Missed Classic 6: Wonderland - Part The Second – In Which Alice Discovers Time Goes Odd

Written by Mad Welshman

“Is it strange, sir, that my head unaccountably aches here, and I feel that I have been here for longer than I've seen?” Alice enquired, scratching irritably at her ribbon. The Reviewer chuckled, showing perhaps more teeth than necessary.
“Not all here is fair, child, and we want you to find things out yourself.”
Alice frowned. “That... Didn't answer my question.” The Reviewer's grin widened.
“It's a good demonstration of unfairness, don't you think?”

As you might have guessed from the last post, I already know this game somewhat, and can tell you right now that, while the descriptions are sometimes interesting, the pixel art is mostly lovely for the time, and the game has technical experimentation I'm quite fond of, one thing I'm not fond of is the often arbitrary nature of item placement, some of the puzzles, and some of the deaths.

Important note: You do have to stand up first.

Here's a good example, we fell on a pile of leaves and twigs. We can look at them, and we can search. We need to search, because there is a key inside, and examining the heap gives you not a single clue that there's a key in there. Locker on one side, 10 on the other? Right, let's keep an eye out for a Locker 10, then!

We find ourselves, as you can see, in a little corridor. We're locked in for the moment, with not a key in sight. But first, let's go to the far end of the east corridor, where an important mechanic awaits. Specifically, a bottle (in plain sight) and a cake (hidden under the table in a glass box). Anyone who's remembered Alice in Wonderland will know what these do, but for those who don't... Let's take a look at our score text again.

“You are normal sized.” Size is an important part of some of the game's puzzles, and it won't always be clear when we have to go smaller or bigger, or even how much smaller of bigger we need to get... Because yes, there are multiple sizes.

Let's experiment a little. Looking at the bottle, there is “some potion” inside. Well, what's the harm in drinki- Ahahaha, as expected, we're tiny, we're small, we're... big one turn later. And there's no potion left. Hrm. Well, there's still the cake, I supp-OUCH.

It's amazing how often Alice gets a bump on the head...

That, in one paragraph, is a further Dead Man Walking (wasting five minutes of our time) and another trip to the medicine cabinet, another damn reload. Well, if we knew the source, we'd know that was a silly idea in the first place. Not that it matters, but we ate all the cake too. There's also about five or six doors in this one room. So let's try the other end, passing a door with a C on it (near where we fell), a wooden door, and some furniture that seems to just be there as furniture.

How odd, a Piano is playing itself here, and some chairs are playing... Musical Chairs, oh ho ho ho! This is a nice easy puzzle, although if you're not careful, you can definitely die in here. One key's on a musical sheet (Key in C), and the other (Key in G) is inside the piano... Exactly where you'd expect musical keys to be (20 CAPs to the first person who correctly notes why these keys are unusual)! And... A thing I had not expected, or misremembered. Actual music. It's about a minute long, it's cheery, aaand... You'll probably have finished listening to the music before you've managed to switch discs the two or three times it asks you to and loads the graphics. I now remember why I preferred the DOS version more, less music or not.

Remember, sit on a chair when the music stop- Oh, it isn't stopping, and nor are the chairs.

...I can't believe I forgot that. Either way, getting the second key requires a bit of fiddling, taking the music sheet when the chairs are in the right position, getting on a chair, shrinking, getting into the piano, getting the key, and getting the hell out before you break the piano (And, incidentally, your head). After that, it's time to open some doors! The Broom Cupboard, opened with the Key in C, has three items, one of which (the card-shoe) is utterly necessary to the endgame. Thankfully, you can't leave the area without the overalls that are also here.

Now, it would be a good time to mention at this point that, within the six rooms of this area, you will be expected to change discs, if you're efficient and already know the solution, about five or six times. Two to four in the Piano Room (Not sure why it asked me to change disks twice), and two as you switch from the corridor (Disk 2) to the Long Hall (Disk 3, where our potion and cake are). I mention this because it's fun to see how much the game's assets take up. So far, it's around ten, eleven locations, two of which have animations attached, and one MIDI tune on disk 2 (Disk 1, as far as I can tell, is just the title image, the title midi, the installer if your ST had a hard drive, and the game's engine, which then stays memory resident until you reset the ST.)

