Spoiler Column
Q. How do you keep from freezing to death on the ice bridge in John's Fire Witch? No matter what I do (i.e., use the card to teleport, keep moving) I always freeze after three moves on the bridge past the devil. Help!A. There are two things you'll need to have in order to safely navigate the ice bridge: the red gem (from the vault guarded by the demon) and the ring from the bottle in the Safe Room. And where is the Safe Room? Well, have you gone through the archway (which gives you a "strange feeling") in the Side Corridor? After you go through it once to trap the demon, try going through it a second time... Of course, there are still a couple of puzzles for you to figure out: how to unlock the safe, and how to get the ring physically out of the bottle.
Q. I don't know if "Gabriel Knight " falls strictly within the realm of interactive fiction, but I'm completely stuck in Day 8 and hope you can help. What do I do in the library? I can't find anything useful in the books here but it was so much work to get into this room that I figure that I must be missing something. Please help.
A. In XYZZYnews, the terms "interactive fiction" and "text adventure" are often used interchangeably, which would leave out games like "Gabriel Knight" or "Return to Zork." But it seems to me that most text adventure fans are also the same ones who're playing the graphical adventures, even if it's just to say how much they hate them. :) Personally, I usually count as IF any game where you get an inventory and use objects from it to affect your environment, which includes the Sierra games but pretty much leaves out "Myst." But anyway, to get back to Day 8 of GK... Random browsing may not get you much of anywhere (as you've discovered). You first need to examine each section or each shelf to learn which bookshelves are devoted to which topics. As you search thoroughly, you'll eventually find a book that will catch Gabriel's eye and he'll pull it out and read it. At the end of the excerpt from the book there should be a reference to another book you should read. You then need to find the aforementioned book, and read that excerpt through in order to find a reference to yet another book. Repeat this process until it produces more tangible results for you.
Q. I'm a little embarrassed to bug you for spoilers, especially since this game ["The Legend Lives!"] already has hints built in (am I lame or what?) but I can't find any help for the answer to this question and don't have the patience for too much trial and error. I've gotten all the little toys from the cranemaster in Elwood's Eats but can't figure out what to do with them.
A. There are six items you can retrieve from the crane machine, but the only item that you're going to need elsewhere in the game is the firecracker. Now all you need to think about is where it'll do you the most good to do something destructive, and how you're going to get the thing lit.
Q. I am a big fan of the old text-only Infocom games. I recently found your magazine web page, and am glad to find some other folks who enjoy interactive fiction puzzle games. I hate to bug you with hint questions, but... I have recently begun tooling around again in an old Zork game I never completed, "Beyond Zork", and I am stuck. I can not move beyond the Christmas tree monsters to reach the mountain castle nor can I move beyond the throng of angry corbies in the fields of frotzen. I'm not sure which I need to do first. Could the butterfly be the key to moving beyond the trees? Are the chocolate truffles good for anything? Can the old sailor help me? Is it possible to get the helmet when you move back in time? Can you kill the monkey grinder, or, even better, steal his really cool organ? Why is a grown man concerned with such things?
A. Your last question was the best one I received this month, but alas, it's as hard to answer in such a limited space as your Beyond Zork questions as a whole. Since you say you're on the Web, I thought I'd give you the URL of a Beyond Zork walkthrough. It's at: http://wcl-rs.bham.ac.uk/GamesDomain/ walkthru/bzork.html. For your final question though, you're on your own! :D
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