MURDER AT THE MANOR
Gemtime, 1983
===================
Solution by Exemptus - April 2020
Overview and general hints:
---------------------------
This is a non-deterministic text adventure with some RPG elements (not enough to
detract from the adventure experience). The goal is to open the safe at the
Manor in order to deduce the identity of the murderer, then locate him and put
him in prison. Easier said than done, because we will need a lot of patience
to overcome all the random obstacles placed in our way.
Random elements are:
* Non-Playing Characters (NPCs), of which there are several: a policeman, a
doctor, a gravedigger, a rat, a sheep, a gnome, a ghost, a butler, and a
gardener. They wander around, but it is possible (and necessary) to confine
them to certain areas in order to limit their freedom of movement.
* The identity of the murderer. It will always be either the gravedigger, the
doctor, the gardener or the butler, but we won't know until we open the safe.
* The location of some objects, such as clues and food parcels. Other objects
are in fixed locations. if you use my map to find your bearings, objects which
might be in a certain location at random are written in brackets.
* The combination of the safe. This is what the five clues provide.
* Fights. Any character (except the policeman) which is at your location may
decide to pick a fight with you or not. There is nothing you can do to avoid
this, but you can just run away if you don't want to fight, or engage them.
Fights are made easier if you have the right object to fight with. You might
kill the murderer before you even know his identity, but you can still finish
the game, provided you carry the body to jail (not that it will go anywhere).
In this walkthrough I will ignore all fights. If you take damage, you can
always eat some food to regain the lost strength, but there is a limited
amount of it. I recommend avoiding fights altogether.
* The gnome may steal one of the objects in your inventory at random if you come
across him, just like the Pirate in Crowther & Woods' original adventure. If
this happens, you can get the loot back by finding the gnome's burrow. Details
below. Nothing prevents this from happening again and again, so beware of the
pesky gnome.
* Whether shooting a lock with the rifle will succeed or not. There is a 10% of
chances it will fail, in which case we lose the bullet. This is not a
show-stopper, since we can always BREAK LOCK WITH HANDS or BREAK LOCK WITH
FEET. The drawback is this takes away some of our strength.
In addition to this, there is a time element. Each successful command takes time
and the SCORE command will tell us which time of the day it is. There is no
time limit to finish the adventure, but there is day and night. At night we can
continue doing things, but certain actions are not possible, and other things
will become far more difficult (for instance, the ghost will take away a lot
more of our strength if we fight it in the night). I will in general ignore day
and night, except when it has a direct effect on the walkthrough.
It is perfectly possible (with a bit of luck) to finish the adventure by 10am on
Day 2.
The vocabulary is limited and a bit eccentric: it uses PICK instead of TAKE/GET,
VIEW instead of LOOK to redescribe locations, and objects are not displayed as
part of descriptions (but exits are displayed graphically). We need to SEARCH
every location. Also, POSITION is used with the ladder, CLIMB instead of ENTER,
and other quirks. To make matters trickier, location connections are highly
twisty.
It is capital to OPEN then CLOSE all doors and gates once we are through. Even
if unlocked, they cannot be crossed by NPCs, so we are guaranteed that we can
always find them within the area they start in. This will be necessary because
at certain taimes we will need to find a NPC. The walkthrough will point out
when this is the case, but as their location is random, explicit directions
cannot be given.
Walkthrough:
------------
[We begin at the town cross. It is 9am on Day 1. Our first objective is to find
five clues which are scattered all around the map. Each will reveal a letter of
the combination safe. In order to gain access to the necessary locations we will
have to solve a few puzzles. Do not forget to SEARCH all locations. I will tell
when a clue might be in the current location, but you will need to find other
necessary objects. In particular, the bullet will be needed later and its
location may vary, but it will always be found in the town.]
W [Car park. The knife is here, but you don't need it unless you want to fight]
N
OPEN DOOR
N
PICK HUT KEY
S
CLOSE DOOR
S
S
E [The bullet might be here - please ignore the fence]
E [Or here - in any case, do take the bullet with you]
[Within the Pet shop there is the mouse trap, which we don't need except to
fight the rat later on. I will ignore it but feel free to pick it up if you
want]
E
W
OPEN DOOR
E
E
N
PICK WHISTLE
[The rat may attack us in this location. I suggest ignoring it. Strictly
speaking, we don't ned the whistle either, but since it allows us to avoid a
fight later, I suggest taking it with us]
W
W
CLOSE DOOR
S [The fence to the north of Edge of Town is locked so we cannot go through there]
E [There is a fence here - fences and such are climbable unless told otherwise]
CLIMB FENCE
[This is the Hills area. The sheep starts in this location. It often attacks
(must be a ram), but BLOW WHISTLE will transport it back to the Sheep Pen. After
that location we may use the whistle again if the sheep follows us, but we will
have no further use for it.]
E
S
S
W
PICK FENCE KEY
N
E
S
SEARCH [There may be a clue here]
N
W
S
W
DROP WHISTLE
CLIMB FENCE
UNLOCK GATE
DROP FENCE KEY [Make sure you have the bullet before venturing further]
OPEN GATE
N
CLOSE GATE
[We are in open country now.]
E
E [The doctor starts here]
N
N [This is the graveyard]
N
N
W [The gravedigger is here]
CLIMB GRAVE
S
SEARCH [A clue may be here]
N
CLIMB GRAVE
N
N
UNLOCK HUT
DROP HUT KEY
OPEN DOOR
N
PICK LADDER
S
CLOSE DOOR
E
E
E [Make sure you have the ladder with you at this point]
N
E
N
SEARCH [A clue may be here]
S
PICK FISHING NET
S
POSITION LADDER
CLIMB LADDER
[We won't need the ladder again, but it is useful in several other places, as it
provides alternative paths to enter the Manor grounds. Take it with you if you
want. Also, the fence at the north of the Church in town leads to this pit
directly, but we cannot get out of it without the ladder. The value of this
shortcut is questionable in any case as it forces a roundabout way of getting to
town without the fence key.]
