Adventure of the Week: Adventure at Vandenberg A.F.B. (1985)

This week, we're exploring Tom Hudson's Adventure at Vandenberg A.F.B., written in 1984 and published in the February 1985 issue of ANALOG magazine as a type-in game for the Atari 400/800 computers.  Hudson borrowed Brian Moriarty's parser engine, implemented for Adventure in the 5th Dimension, and the game runs quickly after an initialization delay (although after the player dies, the engine always has to reinitialize, which can become tedious after a while.)

The backstory isn't very clear in-game, so I looked up the original magazine article to learn that we portray a tabloid journalist on the trail of a terrorist plot to blow up the Air Force's space shuttle; the location is based on the real-life space shuttle complex at Vandenberg Air Force Base.  Instead of informing the proper authorities, of course, we are taking the crisis into our own hands.  We've made our way into the base on foot, and must now avoid guards, security cameras and other dangers as we seek to defuse the bomb before it goes off at 9:00 sharp.

The magazine article is available at the excellent Atarimania website, but it's embedded in a PDF file capturing issue #27 in its entirety.  The download is about 106 MB in total -- so if you wish to see the original, you can do so here, but please be respectful of Atarimania's bandwidth!

This is not a horrendously difficult adventure, once the map is worked out, but I did have to peek at the listing to solve a few of the tougher puzzles, one of which is either a bug or a nasty joke on the part of the designer.  To save others the trouble, I will provide a walkthrough below, as I did not find another one published online.  As always, interested readers are encouraged to take a crack at Adventure at Vandenberg A.F.B. before continuing here.  For history's sake, I'll be documenting the details, with plenty of...

***** SPOILERS AHEAD! *****


The Moriarty parser has its quirks, but is generally pretty cooperative.  There's no direct SAVE GAME feature; we can only save by invoking the QUIT command, after which we can choose to continue instead of actually quitting.  I is the command to review our belongings, rather than INV or INVENTORY.

Our quest begins inauspiciously, in a storage shed containing a spray can of limited capability (Not much paint left) and a closed cabinet.  In the cabinet is a clock; READ CLOCK or LOOK CLOCK tells us it's 8:00-ish at the start of the game.  Each move seems to eat up 15 seconds on the clock, so there is clearly some time pressure involved here.  We can't CLOSE CABINET once it's opened, but there's no need to do so.

It's quite dangerous to wander randomly around the base -- security cameras summon guards within a few turns, and wandering guards seem to be patrolling everywhere.  We'll see this screen quite a lot if we're not careful (or even if we are):

We can observe a guard emerging from the Security building and leaving the area, but I never quite figured out whether the guards have established patrol routes or just show up randomly. At any rate, it's best to stay out of sight as much as possible, using the relative safety of the base's underground tunnel system.

We can SPRAY random objects with the spray can from the storage shed, yielding What a nice color!, though we are never told what color, exactly, that is.  We shouldn't waste the paint, though, because it can be used to SPRAY CAMERA, providing a moment's safety by covering the nearest surveillance lens.  But the mostly-empty spray can is only good for two shots, and there are three such cameras between us and what seems like the most obvious goal.  I initially made the mistake of focusing on this area:

The Blue paper  (we must EXAMINE BLUE, EXAMINE PAPER yields only Refer to it by color) reveals a code made up of Ws and Gs; it varies randomly from game to game.  There are two doors that require security codes, which we enter by PUSHing GRAY and WHITE buttons in the proper sequence.  But we can't even get to the first code-locked door if we've used the spray can to disable the HQ's camera, so it's a waste of time to come here too early.  What's worse -- or more ironic, assuming this is intentional design on Mr. Hudson's part -- is that the code found in the HQ is actually for a second door beyond the first one.  The code for the first door is hidden in the very last room we reach in the game, written on a piece of Pink paper.  So we really do have to guess the first unlock code from scratch, with liberal use of QUIT to save the game in case we make an error and set off the alarm!

The constant presence of the guards makes mapping difficult -- there are many odd loops and reflective dead ends on the map, and it's very hard to verify them with all the guards running around.  There's also an old-school maze of tunnels underground, with similar inconsistencies and loopbacks to befuddle us, though the guards only show up here if we leave a surveillance camera enabled.  Life becomes a little bit easier if we unlock the Security Office door, giving us a quicker path between the base and the underground tunnels, but it's not strictly necessary to do so.  It seemed to me that the guards became easier to evade as the game went on, but that might have been due to more efficient navigation as my map firmed up.

The underground maze leads to an area with a hatch secured by bolts; a nearby sign reads WARNING - LIQUID OXYGEN / EXTREME COLD.  The bolts are too tight to remove, and are remarkably anthropomorphic, as OPEN HATCH produces Bolts won't let you. 

