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Time Search (time_search_wt.txt)

TIME SEARCH
Millenium Software, 1983
========================

Solution by Exemptus - December 2022


Overview and general hints:
---------------------------
The scenario of this game concerns the Time Stabilizer, a device which can
create a "time bubble" around an area, isolating it away from the rest of the
world. For some reason, this was kept somewhere in Herefordshire, England, but
something has gone wrong, the Stabilizer has been activated, and the whole
county is being kept frozen in time. We are told that only the legendary Crystal
of Mirrors can help us mend the Time Stabilizer by looking into the past, so we
are sent off to sort this mess out.

This scenario is probably inspired by Doctor Who, although the game does not
make any explicit mention of the show's elements. However, the idea reminds us a
lot of a typical Time-lording plot where the Doctor must fix some mischief
caused by the pesky Master.

We have a quest-type Quilled adventure: we need to explore the county, find the
objects that will help in our plight, locate both the Crystal and the
Stabilizer, and fix the latter, we are not told how, so we'll have to figure
that out as well. As is typical with Quill fare, the game uses R to redescribe
locations, LOOK or EXAMINE to inspect things, and NESWUD for directions, as well
as NE, SE, SW, NW, ENTER and EXIT. Score is kept internally, but not displayed:
we get 100% if and only if we finish the game. Vocabulary is otherwise
predictable, except that GRAB/HOLD/GRIP is separate from GET/TAKE, UNDO is used
(and needed) in lieu of UNBOLT, and UNSCREW is a different verb. We also have 4
inventory slots, plus wearables.

The geography of the game is largely consistent, and not only that, it covers
about 40 real-world locations in Herefordshire. Not that this is integral to the
solution, but it's a nice touch. There are relatively few objects, no random
elements, and no red herrings: everything serves a purpose. Hunger is a factor,
but not an important one, since eating once (there are two food items) gives us
ample time to finish the game.

Puzzles are subtler than expected. There are clues, but they are well concealed,
particularly regarding some codes or sequences which we need to find. It pays to
examine things thoroughly, as not everything is what it seems, and to pay
attention to descriptions: at least one puzzle relies on location text that
is *very* likely not to be noticed at all. True darkness is just used in a
single place, but a light source is needed anyway, and it also contributes to
another puzzle.

The game has a HELP feature, where we can ask for a hint for many objects, some
of which are a bit tangential. It is only really needed once, since there are
enough clues all around, but your mileage may vary. In any case, it's a nice
thing to have.


Walkthrough:
------------
[We begin in the city of Hereford, which is roughly at the centre of the map. It
will be a kind of base for us. The first thing we do is gather a few objects
that are scattered around, particularly the food.]

S
SW
GET TORCH
SW
E
E
GET GLOVES
WEAR GLOVES [We'll keep the gloves on, even if they're not needed until the end]
N [A brass key is here]
GET BRASS
S
S
ENTER
GET SPADE
EXIT
S
S
S [Base of Yat Rock]
U

[We are up Yat Rock, before a cliff. Notice in the description it mentions the
sides are covered with trees and bushes. Also notice that we see something
bright just over the safety wall. We'll investigate it, since we're here.]

CLIMB WALL [The wall crumbles and we fall off the cliff]

[But we don't die yet, as we can continue falling; on the way down we notice the
bright thing was an old tin can, which is of no value to us. Now the idea is to
get out of the falling predicament. Remember the trees we were just told about?]

GRAB TREE [We grab it and stop the fall; we can also see a purse here]

[The purse is actually a trap, since if we get it we'll slip and fall, for good
this time. We can CLIMB UP the rock and get back to the top, but the interesting
thing is the other way.]

CLIMB DOWN [We slide down the side, get to the bottom, and see some pliers here]
GET PLIERS [Our inventory is topped up, so back to base]
N
N
NW
NW
N
N
N [Back in Hereford]
DROP PLIERS
DROP SPADE [The torch and brass key we'll need in a moment]
ENTER [The old black & white house; there is a locked door here]
UNLOCK DOOR
OPEN DOOR
DROP BRASS [key]
ENTER [Everything is dark]
ON TORCH [Oh my, the Crystal is here]
GET CRYSTAL
D

[This is a metal complex, no doubt hidden below the old house, and a good
candidate for the Time Stabilizer hideout.]

S
E
SW [There is a biscuit here, which we can ignore at this time; it is food]
S [Note there are blue, green and red lines going in several directions]
S [Steel door with red flashing sign and a code keypad]

[This is likely to be the door we want to open, but we don't have the code.]

