing about it.Meagan removes a token from a seemingly endless supply in her pocket and inserts it into the arcade machine.
Oh, Meagan has some tokens—maybe she’s feeling generous?
>ASK MEAGAN FOR TOKEN
You can’t see any such thing.>ASK MEAGAN ABOUT TOKENS
“I got enough tokens to last me a lifetime.”
Then take pity on a poor spy who just needs a couple of tokens for whatever subquest this inevitably turns out to be a part of?
>ASK MEAGAN ABOUT TRIVIA
“My favourite’s the Freedom trivia game. The others are all right, too.”>PLAY TRIVIA GAME
That’s not a verb I recognise.>TAKE TOKEN
You can’t see any such thing.
Since Meagan is such a Utopia Freedom fan, perhaps she’d be interested in our fine collection of Subbuteo pieces?
>SHOW NATALIA TO MEAGAN
(first taking the Natalia subbuteo piece)
“I don’t want your rubbish,” says Meagan.
What a burn! I’ll have you know we worked hard for that tiny figurine, Meagan. (Actually, the Natalia piece we just bought in a shop. It’s the Janie Rourke piece that we had to earn by kissing a teenage boy who was demonstrably not ready for it.)
A serving bot brings Meagan a snack. She devours it in less than a minute and dumps her trash on the tray. The robot flies off to the west.
>X GAUNTLET
You’re not here to play arcade games.>X BACKPACK MAN
You’re not here to play arcade games.
Unless we can think of something else to do with Meagan, it looks like we need to obtain a token before we can do anything here, so let’s check out the other areas.
>W
Fame And Fortune
A female Hispanic attendant stands by the north entrance, keeping a close eye on the front door and the spiral stairs that lead up to the manager’s office.
>SE
The Lottery
It’s a numbers game, and the rules are straightforward. Players use a self service machine to print out a ticket, wait for the hourly draw to take place, and then hope for the best. Easy to comprehend, difficult to win, and with no prizes on offer it seems pointless. But if you’ve learned one thing about Utopia, it’s that they doesn’t waste space. Take the slot machines for example – an unbroken circle of bright lights except for gaps to the west and northwest.The attendant on duty here is Chinese and, like all the other staff you’ve seen around, female.
According to an electronic ticker board, the last three lottery numbers selected were 7, 20 and 36, with the next draw scheduled to take place at 05:00.
It’s currently only a little after 04:00, so we might as well get a ticket and then see if our numbers come up when the draw rolls around.
>X SLOT MACHINES
That’s not important to your mission.
They seem weirdly out of place in this location, but if we can’t interact with them, probably no point worrying about it?
>X MACHINE
A standing machine that prints out lottery tickets. For those who fancy a punt, this game is free. All you have to do is type in three unique numbers between 1 and 50, then wait for the draw.
Well, we have no idea what numbers are likely to come up, but let’s go with the strategy of picking the same numbers that just came up, because even if they’re exactly as likely to win as any other tickets, fewer people are likely to bet on them so we’ll have fewer people to share the jackpot with if we do win. Assuming that there is a jackpot. And that anyone else is playing the lottery at this hour of the morning.
>TYPE 7
(on the lottery machine)
You enter 7 on the keypad.>TYPE 20
(on the lottery machine)
You enter 20 on the keypad.>TYPE 36
(on the lottery machine)
You enter 36 on the keypad. The machine prints out your lottery ticket, which you collect.>X TICKET
To think some people pin all their hopes on slips of paper like this. There’s a single line of text printed over the Utopia Technologies logo:LOTTERY – 7 20 36 – VALID FOR THE 05:00 DRAW ONLY
In the meantime, let’s move along and see what other free games are on offer.
>W
Wheel Of Fate
Utopia have gone for dramatic effect with their reimagining of the fortune wheel. Measuring twenty metres across and illuminated with spotlights, the disc was made to stand out from the crowd – except there’s nobody here but you. Improving the chances of winning might increase participation; looking the wheel over, you count one gold (good) segment against twenty four black (bad) ones. If you don’t fancy playing those odds, there are other games to the east and west, and the casino exit is north.
This might be another “divide the numbers by ten” moment; the best reference I can offer for the size of this absurd wheel is that you could park an articulated lorry (that’s a semi or an 18-wheeler to those in the US, I think) in front of it and it wouldn’t do a particularly good job of concealing it. How on earth one sets it spinning I struggle to contemplate.
