phoenix/hints/solutions/PhilosophersQuest_walkthrough.txt

                               Walkthrough for

                             Philosopher's Quest

                             by Peter Killworth

                           Written by Richard Bos


A few notes, first.

One, and most importantly, this is a rotten hard and randomly unfair game. In
fact, it has the reputation of being the nastiest of the Topologika games, and
it thoroughly deserves it. The other Topologika games want you dead;
Philosopher's Quest wants you dead _now_, and if at all possible, for you to
suffer in the process. You can die at the game's slightest whim. Making a typo
does nothing but _does_ cost a move, and this can cost you dearly at many
points in the game. Save often, and keep _all_ your save files until you've
finished the game. And choose carefully where and when you save, because saving
takes a turn, too.
Two, the parser is limited, but good. 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. It also understands "all", which can save
you some valuable time at certain points.
Third, before you resort to reading this walkthrough you might want to consult
the in-game hints. There is a zip file which contains documentation for all the
Topologika adventures, including Philosopher's Quest. The main part of these is
an index of hints available in the game. You look up the problem you're stuck
at, find a number, type "help" and that number, and you get a hint. Most of
these are quite clear. They need to be, given the randomness of the game at
many points.
Finally, these notes are for the Topologika MS-DOS version which is available
at the IF Archive. The original Phoenix game, which was called Brand X,
differed on several significant points, as does the ZCode translation of that
version. There were also two Acornsoft games derived from Brand X, but those
are even more different.


So, let's be off, then.

You start in a shop, and face the first unfairness straight away. You are only
allowed to take two objects from the shop, but there is no reason at all right
now for you to choose any above the other - except, perhaps, the keys, which
are a staple useful object. And in fact, you're going to need four of them. One
object is a red herring.
Take the keys, cushion and aqualung. Throw the keys, then go south. No light
here, and no lamp. In this game, though (and in all games of the Phoenix
heritage) you can get objects in the dark, even if you've never seen them
before. So, get all. Light the lamp - this can be done with just the command
"on". Drop all, then go east. 
We're in another dark place where we want to take an object, so "get". Then go
north and south, and drop; go north, get all, south, off. The reason why we
move the slab in this circumspect way is that it's heavy and we can't carry
anything else alongside it. One aspect in which Philosopher's Quest _is_
conventional is that moving in the dark is dangerous, but moving from dark to
light or vice versa is not. That's how we could move the slab from the dark,
through the light, to another dark room.
Go south, drop the cushion, w, w, drop oilskin and aqualung, w, w, w, nw, n.
Get all, open door, go east. Get teabag - there's your fourth object from the
shop, and note that if we'd been foolish enough to take it with us, it would
not have been here, and no indication that it could have been - and fill the
kettle. Go west. Boil water. Oops! Never mind... Make tea, _then_ turn on your
lamp (we want to conserve its power as much as possible) and go north. A quest!
Turn off your lamp and go south, southeast and east.
Drop everything here, then go east four times and north. Take the slab - you
can refer to it by name, even in the dark, once you've seen it - then go south,
west four times, up and west. Drop the slab. There are three more heavy
objects, and we'll need to put all of them in the bucket. Go out, then east
three times. Take the coffin, go west thrice, in, drop the coffin. Out, east
twice, get bath, west twice, in, drop. Out, east, take the stone, west, in,
drop.
Go east thrice, take the gas mask, then west twice and down. Take your lamp. Go
east four times. Save your game.

Go north and turn on your lamp. Go north again, east, down and north. Take the
biscuit and go south and west; take the polythene, go se, se, s; take chain.
From now on, take extreme care with typos. A single lost move and that cheese
will kill you. No, seriously.
Go north, take the cheese, and go nw, u, n. Drop the cheese here and go north.
We go on this short side trip for two reasons: to recover from the cheese, as
the game tells you, and to score some points. The chain is a treasure, and the
shop is our treasure house. Drop the chain here.
Go south, take the cheese, south again, off, south, drop cheese, west. (Since
your lamp is off, you won't waste its power by doing a just-in-case save here.
Just sayin'.) Go west again, drop the polythene, west thrice, drop all. What
you need to do next is drop the dog biscuit somewhere beyond the bucket - we'll
see why in a while - but you can't get there because the bucket is in the way.
So we do the heavy object dance: in, get, out, drop, in, get, out, drop, in,
get, out, drop, in, get, out, drop. Take the biscuit, go nw, drop it, se. Now
we need to get all the objects in the bucket again (because we're going to walk
the length of the plank, and need the counterweight to stop the plank from
tipping over and dropping us to our death): get slab, e, u, w, drop. Out, get
coffin, in, drop, out, get bath, in, drop, out, get stone, in, drop. Out, and
get all.
Go east five times, get cheese, west, west, west, drop cheese, west. East, get
cheese, west, drop cheese, up. Down, get cheese, up, east, east, drop cheese,
west. (We had to insert that extra one-move sequence, by the way, because you
can't drop anything on the plank except at that exact spot, and we couldn't
reach it from where the cheese was just east of the pivot.) Go east, get
cheese, east, east, north, drop cheese, south. North, get all, on, north,
north, bury cheese. *Phew*!
Take the tusk, north, get dog, south thrice, off, south, and down. Go west five
times, and notice the new path - it was made by the dog, going after the
biscuit. Good thing, too, because that bucket isn't going anywhere any more.
Follow the path northeast, take the dog, north, on, north, off, south,
southeast, east five times. Drop the tusk and the gas mask.

