WALKTHROUGH FOR “RANS,” BY BOB REEVES

[This will be a rather leisurely walkthrough, to show you a few of the interesting things about this game you might not notice if you’re racing for the finish.  (The absolutely necessary steps will be in green, if you demand a flat solution.)  When you find yourself in the hotel room, you can ...]

GO NORTHWEST

OPEN THE DOOR

WRITE MY NOVEL

LOOK UNDER THE BED

[Oh, I guess you can’t do any of that.  Let’s see if we’re carrying anything that’ll help.]

INVENTORY

[Now that looks awful tasty!]

DRINK THE RYE

[Ahem.  Fastest and easiest way to lose.  Sorry about that.]

UNDO

[Obviously we need to sober up.  Here’s the most obvious place to start.]

EXAMINE THE COFFEEMAKER

[But there isn’t anything to pour water from ... or put the coffee in, for that matter, should we manage to make some.  We’ll have to be resourceful.]

SOUTHEAST

[There could be something useful here!]

EXAMINE THE TOILETRIES

[That plastic bottle would melt in the coffeemaker (really, check it out!), but we can always improve our deportment.]

GET THE BOTTLE OF MOUTHWASH

LOOK IN IT

GARGLE WITH THE ACTUAL MOUTHWASH

THROW THE PLASTIC BOTTLE IN THE WASTEBASKET

[And now to use the only workable container we have, though it pains us sorely ...]

DUMP THE RYE

OPEN THE TAP

FILL THE GLASS BOTTLE

TURN OFF THE WATER

NORTHWEST

[The coffeemaker is boobytrapped in various lovely ways you can surely discover without my help.  First of all, it has a lid.]

OPEN THE MAKER

FILL IT

CLOSE IT

PUT THE BOTTLE UNDER THE BASKET

[Now we should make sure there’s fresh coffee in the coffee basket.  Is there?  What do you think.]

GET THE BASKET

LOOK AT IT

EXAMINE THE OLD FILTER

[Yeah, better get rid of that before we do anything else.]

SOUTHEAST

DUMP THE OLD FILTER

NORTHWEST

[But we haven’t seen new filters anywhere.  Hey, wasn’t there another exit from this room?]

EAST

EXAMINE THE BOX

[That’s it.]

GET A FILTER

PUT IT IN THE BASKET

[Now to tackle those packets of coffee we saw in the other room.]

WEST

GET A PACKET

OPEN IT

[Hm.  Well, what I always do is ...]

BITE IT

POUR THE COFFEE GROUNDS INTO THE FILTER

[Now don’t forget what examining the basket told you about how to put it back in the maker.]

LINE UP THE BASKET

AGAIN

AGAIN

[And ... that seems to be everything.  Let’s hope for the best.]

TURN ON THE MAKER

WAIT

WAIT

LOOK IN THE BOTTLE

GET THE BOTTLE

DRINK THE SLUDGY COFFEE

[And that’s that.  Umberto Eco claimed he made the first hundred pages of The Name of the Rose deliberately tedious so only readers who were seriously invested in the story would continue.  If you like, that’s the rationale behind the coffeemaker puzzle too.  (Plus it’s even more annoying than the babel fish puzzle in the Hitchhiker game, and therefore the first among several Infocom homages I insisted you suffer through.)  Skip to leaving the room if you want, but now that we’re no longer drunk, we have the opportunity to explore lots of stuff we couldn’t do anything about before.]

EXAMINE THE BED

WRITE THE NOVEL

PICK UP THE PHONE

CALL MY PUBLISHER

CALL ROOM SERVICE

HANG UP THE PHONE

OPEN THE MINIBAR

EXAMINE THE GOUDA

GET IT

UNWRAP IT

GET THE BEER

EXAMINE IT

OPEN IT

SOUTHEAST

EXAMINE THE TOWEL

EXAMINE THE TOILET

OPEN IT

TAKE A SHOWER

NORTHWEST

[So, we’ve learned a little more about what’s here and what you can and can’t do with it.  Here’s one more thing you can’t do at the moment:]

LOOK UNDER THE BED

[Nor can you move it, by the way.  Just file that away.  Now, ready to leave the room?]

