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BALANCES WALKTHROUGH
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"Balances" is a very short game, written by Graham Nelson to demonstrate
the capabilities of the "Inform" parser and to show that anything that
Infocom could do, he can do too. However, sufficient people seem
interested in playing "Balances" seriously for it to be worth writing a
solution (after all, "Balances" is considerably longer than some of the
games to be found at the IF Archive!).
The magic system is much the same as that in the Infocom trilogy
"Enchanted", "Sorcerer" and "Spellbreaker".
"Spellbreaker" had a number of featureless white cubes that could be
written on; it also had a boneyard, a bazaar and a magic carpet (though
the carpet was more difficult to operate than the one in "Balances"!).
The "filfre" spell to "produce gratuitous fireworks" is a reference to
the scroll in Infocom's "Beyond Zork" that displayed the names of the
authors of that game.
As "Balances" is a demonstration game, the source is available from the
IF Archive at ftp.gmd.de in the directory
/if-archive/programming/inform/examples/
and should be readable even to people who have never programmed in
Inform.
Gareth Rees <
[email protected]>, 12/94
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We should get get started with some information about the background to
the game:
inventory
examine book
who is helistar
what is the great change
what is a magic burin
Then we should do what every seasoned adventurer does, and search
everything in sight:
search furniture
thus uncovering a cedarwood box, which is locked. But a magic spell
comes to our aid:
learn rezrov
rezrov box
examine box
look in box
get grimoire from box
examine grimoire
what is a grimoire
"grimoire" is another word for "spell book", no doubt to prevent the
game having to ask you which spell book you mean every time you read
one. Helistar's grimoire contains a "lleps" spell that may be cast upon
spells you have memorised, and turns them into spells that have the
opposite effect. For example, you could learn the "mortin" spell (that
causes the immediate death of the caster), "lleps mortin" and then
"mortin", in which case you will have ensured your resurrection in the
event of sudden death.
This is a walkthrough, and we're not intending to die, so there's no
need for that (but if you're curious, see the end of the walkthrough).
Now it's time to set off on the quest.
out
north
north
Our explorations have come to a sudden stop. But we know what to do!
search oats
examine shiny scroll
gnusto it
Now we have a spell to make animals grow wings, so following the example
of Bellerophon, we grow ourselves a Pegasus and fly away on it:
learn bozbar
bozbar horse
mount horse
We've discovered a featureless white cube, but we can't take it yet.
Instead, we can explore in search of some help:
north
learn yomin
yomin tortoise
"Somewhere inside the tortoise is a sense of wonder at the amazing blue
canopy of the sky". It would be hard to have been given a clearer hint!
learn bozbar
bozbar tortoise
get chewed scroll
We're not quite finished with the tortoise, yet. If you hang around for
a few turns, you'll see a tortoise feather fall to the ground.
take tortoise feather
northwest
take sapphire
examine it
spells
examine book
I'm not sure I really understand the reasoning behind the sapphire
puzzle (perhaps it was a late night when Graham was writing it), but
staring into the sapphire has implanted into your mind the "caskly"
spell (for causing perfection). In connection with the chewed scroll,
it is obvious what to do:
caskly chewed scroll
examine torn scroll
gnusto lobal
So now we have a spell for sharpening hearing, which will come in handy
later. In the meantime, we could pick up another useful object:
north
take carpet
south
and then enter the cave (but not before we have provided a light
source):
learn rezrov
rezrov door
learn frotz
frotz burin
west
We have acquired out first cube! There will be others (such as the one
we saw back at the snake), so we need to write a label on it to identify
it.
take cube
write balance on cube
Then we need to get the scroll. However, the cave won't let us leave
unless the scales are restored to balance, and the scroll happens to
weigh just as much as the different in weight between a bronze and a
gold (or silver) coin.
There are two solutions. We could take the scroll and the bronze coin,
and leave the silver coin in place of the bronze. But we'll need the
silver coin later, so that's a bad idea. Luckily, it turns out that the
tortoise feather weighs exactly the same as the scroll:
take crumpled scroll
put feather on left pan
examine crumpled scroll
gnusto urbzig
The "urbzig" spell, to "turn a dangerous object into a harmless one", is
just what we need to deal with the snake:
out
southeast
south
learn urbzig
urbzig snake
get cube
write snake on it
Now we need to take a ride on the magic carpet, but since it'll take us
to a place where the brandishing of spell books is forbidden, we had
better learn the spells we need in advance:
learn yomin
again
drop carpet
get on carpet
A third cube is one of the prizes in the lottery, and since we haven't
much money to waste, we'd better cheat by reading the mind of the poor
barker:
give silver coin to barker
yomin barker
again
get ticket 2306
give it to barker
get ticket 5802
give it to barker
write lottery on featureless cube
get on carpet
There doesn't seem to be very much to do now, but we haven't used the
"lleps" spell yet! It might be worth stopping to consider how the
"lleps" spell might affect the spells you know about, and experimenting.
The opposite of "frotz" causes darkness; the opposite of "yomin" allows
other creatures to read your mind; the opposite of "rezrov" closes and
locks doors; the opposite of "bozbar" removes wings from an object if it
has any; the opposite of "lobal" causes deafness; and the opposite of
"urbzig" turns a harmless object into a dangerous one.
This last spell sounds the most promising. Let's try it (but not on an
object we're carrying, which is lethal):
get off carpet
drop elephant
learn urbzig
learn lleps
lleps urbzig
urbzig elephant
Oops! The cuddly toy elephant is replaced by a dangerous cyclops with a
mace. Or is it a cyclops with a dangerous mace? Let's find out which:
learn urbzig
urbzig cyclops
learn urbzig
urbzig mace
Obviously the latter! Now we have a fourth cube.
get cube
write cyclops on it
what is a cyclops
Now it is time for the endgame, which involves getting into the giant
cubical temple. Let's spy on the monks:
east
examine temple
listen
The chanting is too faint to make out? We know what to do about that:
learn lobal
lobal me
listen
The monks tell of "one who will some day enlighten their order". Could
this be a terrible, terrible pun?
learn frotz
frotz temple
I think so. Lots of disgruntled players complained on
rec.games.int-fiction about this puzzle! Anyway, there's not much left
to do:
examine podium
clean podium
examine top left socket
Obviously the puzzle is to put the cubes in the correct sockets. It was
a good thing we labelled them, because otherwise we wouldn't know what
to put where.
put lottery cube in top left socket
examine top right socket
put cyclops cube in top right socket
examine bottom right socket
put balance cube in bottom right socket
examine bottom left socket
put snake cube in bottom left socket
And we have won!
Perceptive players will have noticed that by following the above script
we have scored 50 out of 51 points. The traditional "last lousy point"
may be scored by finding the "filfre" spell and casting it; to do so we
could try the following commands near the start of the game:
learn mortin
learn lleps
lleps mortin
mortin
learn mortin
mortin
get worthless scroll
examine it
gnusto filfre
learn filfre
filfre
north
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