Go north, on, north, east, down, north twice. If you go on from here as usual,
you die to a variety of traps. To avoid them, you must perform a kind of
Indiana-Jones-cum-ninja dance. There are four different traps; you'll see two
of them going in and two coming back. For each trap, you need a different verb
to put in front of your direction. So, where normally you would go north by
entering "go n" or "n" (or "north", if you like typing), you will now have to
enter "run n", "jump n", and so forth. The four traps and their respective
verbs are:
  spears    run <dir>
  blade     crawl <dir>
  pit       jump <dir>
  sword     hop <dir>
In my game, the above was the order in which these traps appeared - the first
two north, the last two south - but I do not know if it is randomised. In the
original Phoenix game it wasn't, but I can't be sure that this hasn't changed.
You may or may not have to experiment. The following paragraph assumes that
this order is correct; reload your last save file and change the order in which
these dance moves occur if necessary. (Oh, and don't dawdle inside the Danger
Room itself. That's deadly, too. Naturally.)
So, with that assumption: run north, crawl north. Go north normally. Get all,
and go south. Jump south, hop south. South twice, up, north, south, off. South,
drop platypus, west five times, northeast, north, on, north (what, again?),
off, south, southeast, east five times.

North, get, on. North, east, down, ne, get matches, sw, e, off. Wave (or rub)
the amulet, then drop it. Go east, then north. You are now - as the game says -
in the Tower of Babel, where language is muddled and nobody, including the
game, understands words normally. If you hang about for some time, though, you
will see people pass by, saying sentences which all start with a noun. Try
those nouns, though, and you won't get any further. In fact, I can discover no
hint as to which words _would_ work. However, there are four of them. In the
Tower, and only there, the verb "cushion" means "up", "keys" means "take",
"teabag" means "back" and "sausage" means "south". You need all four, and in
that order: enter "cushion" (to climb the Tower), then "keys" (taking the
garnets), "teabag" (to climb back down) and "sausage" (leaving the Tower to the
south).
[Update: Adam Atkinson has figured out that the actions the passers-by perform
when they talk to you suggest, in circumspect ways, which words should be used.
This, combined with them all being objects from the starting room, is supposed
to enable you to figure it out.]
You're back at the junction. This time, go northeast around the Tower, then
north into a garden. Move around in random directions until you come to a tree
with a sign and a snake. If you pester the snake long enough it will start
dropping hints on how to leave the garden (as well as, true to the story,
trying to tempt you), but you don't have to hear him out. From here, you can
just go e, d, e, n.
Go north, get, south. Southwest, drop all, west. You stop existing. Indeed, the
game will refuse to take any commands, since it doesn't believe in your
existence any more. You'll have to convince it that you do. How does one prove
one's own existence? Descartes did it by positing that /cogito, ergo sum/.
Follow his lead: enter "think". Then go east, get all, west, on, nw, get, se,
off, e, ne, se, e.
Don't turn on your lamp; instead, light a match. An old seafarer? With a long
grey beard and glittering eye? Now who could that be... and the name of the
room is? Coal ridge. Get it? Coal-ridge, hey, hey? No? Neither do I. By the
way, isn't Porlock nice this time of year? Ok, ok, sorry, back to the game...
While your match is still lit, go northeast. _Now_ light your lamp, go ne, get,
sw, off, w.
Now to go back to the cave. You can't go back through Eden, but have a look
around here. That sign - which legend would it refer to? You're East of Eden,
there are some grapes of wrath... To escape, enter "Steinbeck". You arrive in
the dark. Get all. What, that amulet? That means we must be... turn on your
lamp. Yup, we're back at the portcullis.
Go west, and drop your matches here. Then go down. You're now in a maze.
Somewhere in this maze is a useful person. You should find him if you go south,
north, and south. After meeting him, go south, north and north, and take the
portrait. Then leave by going south, east, south, east.
Next, go up and north, off, north to the shop. Drop the book, albatross,
garnets, amulet and portrait here. Go south, on, south, off, south, west five
times, northeast, north, on, north. Another dog... note his name. Luckily, this
time we have already seen his tracks, so we know where to look for him. Turn
off your lamp, and go south, southeast, and east five times.