OPEN THE DOOR

NORTHWEST

SOUTHWEST

PUSH THE BUTTON

WAIT

NORTH

PUSH L

WAIT

SOUTH

NO

SOUTH

[Argh.  No fresh air this way.  Well, there’s one more place we haven’t been ...]

PUSH P

WAIT

SOUTH

WEST

EXAMINE PEACE

EXAMINE THE STARS

EXAMINE THE GREEN STAR

[... which brings us to the GREEN GAME.  First, a useful verb when you’re in the novel:  REMEMBER.  The responses usually mention further things you can remember about your story and characters.  For instance:]

REMEMBER KYUB

REMEMBER THE HOUSE

REMEMBER THE REBELLION

REMEMBER THE CRYSTAL WARRIORS

REMEMBER SEPHYR

REMEMBER THE SOCIETY OF MAKERS

[... and there are others.  Do this in later “chapters” too, when you may have written more about any of these things.  Now before tackling the House, let’s see what there is in the other direction.]

DOWN

DOWN

EXAMINE THE PLAIN

[We won’t do so, but if you come back to this location after messing around in the House awhile, a huge rebel army arrives and prepares to assault the House.]

DOWN

DOWN

[Later, the army builds a ford and begins to climb the path.  It won’t come as a surprise if I tell you it’s not a good idea to be here when that happens.]

UP

UP

[Oh, and by the way, if when you’re here you should happen to ...]

EXAMINE THE ROCK

BLUE

STAND ON THE RED LINES

[... and the same is true for the blue lines, now.  Later in the game, once you successfully complete this section in either of the possible ways, you can stand on green lines to return here and try out the other ending, then use the red or blue lines to jump ahead again.  Time to explore the House of Kyub!]

UP

UP

NORTH

[Here we meet the first weirdness about this House.  When you enter, you randomly go to one of two rooms called Modest Antechamber, with the same description except for the directions you can go.  One has doorways leading south, east, west, northeast and northwest.  Call that Antechamber 1.  The other (reached by going west from Antechamber 1) has doorways leading south, east, northeast and north.  This is Antechamber 2, and you can get back to Antechamber 1 by going east.  I bet you want to see what’s in these cupboards.  Here’s what happens in Antechamber 1:]

OPEN THE CUPBOARDS

LEFT

GET THE NOSE

EXAMINE IT

WEAR IT

OPEN THE RIGHT CUPBOARD

GET THE LODESTONE

EXAMINE IT

DROP IT

SPIN IT

PICK IT UP

[Now we’ll go look in the cupboards in Antechamber 2.  These objects can’t leave the House.  If you go south from either Antechamber carrying them, they’ll return to their cupboards.]

WEST

OPEN THE LEFT CUPBOARD

GET THE SOCK

EXAMINE IT

WEAR IT

OPEN IT

GET THE STICK

EXAMINE IT

OPEN THE RIGHT CUPBOARD

GET THE SANDBAG

EXAMINE IT

OPEN IT

[If you have score notification on, you’ll notice that your score went up when you had all five of these things in your inventory.  We’re about to discover a rather basic maze (oh no, not a maze!) with five rooms, which can be mapped in the old tried and true way by dropping these five objects and noting where all the exits lead.  But the objects have a more important function than that:  they are weather controllers.  I’ll show you what I mean in a minute, but you’ve probably already noticed that the carrot nose is something one might associate with snow, the lodestone with lightning, the sock with wind, the swizzle stick with summer sun and the sandbag with floods.  I won’t make you go through the maze-mapping, but we’ll visit all the rooms,  leave a controller in each one, and watch what happens.]

