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Enrak - Review

Review by blauroke

Ratings

Written:
30-04-2020
Last edited:
30-04-2020
Platform:
TRS-80 CoCo

Enrak_2.png
Treasures of the Enrakian Empire was written by Ken Ostrer in BASIC for a 16k TRS-80 Color Computer. It was published in the August 1983 issue of Rainbow Magazine. I found this game on a Rainbow on Tape disk image, in the Color Computer Archive.
The article in the magazine claims inspiration from Zork and Adventureland. The goal is to find 10 treasures of the "Enrakian Empire." With a name like that, some inspiration may have also come from the classic PITFALL! The author warns of a vulture and a gunfighter, which are "only some of the obstacles." He claims "over 50 locations", which I've verified, though I believe it was exactly 50 locations. The parser supposedly understands 80 words, counting both nouns and verbs.
The article goes on to say "If it's necessary to look at the list to help you find treasures or overcome obstacles, it's really not worth the trouble to continue playing the game." The author claims this adventure is "semi-difficult", and "designed for the junior adventurer."
I'm here to tell you that I could not have beaten this adventure without extensively mining the source code. The adventure is rife with nonsensical puzzles, literally random deaths, and extensive backtracking. While it's true there are 50 locations in the game, it also seems apparent that some significant padding happened in the latter portion of the game world.
The game offers a save feature, which the author is justifiably proud of. I did not use it, as I ran this game on a CoCo 3 emulated by MAME. I just used the state save feature of the emulator.
Before I come off sounding too harshly, the article tells us that in 1983, Ken was a senior and honor student at Hudson Bay High School in Vancouver, Washington. For a free program in a magazine, that fits in 16k and was made by a high school student, this isn't a shabby effort at all. I had quite an enjoyable time until I hit my first logical wall, and then the "real adventure" began: sifting through the source code to figure out the solution to puzzles. I will say this: the BASIC listing does a fair job of obfuscating the solutions for several puzzles.
Personally, I think you could give this one a pass, unless you're doing a research paper on BASIC text adventures written by high school students in the early 80s.
The following section contains SPOILERS! I felt it was worth documenting my personal experience with this adventure, in the hopes that others will find it either entertaining, or a cautionary tale. Since I may be the last person on Earth who will ever play this game, perhaps it's worth reading my adventure journal. I will also post a map and a walkthrough to the CASE Solution Archive.
Let's begin!

Abbreviations work, like I for INVENTORY, and N or S for moving in that direction. This is always an appreciated feature.
I quickly learn that "W-H-A-T ? ? ?" isn't simply a response to my attempts to TALK to a hard-of-hearing OLD HERMIT. Rather, this is how the parser lets me know that it doesn't understand my input. Suffice to say, the parser yelled W-H-A-T ? ? ? at me plenty during my time in the Enrakian Empire.
Don't TOUCH the HERMIT. Without warning or explanation, the player will instantly die. No wonder he has chosen a life of isolation...
You can't LOOK at any items to learn more details. LOOK always simply redisplays the description of the room. In fact, descriptions and detail are few and far between in this game. It is possible, sometimes, to READ something that is in your inventory, but that's about it.
I found a STRANGE LOOKING BOX, and only by trying to OPEN it do I learn that it is guarded by an ANGRY DOG. The DOG is not described in the location's description, even after I discovered him. In fact, this dog functions primarily as a lock on the box. I must deal with this "stealth" dog before I can open the box. Other puzzles in the game work this way, as well. You'll try to do something, and only then discover that an obstacle impedes you.
I encounter a GUNFIGHTER WITH THE MAGIC GLOVE. TALKing to him and LOOKing at him does no good. I try to GET GLOVE but apparently I DON'T FEEL LIKE IT. I walk past him a few times and started to feel like he wasn't a threat, until one time he just FILLED ME FULL OF LEAD. I soon learned how this gunfighter operates: he minds his own business 9 times out of 10, but he is positioned at a bottleneck in the map and will eventually kill you without provocation or preamble. It is completely random.
Similarly, there is a vulture who will steal an item from your inventory and can place it in any location prior to the graveyard. The vulture is also seemingly completely random. It's mostly a tedious frustration, since it's unavoidable, and can be a death sentence if you're forced to walk past the unpredictable gunfighter to retrieve your lost item.
Purchasing the LANTERN AND OIL is an exercise in frustration, mainly because it's unclear what is needed to BUY it (gold nuggets), and you also need a free slot for it in your inventory, because the nuggets are not consumed in the transaction. I failed several attempts at buying the lantern, only because the game didn't tell me what I was doing wrong.
A piece of BROKEN TOMBSTONE can be picked up and read for two vital clues: "THE DUKE OF 'BONE' BORN 786 - DIED 835." The first clue it provides (that "BONE" is a magic word) was the first puzzle that drove me to the source code. More on that later.
As is typical in games with shovels, you have to dig everywhere to find a DIAMOND KEY. The fact that it's found in an area called a CLEARING was probably considered a sufficient clue to dig there.
I found a PUB, which amused me. In a game with gunfighters and revolvers, I expected it would more likely be a SALOON. The TOWN DRUNK is here, as you might expect. His only job is to provide the player with a clue (and a misleading one at that) for a cipher that is encountered elsewhere.
The game won't tell you this, but you can't shoot the revolver until you find a bullet for it.
A ROSE BUD near the BRINK OF A DEEP PIT turns out to be guarded by A SEMI-FORCE FIELD. Not entirely sure what that means, but we'll move on.
Near the ROSE BUD and its DEEP PIT, I find my first treasure, a **TURQUOISE CROSS**. I pick it up, and as an experiment, type SCORE. Here, I learn that I still have 0 of 100 score, so there must be a treasure room somewhere. The SCORE feature also informs me I have 500 LIGHT LEFT, so that's good to know. 500 light turns out to be incredibly generous, and in fact, once you get the lantern and turn it on, the game can be completed without ever turning it off again.
I find a FADED SIGN, which I'm only able to READ after picking it up. Written on it is "IQVQ QRGP EQHHKP CPF UOGNN VJG TQUG", which is of course a cipher. If I assume that VGJ translates to "THE", then the cypher is "subtract two letters", which translates our message to: "GOTO OPEN COFFIN AND SMELL THE ROSE". Alright, then. (The drunk told me that the letters would be 1 off, rather than 2. Silly drunkard.)
On the way past the force-fielded ROSE BUD, I try to SMELL ROSE, but I guess MY NOSE IS STUFFED UP.
There is a HELP verb! Help is very sparse, but it's worth trying it everywhere. It does help a little, with some of the more obtuse puzzles. (For example, it tells me I need the gunfighter's magic glove before touching the hermit. Why I need to touch the hermit will remain forever a mystery, though.
Near the strange looking box, HELP says LUTARN LOVES TO HEAR HIS NAME. I have no idea who LUTARN is. In fact, I will later discover and defeat him, without ever really learning what his deal is or why I needed to hunt him down. This helpful hint teaches me the SAY verb, although ironically, SAY will be useless for LUTARN himself.
Without going into the source code, I never would've figured out that to pan for gold, you need to DIP STRAINER.
Aha, the source code also reveals that I needed to SAY BONE in the graveyard. The only hint for this were the words on the tombstone, except I have no idea why SAYing BONE would cause one exit to open up in the graveyard, while another (the route to the pub next door) is closed off.

