SwordQuest Earthworld logic

[MrTrust]

Since getting Atari 50 with its completed version of Airworld, I've wanted to revisit the SwordQuest series and try to solve the games myself, starting with Earthworld.  So, I read the comic.  Reread the manual.  Reread the comic.  Reread the manual.  Downloaded the comic and the manual so I could reference them while I was playing, and tried to find some of the clues.  I tried reasoning from the story.  Virgo almost kills Tarra for using her dagger to break a glass ball to retrieve an item; what if I lay down all the weapons at her feet?  I tried using items the way they were used in the story; Torr uses the dagger to steal the key from Taurus, the amulet to escape from Leo, and the cloak to hide from Sagittarius.  I matched those items with those rooms.  I tried brute force; put all the items in Virgo's room, put all the items in Leo's room, and so on.  None of these approaches worked.  So, I looked to see if there were any hints online, and all I found was the entire solution.  I tried to check out the first few chores and see if I could extrapolate from those to figure out the rest.  Can't make any sense out of what I saw.

 

So, I thought what would be more fun would be to try and figure out why in the hell the solution to the game is arranged the way it way.  Now, we know that the secret phrase for the contest can be obtained from the comic without playing the game at all, but in order to collect the Warrior's Sword in the game (which is what I'm concerned with here), you have to collect all the clues in order.  I don't know if we've confirmed any of the contest entrants ever actually did this, and I am somewhat skeptical that any of them did, but we have the solution, so at some point, someone found out how to do it somehow.

 

If my calculations are correct, there are 65,535 possible combinations of the 15 available items that can be left in a given room.  There are 12 rooms, and 11 clues that have to be found in the correct order.  I don't know how to even begin calculating the odds of anyone doing that through blind guessing, but they must be astronomical.  I cannot believe that would be how they expected the player to find the clues.  The number of permutations one would have to go through in order to find them all by brute force could take a lifetime.  Can't imagine that's what they intended either.  The comic is, so far as I can tell, useless as a guide.  The solution involves combinations of items and rooms, neither of which appear in the comic at all, or do not remotely match what happens in the story.  So, while the comic might provide context and backstory, and the keywords to win the contest, it can't be used to solve the game and collect the Warrior's Sword.

 

So, what does that leave us with to figure out the logic behind the placement of the items?  Well, the first clue is obtained by having nothing (or something; doesn't matter) in Aries.  Aries is traditionally considered the first sign of the Zodiac astrological system, so this is perfectly logical.  First clue; first sign, zero items required.  Do we maybe progress around the wheel, maybe increasing the number of items/rooms needed for each clue?

 

No.  The second clue is obtained by having the Dagger in Gemini.  Gemini is the third room, though the number of required items has increased in a linear way.  Third clue requires the grappling hook to be in Cancer, and the rope in Leo.  We're moving around the wheel counter-clockwise, and increasing the number of rooms/items in what appears to be a linear way, but there is that jump from 1-3 with the second clue.  Let's, for the moment, ignore the items and just look at the rooms you have to visit for each clue, let's use their numbers rather than the signs (i.e. Aries = 1, Taurus = 2, etc.) and see if there's an identifiable numerical sequence (total number of rooms required for clue in parenthesis);

 

1 (1)
3 (1)
4,5 (2)
3,8,11 (3)
6,7,8 (3)
1,2 (2)
2,3,11,12 (4)
4,5,6,7,10 (5)
4,6,7,9,11(5)
1,2,3,6,8,11 (6)
1,2,3,4,7,8,9,10,11 (9)

 

Maybe I'm just dumb, but I can't discern any pattern here.  Maybe it has something to do with the elemental associations of the astrological signs?  Let's color them according to their elements (Fire, Water, Earth, Air)

 

1 (1)

3 (1)

4,5 (2)

3,8,11 (3)

6,7,8 (3)

1,2 (2)

2,3,11,12 (4)

4,5,6,7,10 (5)

4,6,7,9,11(5)

1,2,3,6,8,11 (6)

1,2,3,4,7,8,9,10,11 (9)

 

This... did not help.  At all.  What if we lay them out in a row?

