Has anyone played the above DOS game from Douglas Associates created in 1987? It is definitely worth a look if old school puzzlefests still tickle your fancy; a kind of Topologika like creation set in a castle with similarly tough puzzles but with the added benefit of the EXAMINE command and automapping. My Trizbort map is sprawling but the locations are logical. It has a robust parser as well so there is little hair tearing when attempting an action.
I have made my way through to roughly half way but reached an impasse long ago in the attempted retrieval of a gold key which runs across multiple rooms and multiple contraptions. It is pretty obscure although like the Topologika games a hint sheet is available online and it can be downloaded from IFDB. The authors Steve Vance and Doug Clutter are rather elusive.
Likewise I could lend some assistance to anyone stuck earlier in the game.
I played that one circa 2000. A guy brought it in to the call center where I worked, and there were a handful of us playing at the same time on our own workstations and swapping hints. I remember a multi-room Rube Goldberg puzzle with a rolling ball, but I’m pretty sure I never finished. I also remember you could THINK ABOUT an object (abbreviated T) to get related hints.
Interesting Nathan. My version doesn’t recognise THINK ABOUT but weirdly it does recognise COGITATE which sometimes throws up a hint. Fortunately the verb list is at the bottom of the screen.
Do you remember how far you and your colleagues progressed? I have attained 120 points out of 300 but the key is tantalisingly out of reach despite my manipulation of various machines.
The steel ball that you describe is part of the multi room puzzle to claim the aforementioned key.
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After much deliberation you need to move the plastic pail so that it is slightly East of the French horn in the Trap Door room by pressing the sandy button then moving north into the Trough Room and pushing the lever to align the Trough with the north hole. Then drop the ball in the Slanted Room and move back to the Trough Room and PULL LEVER and PUSH LEVER three times to accelerate the speed of the steel ball. The ACME skeet shooter in the Trap Door room has been modified to speed up the trajectory of the ball. Then move East back to the Trap Door room and wait for an ominous click. When the ball hits the French Horn the arrow it fires misses the plastic pail but hits the burlap bag which is full of sand. When the sand starts to trickle out press the sandy button again so that it lines up the plastic pail with the bag and catches the sand. The pail then lowers and the Gilded Cage attached to the pail by a chain rises as the pail sinks with the weight of sand in it revealing the gold key.
The gold key then falls through a hole into a plastic cup attached to a garage opener rail In a room below which you can never enter but merely view through some French doors. A conveyor belt runs beneath a chair which has a board balanced on it. The other end of the board has a desk fan attached to it that is switched on. A bottle sits on the board opposite the fan with a stack of papers under the bottle. A fishline runs from the bottle through a hole in the north wall. A remote controls turns on a circular device at the end of the conveyor belt and lighting the boiler starts the conveyor belt moving. COGITATE implies you need to move the bottle with the fishline attached to it using a device from another room but I cannot work out which device this would be.
This is a real voyage through machinery worthy of the Babel Fish Puzzle in HHG.
I am still working at it.
Well, probably THINK ABOUT is a faulty memory. I think I did actually get the key, but I don’t remember enough even of the details you mention. Good luck!
If you put text in [spoiler] ... [/spoiler] tags it will be blurred (or select the text and choose “Blur Spoiler” which is in the gear-icon menu in the post editor…
Cheers Nathan. Your successful retrieval at least confirms it is possible. I think I’ll put out the bunting if I work this out as I originally got stuck here 28 years ago!
I’ve been working my way through a list of old text adventures, classics and less well known alike. (I just started playing Gateway.) Castle Ralf fits the bill exactly. And at least when I get stuck I’ll know this page is here.
I think you’ll enjoy it. It is one of those obscure games that deserves far more coverage but like so much old puzzle based IF from back in the day has rather fallen out of favour with the Twine trendies. I can help you if needs be up to a point but I am still stuck on the multi part gold key retrieval puzzle; surely one of the cleverest and most drawn out puzzles in IF history.
You might also want to check out the four original games by Jim MacBrayne from 1989 / 1990 viz. The Holy Grail, The Golden Fleece, Frustration and The Mission. Decidedly old school, decidedly difficult and decidedly large. They have been ported to Windows by the author this year.
However… The PC downloads aren’t working for me. Computer keeps asking which app I want to use to open the file. Decidedly-non-techie that I am, I have no idea. I just thought: “Windows computer here, PC-downloads there. This should work.” But I see all four games exist for TADS too.
I’ll be sure to give you some feedback when I play them. (Translation: By pointing me to these games, you have automatically accepted the resposibility of being my personal hint-machine.) This could be a while though. I’m deep in outer space with Gateway now, and next will be Bullhockey or Delusions. Or maybe the more recent Alias the Magpie.
Try right clicking the .rar file in question when downloaded, choose 7-Zip then Extract To and either choose an existing folder or create a new one. When extracted you just need to double the click the .exe file contained therein. Hope this helps.
I am always around for hints, that is if I have solved the relevant puzzle of course!
Bullhockey! and its sequel I can thoroughly recommend. Bill Lindsay is also available via email and I have found him very helpful in the past.
While I’m looking through my folder of oldschool puzzlefests: Birmingham IV drew my attention. A 1988 game recentlyt ported to Inform. You seem to be very at home with these sorts of games, so… any thoughts? (Must-Play-Now! or Nice-and-Puzzly-but-no-Rush… ?)
Also, have you played The Abbey of Montglane? The oldest adventure I’ve finished so far. I wrote a review in the Reviews and Essays-section of this site. Very very good.
Edit: I see you already read it. Shame on me for self-promotion…
Oh, apparently I do not have 7-zip. Just download and install it?
Yes I can thorougly recommend Birmingham IV. I did write a review of it which you can see on IFDB. I never worked out what the watery eyes were about but it is an extremely good old school game which presents a dilemma at the end!
Great review! You’ve presented me with a difficult choice to make in the near future: stick with the plan (Bullhockey, then Delusions, then …) or just jump straight into Birmingham after I finish Gateway.
Oh woe, the troubles of a n IF-player with a near infinite database to choose from!
I was just thinking about this game! I played it with a housemate in the early 90’s for about 6 months off and on, and then we all moved and it dropped off the map. I think I read on IFDB that no one had ever solved it???
Has anyone here solved it? I think I’ll give it another go if I can figure out how to work DosBox.
I attained 160 out if 300 Amanda but have yet to work out how to retrieve the gold key from the conveyor belt.
This one is tough with a capital tough. And don’t forget to COGITATE in the hall for one of the funniest parser responses in text adventure history.
DosBox should work straight off the bat. Run it then mount c: c:\directory name (name being wherever you extracted the Castle Ralf files) then change to c: and type cd directory name then dir/p to see the list of files in the Castle Ralf directory. I can’t remember off the top of my head if the executable file is called castle.com or ralf.com or castle.exe;. simply type the name of the executable press return and it should run.