Leather Goddesses of Phobos
# A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Various Info
Part 1
You findyourself in UpperSandusky, Ohio, in Joe's Bar, to be precise. You've quaffed afair amount ofno-name beer (at five cents a glass, who cares about names?), andyou feel anurge. You trace the urge to the region of your bladder. You are told that the ladies' facility is northeast and thegents' isnorthwest. Okay, go in the direction of whichever one younormally use. Yes, Isaid NORMALLY! Clever, huh? This is how those subtle smahties at Infocom getyou to determinewhat sex you will be in LGOP. In any case, you will find eitherbathroom to befilthy and fly-specked. Moreover, each contains a stool. Get thestool if youthink it will come in handy (and no cracks about which stool,either! It's thethree-legged one). Under certain circumstances, the stool mayprove useful, butit isn't vital. Also, while you're in there, you might want to followinstructions and use theScratch 'n' Sniff card which comes with the game. (Honest, thescents on thecard really do smell pretty close to what they're supposed to.Well, some ofthem do, anyway.) On the other hand, if card-sniffing isn't yourbag, simplytype, "Smell the odor," hit RETURN and each time you'llbe told what you'resupposed to be smelling. In the case of the bathroom, it's an oldpizza slice,dubiously discarded in the corner. Finally, before leaving thebathroom, use it.I mean the bathroom, silly, not the pizza slice! And no pruriententries,please. Just type, "Use the bathroom." After you havedone so, exit back intothe bar and order a drink. Usually, the bartender will tell you you've had enough. If hedoes,try orderingagain. You won't get another one, of course, but Infocom has tohave a littledelay in the game before you get zapped by tentacled aliens (?)from your cozybar into a cell. That's right, a cell. You are suddenly, and withno logicwhatsoever, a prisoner of the dreaded LEATHER GODDESSES OFPHOBOS, whosedastardly plan it is to invade and take over Earth for their ownsinisterpurposes. This bodes ill, I fear for God, country, the old ballgame, mom'sapple pie, and all those other values we hold so dear. Oh, at this point I should interject that you start LGOP inwhat is called"Suggestive Mode." In movie lingo, this roughlycorresponds to "PG." At anypoint in the game, including the beginning, you can change modesby typing ineither "Tame" (ho hum), which gets a "G," or"Lewd," which is "R." This, ofcourse, permits you to play the game all the way through in anyof three modes,not to mention as a male and/or a female. If this is confusing,well, don't freton it. One other thing, you have to be eighteen or over to playin "Lewd" mode.No cheating! (Remember those tentacled aliens?) Okay, you're in your cell and you find some things to take: aflashlight, apainting of a stuff cat and a blanket. Take all. Also, someonethrusts a traycontaining a hunk of brown food into your cell. Get the food(it's chocolatecandy) but forget the tray. Evidently, one of those aliens was asleep at the tentaclebecause he/she/itforgot to lock your cell door. Open the door and go south. Across the hallway, you find another cell door. You also see asign at the headof some stairs which go up and down. The sign says,"Observation Room." Don't goup yet. Instead, open the other cell door. (Some jail!) Insidethe other cellyou find (a) a man named Trent, if you're playing the game as amale; (b) a girlnamed Tiffany, if you're playing as a female. Trent or Tiffanywill be yourfaithful, albeit not too bright, companion from now on. On the floor of this cell you spy a crumpled piece of paper.Get it and readit. It turns out there's a seemingly meaningless matrix ofletters on the paper.The operative word here, folks, is MATRIX. If you scan theletters verycarefully you will make out words, for the matrix is one of those"scramble-grams." Some of the words run backward fromleft-to-right, others areforward, right-to-left. Some run vertically, others diagonallyand severalintersect. In any case, encircle the words as you find them. Youshould wind upwith eight circled items: blender, rubber hose, phonebook, angle,cotton balls,photo, mouse and headlight. For the present, you are not told the significance of theseobjects. Eventually(rather soon, as a matter of fact), you will learn what they'refor. However, aswith many Infocom puzzles, all is not as obvious as it seems withthis matrix.If you are paying very, very close attention, you will discoverthat its realsignificance is with the letters you DON'T circle. If you putthese together,you will read the phrase, "Hissing frightens flytraps."You are encouraged tostash this information in your memory banks. It comes in handylater on. Okay, leave the cell and go upstairs to the Observatory Room.(Note: there's abasement downstairs, and one flight up from the Observatory isthe Roof of theObservatory. The basement isn't important; the roof is.) Onceyou're upstairs,go north into the tiny closet where it's too dark to seeanything. Turn on yourflashlight. Now you can see, and you notice a black circle on thefloor and awicker basket up on a shelf; but the basket is too high to reach.Here, you can either drop your stool (if you took it) andstand on it, or youcan stand on the shoulders of your newly acquired companion.Either way, takethe basket. It's a good idea to put your possessions into thebasket, too, sincethis will permit you to carry more stuff, at least until you finda roomierreceptacle. No? You don't want to do that? Well, at least put theblanket in thebasket. You'll be sorry if you don't put your other stuff in,too. When you getthe dropsies, don't come crawling to me for sympathy. Finally,stand on thecircle.Part 2
