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Tex Murphy Journal Entry 1: “I wouldn’t normally take on a case like this one. The cops seem pretty certain that Professor Carl Linsky jumped to his death off the Golden Gate Bridge, so why am I even looking into it? Sylvia is the reason why! Not only did she give me ten grand to investigate her father’s death, she also happens to be drop dead gorgeous. You know…the type of girl that’s undoubtedly trouble, but trouble that might just be worth getting into. She gave me the NC for her dad’s apartment, which is where I am now. I’ll sweep this place clean! If Linsky was in some sort of trouble, I should be able to find something here that leads me to the troublemaker. Hmmmm…what’s that statue over there in the cabinet?”


I’m approaching two hours into Mean Streets and I’ve hardly done anything at all. My lack of achievement isn’t due to high difficulty or stupidity though, it’s just taken me a while to a) get used to the game mechanics and b) to figure out the best way to capture my experience for the blog. I’ll explain the mechanics as I move through the first part of the game, but thought I would mention my technical struggles in case anyone can come up with a better solution. As I mentioned in previous posts, I’ve started turning to SCUMMVM whenever possible, as it allows me to take very high quality screenshots by pressing ALT-S. When it comes time to write a post, I select the 1.6MB images that I want to use and resize them so I don’t end up with pages that load slower than Tex Murphy’s speeder (more on that soon).


When I use DOSBox, I can press CTRL F5 to take screenshots, but they’re generally  320 x 200, which is crappy to say the least. Laukku very helpfully informed me that setting the machine to “vgaonly” in DOSBox for some reason doubles the screenshot resolution to 640 x 400 though, so since Mean Streets is not supported on SCUMMVM, I decided to try this little trick and kick on. I’ve run into one major issue while playing the game though, which is that pressing the CTRL key acts in the same way as pressing the ENTER key. Given that the majority of the screenshots I need to capture contain some sort of dialogue, as soon as I press the CTRL key, it disappears! Long story short, my first session has involved using CTRL F5 whenever there is no dialogue on screen and the bloody Windows 7 Snipping Tool for the rest. Anyone got a better solution? I’d love to hear it!


OK, that little rant is out of the way. Let’s begin! The game started with Tex Murphy strolling out of a building and hopping into a rather cool looking flying car. It was immediately apparent that the graphics were pretty decent, and the sound of the door sliding open was also fairly convincing. After playing Manhunter for the last few weeks, Mean Streets was already looking very impressive from a technical point of view. Tex hopped into the car (called a speeder), and a bunch of writing appeared on the screen, giving me some background to the case that I’m about to try to solve. The short of it is that I’ve been hired by a woman named Sylvia to investigate the death of her father, Dr. Carl Linsky. The police believe he committed suicide by jumping from the Golden Gate Bridge, but Sylvia believes he was murdered, and that his connection to a secret project at the University of San Francisco was to blame. I’ve been given $10000 in cash and have 5 leads, which are written in a section called “Getting Started” in the manual.


Once the intro message was done, I found myself sitting in front of the controls of the speeder, with absolutely no idea what I was supposed to be doing. I then skimmed through the manual and read all I could about controlling the vehicle. The first thing I learnt was how to input a destination into the navigation console. I could bring up the console by pressing N, and I could then press N again to type in a navigation code (aka NC). I entered code 4663, as that was the first location in the manual. The San Francisco University! I could then press A to turn on an auto pilot that would take my speeder to the destination automatically, but I was keen to at least have a go at manually controlling the vehicle. As soon as I exited the navigation console, I received a fax. That’s right, a fax! In 2033! It was from my secretary Vanessa, and was a copy of a news article about Linsky’s death. It didn’t mention much that I wasn’t already aware of, but it did talk about Linsky’s fiancée Delores Lightbody, who indicated in the article that the professor had been under a great deal of stress prior to his death. The manual states that I can contact Vanessa whenever I want to by video phone, as well as an Informant named Lee Chin.


I soon learnt that pressing the HOME key caused the speeder to hover upwards and END to go back down towards the ground. The + key would move forward while the – key would move backward. The rest was pretty straight forward, with the arrow keys turning and tilting the flying car just as you would expect them to. Once I realised that the number in the top left corner of the screen was how far from the destination I was (3.53 miles in this instance), and that the compass with two numbers on it above my right knee was the direction I was heading along with the direction I needed to go to reach the destination, it was just a matter of pointing the car in the right direction and pressing + until I reached top speed. Shortly afterwards I arrived at a flashing landing pad, where I was (after a bit of a struggle) able to land the speeder and come to a stop. Then all I needed to do was press E to exit, which I did.


Rather than witnessing Tex enter a building or interact with anyone at the university, instead I merely received a message describing what took place. Basically I broke into Carl Linsky’s office using my “Private Detective, all purpose, door opening kit”, only to find no-one in there and nothing of interest whatsoever! Since there was “nothing else to see or do at this location”, I checked the manual for another location I could visit. The second lead I had was Sylvia Linsky herself, who lived at NC 4421. I entered the code into the navigational console, turned my speeder the exact direction, and hit top gear (after climbing to a height where I wouldn’t crash into things on the way). Sylvia’s house was over 70 miles away from the university, but that shouldn’t take long in such a high tech speeder right? Right!? Well, I watched as the miles slowly ticked down, with very little of interest popping up in the scenery around me. I’d read others comments about how long it took to get anywhere in the speeder, and was now realising exactly what they were talking about!


I’m not sure exactly how long it took, but it had to be close to five minutes before I reached Sylvia’s house, with nothing to do but watch the miles to destination slowly tick down. Once I arrived, I was shown an external of the apartment and given a brief description of Sylvia. “The bell chimed inside, and after a moment, Sylvia opened the door. She wore a pale blue blouse and white shorts that were short enough to be friendly. She was as beautiful as ever, with her soft blonde hair and clear blue eyes. I knew I was starting to fall for her. Careful, I reminded myself. She’s a client, and falling for a client is dangerous in my business. Still, if only I knew how she felt for me...” It seemed pretty odd that my character would be so forthcoming after one brief meeting with her previously, but the seductive look and posture Sylvia had in the short video I witnessed was enough explanation for me. Sylvia is clearly a nasty piece of work, with the looks to back it up!


While the video quality isn’t amazing by today’s standards, it sure would have been impressive back in 1989. It’s definitely the first example of live actors in a game on The Adventure Gamer playlist. Anyway, once I regained control, I was given the option to ask Sylvia questions or leave, so I chose “question”. The words “Tell me about:” appeared on the screen with a cursor, so I immediately began typing in any names I was aware of followed by the words that the manual suggested I question people about. These include “MTC Corp, Gideon Enterprises, Overlord, Passcard, Password, Nexus, Law and Order, and Insurance”. I have to admit that it feels a bit strange being told what questions to ask people, particularly when the majority of them don’t mean anything to me at all. That seems like a pretty lazy way to get the information to the player that they might need.