For extra oddness, the three middle rooms are disk 2, the outside ones 3.

Either way, once we've gotten the Key in G, we can unlock the tiny golden door (of no use to us right now because we're too big), get visited by the rabbit, who drops a blue fan and blue gloves, and then... What?

This is where the puzzle isn't so elegantly designed. See, we have overalls, which are Gingham patterned (red and white checked cotton), but they're slightly too small for us. The cake is obviously not the answer. The gloves don't appear to be that important. We basically have to look through, and, in a process of elimination, work out we're meant to open the fan, wave it, and get into the overalls... Then wait for Mr. W. Rabbit to come back, mistake us for his maid Mary Anne, give us a key to his house and some demands, then leave the white door unlocked. Stepping through, we find ourselves... With no visible way back, and a second set of demands, this time from the Knave of Hearts, who tells us what we already knew (It's a dream), and that he'll tell us how to escape if we steal treacle tarts from the Queen of Hearts.

Damn his eyes, because although Alice hasn't met the Queen of Hearts, we, the players, have... and I'm already feeling an itching sensation as my neck feels slightly less attached than it is before. Still, there's also a stick insect here, on a stick. Adventure gamer kleptomania strikes again, and I try to get both. Sadly, the stick insect manages to get away. There's lots of directions we can go, but we're only going to deal with one this update. The rest are:

• North, to the Palace Grounds. Nuh-uh, No Way Jose, not yet. That's Heart Country! 
• Every southerly path takes us to some woods, and straight south is a grin floating in midair and a saucer on the ground. I don't know about you, but I don't trust floating grins.
• East is the path to the residence of Mr. W. Rabbit Esq, along with a poster telling us about a croquet game... We're not to be late if we're invited... Or heads will roll. Argh! 

I actually kinda like it. Got a kind of old-country chic to it...

Rabbit's house is very badly maintained, which leads us to believe that Mary Anne, the maid we've been mistaken for, has been gone a very long time. The grass is overgrown, there's no laundry on the washing line, and the house itself doesn't look too great either. So naturally, we steal the washing line and the sole clothes peg, forlornly hanging on it. Time to rob Mr. W. Rabbit. Step one: Unlock the front door, and in we go!

I'm not going to bore you with the entire process lovingly described here, I'm just going to summarise. Upstairs is a locked door with a gap on the bottom. It is locked and the key is on the other side. There is a vice in a nearby garden shed, and we already have a sheet of music. I think you can guess how we're getting into the White Rabbit's room. However, one thing you're not going to notice unless you're looking at everything is that there's a playing card (6 of Diamonds). This is what the card shoe is for...

What the... Did anyone get the number of that card?

We also steal an egg and a cup from the kitchen. So, with all that bumf out of the way, we are finally in the White Rabbit's room, which has the pink fan, and the pink gloves we were sent here to get. You may be surprised to note that we're already a quarter of the way through the game... And already, we've found things where the developer has relied more on the hint function than designing the puzzles well.

All of the Items in Room we can see are lovingly described,
you can interact with most of them... And most of them are not very helpful.

There is no obvious clue as to the uses of the fans, although the potion and cake are obvious to anyone who's read the Wonderland stories (and there are clues on their containers), there is no clue that the No. 10 Locker key is there (and, as far as I am aware, we can completely miss this item, leading to a Dead Man Walking scenario). We have several items, and I will say that successful completion of this game requires all of them. But we have a goal: Get the hell out of Wonderland, escape this dream that, really, doesn't turn out to be a dream. More of a nightmare.

I currently have a pair of pink gloves, a pink fan, a pair of blue gloves, a lantern, an empty bottle, a cake, a washing line, a clothes peg, a stick, an egg, a cup, and a Locker 10 Key

Time Taken: 1 hour, 10 mins

Total Time: 1 and a half hours

Death States Discovered: Banging head on tunnel (Update 1), Crashing through piano (This update), Eating the cake indoors (This update)

Dead Man Walking States Discovered: Drinking the Potion (This Update), Not Getting Locker Key (This Update), Eating the Cake Before You're Supposed To (This, and At least one more update)

Missed Classic 6: Wonderland - Part The First – In Which Alice Stumbles Blindly, As Is Her Wont

By Mad Welshman

'What a strange day today has been!', Alice declared. 'I had only thought to follow that strange white rabbit, and now I am stuck in some other world, of marmalade jars and pear lanterns!'

