Let's Play: Jigsaw

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424

Continuing on from last time: in Colossal Cave, WAVE ROD will make a bridge appear. So let’s try that here!

Nothing happens (and let’s be honest, it would require more imagination than you usually show even to expect anything).

So we get an insult, but not a default failure message, which knowing this game means we’re on the right track but some component is missing. Trying it at different locations, we get insulted at C1 and C2, but at C3:

For a moment nothing happens. Then, just as you inhale a particularly strong scent of the poppies, a crystal bridge appears and spans the Ash River.

Ah, so it was actually a hint! Here’s the description of the poppies:

A crop of poppies bobs prettily about your knee, making you sneeze from time to time. It could go right to your head!

So it seems they make us imaginative enough for magic to work! After this, trying to wave the rod anywhere else gets a different message:

Ever the optimist.

Exploring the north half of the Land, we have some more things to work with:

  • Wheat at B3, and barley at B2—the poppies really are the odd one out
  • At B2, “A tall cedar tree stands majestic over the river-bank here, but has been partly sawn away and may fall at any moment.”
  • There’s a rabbit at B1 who runs away from us in fear
  • “A hand grenade, like a metal goose egg, rolls about at the foot of the Toll Gate like a fallen leaf caught in the breeze.”

We can’t push the tree over: “A woodpecker, high up in the branches of the cedar, swoops down and pecks at your hands until you desist. The tree is, after all, somebody’s habitat.” So that’s animal 4/5!

The rabbit is probably 5/5, but it runs away whenever we get close:

Your arrival panics a white rabbit, especially scared of something you’re carrying, and he races away east.

Especially scared of something we’re carrying, huh? In Colossal Cave, the rod scares a bird; it might scare the rabbit too. If we drop it somewhere, then confront the rabbit:

Your arrival panics a white rabbit, and he races away east. Just before he’s lost to view, though, you see him suddenly rear up, as scared of what’s in front as what’s behind.

In this case I’d dropped the rod at B3, and found the rabbit at B1, so it ended up trapped between us at B2. If we go to B2, then:

Your arrival panics a white rabbit, and he races away north to the strange and frightening pictures. You give him no choice, poor thing!

So he’s also afraid of Science (A2). If we go there, he returns to B1:

The white rabbit lurches away southwest!

I suspect I’m about 80% of the way to solving this puzzle. What we know so far:

  • By default, the rabbit hangs out at B1 or B3, moving between those two if White approaches.
  • The rabbit will not move into a room with the rod in it. If you put the rod in B1 or B3, then enter the other, he’ll move to B2. This gets a special message (so it’s probably on the right track).
  • If you enter B2, he’ll move to A2 (whether or not B1 and B3 are blocked). This also gets a special message.
  • If you enter A2, he’ll move to either B1 or B3, whichever one is not blocked.

So the question is, how do we trap him in a specific room for sketching? This is the final animal in the game: after this, we’ll have 16/16 animals in our sketchbook.

The grenade also seems potentially valuable:

A pin, or in other words a ring which pulls away, attaches to one end.

I suspect we’re going to destroy the machinery by pulling the pin and then throwing it into the mechanism. But not until we sketch this rabbit!

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425

What if you chase the rabbit into A2 and then go get the rod from B1 and drop it in B2? Does that trap the rabbit?

426

Unfortunately not. If you go into A2, the rabbit goes to B1, or B3 if B1 is blocked. I haven’t found any way to block them both simultaneously.

427

No, I meant drop the rod in B1, go to B3 to chase the rabbit to B2, go to B2 to chase the rabbit to A2, then don’t go to A2 right away, but go get the rod from B1 and drop it in B2, then go to A2. While you’re in B1, does the rabbit escape out to B3 again? If so, I don’t see how to make this work. You’d need another object the rabbit is afraid of to block the exit while you move the first object.

428

The rabbit seems to just chill at A2 until you enter. At that point he’ll move to either B1 or B3, whichever is unblocked. (He goes directly southeast or southwest, not passing through B2.)

429

Oh sorry, I didn’t realize there were direct connections. I was thinking A2 was connected only to B2. That makes it even harder. Are there any locations on the map that are isolated? Is there a way to test other objects to see if the rabbit is afraid of or interested in them? Maybe it would eat the barley or something and you could lure him somewhere else?

Edit: does the rabbit also move directly to A2 from B1 or B3 if the rod is in B2?

430

While testing this, I did get a new message:

From a dot in the sky, the pterodactyl swoops toward you, snatching away its metal egg, the grenade.

Hopefully we haven’t made things unwinnable, but I’m keeping several save files around just in case!

But the answer is, going to B1 sends the rabbit to B3 (and vice versa) even if the rod is at B2. It’s specifically having one threat at B1 and one threat at B3 that gets a special behavior, which makes me think that’s what we need to do.

As far as I can tell, nothing is isolated (it’s a grid with every “logical” connection implemented), and the rabbit doesn’t react to the grain at B2 or B3.

Maybe we need to fell the tree to make a bridge? In that case, the rabbit would probably go to C2, because it clearly doesn’t like any of its other options. But I’m not sure what that would actually accomplish for us.

