Back in the summer of 2005, I briefly visited my former home town of Tunbridge Wells because a couple of friends were getting married in the area. The day before I returned to Hull, I was able to do some browsing, and in a charity shop in Tonbridge I found and purchased a gamebook of which I'd not previously heard, which was part of a series of which I was equally ignorant. I read a little of it on the walk back to Tunbridge Wells, got annoyed when my character was robbed of a potentially useful item, and put the book away in my bag, meaning to get back to it later. I didn't expect 'later' to mean 'in a little over 14 years', but life got in the way.
The book was Clive Gifford's The Cosmic Toaster, from the Plot Busters series. The other day I happened upon a couple of other Plot Busters books, also by Mr. Gifford, so I'm going to have a proper go at Toaster to see if it's likely to be worth taking advantage of this opportunity to get more in the series, and I'm going to write it up here in an attempt at circumventing this reality-induced gamebook blogger's block.
Beyond inventory management, the book has no rules, so the 'How to play' page is pretty basic. It concludes with a substantial paragraph that aims to discourage cheating by pointing out that doing so will:
- adversely affect the replayability of the book
- diminish any bragging rights gained by succeeding at the adventure, and
- potentially lead to my being arrested and taken for torture by the Plutonian Fib Police.
I prefer not to cheat anyway, though some books do make it necessary to creatively interpret the rules to have any chance of success. This seems unlikely to be one of them.
It is the year 2677, and I am Griddle, an apprentice kitchen orderly in the Imperial Palace. My immediate superior, the Deputy Junior Assistant Imperial Chef, catches me researching 20th century cookery on my antiquated CD viewer when I should be working, and punishes me with a shift of welding cheese onto a cake. Once that's done, and I approach him for a new chore, he admits that he's irritable because he's worried. The Imperial High Priestess of the known universe is having one of her whims, and this one seems even worse than the time she wanted all her meals colour-coordinated with her favourite dress. So many chefs have been imprisoned for failing to provide whatever it is that she wants, my boss fears that he's now next in line to become Breakfast Chef, and shortly afterwards to join his predecessors in the dungeons.
All too soon his fears prove accurate, and he's not the last of the kitchen staff to disappear. Eventually I decide to try and find out exactly what has caused the downfall of so many colleagues, and attempt to confront the High Imperial Priestess in the Great Chamber. Droids intercept me, but the scuffle attracts Her Most Greatness' attention, so I ask why so many chefs have been imprisoned.
"Toast."
Chief advisor Faxit clarifies her answer. Way back in the 22nd century, Her All Powerfulness once tasted the Earth delicacy called toast, and now she has a hankering for more, but the secret of making it has been lost. One after another, the chefs have tried and failed to create the dish, and have been punished for their lack of success.
My mouth overtaking my brain, I blurt out something I read on a CD: there is apparently still one toaster in existence, on the planet Neptune, in the possession of a troll of some kind. The Priestess orders me to travel to Neptune and fetch the toaster, overriding Faxit's protests that the mission should be entrusted to someone better qualified. I could try refusing to go, but considering the way the Priestess has punished so many of her staff for being unable to do what she wants, there's no way that outright defiance of an order can end well for me.
I have a few minutes in which to pack before embarking on my quest, and take a moment to refer to my CD reader. The screen is barely functional, but I can still make out half a dozen options, some more obviously germane to the situation than others. Would 'About this machine' give any indication of how I might be able to keep the device running? Or is this going to be my only shot at getting data that could help me achieve my goal? I'll see what I can find out about that Troll.
It would appear that Trolls are not as bad as they're made out to be. Sure, they have perpetrated the odd dismemberment, but not enough to merit the near-genocidal attentions of the superheroes who have brought them to the brink of extinction. They spend most of their time clearing away astroweed, which has a strange tendency to grow in profusion wherever Trolls go, and worshipping. A glitch in the CD reader somewhat scrambles the data on Trollish religious practises, but I can read mirror writing with little difficulty, and thus have no trouble learning that three-eyed Trolls venerate household objects, and tend to get violent if challenged about this. As an average Troll weighs 1200kg, getting into a fight with one is inadvisable. Judging by the last line of text on the screen, I may need to track down a tin opener and then persuade the Troll that it's more sacred than the toaster.
There may be time for one more bit of research. While I am a little curious about what relevance the Great Cosmoburger Wars could have, I think finding out what I can about the CD reader may be more useful in the long run. Or maybe not: most of the technical data on the Uranuco Series 7000 is summarised in volumes 6, 71 and 193 of the condensed user manual, which may have been provided back when the original owner first bought the device, but is nowhere to be seen by now.