Whoosh! You're zapped away to the Jungle. Slithering up to youthrough theexcessive heat and humidity is a gigantic Venus Flytrap. It looks(and is)hungry! I've got some explaining to do so I'll pause here. First, Ishould tell youthat the sequence of events in LGOP does not necessarily have tofollow mywalkthru scenario. For instance, if you had gone upstairs onemore flight to theRoof of the Observatory, you would have seen another blackcircle. If you hadstood on this one instead of the circle in the closet, you wouldhave beenteleported to the Martian Desert instead of the Jungle. The sequence isn't especially important. What matters is thatthere are blackcircles (teleporters) located at key locations throughout thegame. You shouldmake a note of where each circle is situated and where each onetakes you.Otherwise, you will quickly get lost and doubtless die and beforgotten, neverto taste mom's apple pie again. One other thing: whenever youstand on a blackcircle, your faithful companion will emerge right behind you whenyou reach yourdestination. Well, most of the time he/she will. Back to the action. There's this flytrap, see? Well, we knowwhat to do, don'twe? Hiss at the flytrap. (Oh, and it might be a good idea to turnoff yourflashlight, too!) Your hissing promptly causes the flytrap to cooperativelyexpire. (He mistakesthe hiss for a spray can of weed killer.) With the flytrap out ofthe way, youcan now proceed west to the Spawning Ground for Venusian slimebeasts. Only onespot is free of slime and it contains a black circle. Next to thecircle is ajar of ointment. Get the jar, but do not stand on the circle.Examine the jar.It turns out to contain untangling cream, whatever that is. At this point, Trent/Tiffany will toss you a matchbook. Younotice it is empty,but there are notations scrawled all over the cover. Yourcompanion tells youthis is a list of things he needs to whip up a Super-DuperAnti-LEATHERGODDESSES OF PHOBOS Attack Machine! As it turns out, the list isa duplicationof the objects you so laboriously decoded from that meaninglessmatrix you foundback in your cell. Anyway, now you know what you must obtain inorder to win thegame. You also note that, so far, you're batting zero. On withthe quest! Having read the matchbook cover, go east from the SpawningGround back into theJungle. Go east again. At this point, a mighty tree rises beforeyou! Suddenly,the tree dies and is consumed by Venusian hypertermites, leavinga gigantic holein the ground. What to do about the hole? Well, you can go down into it ifyou wish. Butthat's pretty boring. Besides, you won't be able to get out againunless youhave your stool. (That's really the only use I found for thething, by the way.)On the other hand, Infocom doesn't just allow things likeunexplainedtree-dyings to occur, do they? I never tried this, but I gatherthe purpose ofthe hole is to permit another solution to the flytrap puzzle. Isuspect this isincluded in case you didn't/couldn't decipher the meaninglessmatrix of letters.(Those Infocom guys know that not everyone is as smaht as theyare!) Anyway, one of the places you will teleport to at some pointin the game isCleveland. There, you will find a trellis and a sack. If you arefollowing asequence of events which gets you to Cleveland before you get tothe Jungle andthe Venus Flytrap, here's what you can do. Presumably, you willbe astute enoughto take the sack and the trellis when you find them. The sack isfull of leaves(69,105 to be exact). Now, when you get to the Jungle put thetrellis over thehole left by the tree, and dump the leaves on the trellis. Theflytrap willsidle up to you across the trellis and fall into the hole. End ofproblem. Since you have just hissed the flytrap into oblivion, you maycompletelydisregard the foregoing, ignore the hole and proceed east yetagain. This takesyou to a Clearing. In the Clearing is a can of black stain. Getthe can and gonortheast. You come to the front door of a plasticoid house. It is closedand locked.What's more, you don't have a key. Go east to the Rocky Clifftop.There isn'tmuch here except, oh, a black circle and a neat view. Off to thenorthwest youcan see a Vizicomm Booth. Go northwest. (The black circle cankeep.) Enter the Vizicomm Booth, which is out of order. Turn or pullthe coin returnknob and you'll here a clank. Open the return box, and a coindrops to theground. Get the coin and examine it. The coin reads "TenMarsmids." Fine. Now goback to the Rocky Clifftop (just type "Exit"). From theclifftop, go north. Youfind yourself at the back door of the plasticoid house. And youare NOT alone! An extraordinary number of door-to-door salesmen are campedout here. One ofthem approaches you and offers to barter one of his machines forsomething ofequal value you might be carrying. Offer the flashlight to thesalesman. Inexchange, you receive what is described as a TEE-Remover Machine.Before the salesman can explain, he turns on your flashlightand a giantVenusian Megamoth swoops down and carries him off. The othersalesmen scatter tothe four winds. Hm -- a Tee-Remover? Open the machine. Put the jar (of untangling cream) into themachine. Close thedoor and turn on the machine. The machine whirs and grinds. Whenit stops, openthe door and get the jar. It now contains unAngling cream. (Oh,brother!) Nowknock on the back door.Part 3
