Now that the ECTOCOMP judging is over, let’s get back into this!
First, a clarification from a British friend:
I’ve been told, no, to be authentic to Kensington Gardens the grass should have a more working-class accent. Moriarty, as an American, probably just didn’t recognize the accents well enough to describe them accurately.
Anyway. Each location here seems to have one thing we can interact with (apart from the starting location). The paper bird, soccer ball, gnomon, and pram we took. Which leaves the grass, the bubble boy, the umbrella, and the hungry birds.
Let’s try that umbrella first. Given that we only have a few things we can interact with, there aren’t a lot of options to try.
>hit tree
The tree moves ever so slightly, the umbrella not at all.
Hm. Well, we have a soccer ball. (Sorry, “football”. We’re in England here, gotta blend in and act like a local. If the natives recognize we’re a tourist they’re going to rob us blind!)
>throw ball at tree
The soccer ball tumbles out of the tree and lands at your feet.
That’s a custom response! Normally, throwing something just says “Thrown.” and drops it on the ground. So…
>get ball
You pick up the soccer ball.>throw ball at umbrella
The soccer ball lodges itself in the tree beside the umbrella.The umbrella teeters uncertainly for a moment, then tumbles out of the tree and lands at your feet.
Aha! I didn’t really expect that to work, given that there’s such a strong wind, but it seems we have a strong throwing arm.
>get umbrella
As you pick up the umbrella and smooth the wrinkles, you notice a touristy slogan printed around the outside: “All prams lead to the Kensington Gardens.”[Your score just went up by 5 points. The total is now 15 out of 100.]
Well that’s a very direct hint!
(Also, we can get the soccer ball back by throwing the umbrella at it. We might need to come back and do that at some point.)
We can push the pram over to the Lancaster Walk, and…
>get in pram
With great difficulty, and much to the amusement of passersby, you jam yourself into the unfortunate perambulator.>open umbrella
The east wind fills the umbrella the moment you open it. You and your perambulator are blown helplessly westward past the Round Pond to the Broad Walk, where you careen into the statue of Queen Victoria and tumble out of the perambulator.Painfully, you regain your footing and snap the umbrella shut.
Broad Walk
A brooding statue of Queen Victoria faces east, where the waters of the Round Pond sparkle in the afternoon sun. Your eyes follow the crowded Broad Walk north and south until its borders are lost amid the bustle of perambulators. Small paths curve northeast and southeast, between the trees.
An aged woman is selling crumbs nearby.
There’s a perambulator here.
Oh. Right. The wind is from the east, which means it’s going to send us to the west.
The paper bird says something happens at 4:00; maybe that’s when the wind changes?
Now we’re back here:
>ask woman about birds
“'Ave ye ever seen such beauties? So loyal. And so, so hungry.”
Let’s do what the song says and feed the birds!
>feed birds
[with the bag of crumbs]You take a handful of crumbs out of the bag. They fall between your fingers and tumble across the ground.
As the wild birds gobble down the crumbs, a glint of red catches your eye. Frowning, you stoop down for a closer look… and gasp with astonishment!
The ruby at your feet is bigger than a walnut, with finely cut facets that sparkle with crimson fire. It must have been in the bag of crumbs.
“Thirty p for the starving birds!” hollers the bird woman.
Huh??
>ask woman about ruby
The bird woman peers at you closely. “'Ave ye seen one?” she whispers. “Wouldn’t let it out o’ my sight if I was you.”All at once a very large bird races out from behind a tree. It snatches away the ruby with its beak, zigzags through a group of tourists and disappears to the east. If you didn’t know better, you’d swear that bird was a roadrunner.
“It’s time!” shrieks the bird woman.
The east wind softens to a whisper and dies away.
Blowing leaves settle to the ground, and the trees are still. Then a fresh gust blows in from the west.
Huh?!
>ask woman about ruby
The bird woman gives you a sad smile. “Not to worry, dear,” she sighs. “Ye’ll get it back by and by.”>ask woman about roadrunner
The bird woman giggles. “Fast, ain’t he?”
Well, we have a wind from the west now! LET’S DO THIS!
>get in pram
With great difficulty, and much to the amusement of passersby, you jam yourself into the unfortunate perambulator.“Thirty p!”
>open umbrella
The west wind fills the umbrella the moment you open it. You and your perambulator are blown helplessly eastward past the Round Pond to the Lancaster Walk, where you roll onto the grass.You zoom down a long slope, barely missing several trees and boulders. Peering over the top of the perambulator, you see the Long Water coming closer and closer. Unable to stop, and too stupid to let go of the umbrella, you bravely close your eyes and pinch your nose shut.
Crash!
(Where an Inform game would wait for any key, Trinity just prints a whole ton of line breaks, so you have to scroll down for the next bit.)
Long Water
You’re on a shady path that winds along the western shore of the Long Water. Looking south, you can see the graceful arch of a bridge, and beyond it the cool expanse of the river Serpentine.
A charming statue stands nearby.
You see a gnomon, a bag of crumbs, a small coin, a piece of paper, a credit card and a broken perambulator here.
Painfully, you regain your footing and snap the umbrella shut.
>get all
The gnomon: Taken.
The bag of crumbs: Taken.
The small coin: Taken.
The piece of paper: Taken.
The credit card: Taken.
The broken perambulator: The broken perambulator topples over on its side again. It’s quite useless.
Hopefully there wasn’t a baby in there…
>x statue
The statue portrays a carefree little boy playing a set of pipes.
Ah, so that’s the other literary character people were referencing: Peter Pan.
The west wind is still. Everything is very quiet.
What time is it?
>x watch
Your wristwatch says it’s 3:59:45 pm.(That’s odd. The “seconds” display has stopped working.)
A gleam overhead catches your eye.
Oh, dear. A missile is hanging motionless in the sky.
What?!
>x missile
The missile isn’t completely motionless. It’s falling very, very slowly towards the Long Water.Your eyes follow the missile’s trajectory downward, where you notice another peculiar phenomenon. It looks like a white door, suspended just above the surface of the water.
A flock of ravens glides into view! They circle over the Long Water and disappear through the open white door.
The missile continues its slow descent.
Over the water? So that’s to the east of us!
>e
You wade into the cool, dark water.Wading
You’re standing knee-deep in the Long Water, not far from the western shore. Looking east, you can see a white door hovering just above the surface.
Swans and ducks paddle through the open white door, vanishing without a trace.
The missile is only a few dozen yards above the door.
The following text didn’t display in the game for me, so I had to pull it from the transcript:
>e
As you wade to the threshold a familiar roadrunner flutters past. The ruby in its beak gleams enticingly as it slips through the white door.All color abruptly drains from the landscape. Trees, sky and sun flatten into a spherical shell, with you at the very center. A hissing in your ears becomes a rumble, then a roar as the walls of the shell collapse inward, faster and faster.
“This way, please.”
You turn, but see no one.
“This way,” the voice urges. “Be quick.”
The space around you articulates. “No!” your mind shudders. “That’s not a direction!”
“It’s a perfectly legitimate direction,” retorts the voice with cold amusement. “Now come along.”
You step out of the white door.
Meadow
You’ve discovered a golden meadow, bordered on every side by a dense forest. The air is filled with dragonflies, and the wood echoes with the cry of mourning doves.
The door you just stepped from opens into a toadstool of impossible size. Its broad crown towers over your head like a fleshy umbrella.
A triangular shadow inches across the ground. Its sharp point is sweeping across the toadstool.
The shadow creeps away from the toadstool, and the door in the stem swings shut with a faint creak. You stare in wonder as the door shimmers and fades from view.
…WHAT?!