Crusoe
I'm making slow progress in mapping & debugging this game, having to restart several times due to various unfortunate events. The latest was getting blocked in by cactus. These can be burned, but when lighting a fire it is always placed to the east of Crusoe's location(!). So I could get through them eastwards, but when I came back that way and they'd re-grown I couldn't light a fire to the west to get back through them! Other routes from the area were blocked by a wall of stone idols, a river too "foule & furious" to swim across, a savage dog and a giant spider - and all three of my saved games were within that area, so I was stuck (again).
There are no tips or pokes for the game; the only hints other than those in the original instructions are in a footnote giving the full vocabulary - which is from my own notes when I first played the game 25 years ago! Here's what I've found so far (a '?' indicates an object I can see but can't reach, the unintelligible bits are coded messages found on bits of paper here & there, and the 2-character codes are my map co-ordinates):
19. "Rm?Grg?.5~X all"
1A. "d.3~Dig mddn.4~?"
"Died waiting... Words in ye sand!" (Friday)
1B: "fyres!6~Ax max d"
07: fruit, water, cross, ?(S), ?(SE), ?(C), symbol?
08: fruitx2, turtle eggs(S), cork(SE), thorns
09: fruit, water, cave(boots), thorns, footprint(SE), tinderbox(S), ?(N)
0A: shipwreck, skull with gold teeth(SW), gold ring(N)
0B: fruit, water, hut(locked), sail(SW), mittens(S), ?(SE), ?(N)
0C: fruitx2, water, ?(C)
17: ghosts, fruit, rabbit burrow, water, nails(SE), ?(S), ?(SW), symbol?
18: volcano, parasol(SW), ?(S), hammer(SE)
19: paper(S), fruit, water, rabbit burrow, thorns, violin(SW), paper(SE), ?(E), ?(C), ?(N), ?(NW)
1A: cave?(N), cave?(C), fruit(C), ?(NW), ?(C), ?(SW), paper(S), ?(NE), Friday(dead)
1B: stockade, fruitx2, water, dog, ?(N), ?(W), paper(S), ?(S), symbol?
There are no tips or pokes for the game; the only hints other than those in the original instructions are in a footnote giving the full vocabulary - which is from my own notes when I first played the game 25 years ago! Here's what I've found so far (a '?' indicates an object I can see but can't reach, the unintelligible bits are coded messages found on bits of paper here & there, and the 2-character codes are my map co-ordinates):
19. "Rm?Grg?.5~X all"
1A. "d.3~Dig mddn.4~?"
"Died waiting... Words in ye sand!" (Friday)
1B: "fyres!6~Ax max d"
07: fruit, water, cross, ?(S), ?(SE), ?(C), symbol?
08: fruitx2, turtle eggs(S), cork(SE), thorns
09: fruit, water, cave(boots), thorns, footprint(SE), tinderbox(S), ?(N)
0A: shipwreck, skull with gold teeth(SW), gold ring(N)
0B: fruit, water, hut(locked), sail(SW), mittens(S), ?(SE), ?(N)
0C: fruitx2, water, ?(C)
17: ghosts, fruit, rabbit burrow, water, nails(SE), ?(S), ?(SW), symbol?
18: volcano, parasol(SW), ?(S), hammer(SE)
19: paper(S), fruit, water, rabbit burrow, thorns, violin(SW), paper(SE), ?(E), ?(C), ?(N), ?(NW)
1A: cave?(N), cave?(C), fruit(C), ?(NW), ?(C), ?(SW), paper(S), ?(NE), Friday(dead)
1B: stockade, fruitx2, water, dog, ?(N), ?(W), paper(S), ?(S), symbol?
Post edited by Battle Bunny on
Comments
You have to find the boots to wear or else you won't be able to get very far as some paths will be blocked by thorns. They're in "A darke cave" near the start, but you'll need a tinderbox to light a torch otherwise you won't be able to see them.