Asking about “Carl Linsky” gave me some important information. “If you need to look through his apartment, it’s located at NC 4660”. Asking about “Delores Lightbody” revealed that she and Carl were about to get married, but that Sylvia believed Delores had seduced him with black magic. Asking about “Insurance” really put Sylvia on the defensive, as she immediately assumed that I was suggesting she killed her own father for the 1,000,000 dollars insurance. It seems that if he committed suicide, Sylvia gets nothing, but if he was murdered, the million bucks would be hers. No wonder she’s trying to prove that he was murdered! Despite this revelation, Sylvia still suggested that if I investigate the death and am convinced it was suicide, she would accept that finding. I tried all the other words and names that I had, but none of them resulted in anything very interesting.


Interestingly, once I’d asked Sylvia a couple of questions I gained the ability to Bribe her or to Threaten her. I’d just saved my game, so I tried both! She refused to accept a bribe, but threatening her resulted in her kicking me in my nether regions, which “I expertly blocked with my body”. Apparently I lost consciousness from the pain and woke up on the street. I restored, figuring that pissing off Sylvia probably wasn’t in my best interests at this stage of the game, and hopped back into the speeder. I decided to visit Dr. Linsky’s apartment now that I knew its location, so set my navigation console to NC 4660. I then spent another 5 or so minutes watching mostly empty scenery as I travelled over 70 miles to the destination. I was already starting to feel the pain that many other players have commented about, and had to wonder why the game creators didn’t either make the speeder go faster or put the locations a bit closer together.


On entering the apartment, a message popped up saying: “The three story Queen Anne style home of Professor Carl Linsky has been well kept. I step inside and notice the quaint style of furniture and décor…” I was then given a third person view of Tex walking into the room. It was time to do some detective work! Moving around the room was easy enough, and I quickly figured out that I could press ENTER to take a closer look at all the pieces of furniture in my near vicinity. Once I highlighted an item, I could choose one of six actions to apply to it, being “look”, “get”, “move”, “open”, “on/off” and “taste”. Looking at an item gave me a description of it, and quite often revealed yet another item either on or inside it that I could then investigate. I had some fun trying stupid things such as opening the plant and tasting the couch, and the game humoured me with responses like “your suggestion sounds a bit demented” and “yuk – obviously you’re not a gourmet.”

So what did I find in Linsky’s apartment? I discovered a chess set on the coffee table that was interestingly missing one of the bishops. I also found a note on the table that said “I’m going to get you for failing me, Linsky.” That could be taken two ways really. Did Linsky write it or was it left for him? Either way, I had to wonder why it wasn’t found by police the day he died, just sitting on the table. I found a desk key on the chair in the back left corner of the room which I assumed I would be able to open a drawer in the desk with, but before I could even try that, I took a look at the display case nearby. “The display cabinet is protected by a magnetic field. You notice two slot screws partially hidden and surmise that you could shut down the field if you had a slot screwdriver.” I could see that there was a statue inside the cabinet, which I very stupidly decided to pick up…


Unsurprisingly, my foolishness resulted in an alarm going off, and I had five minutes to turn it off before the police arrived. I quickly looked at all the other items in the room, but couldn’t find any way of turning off the alarm. I then realised that the front door had closed and locked, so it was clear that I was doomed. The police arrived and I was thrown jail, ending my game. I figured I’d just restore my game and investigate the rest of the room, only I hadn’t saved since visiting Sylvia! That meant I was going to have to travel the 70 plus miles again in the speeder to reach the Professor’s apartment!  Damn! Well, I’ve learnt a lot in the first session, including some valuable lessons around saving every time I arrive at a destination and not touching things that have magnetic fields on them. My second session should be much smoother for it!

Total Time: 1 hours 30 minutes

Note Regarding Spoilers and Companion Assist Points: Ive written a set of rules regarding spoilers and companion assist points. Please read it here before making any comments that could be considered a spoiler in any way. The short of it is that no points will be given for hints or spoilers given in advance of me requiring one. Please...try not to spoil any part of the game for me...unless I really obviously need the help...or I specifically request assistance. In this instance, Ive not made any requests for assistance. Thanks!

I had time to catch up on a few things over the Labor Day weekend, but not everything I might have wanted to.  So this week were taking on SoftSide Adventure #5 - Crime Adventure, temporarily skipping over #4 in that series until I have time to play through it properly.  Were playing Crime Adventure on the Atari 400/800, which is significant as there are apparently some differences between versions.



The game was featured in the October 1981 issue of the SoftSide disk magazine, with no author credited onscreen or in the BASIC code.  (UPDATE 07/01/2012:  This post drew the attention of a Mr. Neil Bradley, who wrote this games original TRS-80 version.  He based the map on his local neighborhood in Portland, Oregon!)  While the title may imply that the player will be committing crimes in the course of the adventure, this is not the case -- according to the introductory text, Mrs. Fenwick has been kidnapped, and is now hidden in some unknown location. You must sift through the clues you will find, and rescue her!

Traditional Agatha Christie-style mysteries inspired a number of early adventure games; Infocom arguably did the most to develop the genre, with significant conversation and independent action by the potentially guilty parties.  Crime Adventure does not approach this level of interactive fiction; its a more traditional adventure game, with object-based puzzles and clue hunting dominating the rather nonsensical action.

As always, I encourage interested readers to give this game a go independently before continuing here.  In the interest of historical documentation and an ongoing exploration of the art of interactive fiction, I will reveal all I was able to discover in the ensuing discussion.  In other words, there are certain to be...

***** SPOILERS AHEAD! *****

The story begins with an unexpected historical flashback, as the player begins in a 1980s arcade, with unlicensed Asteroids, Space Invaders, Star Castle and Gorf machines.  (Apparently other versions featured variations here.)  But should we try to PLAY ASTEROIDS, the limited parser steps in to inform us that You dont know how to PLAY ASTEROIDS.  So why are we in the arcade?  We can examine the machines to see that they accept quarters or tokens, but we cant TALK ATTENDANT or ASK ATTENDANT, and we have nothing in inventory.  Theres a token dispenser on the sidewalk outside, but it sports an Out-of-Order sign.  So we will probably have to come back here later if were supposed to do anything on the arcades premises.


There are quite a few shops in town that we will need to visit to gather important items.  The shoe store next to the arcade has some golf shoes for sale, and theres a golf ball on the corner outside.  An advertisement in the nearby parking lot reads, "Come to the big sale at the shoe store.  Premium quality golf shoes only $29.99!"  So clearly theres a theme here.

