A short introduction for anybody who has never played a story you have to type at. Version 2.0.0, for TIFE Core 2.3.0.
Press BEGIN on the title card. Before you do, you can tick two boxes: one reads the story aloud, the other plays sound. Nothing is heard until you press the button, and both can be changed later from the ACCESSIBILITY panel at the foot of the screen.
You start on the deck of a merchant ship coming into Marseilles in February 1815, in command of her because the captain died at sea, on the morning of the best day of your life. Then the game waits for you, and it will wait as long as you like: nothing in this story is timed.
Type short commands and press Enter:
> read the log > take packet > talk to danglars > down
Small words are ignored, so read the log and read log
are the same. Capitals do not matter.
If you would rather not type, you do not have to. Under the transcript there are four rows of buttons: ACTIONS, DIRECTIONS, INFORMATION and HERE. Choose an action and the things you can do it to appear in the HERE row. The whole story can be finished this way.
| LOOK | Describe the room again. Free. |
|---|---|
| EXAMINE x | Look closely at one thing. Worth doing often. |
| TAKE x / DROP x | Pick something up, or put it down. |
| USE x | Do the obvious thing to something. See below. |
| OPEN x | A lid, a wardrobe, a chest. |
| SEARCH x | Turn over, look under, go through. |
| READ x | Read something written. |
| TALK TO x | Speak to somebody. Ask again; people say more. |
| WAIT | Let time pass. A real action in this story. |
| INVENTORY | What you are carrying. I for short. |
| ERRANDS | What is being asked of you. |
| JOURNAL | What has happened, in order. |
| SCORE | Where you stand. Free. |
| HINT | Three graded rungs for where you are standing. |
| SAVE / RESTORE | Keep a game; come back to one. |
| RESTART | Begin again from the deck of the Pharaon. |
This story adds seven verbs of its own, and every one of them is a nickname
for USE, so DIG WALL and USE WALL are the
same command. You are told about each one in the room where you first need it.
| BECOME | Put on one of the names you have earned. |
|---|---|
| DIG | Work at stone or ground with whatever edge you have. |
| HIDE | Put yourself where you will not be seen. |
| CUT | Use a blade on what is holding you. |
| DIVE | Go into the water. Consider this carefully. |
| SIGNAL | Send word, by hand or by lantern. |
| HOPE | The second of the two words. Also spelled WAIT. |
Every command is answered in the same order:
So you are always told that you have left a place before you are told where
you have arrived. LOOK, INVENTORY, JOURNAL,
ERRANDS, SCORE, STATS,
ACHIEVEMENTS and HELP are all free and cost no move.
One exception. On this engine HINT does
cost a turn. That is the engine's own accounting and has been left alone, on the
grounds that asking for help is a real decision.
Type a compass direction: north, south,
east, west, the four diagonals, and up or
down. N, S, E and
W work too. The WAYS OUT panel always lists them, and marks
any that are shut.
The story is in five acts:
| I | Marseilles, 1815 | 4 rooms |
|---|---|---|
| II | The Denunciation | 4 rooms |
| III | The Chateau d'If | 4 rooms |
| IV | The Treasure and the Count | 4 rooms |
| V | The Reckoning | 4 rooms |
Shut is not locked. 9 of the 31 ways between rooms start shut, and none of them needs a key. Each is opened by something you do, and each tells you in plain words why it will not open yet. If a way is shut, the thing to do is somewhere else in the room.
Some doors do not come back. The stair down from the garden at La Reserve, and the road north from the island, are both one-way. Nothing you need is ever left behind, but two of the four keepsakes exist only in the first act, so pick things up as you find them.
Halfway through you stop being one person. You earn other names, one at a time, and from then on the important command is:
> become the count > become busoni
Whoever you are is who the room believes you to be. In the second half every door in Paris opens to exactly one of your names and stays shut to the others: a steward will confess to a priest and to nobody else, a banker will open his ledger to a rich foreign nobleman and to nobody else. Working out which name a room wants is the puzzle of the fifth act.
The NAMES YOU CAN WEAR panel lists them and marks the one you have on.
BECOME a name you have not earned and you will be told so.
There is one house in Paris where saying your own true name will get you killed. You are warned about it, plainly, by somebody who has every reason to know, before you can walk in.
150 points.
| Bring the Pharaon home | 15 |
| Learn who is writing | 15 |
| Be married | 15 |
| The abbe's legacy | 15 |
| Leave the Chateau d'If | 15 |
| The treasure of Spada | 15 |
| The four names | 15 |
| The reckoning | 15 |
| The house of Morrel (optional) | 10 |
| Keepsake: Catalan ring | 5 |
| Keepsake: your father's letter | 5 |
| Keepsake: the abbe's treatise | 5 |
| Keepsake: the Spada signet | 5 |
| Everything | 150 |
Eight errands are required and one is optional. The four keepsakes are things nobody asks you for and nothing depends on. A complete winning game scores 93; all 150 takes about 115 moves.
The last act settles three accounts, one at a time, and when they are settled the story lets you go somewhere quiet and hands you something to read. The command that ends the game is a single ordinary English word, and by then the story will have said it to you more than once.
Six commands in this game end the story badly, and every one of them is described to you in the room before you are able to type it: the water below the landing stage, the shot sewn into the sack, the gale off Tiboulen, and the man in Paris who would know your face anywhere.
There is no UNDO on this engine. What there is instead is unlimited saving, and a save can be restored even after the story has ended. Save before you try anything you have just been warned about.
SAVE name, or the SAVE MANAGER in the footer, keeps as
many games as you like on this device. RESTORE name or the RESTORE
button brings one back, from anywhere, including after an ending.
RESTART begins again from the deck of the Pharaon.
Saves live in this browser's local storage. Nothing is sent anywhere; there are no accounts and no network requests at any point. The TRANSCRIPT button will give you the whole game so far as a text file.
Six profiles, from the ACCESSIBILITY button: standard, low vision, blind / screen reader, hard of hearing, motor assistance and cognitive support. Each changes the layout and not only the colours. Text size and each individual setting can also be adjusted on their own.
There are 8 sound cues. Every one of them is also written on screen when captions are on, which they are by default in the hard-of-hearing and cognitive profiles. Nothing in this game is signalled by sound alone, and the whole story can be finished in silence.
| harbour | Rigging, gulls, and a crowd on the jetty. |
|---|---|
| stone | Water on stone, a long way underground. |
| sea | Open water and canvas. |
| salon | A clock, and carriages on gravel outside. |
| score | A point of reckoning. |
| unlock | A way opens. |
| death | A bell, once. |
| click | (no caption: a button click) |
LOOK, then EXAMINE everything the description
mentions. This solves most of it.TALK TO everybody, more than once. People run out of things to
say eventually, and what they say last is usually what matters.ERRANDS tells you what is being asked of you right now.HINT gives three rungs: a nudge, a direction, then the answer.
There are 49 ladders and they cover every room in the game.