Friday, December 21, 2018

Chapter 7: I Robot (The Alan Parsons Project, 1977)

>nw

[Low Round Room] This is a room with a low ceiling which is circular in shape. There are exits to the east and southeast. There is a robot here. There is a green piece of paper here.

If there are multiples of a thing present you must be clear. In the Living Room, if you said "read" the game would ask you want you wanted to read, as there was the US NEWS & DUNGEON REPORT and the and strange gothic lettering. When there is only one item, the descriptor gets in the way. Saying "read green paper" in this instance results in the game saying it doesn't understand that. Saying "take piece" will work, but read will take and read. Be brief, be victorious.

>read

Taken.

!!!! FROBOZZ MAGIC ROBOT COMPANY !!!!

Hello, master!

    I am a late-model robot, trained at MIT Tech to perform various simple housekeeping functions.

Instructions for use:

    To activate me, use the following formula -- TELL ROBOT, something to do (CR)

    The comma is mandatory.

    Command me as you will!

Warranty:

    No warranty is expressed or implied.

At your service!


>drop piece

Dropped.

>tell robot, east

Done.


>east

[Machine Room] You are in a large room full of assorted heavy machinery. The room smells of burned resistors. The room is noisy from the whirring sounds of the machines. Along one wall of the room are three buttons which are, respectively, round, triangular, and square. Naturally, above the buttons are instructions written in EBCDIC. A large sign above all the buttons says in English:

     DANGER: HIGH VOLTAGE

There are exits to the west and the south. There is a robot here.


For the über-curious, Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code (EBCDIC) is an 8-bit character encoding used mainly on IBM mainframe and IBM midrange computer operating systems, a descendent from the code used with punched cards and the corresponding six bit binary-coded decimal code used with most of IBM's computer peripherals of the late 1950s and early 1960s. In short, this is an inside coder joke. These guys crack me up.

Let's see...the odor of burned out resistors and a HIGH VOLTAGE sign. If you have a death wish, try pushing the buttons yourself. If not, use Robby here to do it for you. The round button makes the sound slow down, while the square button makes it sound faster. The triangular button, which is just right, is the correct choice.

>tell robot, push triangular button

A dull thump is heard in the distance.


>tell robot, south

Done.

>south

[Dingy Closet] This is a dingy closet adjacent to the machine room. On one wall is a small sticker which reads:

                Protected by

         FROBOZZ

    Magic Alarm Company

     (Hello, footpad!).

There is a beautiful crystal sphere here. There is a robot here.


Do not use the robot to take the sphere…you won’t like what happens.

>take sphere

As you reach for the sphere, a steel cage falls from the ceiling to entrap you. To make matters worse, poisonous gas starts coming into the room.


Oh crap...now what? Good thing you have a robot with you.

>tell robot, lift cage

The cage shakes and is hurled across the room.


Don’t forget the sphere…you just reached for it earlier but never had it in your hands.

>take sphere

Taken.

 
Despite what appears to be the usefulness of having a robot with you during the rest of your journey, it is best to leave it here. You can take it with you, but it is slow going.

>north

Machine Room

>west

Low Round Room

As you enter, your compass starts spinning wildly.

Great...now this room spins wildly. Keep trying directions until you get back to the Tea Room.

>s

Unfortunately, it is impossible to tell directions in here.

Tea Room


>drop necklace, drop sphere

Dropped.

>take red cake, take blue cake, take orange cake

piece of cake with red icing: Taken.

piece of cake with blue icing: Taken.

piece of cake with orange icing: Taken.


>read red cake

The only writing visible is a capital E. The rest is too small to be clearly visible.

I'll save you the trouble of trying to read the other two, as they are too small as well. Didn't know Wilton made such teeny tiny piping tips. Looks like a magnifying glass (or the equivalent) will be necessary.

>save

Saved.



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