 

1,3,4,5,3,8,11,6,7,8,1,2,2,3,11,12,4,5,6,7,10,4,6,7,9,11,1,2,3,6,8,11,1,2,3,4,7,8,9,10,11

 

Okay, maybe I'm still dumb, but I still cannot discern any kind of intelligible pattern or sequence to the order of the rooms that you have to visit.  Now, true, you don't have to visit the rooms in strict numerical order within the same clue.  What if we plotted it out as a series of counter-clockwise moves on the wheel depicted in the manual starting from Aries?

 

2,1,1,3,3,4,3,1,1,5,1,0,1,8,1,4,1,1,1,3,6,2,1,2,2,2,1,1,3,2,3,2,1,1,1,3,1,1,1,1

 

No joy.  There must be an account taken for moving through the side doors with the key, which will take you to the matching element on either side (e.g. Aries can go directly to Leo or Sagittarius).  There is at least one such possible move within the 4th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, and 11th clues.  It is possible to move this way between room sets on all but the first three.  Perhaps if the moves were drawn over the zodiac wheel, they might make some intelligible shape, maybe corresponding to the constellations of the Zodiac.  This would take time to plot out.

 

And we haven't even gotten to figuring out how any of the items would be paired with these rooms.  If there's any logic to this, it is not at all obvious.  If they intended for us to find the solution through sheer trial and error, that's idiotic from both a practical and a game design perspective.  Maybe they were idiots, but I have a feeling there is a decipherable logic here and I want to figure it out.  I suspect this will take thorough research of the Zodiac and astrology.

 

But what about it Atari Age?  Have any of you solved the game without cheating?  How did you do it?  Has anyone ever heard any explanation from the designers as to their thought process concerning the puzzle?  

 

[edladdin]

It’s not a proper game.  There’s no rhyme or reason to the objects or their placement or their combinations.  It’s all random.  It’s the opposite of everything that makes Adventure glorious, where every object and character has a purpose that flows within the narrative/story of the game.  Swordquest games are pure trash.

Edited November 26, 2022 by edladdin

[Lord_of_Sipan]

I actually did a ton of research into the swordquest games years ago because the whole situation with them is just such a bizarre train wreck. Which of the prizes still exist and who owns them today? How exactly did the “tournaments” work and did any of the contestants actually “solve” the games in the way we think of it today in terms of knowing the actual code?

 

I don’t remember the specifics but I agree that at least with Earthworld, I really don’t think anyone actually solved the game for the contest. It is my understanding that the comic “hints” were a little too obvious and the comic being pretty much the whole “puzzle” had become known pretty widely prior to the contest. This meant it was mostly just luck what word you picked to submit out of the 3 (I think?) potentially correct answers.

 

From what I recall, I do remember finding information that suggests the game solutions were known by the late 1980s at the latest but I don’t remember ever seeing anything suggesting someone solving Earthworld “in the wild” so to speak with just the manual and comic. Since I highly doubt people were dumping and analyzing 2600 roms in 1987 or something, I assume that a former Atari programmer or other employee spilled the beans about what items go where.

 

I think they had come to realize how dumb the item system was by the time they did Waterworld because that game has an item that helps you determine where I items go if I remember right, it’s been years but I seem to recall actually blind “beating” waterworld in like 70 minutes or something. Of course “beating” Waterworld is a kind of philosophically questionable concept since you have to reset the game after solving a given room if I remember so it doesn’t load an end screen like the other games when every item is correctly placed.

 

The swordquest games really suck but I do think they were working on improving the gameplay over the course of the series. Fireworld has more entertaining mini games than Earthworld I think which I think they squeezed in by simplifying the graphics somewhat to keep the rom size down. Waterworld is more manageable and “Atari sized” than the other 2 if that makes more sense. I think the legendary reputation of Adventure can make it easy to forget how short/small that game is compared to later action/rpg games which really works to its benefit given the limitations of the 2600.

[Ecernosoft]

8 hours ago, edladdin said:

It’s not a proper game.  There’s no rhyme or reason to the objects or their placement or their combinations.  It’s all random.  It’s the opposite of everything that makes Adventure glorious, where every object and character has a purpose that flows within the narrative/story of the game.  Swordquest games are pure trash.