Lighting fires can be useful, but don't leave them burning as they'll get out of hand and start a fatal conflagration; QUENCH FIRE to put it out.
If (when) you have to restart it's better to re-load rather than using QQQ for "I giveth up", as that's one of the commands which has unfortunate side-effects. A new Crusoe appears but not necessarily back at the start and the old Crusoe is usually still there; traversing map sections goes to the wrong places and the game becomes generally messed up.
Try EXPLORE CAVE to find the boots. I think it's best only to wear them when crossing thorny ground, as they eventually split and then you have to find a "hammer & nales" to repair them (as it tells you if you try to MEND BOOTS).
Getting past the dog guarding the stockade is a key problem, as that would get Crusoe across the river to the north side of the island and open up more areas to explore. I tried swimming to the island in the lake to get across that way, but there's crocodiles. I once got into the stockade due to a bug in the game but Crusoe got killed by a giant spider before he could get out through the north gate.
Some way of dealing with the spiders would be helpful, especially the static ones; they aren't affected by fire. You may have noticed that some of them mimic Crusoe's movements, so you can manoeuvre them out of the way by "remote control", so to speak. The ghosts seem to do that as well.
I've been trying to track down & fix some of the bugs. There's one fix below which I was holding off posting until I'd played the patched version for a bit longer, but I may as well post it now with a warning. The first two alterations are just cosmetic. As you can see (coincidentally), there's a ladder somewhere (although it was spelled "laddes"). The DJNZ error can never actually happen, as the loop is entered with B=1 so it never jumps back. If you're getting the "Invalid colour" crash then try PATCH to fix it.
Once I've sorted out the bugs I think this game will deserve an entry in the "Undiscovered gems" thread, as a lot of thought went into the plotting and presentation.
Any luck dealing with the spiders, or decoding the messages found on bits of paper here & there?
org $71DE ; typo correction DEFM "A ladder " ; 71DE 41 20 6C 61 64 64 65 72 20 20 20 20 org $7AE8 ; invalid jump correction DJNZ $7AE7 ; 7AE8 10 FD ;[b][color=red]Crusoe Health Warning[/color]: Needs further testing[/b] org $84F2 ; drop RET address if JP from sub-routine JP PATCH ; 84F2 C3 5F C9 org $CA86 JP PATCH ; CA86 C3 5F C9 org $C95F PATCH: POP BC ; C95F C1 JP $61AE ; C960 C3 AE 61So there is
Dig modern
Extinguish all fires
Fido likes mushrooms
Have to confess I got these from the code... I don't know much (anything) about coding but I can open a snapshot with Notepad! This is a slightly simpler version of how I used to find the vocabulary in quilled games all those years ago. There are 20 messages in all but nothing to help with the quicksand problem. I find that if quench doesn't work then having a drink may refill your bladder!
"d.3~Dig mddn.4~†" "Rm†Grg†.5~X all" "fyres!6~Ax max d"
#3 must be "Dig midden"; don't know about #4. The fire extinguisher technique must be unique in adventure games. That's why it prints "Don't watch!" when you do it! :oops:
1. Ring at dawn
2. Beware skull with gold
3. Dig Midden
4 . Rum and grog (possibly not sure about this one)
5. Extinguish all fires
6. Ax max doz. (presumably you can use the axe 12 times)
7. Tra la (singing does something but what?)
8. Believe not in ghosts.
9. Check bottles
10.Strad has guts (something to do with the violin strings presumably)
11. Sales far e. (Sails far east)
12. Hit and chop cactus
13. Smell herbs (the blue herbs restore your energy if you do this)
14. Fido likes fungi
15. Spiders move as me
16. Noone only (Something you can only do at noon?)
17. Mittens or death
18. Dead bird and sew?
19. Emp bts (possibly empty boots/bottles) Not tried emptying the boots, maybe I should do this next - you have corns when you take the boots off so maybe there's something in there - optimistically I'm now going to hope that Crusoe keeps the key to the shed in his boots)
20. Ring at dawn.
The trouble with these clues is that you don't get them in anythng like a helpful order in the game. The writer of the game, somewhere on the net, says that his phone number appears when you finish it, but nobody ever contacted him. Funny that!
