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Prisoner of the Village, The (the_prisoner_village_wt.txt)

THE PRISONER OF THE VILLAGE
Spoof Software, 1985
====================

Solution by Exemptus - October 2023


Overview and general hints:
---------------------------
A Quill game based on the iconic 60s British TV series "The Prisoner". For the
non-initiated, the premise is that you were a spy for the government but now you
are trapped in a purpose-built, surreal village that seems to be a re-education
facility, where you are subject to general mindplay and made to question your
own sanity in some kind of conditioning dynamics at the hands of a bunch of
mysterious persons called only by numbers - the higher the number the more power
they wield in the village. And you are No.6. If this sounds far out, you have
seen nothing yet. The show is highly recommended, although strictly speaking
there is no specific knowledge from it that is needed to play or finish the
game. There is a lot of symbolism and metaphor in the TV production, some of
which spills over to the game, but as players we don't need to think too deep
about it.

The objective is to escape the village and those who control it, either literal
or metaphorically. This is a Quilled game and, as such, the parser is too simple
to allow for complex commands, which makes for awkward interaction at times.
Vocabulary is standard except for LOOK (used to EXAMINE, which is not
recognised). The game keeps score, up to 100%, but there is no SCORE verb: we 
are told the score once the game ends. It is possible to finish the game with
less than 100%. All the actions that contribute to the score are:

* Get the storybook:                                     2%
* Read the storybook:                                    5%
* Survive the Tunnel of Love in the flashback:           8%
* Survive the Witchwood sequence in the flashback:       8%
* Untie the rope in the flashback:                       2%
* Get the rope, nails, hammer, saw, logs, or sailcloth:  1% (each)
* Build a raft:                                          5%
* Find the shooting stick:                               5%
* Find the torch:                                        1%
* Find the radio:                                        2%
* Drop the No.6 badge:                                   1%
* Get the electropass:                                   1%
* Find the Cafe:                                         8%
* Be Out to Sea:                                         8%
* Enter the Row of Statues:                              8%
* Enter the Green Dome:                                 10%
* Enter the Control Room:                               10%
* Successfully escape:                                  10%

At a given point in time, the adventure will offer the player the opportunity to
"relive" the story of how we ended up here. This is an unusual narrative device,
in adventures at least, and leads to a sequence of mostly single-room situations
that need to be navigated with little leeway. Some of the objects caught in this
flashback are kept by the player after, but I suspect this is a bug, because in
fact there is no way to get rid of one of them (the bellows) and it detracts us
of one inventory slot. It should probably have been deleted from the inventory
at the end of the flashback sequence, but the author forgot to.

There is only a random element in the game, which is the turn when we are told
that someone is waiting for us at the Band Stand. If we go there after this, we
will be given an object. Not that it matters much, because although the object
in question has a purpose, it won't help us escape the village at all, but it
contributes to the score. Due to another bug, the game will keep on telling us
randomly that someone is waiting for us at that location. This can be ignored.

Not all objects are useful. It's also interesting that there are many apparent
ways to escape (by helicopter, by sea, on foot through the mountains, etc.) but
they are red herrings and all force us back to the village: the real escape is
something subtler than that and, like the TV show, is maybe a bit on the side of
social commentary.

Also, for some reason, the game bothers to redefine the whole character set to
one that is identical to the Spectrum ROM's, except for the letter E (both upper
and lower case). Like many other things in The Prisoner's universe, maybe there
is a reason for this eccentricity... or maybe not.


Walkthrough:
------------
[We wake up in a room similar to ours, with a badge marked "No.6", and looking
by the window we see we are in a strange village.]

INVENTORY [Just the badge]
DROP BADGE [Score is 1%]

[As we will see, exactly seven turns from the start we will get hungry. We will
need to find food within 30 turns of that or we'll die of starvation. This is
going to distract us from other tasks and it is a good idea to get the flashback
sequence out of the way, so we will do this first.]

W
W
W [Town hall: it is open, but there's a force field]

[We will need an object to bypass the force field, to be found later. For the
time being, make a mental note of this place.]

N
N [Information board: says Chef's special available at the Cafe]

[At this point in time we will have got hungry.]