As punishment for my time-wasting, I am only issued with eight galactic credits to fund my endeavours. I'm advised to remember that my exit code from Neptune is the opposite of my entry code. As I collect my cybersack, the Imperial Dentist bursts into the room and implants a tooth containing my travel details. The accompanying illustration, showing my POV of this surgical procedure, 'incidentally' includes the printout of my entry code, so I make a note of that.
Proceeding to the Cruiser that will take me to Neptune, I find that I'm in cargo class, along with some crates of jet scooter parts and a gang of Martian Astral Polo hooligans. Checking my inventory, I find that I've forgotten to pack the CD reader. While double-checking that I didn't just fail to spot it mixed in with my nuclear candle, peeling knife, cheesecake and tin of spaceflea stew, I drop a CD, which rolls away from me and is grabbed by a Martian for frisbee practice. It's not going to be a lot of use without the reader, but could still come in handy somehow, so I'm going to risk getting into a fight with the hooligan. Well, I would have, but my travel tooth beams the message "Don't bother," into my brain, and I'm going to assume that that's an instance of being given the opportunity to reconsider an unwise move rather than the author treacherously attempting to discourage an essential course of action.
The journey becomes tedious, and the mutant Celery in front of me gets stroppy when I try to read over its shoulder (or equivalent growth). I could try and sneak a vidicom machine out of Luxury Class, but it wouldn't surprise me if there were some useful or essential information hidden away in the in-flight magazine. In fact, there's quite a selection of outdated periodicals in the pouch. Disregarding the tabloid and the puzzle magazine, I'm left with a choice of What Matter Transporter and Universe Today News.
I take a chance on the latter, which includes a couple of reports concerning Neptune: once-popular superhero Thorag is now a fugitive from the Food Enforcers because of his brawling, and illegal chess-playing rings are on the increase. There's also an ad for the Galax Lottery, with an amusing disclaimer in the small print. The cover date indicates the magazine to be a century old, so I don't know if any of this is still relevant, and I'm sure I'll wind up kicking myself if I wind up having to make a blind choice between different models of matter transporter, but there's still a slim chance that there's something useful to know in there.
All too soon his fears prove accurate, and he's not the last of the kitchen staff to disappear. Eventually I decide to try and find out exactly what has caused the downfall of so many colleagues, and attempt to confront the High Imperial Priestess in the Great Chamber. Droids intercept me, but the scuffle attracts Her Most Greatness' attention, so I ask why so many chefs have been imprisoned.
"Toast."
Chief advisor Faxit clarifies her answer. Way back in the 22nd century, Her All Powerfulness once tasted the Earth delicacy called toast, and now she has a hankering for more, but the secret of making it has been lost. One after another, the chefs have tried and failed to create the dish, and have been punished for their lack of success.
My mouth overtaking my brain, I blurt out something I read on a CD: there is apparently still one toaster in existence, on the planet Neptune, in the possession of a troll of some kind. The Priestess orders me to travel to Neptune and fetch the toaster, overriding Faxit's protests that the mission should be entrusted to someone better qualified. I could try refusing to go, but considering the way the Priestess has punished so many of her staff for being unable to do what she wants, there's no way that outright defiance of an order can end well for me.
I have a few minutes in which to pack before embarking on my quest, and take a moment to refer to my CD reader. The screen is barely functional, but I can still make out half a dozen options, some more obviously germane to the situation than others. Would 'About this machine' give any indication of how I might be able to keep the device running? Or is this going to be my only shot at getting data that could help me achieve my goal? I'll see what I can find out about that Troll.
It would appear that Trolls are not as bad as they're made out to be. Sure, they have perpetrated the odd dismemberment, but not enough to merit the near-genocidal attentions of the superheroes who have brought them to the brink of extinction. They spend most of their time clearing away astroweed, which has a strange tendency to grow in profusion wherever Trolls go, and worshipping. A glitch in the CD reader somewhat scrambles the data on Trollish religious practises, but I can read mirror writing with little difficulty, and thus have no trouble learning that three-eyed Trolls venerate household objects, and tend to get violent if challenged about this. As an average Troll weighs 1200kg, getting into a fight with one is inadvisable. Judging by the last line of text on the screen, I may need to track down a tin opener and then persuade the Troll that it's more sacred than the toaster.