*sad..... I liked these games as a child playing games on the emulator which were weird like these....*

[edladdin]

3 hours ago, Lord_of_Sipan said:

I actually did a ton of research into the swordquest games years ago because the whole situation with them is just such a bizarre train wreck. Which of the prizes still exist and who owns them today? How exactly did the “tournaments” work and did any of the contestants actually “solve” the games in the way we think of it today in terms of knowing the actual code?

 

I don’t remember the specifics but I agree that at least with Earthworld, I really don’t think anyone actually solved the game for the contest. It is my understanding that the comic “hints” were a little too obvious and the comic being pretty much the whole “puzzle” had become known pretty widely prior to the contest. This meant it was mostly just luck what word you picked to submit out of the 3 (I think?) potentially correct answers.

 

 

Here's an account of the tournaments that were actually held and the prizes awarded.

 

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-quest-for-the-reallife-treasures-of-ataris-swordquest

[MrTrust]

8 hours ago, edladdin said:

It’s not a proper game.

 

Yes, at best, it is a puzzle.  This was not very good adventure game design even by the standards of its day.

 

8 hours ago, edladdin said:

There’s no rhyme or reason to the objects or their placement or their combinations.  It’s all random.

 

Do we know that for sure?  The guys who conceived and designed it weren't totally incompetent programmers or designers.  This was a big deal for Atari at the time; they were heavily leveraging being under the Warner aegis, and laying out a ton of money on this thing, so presumably, they wanted someone to win the contest.

 

Now, why would you then set up a totally arbitrary solution that relied on trial and error with astronomical odds against anyone solving it?  Doesn't make sense.  The contest entry form says they expected more than 50 contestants would find all the clues which is why they set up the essay contest as a tie-breaker.  I guess that they only had 8 entries with all the correct clues, but they anticipated more than 50.

 

I agree it appears to be wholly arbitrary, but that there's no known rhyme or reason doesn't mean there's definitely not one, right?

 

6 hours ago, Lord_of_Sipan said:

I don’t remember the specifics but I agree that at least with Earthworld, I really don’t think anyone actually solved the game for the contest.

 

There is one available interview with one of the contestants.  When asked how many clues he uncovered:

 

"Three or four.  I just guessed at "Talisman" and got lucky.  Truthfully, I found the first four clues in the comic book before I found them in the game.  I didn't find them all until one of the contestants (I forget which) sent a solution later."

 

Interesting.  Perhaps this is the source of the solution known to the internet?  Of course, the interviewee says several times his memory of the event has faded, and it's possible the contestant who furnished the solution had it leaked to him by someone at Atari, so this can't be considered conclusive, but the possibility that at least one person figured it out is on the table, in which case, maybe there's something here to find.

 

I'm now reading about planetary aspect patterns.  I wonder if doing a natal astrological chart for the date of the contest deadline will reveal anything...

 

 

[schuwalker]

I believe the Fireworld winner was/is a member here - had some great stories from the contest.

 

Having owned both of these bitd while the contest was still running, I really tried to love these games. I really have more nostalgia for Earthworld moreso than Fireworld. I actually prefer Earthworlds mini games over Fireworlds. The latter seems a like a collision detection nightmare.

 

I, like the majority here, believe item placement is completely arbitrary. I tried to look for interviews from Tod Frye on the swordquest games and their completion factor - came up with nothing.

 

I didn't have Waterword bitd (regretfully passed on it), but can someone chime in - is it easier to solve than the predecessors?

[Lord_of_Sipan]

5 hours ago, schuwalker said:

 

 

I didn't have Waterword bitd (regretfully passed on it), but can someone chime in - is it easier to solve than the predecessors?

This video explains pretty well how Waterworld works. Pretty much they expanded the idea of certain items making things easier by, for example, letting you skip mini games or making them easier, and added an item to help you discover where things go. If I remember right this guy gets through the game as fast as he does because he knows where stuff goes in advance but you can beat the game blind in not that much time.

