V1: original z5 file, 0 bytes remaining in Z-machine.

V2: bug fix to deal with a game-crashing bug using the EXITS command in the Foyer.

V3: bug fix to deal with a game-crashing bug when the teapot was reverse-linked to the doors and then opened.

V4: bug fix to deal with a game-crashing bug which I can no longer even remember what it was. Something fairly obscure yet narsty.

V5: moves to a z8 file. Deals more generally with what was really the problem in V3, namely that reverse-links can cause stack overflows on the commands OPEN, LOCK, and UNLOCK. Also probably CUT and BURN.

Some lesser bug fixes.

V6: another fix to deal with the fact that it apparently has always been possible to link the hanky to the hangings without dying it first, which cuts out the entire tea puzzle. A number of smaller updates including improvement of some of the liquid handling, better responses for attempts to color the door. Parser hacked to cope better with the behavior of scenery objects that are really standing in for multiple things.

Feature added to list the contents of containers when they are examined. (Note: this produces a double-listing bug when the tea recipe is in the hole. Should be fixed for V7.)

V7 fixes the following bugs in V6:

• Cosmetic
  • * test_attr on 0 warning if trying to take the drain hole
  • * If you try to touch something in a closed container, it prints the refusal twice.
  • * Use of color names cyan and magenta is not period-accurate and breaks the mood a bit. Substitute russet and sea-water/popinjay.
  • * Trunk says that it is open and stuff is spilling out even when there is nothing left in said trunk.
  • * The tea recipe is listed as being in the drain twice; ditto for the scrap in the fireplace.
  • * No space after the message that something is floating in the well (if, eg, you drop in a cork)
  • * Ornate key is described twice as being in the keyhole; also two descriptions in the rathole.
  • * Description of what is in the fireplace is sometimes broken.
  • * Missing linefeed after 'you manage to cut into' messages
  • * Cut handkerchief with sword returns refusal message twice.
  • * Attempting to cut the dashing hat makes no discernable difference to it
  • * If you try to hit the high shelf (without specifying what to hit), you get the message: "That is too high for you to reach.You [sic] can't hit with the nothing."
  • * Gilded key has article "an"
  • * Attempting to link yourself gives an error message saying "yourself cannot..."
  • * Full score needs to be rearranged into more sensible order
• Parse errors
  • * Examining the south wall, where the chink is, should tell you about the chink
  • * "blue" in the kitchen garden defaults to refer to the sky even if blue bottles and jars and so on are present.
  • -- Model universe seems to become unreferable-to under certain weird situations. [Experimentation failed to reproduce brokenness. A few extra synonyms added to the object just to make it feel more soundly implemented, but I'm not sure what's up with this without more detailed info.]
  • * Examining the floor and the ceiling in the root cellar will confuse the parser.
• Synonym lacks
  • * White door cannot be referred to as such
  • * Empty wine bottle, described as a blue bottle, cannot be referred to as such
  • * SNUFF BOX is not accepted for SNUFFBOX
  • * CLIMB TABLE is not implemented for GET ON TABLE
• Missing scenery
  • * Staircase to the area above the chapel
  • * White stone floor in the scullery
  • * Floor in the long salon
  • * Bottles in Among Whites
  • * Yellow hangings mysteriously vanish from room description after you look behind them.
• Modeling errors
  • Containment and supporters
    • * If you put things on the rug in the chapel, where the rat ought to notice them, it fails to respond. [solution: disallow putting things on the rug as it will obscure the pattern thereof]
    • * Wardrobe, though larger than the player, cannot be entered
    • * Cuckoo is not visible even while the hour is being struck
    • * It is possible to put the wooden box into a jar
    • * It is possible to insert jars into each other
    • * Hollow book has unlimited contents
    • * The navy cloak is treated as a supporter even when worn
    • * The rug can be used to carry things around on as a supporter even when in inventory and/or in the player's sack object
    • * It is possible to get an open container in your sack if you link it to something, then open the other container. This does not cause the liquid inside to spill.
    • * While the player is on the rope ladder deep in the well, the rope and ladder themselves are not visible, and the player can wear and take off clothes and do other things which ought to be impossible while clinging with both hands to a ladder.
  • Light sources
    • * The celestial bauble gives 'black' light when unlinked, rather than no light at all
  • Linking
    • * Cheeses should be linkable (or a better refusal)
    • * Top and bottom drawers of Marie's desk cannot be reverse linked, which is mysterious given that they are identical.
    • * Cup can be linked to well. This should be disabled.
    • * You can tie the handkerchief to get the silk brocade to fall, then untie the handkerchief, then tie it back, and each time you tie it back (while you're in the entrance) it will give the same message about the brocade falling and revealing the door.
    • * After vase and well are linked, every time the vase is emptied, itĘgives the same message about the water level sinking.
    • * While the vase and well are linked, the water level stuff is mentioned over and over even when the well is out of scope.