The Reviewer tutted. 'Oh, Alice, what a terrible memory you have! The pears were in your world, so is this world so strange?'

Alice frowned. 'You may have a point, but I am entirely uncertain what it is.'

The Reviewer smiled, and took another puff of his hookah 'As it should be.'

This first section is mostly to do with what exploration we can do before we get to Wonderland, and to highlight the design of this first, introductory segment of the game. Be warned, I'll be copy pasting some of the text, to give you an idea of the writing here. Let's start with our somewhat wordy introduction. There is a splash screen (Based on the box art), and a short musical sting, but apart from that, I haven't yet heard any sound or music. Considering this was the first port of the game to the Magnetic Scrolls engine, I'm pretty sure that's almost all we get.

Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and having nothing to do. It would have been bad enough having to watch Emily read her book all afternoon without the additional bother of trying to stay awake in this terrible heat.

Anyway, what kind of book has no pictures or conversation, you wonder to yourself. All of your books are far more interesting, being crammed full of pictures and conversation, which is just as well,really, as there's never enough room left for boring old words.

Why couldn't Dinah have come with us today, you wonder drowsily to yourself. She's far more fun than Emily even though she's only a cat. Anyway, Emily's too old and sensible to be any fun.

Why is it, you muse, that cats while away the entire winter sitting by the fire and yet guard their chosen spot of shade with an equal degree of ferocious fanaticism in mid-summer? Strange animals, cats.

My my, we are a little... BRAT. Still, there's nothing amazing going on, let's try and raise hell! We begin on a riverbank, also next to our sister, Emily, who, in the grand traditions of Victorian upbringing, is completely ignoring us. Funny, that. We've got no obvious goals right now (Although I have a feeling we'll be seeing a White Rabbit sooner or later) , so we try some things...

Our inventory, items in the room, and the landscape.
90% of it we cannot meaningfully interact with. THOU MUST FOLLOW THE RABBIT.

We can't hit Emily, because we're sanctimoniously told: “Now, you'll only turn people against you if you do things like that and quite frankly you need all the help you can get.” Okay, I'd already figured this wasn't a violent game. Sleeping just acts like waiting, except it says “Zzzzz...” instead of the good old “Time passes.” … Emily won't let us read the book, or take our clothes off for a swim, and, come to think of it... We can't swim. Southwest of us is a lane, Emily's not stopping us from going anywhere, so let's go there...

There is nothing interesting beyond the description and graphics here. Wow, this is pretty empty. Okay, fine, West to the Field.

Almost unique, in that the graphics and text windows can be placed
so as not to interfere with each other.

Again, nothing, because there's a bramble hedge. But, just on a hunch, let's wait... Five actions later, the rabbit appears. The next, he's past us and into the hole.

...Wait, what hole? I get the distinct feeling we aren't getting the whole story. I also get the feeling we have timed events going on... Well, sod it, let's follow him... Whereupon we smack our head on the roof of the rabbit hole (Because it's dark), get woken up by a beech nut dropping on our head from the tree (Because we were dreaming, didn't you read Wonderland?), and we get treated to a witch-hazel flavoured game over. Confirmed, this game has deaths. Although it does warn us that we shouldn't go any further, so it's an avoidable one, in this case.

Let's start again, and this time, let's try the other way. Before we do, however, the map so far. The missing portions are the dark rabbit hole (West), a country lane that not only seems to extend endlessly, it does extend endlessly (South), and a Pear Grove (East).

Okay, fine, this time we'll go east first. And I'll gif this, because it's important to see how big of a spoiler the graphics can sometimes be. If you come into this room in the first turn... It's just pears. But the gif will play once every time you enter the room. Whoops. Either way, there's only one pear-lantern we can get, and we can either pick it up now (And it miraculously turns into a lantern), or we can wait until it changes.

I was incredibly tempted to slap a Spoiler Warning over this image.