 

One thing I have always wondered is if the “tournament version” roms from Earthworld and Fireworld have ever been dumped. I know that part of the modification to the games was what rooms items where meant to go in to, but I have always speculated that those versions of games 1 and 2 had something to help you map out where stuff goes in game like Waterworld.

[Lord_of_Sipan]

Just now, Lord_of_Sipan said:

This video explains pretty well how Waterworld works. Pretty much they expanded the idea of certain items making things easier by, for example, letting you skip mini games or making them easier, and added an item to help you discover where things go. If I remember right this guy gets through the game as fast as he does because he knows where stuff goes in advance but you can beat the game blind in not that much more time.

 

One thing I have always wondered is if the “tournament version” roms from Earthworld and Fireworld have ever been dumped. I know that part of the modification to the games was what rooms items where meant to go in to, but I have always speculated that those versions of games 1 and 2 had something to help you map out where stuff goes in game like Waterworld.

 

Edited November 27, 2022 by Lord_of_Sipan
Sorry for double post. Not sure what happened

[schuwalker]

 

Some interesting tidbits on the Swordquest games. It does a deeper dive on Fireworld... it does touch on some elements from Earthworld.

[zzip]

Games where you have to just randomly try things with no rhyme or reason are just not fun.   You'll waste hours trying different combinations and probably just get bored in the process.

 

It's a shame, games like Adventure and Raiders Of The Lost Ark made me fall in love with the idea of Adventure games.   So I wanted more, and was excited when the Swordquest games arrived.  Enjoyed them at first, but as time went on I was making no progress, I just felt frustrated and dumb.

 

I think for good adventure game design, the clues must be in game,  the puzzle solutions don't have to be completely logical (see Hitchhikers Guide),  but there just needs enough information in-game to allow you solve even the craziest puzzle.   After you should feel good about solving it, not feel like "how the $#@(#$ is anybody supposed to figure that out??"

  

On 11/27/2022 at 7:29 AM, MrTrust said:

Do we know that for sure?  The guys who conceived and designed it weren't totally incompetent programmers or designers. 

I believe it was designed by Todd Frye, the 2600 Pac Man guy.   You be the judge  😉

 

 

[+KaeruYojimbo]

21 hours ago, Lord_of_Sipan said:

One thing I have always wondered is if the “tournament version” roms from Earthworld and Fireworld have ever been dumped

 

57 minutes ago, zzip said:

I believe it was designed by Todd Frye, the 2600 Pac Man guy.   You be the judge

Thread gets derailed to "I actually liked Atari Pac-Man" in 3..2..1..

[Tinman]

47 minutes ago, KaeruYojimbo said:

 

Thread gets derailed to "I actually liked Atari Pac-Man" in 3..2..1..

Well I did…. 😁

 

But I really hated Swordquest.  I so wanted it to be an updated, more complex Adventure.  And it just wasn’t.

[MrTrust]

8 hours ago, KaeruYojimbo said:

Thread gets derailed to "I actually liked Atari Pac-Man" in 3..2..1..

 

Well, as the author of this thread if that happens, it will not only be tolerated, but supported and applauded.  

[Rom Hunter]

On 11/27/2022 at 7:21 PM, Lord_of_Sipan said:

One thing I have always wondered is if the “tournament version” roms from Earthworld and Fireworld have ever been dumped.

FireWorld contest version was dumped:
http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-2600-vcs-swordquest-fireworld_25680.html

EarthWorld contest version is known to exist, but still not dumped:
http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-2600-vcs-swordquest-earthworld_25679.html

[+x=usr(1536)]

On 11/27/2022 at 6:29 AM, MrTrust said:

Yes, at best, it is a puzzle.  This was not very good adventure game design even by the standards of its day.

To make my background re: this game clear: I agree that it's a puzzle first and a game second.  However, I have very limited experience with it, and am approaching it as a puzzle rather than as a game.  Because of this, people who have more familiarity with it than I do should absolutely shoot holes in anything I may suggest; everything written here is off the cuff and very much not the product of actual research.  In other words, some or all of this could be a stretch, wild goose chase, or just plain wrong.