You are welcomed by a Mad Scientist (mit a Cherman accent, uffcourze). Hewelcomes you because you look like a grand candidate for his nextmadexperiment! Go downstairs. Oops! You're in the Mad Scientist's laboratory. It contains acage. The cagecontains two gorillas. The cage also contains a rubber hose.Quick! Throw thecandy (the hunk of brown food, remember?) into the cage. Just intime! The madscientist straps you and Trent/Tiffany down to a couple of slabs.Then he throwsan ominous looking switch. Suddenly, you find yourself inside the cage. You also findyourself inside agorilla skin! Odd, you can also see your own body still strappedto the firstslab. Gee! The female/male gorilla in here with you looks betterand better allthe time. Kiss the gorilla. This seems to satisfy the Mad Scientist that his experiment isworking chustfein, zo he bounds up the stairs, leaving you locked in the cagewith thegorilla. Your companion, who has been transported to the"body" of a VenusFlytrap, is of no help. He remains strapped to the second slab. Let's see, wasn't there a rubber hose on that list? Yep. Getthe hose. Now eatthe candy. You feel a sugar rush. (For those of you not quite sosmaht as thoseInfocom fellers, a sugar rush means you feel super strong.) Good.Open the cage.Wow! You really are super strong! You part the bars easily andcan exit thecage. Do so. Drop the hose outside the cage. Then, go to the second slaband unstrapTrent/Tiffany (watch out for those "tentacles!"). Next,unstrap your body. Whileyour sugar rush is ebbing, pull the switch. Good! You're back inyour own bodyagain. Get off the slab and retrieve the rubber hose and put itin your basket. If you were paying attention when you entered the laboratory(it's always agood idea to read the descriptions, no?), you noticed there was ablack circleat the foot of the stairs. This might be a good time to stand onit. Zap! You're back inside the Vizicomm Booth. Exit the booth andyou're back onthe clifftop. Now you can stand on the black circle you saw thefirst time youcame here. Doing so takes you to the Royal Docks. Moored to theend of this dockis a royal barge. To the south is a ruined castle. Go south. You are in the throne room of King Mitre. It seems that we'vebeen wrong allalong about the legend of King Midas; he, who we always thoughtcould turnthings into gold by his mere touch. It seems his real name wasKing Mitre, and,in fact, everything he touched turned into forty-five degreeangles. Everything,including his own daughter. You notice one angle in particular --prominentbecause of its long golden tresses and flowing white gown.Unlimber yourhandy-dandy jar of unAngling cream. Rub the unAngling cream on the daughter. Slowly, the angleturns into KingMitre's beautiful daughter, Princess Theta. Mitre is so happy tosee her againthat he rewards you with a truly useful gift, a perfecteighty-two degree angle.(He explains he only brushed against it.) Take the angle. Hey!Your battingaverage is going up! You now have two objects out of eight. Putthe angle in thebasket with the hose. By the way, at this point your inventory may be a bittop-heavy. I mean, whatgood is a jar of unAngling cream, now that it's empty? And whoneeds aTEE-Remover Machine after it's done its work? That stool isn'tmuch good,either. Unless you're terribly possessive about such things, goahead, dropthem, along with the matchbook, the scrap of paper and any otherflotsam youstill have. On the other hand, no sense being a litterbug. Whynot pick acentral spot where you can drop them unobtrusively? (I chose thebasement belowmy cell.) Nothing like being tidy, eh? And you never know whensomething mightcome in handy. On the other hand, if you're a slob, there's nopenalty in thegame for dropping things wherever you please, once you've usedthem. Just makesure not to drop anything prematurely. After you've got your angle tucked away, leave good KingMitre. As you depart,you realize the dummy has inadvertently touched the princessagain, but youcan't do anything about that. It's time to visit the Martiandesert. Go south.Part 4
