Zork 2 


                            BUG
                                     1 1
         VERSION   1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
         7/UG3AU5  Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y
        15/820308  N Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y N Y
        17/820427  N Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y N Y
        18/820512  N Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y N Y
        19/820721  N Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y N Y
        22/830331  N Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y
        23/830411  N Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y
       *48/840904  N N N N Y Y Y Y Y Y Y

          1. In version 7, you are able to give commands to some inanimate objects. Contrary to the report in XyzzyNews #2, you cannot use the standard Infocom command syntax (such as AQUARIUM, GO EAST, which generates the reply "You must supply a verb"), but must use the same types of commands that you use to direct the robot. For example, you could say TELL AQUARIUM "GO EAST", and the game will say "The aquarium has left the room." TELL AQUARIUM "GO EAST THEN GO EAST" results in a message saying that you have been killed by a grue, but in reality it is the aquarium that has "died," as the next line informs you.
          ADDITIONAL: Besides, the aquarium, you can also do this to the Glacier, the Pool of Tears, and the dead Sea Serpent. The most useful application of this bug is to wait until the wizard appears and stays long enough for you to react. Normally, the wizard appears, casts a spell, and leaves before you have a chance to do anything, but occasionally, you get this sequence:

A strange little man in a long cloak appears suddenly in the room. He is wearing a high pointed hat embroidered with astrological signs. He has a long, stringy, and unkempt beard.
The Wizard draws forth his wand and waves it in your direction. It begins to glow with a faint blue glow.
The Wizard seems about to say something, but thinks better of it, and peers at you from under his bushy eyebrows.
          When this happens, the wizard is still there on your turn, and if one of these four objects is present, you can order it to take his wand, then order it to drop the wand, then take it yourself (i.e. TELL GLACIER "TAKE WAND", TELL GLACIER "DROP WAND", TAKE WAND). You can win the game with an absurdly low score this way.
          Oddly, when you take the wand by this method, it will be invisible. It will not show up in either LOOK or INVENTORY commands, though you can EXAMINE it, and use it normally.

          This bug can also be used to win the game without having to acquire all, or indeed any, of the treasures, using a method discovered by Lee Huber. If you throw the bat at the broken aquarium when the dead serpent is not present, the game will treat it as though the aquarium were unbroken, and go through the breaking procedure all over again. As part of this procedure, the dead serpent and the Clear Sphere will be moved from wherever they are, into the room with the broken aquarium. Even if the Clear Sphere has already been used to form the Black Sphere, it can be recovered in this way. Since the Demon/Genie treats the Clear Sphere as a treasure, you can keep recovering it and giving it to him repeatedly, until he is satisfied, without needing to give away any of the other treasures. Simply order the broken Aquarium to leave the room where the dead serpent is, follow it, throw the bat at it again to recover the Clear Sphere, give it to the Demon/Genie, then go back and repeat the process.

          The Dragon will not react to the Glacier anywhere except in the Ice Room. If you order the Glacier into the Dragon's Lair, and then wake him up, he won't even notice it. Conversely, if you move the Glacier OUT of the Ice Room, before leading the Dragon there, he will still see it, and react accordingly.
          Although this bug only appears in Version 7, you can GIVE items to these four inanimate objects in every version except Version 48, although this has no real effect on game play. For example if you GIVE SWORD TO GLACIER, it will say "given", but if you LOOK, the sword will be lying on the floor in the room (whereas if you order the glacier to take it, it will be in the Glacier's "inventory" until you tell him (her? it?) to drop it. -- Allen Garvin



          2. There is a parser bug in Versions 7, 17, 18, 19, 22, and 23 that stems from having two objects of the same colour in the same room (such as the blue label and the blue sphere), and then referring to the object simply by its color when trying to take it. For example:

>TAKE THE BLUE
Which [several lines of garbage] do you mean?

In the LTOI version (48/840904) the parser bug has been fixed, and the reply "There seems to be a noun missing in that sentence" replaces the garbage. (Early parser versions of other Infocom games may have similar bugs.)