EAST

NORTHEAST

EXAMINE THE FIXTURE

PUT THE SOCK IN THE FIXTURE

NORTH

PUT THE SWIZZLE STICK IN THE FIXTURE

EAST

[Whoa!  This room must be controlled by the fixture in the Gray Room where we left the sock.  If you mapped this room in advance, you’d know that the door back to Antechamber 1 is south.  But let’s leave something in the fixture before we exit.]

PUT THE SANDBAG IN THE FIXTURE

SOUTH

[This is the Gray Room with the swizzle stick in the fixture.  So now we know that in the Blustery Room we need to go the opposite direction to the route we want to take.  We reach the first Gray Room by going northwest from here, but ...]

NORTHWEST

[It’s now a Flooded Room because we left the sandbag in the Gray Room that controls it.  The trick about this room is that you can only leave by the way you came (which is north).  Then we get back to the Antechamber by going south.]

NORTH

SOUTH

[Successfully this time.  Now let’s find the other Gray Rooms.]

NORTHWEST

PUT THE NOSE IN THE FIXTURE

SOUTHEAST

[And this time when we revisit the second Gray Room:]

EAST

[And there’s just one room to go.]

SOUTHEAST

[This is a special room.  All the other controllers have been placed in their fixtures, including the one that controls this room, but this fixture (which is also special) needs to be filled.]

EXAMINE THE FIXTURE

PUT THE LODESTONE IN THE FIXTURE

[I like to put the lodestone here so I can get at it faster, but it could be anywhere except the second Gray Room:  the swizzle stick needs to go there.  If you’re curious, this room controls the room where we put the nose (WEST, WEST, NORTHWEST from here), and the lodestone has turned it into a Stormy Room.  More importantly, though, when you placed the fifth controller, this room finally changed.]

LOOK

EXAMINE THE CASKETS

SMALLER

READ IT

EXAMINE THE LARGER CASKET

READ IT

[The Balmy Room won’t open at all, by the way, if the stick is in any other fixture.  This lightning Kyub refers to probably has something to do with the lodestone.  When we spun it on the floor, nothing happened.  What about when it’s in a fixture?]

TURN THE ARROW NORTH

[Ah.  So, at this point you have a choice.  You can stop the army coming (they’re here by now—go look if you don’t believe me) by destroying their ford, which is roughly southeast of here, or you can direct it at this room (don’t worry, it won’t hurt you) and conceal the caskets.  The only way to this room from an antechamber is northeast, so ...]

TURN THE ARROW NORTHEAST

[... for instance.  And remember, later in the game you can revisit these parts and do it the other way.  (If you can’t wait, you can try both methods now by typing UNDO.)  Now we’re pretty much done, except for one thing.]

WEST

SOUTH

EXAMINE THE NECKLACE

PICK IT UP

[But where are we now?]

OPEN THE DOOR

EXAMINE THE BED

EXAMINE THE TABLE

SOUTHWEST

[We seem even more limited than when we were drunk.  Keep trying—there is one thing we can do.]

READ THE PAPER

[This is Ralph the doorman’s room, and we now know how to get past him!  That is, if we ever get back to the real world and have a solid body again.  For that to happen, all we have to do is]

WAIT

WAIT

[Turns may vary depending on how many things you tried in Ralph’s room.]

EAST

SOUTHEAST

GET THE BEER

NORTHWEST

PUSH THE BUTTON

WAIT

NORTH

PUSH L

WAIT

SOUTH

EXAMINE THE PLANT

GIVE THE BEER TO RALPH

SOUTH

SOUTH

[Grr.  So, we’ve encountered another obstacle.  On the bright side, we do have something to write about now!]

NORTH

PUSH THE BUTTON

WAIT

NORTH

PUSH P

WAIT

SOUTH

SOUTHEAST

WRITE THE NOVEL

[Yay!  Looks like we’re finally on our way.  But that wasn’t much of a story yet, was it?  We’re out of whiskey too, alas.  But maybe something to eat will help.]

GET THE GOUDA

UNWRAP IT

[Wow.  Welcome to the RED GAME, and one of those infuriating guess-the-verb puzzles.  There are actually a couple of actions which will work in each situation, but the following sequence will get you through the battle.  (If you thought the Green Game was too cerebral, though, I bet your blood pressure wishes you were back there!)]

