Key & Compass presents:
Dragon George and The Man
by Marnie Parker

• Maps
  • Map 1
  • Map 2
  • Map 3
• Walkthrough
• Extras
  • Amusing, Characters, Credits, Endings, Inventory, Score
• Thank You to my Patreon supporters
• Support me on Ko-Fi
• External links:
  • This game at CASA, IFDB, IFWiki, and ifwizz.
  • Tweet about this walkthrough on Twitter.

Maps

Map 1

Map 2

Map 3

Walkthrough

Home Sweet Cave

> about. x me. x wings. i.

> x Mom. x rocks. eat rock. (+1)

> eat rock. (Mom leaves.)

> e.

Corridor

> s. (no: You're not allowed in Mom's room.)

> n.

Your Room

> x map. s. w. w.

Ledge

> w.

Flying Over Closer Caves

> x dragons. w.

Flying Over Further Caves

> x dragons. n.

Flying Over Canyon

> x trees. x pigs. x dragons. n.

Flying Over Twisty Tree

> x tree. x river. d.

By Twisty Tree

> x roots. search roots. (+5; found a hole.)

> x hole. dig. (+1)

> dig. (+5; a strange animal has arrived.)

When the strange animal arrives is unclear; you might need to dig more than once.

> x animal. x people. (It throws its helmet away.)

> dig. (The people starts charging at you.)

> hit people. (You crash into each other, and the ground gives way.)

*** Time Passes ***

In a Hole

> x me. (one wing is broken)

> x bowl. x roots. e. (The people arrives with a bag.)

The people will work with you for the time being.

> people, take bowl. (He insists you call him a man or Bruce.)

> man, take bowl. (+3)

> x man. x sword. x bag. x bread.

> x red thing. ask man about red thing. (garter)

> ask man about lady. (He won't say.)

> ask man about sword.

> man, cut roots. (+20)

> x sticks. man, take sticks.

> man, fix wing. (+10; using sticks)

> x stick. x wing. (It's now splinted.)

> e.

By Ravine

> man, take pointy thing.

He goes back into the tunnel, runs out and vaults over the ravine, using the pointy thing.

> x pointy thing. x stalactites.

A large stalagmite falls across the ravine, making a bridge.

> e.

Other Side of Ravine

The bridge falls into the ravine.

> se.

By Rock Salt

> x bones. x salt vein. x salt granules.

> man, take granules. (He does so, using the bowl.)

> man, take bones. (He does so.)

> nw. ne.

By Gate

> x gate. x curtain. x statues. (trolls)

> man, cut curtain. (Magic can't fight magic.)

> claw curtain. (nope)

> e.

Oil Pool

> x pool. n. n.

Darkness

You get a warning about lurking glux.

> s.

Behind Pool

> man, put stick in oil. (He dips the top end.)

> s. w.

By Gate

Back here, you won't accidentally light up the pool as well. Also, until you've seen the darkness, the man won't let you light the stick.

> light stick. (If necessary, repeat until the stick is lit.)

> e. n. n.

T-Junction

CAUTION: Don't stay here very long. The dungeon crawler kills you if it reaches you. If you must, explore for a bit then retreat to the pool before returning.

> man, get on me. (+20)

The man enters the cleft and tells you to wait at the gate. It's now dark here.

> s. s. w.

By Gate

> z. z. (The man arrives on the other side, and the curtain disappears.)

> n.

Top of Steps

> x steps. x buildings. x hall. x button.

> n.

You have several adventures, stay in a tavern overnight, and eventually reach a massive bronze door.

*** Time Passes ***

Hallway (South)

By this time, you now know that the man is wearing armour and that his bag is a saddle bag. The man has replaced the torch with a lantern.

> x statues. x man. x lantern. x me.

> n.

Hallway

The man tries to ram through the door.

> x door. hit door.

The mini-troll statues are attacking!

> burn statues. g. g. (There's too many of them!)

