BUG VERSION 1 2 3 4 63/850916 Y Y Y Y *87/860904 N N N Y
1. In Version 63, if you try using the knife to cut up the magic carpet while you are sitting on it, the game will still consider that you are sitting on the carpet, even though it was destroyed (you will be told that you need to get up first if you try to move). If you then get off the carpet, the status line will show garbage, and you will find yourself in a location with no description and no exits. The only way out of this area is via BLORPLE. If you destroy the carpet while in one of the blorple areas, (i.e. when one of the cubes is missing) and BLORPLE a second time to escape the jumbled area, only the second cube will materialize in your hand when you leave the BLORPLE area. The first is gone forever.
NOTE: This bug may behave differently, under different interpreters. When playing the Apple ][ version, the game hangs when you try to leave the jumbled area. -- GC
2. Also in Version 63, typing THANKS gives you the response, "How do you do that with a [string of garbage]?" Weird, considering Infocom usually handled Q&A and rhetorical replies pretty well. Version 87 responds with "You're welcome, I guess."
3. GIRGOL/BLORPLE BUG: Finally, Version 63 also has the famous Girgol/Blorple bug that caused quite a commotion in the rec.games.int-fiction newsgroup a while back.
Normally, if you try to get by the ogre by casting GIRGOL, the scroll and gold box will be frozen in time and you won't be able to take them until the spell wears off, at which point the ogre will come in and kill you. But casting the BLORPLE spell on a non-magical object, and then waiting in the Nondescript Room until GIRGOL wears off, allows you to exit and take the ESPNIS spell and gold box without being killed by the ogre. There was considerable disagreement as to whether or not this was really a bug, until it was discovered that, in the second release (version 87/860909), included with LTOI, the Girgol/Blorple solution to the ogre's cave does not work. Apparently the folks at Infocom decided that it was in fact a bug and removed it from the game.
4. In all versions of Spellbreaker, if the bottle is full, using the command TINSOT WATER on any body of water (except the water in the Oubliette), will affect the bottle, wherever it is, rather than the water you cast the spell on.
For example, fill the bottle with water, and drop it in Hall of Stone. Go SOUTH to Ruins Room, and TINSOT WATER to try to freeze the water in the channel. You will get the response, "The water and bottle freeze and shatter into a million pieces!" Go back NORTH, and the bottle will be gone.
Another minor problem. Freezing the water in the bottle will always shatter the bottle, regardless of whether the bottle is open or closed, although realistically, the bottle should not shatter if it is open. -- Paul Rizzo
Click here to return to the Infocom Bugs List Table of Contents
Click here to return to Graeme Cree's "Bob & Ray Overstocked Surplus Warehouse" Home Page.