Weird…
I’m pretty sure 6-7-61 worked on my playthrough. EDIT: No, this is wrong, see below.
Playthrough:
[spoiler]Bill Spectrum talked a good game. Your girlfriend couldn’t sign the deal quickly enough, convinced that Spectrum Records was going to make her a star.
Fast-forward one year. The scheduled release of Lisa’s first album is six months late. The good news: since Spectrum failed to meet his contractual obligation, Lisa’s a free agent again. The bad news: Spectrum claims he “lost” the master recordings from her studio sessions.
Spectrum is out of town for the day, trying to weasel his way out of a federal indictment in Sacramento. You jimmy the door to his North Hollywood walk-up with your expired student ID. This might be your only chance.
THE MASTER TAPE
A Gamefic text adventure by Fred Snyder
The living room
Spectrum’s real apartment is considerably less impressive than his brother-in-law’s beach house, which he claimed to own when he invited you and Lisa there. The furniture looks second-hand. Fast-food wrappers clutter the floor. The only thing of value in the living room is the stereo system; apparently Spectrum is a sincere music lover, if not an ethical one.
Visible items: stereo, rug, newspaper
Obvious exits: east, north, south
(open stereo)
You can’t open the stereo system.
(look in stereo)
A beautiful Marantz 2200 in a wooden cabinet.
(x stereo)
A beautiful Marantz 2200 in a wooden cabinet.
(turn on stereo)
It’s probably not a good idea to make too much noise during a break-in.
(look)
The living room
Spectrum’s real apartment is considerably less impressive than his brother-in-law’s beach house, which he claimed to own when he invited you and Lisa there. The furniture looks second-hand. Fast-food wrappers clutter the floor. The only thing of value in the living room is the stereo system; apparently Spectrum is a sincere music lover, if not an ethical one.
Visible items: stereo, rug, newspaper
Obvious exits: east, north, south
(look under rug)
A large, thick, and badly frayed Oriental rug.
(move rug)
You find a hidden floor safe.
(open cabinet)
You don’t see any “cabinet” here.
(open safe)
(1-2-3)
You tug on the handle. It’s still locked.
(look)
The living room
Spectrum’s real apartment is considerably less impressive than his brother-in-law’s beach house, which he claimed to own when he invited you and Lisa there. The furniture looks second-hand. Fast-food wrappers clutter the floor. The only thing of value in the living room is the stereo system; apparently Spectrum is a sincere music lover, if not an ethical one.
Visible items: stereo, rug, newspaper, floor safe
Obvious exits: east, north, south
(look at newspaper)
A copy of the Los Angeles Times.
(read newspaper)
You pick up the newspaper.
It’s today’s paper, dated July 16, 1975. There’s an article about Bill Spectrum:
RUMORS OF SPECTRUM/BUCCOLA CONNECTION PERSIST
As the investigation into reputed mobster Tito Buccola proceeds, police continue to refer to Bill Spectrum, a notorious A&R representative, as a “person of interest.” The 50-year-old mobster may have collaborated with Spectrum in a “pay-to-play” scheme that defrauded several musicians signed to Spectrum’s record label.
Spectrum, 34, has also been accused of using extortion tactics on several of his clients. As of press time he was unavailable for comment.
(look east)
Nothing special.
(east)
You go east.
The bedroom
What a mess. Bill is overdue for a trip to the laundromat. The only furnishings in the bedroom are the bed and an old army chest.
Visible items: scrap of paper, bed, chest, laundry
Obvious exits: west, north
(open chest)
It’s locked.
(look at bed)
Just a plain old twin bed. It doesn’t even have a headboard. The sheets look none too fresh.
(search bed)
I know the verb ‘search’ but couldn’t understand the rest of your sentence.
(search)
I know the verb ‘search’ but couldn’t understand the rest of your sentence.
(read scrap)
It’s a hand-written note. “Bill, Come on, man. Your birthday? You really ought to make it something a little less predictable. Anyway, it’s taken care of. Good luck in Sacramento. - Jimmy”
(look at laundry)
A huge pile of dirty laundry. Gross.
(search laundry)
You find a distinct musty odor and not much else.
(move laundry)
Nothing happens.
(west)
You go west.
The living room
Visible items: stereo, rug, floor safe
Obvious exits: east, north, south
(north)
You go north.
The kitchen
The kitchen might be the cleanest room in the apartment. If the styrofoam containers in the living room are any indication, Bill rarely cooks.
Visible items: cupboard
Obvious exits: south
(open cupboard)
You open the cupboard.
The cupboard contains a coffee can.
(look in can)
You look at the coffee can in the cupboard.
Nothing special.
(get can)
You take a coffee can from the cupboard.
(open can)
You open the coffee can.
The coffee can contains a key.
(get key)
You take a key from the coffee can.
(s)
You go south.
The living room
Visible items: stereo, rug, floor safe
Obvious exits: east, north, south
(e)
You go east.
The bedroom
Visible items: scrap of paper, bed, chest, laundry
Obvious exits: west, north
(unlock chest with key)
You unlock the chest.
