Let's play Zork + Colossal Cave Adventure

Playing Let's Play!
13

Episode Z3

We started where we left off in Z2, at the gates of Hades. Not yet knowing a way in, we found our way back to the Round Room. On the way, we broke the large mirror in the mirror room, which did not seem to do anything useful. With high hopes, we waved the sceptre at the chasm—and nothing happened. In frustration we threw the sceptre, which had the familiar effect of killing the player character.

But something was different this time. Instead of resurrecting in the forest, we were back at the gates of Hades, and everything now seemed “indistinct, bleached of color, even unreal.” We could not touch items or interact with much. Somehow we could see things despite not carrying a lamp. In this strange state we continued the exploration.

Intending to go west from the Round Room, we went east and arrived at the Loud Room. There is a puzzle here, as our commands merely echo back at us. Again intending to retreat to the west, we went east through a damp cave to White Cliffs beach: an apparent dead end, and not the same shore we had found in the overworld in Z1.

We discovered that WAVE OBJECT is an oracle that reveals the existence or nonexistence of objects in the game. If the object is known to the game, the response will be “You don’t have that!”, but if it’s not, the game will instead say “I don’t know the word ‘OBJECT’.” By this trick we learned there must be a diamond somewhere in the game (and a set of teeth?!?), but we didn’t push it too far.

We tried the verb ECHO in the Loud Room, which had the effect of making the room quiet. But we still could not pick up the platinum bar that was in the room. Maybe because we’re a ghost now?

Going up from the Loud Room we found Flood Control Dam #3 and its surrounding rooms, which were full of tools and controls that we could not interact with. At the base of the dam there was a pile of plastic, perhaps an inflatable life raft. There’s a reservoir we could not cross, and a stream that doesn’t lead anywhere. Pottering around, we found another way back to the Round Room. We considered entering the forbidding hole west of the troll room, but at the last minute decided to try one last thing. On entering a PRAY command at the altar in the temple, trumpets sounded, and we found ourselves returned to corporeal form, once again in the forest.

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