          3. In versions 7, 17, 18, 19, 22, and 23, you could take immovable objects by reading them. For instance, READ UNICORN will (provided the unicorn is actually present in the first place) reply:

Taken. How can you read a unicorn?

Another example: Reading the stands on the Wizard's workbench will let you take them, even though the game claims they are firmly bolted to the table. However, since the text about the stands is a part of the room description, they remain attached to the table, even if you're carrying them, and even if you drop them elsewhere, though the table itself doesn't move along with them.



          4. KILL, KILL, KILL:  In every version except version 48, you can die an unlimited number of times simply by typing KILL repeatedly. Ordinarily, the game ends the 4th time that you die, but the game doesn't count the third death if you die in one of the mist rooms (i.e. when you're already dead), though it will count the second one. Eventually the game will overflow and crash when your score gets low enough.
          In version 48, this does not work. If you try to KILL yourself, you are told "Suicide is not the answer." -- Allen Garvin
          NOTE:  Allen says that long ago he wrote a C program (on a 386) that kept inputting the KILL command until finally the game crashed, after a couple of hours. This was presumably done with the original Infocom interpreter. I tried it with Frotz 2.32, using the Alt-P command, and rather than crashing, when the score got to -32760, the next KILL command changed the score to (positive) 32766. - GC



          5. When the wizard appears before you, but doesn't cast any spell, you will see the following text:

The Wizard seems about to say something, but thinks better of it, and peers at you from under his bushy eyebrows.

If you type KILL THE WIZARD, you will get the following reply:

The Wizard retreats, waving his wand and chanting. He says, "Fear!" Nothing happens! With a terrified glance at the demon, the Wizard runs past you and out of the room.

This text clearly belongs much later in the game, after you've freed the demon and ordered him to kill the wizard. This works in all versions.



          6. In all versions, if your sword is "filched" by the Wizard, filching it back with the Wizard's wand may be a little confusing, since there are nicked swords of other adventurers in the room also. If you try to POINT WAND AT SWORD, you will be asked "Which sword do you mean, the sword, or the nicked swords?" Saying "the sword" will not work and starts the process over again. Fortunately, this can be gotten around if you have the sense to say "the Elvish sword". -- Graeme Cree



          7. In all versions, you can get the dragon to follow you into and through the mist rooms, into the barrow (when you are brought back to life), and almost anywhere else in the game.
          Simply find the dragon and type ATTACK DRAGON WITH SWORD until he kills you. Once in the Room of Red Mist, simply type G (or AGAIN), and the dragon will appear in the room with you. You can get him to follow you through the blue, white, and black mist rooms into the barrow, by following the same procedure you normally use to lead him to the glacier (i.e. attacking him once with the AGAIN command, then moving to the next room). This procedure shouldn't work, for two reasons:   a) you no longer have the sword, and b) when you go west to the blue mist room, the AGAIN command should make you move west again, not attack the dragon again.
          However, it does work. After you die from the command ATTACK DRAGON WITH SWORD, the AGAIN command will automatically refer to and successfully implement that command thereafter, regardless of whether or not you have the sword, or whether the dragon is in the room with you. In fact, you can even try this sequence:   ATTACK DRAGON WITH SWORD (getting yourself killed), WEST, WEST, WEST, AGAIN. After the third WEST, you will be back in the barrow, and the AGAIN command will attack the dragon (with the sword that you no longer have), bringing him into the barrow with you. The AGAIN command seems to return to normal functioning by issuing a WAIT (Z) command.
          No matter what room you are with the dragon in, typing LOOK will give the standard description of him:   "A huge red dragon is lying here, blocking the entrance to a tunnel leading north. Smoke curls from his nostrils and out between his teeth." The designers did not believe it possible to take the dragon into a room where there was not a tunnel leading north. The dragon can kill you while you're already dead (i.e. in one of the Mist Rooms). -- Brian Uri