The games design is generally fair and not overly anxious to do away with the player, but unforeseeable death results if we explore the street too much, as we can easily get hit by a car.  The Middle on an east-west street location maps as a bottleneck between the north and south sections of the map, and going east or west from that location results in an untimely demise.  The north-south street is not as heavily traveled and is safe to explore.

To the south of town is the Fenwick House, which is convenient as its Mrs. Fenwick thats been kidnapped.  The homes back yard has a putting green and a flag, so golf continues to be a factor.

A notebook near the backyard fence reads, "The ground beneath may reveal a treat!"  We can find a shovel behind the restaurant to the east.  But if we try to DIG - With what?? - SHOVEL -- Nothing is found.  This is odd, and I tried to figure out if the notebook had somehow been moved from another location, but as it turns out we have to DIG GROUND specifically to discover a coin.

A rotten egg lies on the sidewalk, but we cant GET EGG - Its smelly and rotten...Leave it alone.  I never found a need for it and was happy to let it lie.  The local computer store has an Atari computer running (in this version, naturally), and EXAMINE COMPUTER tells us that There is a program on the computer.  But we cant USE PROGRAM or READ PROGRAM or LIST PROGRAM; we have to READ COMPUTER to see that its a lesson for cooking beef stew.

The neighboring Beauty Salon contains a hairpin and nothing else; the game is generally free of extraneous detail, so if an object turns up, we probably need to do something with it.

A neighboring gypsys house can be explored in some detail; the owner, a gypsy woman, has a crystal ball and says, "A penny for my thoughts..."  Coming up with some money will be important it seems.  A painting in her hallway may be tempting -- It looks very valuable -- but if we try to GET PAINTING, The gypsy kicks you out of the house and locks the door!   We can also EXAMINE MIRROR in the gypsys master bedroom, learning only that You dont like what you see.  So again we should probably come back here with a little money.

The Crime Adventure map is geographically consistent, except for the interior of the Fenwick and gypsy houses which are fairly large.

The Fenwick house contains a hat, not our size, a picture of Mrs. Fenwick -- Shes a beauty! -- and a dresser containing $30 in cash which we are allowed to liberate, presumably in the interest of solving the ultimate mystery on Mrs. Fenwicks behalf.  Theres also a forward-looking diary entry for today, indicating that the phone went out of order, so she had to go down to the phone booth, and that she was planning to make stew for dinner.  The kitchen contains carrots, onions, meat, potatoes, and a fry pan, while Mr. Fenwick and his putter are found waiting in the dining room; we can EXAMINE MR. to learn that He looks lonely and hungry.  There are no complicated character motivations or subtle plotlines here -- we cant SHOW or ASK him anything.

The Tesn-Teisn restaurant contains a fortune cookie, with a pidgin-English fortune reading, "He who putt around go places."  We can figure this out on our own, sans the stereotyped Asian reference, but it is a valid clue.

Of course, Mr. Fenwick wont just let us take his faithful putter.  And if we try to MAKE STEW without having visited the computer store, the engine yields You cant make anything... yet.  We cant CHOP ONIONS or CUT CARROTS, either, and theres a five-item inventory limit, so we have to drop everything else in order to pick up the pan and four ingredients.  Then, finally, we can produce some delicious stew; apparently mere exposure to the "one easy lesson" on the Atari computer was sufficient.  We can then FEED MR. to obtain the putter.

But were not quite ready to do any putting yet.  We have to visit the shoe store to get the golf shoes, where we must BUY PAIR -- BUY SHOES yields You cant do that... yet, because the 3-character parser dictionary means that SHOES are actually interpreted as the SHOVEL.


While no time limit is explicitly stated up front, it develops that we dont have all the time in the world to solve the mystery -- the game starts reporting that Time is running out for Mrs. Fenwick! after a while.

Having bought the golf shoes for $29.99, in a world free of sales tax, we have a penny left over and can visit the gypsys house (if we didnt get thrown out earlier, in which case we must restart or restore.)  We cant GIVE PENNY, but we can PAY GYPSY to learn that "I see a woman...trapped... in an underground prison...you must rescue her."  Then we get transported to her front porch and locked out of the house, our business transaction apparently completed.

Weve spent all of our existing money, so we should take a look at that coin we dug up earlier.  Unfortunately, theres a bug in the Atari 400/800 version that makes this inquiry fatal -- EXAMINE COIN tells us that weve found a quarter, but then summarily crashes the game.  The BASIC code should GOTO 210 but goes to the non-existent line 910 instead:




So its best to avoid this action the next time around.  We can try to putt on the Fenwicks backyard putting green, but with the golf ball, golf shoes and putter in hand, we are told that You cant putt....yet.  Experimentation reveals that we have to DROP BALL first, and PUTT BALL instead of just PUTTing, but even then were not able to putt.  I had to resort to the always-valuable CASA walkthroughs to learn that we have to return to the arcade and INSERT COIN into the Asteroids (or any other) machine, getting the high score to earn a free putt-putt course card from the attendant.  The IBM version has a Pac-Man machine, missing here, but playing any of the games appears to work, and just like the stew recipe, the knowledge is instantly osmosed -- we dont actually have to take the course to learn how to PUTT BALL. 

Were near the end of the game now.  Putting the ball drops us into an underground hallway, where a ladys footprints are visible.  A four-way junction leads to some odd mapping, as going W takes us out to the sidewalk in front of the arcade, and we cant go back the way we came, though we can return via the Fenwicks back yard, now converted into a hole that immediately drops us down again.

The eastern room has a lock on some machinery, and theres a solid steel wall to the south, but security has not been very well thought through, as we can easily PICK LOCK with the hairpin, taking advantage of the systems weakest link.

Behind the steel wall, we find Mrs. Fenwick -- she says she will follow us, but there is one more thing we need to do to complete the adventure.  She looks lonely, which is a clue, but not in the way one might be tempted to think.  We just have to take her back home to her husband, still sitting in the dining room, where the two are happily reunited.  Apparently Mrs. Fenwick doesnt even suspect that Mr. Fenwick might have had something to do with all of this, what with the high-security underground prison concealed beneath his backyard putting green, and the complete absence of any kind of ransom demand.  So the storyline seems strangely unresolved in the end, but alls well that ends well, I suppose.  Victory is ours!


I took a peek at the code to understand the timing details -- theres no score per se, but we have 250 moves to find Mrs. Fenwick, and we must reunite her with her husband in 300 moves, otherwise we will learn that Mr. Fenwick has given up on his wife and left town.  So hes not only lazy, but impatient as well.  I just dont trust him, but Mrs. Fenwick seems happy enough.