E
PICK KITCHEN KEY
S
E
E
PICK RIFLE
N [The ghost is here]
SEARCH [And maybe a clue]
S
S
W
W
S [Open country again]
S
PICK POT PLANT
[The wall to the east can be climbed in the location to the south of here, but
that would prevent us from exploring the garden next.]
N
N
[We don't have a key for the iron gate that bars us from the Gardens area, but
this is what the rifle is for. The rifle can also be used to break other locks,
but this is by far the best place to use it.]
SHOOT LOCK WITH RIFLE
[The shot may fail, in which case you will have to BREAK LOCK WITH HANDS until
it gives. This weakens you, so it is better to use the rifle.]
DROP RIFLE
OPEN GATE
N [We are in the garden now]
CLOSE GATE
E
[North of here is a location where you can DIG until you see steps, then climb
them down. This leads to the Gnome's Burrow, whose door is locked and you will
have to smash down by force. You only need to visit this location if and when
the gnome steals one of your objects. Keep this in mind as it may happen at any
point while in the gardens. If you come across the gnome it is best not to stay
in the same location he is.]
E
N
N
N {The gardener is here]
BRIBE GARDENER [with what?]
POT PLANT
[This is the only way to get the gardener to unlock the greenhouse door, as
there is no key for it. We need to explore it because it is a usual place for a
clue.]
OPEN DOOR
N
SEARCH [There may be a clue here]
S
CLOSE DOOR
PICK HOUSE KEY
S
E
E
E
[We should be beside the brook now. We can cross it by swimming, but there are
piranhas in there.]
CATCH FISH WITH FISHING NET [The brook is safe now]
SWIM
E
E
PICK SHEARS
S
SEARCH [A clue may be here]
W
S
W
S
[If we try to cross the bridge now, sharp rocks will cut our feet and we'll die,
so we need a brief detour.]
E
N
SEARCH [A clue may be here]
PICK RUBBER BOOT
WEAR RUBBER BOOT
N
W
S
CROSS BRIDGE
REMOVE BOOT
DROP BOOT
S
[Here is a hedge. It is a bit too tall to climb, but we can easily fix that.]
CUT HEDGE WITH SHEARS
DROP SHEARS
CLIMB HEDGE
[We are on the Manor grounds now. Obviously, we need to get to the safe, which
is in the master bedroom on the first floor of the house. There are several
possible entrances, but since we have two keys we'll make things easy for us.]
S
W
UNLOCK DOOR
DROP KITCHEN KEY
E
E
S
PICK LAMP
S
N
UNLOCK DOOR
DROP HOUSE KEY
OPEN DOOR
E
CLOSE DOOR
[Before we get to the 2nd floor, we need to visit the garage, as a clue may be
there. The garage key is here, so we needed to enter the house prior to going
to the garage. Since we opened the kitchen earlier we could go out that way,
but we'll go the shorter route.]
N
PICK GARAGE KEY
W
OPEN DOOR
W
CLOSE DOOR
N
N
E
E
UNLOCK DOOR
DROP GARAGE KEY
W
[We'll leave the garage door open, as we'll need it this way later. This is the
only exception to the "shut all doors behind you" rule.]
W
N
N
SEARCH [A clue may be here]
[The wall to the north can be taken down, but we have no need to take such
drastic action. Also, the brick can be used to smash a window, for yet another
way into the house in case we didn't find a key.]
S
S
E
E
S
S
S
OPEN DOOR
E
CLOSE DOOR
E
E
E [The stairs to the upper floor are here]
LIGHT LAMP
[If it is night, we will not be able to climb the stairs, even with the lamp. In
this case, the only thing we can do is wander around and wait for the morning.
An alternative is to position the ladder in the location where we found the lamp
and climb it to enter the upper floor through a window. I will assume it is day
so the stairs can be climbed.]
CLIMB STAIRS
S
[This is the butler's bedroom. If we have the five clues, there is no need for a
detour. If we don't, the last clue is in the room north of us, which is locked.
This means we have to BREAK LOCK WITH HANDS or similar, get the clue, then go
back here.]
E [This is where the safe is]
READ NOTES [We are given the combination, provided we have found the five clues]
OPEN SAFE
[We enter the combination at this point. The safe contains one of four objects,
which we can't take, but point out at the identity of the murderer. The objects
are as follows:
PACKET OF SEEDS: gardener
BLACK BAG: doctor
SILVER SPOON: butler
BRASS HANDLE: gravedigger.]
READ NOTES
[We are now told we must "ask the policeman". We have to do this, even if we now
know who the murderer is, or otherwise the murderer will not confess. So we need
to get back to the town. We could take the long way out, but there is a much
faster shortcut: taking the car in the garage.]
W
W
CLIMB STAIRS
DROP LAMP
W
W
S
OPEN DOOR
W
CLOSE DOOR
S
E
E
W
CLIMB CAR
DRIVE CAR
[We should end up at the Car Park. Now we have to wander the town in order to
find the policeman. When we do, ASK POLICEMAN, and he will tell us to go find
the murderer and bring him to jail. Knowing who the murderer is now, we need to
go to the area he wanders about, find him, andthen he will confess (presumably
under the weight of evidence) and follow us. We have just to reach jain with
him, which from the Edge of Town location takes as follows:]
S
S
OPEN DOOR
S
E
OPEN DOOR
E
[End of game.]