You've come to a Ruin, one of many you'll encounter. Go southagain. You'restill in the desert. Go east to Another Ruin. Sitting on a rockis a trulyrepulsive frog. I mean, this one is the repulsive frog of allrepulsives in thefrog kingdom. It is also wearing a little gold crown. Go ahead,kiss the frog. Yuck! The frog is so ugly you just cannot bring yourself tokiss it. Yet,instinctively you realize that somehow, some way you've just gotto screw upyour courage, pucker up and plant one on its repulsive kisser.For now, though,go west, then, north to Yet Another Ruin. This one isunimpressive except forthe fact that it does seem to contain a black circle. No, don'tstand on it(unless you have a hankering to visit the basement below yourcell). Retraceyour steps by going south to the frog, then, east to the Dessert.Very sharp-eyed gamesters will have noted the word"dessert" above. "Ha!" theywill proclaim, "I knew the Sysop editors around here didn'tknow how to spell!"Wrongo, smahties. The word IS Dessert. In fact, you're looking ata fifty footMartian Cream Pie. It is a mirage, of course. So are the trailswhich appear tolead to the northwest and southwest from here. (You were advised that all is not always as it seems in anInfocom production.Those trails are not mirages after all.) Go southeast. You've come to an Oasis. There is a little bunny rabbithippity-hopping aroundthe premises. Get him. (What you do with him, I confess, Ihaven't the foggiest.But I got him anyway, so you might as well, too. Maybe he makesgood rabbitstew.) On the other hand, you also see a black circle here, and IDO know whatto do about that. That's odd. The black circle mysteriously turnswhite! Get outyour can and pour the black stain on the circle. That's better.Now it's blackagain. Stand on the circle. Whoosh! You're in Cleveland. (Remember, Cleveland?) Go south.Well, now, here'sa lawn that somebody cares about. Actually, it's a muddy patch ofcrabgrass, butthere's a rake and a sack full of leaves. Forget everythingexcept the sack.Take it and dump out the leaves. Now that the sack is empty,you've got a muchbetter receptacle than your wicker basket. Put all your goodiesexcept theblanket in the sack. Leave the blanket in the basket. It lookscute in there.Now go north, then, northeast. You're standing inside a Teensy-Weensy House. Go upstairs andYou find yourselfin a Bedroom containing an open window, an unmade bed and a sheetlying half onthe floor. Get the sheet. Tear the sheet into strips and tie the strips together (whichforms a rope),then tie the rope to the bed. Throw the loose end of the rope outthe window.Your faithful friend, Trent/Tiffany, will now shinny down thesheet. (If youtry, you soon learn you're too heavy and fall to your untimelydemise. This isnot terribly important except that it ends the game.) Once on thestreet, yourpal will just have time to unscrew a handy headlight before beingunceremoniously struck by a truck and, evidently, killed. Before you can burst into tears over your loss, your companionreappears in acloud of falling plaster as the ceiling above you collapses! Heoffers anexplanation of his startling reincarnation, but I won't bore youwith it here.After all, I presume you can read it for yourself if you'replaying the game.Anyway, take the headlight he/she is carrying and put it in thesack. That'sthree out of eight! Time to leave picturesque Cleveland, so go downstairs and goeast into thegarden behind the Wee House. There's a trellis against the houseand a freshpiece of sod. Lifting the sod reveals another black circle! (Ifyou need to betold about the trellis, you're not paying attention.) Stand onthe circle.You're teleported to the basement below your cell. You see, youcould have comehere from the black circle in that ruin I told you about. But ifyou did thatyou might have missed Cleveland, and...oh, forget it. Right about here is where I dropped all my superfluous,used-up junk. You see,I didn't have a walkthru like you've got, and I didn't knowwhether I might notneed my superfluous, used-up junk again. For some reason whichonly a tentacledalien could divine, the basement seemed like a logical spot. Ofcourse, beingtidy never hurt anyone, but I think I've covered this groundalready.Part 5
Go upstairs. Go 'way upstairs, all the way to the Roof of theObservatory,upstairs! This time, stand on the black circle there. You will beback in theruin just south of King Mitre's castle. Go north. Mitre willstill be sitting onhis throne, surrounded by forty-five degree angles, lookingdejected. One ofthem has long golden hair and a flowing white gown (sigh). Ifonly old Mitrecould keep his paws to himself! Well, leave him to hisruminations and go northto the Royal Docks and board the barge. You see some simple controls. Examine the controls. One is ahuge orangebutton, which reads "Magnetomoor On." The other is ahuge purple button. Itreads, "Go With the Flow." Pushing the orange buttoncauses the words to read"Magnetomoor Off." It also causes the barge to driftaway from the dock into thechannel. Pushing the purple button causes the words to read"Full Speed Ahead." As soon as you have pushed orange, push purple, wait one turn,and push orangeagain. (You can pretty much forget about purple from now on.)Anyway, by pushingorange you have reactivated the Magnetomoor. (Magnet-O-Moor, getit?) This isyour dock/undock device. Since all the docks in the canal containbarge magnets,all you need do to moor at one is push the orange button in atimely fashion. Tounmoor, push it again. All right, the first dock you'll clank against is Baby Dock.Disembarge and gonorth. You find yourself among the Dunes, and there is a strangealien warriorlying dead here. Next to the alien is a chapstick. Get it.Partially buried inthe sand nearby is a strangely coded