Complete walkthrough of the public domain TI-99/4A text adventure "Gnome". Author and year unknown.
This game is available on disk 1420 of the Tigercub public domain collection (Text Adventures #4).
I have fixed three bugs in this game and created an updated copy of Tigercub disk 1420, containing the fixed Gnome game, available at drive.google.com/file/d/1x2jz...
The bugs fixed in the above version are
1) Where the gnome says "come back after you've gotten 14 treasures...", the message was printed on the wrong line so that half of it was obscured by the horizontal line break (tilde characters).
2) The game was only checking for the player having 13 items before proceeding past the gnome, rather than 14 as intended.
3) Some lines of BASIC code from another section, including a clear screen statement were found to be erroneously inserted immediately after the game winning message. This meant the final message could be never be seen on winning the game. Fixed by removing the out of place code and replacing it with a line to wait for a keypress before quitting the program.
The BASIC program almost fills the entire TI-99/4A memory space, so that if any fixes are added, then space must be found by removing something else. In the above case, luckily there were some superfluous lines (apparently inserted in error), which could be removed from the program.
Notes:-
it's not possible to DROP any items in this game, as there is no array of object locations, instead just flags to denote if the player is in possession of each individual object.
N, E ,S ,W can be typed as single character abbreviations or in full.
NE, SE, SW, NW must be typed as two-character abbreviations.
UP, IN, OUT must be typed in full. U, I, O are not understood.
D can be typed for DOWN.
C can be typed for CLIMB.
In the below text walkthrough, commands in square brackets are purely optional but generally informative.
Where I type "CROSS BRIDGE" and "CROSS SANDBAR", it's mainly just for illustrative purposes. In fact these commands can be abbreviated to just "CROSS", or even "CR".
Text walkthrough:-
E, S, UP, UP, LOOK, READ (Skull marks the spot and MAGIC WORD really is), D, UP, IN, SAY MAGIC WORD (after you’ve gotten 14 treasures), D, S, E, TAKE COINS (score=100), N, IN (back to field at start of game), NW, IN (rowing boat), TAKE SHOVEL, ROW, N, LOOK (skull is revealed), DIG, TAKE CHEST (score=200), W, E, CROSS BRIDGE (back to where you just dug the hole), CROSS SANDBAR (a message reveals that SNORT is a magic word), W, S, DIG, TAKE RUBIES (score=300), E, N, E, N, N, CLIMB TREE, TAKE EGG (score=400), CLIMB DOWN, NE, UP, TAKE WEATHER VANE (score=500), CLIMB DOWN, [IN], KNOCK, [TAKE EMERALDS], SNORT, TAKE EMERALDS (score=600), OUT, NW, LOOK, TAKE SWORD (score=700), W, KILL TROLLS, [E, W], TAKE GEMSTONES (score=800), W, CROSS SANDBAR, W, S, NW, SW, SW, [LOOK], W (trash heap), LOOK (you find a magic wand), TAKE WAND, TAKE VASE (score=900, but you get bitten by a snake and are now poisoned with 20 turns to live) E, NE, NE, S, E, S, S, E, N, N, N, N, N, UP, W (spring of crystal clear water), DRINK (you are now cured of the venom), E, E, E (at a stone sepulchre), [IN], WAVE WAND, TAKE DIAMOND (score=1000), TAKE DUST (this is a light source), OUT, W, S, S, D, S, IN, NW, SW, IN (the dust glows revealing a platinum bar), TAKE BAR (score=1100), OUT, NE, IN (rowing boat), E, S (beached on the coast of an island), E, LOOK (you find a silver chalice), TAKE CHALICE (score=1200), W, S, [LOOK], UP, LOOK DOOR (solid jade knocker), TAKE KNOCKER (score=1300), [IN], WAVE WAND, [LOOK], IN, TAKE IDOL (score=1400), OUT, N, N (boat dock), S, E, S, UP, IN (gnome), SAY MAGIC WORD, TAKE RINGS (Congratulations you've completed this adventure.)
The game winning message mentions a sequel "Inside gnome mountain", although I have not managed to find it.