Crime Adventure has a fairly extensive map that takes some time to explore, but the puzzles are generally simple, aside from some unclear expectations and circa-1981 parser wrestling.  It was a good, quick game for the Labor Day weekend, thanks in part to CASA, and I enjoyed it despite its contrivances and a remarkably silly ending.  Next time I tackle a SoftSide game, I will almost certainly get back to #4, for which it appears I will have to create my own walkthrough.

This week, were tackling another vintage adventure game for the TRS-80 Model I -- Quest for Fire, written by Anthony Wood and published in 1983 via the CLOAD cassette magazine.  I wasnt familiar with Mr. Woods work, and simply ran across this game in a miscellaneous archive collection.  But its a quality effort, running in efficient machine language -- the author created several text adventures back in the day using his own MicroAdventure engine, and he has graciously made his work freely available today at his website.

The game begins with a simple title screen rendered using the TRS-80s limited graphics capabilities:



Despite the familiar title, the game is not based in any way on the 1981 movie or the 1911 novel Quest for Fire.  The games object, clearly stated on a sign in the first room, is to "Bring the Emerald of Fire here."  So it really is a quest for fire, and we know what do with it; now we just have to find it.

I always encourage interested readers to sample these works for themselves before reading my detailed comments, especially in this case, as Quest for Fire is freely available and a very straightforward adventure to play and beat.  There are only a few deadly scenarios and theyre not difficult to anticipate and avoid.  Theres a walkthrough at the CASA Solution Archive, but you probably wont need it.

Keep all of the above in mind, and be aware that beyond this point, there are bound to be...

***** SPOILERS AHEAD! *****

The engine is pretty solid -- some of the text is in mixed-case, some in uppercase only in keeping with the standard original TRS-80 hardware.  The games SAVE and LOAD commands are functional and occasionally come in handy, but the game is really quite brief and fair, and these features arent critical.


Adventure game geography tends toward the incongruous, and Quest for Fire is no exception.  Here, we find a pyramid and a coconut tree (with a coconut at the top) in a clearing in a forest of oak and pine.  And theres sand in the forest too.  We can DIG SAND there to find a chest, but opening it requires a key.  The map has a lot of loops and odd connections, but isnt hard to figure out -- its fairly compact outside the pyramid, just six rooms, and there arent any mazes per se.

We cant GO PYRAMID (There isnt a door on the pyramid!) or CLIMB PYRAMID.  EXAMINE PYRAMID tells us only that The pyramid is very old.  Examining the coconut indicates that there might be something inside, and we can THROW COCONUT from the sacrifice cliff above the pyramid to break it open and reveal a key.  The key opens the chest, revealing that I SEE AQUA-LUNG.  Trying to WEAR AQUA-LUNG reveals only that I never learned how to scuba!  So what is it for?

The chest also contains a note, found with a second LOOK CHEST (repeated inspection pays off on several occasions in this adventure.)  The note says 36-26-36.  Um.  Well assume thats a combination and not somebodys measurements.  The chest also contains a dagger.

Theres a goat hanging out in a small clearing in the forest -- not a traditional habitat for these animals, really, but we can GET GOAT and carry the poor animal around.  We can THROW GOAT at the sacrifice cliff, but unlike the coconut scenario, the parser treats this action as a simple DROP GOAT here.  With the dagger in hand, however, we can SACRIFICE GOAT.  (Sorry, Mr. Goat!)  And now The pyramid seems to change below, we have a carcass left over, and we can GO ENTRANCE to enter the pyramid; the door disappears behind us as we enter, though we can get back outside easily enough so its not a fatal situation if we have forgotten something important.

The pyramid seems to be not so much a man-made construction as a portal to a large natural/constructed area that seems bigger on the inside than the outside.  Theres a safe inside the magnificant [sic] cavern inside the pyramid.  When we open it, using the combination from the coconut, A gas mask falls out!  This is a little strange, but this is an old-school adventure game so well just go with it.  Theres a bottle of gas with a valve on it in a cubic shaped room to the south, so we will probably want to WEAR MASK and OPEN BOTTLE when a threat appears, if adventure game tradition holds.

Theres a pool of murky water inside the pyramid, but we cant do anything with our non-scuba-friendly avatar, who refuses to do any DIVEing, at least for the moment.

A giant rat and a rats nest greet us in a small dead-end alcove, which given our experience with the goat seems like an opportunity for further animal cruelty.  With the gas mask on, we can... well, we cant OPEN BOTTLE or OPEN VALVE or BREAK BOTTLE or THROW BOTTLE, but we can TURN VALVE.  There is a slight hissing.. The rat dies!  Man, we are just murdering animals left and right here.

Fortunately, the rats nest contains a book, entitled "11 Easy Steps to Scuba Diving."  Nothing like instant skill acquisition!  Now we can don the aqua-lung and SWIM DOWN in the murky pool to find some slime.  Theres a trap door embedded in the slime, leading to the remains of a well shaft, below which is a flooded hall, leading to a large cavern with a resident shark, an irregular cavern with a weird chair, and the treasure chamber where the fabled Emerald of Fire resides.

So it seems we are already close to completing this Quest for (the emerald of) Fire.  Of course, we cant simply GET EMERALD and make off with it -- Its too heavy!!  So we can try something else -- if we GO CHAIR and TURN KNOB, it instantly beams us back to the games starting location in the forest.  Hmmmm.  This will probably be handy for actually finishing the game, but were going to need to figure out how to bring the emerald there with us.

So what else can we do?  Well, someone has to try these things, so I confirmed that we cant GET SHARK -- Bad move my friend, the shark decides it is lunch time...  We cant safely try to SACRIFICE SHARK either.  We can also die if we DROP AQUA-LUNG while underwater, yielding AGGGHHHH... I cant breath [sic] under water. GURGGLR.. BURBBLE GURBLE....

So we do have a puzzle here.  But if we EXAMINE SLIME a second time, we find a spear-gun.  Then all we have to do is SHOOT SHARK -- KKAAAAAAAPPOOOFFFFFF!! You really totaled that shark!  Now we have a mutilated (and apparently an insured and now written off) shark, and EXAMINE SHARK reveals... a magic ring.  Yes, this is an adventure game.

We can now WEAR RING -- I feel strange. -- and now we can magically carry the heavy emerald to the weird chair.  We use the chair to go back to the forest, drop the emerald, and voila!  Suddenly my [sic] back in the forest, and victory is ours!



