Speed-IF Argonaut | Key & Compass

		Vine- yard				Throne Room				Tree
		\|				\|				u↑↓d
Mysterious Place	—	Market			—	Market	—	Temple of Zeus		Forest
		\|				\|				\|
		Alley	—	Mouse Hole		Sea Shore			—	Swamp
		\|				out↑↓board boat
Meadow		Alchemy Shop				Aboard
\|	out					\|		out
Beach	← →	Isle				Open Sea	—	Island Shore	→ ←	Island
board boat		?↑?		s↓		~~\|~~			board boat
		Rocky Strait	← w	Rocky Strait	—	Open Sea

ASCII and the Argonauts

by J. Robinson Wheeler

A wonderfully laconic spoof of the Scott Adams style of adventures. Surprisingly both entertaining and tricky, this is a gem among speed-ifs.

Since much of the game involves finding and obtaining various treasures, here is a summary:

(By the way, you can tell that something is a treasure if it has asterisks on both sides of its name.)

ROCK - At Market (east). Take it. Although it's not a treasure, it's used in three different puzzles, making it far more important than it looks.
*GLEAMING ARMOR* - Very impressive! Found in the Throne Room. Take it. When you wear it, it protects you against the bees' sting and the dragon's flame. Unfortunately, the Swamp rusts it en route to the bees, so be careful never to take it to the Swamp.
BASKET - At Market (west), guarded by Merchant. Not a treasure. You can give any treasure here, then you can take the basket. I suggest giving the armor. That'll make it less likely that you'll take the armor into the Swamp. You need the basket to take either the newt or the dove. You'll get the armor back later (see *GOLD NUGGET*).
*SILK SAIL* - Very luxurious! Found at Aboard. Just take it; you can still sail the Argo without it.
*JADE STATUE* - Very delicate! Found at the Island, guarded by the Cyclops. Throw the rock to chase Cyclops away, then take the statue.
*SILVER COIN* - Very shiny! Found in a Mouse Hole, and reachable only when you are a mouse. Give the rock to the hag in the alley to be turned into a mouse. Go east, push both the glass eye and coin west, then return west. Pick up the eye and coin.
*JEWELED FLUTE* - Very pretty! Give the glass eye to the hag to get the flute in return. Playing the flute will put the bees to sleep.
*RUBY BOWL* - Very valuable! At Vineyard, guarded by the dog. Take the cat from the Alley and drop it at Vineyard; the dog will go away to chase it. Take the bowl.
*ROYAL WINE* - Very fine! At Vineyard, in the vat, also guarded by the dog. Once the dog is gone, fill the urn (from the Mysterious Place where the Oracle is) to carry the wine. (Note that the urn itself is gone.) Although you can drink the wine, you shouldn't.
*HONEY COMB* - Very delicious! Found up in the Tree, guarded by the beehive. Although the rusty armor is one way of getting the comb and beeswax, the better choice is to play the flute, which puts the bees to sleep. Although you can eat the honey, you shouldn't.
BEESWAX - With the comb; not a treasure. Wear the wax (in your ears) to prevent the sirens' song from affecting you.
*GOLD NUGGET* - Very valuable... or is it? The alchemist will create this when you give both the rock and the newt to him. The spell only lasts a short while, so give the nugget to the basket merchant and get your other treasure back. Also, make sure you never revisit that end of the market, else he'll kill you when he learns you cheated him. But far better to cheat him than Zeus, eh?
DOVE - Obtained from the Temple. Not a treasure. To get the dove, you'll need to first drop seven treasures at the Temple (examine sign and altar there), and you'll also need the basket to carry the dove. Don't drop any treasures until you're sure that you won't need them later. The seven treasures to give to Zeus are: bowl, coin, comb, flute, silk, statue, and wine. The dove will help you find a way past the crashing rocks.
*GOLDEN FLEECE* - Very beautiful! Found at the Meadow, guarded by the Dragon. Make sure you're wearing the gleaming armor first. Say "ASCII" to put the Dragon to sleep, then take the fleece, return to the Throne Room, and drop it there to win the game.

Also, be aware that there are several ways to die in this game. The bees, cyclops, and dog will all try to kill you if you try to kill them. The cat can kill you when you're a mouse. You can get crushed in the mouse hole if you're still there when you revert to human. The merchant will kill you if you return to him after cheating him. Zeus will kill you if you drop non-treasures in the temple, or try to take treasures back, or if you cheat him with the gold nugget. The sirens will kill you without the wax. The crushing rocks will kill you without the dove. The dragon will kill you without the armor.