There may be time for one more bit of research. While I am a little curious about what relevance the Great Cosmoburger Wars could have, I think finding out what I can about the CD reader may be more useful in the long run. Or maybe not: most of the technical data on the Uranuco Series 7000 is summarised in volumes 6, 71 and 193 of the condensed user manual, which may have been provided back when the original owner first bought the device, but is nowhere to be seen by now.
As punishment for my time-wasting, I am only issued with eight galactic credits to fund my endeavours. I'm advised to remember that my exit code from Neptune is the opposite of my entry code. As I collect my cybersack, the Imperial Dentist bursts into the room and implants a tooth containing my travel details. The accompanying illustration, showing my POV of this surgical procedure, 'incidentally' includes the printout of my entry code, so I make a note of that.
Proceeding to the Cruiser that will take me to Neptune, I find that I'm in cargo class, along with some crates of jet scooter parts and a gang of Martian Astral Polo hooligans. Checking my inventory, I find that I've forgotten to pack the CD reader. While double-checking that I didn't just fail to spot it mixed in with my nuclear candle, peeling knife, cheesecake and tin of spaceflea stew, I drop a CD, which rolls away from me and is grabbed by a Martian for frisbee practice. It's not going to be a lot of use without the reader, but could still come in handy somehow, so I'm going to risk getting into a fight with the hooligan. Well, I would have, but my travel tooth beams the message "Don't bother," into my brain, and I'm going to assume that that's an instance of being given the opportunity to reconsider an unwise move rather than the author treacherously attempting to discourage an essential course of action.
The journey becomes tedious, and the mutant Celery in front of me gets stroppy when I try to read over its shoulder (or equivalent growth). I could try and sneak a vidicom machine out of Luxury Class, but it wouldn't surprise me if there were some useful or essential information hidden away in the in-flight magazine. In fact, there's quite a selection of outdated periodicals in the pouch. Disregarding the tabloid and the puzzle magazine, I'm left with a choice of What Matter Transporter and Universe Today News.
I take a chance on the latter, which includes a couple of reports concerning Neptune: once-popular superhero Thorag is now a fugitive from the Food Enforcers because of his brawling, and illegal chess-playing rings are on the increase. There's also an ad for the Galax Lottery, with an amusing disclaimer in the small print. The cover date indicates the magazine to be a century old, so I don't know if any of this is still relevant, and I'm sure I'll wind up kicking myself if I wind up having to make a blind choice between different models of matter transporter, but there's still a slim chance that there's something useful to know in there.
The Cruiser reaches Neptune, and a stroppy robot demands to know the purpose of my visit to 'this hell hole'. Given the robot's attitude, claiming to be a tourist may sound suspicious, so I risk telling the truth. A sceptical Food Enforcer promptly takes over my case, and I am 'escorted' away to be searched. My food items are confiscated, and I'm about to be thrown into a dungeon when an underling points out to the Inspector that my travel tooth hasn't been checked. The Enforcer Dentist is summoned, and the tooth confirms that I am working for the High Priestess (but is inadvertently extracted during the scanning process). Not wishing to annoy Her Incredible Fragrantness, the Inspector becomes apologetic, and it takes me a while to remember the formal response, so he's forced to grovel for an awkwardly long time.
Before letting me go, the Inspector asks what a toaster is, and when I explain, he says there's no such thing on Neptune. All foodstuffs and cooking devices have been banned in order to prevent a recurrence of the events that triggered the Great Cosmoburger Wars, and tablets are the only source of nutrition here. I think it unlikely that anyone would have dared tell the Troll that his toaster needed to be destroyed, so I take the Inspector's claims with the permitted level of sodium chloride.
As I get ready to move on, the Inspector advises me to seek assistance from the Food Enforcers' main office in the city of Neptunia. I'll bear that in mind, but I start by visiting the Tourist Information Centre, which contains only a poster advertising the casino, a vidicom, and a hovering grey box that attempts to persuade me to join the waiting list for the Galactic Theme Park. When I insist on asking for information on Trolls, the box says that they live in the Wilderness That Knows No Name, and hardly anybody knows where that is. My best bet would be to keep a look out for kitchen appliance-seeking Trolls at the auction house or antique shop. The box dispenses a crumpled map of Neptunia and warns me that jumping from Hoverway Two to Hoverway One could be dangerous owing to the ongoing hoverworks.