which didn't kill the spider!
org $80E5 ; jump correction JR $8149 ; 80E5 18 62 org $82BB ; jump correction JP NZ, $82E2 ; 82BB C2 E2 82 org $A84D ; message address correction LD A, $5D ; A84D 3E 5DThat quicksand's a bit of a problem. I expect that a ladder is the sort of thing that might be in the shed - or perhaps on the shipwreck.
--
It's in the shed - take the hammer with you. The midden's behind the shed.
The dog in the stockade comes back, which is a problem once the mushrooms have been used. I'll check to see if this is a bug which needs to be fixed.
I've found out why the dog comes back. The attribute map for each screen is held in high memory. When an object which can be carried is picked up both the screen display and attribute map are updated. When an obstruction such as the dog is removed only the screen display is updated, so when the screen is re-entered and the attribute map is copied down then the dog comes back. (Objects are identified by their attribute code not their character code. There's a table at $6E00 which maps attribute codes to handling routines.)
I could change it, but it's more a peculiarity of the game design rather than a bug, so I'm going to leave it as it is unless I find that it makes the game impossible to complete. There might be more mushrooms somewhere. For example, when night falls, if Crusoe doesn't have any mushrooms and "keeps going" a message about "mushrums" comes up, but the routine leaves the setting unchanged. There are several NOPs in the routine which might indicate that it had been possible to collect extra mushrooms at night.
PS.
That's why the shed roof doesn't display correctly after the ladder has been taken from inside. Because the ladder is a carry item the square gets set to yellow-on-yellow when it's picked up, but it's in the right-hand roof square which should be red-on-yellow, so the chimney and that side of the roof don't get restored when you leave the shed. The door gets restored because that's an obstruction rather than a carry item.
The most significant error was the machine stack overflow, caused by indirect recursive sub-routine calls, which would cause the program to crash if Crusoe did a lot of moving back & forth between map sections and had to use his "Elyxr" frequently. There were some minor errors in the keyboard checking, command handler search and message display. Also the LLL option to load a saved game messed up the stack and the QQQ/TIUQ option to restart didn't work properly (although that was due to the stack being messed up by other things).
I've been playing it for several days now without any problems, so this version seems pretty stable. I'll continue play testing it over the next few days. It's a pretty good game, actually.
Note that I've been using the TAP file from WoS. I haven't checked whether the two TZX versions are different or not, so I don't know if these changes are compatible with all the available versions; I'll check them later on.
org $66C4 ; patch indicator DEFB $A2 ; stone head at bottom right org $6BEC ; jump correction JP $6A2D ; 6BEC C3 2D 6A org $71DE ; typo correction DEFM "A ladder " ; 71DE 41 20 6C 61 64 64 65 72 20 20 20 20 org $7AE8 ; jump correction DJNZ $7AE7 ; 7AE8 10 FD org $80E5 ; jump correction JR $8149 ; 80E5 18 62 org $82BB ; jump correction JP NZ, $82E2 ; 82BB C2 E2 82 org $8401 ; jump correction JP NZ, $82CD ; 8401 C2 CD 82 org $8736 ; jump correction JR $8706 ; 8736 18 CE org $8F86 ; jump correction JP $87CC ; 8F86 C3 CC 87 org $970C ; jump correction JP NZ, $87CC ; 970C C2 CC 87 org $B6F8 ; jump correction JR Z, $B71D ; B6F8 28 23 org $B705 ; jump correction JR Z, $B71D ; B705 28 16 org $B70B ; jump correction JR Z, $B71D ; B70B 28 10 org $B498 ; drop RET address after LOAD & JP back JP PATCH ; B498 C3 F4 61 org $CA86 ; drop RET address if JP from sub-routine JP PATCH ; CA86 C3 F4 61 org $61F4 PATCH: POP BC ; C95F C1 JP $61AE ; C960 C3 AE 61 org $A84D ; message address correction LD A, $5D ; A84D 3E 5DMight that be Fido likes fun guy?
