Loadstar 128 20/q20.d81/t.museum

Text File | 2022-08-28 | 9KB | 185 lines

                     The Annotated MURDER IN THE MUSEUM

                              by Knees Calhoon

                        Annotation by Fender Tucker


     The story of the making of MURDER IN THE MUSEUM is nearly as ridiculous
as the plot itself.  Until now, it has been thought that I, Fender Tucker,
wrote it back in the 80s.  It was published on LOADSTAR #44 in 1987 under my
name, but that was only because I feared that the world wasn't ready for
Knees Calhoon, my evil clone.  Remember, we were in the throes of the Reagan
regime at the time.

     I was playing in a country & western band most evenings so while I was
away from the house, Knees would usurp my C-64 system (complete with
Datasette for storage) for his perverse programming.  MURDER IN THE MUSEUM
was Knees' first stab at an adventure game.  He made every mistake a
programmer could, learning as he went.  Much of the twisty, spaghetti-like
code is still in this version.  Knees would probably try to justify his
illogical programming by saying it was early "fuzzy" logic.

     Knees wanted to write an adventure game that was grammatically correct.
It bothered him when a game would say "You are in roof."  He wanted the
program to have a conversational style and yet be a little hostile to the
user.  Since the player was taking on the persona of the bumbling Claude la
Mort, he felt the characters in the program should be constantly snickering
behind his back, right up to the moment when he deduces the murderer and
hauls the miscreant off to prison.

    By the way, la Mort's name in early versions was "Le Merde".  Calhoon
sent a copy of MUSEUM to Jim Butterfield, Commodore guru, and received a
nice long letter in reply, which mainly mused about the proper French way to
spell the Inspector's name.  I changed his name to la Mort because of the
family nature of LOADSTAR.  In the late 20th Century death is much more
acceptable to family values than scatalogy.  On the version published on
LOADSTAR #44, there are several references to "Le Merde" that I overlooked,
making #44 a collector's item.  If you were lucky enough to get #44 when it
was released in the plastic "bubble pack" we used to deliver issues in,
there was also a color cover sheet with a photograph of Knees Calhoon being
menaced by a mummy's hand, played by Academy Award-snubbed Dan Tobias.

     la Mort reappeared in a sequel, MURDER IN THE MONASTERY, published on
LOADSTAR #48.  If the feedback for this annotation is positive, it's
possible that MONASTERY will also be annotated.


 ANNOTATION
 ----------

     The annotation is an explanation for each of the rooms in the game,
callable by the player.  The annotation explains everything that needs to be
done in that room, without revealing too many secrets about the rest of the
story.  If you have never solved an adventure game, this is an excellent one
to start with, because you needn't get "stuck".  If you can't think of what
to do next, press F3 for the annotation.

    When you run the Annotated MUSEUM the game will appear in the 40-column
window on the right of the screen.  This is almost exactly the same version
that appeared on LS #44.  In any room you may press F3 and see my annotation
of that room in the window at the bottom.  This window scrolls with the CRSR
UP/DOWN keys.  When you move to a different room, the annotation
disappears.

     The annotation will reveal secrets connected with a particular room so
do not press F3 if you want to try to solve the mystery on your own.  Of
course, the annotation can come in handy if you get stuck and don't know
what to do.

     All annotations and a response from the murderer near the end of the
game are on disk so be sure to leave your drive on and the MUSEUM disk in
the drive at all times.  The program will work on any drive from 8 to 32,
but remember: to quit back to LOADSTAR, the LS disk must be in drive 8..


 MURDER IN THE MUSEUM - The Story
 --------------------------------

    Here are the background facts supplied to you, Claude la Mort of the
Surete, as you enter the case.

     In 1939 a smitten Auguste Rodin (creator of "The Thinker" and "The
Lovers") sculpted a statue for his current paramour, Agatha Peacock.  The
statue, which was called "The Eunuch", was sold by Peacock in 1938 to
Colonel C. T. Mustard.  He donated it to the Calhoon Museum in 1948, where
it now resides.

     On August 17, 1963 the body of Professor P.U. Plum, the Museum curator,
was found in the Dome Room by a troop of Girl Scouts.  Plum, who had been
working on a project involving x-rays of works of art, had been shot at
close range, presumably by someone he knew.


 THE PROGRAM
 -----------

    Each time you run the program a murderer is chosen at random.
Therefore, even though most of the tasks and puzzles you must solve as you
investigate stay the same, important clues change from game to game.

     You may save your game in progress by entering "save". You will be
prompted for a filename, which can be anything.  "load" will give you a
directory of saved games to choose from.  When you load a saved game you
appear in the room (and have the same inventory) as you had when you saved
the game.

     Press F1 to get the Museum Protocol.  Note that the one-letter commands
are n, e, s, w, u, d, l and i for north, south, east, west, up, down, look
(around) and inventory, respectively.  Occasionally you will be asked for a
safe combination or a password.  Here the program is looking for a one-word
alphanumeric answer.  While the program is waiting for your answer, other
things like the F-keys, save and load do not work at this time.

     Calhoon didn't want players to have to rack their brains for the right
words to enter.  The only verbs you'll need are:

    open     read    look     get      take     try
    pull     push    shoot    examine  break    move

Most commands are two words, verb then noun.  You only need to type the
first two letters of any word.  For instance, you can enter "read sign" or
"re si".  The program will handle them the same.

     Enter "map" at any time to see a map of the Museum.  Rooms that are
hidden or locked are not listed on the map until you know what they are.

     Press F7 to quit to LOADSTAR.  You are asked if you want to save the
game first.


 THE PLOTS
 ---------

DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER IF YOU STILL WANT TO SOLVE THE GAME!!!

     There are five suspects and five plots.  The information in the grey
safe narrows the suspect list down to two, but only the black box has the
information essential to knowing for sure who dunnit.  The dates of Mike
Angelo's exploits narrows down the suspects.

     If the murderer is Knees Calhoon, then the story of the Eunuch is legit
up to 1958 when Calhoon has Mike Angelo make a duplicate of the Eunuch.
Calhoon secretly sells the real Eunuch to Agatha Peacock and displays the
fake in the Museum.  Then when Plum finds out it is a fake -- with his
detestable x-rays -- he asks to meet Calhoon in the Dome Room, where Calhoon
does the deed on him.

     If the murder is Col. Mustard, then he had Mike Angelo make a duplicate
in 1948 so that he could donate the fake to the Museum and take a big tax
cut.  It seems that Mustard had sold the real Eunuch to "that Onassis chap"
a few years earlier.  Plum finds out, asks to meet Mustard in the Dome Room
and has his body ventilated by the veteran.

     Should the murderer be Agatha P. Peacock, the deception was made back
in 1938 when Peacock hired Mike Angelo to make the fake she sold to Mustard.
Plum finds out, meets Peacock in the Dome Room, and is promptly dispatched
by the dowager.

     If Scoop Green is the killer, then all of the clues that implicate Mrs.
Peacock are found except for the information in the black box that shows
that Green found out about Peacock's 1938 switch and was blackmailing her.
When Plum discovers the deception he meets with Green -- and death -- in the
Dome Room.

     And if Vampira Scarlet is guilty, the clues that implicate Knees
Calhoon are found.  The black box, however, reveals that Scarlet was
blackmailin