Quest for Fire is a VERY straightforward adventure, but I found it a pleasant experience.  The puzzles generally make sense, and the descriptive details do a fine job of steering the player in the right direction; its really much better than a lot of its peers in that regard, but its also rather brief.  It only took me about an hour to solve, mapping and note-taking included, mostly because no items go unused, the puzzles are simple and clear, and we can generally find an appropriate item or action to get past any obstacle if we look around and experiment a bit.  But thats not necessarily a bad thing.

Anthony Wood published four adventure games back in the day, so I will probably get around to playing the rest of his works eventually.  But probably not next week.

Its that time of year, when I like to play something that fits the All Hallows Eve theme, and a recent reader recommendation brings me to Linda Wrights The Beast of Torrack Moor, originally published by Marlin Games in 1988 and re-released by Zenobi Software for the 128K Sinclair Spectrum ZX computer.  Ive played Ms. Wrights Cloud 99, and enjoyed her atmospheric writing and sense of humor, so Im looking forward to this one.


This is an investigative adventure with a monster theme, set in the English countryside.  A brief prologue wakes us up and sits us blearily at our desk at work, where a strange envelope arrives.  We work at a small regional newspaper, it seems, with an editor whos pressuring us for a decent story, something beyond the usual local interest coverage the Lowsea Gazette usually features.

I generally encourage interested readers to sample these adventure games before reading about my experience, and I always do so when the game is of sufficient quality to merit your time.  This is one of the good ones -- the 128K Speccy was a great platform for text adventures, with a decent amount of text onscreen and plenty of memory for prose and illustrations, even without a disk drive.  The Beast of Torrack Moor uses illustrations to great effect, providing vital clues within them, and Ms. Wrights writing is atmospheric and polished.  I got stuck in a few places and was grateful for Dorothys CASA walkthrough, but its not an overly difficult game, though it does have its share of old-school fatal dead ends where missing something early on makes it impossible to finish.

Whatever you decide, when you proceed beyond this point, beware... there are sure to be...

***** SPOILERS AHEAD! *****





As the story begins, our area of the office contains a desk and a black swivel chair, as well as the aforementioned envelope.  Doors lead south to the street and east to the office of our editor, one Mr. C.D. Slime.  We have nothing in INVENTORY, but were wearing some thin trainers, your denim jeans and a lilac shirt.  The player character is never given a specific gender, but Im going to assume were a female reporter for this one given its authorship.

The desk has a drawer and, possibly, woodworm.  The parser refuses to let us OPEN DESK, but OPEN DRAWER yields a bus timetable, a pencil, an electricity bill, and a notepad.  The bill has been paid, the notepad is full of illegible scrawlings, and READ TIMETABLE produces a barely legible graphic illustration, indicating a bus to L??? Street at 9:48 and somewhere else starting with a P at 10:48.  The strange envelope is addressed to LOWSEA GAZETTE, LONG STREET, LOWSEA, so well surmise were on Long Street and the 9:48 bus is about to arrive in seven minutes, in my playthrough so far.

The letter is from one Rose Myrtle of Puddlecombe -- how convenient, it appears we can take a bus there -- advising us of a rumored strange beast seen on the Moors, a large black animal believed to be mauling the local livestock.  This sounds like a potentially exciting story, and we have no other obvious adventuring options, so wed probably better try to get on that bus.

Its 9:50 as I get outside, after trying to tell Mr. Slime where Im going to no obvious response, but fortunately the bus is still here.  But its too cold to stay outside, and were automatically returned to the office.  EXAMINE CHAIR yields a thin anorak, and now we can WEAR ANORAK and BOARD BUS.  Off to Puddlecombe we go at 9:57 AM!

We may have just made the bus, as we find ourselves standing on the Green at the center of the tiny village of Puddlecombe at 10:58 AM.  Ernest, the Torrack Moor Ranger, recognizes us as a reporter hes talked to before, and warns us that the Beast is not worth investigating, before he trundles off north.

A picture of the signpost here indicates High Street is to the west, Church Street to the southeast, and the Moors to the northeast.  The church clock has chimed 11 o clock, and a mobile library has pulled up nearby but hasnt opened its doors yet.  Theres also a notice-board here -- it tells us the mobile library will be on the Green from 11 AM to 1 PM, and that the Ranger can tell visitors about Torrack Moor if they visit the cottage on Moor Lane.

We can travel E to enter the library, operated by a Miss U.B. Kriett, where we espy a local map.  We cant READ MAP unless we have a ticket, the librarian informs us.  As we examine other possibilities, to no effect, Miss Rose Myrtle arrives.  ASK MISS MYRTLE ABOUT LETTER produces a smile but no response, and SHOW LETTER TO MYRTLE is also unproductive.  Hmmmm.  EXAMINE MYRTLE establishes that she is A sweet little old lady, with grey hair and blue eyes, but apparently a very short memory re: her correspondence.  I hope this whole Beast business isnt just her way of complaining about local rowdies!

Exiting the library, we try to head south, but the way is blocked by a closed door that turns out be locked if we try to OPEN DOOR.  So well head west into the High Street, as winds blow and clouds loom overhead.  There are some notices stuck on the doors here -- the Estate Agent is open from 9 to 5, and an establishment known simply as The Stores keeps the same hours but closes for lunch from 1 to 2 PM.

Well head north into the offices of Connum and Fleesum, the Estate Agents.  The youthful desk clerk offers nothing comprehensible in the way of remarks, and we cant BUY HOUSE, so well move along for now.

On the south side of the street we can visit The Stores, a shop with inflated prices and a talkative parrot perched by the door.  Items on offer include a 35mm film (black and white), a can (of baked beans), and a torch (the battery-operated British variety.)  I BUY CAN, and then try to BUY TORCH, but I havent got enough money.  So Ill have to try come up with some more, I guess.

Well head further down to the west end of the High Street, where it meets the road from Lowsea and branches off into a narrow lane to the north.  A building on the south side of the street is occupied by MR. A. BITTERN, VETERINARY SURGEON, open 10 to 5.

We can enter the vets waiting room, where a receptionist prevents us from going further south; we must have an animal in need of attention to proceed, so well come back later.  We cant travel further west on the road back to Lowsea on foot, so well head north onto Quarry Lane.

There are some pebbles here, which we can take before we continue north to the Old Quarry.  Theres not much to do here among the blasted rockfaces, but theres a small shack to the west -- unfortunately, it seems the door is closed and latched on the other side, so perhaps it serves as an exit from some other location, or else we need to break the window somehow; my bare hands prove insufficient.

Making our way back to the village green, we head north to The Puddle Arms, a pub open 11 AM to 11 PM, VOTED BEST INN 1865.  I really like Ms. Wrights way with words inside the pub, where we see that "several stools are perched precariously in an imaginative line."

