Granny's Place

Games for Spectrum, C64, Amstrad, Amiga, Apple ][ and the rest of the 8-bit and 16-bit platforms. Pleas for help, puzzles, bug reports etc.

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Exemptus
Posts: 42
Joined: Wed Dec 11, 2019 2:03 pm
Location: UK

Granny's Place

#1 Post by Exemptus » Wed Sep 28, 2022 8:57 pm

The question has been asked of whether this game was written by Dian Crayne, like the other Temple Software games. I have been playing all of them for a while now - this is the one that has resisted efforts so far, but I'm reasonably convinced the game is indeed Mrs Crayne's work. Available evidence:

* It's on the record that she said to have written six games: five are named, Granny's Place is the other only Temple Software game unaccounted for.
* The writing style of the game is very much hers. Granny's Place is not really an adult game per se, as the vulgarity and uncouthness present are clearly played for laughs, the premise is pretty absurd, and the tone of the game is clearly tongue-in-cheek rather than erotic. This matches her writing very well, more so if you have read any of her SF works.
* As I have noted in Jason Dyer's blog, there is a mysterious clue in The Hermit's Secret where a character says "UTTER GNOME" which seems to have no applicability at all in the game. It turns out to be indeed a clue, but applicable to Granny's Place instead, where SAY GNOME is the solution to a certain puzzle (UTTER is in fact a synonym accepted by the game). This would have been really improbable had the games not been designed by the same person.
* The table of messages in the game files is encrypted with a 1-byte XOR operation. This is not uncommon, but guess what the value of the encryption byte is: hexadecimal DC, the initials of her name. So basically she signed the code. :)

Regrettably, Granny's Place seems to be incomplete. Actions for the verbs PUSH and SAY have empty entries in the action table, so the game does not respond to these commands when applicable. I don't have the necessary skills to fix this, and it is conceivable it could be finished through some alternative set of actions. I have mapped 95% of the game and managed to get 195 out of 200(ish) points, almost to the end, but it looks like it can't be taken any further. If there are any volunteers to give it a try, I can provide further details and support.
Last edited by Exemptus on Thu Sep 29, 2022 10:41 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Strident
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Joined: Fri Aug 12, 2011 2:57 pm

Re: Granny's Place

#2 Post by Strident » Wed Sep 28, 2022 11:23 pm

Yeah, I'd agree with that; having read some of her stories. Definitely an interesting character.

Canalboy
Posts: 40
Joined: Tue Feb 18, 2020 10:31 pm

Re: Granny's Place

#3 Post by Canalboy » Thu Mar 14, 2024 11:14 pm

The missing entries for some verbs i.e. PUSH appear to run across all of Dian / Charles Crayne's text adventures. The others all seem finishable although I couldn't find one treasure in Monster Rally.

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