message. Get that, too. If you carefully read your 3-D comic book which comes withLGOP, you willrecall a bit in there about a transposition code. You say youforgot the code?Well, go back and reread it. In the meantime, I'll translate thestrangely codedmessage. It says, "Your mission is to contact wife numbernnn (the number isinserted randomly) of the sultan/sultaness and get the secretmap. Identifyyourself to her by asking her to kiss your kneecaps." Now, wasn't that easy? Leave the alien in the dunes and goback to your barge.Board the barge and go through the orange button ritual. The second and extremely opulent dock you come to is THIS isMy Kind of Dock!When you reach it, exit the barge and go east. You will be in theMain Hall ofthe Palace. Go south to the Laundry Room and get the clothespin.Now go backnorth into the Main Hall and east into the Oriental Garden. Here,you see a wellcontaining handholds downward. Climb down. At the bottom of the well is a black circle. You land upon itand areimmediately transported back to the barge. This is a good circleto know about.It teleports you to wherever you've parked your barge, and thisknowledge willcome in mighty handy later in the game. For now, though, re-exitthe barge andgo back into the palace. From the main hall, go northeast. Now, if you're playing this game as a male you will be in thesultan's palace.If you're a lady-person, your host-person will be a sultaness. Ineither case,you find yourself in the Audience Chamber confronting one or theother, as thecase may be. Whomever it is, sultan or sultaness, will confrontyou with ariddle. Your faithful companion will burst out with a dumb answerand wind upbeing tossed to the tigers by the palace eunuchs. Alas! You werebeginning to befond of him/her, but on with the game. Alas, again! You're nextif you don't getit right. The answer to the riddle is, "Riddle." So type SAY"RIDDLE." Oh, goody! Thesultan/ess begrudgingly rewards you with an hour of rapturousbliss with one ofhis/her 8,379 wives/husbands. Hie thee west into the harem. Hereyou areconfronted by a harem guard who asks you to make a selection, anynumber from 1to 8,379. Naturally, you pick the number you gleaned from thecoded message.(Remember, the message was written backward, which means thenumber wasbackward, too.) Wait a bit and soon your choice will beckon you to her/hisobscenely luxuriousbed chamber. Ahem <er> afterward, type TELL WIFE/HUSBAND,"KISS MY KNEECAPS."Your partner will present you with a secret map of the catacombs.(It comes inyour game package, by the way, but you'll probably still need mydirections toget through the maze. Try it without them, you'll see.) She/healso pulls asidethe covers and indicates a secret passage down. You are told it'sthe only wayout of the harem. Take the torch he/she gives you and go down. You are now in the catacombs. Well, what do you know. Here'syour faithfulcompanion Trent/Tiffany with another outlandish explanation ofhis/herreappearance. You listen and then decide to push on. For my money, your visit to the catacombs is the toughest partof the game. Ihave to admit I had help here. (Oh, all right, I had help in acouple of otherplaces, too. Golly! I never can get through these dumb gameswithout help!Besides, I HATE games!) Anyway, you need to follow thesedirections carefully,including those about "Hop, Clap and Kweepa." (I TOLDyou to read the comicbook.) Okay, here we go: NW, N, NE, E, CLAP, NE, NE, SE, HOP, CLAP, KWEEPA, D, NW, NE,CLAP, N, S, HOP,NE, CLAP, U, KWEEPA, NW. Get the phone book. (Four out of eight!) CLAP, NW, HOP, S, SE, CLAP, SE, D, KWEEPA, NE, CLAP, HOP, W,N, NW, CLAP, E, W,KWEEPA, HOP, CLAP, SW, SW. Get the raft. N, CLAP, NE, E, HOP, KWEEPA, CLAP, NW, NE, SE, U, CLAP, NW,HOP. Stand on the black circle. That's it. But be sure to follow the directions precisely. Ofcourse, if youprefer being devoured by a Martian crocodile or some such, youcan always findyour own way. Presuming you wind up at the black circle and stand on it, youwill beteleported directly to the Well Bottom. You've been there beforeso you know theblack circle at the bottom will take you right back to yourbarge. After thecatacombs, the royal barge is kind of cozy. But there's no timeto dally. Exitthe barge and go east into the palace again. This time, go eastinto theOriental Garden and from there, southeast to the base of a Tower.Actually, it'sa Minaret with stairs leading upward so go up. The view here is breathtaking, almost as nice as the clifftopback in thejungle. But there's also a black circle here. Stand on it. Zowie! You find yourself in a cramped space which, as it turnsout, is rightover your cell! You don't know that, of course, until the floorcollapses andyou find yourself tumbling through the resultant orifice intoyour cell. Hm,that's odd. There's a black circle here. Never noticed thatbefore. (That'sbecause it wasn't there before, Venusian Bird Brain!) As it turnsout, thiscircle takes you to the main hall of the palace, but we don'twant to go therethis time. Exit the cell (south) and go up to the ObservatoryRoof. Stand on thecircle and you're back in the Martian Desert (with one"s" this time). Go eastto the frog. Ah, yes, you remember that ugliest of ugly frogs? Now you haveboth the willand the means to kiss this total grossness. Put the clothespin onyour nose. Rubthe lip balm on your lips. Then, drop everything you're carryingand cover yourears with your hands. Close your eyes. At last! Kiss the frog! Ooooh, another rapturous interlude with one of the oppositesex. It turns outyou're not quite (humph!) satisfied, but at least "theone" leaves you with asmall token of affection. It's a household blender. Take it. Putit in the sack.(You have been using the sack, haven't you?) If I reckon right,that's five outof eight. We're getting there!Part 6