Proceeding towards Neptunia, I catch sight of a café with the unappealing name Chez URGH. It could be that URGH is a perfectly normal name on the proprietor's home world, and there's nothing wrong with the meal tablets they serve, but I'm not going to take that chance. Close by is Hoverway One, and I jump on it and start gliding towards the city centre.
The layout of the street depicted doesn't match the map: the buildings are on the wrong side of the road. The side street looks like a good place to get mugged, and I'd want to be sure of the mood of the mob in Priestess Square before I try confronting them. Agful Antiques obviously merits a visit, but I think I'll check out the Museum first. The place seems deserted, and is dark, but my nuclear candle provides adequate illumination. On the wall is a map of the maze-like layout of the Museum, and an area on it illuminates when I ask about the Troll exhibit. Three passages lead away from where I am, but the map enables me to figure out which is the only one that will get me to where I need to go.
Unhelpfully, the passage leads me to the Astral Polo exhibit, where I learn that, owing to the use of black holes as the goals (or 'Peles', to use game-specific terminology), games tend to end after the first Pele is scored, there being no way of retrieving the ball. For the purposes of bug-checking rather than cheating, I take a quick look at the sections for the other passages, and one of them does lead to the Troll exhibit, though on the map that one goes only to three dead ends. Up until that error I was rather enjoying the book, but such sloppiness has soured my mood.
Forced to leave the Museum, I now visit the antique shop. A three-eyed old lady is dusting some of the stock, and tells me that she used to have a toaster in stock, but a Troll took it a century ago. The Troll actually came to the shop in search of the Sacred Butter Dish, but the shop didn't have a butter dish, and the Troll decided that the toaster was the next best thing. He left behind a pointed stone, which is still in the shop. In the intervening years, the owner has also acquired a butter dish, though it doesn't look particularly sacred. Nevertheless, I buy the stone and the dish.
Checking the map again, I see that the auction house is just off Priestess Square, so I suppose I'd better go to the square after all. A Plutonian explains that the crowd has gathered for the auction of a genuine Earth motor vehicle. I opt to stick around just to see what the vehicle actually is, and am slightly disappointed when it turns out to be a sports car - I was expecting something more quirky, like a dodgem car or a Bigtrak. The bidders are not impressed either, heaping scorn on it for not hovering or having an autopilot. Despite the fact that it could be useful for traversing the Wilderness (the only place on Neptune it may be driven, owing to the noise and toxic emissions), and the first bid placed is for just two credits, I don't have the option of trying to buy it.
Unless I want to test my theory about the side street, all I can do now is use Hoverway Two to head to another part of town. Here I can see the previously mentioned hoverworks (there's a nice visual gag in the illustration), and visit a Diner, the Food Enforcers' main office, or a Travel Agent's. The book suggests that I might be able to get a map of the Wilderness at the latter, so I check that out. A giant Stellar Parrot starts telling me about various holidays I could go on, and when I'm finally able to make my wishes known, the Parrot advises me to seek Glug the Soothsayer in a nearby alley. I turn to leave, and the Parrot adds that I'll need a matter transporter. Definitely chose the wrong magazine, then.
The alley looks insalubrious even by Neptunian standards, but I head into it anyway. A club-wielding mutant Celery blocks my way and demands a bribe. I refuse to be intimidated, and he refuses to let me past, so I have to leave the alley.
Back at the Hoverway, I decide to see if the Food Enforcers can help me at all. I give the code number mentioned by the Inspector, leading the Enforcer on the desk to assume that I'm an undercover Enforcer. Commenting that they don't have many Trolls on file as most of them stay out of trouble, he leads me to the filing room, where I see a wanted poster depicting Thorag. By now I think I've made enough mistakes to have no chance of success, so even if asking about the poster causes me to miss out on information about criminal Trolls, it's not going to make things much worse. And it's just an aside on the way to the Troll records anyway, revealing that the lack of new enemy galaxies to conquer has caused Thorag to hit the alcopills and pick fights with anyone who looks at him.
The Enforcer finds some century-old vidifits of Troll villains. Three of the five have no name on record, and the second of those three seems the most likely candidate, as 'Theft of pointy stone' is one of the charges against him (along with 'Pretending to be interesting' and 11 separate counts of robot bashing). The record also notes a possible connection with Martian Astral Polo fans, and unhelpfully gives his address as a hut somewhere in the Wilderness. The Enforcer indicates one of the other unnamed Trolls and tells me that it had no vocal cords or tongue.