The publican, described simply as Plump, doesnt seem interested in talking -- this community is rather tight-lipped -- so well continue exploring the map.  Walking southeast of the Green takes us toward the church, as we noted earlier, and we find a poster along Church Lane promoting a JUMBLE SALE 2 PM HERE TODAY.  So well probably want to visit later on, its about 12:30 in my playthrough at this point.

South of Church Lane we find a pretty garden, and Myrtle Cottage, with a bell by the door.  Theres another garden southwest of Church Lane, the Vicarage Garden, and we see the Reverend S. Ermon passing by, as he gives us a brief nod.  We cant enter the vicarage -- Ms. Wrights genteel approach makes it impolite and therefore impossible to just OPEN DOOR and barge in -- but if we RING BELL at Myrtle Cottage, Miss Myrtle answers and invites us inside.

We cant SHOW LETTER or SHOW ENVELOPE to any effect, or generically TALK MYRTLE, but if we TALK MYRTLE ABOUT LETTER, we learn that she has seen the beast again, near the farm, a big, black, fast-moving animal she saw jumping over a gate.  She says that the vet thinks it might be a wild cat.  I cant seem to prod her into any other meaningful conversation, so well move on for now.

We can travel northeast from Church Lane to a path leading north to the east end of Moor Lane.  There are passages in several directions here, so well head east first, to the farmyard where Farmer Lamb seems worried.  We can ASK LAMB ABOUT BEAST to learn that he saw it recently, and it took one of his ewes the other night.  The farmer encourages us to confirm his story by talking to the vet, as the Ranger seemed useless when he reported the incident.  Visiting the barn to the northeast proves uneventful, and we should probably finish exploring town before we head east along the public footpath to the Moors.

Theres a small house to the southeast of Moor Lane, which we cant enter at the moment, and an attractive garden to the north where the impressive home of Dr. A.M. Sawly sits.  We cant enter the home, but we can travel into the side garden to the northeast and see the doctor inside the conservatory.  I try to KNOCK DOOR, but he doesnt seem to hear us.

The west end of Moor Lane adjoins a Scout Hut to the north, with a locked door for which we dont have a key.  So Ill head back down to the southeast to visit the church, as its now 1:56 and almost time for the jumble sale to open.  The church porch to the south features a notice board indicating that Miss Myrtle is on flower rotation duty this week.  I try to KNOCK DOOR, but nobody answers.  To the east of the church is the cemetery, and a bench which on closer examination holds a carrier bag.  This proves to be perfect timing, as when I try to pick it up I have run into the games inventory limit; its become very handy to be able to PUT CAN IN BAG, for example.

So where is this jumble sale?  Its 2:31 PM and the church is still locked up?  Ah, theres a church hall directly east of Church Lane by the sign.  The sale is crowded with old dears pushing and shoving in order to get the best of the bargains, and we see Miss Myrtle and Reverend Ermon here.  Trying to quiz the clergyman about the Beast only yields an errand -- hes left a box of books in the Scout Hut, and gives us an iron key so we can fetch them.  Miss Myrtle is promoting a raffle to win a rug, only tenpence for a ticket, and we apparently have enough money to buy one so well do that.

I run over to the scout hut, which is in fact a boy scout facility.  The cardboard box is there, as expected, and contains the old books as well as a battered pan, which well take for our troubles.  The books are boring and weathered, so Ill just deliver them to the sale -- nothing obvious happens after I DROP BOX there, however.

What now?  We havent visited the actual moor yet, so lets take a look out there.  A field east of the farmhouse has paths leading east and southeast, and I find Farmer Lamb here, though he has nothing new to say.  A meadow the east features a strong smell of rotting meat.

South of the meadow is some rough pasture, with a gate leading east and a deep ditch to the west.  The ditch is man-made, full of stagnant water, and theres a  man lying on the bank, groaning.  I try to HELP MAN, but the parser advises us to get a doctor.  The doctor is still in the conservatory, and still doesnt hear our knock.  I try to BREAK GLASS or KICK DOOR to get his attention, but that doesnt help.  I try to KNOCK WINDOW, PULL DOOR, and SHOUT DOCTOR, all to no avail.  I guess the fellow in the ditch will have to cling to life on his own a little while longer.

The rough pastures gate is chained shut and cant be opened.  The man in the ditch appears to be a twitcher, that is, a birdwatcher; I had to look that bit of U.K. slang up!  I ASK MAN ABOUT BEAST, and he asks us to fetch a doctor as he thinks his leg is broken; he fell into the ditch while trying to take a photo of a rare woodpecker, so this is not a Beast-related event.  I try to ASK DOCTOR ABOUT MAN, but he cant hear me from outside.  I ASK LAMB ABOUT DOCTOR -- and the farmer tells us hes deaf, but a good doctor.

The doctor has his back to us as he potters with his plants.  CAST SHADOW is unrecognized by the parser, and WAVE DOCTOR is understood but ineffective.  I try to THROW PAN and THROW KEY, but oddly enough, THROW PEBBLES is the one that works -- he doesnt hear them, but sees them falling on the glass and comes outside.  I then try to TELL DOCTOR ABOUT TWITCHER, but of course he cant hear.  DOCTOR, FOLLOW ME and LEAD DOCTOR dont do the trick either; I then WRITE ABOUT TWITCHER and SHOW NOTEPAD TO DOCTOR, with similar non-results.  I finally manage to SHOUT DOCTOR ABOUT TWITCHER -- hes not completely deaf, actually, and now he rushes off to aid the injured bird-watcher.

An ambulance rushes past me as I head back to the ditch, and when I arrive, the injured man is gone, but theres a camera here which may come in handy if we ever track down the Beast.  I check out the pasture gate again, and this time think to CLIMB GATE, reaching a steep path on the other side at the same time it starts to rain.  Were getting drenched, and are advised to don a rain-proof garment.  I return to the scout hut, but am already pretty soaked; its 6:27 PM, and a lot of other establishments are now closed.

Fortunately, Miss Myrtle welcomes us into her cottage, and it turns out weve won the raffle and are now in possession of one large rug, very warm by the look of it.  Its now getting dark outside; I try to DROP RUG and LAY RUG or SLEEP in several places, but that doesnt prove useful.  Can we get into the old shack by the quarry?  I still cant BREAK WINDOW WITH PAN or with anything else I have in inventory, it seems.

At 7:35, its getting too dark to see anything at all, and as I try to move around, I eventually fall and break my leg.  The Ranger bundles me off to the hospital for a lengthy recuperation, and this adventure is unhappily at an end.  I have achieved only 15 out of 150 points in 548 turns, and will have to do much better on the next round.

