phoenix/hints/solutions/Crobe_walkthrough.txt

                              Walkthrough for

                                   Crobe

                           by Jonathan Partington

                           Written by Richard Bos


A few notes, first.

One, make no mistake: this is (rightly) said to be one of the less difficult
Phoenix games, but that doesn't mean it's actually easy or forgiving by today's
standards. You can die easily. You can lose or destroy a necessary tool just as
easily. Save often, and keep _all_ your save files until you've finished the
game. Then again, the right solution to your problems is often more logical
than in, say, Hezarin.
Two, the parser is limited, but good. I have not found any place where using
prepositions or indirect objects ("hit tree with axe") is necessary or even
possible. By contrast, the game is good at giving you less to type. If there is
only one object, simply "get" will take it; if there are several, it will
assume the first one listed. Ditto for "drop", which will drop the first object
in your inventory; and ditto for several other verbs. "Get all" is provided
for, as well. Multiple objects (as in "get bread, cheese, and butter") are not,
though.
Three, this is an old-fashioned game. There are a lot of puzzles which you can
only realistically be expected to solve by dying first, sometimes more than
once. Often, your dying message will advise you on how to avoid that death;
sometimes, it will even give you a hint for another problem altogether. Since
this is a single walkthrough, such hints will not be found here. I'll just
present you with the correct solutions, omitting the process you could have
used to discover them. If this spoils the game for you, well, such is the risk
of reading walkthroughs. By the way, if you don't want to be spoiled quite so
drastically, you should find a ZCode file with hints for individual puzzles in
the same place where you found this document.
Finally, these notes are for the ZCode version generated from the original
Phoenix source, which is available at the IF Archive. I do not know whether it
works for other versions, as well, or even if any exist.


So, let's be off, then.

You start outside the gateway to Crobe. Go east twice. Kiss the lady. Get
everything. Go west twice, then north, and ne. Note that the ex-princess will
make a noise. Go nw. Another noise. This is interesting. I wonder if there is a
pattern to them. Go east, then west twice. Yup, seems to be consistent. Let's
find them all. For the next moves, note down what the frog croaks for every
direction. Go s, se, e. Take the accordion (and if you're wondering why it's
familiar, play Fyleet). Go n, nw, sw, se, ne, n - take the flour - and go west.
You should now have noted croaks for all eight compass points.
Go north. Drop the throne and sit. Take the throne. Go south, se, sw, s, w.
Take the fish. Go east twice and north twice. Cook the fish. Push the pole. Go
east, then push the lemming. Go back w, s twice, w, n, ne, nw, and n. Then go
east twice and southeast twice. Drop the flour and throne here.
By the way, you may have been accosted by an individual proclaiming himself the
"Warden of Crone". He is, in fact, legit. However, since I'm writing this
walkthrough as I'm playing the game and I don't yet know which treasures will
have further use and which will not, we won't avail ourselves of his services
just yet. For example, we could have given him the throne, but then we wouldn't
have been able to get past the beach. Therefore, we will make this our base of
operations, and store all objects here for now.

Take the crystal. Go east. Play the accordion, and go east again. Take the
plant, go back west twice, and drop the accordion. Next go ne and east. Now we
will engage in some astrological experiments. Start by entering the command
"aquarius". Just like that; one word (except without the quote marks, of
course). Take what appears. Next go east and back west, then enter
"sagittarius". Go east again and south, get the figurine, and go back north and
west.
Now go north, and drop your crystal. Then go east. Go back west, retrieve your
crystal, and go east once more. Pick up the silk. Go back w, s. The sailor
demands justice, so let's give him that: enter "libra". One last starsign:
enter "virgo"; take the mace. All other starsigns are either useless or
outright lethal, by the way.
Go west and southwest, and drop the silk, figurine, plant and aquamarine. Go
north. Read the book, and make a note of its subject, which changes randomly
between games. Go back south, then nw, nw, w, w, s, sw. Kill the zombie. Go se,
s, e, s. For your topic of conversation, enter the subject of the book you
read. Take the object the witch leaves behind (which is actually a magic wand).
Then go all the way back n, w, n, ne, nw, n, e twice and se twice.
Go south. The mural you find here is quite obviously a combination lock. You
must form a word. Only one common English word can be formed with the letters
given, and the second line of the rhyme is a clue, as well. Enter "hymn". Go
south, get the ingot, north twice. Drop the mace and the ingot.

Go se, east, take the potion, se. Wave the needle. Go north twice, and wave the
wand again. Now go east and take the opal. Go nw and down.
The frog croaks again, this time not reacting to our movement but telling us
(thanks to its froggy senses) where it is safe to go. I hope you wrote down
those words when I told you to... Well, go in the direction in which you went
before, which corresponds to this croak. Continue following the frog's
instructions until something happens. You end up back above the marsh, minus a
frog, plus a crown.
Needless to say, do not go back down. Instead, go south three times, into the
dreaded maze of Bedlam. Unlike the marsh maze, which I thought was rather
enjoyable, this one is horrendous. You get three tasks, but you don't have the
time to map the maze before you are expected to solve the first one... and you
need to map at least the start of the maze before you can do so. Harumph.
Luckily, you, dear reader, have no such problems.
Go east. There either is or is not a hangman here. Make a note of this. (If he
isn't here, he can only be in one other place.) Go east twice more for your
first task. Go back three times? You could use the "back" command... but in
this confusing place, that won't help you much. Instead, the nature of Bedlam
dictates that we go east three times more.
Next to find the centre of Bedlam. Go south, west, east, north. Now to go
directly to the hangman. This route depends on whether he was present in the
second location you visited here. If so, go south, north twice, and west. If he
wasn't, go north twice, then west twice.
Next, to go the way of light. If you had had the time to explore Bedlam both
with and without your crystal, this would've been a doddle. Luckily the same
route works independently of where we found the hangman: go east, then south.
To get your reward, now go n, w, s, w.
Take the coin, then go east thrice and north. Drink the potion. Then go west
twice and south, take the fan, and go north and nw. Drop everything and
retrieve your crystal.