Past this point, the second half of the game world is covered entirely in COLORFUL DARK MIST. What's needed here is the lantern, though I found that the DARK mist only obscures the room description. Once mapped, it is entirely possible to navigate the area safely and complete the adventure without ever using the lantern.

While exploring this section, the map layout begins to feel like a semi-random collection of interconnected room descriptions. Nothing here really makes sense anymore. There's a torture room, an animal cage, a library, a kitchen, a ledge, a storage shed, a triangle-shaped room, and so forth.

I finally found a bullet! In an animal cage. I try to take it, only to discover that a gorilla won't let me. Uh, yeah, there's a gorilla guarding a single bullet. I happened to know from my source code exploration that SING is a verb, so I try that, and of course it tames the savage beast. The gorilla falls asleep and the single bullet is mine. I can use it to eliminate the gunfighter, whose magic glove I require, for the purpose of touching the lethal hermit. For... reasons.

I find myself In Front of a Locked Door, but UNLOCK DOOR, USE KEY, and INSERT KEY do not work to unlock it, even though I have the DIAMOND KEY on hand. I find out much later that one of the treasures, a **SPARKLING PEARL**, is required to open this door. INSERT PEARL works. I guess the door opens and reveals... the **CROWN JEWELS OF BAVARIA**?!

How does one dissipate a SEMI FORCE FIELD? Apparently by pouring water on it. Don't pour the water anywhere else, though, or you'll receive the ominious message: YOU'RE IN TROUBLE NOW. The player is indeed in trouble, as the water and the rose are required for completion of the game. So, this is one of those cruel instances where the player can inadvertantly lose, but never be told that the game is now unsolvable.

I thought the DIAMOND KEY would be for the locked door, but it is not. In fact, that key is necessary for opening a closed coffin. Not that anything tells you that the coffin is locked, or that this key is used to open it. No, the OPEN COFFIN command simply works if you have the key and hand, and doesn't if you don't.

Smelling the rose after opening the coffin will cause a critical treasure to appear, the **SILVER COMPASS**. It appears near the beginning of the game, on a forest path. Nothing tells the player that the compass appeared, nor is there any clue to its location. You just have to randomly find it.

Smelling the rose also causes a STONE TABLET to appear near the opened coffin. The tablet reads "SILENCE IS NICE...". This is a very important clue, though it was so obtuse that I only realized what it was telling me in hindsight. There is a sound-proof room among the jumble of random locations in the latter half of the game. It turns out that this is the treasure room, where all ten treasures need to be dropped, to win the game.
The GLOWING EMBER is too hot to pick up. I tried pouring the beaker of water on it, which is not the right thing to do, as mentioned above. It turns out that the magic glove is needed to pick up the ember, as well as for touching hermits.

You can feed a **MAGICAL OYSTER** some algae! As you might expect, this causes a pearl to appear. Like the compass, it appears in a completely different part of the world, while also giving the player no clue where it is.

Killing Lutarn gives the player a clue to DIG AT PIT. I'd digged at the pit previously, but I went there and did it again. This time, I dug up an egg. If you CRACK EGG, "something falls out and disappears." This turns out to be a **SILVER BRACELET**, which appears one room to the north.
Returning to the soundproof room and dropping all my treasure there instantly causes the game to end. It's literally impossible to ever see yourself with a satisfying, perfect score in this game. Instead, you get this rather lackluster ending.

And that's all for the Enrak Adventure! The design is rather flawed, but the real joy was burrowing through source code to find the solutions, and of course, the friends we made along the way.