Walkthrough for BrandX by Peter Killworth and Jonathan Mestel Written by Richard Bos A few notes, first. One, and most importantly, this is a rotten hard and randomly unfair game. In fact, it has the reputation of being the nastiest of the Phoenix games, and it thoroughly deserves it. The other Phoenix games want you dead; BrandX wants you dead _now_, and if at all possible, for you to suffer in the process. You can die at the game's slightest whim. Save often, and keep _all_ your save files until you've finished the game. And choose carefully where and when you save, because saving takes a turn, too, and this can cost you dearly at many points in the game. Two, the parser is limited, but good. The game is good at giving you less to type. If there is only one object, simply "get" will take it; if there are several, it will assume the first one listed. Ditto for "drop", which will drop the first object in your inventory. It also understands "all", which can save you some valuable time at certain points. On the other hand, it does not understand multiple objects in one command. Third, before you resort to reading this walkthrough you might, at a pinch, want to consult the in-game hints for Philosopher's Quest. PQ is a Topologika game which was derived from BrandX and shares many, though by no means all, of its puzzles. There is a zip file which contains documentation for all the Topologika adventures, including Philosopher's Quest. The main part of these is an index of hints available in the game. You look up the problem you're stuck at, find a number, type "help" and that number (in PQ, that is; it won't work in BrandX), and you get a hint. Philosopher's Quest can be found in the IF Archive. Finally, these notes are for the original Phoenix game, and its ZCode translation. The Topologika MS-DOS derivation thereof called Philosopher's Quest, as mentioned above, differed on several significant points. There were also two Acornsoft games derived from it, but those are even more different. So, let's be off, then. You start in a shop, and face the first unfairness straight away. You are only allowed to take two objects from the shop, but there is no reason at all right now for you to choose any above the other - except, perhaps, the keys, which are a staple useful object. And in fact, you're going to need four of them. One object is a red herring. Take the keys, cushion and aqualung. (As mentioned above, you'll need to type that as three separate commands, because the game does not understand the command as written; to save space, I'll still use this phrasing throughout.) Throw the keys, then go south. No light here, and no lamp. In this game, though (and in all games of the Phoenix heritage) you can get objects in the dark, even if you've never seen them before. So, get all. Light the lamp - this can be done with just the command "on". Drop all, then go east. We're in another dark place where we want to take an object, so "get". Then go north and south, and drop; go north, get all, south, off. The reason why we move the slab in this circumspect way is that it's heavy and we can't carry anything else alongside it. One aspect in which Brand X _is_ conventional is that moving in the dark is dangerous, but moving from dark to light or vice versa is not. That's how we could move the slab from the dark, through the light, to another dark room. Go south, drop the cushion, w, w, drop oilskin and aqualung, w, w, w, nw, n. Get all, open door, go east. Get teabag - there's your fourth object from the shop, and note that if we'd been foolish enough to take it with us, it would not have been here, and no indication that it could have been - and fill the kettle. Go west. Boil water. Oops! Never mind... Make tea, _then_ turn on your lamp (we want to conserve its power as much as possible) and go north. A quest! Turn off your lamp and go south, southeast and east. Drop everything here, then go east four times and north. Take the slab - you can refer to it by name, even in the dark, once you've seen it - then go south, west four times, up and west. Drop the slab. There are three more heavy objects, and we'll need to put all of them in the bucket. Go out, then east three times. Take the coffin, go west thrice, in, drop the coffin. Out, east twice, get bath, west twice, in, drop. Out, east, take the stone, west, in, drop. Go east thrice, take the gas mask, then west twice and down. Take your lamp. Go east four times. Save your game. Go north and turn on your lamp. Go north again, east, down and north. Take the biscuit and go south and west; take the polythene, go se, se, s; take chain. From now on, take extreme care with typos. A single lost move and that cheese will kill you. No, seriously. Go north, take the cheese, and go nw, u, n. Drop the cheese here and go north. We go on this short side trip for two reasons: to recover from the cheese, as the game tells you, and to score some points. The chain is a treasure, and the shop is our treasure house. Drop the chain here. Go south, take the cheese, south again, off, south, drop cheese, west. (Since your lamp is off, you won't waste its power by doing a just-in-case save here. Just sayin'.) Go west again, drop the polythene, west thrice, drop all. What you need to do next is drop the dog biscuit somewhere beyond the bucket - we'll see why in a while - but you can't get there because the bucket is in the way. So we do the heavy object dance: in, get, out, drop, in, get, out, drop, in, get, out, drop, in, get, out, drop. Take the biscuit, go nw, drop it, se. Now we need to get all the objects in the bucket again (because we're going to walk the length of the plank, and need the counterweight to stop the plank from tipping over and dropping us to our death): get