Leave the ruin and go east into the Dessert once more. Yes,the one with two"s's." Then meander southeast to the Oasis. Stand onthe circle and return toCleveland. No particular reason for another trip to Cleveland,really. You couldhave gone to the other ruin which has a black circle and gonedirectly to yourcell. It's just that I sorta feel sorry for Cleveland. Nobody inhis/her rightmind would EVER go there twice, would they? On the other hand,nobody in his/herright mind would play computer games, either. Would they? Anyway, you're back in Cleveland. Go northeast, then east(into the garden) andget yourself zapped back to the hallway near your cell. Go downinto thebasement and dump your extraneous jetsam, especially theclothespin. You'd lookpretty silly going up against the Leather Goddesses wearing aclothespin on yournose, right? After you've lightened your load, go up into your cell andstand on the blackcircle. You find yourself back in the Main Hall of the Palace.You might want towipe off that gooey lip balm here. Exit the palace to the westand enter yourbarge. Push orange. Wait. Push it again. (You know the drill.) Wait until your barge clangs up against Wattz-Upp Dock. Youhear a gurglingnoise to the west (it's the Oasis). Exit the barge. When you'restanding on thedock, reach over and push orange. That's right, push it! So whatif your bargegoes shooting out into the canal without you. Trust me. Go west to the Oasis, stand on the circle and, voila:Beautiful, downtownCLEVELAND! (I told you I felt sorry! Now I'm sorry I did this onemore time. Imean, who needs Cleveland tha-ree times?) Oh, well, you're nothere for long. Goback to the garden, the black circle and...the hallway near yourcell. Go up tothe Observatory Roof and stand on the circle.A pause here for a comment or two. Make that a rebuttal. Yeah,I can hear allyou wisenheimers out there knocking my route. And I freely admitthere might bebetter ways to go, bypassing my revisits to dear, picturesquedowntownCleveland. Didn't I tell you there was no particular sequence youhad to follow?C'mon, didn't I? You know it, fella. Hey, if you've got somethingagainstCleveland, go ahead, write your own walkthru. I digress. You're back in the desert. You've sent your bargedown the canal,pilotless. What to do? Go west to Yet Another Ruin. Now gonorthwest. You'vereached Hickory & Dickory Dock. What's this? A mouse! Showthe picture (of thestuff cat) to the mouse. The poor thing is frozen with fear. Getthe mouse.(Only two more goodies to go!) Now go south, back to Yet AnotherRuin. Stand onthe black circle. Once more, you are in the basement below your cell. Gotanything to drop? Howabout that torch? It went "phhttttt" long ago. Okay,let it go. Next stop,upstairs to your cell. Stand on the black circle. You arrive atthe palace. Goeast into the Oriental Garden and enter the well. Well, well (a little humor there, folks) you're zapped fromthe Well Bottomright slap dab onto your barge. Where is it? Why, it's right hereat the IcyDock, 'way, 'way down at the southern terminus of the canal. Okay, I'll bite. Why didn't you just take the scenic routeaboard the barge allthe way down the canal to here? It would have been restful and,well, scenic;not to mention saving a lot of aggravation, wouldn't it, boobie?Well, for onething, you would have missed those neato trips to Cleveland. Foranother, youprobably would have missed the mouse, too. Oh, and one otherpoint: If you'dtaken the barge route you would have died. It seems there is this gigantic machine just before you get tothe Icy Dock.It's some sort of Martian (Phobotian?) energy machine, and itused to supplypower to the whole planet. It doesn't work quite like it used to,but it worksjust well enough to send a lethal ion beam out over the canal. Ifyou try topass through it, say, on a barge, well, first you get a littleheadache. Thenyou get a truly humungous headache. Finally, after the humungousheadacheassumes gigantically unbearable proportions you, er, explode. Andthat's a fact. Aren't you glad we went to Cleveland? Okay, from the Icy Dock, exit the barge and go south. Oh, no,your faithful palTrent/Tiffany slips on the ice and disappears into the frigidwaters of thecanal. No matter, go south, like I said. You are at the edge ofthe polar icecap. Needless to say, it's cold. Go southeast. Oh, good grief! Your passage forward is blocked by a wholewaddling phalanx ofpenguins! One of them is carrying a sign. Read the sign. Itsuggests that youdonate to the Penguin Relief Fund. Well, there's nothing for itbut to give yourcoin (the Marsmid tenner) to the penguin. The penguin thanks you graciously, and gives you your