On 11/25/2022 at 4:57 PM, MrTrust said:

So, what does that leave us with to figure out the logic behind the placement of the items?  Well, the first clue is obtained by having nothing (or something; doesn't matter) in Aries.  Aries is traditionally considered the first sign of the Zodiac astrological system, so this is perfectly logical.  First clue; first sign, zero items required.  Do we maybe progress around the wheel, maybe increasing the number of items/rooms needed for each clue?

Something that sticks in my head: the comic makes a point on page 1 of printing the words 'prime' and 'number' in blue, when the rest of the related text is in red.  Obvious, but it's a prime number reference.  Keeping that in mind:

On 11/25/2022 at 4:57 PM, MrTrust said:

No.  The second clue is obtained by having the Dagger in Gemini.  Gemini is the third room, though the number of required items has increased in a linear way.  Third clue requires the grappling hook to be in Cancer, and the rope in Leo.  We're moving around the wheel counter-clockwise, and increasing the number of rooms/items in what appears to be a linear way, but there is that jump from 1-3 with the second clue.  Let's, for the moment, ignore the items and just look at the rooms you have to visit for each clue, let's use their numbers rather than the signs (i.e. Aries = 1, Taurus = 2, etc.) and see if there's an identifiable numerical sequence (total number of rooms required for clue in parenthesis);

There is a recognisable pattern, but it breaks partway through.  Continuing on:

On 11/25/2022 at 4:57 PM, MrTrust said:

1 (1)
3 (1)
4,5 (2)
3,8,11 (3)

1, 1, 2, 3 are the second through fifth numbers of the Fibonacci Sequence, written individually without the need to calculate them.  I'm not totally disregarding the fact that the sequence starts at zero, but this is the obvious association.

On 11/25/2022 at 4:57 PM, MrTrust said:

6,7,8 (3)
1,2 (2)

These add up to 5, which would follow on from 3.  This is a stretch.

On 11/25/2022 at 4:57 PM, MrTrust said:

2,3,11,12 (4)
4,5,6,7,10 (5)

And this is where I have to stop making tenuous connections, because 4 and 5 add up to 9, and the number at this point in the sequence should be 8.

On 11/25/2022 at 4:57 PM, MrTrust said:

4,6,7,9,11(5)
1,2,3,6,8,11 (6)
1,2,3,4,7,8,9,10,11 (9)

Nothing immediately-notable in these three, either.

On 11/25/2022 at 4:57 PM, MrTrust said:

Maybe I'm just dumb, but I can't discern any pattern here.  Maybe it has something to do with the elemental associations of the astrological signs?  Let's color them according to their elements (Fire, Water, Earth, Air)

 

1 (1)

3 (1)

4,5 (2)

3,8,11 (3)

6,7,8 (3)

1,2 (2)

2,3,11,12 (4)

4,5,6,7,10 (5)

4,6,7,9,11(5)

1,2,3,6,8,11 (6)

1,2,3,4,7,8,9,10,11 (9)

 

This... did not help.  At all.  What if we lay them out in a row?

 

1,3,4,5,3,8,11,6,7,8,1,2,2,3,11,12,4,5,6,7,10,4,6,7,9,11,1,2,3,6,8,11,1,2,3,4,7,8,9,10,11

The one thing that does stand out is that 12 (Pisces, if I'm not mistaken) only appears once in each sequence.  Could be a starting point for other calculations, or a 'true North' for how to orient the Zodiac against other data.

On 11/25/2022 at 4:57 PM, MrTrust said:

Okay, maybe I'm still dumb, but I still cannot discern any kind of intelligible pattern or sequence to the order of the rooms that you have to visit.  Now, true, you don't have to visit the rooms in strict numerical order within the same clue.  What if we plotted it out as a series of counter-clockwise moves on the wheel depicted in the manual starting from Aries?

 

2,1,1,3,3,4,3,1,1,5,1,0,1,8,1,4,1,1,1,3,6,2,1,2,2,2,1,1,3,2,3,2,1,1,1,3,1,1,1,1

I've got nothing here either.