slab, e, u, w, drop. Out, get coffin, in, drop, out, get bath, in, drop, out, get stone, in, drop. Out, and get all. Go east five times, get cheese, west, west, west, drop cheese, west. East, get cheese, west, drop cheese, up. Down, get cheese, up, east, east, drop cheese, west. (We had to insert that extra one-move sequence, by the way, because you can't drop anything on the plank except at that exact spot, and we couldn't reach it from where the cheese was just east of the pivot.) Go east, get cheese, east, east, north, drop cheese, south. North, get all, on, north, north, bury cheese. *Phew*! Take the tusk, north, get dog, south thrice, off, south, and down. Go west five times, and notice the new path - it was made by the dog, going after the biscuit. Good thing, too, because that bucket isn't going anywhere any more. Follow the path northeast, take the dog, north, on, north, off, south, southeast, east five times. Drop the tusk and the gas mask. Go north, on, north, east, down, north twice. If you go on from here as usual, you die to a variety of traps. To avoid them, you must perform a kind of Indiana-Jones-cum-ninja dance. There are four different traps; you'll see two of them going in and two coming back. For each trap, you need a different verb to put in front of your direction. So, where normally you would go north by entering "go n" or "n" (or "north", if you like typing), you will now have to enter "run n", "jump n", and so forth. The four traps and their respective verbs are: spears run blade crawl pit jump sword hop Unlike in the Topologika version, in the Phoenix/ZCode game I am sure that the order in which these occur in the various positions is not randomised. However, the terrain beyond is somewhat different. (Oh, and don't dawdle inside the Danger Room itself. That's deadly, too. Naturally.) So: run north, run east. You are now faced with your first riddle. Unlike the traps, these _are_ randomised. Some of them are harder than others, and several could have multiple answers, but the accepted answer to each is a single word. These are: Nancy Etticoat is a "candle"; the beginning of eternity is "e"; what lives in winter is an "icicle"; a tea-kettle has a "name"; a train goes and comes with "noise"; every man overlooks his "nose"; a state desired by all is "peace"; many keys are on a "piano"; a skin covers a "potato"; a rich man and a fat man have "pounds"; what seems mysterious is, of course, the "riddle" itself; and crooked as a rainbow is a "river". Give this answer (just the one word, as your entire command). The doorway will open, so go north, take what's there (if anything), and go south. Crawl west, crawl north. Answer another riddle. Go north, take what's there (again, if there is something), go south. Jump south, jump west. Answer the third riddle. Go north, get another optional object. You should now have found one dog, one stuffed platypus, and one empty room. Go back south. Hop southeast, then hop south. Go south twice, up, north, south, off. South, drop platypus, west five times, northeast, north, on, north (what, again?), off, south, southeast, east five times. North, on, north, east, down, ne, get matches. sw, e, off. Take the case, then go east and north. Try going up. You are now - as the game says - in the Tower of Babel, where language is muddled and nobody, including the game, understands words normally. In fact, I can discover no hint as to which words _would_ work. However, there are four of them. In the Tower, and only there, the verb "cushion" means "up", "keys" means "take", "teabag" means "back" and "sausage" means "south". You need all four, and in that order: enter "cushion" (to climb the Tower), then "keys" (taking the second case), "teabag" (to climb back down) and "sausage" (leaving the Tower to the south). [Update: Adam Atkinson has figured out that the actions the passers-by perform when they talk to you suggest, in circumspect ways, which words should be used. This, combined with them all being objects from the starting room, is supposed to enable you to figure it out.] You're back at the junction. Drop both cases, then go northeast around the Tower. Wait here for thirty turns. The number of turns you need to wait is random, but thirty is certainly safe. Go back southeast to find the evidence of why you had to move away: one of the cases was a bomb. Which is the bomb and which contains the clock is random, too. Take everything and go northeast, then north into a garden. Move around in random directions until you come to a tree with a sign and a snake. If you pester the snake long enough it will start dropping hints on how to leave the garden (as well as, true to the story, trying to tempt you), but you don't have to hear him out. From here, you can just go e, d, e, n. Go north, get, south. Southwest, drop all, west. You stop existing. Indeed, the game will refuse to take any commands, since it doesn't believe in your existence any more. You'll have to convince it that you do. How does one prove one's own existence? Descartes did it by positing that /cogito, ergo sum/. Follow his lead: enter "think". Then go east, get all, west, on, nw, get, se, off, e, ne, se, e. Don't turn on your lamp; instead, light a match. An old seafarer? With a long grey beard and glittering eye? Now who could that be... and the name of the room is? Coal ridge. Get it? Coal-ridge, hey, hey? No? Neither do I. By the way, isn't Porlock nice this time of year? Ok, ok, sorry, back to the game... While your match is still lit, go northeast. _Now_ light your lamp, go ne, get, sw, off, w. Now to go back to the cave. You can't go back through Eden, but have a look around here. That sign - which legend would it refer to? You're East of Eden, there are some grapes of