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Key & Compass presents:
Captain Cutter's Treasure
by Garry Francis

Captain Cutter's Treasure is a Z-machine interactive fiction game written with Inform 6 and is © 2021 by Garry Francis. It was an entry in PunyJam #1 where it took 1st place.

In this game, you play as Jim, a tavern worker who wakes up in the broom closet. You soon learn that, years ago, the pirate captain, Cutter, had his former crewmates (including your boss, Harold) hide a treasure for him, and now he wants it back. Return the treasure by sunset or else Harold's daughter, Brenda, will suffer the consequences.

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

Top ofLighthouse WarehouseA1 WarehouseA2 WarehouseA3 WarehouseA4 InsideLighthouse WarehouseB1 WarehouseB2 WarehouseB3 WarehouseB4 OutsideLighthouse WarehouseAttic WarehouseC3 WarehouseC4 OutsideWarehouse Dock ForeDock ForeHold Alley Waterfront Row-boat Row-boat AftDeck AftHold BroomCloset InsideThe RedAnchor OutsideThe RedAnchor Capt'sCabin Brig Cell Storeroom Path toTown row boat d d d u d u u u d u

Walkthrough

Broom Closet

> read note.

> x knife. take it.

> x me. i. x tinderbox.

> x appliances. (no brooms)

> x fabric. search it. x calico bag.

> take bag. (You find a mouse hole.)

> x hole. (too dark)

> open door. e.

Inside The Red Anchor

> x Harold. talk to Harold. g.

> ask Harold about treasure. (He says ask Samuel and Isaac.)

> ask Harold about Brenda. (Get her back. Also, she's Harold's only daughter.)

> ask Harold about Samuel. ask Harold about Isaac.

> x broom. (You won't need it.)

> s.

Storeroom

> take bottle. x it.

> n. e.

Outside The Red Anchor

> x sign. read it.

> n. w.

Alley

> x Samuel. talk to Sam.

> ask Sam about treasure. (He wants rum first.)

> give bottle to Sam.

> ask Sam about treasure.

He produces a parchment and says they gave it to Jerome to hide and Jerome gave a parchment to each of them with clues to where it is. Then he passes out and drops the bottle.

> take parchment. x it. read it. (ASCII art)

> e. n.

Outside Warehouse

> x Jerome.

> ask Jerome about Cutter. ask Jerome about Brenda.

> ask Jerome about Harold. ask Jerome about Isaac.

> ask Jerome about Samuel. ask Jerome about pirates.

> ask Jerome about treasure. ask Jerome about parchment.

> ask Jerome about warehouse. (No entry without business in there.)

> ask Jerome about lighthouse.

> ne.

Outside Lighthouse

> x hut. x lighthouse.

> knock on door. (Isaac invites you in.)

> n.

Inside Lighthouse

> x Isaac. x lamp. (no fuel and off.)

> talk to Isaac.

> ask Isaac about pirates. ask Isaac about Cutter.

> ask Isaac about Brenda. ask Isaac about Harold.

> ask Isaac about Samuel. ask Isaac about Jerome.

> ask Isaac about treasure. (He tells the same story that Sam did, and puts an opaque parchment on the table for you.)

> take opaque parchment. read it.

> put translucent on opaque.

> read parchments. (It says "WAREHOUSE".)

> take lamp. (Isaac says there's oil upstairs.)

> u.

Top of Lighthouse

> x lantern. x lens. x cupola. x windows.

> x barrels. fill lamp with oil.

> d. s. sw.

Outside Warehouse

> show parchments to Jerome.

> give parchments to Jerome. (He'll now let you in.)

> ask Jerome about treasure. (You still need to find it.)

> w. w.

Warehouse C3

You want to get on the other side of that crate and push it here, under the trapdoor. Yes, there's only one crate.

> n. n. w. w. s.

Warehouse B1

> push crate. (East to...)

Warehouse B2

Note the "Code: 34" written in chalk.

> n. e.

Warehouse A3

> push crate. (South to...)

Warehouse B3

> climb crate.

Warehouse C3 (on the crate)

> open trapdoor. u.

Darkness / Warehouse Attic

> light lamp (with tinderbox).

> x scale. (brass pan and sliding weight)

> open box. x box. x dragons.