N
E [The Cafe; score is 9%]
GET MENU [We are given a list of the available food]
EAT POTAGE [In fact we can eat anything on the menu, all are equivalent]
GET BOOK [Score is 11%]
READ BOOK [Score is 16%]

[This is the storybook of "The Prisoner", which tells us how we got here. This
triggers the flashback sequence. We will be thrown into a series of situational
puzzles one after the other that serve as narrative glue (but do not really
explain anything, so it's something of a shaggy-dog device). It begins with a
fellow agent telling us to cross the road and wait to be contacted in the Record
Shop.]

CROSS ROAD [In the record shop, we are given a record]
PLAY RECORD [We need to find the location of a rocket and taken to play cricket]
CATCH BALL [We realize the ball is explosive]
THROW BALL

[It explodes and reveals a message to meet in the pub; Doris, the barmaid, asks
us if we want the usual.]

YES [Saying "NO" doesn't advance the plot; a pint of ale appears before us]
DRINK ALE [We have been poisoned and need to make ourselves sick]
DRINK WHISKY ["DRINK GIN" serves the same purpose]
DRINK WHISKY
DRINK WHISKY [You don't feel sick yet]
DRINK WHISKY
DRINK WHISKY
DRINK WHISKY [Hang on, you are beginning to feel ill]
DRINK WHISKY [We get sick and go to the toilet]
WASH HANDS [Now they're wet]
DRY HANDS [We see a message to go to the Turkish bath around the corner]
GO CORNER [Turkish bath; someone jams the doors to our cabinet]
SMASH DOORS [Go to Barney's Boxing Booth]
GO BOOTH [Barney says a girl gave him a message to go to the Tunnel of Love]
GO TUNNEL [A voice says "Don't turn round, you'll be hearing from me"]
TURN ROUND [We see a tape recorder]
GET TAPE ["This tape will self-destruct"]
THROW TAPE [It explodes, the boat emerges, and we see a girl fleeing by car]
GET CAR [We follow her to Witchwood, where there are three shops; score is 24%]
LOOK SHOPS [A butcher, a baker, a candlestick maker (well-known nursery rhyme)]
ENTER BUTCHER [A closed door connects with the main shop]
OPEN DOOR [We have set a machine gun slowly firing round to where we stand]
CRAWL TO GUN [We reach the gun safely]
GET GUN
STAND UP [A door is to the East]
E [The baker's; a trapdoor opens beneath but the gun bridges the pit]
GET DRAWER [We stand on the drawer as the spikes rise; now there are mines]
GET PIPE [We move along a pipe and go to the candle shop]
GET BELLOWS [We also notice there is a counter by the door]
S [Steel shutters seal off exits, we are told that candles contain cyanide gas]
HIDE UNDER COUNTER [Due to parser limitations GET COUNTER also works]
BLOW CANDLES AT DOOR [Odd, but it works]
S [Street, we see the girl running; score is 32%]
FOLLOW GIRL [We chase her to a field where she gets in an helicopter taking off]
GET HELICOPTER [We cling to the undercarriage, land on an island]
W [To a small cave with a spiral staircase]
U [We are captured and tied in a control room to a chair]
PULL ROPE [The rope slips off the chair's back]
GET ROPE [Score is 34%]
OPEN WINDOW [We see a power boat below]
HIT WINDOW [We smash the control panel and trigger the detonation alarm]
OPEN WINDOW [Again]
D [We are at the base of the light house by the boat]
GET BOAT [The light house explodes, we escape, and the sequence ends]

[We are back in our room at No.6's house. Now that we have got the flashback
sequence out of the way, the plan is to build a raft and try to escape by sea.
We won't be successful, but that is the only way we will find the radio. The
radio is necessary to enter the Town Hall, where we will find the torch. The
torch will enable finding the shooting stick, and the latter is what will give
us a chance to take the Control Room and force the Controller to allow our
escape.]

[During the flashback sequence it is probable that we have been told at some
point that someone is waiting for us at the band stand. If we go there after the
message appears, we will be given an electropass. It will allow us to take off
on the helicopter, but that in itself doesn't go anywhere, so feel free to
ignore the electropass in question. We will collect it just for the score. Also,
if we take INVENTORY, we'll see that we still have the bellows from the
sequence. There is no apparent way to drop them again.]

