phoenix/hints/solutions/Quondam_walkthrough.txt

                               Walkthrough for

                             Quondam (BBC version)

                     by Rod Underwood and Peter Killworth

                            Written by Richard Bos


A few notes, first.

One, and most importantly, this is a very hard and often unfair game. You can
die easily. You can lose or destroy a necessary tool just as easily. At least
in this version making a typo does not seem to cost a move. Still, save often,
and keep _all_ your save files until you've finished the game. I don't know
whether saving costs a turn; I've only played this game under emulation, and
saving a state file is, of course, always free.
Two, the parser is limited, but reasonable; slightly better than the normal
home computer parser of its day. I have not found any place where using
prepositions ("hit tree with axe") is necessary or even possible. By contrast,
the games are 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.
"Get all" is not provided, nor are multiple objects or "it". Words are
significant to the usual first four letters.
Third, I'm not taking you past all the sights and clues. Also, this game
(unfashionably, these days) expect a lot of experimentation and learning-by-
dying to solve them, none of which can easily be done in a walkthrough. Because
of this, before you resort to reading this walkthrough you might want to try
the official hints. Floating about the 'net is a PDF with the original hint
booklet for this game. The original manual is also available, but this doesn't
provide much extra information except for mention of the existence of a "safe
place" for depositing objects.
Finally, this walkthrough (including the above notes) is for the Topologika
BBC game. There was, once, a version of Quondam written in TSAL on the original
Phoenix mainframe system, but unfortunately that appears to be lost, and I
don't know whether this walkthrough would have worked for that. Nor do I know
whether there were ever any other versions.



Go west and take the rod. Go west into the web, west again and nw. Get the
ticket. Go west, sw, se, sw out of the web and se. Take everything. Turn the
mirror, and only then go nw out of the cave. Go ne four times to the centre of
the web. Get the bottle.
Now to go back out of the web... but we can't just take the straight route,
because there are spiders lurking. We need to take the long route around. Go
west, ne, east, se, sw, west, sw to the next ring, nw, ne, east, se, sw, se to
the outer edge, west, nw, ne, east, se and east to the clearing, then east
again to the end of the road.
Go ne into the forest. If you enter the forest in any other direction, you will
end up just "lost in the forest"; if you wander about randomly, you will
eventually return to the starting location. Here, though, you will find a bird.
Follow this bird. It will escape; follow it again. Repeat until you arrive at a
sea shore.
Take the brooch which you find here. Now wander in random directions (or keep
going south, which is random enough and works as well) until you reach the end
of the road. Drop everything you're carrying.

Go down. Take everything here, empty the rucksack and get what falls out. Break
the lock, go north, take the cards, and go nw. Open the sandwich and eat it,
then take the sword. Look to see what else was dropped - so get the blade as
well.
Go ne. To evade the vegetable being, jump. Jump another time, then go west. Go
ne to see what that scream was about. Ah - a way out! Drop the rock to make
room in your inventory, take the mushrooms and go down.
We're back at the end of the road. Drop the blade and hilt, and get the rod and
brooch instead. Go north. Notice the mention of "banks": we are now at the
first location which make up the game's "safe place" mechanism, a.k.a. the
"object bank". You can deposit objects into the banks and withdraw them later.
Yes, the puns will get even worse later on. In this case, deposit the brooch
(which is a treasure, so you get points for depositing it), and also the
mushrooms, cards, rucksack, key and flask, which we all want to keep safe but
not burden our present inventory with.
Now to pass the knight: give him the rod, which is (though the game doesn't
tell us unless we manage to kill ourselves with it) a morningstar. Then go nw.
Dig, then plant the sapling. Take the medal. Don't bother the dragon right now.
Instead, go east into the forest, wander to the end of the road, and get
everything you left lying there.

Go ne and follow the bird to the shore again; there, tune the harp and play
it. To get back, wave the ticket and _immediately_ drink the elixir. Fill the
bottle with sea water, then wander back to the road.
Go west. You'll notice that the spiders have aged with you. There are now three
of them. Each spider sticks to its own ring of the web, and moves in either
direction along it. Needless to say, it's not advisable to meet them.
Therefore, wait until the spider on the outer edge of the web is in the west
part of its path, and only then go west. Repeat with the next spider, moving
along the outer edge if necessary to avoid the first spider, and moving to the
inside when the next spider is elsewhere. Repeat again for the third spider,
and then immediately go to the centre of web, where there is no spider. Take
the bones, then work your way out of web using the same method. You may have to
wait and dodge a few times. Once back in the clearing, go east again to (where
else) the end of the road.
Go north. Throw the water, then go nw. Play the harp for the dragon. Go up and
east, and take the apple. Go west, or try to. Don't give the goddesses the
apple, which is a treasure - give them the mirror instead. Then go west twice
to another bank location, this time one with a mercifully decent pun. Deposit
the medal, apple, harp and bones, then withdraw the mushrooms and pick them up.
Go east, down and nw.
Save. You will be paid a visit by a shady character who tells you not to. Best
comply, right? Wrong. Save again, then _immediately_ take the dropped glasses
before you're whisked away and healed. (From now on, by the way, you can save
normally.) Take the capsule, then give the mushrooms to the apothecary. You
have nothing valuable to declare - your sword is a treasure but allowed through
for survival reasons - so just go north.

Faced with the Inquisition, pray. Pray again. Get both objects. Go west. You
are now in the desert, drying out rapidly, and time is of the essence. Dig,
take the slab, and go nw without bothering about the other object yet. Don't
drink this water! Instead, dig here to find another pun-based bank, and deposit
the rope.
Go west, sw and up, drop the slab, then go down and sw. Finally drink some
water, and fill your bottle while you're here. Go ne and nw, get the flute, go
se twice, give the capsule to the dwarf, take his gift, then go nw and up, take
back the slab, go down, drop the slab, and go east.
Deposit the circlet and flute. Go se, take the object you left here, and go
back nw. Drink the water from your bottle, then drop it. Go west and north to
yet another bank - the other half of the Mud Banks - and withdraw the cards and
flask. Take them both.
Go south, east and nw. Shuffle the cards two times, then deal them. You will
see four cards, each showing a number. Make a note of those four numbers, in
the order given - we will need them later. Take the corkscrew, open the flask,
and drop the corkscrew again.
Go west, then enter "password" as your command. Yes, there is a clue to this
command somewhere in the game, but I haven't shown it to you. Serves you right
for reading walkthroughs. Take the pearl, go north, and wave your sword, then
go back south, east and se. Deposit the pearl and sword.
Go west and north, withdraw the key and bones, get them both, then go south and
east, deposit the cross, and take the diamond.

Go nw, take the lamp, west, north, turn the ring, and go down. Throw the water
and break the pentacle. Boil the bones. Go north. Enter "on", and when asked
what to switch on, answer the lamp. Wind the horse and ride it. Retrieve the
figurine.
Go east, cut the sphere, and take the ruby. Go west twice and south to the
final bank location. Deposit the ruby, diamond and figurine. Withdraw the sack,
rope and flute, and get them all. Go north, drop the rope and play the flute.
Climb the rope.
Go south. Fill the sack with the flute, lamp and flask. Throw the sack. Sit in
the chair. "On" the chair. Give the number you read from the cards.


And... you've won! No more problems... curses? Nah. Well done. Quondam has
enough problems as it is, in such a smallish game.