N
W
N
W
W [Smaller room with a screwdriver and a notice]
GET SCREWDRIVER
READ NOTICE [It says "NO SMOKING", but this is not a clue]
N [A smaller room with vents; let's have a closer look]
EXAMINE VENT [the vent is screwed to the duct openings]
UNSCREW VENT [the vent falls to the ground]
DROP SCREWDRIVER [not needed anymore]
ENTER [Into the duct]
S

[The vents split in two. The S path ends here, and we can see the outer vent is
welded to the wall here, so this is a dead end. But we can also see the room at
the other side through the bars. It doesn't take a lot to realise this must be
the room behind the door we saw before locked with a code. We notice a spanner
and a sign on the other side of the room's door which reads "RE-ENTRY CODE - 
97,,,,,,", the rest being obscured by a shelf. This must be the numeric code
used to open the door, but we can only make out the first two digits.]

[Also, if you have followed this walkthrough, you should have started to get
hungry around now. We'll get that attended to in a moment.]

GET SPANNER
N
W [There is a manhole cover above]
U [Back in Hereford]

[From now on, we can go D from here to enter the complex through the vents again
if we wish. There are other two entrances to it: one is from the house, which we
used before, and another is to go E from the location N of here.]

DROP SPANNER
OFF TORCH
DROP TORCH
N
NE
NE [There is food here]
GET FOOD
EAT FOOD [This fixes the hunger bit]
NW [Bank Street; we see a path going down to the river]
D [The crystal glows and in a moment we fall asleep]

[In our dream we see five horsemen coming out of the river and galloping towards
us.]

WAIT [We wait, the riders pass through, and a sword mysteriously remains]
GET SWORD
U [Back to Bank Street]
W
SW
W
W [Kington]
N [We see a pub with the sign creaking on the wind]
READ SIGN ["The Five Horsemen"; hmmm, might the sword be of use here maybe?]
ENTER
N [There are stairs down here]

[If we went D from here either carrying the torch or not carrying the sword, we
would be told that a mysterious force prevents us. We need to carry the sword
but not the torch, which is what we have done.]

D [There are two eerie red eyes looking at us from the dark]
E [We realize we can't move and are trapped here forever... or maybe not?]
RAISE SWORD [Tremendous forces sweep us away]

[We are sent back to Kington again, but this time we can see a ring here that
wasn't before. The sword has disappeared, taken away by the Mystical Forces.]

GET RING
S
W [Hay-on-Wye, by an office building with a brass plate]
READ PLATE

[It says "9779 Main Entrance. SPARK & SOLDER inc. Electronic Engineers. Founded:
1983." But wait a minute. Where did we read of a number beginning with 97? Yes,
the famous 8-digit code for the steel door in the complex. Since there are eight
digits here, we have good reason to assume the code is 97791983. We note that
for later reference.]

ENTER [The office only has a locked cabinet]
PUSH CABINET [It slides, revealing some papers]
EXAMINE PAPERS

[There is a plan of a machine with the inscription "Addition: turn red lever
right." We don't know what this means, but we file it for later on. The cabinet
doesn't hold anything else of value and, anyway, it can't be opened.]

EXIT
E
E
S [Madley; there is a church here, which we need to keep in mind]
S
S [Outside a building in a radar base]
ENTER [There is circuit board here]
GET BOARD
EXIT
N
N
E
N [Hereford again]

[We have all that we need. We'll use the crystal one last time to induce another
vision of the past, and we get to use the spade as well.]

DROP BOARD
DROP RING
GET SPADE
E
E
E [By an old house; the crystal glows again]
ENTER [The interior is hazy and indistinct, but we can see a door here]

[Without the crystal, this door is impregnable, and a force field will prevent
us from passing, but now we can go through.]

OPEN DOOR [We enter]

[We see a boy looking at a silver chalice with an inscription on it and he
places it in a chest in the corner of the room. There's nothing else to do here
so we can leave.]

W

[Now this is the trick: if we OPEN DOOR again, the room will change to the
present and become an enclosed garden, since it was long ago that it crumbled to
dust.]

OPEN DOOR
DIG [We dig several feet and a chest can be seen]
OPEN CHEST [We find the silver chalice]
GET CHALICE
EXAMINE CHALICE [it's silver and has an engraved inscription]
READ INSCRIPTION

[The chalice reads "When I return from whence I came, the many coloured lights
will help your game." Right. This is obscure: it takes a bit of a leap to notice
that a stained glass window, like those found in churches, is a possible source
for "many coloured lights". We will be helped with this thought, at any rate.]