change,a one Marsmidcoin. (You don't know it yet, but the little guy just did you afavor.) Thepenguins part to let you pass, so go southeast. You arrive at a gypsy camp. About the only thing here is asingle forlorn tent,pitched on the north side of the camp. You are greeted by tworobots, a male anda female (they're gypsies, see). No sooner do they invite you infor tiffin thana meteorite swoops down and kills both robots dead. Oh, dear,from inside thetent you hear the wail of a baby crying, "Mommy." Enter the tent. Sure enough, it's a gypsy robot baby. Get thebaby and put itin your wicker basket. Oh, that's nice. The baby appreciates thewarmth of theblanket and instantly goes to sleep. As for you, exit the tentand go south - tothe South Pole, as a matter of fact. What else would you expect to find at the South Pole? Righto!It's an Igloo!But the front door is locked. Gazing through the igloo window youare tantalizedby the sight of a pair of cotton balls. Instantly, your braincells focus,cutting through the fog of forgetfulness like lasers. Yousuddenly recall thatcotton balls were on the list. How to get them? Let's re-read that description of the igloo one more time.Yessir, I thoughtso. There's a sign over the door. It reads, "MartianOrphanages, Inc., SouthPolar Branch." Well, what do you suppose might be anappropriate action forsomeone carrying an orphan in a basket to take, standing like youare on thedoorstep of an orphanage? Listen, if you can't figure this oneout for yourself, you never, ever should try another text adventure game again.After all, youmight have to get through the next one without a walkthru. Hey, you're smahtah than I thought you were! You put thewicker basket on thedoorstep. Then, you hide behind a snowdrift and wait. Sureenough, from insidethe igloo emerges a matronly woman of immense proportions. Shetakes the basketand its contents into the igloo and closes the door. But shedoesn't lock it. Open the door, enter the igloo, get the cotton balls andscram. Retrace yoursteps north to the gypsy camp, northwest to the penguin park,then go west tothe Allusion Room. As it turns out, the Allusion Room is nothingmore or lessthan a black circle. Stand on it. You are whisked back to theOasis. Well, I'llbe a petrified penguin! Here's Trent/Tiffany, emerging alive andwell. The sagaof how he/she survived the fall into the icy waters is toobizzarre to bearrepeating, so we'll move right along. Stand on the circle at theOasis. Guesswhere we are now?Part 7
Cleveland!!! This is really ridiculous, so let's beat feet.Get into thatgarden and onto the circle. You're back in the hallway so go onup one more timeto the Observation Room (the one with the closet to the north).Go into thecloset. It's too dark to see, but you can still stand on thecircle. I'm sureyou remember it takes you to the jungle. Leave the jungle by wayof the circleon the clifftop. Go ahead, there won't be any flytraps, salesmenor madscientists to stop you. You are teleported for the last time to the Royal Docks. (Justa tad away isMitre's castle, but you're not going there this time.) Instead,put your raft(the one you've been lugging along since you found it in thecatacombs) into thewater. Board the raft. Here, you have to be alert. As you drift down the canal inyour raft, you mightbe lulled into your customary state of not carefully reading thedescriptions inthe game. Do not permit this to occur. What you're looking for isa passageindicating that a dock is close enough for you to grab. Actually,you will passseveral docks which are eminently grabbable. Grab them all justto be on thesafe side. The one you want is Donald Dock. When you've grabbed Donald Dock, exit the raft (you pull itonto the dock forsafe-keeping). Go south to the Dunetop. From here, go east to theCanalviewMall. There appears to be just one shop in the mall worthvisiting and it liesto the south. Go south. You are in the Exit Shop. The sign says,"Exits boughtand sold." Buy an Exit. Now, I told you the penguins did you a favor. If you had triedto buy the Exitwith your ten Marsmid coin, the shopkeeper (one of the morelively gents in thestory, by the way) would have refused you. It seems Exits costjust one Marsmidand he wouldn't dream of overcharging you nor can he make change.As thingsstand, he takes your one Marsmid coin and, sleepily, hands you acardboard tube.It falls into the dust. Retrieve the tube, open it and you findyour Exit.What's an Exit, for goodness sakes? It's a sort of collapsibleblack circle,that's what. Tuck it away and go north, then west, then north,back to DonaldDock. Re-launch your raft, board it and drift. Once again, grab anydock you see.Eventually, you will come to Wattz-Upp Dock. Exit your raft,leave it and headto the Oasis. Stand on the circle. Now really, gang! I'm sorry. But there was no other way. Justforget it'sCleveland, go to the garden and stand on the circle. I promise.We won't becoming back. Hey, you've got seven items out of eight. That ain'tall bad. Isn'tit worth just one more trip to Cleveland? Oh. Listen, you don'thave to getnasty about this. Once back in the hallway, go up to the closet in theObservation Room and standon the circle. When you get to the jungle, go west. You're in