We don't really have to take the clock found in the storage shed with us, but if we DROP CLOCK almost anywhere, It smashes into a thousand pieces!  It's useful for keeping track of the remaining time, but it serves no critical purpose.  I did discover that if we DROP CLOCK into the freezing hatch, It falls into the hatch.  I thought perhaps this meant the clock was somehow tied into the bomb's actual timing device, but concluded that it's just a hint: other ticking things can be dropped into the hatch, should the need arise.


Once we've successfully guessed our way past the first coded door, we can find our way into the Security Office.  There's a note here reading, Cameras off.  Back after launch.  It seems we actually have to traverse the one-way passage N out of the office to put this handy condition into effect, but once we do the surveillance cameras shut down and we have one less hazard to worry about.  On the other side of the first coded door we see another set of white and gray buttons, but the game responds Why bother? if we try to use them and I didn't find a purpose for them beyond appropriate window dressing (it makes sense that code buttons exist on both side of the door.) There's also a wooden crate stashed in the escape bunker, but I was unable to LIFT CRATE or OPEN CRATE.

I found myself stuck at this point for a while -- it seemed I had mapped out the world and solved the available puzzles, but the bomb was nowhere in sight.  So I dug into the BASIC code to see what I could figure out.  I learned that there are two random G/W codes created, with the code checking to be sure they're not complete duplicates, so as to prevent the player from unlocking the first door with something other than pure guesswork.  Looking at the map data in desperation, I also discovered that there was an Instrument Bay room with no obvious entrance, and a couple of rooms that were supposed to be found east of the Escape Bunker.

So I went back to the Escape Bunker and wrestled with the crate some more.  I tried to CUT CRATE -- You have nothing to cut it with.   Fetching the scissors, I again tried to CUT CRATE -- this time, I was politely informed that That is impossible. I didn't expect that to work, but still... dang.  I tried again to LIFT CRATE, and failed again.  But then I attempted to MOVE CRATE -- and that opened up a passage to the east.

In this revealed area, we find a wrench, useful for removing the hatch bolts, and another coded door with white and gray buttons.  Now, we can actually use the code from the HQ's blue slip of paper to reach the Instrument Bay, where we find a suspicious-looking bag and the pink slip of paper.  Now we can verify that the pink paper contains the code we had to blindly guess, at great personal risk, in order to get this far, just to rub it in.  Though I will admit that this did make me laugh out loud.

I spent some time trying to find out what was in the suspicious bag -- but if we try to GET BAG, the bomb explodes.  If we try to OPEN BAG, a guard appears and shoots us, which caused me to believe I was generally exposed to guard traffic in this room.  But this only happens if we mess too much with the bag, and it finally dawned on me that perhaps the bag is the bomb -- if we LOOK BAG, we learn that It's ticking.

So we must be getting close to the end of our journey.  The guard does not show up if we execute more appropriate commands, even if they're not essential -- we can READ PINK and EXAMINE CAMERA without instant death-by-guard occurring.  I was able to discover that CUT BAG works, revealing a metal panel and a wire.  We can find a screwdriver elsewhere in the tunnels, but unscrewing the metal panel is a bad idea.  Instead, we have to cut the bag open, cut the exposed wire, reduce our inventory holdings to accommodate it (since the partially-disarmed bomb now counts as three items) and GET BAG.

Now we can carry the bomb long enough to dump it into the freezing hatch, assuming we've unbolted it, and victory is (tersely) ours!

I enjoyed Adventure at Vandenberg A.F.B., despite having to dig into the code to verify everything was working properly; intentional deception to this degree is remarkably rare in interactive fiction, but I appreciated the joke in this case.  I didn't find a published walkthrough in my travels, either, so I am providing mine below the fold; it's also available at the CASA solution archive.

***** WALKTHROUGH *****




GET CAN
N, W, S, E, D
SPRAY CAMERA
S
SPRAY CAMERA
DROP CAN
**** CAREFUL HERE ****
Q to quit, Y to Save, D to Disk
(code is trial and error - right code is hidden behind door, ironic!)
PUSH WHITE or PUSH GRAY
(five times, figure out sequence until no siren sounds and door opens)
**********************
S
U
READ NOTE
N, W, N
GET BLUE
S, S, E, D
S, E, U
GET SCISSORS
D, S, S, S
MOVE CRATE
E
GET WRENCH
E
READ BLUE (note code, use in next steps)
PUSH WHITE or PUSH GRAY in sequence (5 times)
DROP BLUE
U
CUT BAG
CUT WIRE
DROP SCISSORS
GET BAG
D, W, W, N, N
E, E, E
REMOVE BOLTS
OPEN HATCH
DROP BAG (victory!)