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Key & Compass presents:
At The Bottom Of The Garden
by Adam Biltcliffe

At The Bottom Of The Garden is a Z-machine interactive fiction game written with Inform 6 and is © 2000 by Adam Biltcliffe. This was a participant in the DragonComp event.

In this small charming game, you play as a retired homeowner trying to protect your wife Martha's prize rosebush from an increasing horde of dragons before she and her horticulturally-minded friends arrive to admire it. Fortunately, these dragons are quite small and stupid, but there's only so much that one rosebush can take!

This solution is by David Welbourn, and is based on Release 1 of the game.

SPOILERS AHEAD. Reading a walkthrough prematurely can sometimes diminish one's enjoyment of an interactive fiction game. Please make an honest effort to play the game before reading this walkthrough.


Walkthrough

Garden Frontpath (gate tothe lane) (door intocottage)

Front path

> about. x me. i. w. e.

> n.

Garden

There's initially just one dragon, but gradually seven more will arrive. The rosebush can only support five dragons, so you must get rid of three of them.

> x dragon. x rosebush.

> x bucket. take it.

If the branch is occupied when you try to pour pitch onto it, keep trying now or later until you succeed.

> pour pitch on tree. (Eventually, a dragon on the tree will ignite itself and be gone.)

> x pond. take petals. put petals in pond. (Eventually, a dragon will dive at the floating petals and drown.)

> take petals. give petals to COLOR dragon. (The dragon will eat the petals and die soon afterwards.)

Once three dragons have been destroyed, you can relax and do whatever you like until the end.

> x ivy. x tangle. x bench. x petals. x tree.

> z. (Repeat waiting.)

Soon after the eighth dragon arrives, Martha and the wizened ancients arrive and the remaining five dragons fly away.

*** You have won ***


Extras

Characters


Credits

This is the response to ABOUT:

Well, here is my humble offering to the spring 2000 Dragon-Comp. This is the first game I have ever allowed anyone else to see, and is probably full of bugs and awful design flaws. Still, I'd love to know what everyone thought of it. Unfortunately, due to time pressures, this is all I'm able to write in this little section, as I'm leaving for a week's holiday in Spain at six tomorrow morning, so I also won't be able to read the inevitable criticisms on r*if for a while. Anyway, please enjoy.

Adam


Endings


Inventory


Score

The response to SCORE is one of the following, as appropriate:


Thank You to my Patreon supporters

This walkthrough is provided free of charge since the work it's based on has less than fifteen locations. Please consider it a thank you for your support!

I create larger walkthroughs too! Please visit my Patreon account if you're interested in helping me create more interactive fiction walkthroughs. I appreciate all the help I can get! Thanks again.


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