![]() ![]() As you turn toward them, the beam of your lamp falls across a bearded pirate. I also enjoyed spotting him in the maze “There are faint rustling noises from the darkness behind you. At least until I found his treasure, and from then onward I would look forward to the pirate’s first (and only) theft of your valuables because:Ī) His treasure chest didn’t appear until thenī) Once you had taken everything away he’d never bother you again, for some unknown reason. I would always sigh mournfully when the pirate’s sound was heard. Certain paragraphs became easy to forecast by the sounds emerging from the drive particularly the random appearances of the dwarf and pirate. Oh the 8″ was very audible and text would not display for a good few seconds after a particular sequence of drive head moves had taken place, so you couldn’t help but pay attention to them. The slugs could be released by kicking the phone (albeit wrecking the phone) and exchanged for batteries There was also a version of the game involving a phone booth and a “notoriously cheap” gnome who put two lead slugs into the phone. I cheered up slightly on exploring further into the game (past the Ogre room) and discovered that the lamp could be recharged indefinitely by the magic words “Noside Samoht” (Thomas Edison backwards), and as long as you weren’t holding the lamp and fried to a crisp. However almost immediately after I’d bought batteries for the first time I realised that this incurred the loss of the coins! I’d expended so much effort on a red herring. The instructions, illuminated by the thin tube of an erratic fluorescent light, read ‘Drop coins here to receive fresh batteries.” “Recessed into an alcove crudely chiselled into the natural rock is a massive vending machine of wrought iron. In my high school days I attempted to write my own adventure games in BASIC, and so fond of the vending machine was I that I copied the idea and expanded on the vending machine’s description. When the noise changed I realised I’d hit the jackpot! The notion of a vending machine in an otherwise fantasy setting filled me with awe. Exploring I went, and in those days you could hear the sound of the 8″ floppy disc being read, and with identical (or near identical) room descriptions the sound remained constant. ![]() Then finally I stumbled upon the correct maze, but without noticing the subtle variations to the room descriptions, and carried out the old trick of mapping the region using dropped objects. However *I* alas did it the *OTHER* way around, scouring the *BIGGER* maze for the vending machine, and in which there was no such kindly warning. If (at least in the version I played) you entered the vending machine room after the pirate grabs your treasures you’ll see added to the text “In flowery script is the message ‘This is not the maze where the pirate hides his treasure'” intended to prevent players hopelessly searching the smaller maze. My task was complicated by the fact that I’d begun my exploration in the wake of the person whose computer I was borrowing, and he’d already solved the puzzle with the rod, fissure and crystalline bridge which led to the much bigger maze. Better bring some coins with you.” I assumed this was an important quest, believing at the time that the game was designed for the lamp to run out halfway through the time needed to complete all the puzzles. ![]() The first time I saw the message “Your lamp is getting dim, I seem to recall there’s a vending machine somewhere in the maze. Ahh… the vending machine in colossal cave! What a set of mixed emotions are attached to that. ![]()
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