    • * Unlinking the mirrors causes them to report that they stop glowing, then start glowing again. This is annoying.
    • * You can link the pin or bracelet, go south into the well, and open them, and nothing happens back where Marie is.
    • * Confusing results when the box is linked to the clock and the box is opened.
    • * Large and small portraits should be linkable and reverse-linkable for added fun and games (maybe)
    • * Gold and silver coins should be linkable (though there's not a lot of point in doing that [so I just added a custom refusal])
  • Fluid modeling
    • * Brie floats. [Not sure this is true to life. Unwilling to ruin example brie in experiment, however.]
    • * Putting rat in a liquid should make the liquid undrinkable. Because yuck.
    • * I've found that when I wring out the mixture of mud and water into the washbasin or the teapot, the parser wants to call the mixture "Liquid_7". -- F. Bova; [*seems* fixed]
    • * DIP SPONGE IN WELL not treated as equivalent to DIP SPONGE IN WATER
    • * mud and water should be just mud, not "a mixture" -- DavidW. [at least, while in ditch]
    • * Possible to pollute well by squeezing mud into it.
    • * Mixtures can no longer be referred to by container (D. Porterfield)
    • -- Closed jars, and the unsoaked sponge, should float. (maybe; not sure at what point the sponge becomes soaked. [Omitted. Too much work for something that is too entirely irrelevant in the game world. Interesting point for later, though.])
  • Destruction
    • * Assorted items, when cut up, simply vanish from the game. This confuses people and perhaps should be fixed.
    • * Cutting up the chocolate rose destroys it but does not remove the vines from the game.
    • * Breaking the stained glass windows in the chapel should be disallowed, just like breaking any other windows in the game.
  • Misc
    • * Onion describes itself as yellow even in other lights.
    • * Opening the container with the bee inside while you are not present in the room, even if there is a cheese in the container, does not cause the appropriate bee-rat chain reaction.
    • * Putting (unopened!) bottle of mead near the bee causes it to fly in.
    • * Description of ornate key being 'on the other side of the lock' regardless of where you are.
    • * "That's impossible" errors for some cases of looking at the room object.
    • * Pushing doors doesn't do anything interesting.
    • * Put finger in something, etc., lead to humorously wrong responses; need better handling of body parts.
    • * TAKE OFF PIN results in wackiness whereby it opens the clasp explicitly, the pin falls off, and then the game complains you're not wearing the pin.
    • * D'Envers cannot be EXAMINED through the mirror during the brief period when he appears
    • * Chocolate recipe label changes as your knowledge of the dark beans changes, which is not right.
• Needed additional responses/game possibilities
  • * More interesting default answers for THINK, PRAY, WAKE.
  • * Need a better refusal for why you can't take the brocade even when it's fallen to the floor.
  • * The seat of the pianoforte claims not to be something you can sit on.
  • * Push barrel [direction] should have a refusal or just simply work
  • * If the bee is in the dark box, and you put the dark box in a container that will sink, and then drop it into the well, then open something linked to the dark box, and watch in the mirror, when the bee flies out you get a bug; Perhaps something could be said about it drowning. [I think this is made irrelevant in the later version by the reformulation of the container rules which prevent the box being put in anything that can be sunk]
  • * It would be nice if there were a little hint when you link the sword and the ornate key and turn the sword but the sword is not in the sheath. (dfan)
  • * Response for scratching around the brick with a knife [Urbatain]
  • * LOOK UNDER SUNDIAL tells you merely that there is nothing there
  • * Using quotation marks around Couligne confuses parser
  • * TURN ORNATE KEY tells you that nothing happens.
  • * Ought to be possible to block the rathole while the rat is outside it
  • * Some response requested for PUT BAUBLE IN MOUTH
  • * Add a turn of freedom in the endgame in which you can do something about Marie's situation.
  • * Mixture names could stand to be more interestingly descriptive [A few were added; there wasn't space for more.]
  • -- Filling the vase, while it is linked to the well, does not replace the liquid in the well with new liquid. [For complex reasons, too much of a pain to do.]
  • * Books r-linked to each other should offer more interesting text
    • * r-linking Lavori to the fanciful novel should produce a novel version of SF itself. -- Jota [well... sort of]
  • * Possible it would be nice to be able to pick up the chair in the count/countess' bedroom and take it back to the high shelf to retrieve anything left there
  • * Disappointing and anticlimactic to find the corkscrew when one has already opened the wine bottles. [Now appears only if some bottles are yet unopened.]
  • * Peeling the onion while it is linked does not make anything happen to the bauble or the sponge.
• Severe Ugliness and Evil
  • * Reverse-linking the World Is Hollow to another book, then closing it, causes a stack overflow and death.
  • * Standing on the rug, then cutting it up, moves the player out of the world model entirely.
  • * GO TO HOLE near the rathole moves the player into the Class object
• Features
  • * Menu system
  • * Instructions for introducing interactive fiction