> take box. (too heavy)

> x lock. (buttons 1 to 6)

More ASCII art. Each button has O or hyphen settings. Whenever you push a button, it is unchanged, but all the other five buttons change states.

Remembering the chalk message in B2, you want buttons 3 and 4 to be on. So from the start position, just push all the other buttons:

> push 1. push 2. push 4. push 6. (click!)

> open box. open chest. (It's locked.)

Take the chest out of the box but leave it here for now.

> take chest. drop chest.

> d. d. e. s. e. s. s. w. w.

Broom Closet

> x hole. (using lamp light, you find a key.)

> take key.

The key doesn't unlock the chest, by the way.

> e. e. n. n. e.

Dock

The game won't let you enter the rowboat the first time unless you have the key.

> s.

Rowboat

> row boat. (You're now moored to the ship.)

> u.

Aft Deck

Barnaby grabs you and takes you to...

Captain's Cabin

If you had brought the chest here with you, Cutter takes it, frees Brenda, and all you can do is escort her back to the tavern. It's a good ending, but you can do better and keep the treasure too. Here's how:

Go to ship without the chest at all. Cutter orders you put into the brig and declares he'll take a nap.

Cell

You still have your inventory.

> x Brenda. x straw. search it. take bone. x it.

> talk to Brenda.

> ask Brenda about idea. (She suggests replacing captain's key with another key and replacing treasure with something of the same weight.)

> ask Brenda about key. ask Brenda about captain.

> ask Brenda about treasure. ask Brenda about cell.

> unlock door with bone. (wrong verb!)

> pick lock with bone. (This works; the bone is gone.)

> open door. w.

Brig

> s. (Too dangerous.)

> n.

Aft Hold

> n.

Fore Hold

> n. (Too dangerous.)

> u.

Fore Deck

> n. x figurehead. x bowsprit.

> x fore mast. x main mast. x ropes.

> climb ropes. (You can't or won't.)

> s. (Barnaby is on the aft deck. You need a diversion.)

> d. s. s. e.

Cell

> take straw. w. n.

Aft Hold

> drop straw.

> light straw (with tinderbox).

> n. u.

Fore Deck

You hear Barnaby going down into the aft hold.

> s.

Aft Deck

> open door. s.

Captain's Cabin

> x Cutter.

> swap gold key with brass key.

> n.

Aft Deck

> close door. w. row boat. u. w. s. s. s.

Path to Town

> x pebbles. put pebbles in bag.

> i. (You have 48 pebbles in your bag.)

Return to the warehouse attic.

> n. n. n. w. climb crate. u.

Warehouse Attic

> unlock chest with gold key.

> open chest. x coins.

> weigh coins. (45.0 ounces)

> put coins in box.

> weigh pebbles. (48 pebbles is 60.0 ounces)

> remove 12 pebbles. (It now weighs 45.0 ounces)

> put pebbles in chest.

> put coins in bag.

> close chest. lock it with gold key.

> take bag. take chest.

It may seem very risky to carry the coins in the calico bag to the ship, but you get away with it.

> d. d. e. e. s. row boat. u.

Aft Deck

Again, Barnaby takes you to...

Captain's Cabin

Cutter immediately takes the chest and shakes it and tests its weight. Barnaby produces Brenda and she now follows you.

> x Barnaby. (This is your only chance to examine him.)

Note that Brenda will insist which way to go until you reach the outside of the warehouse. After that, she'll stop objecting to non-direct paths to her father.

> n. w. row boat. u. w. s. s.

Outside The Red Anchor

Enter the tavern with both Brenda and the coins to win.

> w.

*** You have won ***


Extras

Artwork

ASCII art on Samuel's translucent parchment:

+     _  _  _     _     _  _ +
         _  _  _        _  _
  /\  -     _     _  _  _  _

ASCII art on Isaac's opaque parchment:

+                            +
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ASCII art on overlaid parchments:

+     _  _  _     _     _  _ +
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Characters

Mentioned:


Credits

This is the response to ABOUT:

This game was written for PunyJam #1, 9 April - 3 May 2021. Under the rules of the jam, the description of the first room (the broom closet) was fixed and everything else was open slather. See https://itch.io/jam/punyjam1 for further details.

Game design and coding by Garry Francis.
Play testing by Dee Cooke, Tristin Grizel Dean, Christopher Merriner and Joshua Wilson. Thanks guys and gals.


Endings


Inventory


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