Re: Announcing: Fyleet, Crobe, Sangraal

["Adam Atkinson" <ghira@mistral.co.uk>]

On 10-Sep-99 21:55:23, Dave G said:

>> Of course, SUNBURN won't work until you have been told the
>> route (and next time you play the game it might be WELDERS).

>Perhaps someone could come up with another example?  I'm not trying to
>be argumentative: I'm sincerely curious if there is an example of a
>puzzle where disallowing saves is truly necessary.  Any example I can
>think of could be taken care of more elegantly by the "Spellbreaker
>cubes" method (of which "SUNBURN won't work until you've been told that"
>is a distant cousin).

Magic words don't work until the player has seen / been told them in
most Phoenix games.

Of course, it could be that the puzzle under discussion is, um,
isomorphic to a maze rather than truly a maze. Let's say that it's a
maze you can traverse with ease, and that you are given the address of
a pub when you exit. Only if you've taken the "correct" path through
the maze do you get the address of a _good_ pub. Otherwise, you get
the address of a bad pub, and will not be able to obtain the pint of
Owlsley's Old Peculiar you need to bribe the sentry later on.

If the player has not been told the correct path, all paths result
in the inferior pub. If the player has been told the correct path,
then the puzzle works as described.

Let us suppose that the player has realised that the crytpic message
is supposed to convey information about the correct path, but doesn't
understand how. The player might then get the message, save, and try
every possible path through the maze, restoring and retrying until one
of them works.

It does look as though prohibiting saves after the cryptic message has
been imparted is necessary. Saves become possible again after the
player has exited the maze.

-- 
Adam Atkinson (ghira@mistral.co.uk)
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by
incompetence.