The attendant in charge of the Wheel of Fate is a Japanese woman.
>ASK ATTENDANT ABOUT WHEEL
“Quit bothering me with your stupid questions!”
Well, sorry for assuming that you might be interested in doing your job.
>X ATTENDANT
Like all the casino’s employees, the Japanese woman is young, dark skinned, attractive and confident. She’s a tough girl dressed smartly in a maroon jacket, trousers and tie. Her Utopian bodysuit may be concealed but her holstered plasma pistol is exposed for all to see.>FOCUS HER
Not a man or white woman in sight. The manager’s really into positive discrimination.
Or, these are crappy jobs and everyone who’s white, male or both has the privilege of doing something better; your call as to which assumption you want to make.
>SPIN WHEEL
With no real strategy, you grab the disc with both hands and give it a hefty tug. The Wheel of Fate spins before your eyes, so fast its segments become a blur of gold and black. The pointer clunks repeatedly as it collides with the rods.
I think we’re just assuming that the wheel is a more normal size, because if it’s just a “blur of gold and black” then it must be making at least half a dozen rotations a second, which means—well, I don’t know offhand the calculation for how much rotational kinetic energy is needed to get it spinning that fast, but let’s just note that the outer rim of the wheel is moving faster than the speed of sound.
Anyway, the game is drawing a lot of attention to the pointer and the rods, which makes me think we might have to tinker with it somehow to cheat at this game.
>Z
Time passes.The wheel comes to a stop with the pointer indicating one of the many black segments.
“No win for you this time lady,” the attendant says. “You rely too much on luck.”
>SPIN WHEEL
With no real strategy, you grab the disc with both hands and give it a hefty tug. The Wheel of Fate spins before your eyes, so fast its segments become a blur of gold and black. The pointer clunks repeatedly as it collides with the rods.>Z
Time passes.The wheel comes to a stop with the pointer indicating one of the many black segments.
“No win for you this time lady,” the attendant says. “You rely too much on luck.”
I don’t get the feeling that we’re going to get a gold even if we stand here spinning the wheel all day.
>X GOLD SEGMENT
Every fairground and cheap sideshow has one of these: a big wheel with different coloured segments, marked by vertical plastic rods at the disc’s edge. Once spun, the wheel is slowed by continued contact between the rods and a flexible rubber pointer. If it finishes up indicating the gold section, you’re a winner.
Examining the pointer gives the same description as examining the wheel. I don’t have any immediate ideas about what to do here, but I do realise that we forgot to see if we could get anything useful from the attendant at the lottery.
>E
The Lottery
The attendant on duty here is Chinese and, like all the other staff you’ve seen around, female.
According to an electronic ticker board, the last three lottery numbers selected were 7, 20 and 36, with the next draw scheduled to take place at 05:00.
>ASK ATTENDANT ABOUT LOTTERY
“Quit bothering me with your stupid questions!”>X ATTENDANT
Like all the casino’s employees, the Chinese woman is young, dark skinned, attractive and confident. She’s a tough girl dressed smartly in a maroon jacket, trousers and tie. Her Utopian bodysuit may be concealed but her holstered plasma pistol is exposed for all to see.>FOCUS HER
Not a man or white woman in sight. The manager’s really into positive discrimination.
So, in summary, the attendant appears to be a functional clone of the one at the Wheel of Fate, except Chinese instead of Japanese. Also, I’m sure there’s nothing sinister about the fact that all the casino employees carry guns.
>W
Wheel Of Fate
The attendant in charge of the Wheel of Fate is a Japanese woman.
>W
Lucky Dip
That’s the official title, but you’d call it the unlucky dunk. In this casino, you don’t reach into a pile of balls – no, you’re expected to submerge yourself in a see through vat of dirty water to claim your prize. Well, look on the bright side; the attendant will be the only one watching. You can avoid taking the plunge by heading northeast or east.The “game” is being supervised by another female casino employee.
>X ATTENDANT
Like all the casino’s employees, the African woman is young, dark skinned, attractive and confident. She’s a tough girl dressed smartly in a maroon jacket, trousers and tie. Her Utopian bodysuit may be concealed but her holstered plasma pistol is exposed for all to see.>X VAT
The “Lucky Dip” wouldn’t look out of place in a sewage treatment facility. It contains thousands of litres of filthy brown water, and reaches so high a ladder is needed to gain access. Floating in the sludge are dense, black metal balls inscribed with luminous numbers. You can’t read what they say unless they drift close to the glass, but perhaps that’s the idea.