W
EXIT
W
W
W [Hereford again]
DROP CRYSTAL [Not needed anymore]
S
W [Madley again, but now there is another description pointing at the church]
ENTER [There is a high plinth here]
PUT CHALICE [The chalice reflects the colours of the window and the room spins]

[This sets off another magic spell and the chalice is replaced by a marble 
statue holding a golden key.]

GET GOLDEN [key]
EXIT

[The golden key is used to unlock a book in the Hay-on-Wye bookshop, which we
haven't yet seen, but it has a golden seal so it's easy to link them in
hindsight.]

W
S
ENTER [Library]
UNLOCK BOOK [It opens to a particular page]
READ BOOK

["Steer the letters / thrice around, / to start again, / the secrets found /
Red and green / should be heeded, / the word you find / shall be needed!." This
requires a bit of pondering. Basically this encodes a password as a cryptic
clue: the letters of STEER form an anagram with the meaning "to start again",
that is, RESET. The second verse tells what to do with this password, but it
will probably tell us nothing at this point as we haven't found the "red and
green" yet. This is what the ring is for, so we'll get there in a moment.]

LOCK BOOK [Let's be tidy and leave things as they were]
DROP GOLDEN [key]
EXIT
N
E
E
N [Hereford again]
GET BOARD
GET RING [We'll need these]
S
S
S
SE
S [Disused farm buildings - we can see the door is open]
ENTER [Stables; there is a metal plate on the wall]
EXAMINE PLATE [There is a small circular recess]
EXAMINE RECESS [About 1 inch]
INSERT RING [It fits - then a wall crumbles down, revealing a hidden room]
ENTER

[The room is packed full of electronics, including a monitor with a red and
green display with a slot which says INSERT CODE UNIT. No doubt this is the
item the book verse meant before. Good thing we brought the circuit board.]

INSERT BOARD [The auto-destruct sequence is active and asking for a keyword]
RESET [The monitor is up and prints something, then everything switches off]

[Some instructions are printed reading (sic) "TIME STABALIZER 6/001A: DESTRUCT
SEQUENCE CODE / Status - ABORT PROG / cut BLUE / cut RED / turn BLUE switch to
left." If we look back, we found an additional clue saying that we should add
"turn red switch to right" to something: well, it looks like this is it. So we
are told that the sequence to disarm the time stabilizer is: cut blue, cut red,
turn blue to left, turn red to right". We have all we need, Now we just have to
get to the time stabilizer (which we already had found, presumably, behind the
keypad door in the complex) and that's that.]

[For the final trip we'll need the gloves, which we have been wearing anyway,
the spanner, and the pliers, so let's get these first.]

EXIT
N
NW
N
N
N [Hereford]
GET SPANNER
GET PLIERS
D [Into the complex through the manhole we opened]
E
E
E
E
SW
S
S [Before keypad door; time to enter the code]
97791983 [The door opens]
ENTER [Electronics everywhere, with a raised cabinet at the centre]
EXAMINE CABINET [It has a metal plate with four bolts, numbered 1 to 4]
UNDO BOLTS [It says we need to undo the bolts in the right sequence]

[This is another puzzle, thrown in for good measure. So far we haven't because
the game provided enough clues, but now we are forced to ask for HELP, since
there are no hints anywhere else.]

HELP [With what object? OK, we need to be more specific]
HELP SPANNER [A bit odd, but neither HELP BOLT nor HELP NUT work here]

[The help says "To start a count from 1 to 4, / You have to use a basic law! /
Change the odds, / The law will bend, / And move the start to the end!." Fine,
not the best of verses, but we need to just find the right permutation of 1234,
and there are 24 of them, not too many, so we could do this by trial and error.
In any case, the "change the odds" bit means that we need to exchange each pair
odd-even in the sequence, which "moves the start to the end" as well. So the
right permutation is 2143.]

2143

[We remove the plate, and see blue and red switches, plus wires coloured red,
blue, orange, white and green. But we know what to do.]

CUT BLUE [With the pliers]
CUT RED
TURN [Colour and direction?]
BLUE LEFT
TURN [Colour and direction?]
RED RIGHT [A drawer opens]

[The drawer contains the rod that powers the Stabilizer, and we just have to
remove it. This is where the gloves are needed, since the rod itself happens to
be radioactive.]

GET ROD [Success: the Time Stabilizer is off and normality is restored!]

[End of game.]