Enlightenment, by Taro Ogawa, is a snack-sized text adventure set in the general neighborhood of the Zork universe, with Infocom-esque humor, sly quotes and footnotes, and a wealth of entertaining but unnecessary actions. It doesn't play like an 80s game, though: it is short, polished, and focused, with lots of clues and guidance, and probably won't take more than an hour to play.
The premise? You're a successful adventurer at the end of a long quest (just check out your FULL SCORE to see how long). The only thing left to do is get past the giant troll blocking the bridge back to the rest of the world. He's too tough for you to kill with your sword, so you're going to have to think of another way to dispatch him. You've got a sackful of tools, treasures, and weapons... but some of them are more of a liability than an asset, under the circumstances.
The design of Enlightenment is wonderfully compact and efficient, and the puzzles themselves fresh and inventive. Because the game is set in a small space with a handful of objects, the author was free to make those objects richly interactive—and you should expect to use most of them more than once on your way to solving the game. This is a piece that rewards physical experimentation more than the average work of interactive fiction. If you've ever been frustrated because an interactive fiction game wouldn't allow you to break items, take them apart, or reassemble them in new ways, Enlightenment is for you.
Though Enlightenment was written in 1998 as a loving tribute to games from the 80s, it has aged remarkably well. Familiarity with the Zork universe is helpful, but not at all required: read all the game text carefully, and you'll find clues enough to help you through your predicament. There are also built-in hints to help you out should you get stuck. And though it's possible to do destructive things that make the game unwinnable, I never found a place where Enlightenment didn't at least warn me about that I'd just done something foolish. (If this happens to you, just UNDO a turn and keep playing.)
Analysis: Enlightenment is an early and excellent entry in the interactive fiction genre of the one-room game. The restricted geography means that the player doesn't have to spend any attention on mapping; meanwhile, the author has a smaller set of objects to work with, and can afford to implement their interaction and behavior more completely. Some of these games (like Enlightenment, or the previously-reviewed Suveh Nux) are focused on a set of neatly interconnected puzzles; others restrict themselves to conversation with a single character or offer a more contemplative experience.
The most common drawback of these one-room works is a tendency to go overboard, offering so many layers of detail that the player is forced to examine every part of every object, and search an assortment of highly-detailed furniture—which becomes just as much a test of patience and memory as mapping a large area. Enlightenment avoids that excess, and manages to offer a lot of interaction depth without turning gameplay into a chore.
The links above point to JIG's internally developed Flash-based Z-Machine interpreter (thanks asterick!), with the story files hosted here by kind permission of the game's author, Taro Ogawa. That means you can now play these games in your browser rather than having to download and run the game in a standalone interpreter.
If you would rather download the game, you may do so at the Interactive Fiction database. If you choose to download the game, you will need an interpreter to read the z-file, just like most IF games: try Gargoyle for Windows, or Zoom or Splatterlight for Macintosh and Unix.
If you like "Enlightenment," take a look at other Interactive Fiction we have reviewed here at JIG.
Walkthrough Guide
(Please allow page to fully load for spoiler tags to be functional.)
I'm going to try to put everything together in one post here, since people keep getting stuck...
Basic commands:
inventory/i - see what you have
examine/x - look at something
look - look at the room (will also show what items are on the ground, if any)
look at - look at something specific, similar to but sometimes different from examine
n/s/e/w or north/south/east/west - go in that direction. Since this is a one-room game, you won't need this until the very end.
The object of the game (you can also find this in the hints):
Get past the troll by turning out all the lights, so a grue (G***) will come and eat it. (For those not experienced with text-based adventure games, grues are creatures dating back to at least the Infocom game Zork, in which they would eat any player who stayed in the dark for too long).
So...what next?
Extinguishing the objects. Order doesn't matter for the amulet; everything else should be done after you've gotten ALL of the items by turning off the sword.
The sword
Note: YOU MUST STILL HAVE THE CROSS
The sword is battery-powered...where do you think the battery might be?
That's right - in the hilt. But you have to get to it first - right now, it's covered with a grip. But you can't cut the hilt with the sword - it's attached. What else do you have that is sharp (this may not be obvious)?
That would be the cross.