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431

If you’re wondering where Nelson is going with all of this, you’re not alone.

Perhaps it’s just the effect of having recently spectated the playthrough of Spellbreaker, but the transition to the end game reads to me now as indebted to Lebling. Isn’t the conversation with the gatekeeper - optional though it is - somewhat like the meeting with Belboz at the similar moment in Spellbreaker?

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432

I’m afraid I don’t have any great progress to report this time, but it has been a week, so I’m going to post what I have.

First, while searching for things to ask the Gatekeeper about, I found one new topic:

>ask gatekeeper about amulet
“The Amulet?” he asks. “Yes, I suppose I owe you something. Though I think you’ll find there are other rewards.”

>ask gatekeeper for amulet
“Here,” he says, and takes off the amulet to hang it round your neck. “I suppose I owe you that much for your trouble.”

>x amulet
The dull lead amulet is inscribed “The Wealth of Plato”.

He was described as wearing a curious amulet when we first met him, though he’s not described as having it any more, and SEARCH GATEKEEPER doesn’t mention it. The room description says “his top hat and cane are gone” so I figured the amulet vanished too, but it seems I was wrong.

The “Plato” mention makes me think of the Platonic solids at the four corners of the Land, but they’re not actually implemented as objects, and the amulet doesn’t seem to react to those locations. I’ve tried waving it (like the rod) and turning it (like the Kaldecki detector) but nothing happens.

Pushing the tree down to make a bridge seems strongly clued, but if I do that, the woodpecker comes and pecks at my hands. I thought the black rod might affect this, since it scares the bird in Colossal Cave, but it seems to make no difference if I’m carrying it, if it’s dropped in the room, or if it’s somewhere else entirely.

So my main objectives now are:

  • Avoid the woodpecker and push the tree, making a bridge for the rabbit (I’m not sure what this will accomplish but there are a lot of clues pointing at it)
  • Stop the pterodactyl from stealing the hand grenade, so that I can blow up the monument with it and win the game
  • Figure out how this amulet helps me do either of those things

Any suggestions? I’m distinctly stuck—this does indeed seem to be the “master game” to earn our good ending.

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433

You mentioned a wicker cage? Is it portable, and can you chase the rabbit into it?

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I completely forgot about the wicker cage! That’s probably it!

It’s a fine wicker cage in the early 1930s Eastern style, just antique enough to be of interest to collectors with an eye on the long term.

I haven’t found a way to actually get the rabbit into the cage—it leaves too fast for something like CATCH RABBIT, and even if the cage is in its location, it won’t go in. But there must be some way of getting it inside long enough to CLOSE CAGE.

Then we’ll have our sixteenth animal sketched.

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435

I have unfortunately made no progress on the cage. I think there’s something else I’m missing that’s going to be the key to progressing further, so I’m wandering the Land again searching for it.

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436

All right, I am officially asking for a hint. I haven’t been able to make any more progress in the Land and I fear there was some vital item I missed earlier that’s required to get through the endgame.

Anyone who’s played the game before, can you point me to which room or object I need to be experimenting with now?

437

Not a hint, but a thought… it seems to me like the woodpecker needs to go in the cage, not the rabbit, given the parallels to Colossal Cave. Which would allow us to push the tree, etc. Can you simply catch the woodpecker in the cage? Or do we have something in inventory that might entice the bird inside?

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438

Yeah, remember the mouse/nightingale and the cornbread? It seems like another baiting puzzle. Maybe the hand grenade since it’s described as looking like a “goose egg?”

This is a lovely LP so far, and thank you for including the saved games.

I’d also like to thank Graham for being magnanimous about the criticism that the game’s received in this thread. One of the most inspiring things that he said was being pleased that people were criticizing Jigsaw when it came out because it meant that they had differing ideas on what interactive fiction could be beyond “like an Infocom game in size, puzzles, and difficulty.”

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439

I would if I could remember! I think that right now you don’t need to worry about the grenade - you get to that later.

440

I think the woodpecker won’t let you push the tree too early. This is how I remember it.

  1. Let the pterodactyl steal the grenade.

  2. It should also steal anothet thing.

  3. The oval stone.

  4. Then push tree.

441

Where do I get an oval stone? I don’t seem to have one.

442

It’s a timed event nw of where you found the grenade.

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443

I can honestly say I never would have gotten this on my own.

Let me go on a brief tangent. But first, let me clarify that this isn’t intended as a “gotcha” or as a personal dig against the author—just as a criticism of a particular facet of an early game’s design.

Circa 1995, Graham Nelson wrote a now-famous work called The Craft of Adventure, an attempt to formalize and further some discussion of the “craft” side of IF (as opposed to the “art” side). As part of this, he discusses a number of things that a game should not do, because they don’t lead to a good experience for the player.

One of those is that players should not need to do unlikely things. To quote directly:

Another unlikely thing is waiting in dull places. If you have a junction at which after five turns an elf turns up bearing a magic ring, a player may well never spend five consecutive turns there and will miss what you intended to be easy. (`Zork III’ is very much a case in point.) If you intend the player to stay somewhere for a while, put something intriguing there.