Fortunately we already have form in the “submerging ourselves in filthy water” stakes from our adventure in the San Francisco exhibit.
>FOCUS IT
Oh yes, everything’s so clean in Utopia. We believe you.>X BALLS
Black metal spheres, dense and heavy enough to overcome buoyancy. Each ball has a luminous number inscribed.>FOCUS BALLS
Hey! That was my lucky number.
Ok, well, let’s get in the tank and discover how much this sucks.
>U
“No personal items allowed inside the pool,” the attendant says.
I guess we wouldn’t want to get all our stuff wet anyway.
>DROP ALL
lottery ticket: Dropped.
Natalia subbuteo piece: Dropped.
carrier bag: Dropped.>U
“Before climbing in the tank, you need to give me a number between one and eight hundred,” the woman says. “Show me the ball with the same number, and you win.”
I don’t think picking the right number here is going to alter our odds of success, so let’s go with the fifth power of three.
>SAY 243 TO WOMAN
“Okay. You’re up,” says the attendant. “Dive in the pool, pick a ball. Show me the one numbered 243 and you’re a winner.”>U
You climb the ladder, lift your feet over the edge of the vat, and lower yourself into the muddy water.Lucky Dip (in the vat of dirty water)
The water is so clogged with mud you can barely see your hands, and you’re constantly colliding into metal balls. What little light there is comes from a single, covered bulb at the tank’s base.The casino attendant watches through the glass – you can hardly see her.
>X BULB
The vat’s only light source is a bulb covered with a clear plastic sheet about eight centimetres in diameter.>FOCUS IT
No response. You suspect Nanci has nothing to say about the covered lightbulb.You can hold your breath for a long time, but you’ll have to come up for air soon.
>TAKE SHEET
You can’t see any such thing.>TAKE BULB
That’s fixed in place.>BREAK BULB
The lightbulb is protected by the plastic sheet.You’re starting to feel faint, and the attendant has noticed you struggling.
>TAKE BALL
You’re almost ready to pass out. The African woman climbs the ladder, opens the top of the vat, and helps you out.
Ok, well, that was a singularly unsuccessful attempt. Presumably we’re meant to do something with the lightbulb, although even if the water were perfectly clean and well-illuminated, picking out the correct ball out of 800 before our breath runs out feels like a tall order.
Lucky Dip
That’s the official title, but you’d call it the unlucky dunk. In this casino, you don’t reach into a pile of balls – no, you’re expected to submerge yourself in a see through vat of dirty water to claim your prize. Well, look on the bright side; the attendant will be the only one watching. You can avoid taking the plunge by heading northeast or east.The “game” is being supervised by another female casino employee.
You can also see a carrier bag (in which are a datastick, a camera pen, a fake antiviral inhaler (which is closed), a Waterline Club member’s pass, a painted steel rose, this year’s calendar and a Tania Rourke subbuteo piece), a Natalia subbuteo piece and a lottery ticket here.
The attendant waits for your bodysuit to dry out before speaking.
“Crikey,” she exclaims. “I thought you were gonna die in there. How do you expect to win if you don’t choose a ball?”
Let’s try again and at least grab a ball, even if we don’t have a way to make sure it’s the right one.
>U
“Before climbing in the tank, you need to give me a number between one and eight hundred,” the woman says. “Show me the ball with the same number, and you win.”>SAY 243 TO WOMAN
“Okay. You’re up,” says the attendant. “Dive in the pool, pick a ball. Show me the one numbered 243 and you’re a winner.”>U
You climb the ladder, lift your feet over the edge of the vat, and lower yourself into the muddy water.Lucky Dip (in the vat of dirty water)
The water is so clogged with mud you can barely see your hands, and you’re constantly colliding into metal balls. What little light there is comes from a single, covered bulb at the tank’s base.The casino attendant watches through the glass – you can hardly see her.
>TAKE BALL
You select a ball at random.>U
You swim around in the vat.You can hold your breath for a long time, but you’ll have to come up for air soon.
I figured UP would get us out of the vat, but maybe we need to try:
>OUT
The metal ball weighs you down.
Oh, come on!