Go north, on, north, east, down, and north twice. We're back at the Danger
Room, and will need to follow the same procedure as last time. One thing is
different, though: when we last moved back out of this area, that apparatus
above the south door moved all the traps around. They're still the same traps,
and you need to execute the same moves to avoid them, just in a different
order. Again, the following paragraph assumes the order that worked for me;
again, I don't know how random this is in this version of the game; again, you
may have to save-and-retry to get the correct order for you.
That said: hop north, run north, north. Say the name of the dog: enter "spot".
Get all, south, crawl south, jump south. Go south twice, get the matches - we
had to leave them here last time because our hands would have been too full to
carry the portrait otherwise, and, with my walkthrough author's prescience, I
knew we'd be back... - and go up, north, south, off, south.
Drop the trophy, west twice, drop the matches here, west thrice, northeast,
north, on, north (oh grief...), off, south, southeast, east five times.

North, on, north, east, east. You can't see it, but you can hear the dog: take
dog. Now go northwest, north, west, east. Ah, there it is! Back west, north,
south, off, s, w five times, ne, n, on, n. No more dogs - hoorah! Go north,
take the will, south twice, off, south, southeast, east. Get the keys, east,
get wood, east, drop keys and wood and get the bottle. 
Go east twice, and take the trophy, platypus and tusk. Go north, on, north,
west, down, east, fill the bottle, west two times, off. West, drop will, east,
west, get cheque, east, on. East, up, north, off, north to the shop. Drop the
cheque, tusk, platypus and trophy here. Go south, on, south, off, south, and
west twice.

Take the matches, wood and oilskin. Wrap matches (you neither can nor need to
specify what in), then wrap wood. Get everything else, turn your lamp on, and
wrap it, too - this time it will go in the polythene, which is what we want.
Thus prepared, go south, down twice, and south until you can go no further.
Next go southeast, open the door, drop your keys, go west and take the slipper.
Go back east, northwest, southwest and southeast. Drop the bottle, then get the
chest. Go northwest, northeast and north.
Unwrap the matches, and wrap the slipper (this keeps your hands free for
later). Light a match and see where the smoke goes, then go in the opposite
direction (so if it drifts northwards, go south, and so on). Repeat this. You
will come across a gold tooth. When you find it, unwrap the wood and wrap the
chest.
Take the tooth. Light a match then light the wood. You will be returned to the
sea bed. Go north until you can go no further (should be twice), then up once.
If you go up to the surface immediately, you get the bends. You need to
acclimatise. To do this, wait one turn for every five turns spent in the lowest
levels of the sea (including the whale's stomach). If you haven't been wasting
any turns, this should be between thirty and thirty-five turns, so (assuming
the game rounds up...) wait here for seven turns. _Then_ go up once more, and
north back to the beach.
Unwrap the lamp, and turn it off. Drop the polythene and the aqualung. Unwrap
the slipper and the chest. Drop the oilskin and the matches. Go east twice and
north, on, north, off, drop lamp, north, and drop all.
You now have 314 out of 315 points. For the traditional Last Lousy Point, you
traditionally need to do something trivial and unguessable; Philosopher's Quest
breaks the rule once again. What you need to do _is_ trivial, but it's been
written on the walls all along. In the south end of the long passage, a word
has been scratched on the wall. A magic word, of course. However, if you'd
tried its magic up to this point, nothing would have happened. Now, though, it
works: utter the word "blach".

And that's it. That's the sparkling finale of what, I think you'll agree, is a
truly random and unfriendly game. (It's not as if Peter Killworth wasn't a good
adventure writer, either. His Doom trilogy is at times almost as unfair as
Philosopher's Quest, but to yours truly at least a great deal more enjoyable -
probably because most of the time they do present a consistent, whole world.)
Still, 315 points are 315 points, right?