This puzzle feels like a great demonstration of this lesson.

Scree Fall
A sharp, steep mountain wall rises to the north, and scree rattles down with each gust of wind, jagged as flint.

This is one of the parts of the Land that mostly exists for symmetry. I passed through it before, tried to interact with things, got nowhere, and left.

But if you wait long enough…

>z
Time passes.

>z
Time passes.

The scree fall is getting harder.

This is not just an environmental message, but a vital clue.

>z
Time passes.

>z
Time passes.

>z
Time passes.

>z
Time passes.

A falling pebble strikes you on one shoulder, painfully.

And another!

>z
Time passes.

>z
Time passes.

A largish rock rattles off the mountain and knocks you over.

Here we go!

>z
Time passes.

>z
Time passes.

>z
Time passes.

The gathering avalanche buries you alive under broken rock!

*** You have died ***

Oops, stayed too long. We need to leave before that happens.

If we come back, the avalanche has ended, and we see the aftereffects:

Scree Fall
A sharp, steep mountain wall rises to the north, and scree rattles down with each gust of wind, jagged as flint.

The oval rock which knocked you down is now in a more gravitationally stable state, i.e., on the ground.

A giant pterodactyl, an avian dinosaur, hovers in small circles above you, the hand grenade held aloft in its claws.

You can also see a canvas rucksack (in which are a photograph of Nasser, a basket-weave purse (which is empty), a berliner, wheels III and I, a spent cartridge, a beige folder, a Geiger counter, Rukl’s “Atlas of the Moon”, a British Army officer’s uniform, a wooden broom, a cargo capsule (which is empty), a gnomon, Waldo, a mandolin, a box of mosquito powder, a Sixth Officer’s jacket, Place Names of Carolina, a green cap, a Richard’s anemometer, a paper dart, a madeleine cake, Black’s Kaldecki detector, a second note from Black, a first aid box (which is closed), the 1911 Boy’s Book of the Sea, a curious device, Emily’s sketch book, a charcoal pencil, three newspapers (a crumpled newspaper, an historic edition of Pravda and Le Figaro), a delivered note, an intercept, a travel permit, a checklist, a chit signed by Lenin, a handwritten invitation card, a White Star Line scribbled-on towel, a folded note, a white party ticket and four keys (a Cyrillic-lettered key, a little key, a elegant key and a tagged key)), a sparkler, a cloth cap, a charter document, a British passport, a metal strongbox (which is closed), a wicker cage (which is empty), a lead amulet and a black rod with a rusty star on the end here.

When we were knocked over, our truly impressive inventory got scattered across the ground, but this “oval rock” was also added to the game!

After a bit of wrangling (GET ALL doesn’t work because of the inventory limit, we need to take the rucksack first and then all the others), we can pick up all of this, including the rock.

Oh, only the size of your hand, but it came within a foot of killing you.

And now we get a new message from the pterodactyl:

The pterodactyl swoops down, eager to steal your other, intriguingly white egg, to complement its marvellous metal one. But having nowhere safe to nest the other one, it reluctantly has to desist.

This seems like a much stronger hint! If we go back to the room with the tree, then wait for several more turns (to prove that we actually know what we’re doing rather than just wandering randomly):

The pterodactyl deposits its metal egg in a high nest on the cedar tree and swoops down to steal the white oval rock out of your hands, grazing your wrists with its claws. It is so delighted that it wings its way south over the river, admiring the egg and forgetting its poor metal substitute.

The woodpecker whose nest it is, au contraire, is less than delighted, and angrily flies up to the grenade, pecking away at it with irritation.

The woodpecker seems to be distracted! Which means:

>push tree
Timber!

The great cedar tree crashes down to the south, scattering birds in all directions and dropping the grenade into the water (where by a stroke of luck it bounces off a passing trout onto the southern bank), landing with a ground-shaking thump. The trunk now forms a wooden bridge over the glacial canal.

And now we can send the rabbit to C2, when we couldn’t before!

Your arrival panics a white rabbit, and he races away south across the log bridge.

And if we follow:

The white rabbit, for some reason, seems content and safe here, in such company. What a cosy scene you make - all mammals together.

The apes are amusing themselves playing catch with their new metal toy, the grenade.

Now we can finally sketch the rabbit, and we have 16/16 sketches!

The book contains sketches of a night-jar, various street horses, the caged white mice, a domestic mouse, a Yorkshire terrier, a snow goose, a snow leopard, a mallard, a nightingale, a hare, a winged mosquito, a pterodactyl, some apes, a huge spider, a woodpecker and a white rabbit.

Which seems like a good achievement to end a post on. Next time we’ll go back to stealing that grenade.

But I have to say, this puzzle stumped me for longer than anything else in the game. If I weren’t told exactly where to go, I would never have known that waiting for eight turns in this one otherwise-unremarkable room would give me a new object to work with.

I recognize that this is the endgame, where the hardest puzzles belong, but “go to this particular room and type Z eight times” strikes me not as hard but as obscure, the sort of thing that only gets solved through brute force rather than any sort of cleverness.

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