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Africa Diamond (africa_diamond_hints.txt)

AFRICA DIAMOND
Ramtronics, 1982
================

Overview & Hints by Exemptus - June 2023


We are told to find the famous Africa Diamond, hidden somewhere in a haunted
mansion, and get out alive. The house is indeed haunted, as this game is plagued
by random encounters. All we have to do is find the diamond and get out, but it
turns out that our ability to progress is set by how many types of enemies we
have managed to defeat.

There are very few verbs: N, E, S, W, GO, LOOK, TAKE, DROP, LIST (for inventory
and score), EAT, KILL and OPEN. There are plenty of objects around, and they are
randomly placed in the house, which is an annoyance. They don't show in the
room's description unless we LOOK, which is another annoyance. The only puzzles
to speak of are how to defeat the different enemies. It turns out that there is
a way for each one that involves an object (except for the dwarf), see the table
below:

Enemy                   Way to defeat
----------------------------------------------------------------
Werewolf                DROP SILVER CRUCIFIX
Vampire                 DROP SILVER CRUCIFIX
Bats                    DROP CLOVE OF GARLIC
Rabid dog               DROP BONE
Spider                  DROP SPIDER EATING BIRD
Ghost                   DROP MAGIC CROSSBOW
Troll                   DROP TROLL CUDGEL
Bad wizard              DROP GOLD WAND
Man-eating rabbit       DROP FERRET
Snake                   DROP READ RAT
Dwarf                   KILL DWARF then answer YES three times

Encounters are perfectly avoidable: if you have one, you may just exit the room
and get back. State for encounters is not kept, so it's all random again. Keep
in mind that defeat is not guaranteed, although the ways above will work almost
always. Once a type of enemy has been defeated, it will happen far less
frequently, but won't go away forever. However, defeating all the above enemies
at least once seems to be necessary to finish the game.

There is a hidden panel in the library that can be OPENed, and beyond is a way
to the caves below. You need the torch there, to be able to see, but the caves
can't be entered unless some of the enemies have been defeated.

The map has a curious design feature: the upper floor is laid out in a 4 by 3
rectangle of rooms, and the caves below replicate that structure, but actually
the same locations in memory are re-used for the caves, which has two
interesting side effects: one, if we leave objects in the rooms above, they will
show up again in the corresponding room in the caves (this does not duplicate
the objects: if we pick something up, it will disappear from the map, since they
are in fact the same rooms, only the descriptions change on the fly). The second
effect is that the "top of the stairs" location also has a GO STAIRS exit in the
caves, leading to other floor of caves that exactly replicate the ground floor!
This latter effect is, possibly, unintended, as no stairs are described in the
cave, but it works if you go there.

The Africa Diamond is always in a safe in the bathroom on the top floor. You
need to OPEN CUPBOARD and it will work if and only if you have killed enough
enemies. In order to open the safe, you need to find the combination through a
turn-based Mastermind-like game, with 10 turns or so in total (4 numbers, all
different, 1 to 9). This is difficult to do and you have to get lucky. Once that
is done, you only need the key to escape the house with GO OUTSIDE in the
entrance hall.

Due to the random placement of objects, a deterministic walkthrough is not
feasible, but you need to do the following things in order:

* Go systematically room by room using LOOK in each and noting what objects are
  there. If you are attacked, move out of the room then get back until you are
  given a rest.
  
* Pick up the torch, the key, and any objects in the table above. You should be
  able to carry them all. There is an inventory limit, but you are unlikely to
  meet it. There are lots of red herrings that you can safely pass by.
  
* GO STAIRS in the lobby will take you to the upper floor, and vice versa. Once
  you have explored those, go to the Library then OPEN PANEL (remember to carry
  the torch) and explore the two rooms beyond. There is no need to ever enter
  the caves, unless you are not careful (see later).
  
* Once you have explored everything and have the objects, wait for the different
  enemies to appear while heading to the Bathroom in the upper floor. Remember
  you may KILL DWARF at any time it appears.
  
* Drop the key in a safe location before proceeding to the next step. This is
  because getting the diamond will wipe your inventory, and send your objects to
  the caves below. If you take this precaution, you will save a lot of time.
  This is probably the "surprise" we were told would happen if we found the
  diamond. In all fairness, nobody said it was a nice surprise.
  
* Once done, OPEN CUPBOARD in the bathroom will reveal the safe and trigger the
  combination game. You have to get lucky. Remember that all four numbers wil be
  different (or at least that was always my case). Regrettably, this is the main
  source of frustration in the game, since you cannot save, and having to start
  again will re-randomize the objects.
  
* Once you have the diamond, just pick up the key again, go back to the lobby
  and GO OUTSIDE to win.