 

Pure gut feeling is that this was a poorly-assembled puzzle incorporating elements from different disciplines, but that those elements are badly (or incorrectly) correlated.  This doesn't exclude the possibility that I'm barking up trees on all of this, but it seems like someone at least tried to create something out of a bunch of disparate pieces.

atari_earthworld.pdf

[MrTrust]

50 minutes ago, x=usr(1536) said:

Pure gut feeling is that this was a poorly-assembled puzzle incorporating elements from different disciplines, but that those elements are badly (or incorrectly) correlated.  This doesn't exclude the possibility that I'm barking up trees on all of this, but it seems like someone at least tried to create something out of a bunch of disparate pieces.

 

This is my feeling also.  The Prime number clue is known; only pages that are prime numbers contain the correct keywords for the contest.  But, I have a similar hunch that the solution, if one indeed exists,  has something to do with numbers and/or numerology and it's relationship to astrology.

 

Can't make head nor tail out of just looking at the room sequence.  I guess I need to look more closely at the items, starting with what rooms each item gets placed in:

 

Dagger - Gemini, Taurus, Taurus
Hook - Cancer, Libra, Scorpio, Libra
Rope - Leo, Virgo, Scorpio
Ring - Aquarius, Virgo, Taurus, Libra
Key - Scorpio, Aries, Taurus
Necklace - Gemini, Libra, Gemini
Sword - Virgo, Leo, Gemini, Capricorn
Food - Scorpio, Taurus, Virgo, Scorpio
Shoes - Aries, Virgo, Aquarius
Water - Aries, Pisces, Gemini
Amulet - Gemini, Scorpio, Cancer
Armor - Aquarius, Aquarius, Libra
Cloak - Capricorn, Aquarius, Aries
Lamp - Libra, Cancer, Cancer
Talisman - Cancer, Sagittarius, Sagittarius

 

The only thing that jumps out at me is that the ring, rope, sword, food, and grappling hook get used for four clues.  Everything else gets used for three.  I've traced out the different items' paths on the wheel, hoping it might make some recognizable aspect patterns.  Thus far, no joy.  Perhaps numbering then out will reveal something (point of origin in parenthesis on left):

 

Dagger: (0) 3,2,2 (0)

Hook: (0) 4,7,8,7 (1)

Rope: (0) 5,6,7 (0)

Ring: (4) 11,6,2,7 (3)

Key: (2) 8,1,2 (2)

Necklace: (6) 3,7,3 (0)

Sword: (3) 6,5,3,10 (3)

Food: (5) 8,2,6,8 (3)

Shoes: (2) 1,6,11 (2)

Water: (11) 1,12,3 (2)

Amulet: (8) 3,7,4 (2)

Armor: (10) 11,11,7 (0)

Cloak: (9) 10,11,1 (1)

Lamp: (3) 7,4,4 (1)

Talisman (11) 4,9,9 (2)

 

Hmmm...  I wonder how many of these moves are adjacent, considering all rooms 4 apart are adjacent through the side doors.  I count them out and put them parenthetically on the right. I trace these paths out on the wheel, but I can't identify anything predictable from the movements.  Looking at them as number sequences is not helping.

 

Frustrating.  It feels like something intelligible can be teased out of this, but every time I seem to be onto something, one of the sequences breaks the pattern.  Perhaps I have to look harder at numerology and see if that reveals anything.

[+x=usr(1536)]

2 minutes ago, MrTrust said:

The Prime number clue is known; only pages that are prime numbers contain the correct keywords for the contest.

Ah, OK, thanks.  Out of curiosity, on the same page, the 'E' and 'W' in 'Earthworld' received the same treatment.  Obvious connotation is that they're representing East and West; have those also been worked out?

5 minutes ago, MrTrust said:

But, I have a similar hunch that the solution, if one indeed exists,  has something to do with numbers and/or numerology and it's relationship to astrology.

Funny you should mention numerology: I ran some very basic numerological maths against what you had found, mainly in the context of trying to extrapolate out the rest of the Fibonacci Sequence.  Clearly, that went nowhere, but that did lead me on to the idea that this is a multi-discipline puzzle.