CUT GRIP WITH CROSS
Now that you've gotten to the compartment, you need to take out the battery.
OPEN PANEL - wait, you can't do it by hand.
OPEN PANEL WITH CROSS
And make sure to TAKE GRIP and TAKE BATTERY- right now the grip's lying on the floor and the battery's still in the compartment (although the sword did power off).
Finding your other items
You have more stuff than you saw when you initially typed "i", or "inventory". OPEN BACKPACK to see the rest. (You may still have to take things individually in order to use them.)
The Starjewel
You can't break the Starjewel, so you'll have to hide it somewhere.
There's a reason I put this one next.
It happens to fit in the compartment of the sword.
If you haven't gotten the battery yet, TAKE BATTERY. Then PUT STARJEWEL IN COMPARTMENT and CLOSE COMPARTMENT.
Your glow ball
This one only takes one move - either you get it or you don't.
You can't break it.
Have you tried tossing it in the chasm?
THROW GLOW BALL IN CHASMDidn't work, did it? The troll caught it...
Why don't you try throwing it in a different direction?
THROW GLOW BALL SOUTH (towards the gate where you came in)
Your amulet
You happen to have a nice compartment on you where you can hide this one.
No, not your backpack - that's too threadbare to hold anything glowing without glowing itself.
Your tinderbox is nice and watertight - and also opaque enough to block out a light source.
OPEN TINDERBOX, PUT AMULET IN TINDERBOX, and then CLOSE TINDERBOX
Your lamp
This one has two parts to it.
First, you'll have to break it open.
You can't smash it...but what if you crack the glass some other way?
Say, by rapidly cooling the hot glass? You'll have to put it down first, though...
OPEN FLASK, DROP LAMP, POUR WATER ON LAMP
By the way, you'll get some glass fragments here - they don't actually have any use.Now you just have to deal with the filament...
The obvious method would be to cut it somehow. But you don't want to burn yourself doing it.
Luckily, you just happen to have some nice, heat-insulating grip tape. But for some reason you don't feel like putting it back on the sword...
Use the screwdriver instead. PUT GRIP ON SCREWDRIVER, and then CUT FILAMENT WITH SCREWDRIVER
The Cross
This one, and the next one, involve looking around a bit.
Specifically, the cross is the only item flat enough to fit under the huge gate behind you.
PUSH CROSS UNDER GATE
That won't quite do it - you'll have to stick the cross to something else big enough and flat enough, then push that under.
Something like your certificate.
Just putting it on won't do you any good; you have to actually stick it.
And what's stickier than gum?
CHEW GUM, PUT GUM ON CERTIFICATE, PUT CROSS ON GUM. Then PUSH CERTIFICATE UNDER GATE. But you can still see some of the light...
Maybe if you got rid of the certificate somehow, the cross would slide down the hill into the next room (did I forget to mention you're on a hill?)
You know, that tinderbox actually has a use besides holding your amulet...
LIGHT CERTIFICATE
The phial
You can't break it, so you have to hide it. Again, it goes somewhere in the room you just came from...
Specifically, it's just the right shape to fit in the keyhole.
PUT PHIAL IN KEYHOLE
But you can still see it...Better push it in further.
Two other items fit in the keyhole - the battery and the screwdriver.
But the screwdriver alone doesn't push it in far enough, and the battery alone gets lost (you can get it back by doing PUT SCREWDRIVER IN KEYHOLE)
The solution? Make sure the battery is not attached to the screwdriver, then PUT BATTERY ON SCREWDRIVER to ensure it's in the proper place.
Finally, PUT SCREWDRIVER IN KEYHOLE.
The troll's eyes
First eye
You don't have many options left...
What would you hate to get in the eye?
No, not the sword...at least not yet.
How about your G*** repellent pepper spray?
SPRAY CAN AT EYE
Second eye
NOW poke it with the sword.
HIT EYE WITH SWORD
How not to die
What do you know about grues?
That's right...they hate light.
What's the one light source you have left?
Your amulet, in your tinderbox.
OPEN TINDERBOX
Now that the troll's gone...
You can do what you've been wanting to do this whole time.
Cross the bridge, of course!
GO NORTH
Posted by: Anonymous | June 4, 2008 11:52 PM