> hit door. g. g. (+5)

Crypt

The man bolts the door with his sword. (And yes, I got the flame war with trolls joke.)

> x stick. x corpses. x teeth.

The man swears to never break mimesis again if they can get out of here alive.

> man, take teeth. (+10)

> man, rub teeth. (+20)

A hidden door opens and you escape and have more adventures later.

*** You have won ***

> amusing

Extras

Amusing

This is the response to AMUSING after you win the game:

1. Adam J. Thornton wrote Sins Against Mimesis.
2. Mimesis is "suspension of disbelief". Breaking mimesis breaks the "fourth wall," supposedly breaking a player's immersion experience.
3. A glux is a mythical beast, however, glulx is an Inform compiler that surpasses the z-machine memory limit. It is written by Andrew Plotkin.
4. Dumpster is actually a trade marked name. The IF Mud is not.
5. "I was dungeon crawled," T-shirts are only $39.95. Contact author.
6. George became famous. Because of his bravery, the other dragons finally let him join their dragon games. Also Cleoandra was so impressed she later married him. As her consort he was king, but he never got any smarter.
7. "Come Fly With Me" was George's favorite dragon song.
8. No people ever believed the man about his dragon/troll adventure, so he quickly reneges on his pledge to give up parody and in jokes.
9. As the years passed, the gold chamber pot turned up in some very strange places. It now resides in a white house in a far, far away land.
10. Naughty things the trolls were doing that were depicted on the bronze door: skipping school, not doing their home work, cheating on their taxes, tying each other's shoelaces together, playing hide the cheese wheel, and enjoying IF games without writing the authors with feedback.

Characters

• Mom is at Home Sweet Cave. She orders you to eat some flamestone so you can grow big and strong and breathe fire.
• Young male dragons are kicking a boar's head around outside the closer caves.
• Young female dragons are sunbathing and gossiping outside the further caves. One of them is Cleoandra.
• More dragons are in the canyon in a variety of activities, but mostly eating.
• Pigs and cattle are kept by the dragons in the canyon as a food source.
• A man on a horse gallops up to you while you're digging at the twisty tree. The man is a knight, his name is Bruce, and he unwillingly becomes your companion in this game's adventures. He's a parody of Adam Thornton and breaks mimesis often.
• A dungeon crawler may kill you if you stay too long in the T-intersection north of the oil pool.
• Statues of mini-trolls line the hallway that lead to the massive bronze door, but when the man tries to bash the door down, the trolls start attacking both of you. I'm unsure if these are actual trolls or just magical animations.

Found dead:

• The bones of a wumpus are beside the salt vein.

Mentioned:

• Bar Val Elong was a famous troll. You hope you can find his hoard of lost treasure.
• Clendothia is a dragon who Mom works for.
• The man's lady gifted him with her red garter for luck.
• Sir James Earl Jones, McCaffery, Gordon R. Dickson, and St. George are name-dropped by the man.
• A lurking glux is a known hazard of dark places.
• Several underground creatures (including the slathering flesh eaters of X-drek and a labyrinth monster) are encountered during your adventures between the troll gate and the statue-lined hallway.

Credits

To read the credits, type INFO and select the 'About "George" and Acknowledgements' menu-item:

About "George" and Acknowledgements

"Dragon George and The Man" is a Dragon Comp (competition) entry. The premise as stated by Jarb (David Cornelson), host of the comp, on 3/10/00 was:

"I know Adam Cadre has the dino-comp going on right now, but I thought it would be cool to dispel the notion that a cool or funny game cannot be written with dragons.

So, the premise is to write a short game about one or more dragons and make it as funny as possible.

Extra points for Damsels in distress, castles, and, well, you know, anything _fantasy_ related."

An additional idea expressed by David was:

"Of course my own thoughts on this idea are to create some sort of 'odd-couple' satire with a dragon and Adam Thornton as unwilling partners in some grand adventure..."

...Adam Thorton being a well-known dragon hater.