Restarting from a mid-afternoon save, I run into the Ranger in Moor Lane.  He again says the beast is a "load of waffle" and in his opinion "a large fox" before wandering off.  I visit Ye Olde Tea Shoppe south of the Green, where theres not much to do but BUY TEA and take the plastic teaspoon afterward.  I EXAMINE ANORAK to confirm its not rainproof, and EXAMINE POCKET to find my reporters pass and some coins.  I COUNT COINS and discover we have 60 pence at this point, so funds are very tight.

I cant afford to buy the torch in the store, but I do finally succeed in getting the Estate Agent to talk when I ASK AGENT ABOUT HOUSE.  He gives us a yale key so we can check out a property called Ivy Cottage, between Church Lane and Moor Lane.  We can READ DETAILS from some papers he provides to learn that the property is listed for 180,000 pounds.  I also EXAMINE DESK and learn that the agents name is Ian Connum. 

So where is this house?  I have to EXAMINE HEDGES along the path between the two adjacent lanes to discover a gate to the southeast.  An overgrown garden greets us, and theres a brick here which may come in handy for breaking into the shack.  We enter the cottage to find ourselves in a decrepit living room; theres a large rucksack here, empty but useful for carrying things. 

We can enter a kitchen to the south, where a drawer has a broken handle that falls off as soon as we try to OPEN DRAWER.  The parser suggests we may need to lever it open somehow, but I seem to have nothing of use on me at the moment.

Lets open the shack with the brick if we can -- and after I shuffle inventory around, having actually filled the bag and now needing the rucksack to support further lading, I do manage to BREAK WINDOW WITH BRICK.  But as I try to OPEN DOOR, were warned off for fear of cutting our hand.  So now were going to need some kind of protection, it appears.

I search around some more -- EXAMINE STOOLS in the pub turns up some matches, but no gloves.  I spend my nearly-last 50p to BUY BEER in the pub, feeling refreshed, but the publican seems no more talkative than before.  No one responds to a knock on the church door, but I am able to enter the vicarage.  I try to ask the vicar about his watercolor paintings, but he sends us off to fetch the books again, as I havent done that since restoring.  He does say the Beast is a mystery, and hes never seen it himself; he thinks the ranger is a lazy pain in the neck.  I ask him about the church, and he says hes lost his key, but Miss Myrtle has one and should be going to the church about noon.  Its 5:01 PM as I learn this, so I have a feeling Ill need another restart.  Before I do, though, I ASK MYRTLE ABOUT KEY -- but she wont let us have it, so I will indeed restart, having learned quite a bit about Puddlecombe though not much about the Beast so far.

With a fresh start and some a priori knowledge, I open the letter and take time to TELL EDITOR ABOUT LETTER before taking the bus.  He encourages us to track the beast down and get a photo, staying overnight if necessary.  He also gives us five pounds for expenses.  I also have a chance to ASK EDITOR ABOUT CAMERA, but the photographers off sick, so we will need the bird-watchers equipment later on, especially as Im pretty sure five pounds wont buy any new equipment.

The bus arrives at 9:44 AM and were on the Green at 10:45 this time.  I can COUNT MONEY this time to see that we have 6 pounds 60 with us.  The library isnt quite here yet, so I take a moment to fetch the carrier bag for convenience.  The librarian again tells me I need a ticket to look at the map -- and this time I ask her about this ticket, and she says I need to show some ID.  The Reporters Pass isnt sufficient, as it shows no address, but we have that electric bill, and this additional evidence earns us a pink ticket.  Oddly, I still cant EXAMINE MAP -- Ms. Kriett again says we need a ticket -- but I can BORROW MAP with it.  It resembles my hand-drawn map so far, with a large unexplored area to the east of the village.

Im unsuccessful in getting Rose Myrtle to talk about her letter here in public, but I follow her to the church -- I cant OPEN DOOR or KNOCK DOOR to any effect, but I can freely walk south into the church nave.  A table here contains some leather gloves, which Miss Myrtle says we are welcome to, as some tourist left them ages ago.  She still wont talk about the beast or her letter, however; it seems that conversation has to take place at her cottage.

I search the grass in the meadow this time, finding a dead sheep as the source of the rotting odor, and TELL LAMB ABOUT SHEEP.  He attributes it to the Beast, and gives us a large key to an old shepherds hut down by the river, where we can shelter for the night if we go out on the Moor.  Good to know.

I get the camera and the brick, and this time succeed in opening the shack up thanks to the leather gloves -- we WEAR GLOVES and can then safely OPEN DOOR.  Theres a huge chest here, containing a hammer and a leather pouch, which contains... gunpowder?  Not unusual for a quarry, actually.  I buy the can of beans and the torch, and still have 4.10 available.

I also luck into intercepting Ermon at the sale after I pick up his box of books, and he gives us some sturdy shoes for our trouble.  I replace my thin trainers with the sturdy shoes and feel much better equipped to proceed down the path east of the gate now, but I still dont have any rain gear.

We have some other puzzles to resolve first, anyway.  We can probably pry open that drawer in the ivy cottage now that we have a hammer... and yes, we can OPEN DRAWER WITH HAMMER (though PRY DRAWER WITH HAMMER doesnt work.)  We find a tin opener in the drawer, probably useful for that can of beans if we have to camp out later. 

I now examine the kitchen door more closely and see that its bolted, not stuck -- I UNBOLT DOOR and we can now visit the back garden, where we find a ladder and an outhouse.  Some leaves rustle, and we find a tortoise there -- we can take him along -- and we also find a trowel in the outhouse.  I try using the ladder to reach the second floor of the cottage, as the stairs are unsafe and impassable, but my attempts to DROP LADDER and CLIMB LADDER and LEAN LADDER are unsuccessful.  I try to LEAN LADDER AGAINST WALL, to no avail, but am luckier when I LEAN LADDER AGAINST STAIRS instead.

This allows us to reach the bedroom above, where we can acquire an unlit candle and a blue vase.  I try to TAKE VASE, but its too big to fit in the rucksack, so I DROP VASE and it shatters.  I forgot that old adventurers rule!  Ill restore and leave it alone this time until I know I need it for something; I will take the candle, for now.

I am still going to be wet and chilly at this point, but I am pretty sure Ill need the matches so well return to the pub. Theres nothing on the bar, and the publican remains untalkative, so I finally consult a walkthrough to learn that I need to SHOW PASS TO PUBLICAN.  Now hes ready to gab, though his comments seem to echo Reverend Ermons word for word; I think this is just memory-constrained writing, not a sign of mass hypnosis or a village conspiracy.  What does change here is that, as I exit the pub, the barman tosses me a rainproof kagoule coat left by another tourist weeks earlier.  So that puzzle is solved, though its not the most logical one in the game.