On the fifth turn, two things happen at the same time: The rabbit turns up, complaining about how savagely he's going to get treated by the Duchess for being late, and the pears turn into lanterns. We know where the rabbit's going, we know what he looks like, so we might as well pick up the pear. Which is a lantern. Which already hurts my brain. And nets us a whole 4 points. Out of what turns out to be...

Part of this statement is a lie.

So there's another thing confirmed: We're playing an old adventure game (with all that implies)... And it's using dream rules as well. This... Doesn't bode well. Oh well, time to catch the rabbit!

Entering the rabbit hole, we find that the thing that caused our first game over was... The tunnel tightening up a bit. Also a sharp bend that means we turn south now to follow thaAAAAAHHHHHHhhhhhhhhh...

I fell into a rather long tunnel, with busts, and owls, and windows... All manner of things! I wish I could have saved a screenshot that does it justice, because it's actually a long, looping animation, pretty smooth too... But GIF capture has its limits, and every attempt at capturing it has led to failure.

Right, falling past all manner of things, I know this from the Disney movie. I don't remember seeing a marmalade jar mid fall, however, so, just to be safe, I grab it before we fall onto some soft leaves. Better safe than sorry, after all...

So, after the first twenty minutes of playing, saving, loading and writing, we've found ourselves in Wonderland, and... Already there's death. No need for help yet, folks, but before I head off, let's take a look at the hints, and how it impacts our score...

Help → Game → Rabbit Hole

1. The rabbit hole looks like an interesting place to explore. 
2. It would help if you could see where you were going. 
3. A lantern would light the way.

You have used the Help facility 3 times. No score change, and our first puzzle solution can be potentially missed on your first try, or even your second. If you're impetuous.

Alice is carrying a jar, wearing shoes, and a white dress. We have 4 points, and the game is already looking pretty arbitrary, just as I remember! (Things will hurry up from this point on)

Time played: 20 minutes (Would have been 30 if I hadn't played this part before)

Missed Classics 6: Wonderland - Introduction (1990)

Written by Mad Welshman

Between interactive fiction and first person graphical adventure games, there were some interesting experiments in the genre: What I like to call Graphical Parser games. We've already seen at least one style of this subgenre played by Trickster (ICOM's Deja Vu), but there were at least two more, from two other companies: Legend Entertainment (At least one of which, Frederik Pohl's Gateway, is on the list), and the Magnetic Scrolls games (Which are not.)

Magnetic Scrolls was founded in 1984 by Anita Sinclair, Ken Gordon, and Hugh Steers, originally wanting to develop games for the Sinclair QL (A computer many won't have heard of outside of the UK), but moving quite quickly to the Commodore and Atari line of computers on seeing their utility. Their first four games were well received, for the most part, but it is the fifth I'm going to be looking at, because it is the first game that received the Magnetic Windows treatment that made them somewhat different: Wonderland (1990), published for the Atari ST, PC, the Acorn Archimedes, and the Amiga line of computers by Virgin Interactive, and written by David Bishop.

I'm specifically going to be using the Atari ST version for this Missed Classics review, because it highlights how much hard work was put into the technical end of things. Let's begin with a shot of the Atari ST Operating System, CRYSTAL (Precursor to GEM), also affectionately known as The Little Green Desktop.

And now, Wonderland as it would look when you first get past the title screen.

Looks similar, doesn't it? But this is all in game, and looks pretty much the same no matter what platform you play it on. It's not using CRYSTAL, it's creating these windows in program. With that said, let's introduce the game itself.

Wonderland is, as you might have guessed from the title, loosely based on Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, and, if it weren't for these bells and whistles, would firmly be placed in the “Text Adventure” portion of Interactive Fiction. But its features are quite powerful: A map, drawn as you explore. A window each for your own inventory, and all the items you can see (More on that when we get there). A graphical window (Sometimes animated, and always drawn from a preliminary description of the scene by many different pixel artists), and finally, the parser window itself. All of them are resizable, movable, and can be closed or opened at will. I'll try not to keep things too cluttered for the screenshots, however, generally keeping only the graphics and text windows open at the same time.

