Scapeghost - by Level 9 Software

I was thrilled with myself for getting through this game without resorting to any hints or solutions. I don't know if anyone reading this is likely to still be stuck in the game, but if you are, here's a walkthrough. I won't be patronising enough to include directions and I'll try not to use exact commands either, you're not getting off that lightly! There's also a few ideas for getting added entertainment value from the game.

 

For the uninitiated.

Scapeghost is a text adventure game with illustrations. It was released in 1989. My version was for the Amstrad CPC, but the Spectrum versions appear to be identical (just a few extra descriptive passages). If you encounter a problem with the walkthrough for a Spectrum version of the game, let me know. I believe the game was also released in the Atari, Commodore and Amiga formats, but I know nothing about those.

The story behind the game concerned a detective called Alan Chance. During an undercover narcotics investigation he was killed, and his partner captured. The police believe that he bungled the whole operation. Alan's ghost has three nights to clear his name and save his partner, Sarah.

Bizarrely, the game begins at Alan's funeral, as he regains consciousness as a spirit. However, things get steadily stranger from this point onwards. The game is divided into three levels, one for each of the three nights. Each level can be played as a game in its own right, but it's only by starting at the beginning that you will get the maximum score of 1000 points.

If all this sounds like fun to you, download the game here. It's zipped up, and in a disk image format. You also need to download an Amstrad emulator to play it. You can get those from the nvg archive, or from many of the pages on the Amstrad web ring (see the villa page). I prefer CaPriCE. Some basic instructions can be found at the bottom of the page (just promise you won't read that solution until you've given it your best shot).

 

A few clues

If you're stuck on a puzzle but don't want to undergo the humiliation of having to resort to a full solution, here are a few general hints.

  1. Multi-character puzzles. It was a staple of later text adventures that you had to use other characters to solve puzzles. One of Level 9's favourite tricks is the puzzle that requires the simultaneous action of two characters. There are a few of these in Scapeghost. How do you get the other character to act at the same time as Alan? Well, remember that you can give the other ghosts more than one command at once, separated by commas. If you instruct a ghost to wait a turn before kicking the dog, and then type 'kick dog' at the next prompt, both characters will perform the action in perfect unison.
  2. Special verbs. As you progress through the levels, you gain cool ghostly powers. Apart from being good fun in the third level (charging the poker players with static, for example), these powers are needed to solve many of the puzzles. You might need to think about which verb to use for some of them, however.
  3. Use your common sense. This game might have a fairly whacked-out plot, but the solutions to puzzles are usually very logical (you have to disable a car? Well, how would you go about it in real-life?).
  4. Solutions are also often quite destructive, violent, or simply in poor taste. It's why I love the game. It really should have carried a 'don't try this at home, kids' label. The best hint for the game would probably be: if you can't pick it up, you can probably smash it.
  5. You can never actually walk through walls (convenient from the point of view of game design, but lacks consistency with the story, I feel). So stop trying. However, this doesn't mean you can't push your hand through solid objects, and you might be able to manage to get through, say, a door.

 

INSTRUCTIONS

To move from one location to another, type in a direction (North, Southwest, Up, In (N,SW,U,In)).

To pick up an object: Get [object]. To drop an object: Drop [object]. You can only carry one object at a time.

To learn more about an object: Examine [object] (exam).

To give a character an order, type the name of the character, than a comma, then the command. If you want the character to perform more than one action, use another comma and then type the next command:

Joe, go east, get sandwich.

To do nothing for a turn: Wait.

To get somewhere quickly: Run to [location / character / object name].

To get somewhere quickly, but still get the location descriptions: Go to [location / character / object name].

If you make a mistake and want to go back a move: Undo

To save: Save

To load: Restore (You can also use Ram Save and Ram Restore to temporarily save your position)

For everything else, just type what you want to do. As long as it's along the lines of a verb followed by a noun, you should be all right, the game has a fairly wide vocabulary. And even if it doesn't understand the first time, it doesn't hurt to experiment.

 

Back to the villa.

On to the solution!

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