Key & Compass presents:
Civil Mimic
by Andrew Schultz

Civil Mimic is a Z-machine interactive fiction game written with Inform 7 and is © 2017 by Andrew Schultz. It was an entry to Ectocomp 2017's La Petite Mort (English) division in which it took 12th place.

In this very small wordplay game based on Roman numerals, you play as a high school student named Mimi having a bizarre Halloween candy dream. You had a dumb argument a month ago with your friend, and now someone called the Civil Mimic wants to know her name. Perhaps this lid which is actually a clock in Roman numerals can help you say it?

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

Walkthrough
Extras
- Characters, Credits, Endings
Thank You to my Patreon supporters
External links:
- at Homepage, IFDB, and IFWiki.
- Tweet about this walkthrough on Twitter.

Walkthrough

Dim Mild Mill

I've gotta say, this is one of my least favourite games by Andrew Schultz. It was written in only three hours or less, so the quality just isn't there.

> x me. x mimic. x lid. credits.

Okay, let's go through this.

You need to think of a woman's name that can be formed only from roman numerals on a clock.
But you have to assume the clock has IV instead of the IIII that clocks usually use.
And you're setting the clock digitally, instead of moving the hands. So you don't know if 45 minutes means IX (because it's pointing to the nine) or means XLV (45 in Roman numerals). Turns out, the game wants the latter.
Also setting the time is buggy. The game thinks 10 is an invalid hour value and 00 is an invalid minute value. And hour 11 is interpreted as 1, and hour 12 is interpreted as 2?
And the VERBS command doesn't work as advertised either.
Your only real command is SET LID TO TIME. If you try to leave, hit things, etc., the meter in the status bar will move from CIVIL towards LIVID. If it reaches LIVID, you've lost the game.
So, think of any woman's names that'll work yet? It's VIV. That would be 5:04 or 6:05 on the lid:

> 5:04 —or— 6:05

And now you can say her name:

> VIV

But that's not enough! You need to intensify it some more somehow. And this is really impossible to guess, but you do it by drawing out the vowel.

> 6:04 —or— 7:05

> VIIV

You wake up and call Viv and make up with her.

*** MIMI, VIDI, VICI ***

Oh, you can use 7:04 or 8:05 for VIIIV, or even 8:04 for VIIIIV if you'd rather.

Extras

Characters

The Civil Mimic, whoever they are, is acting as the emcee for your dream.
Viv is the friend that you argued with a month ago, and it's her name you're trying to say.
Kids, a peanut gallery, Liv Milici, and Liv McDill are mentioned in the intro. Insulters, ringmasters, toadies, and those escaping punishment are mentioned in the winning ending.

Credits

Thanks to JJ Guest for conceiving EctoComp and keeping it going. Thanks to Alexander Ciornii for a certain PERL module that cut down a LOT of drudgework to see what sort of puzzles were possible.

Endings

WELL, YOU'LL GET OVER A STUPID DREAM if you get too LIVID; that is, try too many actions that aren't relevant, like hitting things or trying to leave or wake up.
MIMI, VIDI, VICI if you contact your friend and make things better.

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.