18 minutes ago, MrTrust said:

Water - Aries, Pisces, Gemini

This is another solitary appearance of Pisces.  Nothing else gets placed in its room.

20 minutes ago, MrTrust said:

The only thing that jumps out at me is that the ring, rope, sword, food, and grappling hook get used for four clues.  Everything else gets used for three.

Water and the sword are outliers, though.  Those are the only two items to ever be used uniquely in a specific room - Pisces and Capricorn, respectively.  No other item maps to those rooms.

29 minutes ago, MrTrust said:

Hmmm...  I wonder how many of these moves are adjacent, considering all rooms 4 apart are adjacent through the side doors.  I count them out and put them parenthetically on the right. I trace these paths out on the wheel, but I can't identify anything predictable from the movements.  Looking at them as number sequences is not helping.

When you mention rooms four apart, are you picturing the rooms as being laid out on the map in either of these two ways:

• [1][2][3][4]
• [1][2][3][4][5][6]

I'm taking the wraparound at the edges as read; there's just not really a good way to represent it with text.

39 minutes ago, MrTrust said:

Frustrating.  It feels like something intelligible can be teased out of this, but every time I seem to be onto something, one of the sequences breaks the pattern.

Pisces and Capricorn are bugging me.  No idea why they're the only rooms to receive unique items.

39 minutes ago, MrTrust said:

Perhaps I have to look harder at numerology and see if that reveals anything.

Can't hurt.  One other thing that crossed my mind: astronomy vs. astrology.  Can't see off the top of my head how the two might correlate, but anything's possible.

[MrTrust]

25 minutes ago, x=usr(1536) said:

Ah, OK, thanks.  Out of curiosity, on the same page, the 'E' and 'W' in 'Earthworld' received the same treatment.  Obvious connotation is that they're representing East and West; have those also been worked out?

 

Not to my knowledge.  It's an interesting possibility, though I'm not sure that they had cardinal directions in mind, because they layout of the map is like so:

 

 

Aries is 1 and Pisces is 12 in astrology, so that's where the numbering scheme comes in.  In the game, it's a typical top-down projection.  "South" in this case corresponds to counterclockwise on the wheel.  "East" will skip the next three rooms, and the opposite directions correspond to clockwise moves. Therefore, Aries (1), Leo (5), and Sagittarius (9) are all adjacent.  Additionally, Aries (1) is adjacent to Taurus (2) and Pisces (12).  Every room other than Cancer (4) and Capricorn (10) can be accessed in two moves.

 

The 1-5-9, 2-6-10, 3-7-11, 4-8-12 groupings forms the elemental triplicities of Fire, Earth, Air, Water, respectively.  I have a feeling these groupings are essential to understanding the solution, if one in fact exists.

 

The real stumbling block is that while there's a handy number system to organize the rooms, there is not one for the items.  This is how they appear on the inventory screen:

 

 

Note that the bottom left symbol is the exit button, the room's symbol is to the right of that, and the large sword art bottom right is not usable in normal play.

 

All three of the items on the bottom row (food, grappling hook, short sword) are used in four clues, but so is the ring.  Every item in the 2nd middle row, other than the ring and the water, is only placed in two different rooms.  Every item in the top row aside from the lamp is used in three different rooms.  Damn.  It feels like there's something there.

 

54 minutes ago, x=usr(1536) said:

Pisces and Capricorn are bugging me.  No idea why they're the only rooms to receive unique items.

 

Well, the good news is Capricorn gets the cloak and the sword, so Pisces and Sagittarius are the only rooms to receive a single item.  Pisces, however is the only one which only comes up during one clue.

 

Also interesting, Pisces comes up in the 4th out of the 11 clues, which is the one clue that does not reference a panel from the comic to a search for a hidden word.  Instead, it depicts the food and the dagger.  This has always been assumed to relate to the Fireworld game because that's what the manual suggests, but nobody's figured out how.  Maybe it's some kind of hint about this game instead.

 

I'm any case, it definitely seems significant.

 

1 hour ago, x=usr(1536) said:

One other thing that crossed my mind: astronomy vs. astrology.  Can't see off the top of my head how the two might correlate, but anything's possible.

