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Key & Compass presents:
Baggage
by Katherine Farmar

Baggage is a Glulx interactive fiction game written with Inform 7 and is © 2021 by Katherine Farmar. It was an entry in the Main Festival division of Spring Thing 2021 where it was awarded three Audience Choice ribbons: Best Abstract Game, Best Verb Use, and Most Allegorical.

In this short game about introspection, you play as someone walking along a long gravel road bordered by hedges. You don't seem to be getting anywhere. Your satchel contains a hope, a belief, a regret, a memory, a fear, and a resentment.

This solution is by David Welbourn, and is based on Release 1 of the game.

SPOILERS AHEAD. Reading a walkthrough prematurely can sometimes diminish one's enjoyment of an interactive fiction game. Please make an honest effort to play the game before reading this walkthrough.


Map

WesternMeadow Road EasternForest

Walkthrough

Road

> x me. i. x satchel.

> x hope. x belief. x regret.

> x memory. x fear. x resentment.

Note the suggestion that things can change.

> x evergreen. x bramble. x road.

> n. s. w.

After 15 turns, you see a woman near the bramble. Somehow, you didn't see her earlier.

> x woman.

> look. x oddments.

> talk to woman.

> ask woman about oddments. (She can't leave them nor carry them.)

> ask woman about bramble.

> ask woman about evergreen.

> ask woman about road.

> show belief to woman.

> show memory to woman.

You must take the oddments and give them back to her as moments to get her into the proper frame of mind.

> take oddments. again. (She cries.)

> i. x moments.

You're sure that the moments can be transformed.

> change moments. (You can't do this for these.)

> give moments to woman.

> woman, change moments. (They change into butterflies that carry her away.)

Change your hope into a lantern:

> change hope. yes. x lantern.

Change your resentment into a machete:

> change resentment. yes. x machete.

Change your regret into some strong rope:

> change regret. yes. x rope.

Change your fear into gardening gloves:

> change fear. yes. x gloves.

Change your memory into goggles:

> change memory. yes. x goggles.

Change your belief into a map of the world:

> change belief. yes. x map.

The map shows a tunnel under the evergreen hedge.

> x tunnel. (You'll need a lantern and a rope to go that way.)

You have a choice:

Road

Entering the forest is easy if you have the lantern, map, and rope.

CAUTION: You will lose the rope when entering the forest. If you return to the road, you will not be able to re-enter the forest.

> e.

Eastern Forest

> e.

*** A little frisson runs up and down your spine, and for the first time in -- in --

(you don't even remember how long)

-- you feel alive, really and truly alive, as if your life is unwritten, as if everything lies before you.

You dart between the trees, chasing the shadow of a rabbit, delighting in all you can see and hear and feel and smell. Where are you going? You don't know -- but where you are is a place worth being.

This is what life is meant to be. ***

Road

Entering the meadow requires the machete, goggles, and gloves.

CAUTION: Don't wear both the goggles and gloves ahead of time, otherwise the CHOP BRAMBLE command won't work. Let the game put them on for you.

> chop bramble.

> w.

Western Meadow

> w.

***

You feel light and a little giddy, a great weight taken from your shoulders, energy flooding you as if a dam inside your heart had burst. You can go anywhere, you realise. You can reach all sorts of wonderful places. The road is not your prison any more.

You set out down the hill with a skip in your step and a song on your lips.

***


Extras

Characters

Mentioned:


Credits

The response to ABOUT is:

Baggage was created by me, Katherine Farmar, with beta testing by Johanna Heikkinen, Diarmuid O'Brien, and Deirdre Sullivan. Any errors or flaws are the author's. Baggage was initially begun in 2017, dropped for a long time, then re-started in late 2020 to be finished for the 2021 Spring Thing competition. It is my first completed work of interactive fiction.


Endings


Inventory


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