theSpawningGround. And there's just one circle left you've never usedbefore. Stand on thecircle. You find yourself in the hold of a giant spaceship. There's asword here. Oh,Lord! A dark figure appears from the shadows of the hold andhurls aradium-powered grenade onto the floor! Your faithful friendTrent/Tiffany hurlshim/her self on the thing, saving you and giving up hislife...quite messily ifI may say, in the process. No time to lose! Get the sword. Don'tdally either.Go south. You are in a stable where you find a magnificent whitestallion. Actually, youare aboard the flagship of the MainAttack Fleet.The stable you're in contains the Leather Goddesses' Main AttackFleet CavalryMounts, of which the stallion is one. Mount the stallion and kickit in theflank. Go west. The stallion dashes down a long east-west corridor in theship, reaching withstallion-like speed the main hatch of the ship. Here you spy awhite thermasuit. Dismount, put on the suit and open the hatch. Go north. You are in space. Floating near the battle cruiser you havejust left is asmall passenger spaceship. Near the small passenger spaceship isa sinisterfigure. He/she turns out to be Thorbast/Thorbala, who is furtheridentified asthe Chief Assassin of the . 'Twas he,it appears, whohurled that grenade. Thorbast is busily engaged, strapping abeautiful, helplessyoung lady/man to the hull of the small passenger spaceship. Yourmove. AttackThorbast with your sword. For awhile, Thorbast will parry your thrusts, and it will benip and tuckwhether you get by this episode or not. While you're fighting foryour dearlife, you notice a perfectly dreadful bug-eyed monster, oozingits way towardThorbast's helpless victim. The hideous monster reaches thewoman/man and startsto remove her/his garments, one at a time. The helpless victimshrieks interror. Meanwhile, you keep attacking Thorbast. Eventually, in thefuror of the action,he drops his sword. Ever the gallant, you retrieve the sword andgive it back toyour foe. Realizing you are truly the good guy, Thorbast knowsnow that hedoesn't have a chance. So he saves us all a lot of trouble andimpales himselfupon his own sword. Farewell, Thorbast. Now it's the monster'sturn. Interestingly enough, the bug-eyed horror is getting down tothe interestingpart when you attack. He squawks once and flees, leaving hisvictim just barelyclad and grateful as all get-out that you happened along. Yourelease her/himand follow her/him into the cabin of the small spaceship. Fromthe wall of theship she/he plucks a photo and gives it to you. (It just happensto be a pictureof Jean Harlow/Douglas Fairbanks, the very thing you've beenlooking for.) Youare told that, written on the back, is the address of daddy, whowill reward youhandsomely if you ever visit Ganymede. With that, the lady/manexits to theeast, closing the door with a flourish. Naturally, you follow. Shocked to see you, the lady/man is nonetheless receptive toyour advances.What follows is another one of those boring orgy type eventswhich we'd justbetter skip for now. After all, we still have to deal with thoseLeatherGoddesses before they launch their invasion fleet and all islost. We have allthe items Trent/Tiffany wanted. But golly! When last we sawTrent/Tiffany,he/she was splattered all over the hold of that LGOP battleship! Exit the small passenger spaceship and go south twice. Youwill be back insidethe LGOP battle cruiser. Walk (do not ride the stallion) eastdown the longeast-west corridor. Well, I'll be a Thorbast's Thorax! Here'sTrent/Tiffany,following along behind, explaining how he/she got here! Keepwalking until youreach the black circle. Stand on the circle. You are back in the Oasis. This time, though, don't use theexit here. Instead,drop your own Exit. Stand on that. You are in a boudoir, lying on a divan. Next to you, actually,is a figure youcan barely make out in the shadows. You can't see who it is, butthe heavy scentof leather is unmistakable. Go ahead. Touch the goddess. Oh, goon! Yipes! You have violated the sanctity of the LEATHER GODDESSESOF PHOBOSprivate boudoir! For this transgression, you are summarilyejected through atrap door, down a long chute into the Plaza. What follows is a hilarious description of the attack upon youandTrent/Tiffany by the entire armed minions of the LEATHERGODDESSES OF PHOBOS.It's worth the price of the game. While the attack goes on, allthat remains isfor you to hand to Trent/Tiffany each of the items you haveprocured at suchgreat peril, one by one as you are instructed. Suffice to say,Trent/Tiffanyputs them to good use, constructing the best doggoned Super-DuperAnti-LEATHERGODDESSES OF PHOBOS Attack Machine ever crafted on this or anyother planet by afaithful companion. Suffice also to say that the machine works and the minions ofthe LEATHERGODDESSES OF PHOBOS are routed. As for you, you're back in UpperSandusky, Ohio,lying dazed in the roadside near a sleepy-looking gas station.From withinemerge three uniformed attendants, cooing prettily (or boomingmanfully), "Areyou all right?" The game has ended, and all you can do nowis await patientlyfor the sequel. Coming soon from those smahties at Infocom: GasPump Girls Meetthe Pulsating Inconvenience from Planet X. © 1986 by Neil P. McCulloch