"Bone of Contention" -- help [SPOILERS]

Hello!

This isn’t exactly a request for hints so much as an attempt to link up hints with a game, if that makes any sense.

I was going through a bunch of files and printouts in my basement yesterday when I came across a bunch of papers that probably date to around 1995/1996. Among them, I found printouts of what I thought were posts to rec.*.int-fiction, but I can’t find them on Google Groups, so I’m not sure if I ever ended up posting them.

They reference a game called BOC, and the full walkthrough I found in the same pile is labelled “Bone of Contention”. I have absolutely no memory of the game and can’t find reference to anywhere. The printouts are stripped of headers, so I can’t even tell who I was replying to (though the posts seem to be made by my old “ravipinto@fast.net” email address, defunct for ages now).

Does anyone know the provenance of the Z5 file the original poster makes reference to, or who the author of the original work was? I’m kind of curious to (re?)play it…

[The printouts make use of spoiler space that I’ll convert to tags for the post.]

There are several more posts in the printed-out thread that I’ll probably add to see if it helps jog people’s memory. Like I said, I have the full walkthrough that I guess I eventually wrote, but I’d hate to have to type the whole thing in. :slight_smile:

Thanks.

-d-


Subject: Help needed in BOC [SPOILERS!]

Hi. I was bored and wandering around the GMD archive when I stumbled upon a Z5 file in the incoming folder.
“Oh neat,” said I, “a new game…” Poor fool that I am I downloaded it, played it, and now am hopelessly stuck.

You’re not the only one. :slight_smile: But I think I’ve gotten a bit further than you.

To be honest, I like it a lot. It started out slow, but it’s getting more interesting the further I get in.

Trust me, it gets even better. :slight_smile:

[spoiler]> OK. I beat the house, which was relatively straightforward except for the death at the top of the stairs and the

inscription puzzle. I got the Bone of Copper.
But I’m stuck at a whole bunch of different points all over the game:

  1. What can I do in the temple? I finally figured out how to get in, but I can’t do anything. The statues, the
    altar…what am I supposed to do?

Forget the temple. You won’t need to go there until you’ve finished all the other areas.

  1. The hut area: nice horse and pedestals, but there doesn’t seem to be anything to do here.

You could do a few things here, but you’re probably better off waiting until you’ve successfully talked to the boy near the lake. He’s over the gate to the east.

  1. Beyond the shack: I got past the fields, but how do I get up the staircase? Can I do anything at the altar
    here? The stones move, so I assume there’s some sort of combination.

There is. You missed a location. Actually, you can solve both your problems by going to the beginning of the shack area.

First, the room you’re looking for is above the entrance. Wait there a while and try to figure out what you’re seeing.

While you’re there, leave through the portal and come back. The reason you can’t go up the stairs is you’re in the wrong form (check DIAGNOSE when you come back).

  1. What about the huge machine by the lake? (I think this is near the hovel). I can get it powered up so the
    panel lights up, but again…what’s the combination?

The combination to your question in 4 is the same as in 3. Sort of. :slight_smile:[/spoiler]
Now, while we’re asking questions… (Spoilers for later in the game)

[spoiler]I’ve solved the major buildings and am in the temple after being knocked out.

Does anyone know what’s up with the machine at the Central Corridor? Or how to get past the four exits? Or what the blank machine in the room above is for?

I keep dying every time I try to leave, and the blank machine is useless…[/spoiler]

OK, so apparently this did get posted to rec.games.int-fiction at some point, because now that I go further in the print-outs, I’m finding not only my responses, but responses to my responses.

Does anyone know if some posts got lost during the dejanews → Google Groups transfer?

To help anyone who’s following, here’s a reply I got to the last post, and my response in turn. Anyone have any idea of the original game’s author or where I could find a copy?

Thanks.


[reply - again, no headers]

Trust me, it gets even better. :slight_smile:

No kidding! That whole scene with Poer was worth slogging through the fields for.

[spoiler]>> 2. The hut area: nice horse and pedestals, but there doesn’t seem to be anything to do here.

You could do a few things here, but you’re probably better off waiting until you’ve successfully talked to the
boy near the lake. He’s over the gate to the east.

OK. I had no idea what you were talking about but then I realized I’d missed another location. I’m going to have to read these room descriptions more carefully… Anyway, I found him after getting past the gargoyle, but he won’t talk to me! What’s wrong with him?

  1. Beyond the shack: I got past the fields, but how do I get up the staircase? Can I do anything at the altar
    here? The stones move, so I assume there’s some sort of combination.

First, the room you’re looking for is above the entrance. Wait there a while and try to figure out what you’re
seeing.

ARGH i felt so completely stupid when I read this. I did see the stairs and I remember thinking that I’d come back up and look up there after I explored down below. I just totally forgot about them.

While you’re there, leave through the portal and come back. The reason you can’t go up the stairs is you’re in
the wrong form (check DIAGNOSE when you come back).

Again, an answer I should have gotten. I thought maybe it had to do with the form, but I wasn’t certain how the portals worked.