I'll be working from memory, as I have played this before, but the game also has a hint system... So, apart from an example or two to highlight the use of the hint system, I'll be comparing your inputs to the game's, and the usual hint rules apply.

Note Regarding Spoilers and Companion Assist Points: There's a set of rules regarding spoilers and companion assist points. Please read it here before making any comments that could be considered a spoiler in any way. The short of it is that no CAPs will be given for hints or spoilers given in advance of me requiring one. As this is an introduction post, it's your chance to predict what the final rating will be for the game. Voters can predict whatever score they want, regardless of whether someone else has already chosen it. All correct (or nearest) votes will go into a draw.

What's Your Story? - Mad Welshman

Answers by Mad Welshman
Introduction and Captions by Ilmari

Our group of reviewers is growing! We got eager posts detailing his wish to play and blog some games from Mad Welshman already back in December, but our posting schedules were then pretty filled up. He may not yet have appeared in the comments, but Mad Welshman has been reviewing games in another setting for few years. He'll be starting his review experience in The Adventure Gamer with a Missed Classic in February - we'll see what game he has chosen in couple of weeks. But now for his answers!

He sure looks mad, but I wouldn't have guessed he's a Welsh!

My Home Country Is... Wales, glorious Wales, land of harps, sheep, rain, and interesting myth cycles which may predate Arthurian myth, but we're not sure because we only have two main written sources, and they're both post christianisation and waaaay past our use of the oral tradition, go us!

My Age Is... 32, which translates to "I'm 30 something" until I can't lie about it any more.

The First Adventure Game I Played Was... either Granny's Garden or Twin Kingdom Valley, primary school was mostly a bit of a blur, barring some things like playing King's Quest IV and Mixed Up Nursery Rhymes at an education expo where we were extolling the virtue of computers in education. Got away with it, too!

I assure you, this is NOT the Missed Classic we will be seeing---

My Favourite Adventure Game is... actually a tough call. I loved a lot of the Infocom games for their humorous writing (And Graham Cluely's work for exactly the same reason), but at the same time, there's the Space Quest series, Sam and Max Hit the Road, the Blackwell series, Grey Matter... Er, let's go with Sam and Max hit the road, for the amusing dialogue and strange world. Ask me again next week, it'll probably be something else.

Who wouldn't like these two?

When I'm Not Playing Games, I Like To... Tabletop roleplay, go for long walks, the occasional amateur freehold rock-climbing, swimming, reading, doodling, singing, playing guitar badly, attempting to compose music and make my own games and aaaaaaaaah not enough time in the world, dammit!

I Like My Games In... mostly digital, these days. But I do seriously miss the days of cluebooks and cloth maps, and when a dev makes a package for a game involving such things, my wallet gets this strange itching. Which is stranger still, because it's definitely not a sense organ of mine...

The Thing I Miss About Old Games Is... not a whole lot beyond the attention to things that came with the box, to be honest. I appreciate both old games and new, and prefer to judge them on their own merits. Indie developers do a fair bit of experimentation, AAAs do... Ah, I was about to say polish, but that's not always true, is it? Something, then... But old games were just as prone to being rushed, or development difficulties, as any modern game. We just tend to catch them in the act quicker these days.

The One TV Show I Never Miss Is... technically none. I mainly watch my TV series via DVDs or VOD, so I can better organise my free time (IE devote a day to watching Batman The Animated Series, or Doctor Who. :D )

If I Could See Any Band Live It Would Be... aaaaaaaaaa! So many good bands, some of which are gone, and not nearly enough time and/or money in the world! Pomplamoose and Depeche Mode and Talking Heads and Pink Floyd and Queen and... The list just goes on and on!

I hadn't heard of Pomplamoose before this, but now I am intrigued

My Favourite Movie Is... Trick R Treat. Didn't even have to hesitate. It's a Warner Bros horror movie that's well written, well directed, and for one scene, they used four different methods (suits, CGI, animatronics and makeup) to get it just right. I've heard rumblings of a sequel quite recently, and I'm hoping it's true!

One Interesting Thing About Me Is ...Er... I... Gimme a minute, I'm sure I'll... I have a personal library that comprises two thirds of my room's wallspace. Yeah, that's... Interesting... [runs and hides]