(open chest)
It’s already open.
(look in chest)
The army chest contains: photograph and disc.
(look at photo)
You look at the photograph in the army chest.
A Polaroid photo of Bill Spectrum in a sombrero. A caption written in the border says, “Bill’s b-day, Cancun, Mar 14 1969.”
(look at disc)
You look at the lacquer disc in the army chest.
The master cut of an unreleased single by The Pete Best Combo. Interesting… but not the reason you’re here.
(w)
You go west.
The living room
Visible items: stereo, rug, floor safe
Obvious exits: east, north, south
(open safe)
(3-1-4)
You tug on the handle. It’s still locked.
(x safe)
The floor safe looks heavy and secure. There’s a combination knob on top of it.
The floor safe is closed.
(x knob)
The floor safe looks heavy and secure. There’s a combination knob on top of it.
The floor safe is closed.
(open safe)
(3-14-1969)
You tug on the handle. It’s still locked.
THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!
Apparently all your fiddling with the floor safe is disturbing the downstairs neighbor.
(thump )
I don’t understand ‘thump’ as a command.
(yell)
I don’t understand ‘yell’ as a command.
(yell at neighbor)
I don’t understand ‘yell’ as a command.
(open safe)
(3-14-69)
You tug on the handle. It’s still locked.
(open safe)
(14-3-69)
You tug on the handle. It’s still locked.
Before you can do anything else, the front door bursts open. Cops rush into the apartment and push you face-first into the ground.
It turns out the noise from the safe eventually made the neighbor suspicious enough to call the police. You wonder if your girlfriend will manage to scrape together bail money.[/spoiler]
Thoughts on the engine:
[spoiler]The parser doesn’t seem to understand “in”, “under”, etc. There were a couple times where I had to rephrase what I was doing to get around this (e.g., “move rug” instead of “look under rug”).
The game told me what ways I could go, but not where I’d be going if I went there.
When I unlocked the chest, it looks like it also opened, but didn’t tell me that. Or it started out open and locked, not sure which.[/spoiler]
Thoughts on the demo game:
[spoiler]It was surely too easy to be true, but since I was told to find a tape, and I was immediately put into a room with a stereo, I wanted to pop open the cassette player and see what was in there.
I was looking at the knob on the safe to try and see what the range of allowed numbers was. That would have been helpful in trying to figure out how the birthday was encoded into the safe combo.[/spoiler]
Wait, I figured out what the two of you did wrong in your playthroughs:
[spoiler]You’re entering the date on the photo. But you need to enter the date and year Spectrum was born. Use the newspaper clipping with the mobster to figure out the year of Spectrum’s birth.
And I didn’t realize that the solution was randomized, which is cool.[/spoiler]
Totally OK with me. I appreciate the insight.
Thanks for the feedback. I’m working on updates to both the game and the engine that address some of the issues you had. I should have them online later this week. Spoilerish details:
I made some new command definitions that allow for more expressiveness. Among other things, looking under the rug is the same as moving it. Good calls on the stereo and the safe, too. I’ll add some interaction with the stereo and a description for the knob.
Bingo! 
And thanks.
I’ve released version 0.2 of the Gamefic gem and published a new version of “The Master Tape” on gamefic.com. Thanks again to everyone who provided feedback.
Some updates to the library:
- Improved tokenization of pronouns.
- Improved detection of nearby items. Some commands wouldn’t work on items in a container, e.g., you couldn’t look at it until you picked it up. They should be more consistent now.
- All commands should be case-insensitive by default.
- Fixed miscellaneous bugs in translating command syntaxes to actions.
- Support for enterable supporters and containers.
- Command-line player should wrap text correctly (requires Ruby 1.9.3 or higher).
- Ambiguous object references result in a more helpful message, e.g.:
[spoiler]You see a yellow box and a red box.
take box
I don’t know which you mean: the yellow box or the red box.[/spoiler]
Some stuff specific to “The Master Tape”:
[spoiler]* The stereo is more interactive. It’s just a red herring, but you can open it and determine that it’s empty.
- The bed is an enterable supporter.
- There is no longer a limit to how many times you can try to open the safe.
- The safe’s knob has a description that hints at the combination.[/spoiler]
One thing that might be helpful for players:
If they enter a combination based on the date on the photo, maybe (after a couple of tries?) you could give them a hint like “Hey, Spectrum wasn’t born this year.”
Good idea. Especially since it rewards the player with a hint for being on the right track.
I just uploaded a new version of the game that includes bug fixes and new features from the framework.
- Major parser improvements
- New interface design that should be more mobile-friendly
- Modal dialogs for custom prompts
- Fixed a bug that required restarting the browser in rare cases
Spoilerish game changes:
[spoiler]* Looking at the newspaper suggests that you should read it.
- If you try to open the safe using the date on the photo, you get a hint that you need to find out Spectrum’s birth year.[/spoiler]
Play online here: gamefic.com/games/play?id=1000