  1. What about the huge machine by the lake? (I think this is near the hovel). I can get it powered up so the
    panel lights up, but again…what’s the combination?

The combination to your question in 4 is the same as in 3. Sort of. :slight_smile:

Got this one too, but nothing happens. How do you know if you did it right?[/spoiler]

[And then my reply to that reply…]

Answers to questions in the last post:

[spoiler]>Anyway, I found him after getting past the gargoyle, but he won’t talk to me! What’s wrong with him?

There’s nothing wrong with him. There might be something wrong with YOU, however.

It’s connected to your earlier problem at the stairs.

Got this one too, but nothing happens. How do you know if you did it right?

The panel won’t give you a hint. What about the rest of the machine? What does it look like it’s designed to do?

Try using it.

[Additional hint: You might need to fiddle with the dial on the stairs.][/spoiler]

More questions from me (temple area):

[spoiler]Well, I figured out the first machine and got the pieces for the second. What am I supposed to do with the paper, though? I’ve figured out the colors and how to place them, but is there a specific pattern I need?

Has anyone else gotten this far? :slight_smile:[/spoiler]

I don’t know if they were lost at that time, but many posts from the old days of R*IF are definitely not on Google Groups.

Fortunately, there are archives of old R*IF posts at the IF archive (RAIF and RGIF). Unfortunately, except one nice big file for posts from 1995 RAIF (not RGIF!) and files taken from Google Groups (not useful in your case, I guess), they’re very hard to browse, with tons of files for every single year: since you don’t know the precise month of the discussions, it’ll be hard to find them. It’d be great if someone could compile all these files into a more searchable format…

Thanks, Eriorg.

I guess I’ll post the last bit of the conversation I have and if no one can get it from this description, I’ll post the walkthrough.


The next reply:

[spoiler]>There’s nothing wrong with him. There might be something wrong with YOU, however.

It’s connected to your earlier problem at the stairs.

Got it. It took a couple tries to get the right one (afterwards it made sense…being in phase and all) but he finally spoke. I’m currently running around in the pedestal/horse area. I’ve got the ice shapes (I did one too many the first time), the diamond and the ivy. I got the pedestals to work and got three items connected to what the boy was talking about, but what about Caprice? I found the mirror, but she doesn’t show up or anything. I assume she’ll give me one of the answers at the top of the stairs?

I figured out the machine too, so I’ve got Silver done and Iron and Copper from earlier. How many more do I have to go?[/spoiler]
My reply:

[spoiler]>I assume she’ll give me one of the answers at the top of the stairs?

Yup. Think about the mirror and what it means with regards to Poer and Caprice from what you heard from the boy.

I’ll give you a more blatant hint if you really need it.

How many more do I have to go?

You’re almost done. You’ll get gold from the area you’re in and then you can head to the temple.

In the meantime, I’ve finished up the game. I’ll be posting a walkthrough as soon as I write it up.[/spoiler]
And the final post I have:

[spoiler]> I’ll give you a more blatant hint if you really need it.

No need. I figured it out. Seemed obvious if you sit and think a minute. I’ve almost caught up with you. Now I’m stuck in the temple near the machine like you were… Thanks for the hints! Looking forward to the walkthrough.[/spoiler]
The rest of the printout (some 10 pages?) is a step-by-step walkthrough of the actual game.

-d-

I can’t decide whether to hope this was a real game or an April Fool’s piece of peccable’s invention.

Maybe it’d be easier to scan it?

Wow. I wish I’d seen this or thought of that before I sat down and typed the whole thing out. :laughing:

Oh well.

It’s probably way too long to paste in, so here’s the text file:

peccable.com/if/boc-walkthrough.txt

-d-

If it’s any consolation, plain text instead of a scanned image is better for screen readers and mobile devices, both of which are frequently involved in the playing of IF. :slight_smile:

This is where I admit that it is, unfortunately, the latter.

Much of the original post is true, however. This was in fact a printout I found in my basement and I did spend quite a bit of time typing it up.

What I didn’t mention was that the whole thing was an April Fool’s that I wrote some time in 1995 and never got around to posting.

Around 5:00pm on March 31st, I suddenly remembered it and went searching for the original printout, as the electronic files have long been lost.

It was really fascinating going through it, since I can’t for the life of me remember what it was like to write the original, or what I had in mind. I think I was trying to capture the feeling I once got when I used to read about games I hadn’t played yet – and the way they looked in my head versus how they ended up playing.

Going through the walkthrough, the game itself seems pretty old school - lots of sudden deaths, manipulating machines, and story dumps in the form of characters you can ask questions. The only meaningful choice seems to come at the very end.

Hope you had fun with it. :slight_smile:

-d-

I was briefly tempted to make something up and post that I’d found it, but from the walkthrough it was clearly meant to be a full-sized game.

I like the bit about being able to take on “any form possible” – a game with unlimited shape-changing machinery, perhaps, sort of like Transfer or the relevant passage of Sorcerer but disturbingly more ambitious.

Am I the only one annoyed with myself that I didn’t think up my own April Fool game?

Next year. Definitely next year…