>THROW BALL OUT OF TANK
You can’t see any such thing.>THROW BALL UP
You can’t see any such thing.>THROW BALL
(the black metal ball)
You quickly lose sight of the ball.You’re starting to feel faint, and the attendant has noticed you struggling.
Ok, time to cut our losses.
>U
You’re almost ready to pass out. The African woman climbs the ladder, opens the top of the vat, and helps you out.Lucky Dip
That’s the official title, but you’d call it the unlucky dunk. In this casino, you don’t reach into a pile of balls – no, you’re expected to submerge yourself in a see through vat of dirty water to claim your prize. Well, look on the bright side; the attendant will be the only one watching. You can avoid taking the plunge by heading northeast or east.The “game” is being supervised by another female casino employee.
You can also see a carrier bag (in which are a datastick, a camera pen, a fake antiviral inhaler (which is closed), a Waterline Club member’s pass, a painted steel rose, this year’s calendar and a Tania Rourke subbuteo piece), a Natalia subbuteo piece and a lottery ticket here.
The attendant waits for your bodysuit to dry out before speaking.
“Crikey,” she exclaims. “I thought you were gonna die in there. How do you expect to win if you don’t choose a ball?”
So, we have no way of finding the right ball, but also no way of getting it out of the tank even if we did find it. The fact we’re allowed to choose the number feels like it might be important—maybe we can find a fake ball somewhere and sneak it into the tank?
Anyway, while we were messing with this, the time has advanced past 05:00, so let’s go see if our numbers came up in the lottery.
>E
Wheel Of Fate
The attendant in charge of the Wheel of Fate is a Japanese woman.
>E
The Lottery
The attendant on duty here is Chinese and, like all the other staff you’ve seen around, female.
According to an electronic ticker board, the last three lottery numbers selected were 10, 11 and 49, with the next draw scheduled to take place at 06:00.
Well, we didn’t win; no big surprise.
>ASK WOMAN ABOUT NUMBERS
“If you’re not smart enough to figure it out, too bad.”
That sounds like a hint that there’s something to figure out here, at least, rather than just going for the roughly 0.005% chance of our numbers matching up by pure luck.
>X TICKET
You can’t see any such thing.
Hey! Where did our—oh, we left our stuff behind at the dunk tank.
>I
You are carrying:
a hi-tech digital wristwatch (being worn)
a Utopia Technologies bodysuit (being worn)>W
Wheel Of Fate
The attendant in charge of the Wheel of Fate is a Japanese woman.
>W
Lucky Dip
The “game” is being supervised by another female casino employee.
You can also see a carrier bag (in which are a datastick, a camera pen, a fake antiviral inhaler (which is closed), a Waterline Club member’s pass, a painted steel rose, this year’s calendar and a Tania Rourke subbuteo piece), a Natalia subbuteo piece and a lottery ticket here.
>TAKE ALL
casino attendant: The holstered plasma pistol she carries makes you reconsider.
carrier bag: Taken.
Natalia subbuteo piece: Taken.
lottery ticket: Taken.
vat of dirty water: That’s hardly portable.
This game generally doesn’t use “exclude from ALL” rules (I forget whether that’s a feature that’s available in Inform 6), which means occasionally you can get some illuminating information about which objects are actually implemented from TAKE ALL.
>X TICKET
To think some people pin all their hopes on slips of paper like this. There’s a single line of text printed over the Utopia Technologies logo:LOTTERY – 7 20 36 – VALID FOR THE 05:00 DRAW ONLY
>E
Wheel Of Fate
The attendant in charge of the Wheel of Fate is a Japanese woman.
>E
The Lottery
The attendant on duty here is Chinese and, like all the other staff you’ve seen around, female.
According to an electronic ticker board, the last three lottery numbers selected were 10, 11 and 49, with the next draw scheduled to take place at 06:00.
>GIVE TICKET TO WOMAN
The attendant takes the lottery ticket from you and compares it with the numbers on the electronic board.“Too bad,” she says. “I’d wish you better luck next time, but luck has nothing to do with it.”
Ok, that’s a very explicit hint that we ought to be figuring out a pattern here. It’s now 05:13, and having already spent dozens of hours waiting around in various places for things to open, a mere 47 minutes is nothing, so let’s get a third set of numbers to work with.
>WAIT 30 MINUTES
Time passes.>WAIT 17 MINUTES
Time passes.The information on the ticker board changes. It seems the last three lottery numbers selected were 1, 13 and 50, with the next draw scheduled to take place at 07:00.