DUCK

KICK THE DUST

JUMP ON THE CART

SOMERSAULT

PROTECT JEPOS

FALL DOWN

RETURN TO THE FIGHT

JEPOS, HELP

[At this point you have a little breathing room.  You could catch up with your story ...]

ENTER THE NICHE

REMEMBER JEPOS

REMEMBER THE RESISTANCE

REMEMBER THE SOCIETY OF MAKERS

[Or ...]

EXAMINE JEPOS

HUG JEPOS

KISS HER

[And if you want to take it further, it’s up to you, but she’s also a source of info.]

ASK JEPOS ABOUT THE SQUADRON

ASK HER ABOUT HERSELF

[Wait a minute ...  Gaa!  Your own leader in contact with the enemy?  Better listen to this conversation!]

WAIT

WAIT

WAIT

WAIT [till Kamendro says “dead hand.”

See if you still have it.  That might be something you could distract them with ...]

INVENTORY

THROW THE NECKLACE

LEAVE THE NICHE

LOOK

GET ALL

ASK JEPOS ABOUT KAMENDRO

ASK JEPOS ABOUT THE POCKET DOORWAY

ASK JEPOS ABOUT ME

OUT

VOMIT

[It seemed appropriate.  And here in the Quiet Corner, you once again have a choice.  You can send Jepos to kill Kamendro, or you can do the chivalrous thing and go yourself.  (Step on red lines, the next time you see some, to experience the other choice.  And you might want to ...)]

EXAMINE THE LINES

GREEN

[But we won’t worry about that on this playthrough.  As to Kamendro, it’s really more fun if you do the deed yourself.]

TAKE THE SWORD

GIVE JEPOS THE POCKET DOORWAY

ENTER THE DOORWAY

EXAMINE THE MIRROR

GET IT

GET THE PARCHMENT

READ IT

KILL KAMENDRO

DROP THE PARCHMENT OUT THE WINDOW

[And now we’re back in one of these “ghost” situations.]

NORTH

EAST

EXAMINE THE TABLE

WAIT

WAIT

WAIT

WAIT

[That was your hotel he was talking about, wasn’t it?  And here you are!  Is this a way to get the traffic to ease?]

DANCE

SOUTH

WEST

EXAMINE THE BUM

BUM, GO AWAY

[Okay, well, we’ve come a little farther, but we don’t know how to get past the bum.  As you’ve probably guessed, there’ll be another “ghost” sequence where you learn how to do that.  For now, back to the hotel!]

NORTH

NORTH	

PUSH THE BUTTON

WAIT

NORTH

PUSH P

WAIT

SOUTH

SOUTHEAST

WRITE

EXAMINE THE GOUDA

UNWRAP IT

[Well, I know there’s something around that’ll get me back to RANS, but I’ve done just about everything I can think of with all this stuff.  There was one thing I couldn’t interact with before.  Maybe now that Ralph’s asleep on his feet?]

NORTHWEST

PUSH THE BUTTON

WAIT

NORTH

PUSH L

WAIT

SOUTH

EXAMINE THE PLANT

GET THE DUFFEL

[Okay then, this is more like it.  No mazes, no street battles, a pleasant country lane.  The BLUE GAME, your final visit to RANS.]

INVENTORY

[Yes, you’ve got these two things from your previous visits again.]

LOOK IN THE MIRROR

NORTHEAST

SIT IN THE SHADE

LISTEN TO THE WHISPERING

EXAMINE THE BOOK

GET UP

GET THE BOOK

READ IT

BOOK, HELLO

EXAMINE THE BOOK

OPEN IT

ASK THE BOOK ABOUT ITSELF

NORTHEAST

EXAMINE THE BANNERS

EXAMINE THE RED

ROCK

[Aha.  If you wanted to try making different choices in either of the previous games, now’s your chance.  But for the walkthrough, onward.]

