Scott Adams Ghost Town

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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df
Posts: 49
Joined: Thu Aug 11, 2005 3:22 pm

Scott Adams Ghost Town

#1 Post by df » Fri Aug 19, 2005 7:08 pm

anyone know how to get all the bonus points?

i finished the game (all treasures) with -1 bonus points out of 50.

Code: Select all

Tell me what to do ? score
You've made -1 BONUS points out of a possible 50 in 436 moves.
You have stored 13 treasures. On a Scale of 0 to 100, that rates 100.
it was also not 436 moves (my testing script has 255 commands....) mm another bug to fix...
-- Stu / DF --
-- Mountain Valley + Softgold Adventure Fan --

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Gunness
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#2 Post by Gunness » Sun Aug 21, 2005 8:36 am

Hmmm... interesting. I'll look into this over the next few days :)

Alastair
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Re: Scott Adams Ghost Town

#3 Post by Alastair » Sun Mar 04, 2012 6:58 pm

Wow, it's amazing what you can find when you search the internet...

df, I have some belated good news for your request as this very day I uploaded a 50 bonus points solution to the site. If you would rather not follow a walkthrough then the following hints should aid you. However, before attempting to gain the bonus points you should start the game and for your first action type in score, the displayed number of moves taken is unlikely to be 1. Keep this 'lost' number of moves in mind when devising a solution.

Try to complete the game within 225 moves as for each subsequent move there is a 20% chance of you losing points. (Version 1.22 of the game for the Apple II allows 325 moves, and so may some others, but once solved you should in future be able to complete the game before then.)

More points will be lost should you take the manure (why would you?) or save the game (though if you use an emulator you can always use snapshots).

Applauding or clapping the pianist will gain points, as will killing the purple worm (if you have played Pyramid of Doom you will understand why). For most versions shaking the hat will also give points, though here the aforementioned v1.22 Apple II game differs again in that it is the digging of the manure that garners points.

The remaining bonuses require you to carry out certain actions within a certain number of moves, this is where the real challenge arises when going for the full bonus score. You must connect the wires in the telegraph office within 30 moves, the 30 move limit also applies to opening the jail door with the horseshoe. Within 80 moves you must dig the correct mine roof and also mix the ingredients for gunpowder, finally, you must greet the American Indian within 100 moves.

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df
Posts: 49
Joined: Thu Aug 11, 2005 3:22 pm

Re: Scott Adams Ghost Town

#4 Post by df » Sat Oct 05, 2013 4:44 pm

heh from 2005? I think I wrote that post when I was writing my Bunyon interpreter that plays all the TI99 adventure files on a PC (I was playing the TI99 version of Ghost Town) and doing testing/debugging.

best way of finding all the points would be to read the nice TI99 source

http://mega-tokyo.com/adv09_ghost_town.txt

I believe its the routine;

Code: Select all

act auto 100
{
    swap tr_02;
    try
    {
        set (flag_06);
        sub 3;
        off flag_06;
    }
    try
    {
        set (flag_02);
        add 3;
        off flag_02;
    }
    try
    {
        set (flag_03);
        add 10;
        off flag_03;
    }
    try
    {
        set (flag_05);
        add 1;
        off flag_05;
    }
    try
    {
        swap tr_02;
    }
    
}

so looking at anything that sets flag_02, flag_03, flag_05 adds, flag_06 subtracts.

so you can then see, as you pointed out for clapping the ghosts;

Code: Select all

act clap any
{
    here (itm_023);        # Wraithlike figure playing equally ghostly piano
    on flag_12;
    swap itm_023, itm_024;        # Wraithlike figure playing equally ghostly piano        # Piano with set of keys
    on flag_02;
    msg_031;    # "The ghost stands, bows, vanishes!";
}
it sets flag_02
-- Stu / DF --
-- Mountain Valley + Softgold Adventure Fan --

Alastair
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Joined: Fri Nov 11, 2005 12:21 am

Re: Scott Adams Ghost Town

#5 Post by Alastair » Sat Oct 05, 2013 7:04 pm

After I solved the game (without getting all the points) I used a decoder on various data files to produce listings I could understand. I then worked through the listings to find out how to gain and lose points, and then plotted the best path to take to obtain the full bonus. I did it this way because quite frankly I consider it more interesting to work out the solution than to resort to trial-and-error to find the path.

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