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From: buzzard@world.std.com (Sean T Barrett)
Subject: (spoilers) Re: Shade: more help required
Message-ID: <G4yFGD.619@world.std.com>
Date: Sat, 2 Dec 2000 19:00:08 GMT
References: <908gf8$2pq@nntpb.cb.lucent.com> <slrn92g4l9.at.cerutti@fiad06.norwich.edu> <G4xpF2.HBu@world.std.com> <8FFE5DFAEmkinyon.at.iusb.edu@129.79.6.161>
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
Lines: 75
Xref: news.duke.edu rec.games.int-fiction:59376

Transcript of endgame follows:

Michael Kinyon <mkinyon@iusb.edu> wrote:
>Sean T Barrett wrote:
>>>>>* SPOILER SPACE *
>>>>>.
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>>>>>.
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>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>As I experienced it, I got the message "nothing to do but wait",
>>and "wait" ended the game. I doubt that Joe Mason meant that *that*
>>was a bad game design decision. The bug (I would imagine) is in
>>printing the message before it's actually true. Unless my memory is
>>tricking me and I actually by chance issued that command before
>>trying "wait".
>
>I just checked again, and I'm reasonably certain your
>memory is tricking you. If one doesn't examine the book,
>one can WAIT forever.

I didn't say I didn't examine the book a final time; I meant
I did it and *then* got the message "Nothing left to do but
wait".

This time when I replayed it, I got this sequence; note that
the thing ">..." was printed by the game, not me.

=-=-=

The figure falls. After a few seconds... it still doesn't move.

The sands quickly cover it.

>X BOOK
The cover is worn now. The pages are all blank.

>LOOK
The land is nearly barren. Dunes roll away towards the rising sun; a little
shade trails behind them, but that will soon be gone. The sky is flat and
empty blue.

>I
The tiny figure crawls out from under the sands. It's dead.

"You win," it says. "Okay, my turn again."

>...
Nothing left to do. Time passes.

The sun crawls higher.


    *** SHADE ***

=-=-=

This is really odd, because I'm sure I saw the "nothing left to do but
wait" message my first playthrough, but this time I can't even get it
to occur--if I don't examine the book at the above point, I never get
that message either. Maybe there's something here that Zarf intended,
but I'm not seeing it.

SeanB