wrath... To escape, enter "Steinbeck". You arrive in the dark. Turn on your lamp: we're back at the portcullis. Go west. Now we need to do another object dance, the reason for which will be clear soon. Drop everything. Now first take your lamp, then take everything else. Then go down. You're now in a maze. Somewhere in this maze is a useful person. You should find him if you go south, north, and south. Note that you drop one object on each move. Due to the way the game arranges its internal structures, the object you take first is dropped last; so, with the arranging we just did, our lamp is the last object dropped and we never stumble about in the dark. After meeting the workman, first go east, back to the Circus. Then drop everything, take the lamp, and take everything else again. Then go down, south, north and north, and take the portrait. Finally, leave the maze by going south, east, south, east. For our last object dance, take everything, drop the debris, and take the matches. Next, go up and north, off, north to the shop. Drop the book, albatross, clock and portrait here. Go south, on, south, off, south, west five times, northeast, north, on, north. Another dog... note his name. Turn off your lamp, and go south, southeast, and east five times. Go north, on, north, east, down, and north twice. We're back at the Danger Room, and will need to follow the same procedure as last time. One thing is different, though: when we last moved back out of this area, that apparatus above the south door moved all the traps around. They're still the same traps, and you need to execute the same moves to avoid them, just in a different order. Hop north, hop east. Answer yet another riddle. Go north. If there's something here, take it. If not, say the name of the dog: enter "spot". If that makes the dog appear, take it. In any case, go south, then run west, run north. Answer the riddle, go north. If you find something, take it; if not, and you haven't found the dog yet, try "spot" and take dog. Go south, crawl south, crawl west, answer your final riddle, go north, take an object or call and take the dog, go south, jump southeast (As a side note, can you figure out why this exit isn't straight like the other two? There is a good reason) and jump south. Like last time, you should have found two objects. One is the dog again; this time, the other is a trophy. Go south twice, up, north, south, off, south. Drop the trophy, west twice, drop the matches here, west thrice, northeast, north, on, north (oh grief...), off, south, southeast, east five times. North, on, north, east, east. You can't see it, but you can hear the dog: take dog. Now go northwest, north, west, east. Ah, there it is! Back west, north, south, off, s, w five times, ne, n, on, n. No more dogs - hoorah! Go north, take the will, south twice, off, south, southeast, east. Get the keys, east, get wood, east, drop keys and wood and get the bottle. Go east twice, and take the trophy, platypus and tusk. Go north, on, north, west, down, east, fill the bottle, west two times, off. West, drop will, east, west, get cheque, east, on. East, up, north, off, north to the shop. Drop the cheque, tusk, platypus and trophy here. Go south, on, south, off, south, and west twice. Take the matches, wood and oilskin. Wrap matches (you neither can nor need to specify what in), then wrap wood. Get everything else, turn your lamp on, and wrap it, too - this time it will go in the polythene, which is what we want. Thus prepared, go south, down twice, and south until you can go no further. Next go southeast, open the door, drop your keys, go west and take the slipper. Go back east, northwest, southwest and southeast. Drop the bottle, then get the chest. Go northwest, northeast and north. Unwrap the matches, and wrap the slipper (this keeps your hands free for later). Light a match and see where the smoke goes, then go in the opposite direction (so if it drifts northwards, go south, and so on). Repeat this. You will come across a gold tooth. When you find it, unwrap the wood and wrap the chest. Take the tooth. Light a match then light the wood. You will be returned to the sea bed. Go north until you can go no further (should be twice), then up once. If you go up to the surface immediately, you get the bends. You need to acclimatise. To do this, wait one turn for every five turns spent in the lowest levels of the sea (including the whale's stomach). If you haven't been wasting any turns, this should be between thirty and thirty-five turns, so (assuming the game rounds up...) wait here for seven turns. _Then_ go up once more, and north back to the beach. Unwrap the lamp, and turn it off. Drop the polythene and the aqualung. Unwrap the slipper and the chest. Drop the oilskin and the matches. Go east twice and north, on, north, off, drop lamp, north, and drop all. You now have 299 out of 300 points. For the traditional Last Lousy Point, you traditionally need to do something trivial and unguessable; Brand X breaks the rule once again. What you need to do _is_ trivial, but it's been written on the walls all along. In the south end of the long passage, a word has been scratched on the wall. A magic word, of course. However, if you'd tried its magic up to this point, nothing would have happened. Now, though, it works: utter the word "blach". And that's it. That's the sparkling finale of what, I think you'll agree, is a truly random and unfriendly game. (It's not as if the authors weren't good adventure writers, either. Peter Killworth's Doom trilogy is at times almost as unfair as Philosopher's Quest, but to yours truly at least a great deal more enjoyable - probably because most of the time they do present a consistent, whole world.) Still, 300 points are 300 points, right?