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Gentle Hints
The Desk  ·  The Shelf  ·  Gentle Hints  ·  The New Interactive Fiction

This is how I answer questions at the reference desk: I don't hand you the book. I walk you to the right shelf and let you find the page. Each puzzle below has three nudges, from gentle to firm. Read one, close your eyes, and go back to the game. If you're still stuck, read the next.

The answer itself is hidden in the shaded box under the nudges, printed in the same color as the box. To read it, drag your mouse across the box to highlight it. Please try the nudges first. Infocom's puzzles are a gift, and the answer is the wrapping paper.

One more thing: I describe the puzzles in my own words. I don't reproduce the games' text here. Go play them, they say it better.


The Babel Fish
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. You're on the Vogon ship, there's a dispenser on the wall, and the fish keeps getting away.

First nudge. The fish isn't the problem. Watch where it goes every time you push the button.

Second nudge. It doesn't get away just once. It gets away in a different way every time you stop it, one after another. You'll be solving several small puzzles in a row, not one big one.

Third nudge. Everything you need, you're already wearing or carrying, and has been since before the Earth was gone. Block each escape with something, starting with the first.
The answer: hang your gown on the hook, which covers the hole in the wall. Put the towel over the drain. Put the satchel on the floor in front of the little cleaning robot's panel. Put the junk mail on top of the satchel. Then push the button, and enjoy hearing everything.

The Thief
Zork I. A gentleman with a bag keeps wandering through the dungeon and helping himself to your treasures, and you have an egg you can't open.

First nudge. He's a nuisance, but he isn't only a nuisance. Is there something he can do that you can't?

Second nudge. Think about the jeweled egg. You can't open it without spoiling it. He's a professional.

Third nudge. Let him have it. Then find where he keeps what he takes. It's up past someone large who doesn't like visitors, and you'll want to be a good deal stronger before you call on him there.
The answer: leave the egg where the thief can steal it, or let him take it from you. He opens it in his hideout. Get past the Cyclops by saying ODYSSEUS (or ULYSSES), which sends him running, and go up the stairs to the thief's room. Fight him there, once you've built up a good score, since you get stronger as your score rises. When he's beaten, the egg is lying there open, along with everything he ever stole from you.

The Spells
Enchanter. You have a spell book. You keep trying to cast things, and the game keeps telling you, more or less, that you don't know how.

First nudge. Owning a spell book is not the same as knowing what's in it. Ask any librarian.

Second nudge. A spell has to be committed to memory before every single casting, and casting it wipes it from your mind again. Think of it as checking a book out, not buying it.

Third nudge. And when you find a new scroll, reading it uses it up. One of the spells you start out with can keep it for good.
The answer: type LEARN and the spell's name before each casting (LEARN REZROV), then cast it by name on something (REZROV GATE). And when you find a scroll, don't read it. Use GNUSTO on it (GNUSTO and then the spell's name), which copies the spell into your book so you can learn it again and again.

And One More: The Loud Room
Zork I, because I get asked about it more than any other. There's a treasure here and you can't think straight long enough to pick it up.

First nudge. It's not a quiet room, and you won't make it one by shouting.

Second nudge. Pay attention to what the room does with anything you say.

Third nudge. Sometimes the best thing to say to a room like this is exactly what it would say back to you.
The answer: type ECHO. The room changes, and you can take the platinum bar in peace.

Stuck somewhere else? Write to the desk at [email protected], and tell me where you are and what you've tried. I'll write back with a first nudge, and I'll wait to hear whether you want the second. I've had a few people tell me that's maddening. I've had more tell me, a week later, that they're glad I did it.


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Last updated September 21, 1999