ENTER THE CONTEST

[Your choice for the Blue Game is a simple one.  Since you’re the author of this story, you get to decide whether the war has ended or is still going on.  Peace, of course, is nicer.]

PEACE

[There’s no line of rock you can step on to change your mind.  But you can RESTORE.  In the meantime, while away the contest by asking Tringle about things.  His answers would, of course, be different if you’d chosen WAR.]

ASK TRINGLE ABOUT THE CONTEST

ASK HIM ABOUT THE REBELLION

ASK HIM ABOUT THE LOYALISTS

ASK HIM ABOUT SEPHYR

ASK HIM ABOUT JEPOS

ASK HIM ABOUT THE CRYSTAL WARRIORS

ASK HIM ABOUT THE CAPITAL

ASK HIM ABOUT THE MIRROR

ASK HIM ABOUT THE MARKET TOWN

ASK HIM ABOUT HIMSELF

ASK HIM ABOUT RANS

SHOW HIM THE BOOK

[But now it’s your turn.  What are you going to say?  Fortunately, you don’t have to be inspired.  (You’ve still got writer’s block anyway!)  All you need to do is—]

OPEN THE BOOK

[If you’d chosen WAR, you would’ve had to do a few extra things to be worthy of the prize.  Either way, here it is.]

EXAMINE THE LAMP

TAKE IT

[If the game feels over, think again.  You need to get back to the bloody hotel and finish your book, but first, you need to appreciate the atmosphere in which the loathsome bum resides, to know what might make him friendlier.]

EXAMINE THE INDIVIDUAL

EXAMINE THE BARRICADE

[This is the same thing it would’ve said on the sidewalk, in case you had any doubts that this is the same bum.  Basically, the situation here is dirt ... and the solution to dirt?  What was that massively useful item in your bathroom?]

WAIT

WAIT

WAIT

WAIT

WAIT

GET THE DUFFEL BAG

PUSH THE BUTTON

WAIT

NORTH

PUSH P

WAIT

SOUTH

SOUTHEAST

SOUTHEAST

GET THE TOWEL

NORTHWEST

WRITE

READ THE BOOK

[We’ll be heading to our publisher now, but while we’re in this cursed room for the last time, let’s do the one remaining thing we couldn’t do before.]

LIGHT THE LAMP

LOOK UNDER THE BED

TURN OFF THE LAMP

[Gotta conserve light sources, always!]

NORTHWEST

PUSH THE BUTTON

WAIT

NORTH

PUSH L

WAIT

SOUTH

SOUTH

[Oh yeah.  That was why I picked up the duffel bag.]

OPEN THE BAG

PUT THE TOWEL IN IT

CLOSE THE BAG

SOUTH

SOUTH

OPEN THE BAG

GET THE TOWEL

GIVE IT TO THE BUM

WEST

[The endgame that follows is an homage to Cerberus in Zork II.  Don’t despair, you’re almost done, even when it seems there’s nothing you can do and nothing you haven’t tried.  You’re reading a walkthrough, anyway, so you know I’ll steer you right.  To prepare ourselves, let’s check out this magazine we found, in case it comes in handy.]

EXAMINE THE ISSUE OF MIZ

READ THE FIRST ARTICLE

LOOK AT THE FIRST ARTICLE

LOOK AT THE SECOND ARTICLE

LOOK AT THE THIRD ARTICLE

LOOK AT THE FOURTH ARTICLE

LOOK AT THE FIFTH ARTICLE

NORTH

WEST

EXAMINE JUDY

JUDY, HELLO

TOUCH JUDY

HIT JUDY

WAVE

DANCE

JUMP ON THE DESK

[See what I mean?  She will respond to the Mizopolitan articles, but be careful to show her the right ones, in the right order!]

SHOW JUDY THE SECOND ARTICLE

SHOW JUDY THE FOURTH ARTICLE

[Actually you could show her those in reverse order, but you have to end by saying]

SHOW HER THE THIRD ARTICLE

[And with the final command, I bid you farewell.]

WEST