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Adventures of a Detective Extraordinaire, The (adventures-extraordinaire.txt)

Adventures of a Detective Extrordinaire by Il Barboglio

Entry in 2021 TALP Jam

Walkthrough by Andrew Schultz

This is a game with well done graphics and a custom parser, submitted to TALP 2021. It suffers from
a few faults -- custom parser + author's second language makes for some particularly odd guess
the verb, and the inventory limit of 4 is frustrating if you don't cop to how some items
aren't needed. Oh, and there's a way to lock yourself out of a win that's plausible,
but not really nice of the game. However, it has some charm, so in the interest of TALP completeness
(the author's website with a hint sheet went down) I thought I'd write up this, as
it's entertaining with a bit of help.

The author wrote up day two, which runs but appears to have a fatal bug: there's an item called
small-crumb which you can't call crumb, and you can't type hyphen.r

If you wish to replay, you may have to reload or LOAD instead of START, as (for instance) the BUCKET
is not sent back to where it was on the in-game restart.

Day one:

>START

>L

You've locked yourself in a bit.

>X JACKET
>GET KEY
>UNLOCK DOOR
>OPEN DOOR

Incidentally, READ DOOR gives 25 possible names, randomly generated:

(Philip / Mike / Sam / Lew / Sherlok) (Marlowe / Hammer / Spade / Archer / Holmes)

Which is a cute touch.

>DROP KEY

>X DESK
>X BOARD
>GET SQUEEGEE
>GET CUTTER
>GET NOTE

(You don't need to get the pen. This will help manage your inventory so you don't get more
than four items.)

>E

Note reading the door from here shows your name right side around. A bit too much irony you
couldn't read it backwards, but still, it's clever to have in there.

>D
>HAIL TAXI
>SHOW NOTE
>DROP NOTE

To get back to the office, though you don't need to, HAIL TAXI and DRIVE OFFICE. Be sure you
have your note, or you'll be softlocked out of getting back!

>S
>L

This reveals a bucket!

>GET BUCKET

It's a bit random from here, because you are lost in the forest. So just run around until you
get to the stream. I think that there's equal probability of going to either of the other three
rooms from where you are, unless you go north from Dark Wood. That leads you to Wood Outskirts.

>FILL BUCKET

Run around some more until you get to the hag's cottage.

(TALK HAG is useful without this walkthrough)

>WATER ROSES
>DROP BUCKET
>GET DIRECTIONS
>E
>S

The "you can't tell which direction" in the game text is invalid now. On to a new
location.

>S

These aren't strictly necessary:
>TALK HUNTSMAN
>HELP HUNTSMAN

This is:

>GIVE CUTTER

Captured!

>SCREAM
>SCREAM

This is not necessary:
>ASK NAME

This isn't either:
>ASK HELP

Both add to the story, but you can just:

>SAY HUNTSMAN
>WAIT TIME
>GET OUT

Now you don't have to go back north, since you have everything, but if you do, don't
forget to take the directions, or you've locked yourself out of a win. So this is a good
failsafe:

>TAKE DIRECTIONS

This is necessary:

>TAKE SQUEEGEE

>S

Not necessary but makes sense:

>TALK QUEEN

>ASK SUBJECT

Now to stop the guard blocking the way east:

>S

>GET RAGS
>BURN RAGS

This alerts you to the presence of a window. Before this, you couldn't

>CLOSE WINDOWS

(The plural is important!)

>GET RAGS
>BURN RAGS

(Yes, you must do both again! Thankfully the up-arrow saves time.)

>N
>E

Since you have the squeegee, you can...

>CLEAN MIRROR

>ASK MIRROR

>W

Now

>ANSWER QUEEN

(if mirror is not clean, she asks you to investigate first.)

>SAVE

to see all the endings. LOAD after each one.

>QUEEN
>SNOW WHITE
>HUNSTMAN
>MYSELF
>HAG