At the end of her shift, the casino attendant has a brief conversation with her replacement – another Chinese woman – and then leaves.
I can’t help but notice the presence of 36 and 49— consecutive squares—in the first two sets of numbers. Since they only go up to 50, 64 would be too much, so maybe it wraps back around to 1?
Let’s test our hypothesis; if we’re on the right track, there should be a 4 in the next set of numbers.
>WAIT 30 MINUTES
Time passes.>WAIT 30 MINUTES
Time passes.The information on the ticker board changes. It seems the last three lottery numbers selected were 4, 17 and 40, with the next draw scheduled to take place at 08:00.
And indeed there is! It occurs to me at this point that if the numbers are following a fixed pattern, we could just save, wait for the new numbers, restore to before the draw and then print out a ticket for the numbers we know are coming. But let’s see if we can do it honestly first. The pattern of consecutive squares seems pretty locked in, what else? There always seems to be a multiple of 10 in there—oh, and they go 20, 10, 50, 40, so it looks like it’s just a decreasing sequence that wraps around from 10 back to 50. And if we look back at the unused number from each of the sets of 3 so far, they go 7, 11, 13, 17, which are just consecutive primes, so I think we’ve got this.
>TYPE 9
(on the lottery machine)
You enter 9 on the keypad.>TYPE 19
(on the lottery machine)
You enter 19 on the keypad.>TYPE 30
(on the lottery machine)
You enter 30 on the keypad. The machine prints out your lottery ticket, which you collect.>WAIT 30 MINUTES
Time passes.>WAIT 27 MINUTES
Time passes.The information on the ticker board changes. It seems the last three lottery numbers selected were 9, 19 and 30, with the next draw scheduled to take place at 9:00.
(insert victory dance to the tune of “Math Prof Rock Star” by Jim’s Big Ego)
>SHOW TICKET TO WOMAN
The attendant takes the lottery ticket from you and compares it with the numbers on the electronic board.“Interesting,” she says. “Perhaps you’ve spotted the pattern, or perhaps you’re one of these psychics who can travel to the future, save themselves, and restore to the present. Let’s imagine the previous lottery numbers were 7, 16 and 30. Print out a winning ticket for the following hour.”
And this is where we’d have been caught if we’d just gone down the save-scum route. It’s also neat how, since none of the subsequences overlap, there’s never any ambiguity about which number is which.
>TYPE 11
(on the lottery machine)
You enter 11 on the keypad.>TYPE 25
(on the lottery machine)
You enter 25 on the keypad.>TYPE 20
(on the lottery machine)
You enter 20 on the keypad. The machine prints out your lottery ticket, which you collect.>SHOW TICKET TO WOMAN
The woman takes the lottery ticket from you, glances at it, then tears it to pieces.“You’re pretty observant,” she commends you. “Most citizens choose numbers at random, but you were intelligent enough to deduce the pattern. I’d tell the manager about your success, but he already knows.”
[Your score has just gone up by four points.]
Great. So we get an acknowledgement of our success, but nothing concrete to show for it, which I guess means we have to solve these other puzzles as well before we can get an audience with the boss.
>W
Wheel Of Fate
The attendant in charge of the Wheel of Fate is a Japanese woman.
We’ve already examined the wheel, the pointer and the gold and black sections, which are all synonyms for the same object anyway.
Let’s try some unsubtle cheating:
>TURN WHEEL TO GOLD
Noting where the gold segment is, you give the Wheel of Fate a good pull, although it’s incredibly difficult to gauge how hard to turn when you’ve no idea how fast the disc spins. The pointer clunks against the rods, slowing the wheel down.
I was wondering if we could literally just turn it until the pointer points at the gold section, but at least the game recognises our attempt to do something other than just spin it blindly.
>Z
Time passes.The wheel comes to a stop with the pointer indicating one of the many black segments.
“No win for you this time lady,” the attendant says. “You rely too much on blind judgement.”
Not sure what that implies, apart from maybe that we should be cheating even more shamelessly?
So this is where we are at the moment; it looks like we need to find a way to win at the wheel and the lucky dip to make progress here. It’s possible that we could need to obtain something from elsewhere to do it (we’ve unlocked access to three new levels that aren’t currently associated with any of our objectives, after all), but we beat the lottery without any items and the fact we can’t take anything into the water tank suggests that that one could well be a self-contained puzzle too. Suggestions welcome!