My timing is different on this pass, only 4:31 PM as I climb the gate, but it starts to rain right on cue again.  Im able to climb up the steep path to Torrack Moor proper now, where we see several paths that exploration determines run northeast, east and southeast.  This becomes a bit of a maze, with lots of paths in multiple directions that arent called out in the location descriptions.

I do find some notable locations -- a group of Standing Stones to the east of the moor features a tree thats too unsteady for safe climbing.  A dangerous path southward reaches a cliff-face with a path down... a very steep path, as it turns out, and the sturdy shoes are not sufficient to maintain safe footing.  Fortunately, this mistake is not inherently fatal, and were able to scramble back up to the cliff-face.

We can snag some birch bark from trees at the north edge of the moor, but then I find myself lost and wandering in circles after I pick it up -- this, it turns out, because I put the map away to free up the inventory slot.  I also find a stout branch in the bracken along the dangerous path, and now were able to work our way down to the rivers edge.

Its 6:55 PM when I get here, after wandering too long around the moors, and I head north to see a stone hut... on the other side of the river.  We cant JUMP RIVER or CROSS RIVER, but theres a damaged bridge at the north end of this area.  Should I have brought the ladder along?  That tree up by the standing stones might be movable -- I try to PUSH TREE, and the parser suggests scraping away some of the surrounding earth.  I DIG TREE with the trowel, making a small hole, but it still wont move: "Still wont budge!  Blasted thing, isnt it?"  Hmmmm.  Maybe this is a hint that we need to blast it.

Im able to PUT POWDER IN HOLE, but not PUT CANDLE IN POWDER.  And as Im doing this, darkness falls and I break my leg even though Im not trying to walk anywhere when it happens.  Interestingly, a black, cat-like creature is mentioned, lurking nearby while Im doing this, but it repeatedly bounds off and seems uninterested in attacking.  Perhaps this Beast is not so beastly after all.

I restore to a point before I got lost in the moors, and try again.  The candles wick is noted in its description, and I am able to REMOVE WICK.  But I cant seem to PUT WICK IN HOLE or PUT WICK IN POWDER.  Ah -- I have to ATTACH WICK TO POUCH, otherwise its trying to use the pouch as a container.  I try to BURY POUCH for good measure after putting it in the hole, but this isnt possible, nor is it necessary -- I simply LIGHT WICK, hide behind a rock, and the tree is toppled down the eastern slope by the small explosion.

Returning to the rivers edge, we find the washed-out bridge replaced by the old tree and some rocks that fell along with it, and can now cross to the hut -- well, we can cross most of the way, we have to JUMP to the eastern bank when we run out of makeshift bridge.  The shepherds hut is nearby, but I have to GET LARGE KEY out of the bag before we can enter -- unlocking is only automatic if we have the key in primary inventory and not hidden away in the bag or rucksack.  The hut is small but dry and secure.

I try to SLEEP now, but hunger keeps us awake.  I open the can of beans with the tin opener and put them in the pan, but cant seem to PUT PAN ON FIRE or PUT PAN IN FIREPLACE.  I try to HEAT BEANS, which seems acceptable to the parser, and learn that, of course, theres no fire built yet.

The stout branch is too large to fit in the fireplace, and were told we need some paper to help ignite the birch bark if we try to light it directly.  The electric bill cant be used for this purpose; nor can the envelope, the bus timetable, or the details about the ivy cottage.  Ack!  All this useless paper remains useless.

So what special bark-igniting paper are we missing here?  I consult Dorothys walkthrough again, and see that were supposed to have a newspaper with us at this point.  Hmmmmm.  Apparently I was supposed to find it in the church chancel earlier.  While thinking about where to find it, I also think to check the camera -- and it has no film, so I have to restore and catch the church while Miss Myrtle is still there as well as buy some film at The Stores.

Next try -- starting from just after I arrive in Puddlecombe -- I also remember that I didnt claim the large rug earlier, so I grab that before venturing onto the moor.  I happen to run into Miss Myrtle on my way, and she gives it to me as the raffle winner, so that took a little less time than I thought it would.

Okay!  Back we go to the shepherds hut.  I get rained on again before remembering I need to visit the publican -- I also confirm that we need to buy a beer (making us broke now!) and ask him about the beast before hell give us the kagoule.  Now, at last, I have built a fire in the shepherds hut, heated up some beans, and eaten them with the spoon, so we can SLEEP at last.  Whew!

We awaken just before dawn at 6:01 AM -- the editor wasnt kidding about an overnight stay -- and step outside just in time to see a dark shape disappearing into the combe to the south of the hut.  We head southeast into Eldritch Combe, continuing into the steep-walled passage to discover a pool.

Theres a ledge above, a thicket to the south, and some mud between the pool and rocks visible to the east.  EXAMINE MUD reveals paw-marks -- some large and some smaller ones?  Uh-oh.  I head south into the thicket, a useful hiding place perhaps, and from there I go northeast to reach the rocks. 

Theres an animal carcass here -- the remains of a deer, clearly a recent meal for some large predator. Uh-oh-oh.  I have enough presence of mind left to PUT FILM IN CAMERA so we can take a picture of the Beast, should we encounter it.  Maybe we should take pictures of the carcass and pawprints?  Heading back to the pool to do so, I startle the Beast -- and her cubs!  The black,  four-legged animal roars and they all disperse into the darkness.

I can climb up to the ledge above the pool, and WAIT -- it takes quite a while, but eventually they return, a mother and two playful cubs.  We TAKE PHOTO OF BEAST -- and the story wraps up, with a reasonably happy ending as the panther and her cubs are moved safely to a wildlife park, while the Ranger gets sacked.  And perhaps there are more Beasts about...



I ended up with 135 out of 150 possible points, so I must have missed something along the way, but Im satisfied with having completed the game.  I did check the walkthrough -- I missed taking the tortoise to the veterinarian, but that wasnt absolutely essential to finishing the story; my uneducated examination of the tortoise didnt suggest it was ill or injured, though if Im honest I have to admit that I thought I might need to make some tortoise soup if the beans provided insufficient nourishment, and so didnt really consider taking the poor creature to the vet.

I really enjoyed the writing and construction of The Beast of Torrack Moor -- Linda Wright knows how to design an interactive story, and while there are some time-based events that can inadvertently be missed, other important occurrences happen logically and flexibly.  Most of the puzzles make physical sense, aside from a few parser challenges.  I had good fun with this well-realized story, even if it wasnt quite the horror-themed Halloween adventure I had in mind -- Im always a sucker for a happy ending.