          8. Since it doesn't affect gameplay, this is a style error, rather than a bug. But in all versions of Zork 2, the description of the Marble Hall says: "To the south the hall opens into a large room. There is rather [sic] annoying whirring sound coming from that room.", regardless of whether or not the Carousel is still in motion. A little picky to mention it, I know, but Infocom changed room descriptions for things such as this on many occasions.
          There is a similar problem in the Crypt. If you are there without a lit lantern, the room description will say:

It is dark, but on the south wall is a faint outline of a rectangle, as though light were shining around a doorway. You can also make out a faintly glowing letter in the center of this area. It might be an "F".
regardless of whether the secret door is open or not. Conversely, if you are there with a lit lantern (after the secret door has been discovered), then this will be appended to the normal room description:
Looking closely at the south wall, you can see the dim outline of a secret door labelled with the letter "F".
regardless of whether or not the door has been opened. -- Graeme Cree



          9. THE BUCKET BUG:  In all versions, you can ENTER or EXIT the bucket regardless of whether it is open or closed. However you can only LOOK IN BUCKET when it is open. If it is closed, you can't look inside, even if you are inside!
          For example, when you first enter the Circular Room, enter these commands:

>CLOSE BUCKET
Closed.

>ENTER BUCKET
You are now in the wooden bucket.

>OPEN BUCKET
Opening the wooden bucket reveals a cretin.

>EXAMINE CRETIN
That's difficult unless your eyes are prehensile.
"Cretin" is a synonym for the player in Zork 1, 2, and 3. But the talk about revealing a cretin makes no sense. You were already in the bucket with a light source, so you could already see yourself before you were "revealed." However at least the game maintains a weird consistency because you can't LOOK IN THE BUCKET while it is closed either, even if you are in it. -- Justin Edwards



          10. There is a bug in versions 22, 23, and 48 that results from saying TELL GENIE "MOVE MENHIR" (or any other command that results in the Genie leaving, but the Wizard staying).
         Once the Genie has left, type ATTACK WIZARD WITH SWORD. The Wizard will cast a Fear spell on you, chasing you back to the Wizard's Workroom. At this point, immediately go SOUTH to return to the Pentagram Room, and WAIT five times, and you will get this message:

Suddenly the Wizard materializes in the room. He is astonished by what he sees: his servant in deep conversation with a common adventurer! He draws forth his wand, waves it frantically, and incants "Frobizz! Frobozzle! Frobnoid!" The demon laughs heartily. "You no longer control the Black Crystal, hedge-wizard! Your wand is powerless! Your doom is sealed!" The demon turns to you, expectantly.
Whoops! This is a repeat of the text you saw when the Wizard first appeared while you were bribing the genie! In earlier versions (Versions 15, 17, 18, and 19), this bug does not work (although in Version 7, the game crashes for some unknown reason when you attack the wizard after telling the genie to move the menhir). In those versions, when you attack the Wizard, he does try to cast Fear on you, but it fails, and he runs away.
          So, why does this appear only in later versions and not earlier ones? Well, in the early versions, when you attack the Wizard, he tries to cast Fear on you, fails, runs away, and is never seen again. In the later versions however, the Wizard returns to the Pentagram Room after a few turns, if he still has his wand, and remains there the rest of the game. If you LOOK, you will see a line saying, "A dejected and fearful Wizard watches from the corner." He will continue to cast Fear on you every time you try to attack him, but won't leave.
          Apparently, when the game mechanics were changed to make him return to the Pentagram Room, there was no special message written to describe his appearance if you happened to be watching at the time, so the game defaulted back to a previous message. -- Duncan Stevens



          11. THE WINGED GRUE BUG:  Those pesky Grues are everywhere! It's a judgment call as to whether this is a bug or cheesy game mechanics, but even if you are in the balloon, in flight, turning the lights off will make those naughty Grues slither into the "room" and kill you. This works in all versions. -- Graeme Cree


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