Clearly they’ve learned from free-to-play mobile games with microtransactions: get people hooked, then yank their fun away from them unless they’re willing to pay!
…and apparently they’re also a part of the hiring process? Yeah, I’ve got nothing there.
They did specifically say no prizes on offer, which is why we can play for free. But that also means we’ve got nothing to lose!
Which is good, because our card is all still in the donation tray at the megachurch, right?
I’m surprised our Chinese government handler thinks about race in terms of whiteness at all; my understanding is that’s a very American (and now broadly Western) way of categorizing people, right?
Yeah, this definitely seems like a “divide the numbers by 10” sort of author.
Maybe if we get employment here we can open-carry too!
And don’t forget the crude oil!
4: 7, 20, 36
5: 10, 11, 49
The third number being a square both times immediately stands out; will it continue to be something like (hour+2)² ?
Oh, I see you’ve figured this out already! That’s what I get for commenting as I read.
HAHAHAHAHA
This is the sort of puzzle the Phoenix mainframe games loved, and their usual solution was to quietly softlock the puzzle if you saved at the wrong time (e.g. if you save after seeing the lottery numbers, no numbers will be counted as correct from that point on). This is much kinder, even if it’s weirdly meta.
Most likely a reference to Jetpac (Jetpac - Wikipedia) a very successful early ZX Spectrum game in the UK.
Columbian Commando might also be a reference to Commando (Commando (video game) - Wikipedia) an influential Capcom arcade game from 1985. Operation Cobra sounds like Operation Wolf (Operation Wolf - Wikipedia), another late 1980s arcade game.
Another neat thing I realised is that because of the relative lengths of the three cycles, her hypothetical ticket (7, 16 and 30) can never actually arise in practice - 7 always appears alongside 20. So you can’t just wait until you see it appear and then see for yourself which comes next.
I was trying to think of classic games in which the hero wears a backpack, and Jetpac is indeed an excellent fit. But after I posted I did also wonder whether it might be a more straightforward pun on Pac-Man.
While messing with the lucky dip I made two more minor discoveries: first, how to actually play (and lose) the game the intended way - you have to show the ball to the attendant through the glass while still in the tank.
>SHOW BALL TO WOMAN
(the black metal ball to the casino attendant)
You hold the metal ball against the glass, showing it to the attendant before letting go. The African woman climbs the ladder, opens the top of the vat, and helps you out.Lucky Dip
That’s the official title, but you’d call it the unlucky dunk. In this casino, you don’t reach into a pile of balls – no, you’re expected to submerge yourself in a see through vat of dirty water to claim your prize. Well, look on the bright side; the attendant will be the only one watching. You can avoid taking the plunge by heading northeast or east.The “game” is being supervised by another female casino employee.
You can also see a carrier bag (in which are a datastick, a camera pen, a fake antiviral inhaler (which is closed), a Waterline Club member’s pass, a painted steel rose, this year’s calendar and a Tania Rourke subbuteo piece) and a Natalia subbuteo piece here.
The attendant waits for your bodysuit to dry out before speaking.
“You got balls lady, I’ll give you that,” she says. “You just chose the wrong one. You were looking for 243, but picked 289. Unlucky, but were you really expecting to win?”
Like with the wheel, we could try this 800 times in the hope of getting lucky, but I’m not optimistic.
Secondly, another thing that you can do while inside the tank:
>PUT BALL ON BULB
(the black metal ball on the covered lightbulb)
You place the metal ball onto the bulb. Aside from a tiny ring around the edge, it completely covers the plastic, leaving you in near total darkness.Your wristwatch display glows blue, a colour that casts the room in a whole different light – ocean, azure and cyan amongst others. Still, you shouldn’t complain; it’s ample enough illumination to see what you’re doing.
However, nothing seems to be any different after doing this; all of the responses that you get to actions inside the tank are exactly the same. Examining the tank from the outside mentions that that balls have luminous numbers on them, but trying to read the number on a ball you’re holding gives “In this murky gloom, the luminous number is a blur” whether the bulb is covered or not.
Is the plan here to mark a ball with some kind of wavelength-specific marking so it glows?
Also I laughed at getting this intfiction message:
Yeah – like, maybe pick a random ball, mark it somehow, show it to the lady so we know which number it is, then pick that number now that we’re able to find it? There is certainly a big “???” in the middle of this plan but the overall outline seems plausible.