E
N [General store]
GET ROPE [Score is 35%]
S
W
SW [Bell tower]
U
U
U [There are nails here]
GET NAILS [Score is 36%]
D
D
D
SW
W [Slip way; a hammer and sailcloth are here]
GET HAMMER [Score is 37%]
GET SAILCLOTH [Score is 38%]
DROP NAILS
DROP ROPE
DROP HAMMER
DROP SAILCLOTH [Here we'll build the raft, but no need to hold all objects]
N
E
N
E [Band stand, we are given an electropass; score is 39%]
DROP ELECTROPASS [We don't really need it for anything]
W
N
W [There is a key here, but it's a red herring]
W
W [The woods]
N [A clearing, with some logs]
GET LOGS [Score is 40%]
S
S [Town hall]
S
S
S [Sandy beach]
SW
SW
N [Beside a light house]
U [There is a saw here]
GET SAW [Score is 41%]
D
S
E
NE
NE
E [Slip way again]
MAKE RAFT
GET RAFT [Score is 46%]

[Now we can try escaping by sea.]

S
S [Many miles out to sea, score is 54%; we see a motor launch]
GET LAUNCH [We get aboard and are asked for a heading]
NE [Only way not to get lost, we get ashore]
N [We arrive at an airfield, and some kippers are here as well as an aircraft]

[The kippers are just for colour, as they make us sick.]

GET AIRCRAFT

[We fly around 3 hours and land at the shore line again.]

N [The beach location, but now there's a radio here]
GET RADIO [We also see a corpse at the water's edge; score is 56%]
N
W
W
W [Town hall again]
IN [If we have the radio we are allowed through the force field]
W [Circular room where there is a carnival dress party]
N [Corridor with multiple doors]
IN DOOR [The door opens, it's dark]
ENTER ROOM [The lights come on, this is a small office with a door opposite]
OPEN DOOR [The mortuary, with drawers on the wall]
OPEN DRAWER [Inside is the corpse from the beach; No.2 take us to the dance]

[We are taken to the circular room again and since we still have the radio, we
are put on trial, because the radio is a forbidden object. We are asked for a
statement on our defence.]

NO [There is no defence, so we are guilty as charged and sentenced to death]
N [You are chased through the rooms to the mortuary again]
OPEN TRAP DOOR [There's a ladder going down]
D [A tunnel, there's a torch here]
GET TORCH [Score is 57%]
U [Plush room]

[Suddenly, No. 2 appears, tells us to heed the lesson, and asks us to co-operate
or else suffer the consequences.]

E [At No.6's house again]

[Now that we have the torch, we can explore the only explicitly dark place on
the game, which is the cave by the beach. We haven't been there yet, so we'll go
right away.]

SW
SW
W
SW
SW
SW [The beach]
W
W [Small dark rocky cave]
LOOK [It is pitch black here, but we stumble over something]
USE TORCH [There is a shooting stick here]
GET STICK [Score is 62%]

[Armed with the shooting stick, we can enter the Green Dome and confront No.2.]

E
E
NE
N
N
N [Town hall]
W
N
N
E
E
E [Statues room; score is 70%]
E [We are transported to the Bell tower again]
NE
E
NE
U [Outside the Green Dome; how shall we enter?]
ENTER DOOR [Only possible when we carry the shooting stick; score is 80%]

[Inside the Green Dome we are confronted with three buttons labelled 1,2,3. We
need to press them in the right order. To my knowledge there are no clues in the
game about the correct combination, so it's down to trial and error. Also note
that the verbs PUSH and PRESS don't exist, we must use IN to press buttons.]

IN 2 [Good]
IN 1 [Good]
IN 3 [Done, a pair of lift doors appears on the wall]
ENTER DOORS [We are in a lift]
D [To control room, we see the Controller here asking "What do you want?"]
NUMBER 1 [Score is 90%]

[This is a shot in the dark, but the game suggests it. The highest ranking
member of the village we ever meet is No.2, so No.1 is the mysterious top honcho
that nobody ever sees. Time to unmask the real boss.]

[We are taken to a Court-room where we are proposed to become the leader of the
village and new No.1, given our continuous refusal to co-operate. We are asked
whether we will carry out the duties of No.1 or not.]

NO [Of course this was a test; a YES answer would have shown us as corrupted]

[Then perhaps a monetary reward would entice us? A million in travel cheques and
a passport?]

NO [We are sent to the Fall Out tunnel]
E [We have escaped with 100%]

[End of game.]