LOOK AGAIN
How a two-word command in a text-adventure game became a life lesson
In 1981, my Apple ][+ computer came with only a disk operating system and some utilities, but no software to otherwise speak of. I used the BASIC interpreter and machine-language disassembler Steve Wozniak built into the Apple ][ ROMs to write programs - my initial intention for owning a computer.
When I bought the ][+, I also bought a copy of the game Castle Wolfenstein - I’d played it in the Byte Shop store in Greensboro, North Carolina where I purchased the Apple ][+. It was the era of software packaged as a 5.25" floppy disk and a photocopied (or mimeographed!) sheet of instructions in a zip-top bag, and still it cost $50. Crude as its graphics, sound and speech generation(!) were, Wolfenstein was fun, and when a Nazi SS officer entered the room ("Halt! Schweinhund!"), your skin would crawl, because unlike the other goose-stepping minions, he could see you across the room, AND cross over into adjacent rooms to chase you.
I learned a "cheat" from watching the salesman at the Byte Shop play: if you opened the disk drive door - which lifted the read/write head assembly off the disk - you'd prevent the game from saving results of the current "room" of the castle in which you were playing. So if your character got killed, you'd reboot the computer and when you rejoined the Saved game, you were back at the start of room in which you failed. If you were successful, you just closed the drive door and after some whirring and clunking your character appeared in the room into which you just entered through a "doorway." I still have the sense of realizing I'd left the door closed on one of my Disk ][s and reaching forward in a panic to flip it open and prevent disaster.
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Eventually, I collected three "text adventures." Actually, Planetfall and Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy were text adventures from Infocom, publisher of the early interactive adventure game Zork. The third adventure game I had was The Dark Crystal, based upon the Jim Henson/Frank Oz motion picture. It was a text adventure with still graphics (which I viewed in glorious Steve Wozniak 4-color video: black, white, green and magenta).
In text adventures, all interaction between the user and the game were in the form of terse text commands. Movement around the "world" were made with cardinal directions "N," "E," "S" and "W." (You'd usually invest some time drawing maps when playing these.) Objects could be "DROP"ped or collected with a "PICK UP" or "GET" command preceding the object's name.
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| Infocom's Planetfall text-adventure game (1983); (Apologies for the graphic violence) |
A very frequently used command was "LOOK." In response to this command, the game might return: "A tall, grey-haired man stands in front of the door to the tavern. In his right hand is a stein of beer. In his left hand, a sharp-looking battle axe dangles toward the ground."
At many locations in the world, though, the game would respond with, "You are in a forest," or an even less-helpful, "There is nothing here."
I don't remember the circumstances or which game I was playing, but I came to an impasse. I'd mapped every possible "square" on which the character could stand, tried every door, played with and abused every object and character and could make no progress. I don’t know how long I endured this frustration - I think it must have been days or perhaps longs. It was obviously still quite early in gameplay, as I knew there was something I was missing.
I don’t think there was a complete list of commands. The games gave you a primer with a few examples, and they encouraged you to “try” commands. If they didn’t exist, you’d get a response like, “I don’t understand GET BENT.” Sometimes, programmers would include responses like “You yell at the rock, but nothing happens.”
I wish I could remember why it was obvious that there was one place that was the obstacle - perhaps it was an obvious challenge, like a locked door, or a “mysterious box.” Whenever I’d tried the usual “LOOK” command, I’d gotten the disappointing “It’s just a mysterious box.” I’d tried this many times.
I don’t remember what inspired me to type it, but one day, I tried something new after the unsatisfying “LOOK” results:
“LOOK AGAIN”
. . . and the game responded with something like “This time, you notice a small square inscribed on the side of the box.”
Whatever it was, it was the solution, and passing through that single puzzle - which I suppose was really only solved by the player trying the undocumented “LOOK AGAIN” command - was the bottleneck that allowed me to continue gameplay.
To this day, my wife will say “Look Again” in response to some challenge which was resolved by persistently examining something, even though the examiner is convinced that they have done so exhaustively.
Today, I was in a hardware store looking for a “thread locking compound” - a substance which inhibits threaded fasteners from loosening. Store employees pointed me to the temporary “removable” compound I’d already found, and didn’t know that there might be additional types of the product intended for more permanent applications, but pointed me toward a more extensive collection of adhesives and related product.
So it was disappointing when I found two hooks full of the same “removable” product I’d already rejected. I pushed the first five or six carded bottles aside to confirm that both hooks were indeed full of the same model of product, and that one or two packages hadn’t been accidentally hung on the wrong hook. Failing that, I stood back and looked at the entire gondola of adhesives, and considered the possibility of using a cyanoacrylate “super glue” instead. Nearly defeated, I stared at the two hooks of thread locker again, and dug down all the way to the back of the right-hand hook . . .
. . . where I discovered the last four of about twelve cards were in fact the “permanent” thread-locker I’d hoped to find. I moved the eight mis-shelved cards to the left hook with their siblings, and collected my bounty.
. . . and determined that I would write this document.
What’s the takeaway? It’s a natural conclusion that part of the logical tree of deductive reasoning is the elimination of previously examined elements. It’s part of the process of reducing the possibilities until the solution or culprit becomes apparent. But the hazard lies in that we are fallible, and our observational skills are often poor, or we don’t yet know which details are important early in the deduction process. If we incorrectly exclude a candidate from subsequent consideration, we may never reach the correct conclusion.
Because circumstances don’t always allow us to be as thorough as possible on the first pass, it’s important to consider the possibility that we may have previously erred in judgement, and sometimes starting again provides new awareness and the Correct Path.
“LOOK AGAIN”
PLAY INFOCOM TEXT ADVENTURE GAMES ONLINE
This website provides playable versions of most of the Infocom text adventure games. You may have to give your web browser permission to run Java in order to play.
Ellsworth Chou
Los Angeles, September 2014
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