 

Well, astrology relies on astronomy.  Dividing the night sky into twelve 30° segments gives you the houses of the Zodiac, and where the sun, mom and planets are in relation to those segments and each other is the basis for stick readings and all that.

 

That's why I wonder if the items might be analogous to the planets in the scheme of this game.  Rather than Mars being in Gemini at such and such time, the sword is in Gemini and moving to Virgo before it goes into retrograde and passes Leo on its way back to Gemini. 

 

Of course, there are 15 items and there are not 15 planets, so this may be a turkey shoot as well.

 

Laying out the rooms and the items associated with them in reverse:

 

Aries - Shoes, Water, Key, Cloak
Taurus - Dagger, Food, Ring, Dagger, Key
Gemini - Dagger, Necklace, Amulet, Sword, Necklace, Water
Cancer - Hook, Talisman, Lamp, Amulet, Lamp
Leo - Rope, Sword
Virgo - Sword, Ring, Rope, Shoes, Food
Libra - Hook, Lamp, Necklace, Armor, Ring, Hook
Scorpio - Key, Food, Amulet, Hook, Food, Rope
Sagittarius - Talisman, Talisman
Capricorn - Cloak, Sword
Aquarius - Ring, Armor, Armor, Cloak, Shoes
Pisces - Water

 

I think I'm going to need some thumb tacks and twine on this one.

[Supergun]

The fact that it required this much detailed analysis, coming up with theories, writing down numbers, looking for pattens, etc. is the very proof that the games were indeed too confusing and too difficult! They just weren’t as “fun” as their predecessors; Superman, Adventure, and Haunted House. Even Raiders and E.T. were easier and less complex.

[MrTrust]

7 hours ago, Supergun said:

The fact that it required this much detailed analysis, coming up with theories, writing down numbers, looking for pattens, etc. is the very proof that the games were indeed too confusing and too difficult! They just weren’t as “fun” as their predecessors; Superman, Adventure, and Haunted House. Even Raiders and E.T. were easier and less complex.

 

In a somewhat spooky similarity, it took 51 years before the Zodiac serial killer's so-called Z340 cryptogram was solved.  Many code crackers believed it was unsolvable; that he was either toying with law enforcement, or he had messed up and not included some key piece of information in the letter, but eventually, it was solved.

 

Now, it took advanced computing technology unheard of in the 60s in order to do that, so it may have been too hard in practical terms for investigators at the time to figure out at the time.  Nevertheless, the cryptogram did contain a message, and the killer likely did expect for someone to solve it.

 

What intrigues me about this mystery is that, whatever is true about the game being bad and too hard - which I don't disagree with - there is no conclusive evidence one way or the other as to whether or not it is solvable.  It is assumed not to be for no reason I can identify beyond the fact that nobody is known to have solved it. 

 

[else]

I don't have anything to add, but just wanted to post the map in case it helps....

 

 

[zzip]

1 hour ago, MrTrust said:

What intrigues me about this mystery is that, whatever is true about the game being bad and too hard - which I don't disagree with - there is no conclusive evidence one way or the other as to whether or not it is solvable.  It is assumed not to be for no reason I can identify beyond the fact that nobody is known to have solved it. 

It was also being sold to kids most who didn't yet have advanced maths, or knowledge of numerology or astrology (beyond basic horoscopes)

 

Sounds like Atari did get 8 correct entries.   I wonder if they found the real solution, brute forced it or disassembled the code?

[+x=usr(1536)]

25 minutes ago, zzip said:

Sounds like Atari did get 8 correct entries.   I wonder if they found the real solution, brute forced it or disassembled the code?

Or just got plain lucky.

 

I'm reasonably convinced at this point that the puzzle aspect is in some way flawed.  It may be possible to arrive at the correct answer, but not necessarily as it was intended to be solved.

 

It would be interesting to see the method(s) by which the people who submitted the correct answers arrived at them.  That may make it possible to determine whether or not there is an error in the puzzle.

[Ecernosoft]

2 hours ago, else said:

I don't have anything to add, but just wanted to post the map in case it helps....

 

 

THATS IT????????

*questions life*