I've found several death scenarios which leave unused RET addresses on the stack, not catered for by the above corrections. Namely:
- death by man-trap
- death by inappropriately used fruit
- death by tightrope
- death by roaming spider
- death by "crocadyles"
- death by quicksand
The fix for this is quite simple, but unfortunately it messes up:- death by door
I'll post an addendum when this has been resolved.the ax, the needle, the doorknob.
Problems which require the ax or the doorknob to solve can be got round by simply using the light fire, quench routine. But I can't believe that the programmer intended this solution.
I want to believe that there's something on the shipwreck, but I can't figure it out.
Also I'd like to believe that the needle is fashioned from fish or bird bones, but again I can't find a way to do this.
At least I've managed to find the buried treasure!
The 18th clue would seem to indicate a link between the "dead birde" and the "needel", but I don't know what. The bird is by the West side of the volcano.
I think I got the "dore-nob" in the West side of the midden, but I'm not sure. [strike]I got it somewhere, anyway.[/strike] It turns out that I haven't got the doorknob. What I thought looked like the doorknob is in fact a bottle.
Perhaps I should wait for you to finish fixing it. It seems different to anything I've played before.
The same thing happens when I play the dungeon part of Journey's End in Spin. :-?
The doorknob is defined as being located immediately to the East of the ladder; ie. in the midden.
However, attempting to enter these locations doesn't find anything and, in addition, the item flags for the needle & doorknob are never set explicitly anywhere in the program code. Unless these two items are discovered by some obscure indirect method which I haven't been able to fathom, it would seem that they are not to be found.
Fortunately, they're not critical. As the needle is only needed for making the bag mentioned in the hints, which isn't an essential item; and the postern door can be burned down if you don't have the doorknob.
As regards a couple of the more obscure hints given in the instructions:
* "Don't talk in the water." This refers to the situation if Crusoe is in the sea on a Sunday morning. You might appear to be stuck at this point but the hint indicates a way to solve the problem.
* "Pneumonia and tightropes have something in common." I have no idea what this means.
You can avoid pneumonia if you use an umbrella in the rain. And you can get across the tightrope if you raise the parasol
when you have the dead bird...
GET WISHBONE
PULL WISHBONE
and keep pulling the wishbone until the border flashes and the needle appears - just where you said it was!
I'm thinking that maybe the midden needs to be dug repeatedly until the doorknob appears (this theory is wrong!). I realise the doorknob is almost completely pointless but I don't like to miss out on the full solution! There seem to be too many problems in Crusoe that aren't very logical. I've still no idea how to get the gut for the bag from the violin!
Should I be putting spoiler space in here? Surely nobody else is going to want to solve the game?
There were a multiplicity of situations where JP returns from the main subroutine were leaving variable numbers of superfluous entries on the stack, so I've resolved this by redirecting the three jump points to a patch which POPs everything off the stack except the return to BASIC address. I'll post a final list of corrections later.
There are still some minor display problems with messages getting overwritten; eg. a DIG might come up with "I Get lumbago. Tis done." but what you get is "Tis donebago.", but they don't affect playing the game.
The engraved boxes... I've got to the box which is right next to where the treasure is buried.. but this seems to be box number 24. Where are the other two boxes? The clue relating to the box runs 6&20 dysx 2 fynd 6&20 lox behynd if 5&20 opend true ye 26th BOBW.
I think the letter J is on the last disc that I've found.
What is the point of the beesnest/honey?
Now that I've (kind of) finished the game, I'll start putting the map together. And maybe a solution (of sorts)