That's as much information as I'm likely to get here, so I take a chance on checking out the Diner. That turns out to be a bad move, though things would have gone differently if I still had any food on me. As it is, a three-headed waitress cons me into spending a credit on a meal with some old Earth ingredients she managed to buy before the planet was towed away - a pill with mustard and ketchup on it.
I don't want to risk returning to Hoverway One, so I'm more or less finished in Neptunia. All that remains before I leave is a trip to Honest Zarg's Matter Transporters. Zarg is very talkative, and puts one of her three arms around my shoulder as she leads me around the showroom. It turns out that in this world 'matter transporter' has nothing to do with teleportation - they're just vehicles. One of them is out of my price range, though I could try visiting the casino in the hope of winning more credits. Mind you, the expensive model comes with an autopassenger - an AI designed to provide company on long journeys, with personality types such as Constant Talker, Loud Snorer and Hated Enemy - so I'm probably better off not getting that one anyway.
The cheapest model is probably dangerous, so I opt for the Protox Four. As I speed away on it, the gamebook describes an incident of which my character is not aware: Troll criminal Nikit congratulates Zarg on the transaction she just conducted and steals the credits I paid her.
My having failed to obtain a map of the Wilderness may prove my downfall, as the trail splits at a lone tree. I choose a direction at random, eventually reaching an astroweed-infested hut built from mud, twigs and matter transporter parts. As I knock on the door, a Troll sneaks up behind me. He introduces himself as Drago the Disappointing, and when I explain that I'm from the Imperial High Priestess's kitchen, he offers me some Earth cookbooks. Then, living up to his name, he remembers that he made a fire with them yesterday. To make up for it, he mentions that the Troll on the other side of the Wilderness has a toaster. Drago doesn't care if I take it, as he's a Frying Pan worshipper himself.
I head back the way I came, but at the tree the matter transporter's failsafe engages and a computer takes over the steering, returning me to Neptunia because there's only enough fuel remaining for that trip. When I object, the computer starts complaining about how it used to be one of the chess-playing greats, and had to become a cabbie following the criminalisation of the game, so I turn down the volume on the speaker.
As soon as I arrive back at Zarg's, she launches into a disclaimer denying all responsibility for whatever might be wrong with the matter transporter, and is surprised when I interject that I just need more fuel. There are, of course, complications: the Imperial High Priestess has grown impatient, and is threatening to have Neptune closed down. The announcement of this has caused citywide panic, leading to fuel rationing, so while Zarg does still have one fuel pill, she's not prepared to let me have it. I attempt to take it anyway, and she seizes my arms with two of hers and uses the third one to knock me out.
I come round in cold, wet darkness. The nuclear candle is still in my cybersack, so I switch it on, off again, and back on once I've calmed myself. I'm in jail, and one of the force-field shackles hanging from the wall has a skeletal arm in it. Scrawled on the wall close by is a riddle, which I solve in case doing so will be of some assistance. I take a quick look at the section with the number indicated by the riddle, but that's completely unrelated to my current situation, so unless I got the wrong answer, it would appear that prison cell graffiti is not actually an indicator of a way out. How disappointingly like real life.
Time passes. A Food Enforcer opens the door and lets me know how lucky I am: rather than allowing me to face vigilante justice, they've merely arrested me, and as I wasn't guilty of a food offence, I'm in the deluxe prison. The thought that somewhere on Neptune there are cells even more unwelcoming than this one does little to improve my mood.
More time passes. There's a flash of light and a smell of burning, and suddenly Faxit is in the cell with me. He explains that her Majesty doesn't want me languishing here, and then gets distracted by the fact that the teleporter set his clothing on fire. I use my water supply to extinguish the flames, and Faxit hands me a headset and confirms that the answer to that riddle is what I'd calculated it to be. I put the headset on, and it renders me unconscious.
I come round in cold, wet darkness again. The nuclear candle reveals that I'm now languishing in the High Priestess's personal dungeon on Jupiter. This is not an improvement. It is, however, the end of my adventure.
Apart from that bit with the mixed-up section numbers on the maze puzzle, that was pretty entertaining. Absurd, but intentionally so, for comic and satirical effect, rather than because the writer was showing contempt for the readers' critical faculties. I think I'm going to end up buying those other Plot Busters books I found after all.
Glad to see another post Ed! Do you have any plans to revist previous failed playthroughs? or is the backlog on the shelves still very insurmountable?
ReplyDeleteBooks I've not yet covered still take precedence, but I do intend to eventually revisit most of those I've yet to beat.
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