Go west, and take the balls. A set of three balls... now what would you do with
those? Right: juggle. The balls will disappear. Go east, sw and south. Drop
your crystal here, then go south. Next, go east twice. Then go south, east, nw.
Notice the switches, and the number on the floor? This is a binary number
puzzle. You need to turn on the switches corresponding to the bits in the
number on the floor. The switch to the south of the entrance has a value of 1;
that to the se is 2; east is 4; ne, 8; and n, 16. Turn on those switches, and
only those switches, whose values add up to the red number. For example, if the
number is 10: go se, on, n, n, on. Return to the entrance (in our example, go
southwest.)
Go west twice. Get the sword; it falls to the ground, so get sword again. Go
east, then south twice. Drop your sword here. Go west twice. A U-shaped bit of
steel? Presumably a magnet, but why the magic word? Let's find out. Go back
east twice, then say it: "gnamet". Oh, look, we've been transported back to the
magnet. That could come in handy.
Take the magnet, go east twice, get the sword, east again. Go east once more.
Oh dear... take inventory. Robbed blind, including even the magnet. Well, we
know what to do about that! Enter "gnamet" again. Get all. Now go w, d, w, n,
n, n.
We're in an alchemical laboratory, so the inscription on that vat presumably
has something to do with chemistry... and indeed, it does. It specifies three
elements. The first two letters are the symbol for one element, the third
letter on its own is another, and the last two letters are a third. Which they
are varies randomly between games. You'll have to look these up in a reference
work - I can't do all your homework for you! That done, go south and west.

Next we come to an interesting part of the game: the mithril mines. And here,
I'm afraid, I must abandon my readers somewhat. You see, this is another maze
with a twist. And it's a very clever twist. As you pass through the Mines,
random tunnels will be blocked off by rockfall. I can't predict which ones will
collapse in your game, and there is no single guaranteed free path through. All
this is great for replayability and adds definite interest to this maze; the
one downside is that it makes a walkthrough more or less impossible. One must
presume that this was precisely the intention.
Anyway, you'll have to explore the mines yourself. You might want to make a
map, or you might want to explore at random. In either case, you are helped by
the following facts:
- Every tunnel is straight - at least, in-game. Going north from one junction
  into a tunnel and then north will take you to another junction; going south
  from that junction takes you to the same tunnel, and going south again takes
  you back to the original room. (If you map the mines, you will see that this
  does not work out on paper. It works as far as playing the game is concerned,
  though.)
- After a certain number of steps, the tunnels stop collapsing. Once you reach
  this point, your map is guaranteed accurate and fixed, albeit for that game
  only.
- You are guaranteed a free route from the start to every junction in the mines
  and to the end chamber, even if this route varies from game to game and need
  not be a single, straight route. You may need to side-track, but you'll never
  miss a junction.
- You won't have any loops in your final route. Forks, yes. Loops never. The
  end result will be what is called a "perfect maze".
Because of all of this, if you don't want to make a map, and don't want to
wander around randomly hoping to get out, I recommend the following procedure.
It isn't a direct walkthrough, but it will work.
Go south into the mines and back north again. Keep doing this until you stop
hearing the sound of collapsing tunnels. Once that happens, start following the
left-hand rule for solving perfect mazes. (For those of you who don't know that
rule: when you enter a room, leave it by the left-most available exit, seen
from your entrance. Thus, if you enter from the west (by going east!), first
try going north. If that is blocked, try east. If that is blocked, too, try
south. And if _that_ is blocked, you are in a dead end, and have to go back
west. Similarly, if you go south (and thus come from the north), try east,
south, west, and north in that order; after going west, try south, west, north,
east; and after north, try west, north, east, south. You can also reverse
these. You are then following the right-hand rule. This works just as well. But
never mix the two; that does not work.)
When you come across any of the elements that were written on the side of the
vat, pick them up. Leave all the others - you can't carry them all at once, and
you don't need them, anyway. Also take the mithril salver at the end of the
mines. If you follow this procedure, I cannot predict which route you will
follow, but I can guarantee that you'll get in and out of the mines with all
your loot.
Back outside, take inventory. You should have the salver, and three pieces of
element (plus the stole, magnet and sword you already had). Go east and north.
Determine which is the first element written on the vat. Throw that element.
Then throw the second, and the third. It's important to do this in order. Take
the rod. Go south, take the talisman, west, drop all.

Go north, get your crystal, and go north and northeast. Take the flour, throne,
needle, ingot, crown and opal. Wait for the Warden of Crobe to appear - we're
finally going to make use of his services. Give the flour. You'll be asked if
you want to give him anything else, and you do: the throne, needle, ingot,
crown and opal. Be careful not to give him your crystal yet.
Take the mace, aquamarine, silk, coin, fan and figurine. Leave the plant and
the accordion. Go sw and south to the tightrope. Wait here for the Warden to
appear again. This time, give him everything you have; the mace, aquamarine,
silk, coin, fan, figurine, and finally your crystal.
Now go south across the tightrope. Take everything, and go west. Try going west
once more. Wait for the Warden again. This time, don't give him anything (yet),
but request the flour and fan. Take the flour and throw it. Go west, get the
diamond, and go back east. Wait, one final time, for the Warden. Give him the
diamond, rod, salver, stole and magnet. Take the fan.
Go west twice and south. Attack the troll, then push him. Go south again.
Attack Karg. Wave the fan.

Congratulations, you completed your quest! And what a charming little adventure
it was, too. I myself particularly liked the mines.