Got all that? Good. Then you shouldn't need the more explicit walkthrough:

>x sign. x rock. take rock. n.

>x king. x armor. take armor. s. w.

>x merchant. x basket. give armor. take basket. s.

>x hag. give rock.

>e. push eye west. push coin west. w.

>x eye. take it. give it. i. x flute.

>x cat. take it. x coin. take it.

>take rock. take basket. n. w.

>x sign. x oracle. x urn. take urn. e. n.

>x dog. drop cat. x vat. fill urn. x wine.

>x bowl. take bowl. s. e. s.

>x water. board boat. x silk. take silk. s.

The cyclops' island is east of 'seagulls'.

>e. out. x cyclops. x statue. kill cyclops. take statue.

>board boat. w. n. out. e.

>x newt. take newt. n. x tree. u.

>x hive. x comb. x wax. play flute. take comb. take wax.

>d. s. w. n. e. x sign. x altar. pray.

>drop bowl. drop coin. drop comb. drop flute.

>drop silk. drop statue. drop wine. x dove.

>w. w. s. s. x alchemist. give rock. give newt.

>take gold. n. n. give gold. take armor. e. e. take dove. w. s.

You should now have armor, basket, beeswax, dove.

>wear armor. board boat. s. s. (Continue to go south until you hear singing.)

>wear wax. w. w.

This part is randomized. Drop the dove as many times as necessary (three times?) and go the direction it finds. Don't bother to remove the wax; you'll need to be wearing it again on the return trip.

>drop dove. g. g. [dove-direction].

>out. n. x dragon. x fleece. ascii. take fleece.

>s. board boat. s. e. n. n. (Continue going north to "Aboard".)

>out. n. n. drop fleece. quit.

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ASCII and the Argonauts: Astral Plane

by Anonymous

Apollo Lime		Emerald		Ferrous	Athena Grey
Ares Ochre	Dolomite	Coal	Nickel		Prometheus

The astral plane has 12 locations: two rows of six. The normal navigation rules have been changed; see the spell book. BS takes you one step west, and SPACE takes you one step east. STX moves you from anywhere to the top left corner (where Apollo is). CR moves you from anywhere to the bottom left corner (where Ares is). ETX moves you from anywhere to the bottom right corner (where Prometheus is). The only way to reach Athena is to SPACE five times from Apollo's position.

Also, you can talk to any of the four statues with the ENQ command. Each of them has only one thing to say. From their hints, you should be able to figure out that you need to spell the phrase "GOLDEN FLEECE" by using the stones. Each stone represents the first letter in its name, eg: the lime stone represents the L. When you drop a stone in one of its proper places, the stone disappears, and every location where the corresponding letter ought to be gains that letter.

Finally, you can only carry one stone at a time. They're heavy.

>x me. i. x locket. x book. x apollo. x lime.

>etx. enq prometheus. stx.

>enq apollo. take lime. space. g. drop lime.

>take emerald. space. g. drop emerald.

>take ferrous. cr. drop ferrous.

>enq ares. take ochre. stx. space. drop ochre.

>space. g. g. g. enq athena. take grey. stx. drop grey.

>cr. space. take dolomite. stx. space. g. g. drop dolomite.

>cr. space. g. take coal. space. g. drop coal.

>bs. take nickel. stx. space. g. g. g. g. drop nickel.

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In the
Ring

The Invisible Argonaut

by Jacqueline A. Lott

There's only one location, and besides you, there's only a king and an all-purpose scenery object to interact with. There's a few things you can try to delay the inevitable:

>x me. x king. x crowd. xyzzy. plugh. pray.

>n. swim. sing. kiss king. ask king about fleece.

But ultimately, the only real thing to do is hit the king. Hit him again and again, until you lose the fight. (Which is what you were fated to do, therefore you have achieved your destiny, and have won. No, really.) The responses are randomized, so you may want to replay the game a few times just to make sure you've seen them all.

>hit king. g. g. (Repeat until end of game.)

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a map of this
game is not
applicable

jason finds fleece

by Gunther Schmidl

Aw, c'mon. Do you really need a walkthrough for this?

No walkthrough can help you with this game. But the game's instructions can. Read them by typing "I". Start looking for the fleece by typing "F".

You'll next see a randomized pattern of ASCII characters in different colours spread out over the screen. Any one of them could be the fleece; the other characters represent other related items, people, and gods. Since none of them move, you should have no trouble using the cursor keys to move you (represented by the # symbol) up beside each of them to find out what it is. (The message appears on the fourth line of the header.)

When you find the fleece, that game is over and you have won. Type any character to return to the main menu. Then type "Q" to quit, or "F" to start a new search.

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