I decided to enter the Dragon Comp (deadline 4/15/00) because:

1.) Despite public perception there have been very few dragons in IF.
2.) I like dragons and think there should be more!
3.) Dragons are often considered trite, but I think there are all kinds of ways to approach any genre -- fantasy, and dragons, in particular. It is the approach rather than the genre, that can get "tired."
4.) To prove I can FINISH a "game" game (short, but longer than speed-if).
5.) The temptation to rib Mr. Thornton was simply irresistible.

"George" was written in about a month and it is meant to be a simple little game, not uproariously funny, but hopefully somewhat fun to play.

Acknowledgements: Eternal gratitude, of course, to Graham Nelson, creator of Inform, the compiler/language this was written with. This game also uses L. Ross Raszewski's utility.h, domenu.h, AltMenu.h (for these help screens), and Chris Klimas' style.h (for bold and italics).

Since I finished this in haste, working on it up to the last minute, I have no beta-testers to thank. So please send any bug reports, comments, or praise to: email redacted

Endings

• You remain a dragon of insignificant stature
• if you go southeast from the twisty tree, or go southeast from flying over the twisty tree.
• You momentarily increase your draconic stature
• if you eat the man at the twisty tree.
• You have died
• if you light the oil pool, either on purpose or accidentally.
• if the dungeon crawler finds you in the darkness.
• if the trolls kill the man. You can't escape without him.
• You have won
• if you and the man escape from the crypt.

As near as I can tell, although the mini-trolls do try to bash down the bronze door, they never succeed, so you don't die that way.

Inventory

Since you're a dragon, you have no true inventory. The man carries everything in this game. He usually uses his own things without prompting, but sometimes you can and should suggest actions he should do. You can also ask him about them.

Items are listed in the order acquired in this walkthrough.

• your wings. They're part of your body, of course.
• When you fall underneath the twisty tree, you break one of your wings. Ask the man to cut the roots (with the sword), then ask him to fix your wing (with the sticks). Now with a splinted wing, you can walk again, but you won't be flying.
• a sword. The man is carrying it.
• Underneath the twisty tree, ask the man to cut the roots with the sword; this creates sticks.
• After the man vaults over the ravine, he cuts down a stalagmite with his sword to create a temporary stone bridge.
• In the hallway, the man uses the sword to attack the mini-trolls, but there's too many of them. You must hit the bronze door repeatedly until the door opens. In the crypt, the man quickly kills the trolls that entered with him, then bars the door with the sword. With the sword in the door's brackets, he can no longer use the sword.
• a bag; later, a saddle bag. The man is carrying it.
• Examine the bag to see what's in it. It originally contains the red circular thing and a loaf of travel bread. As the man acquires new items, he may put them into the bag.
• a red circular thing; later, a red garter. It's in the bag.
• Ask the man about the red thing to learn it's a garter from his lady. As far as I know, it's just a good luck token and has no use in solving any puzzles.
• a loaf of travel bread. It's in the bag.
• You can ignore it. By the time you reach the troll hallway, it's gone, suggesting that the man ate it during the adventures to get there.
• a long pointy thing. The man is carrying it. It's clearly a spear or lance, but you can't call it by those names.
• When you both fall underneath the twisty tree, the pointy thing is by the ravine. The man uses it to pole vault over the ravine. Abandon the pointy thing there.
• a gold chamber pot. It's in the hole far below the twisty tree.
• Tell the man to take it. It's treasure and should not be left behind.
• At the rock salt, if you ask the man to take the salt granules, he puts them into the pot.
• several sticks; later, a stick. In the hole, ask the man to cut the roots with his sword. The roots become these sticks.
• Ask the man to fix your wing. He does so using all the sticks but one.
• At the oil pool, ask the man to put the stick into the pool. He dips one end into it.
• Return to the gate, then light the stick (with your breath). You may need to try more than once to succeed. Make sure you're not beside the oil pool when doing this; if you accidentally light the pool, both you and the man die.
• With the lit torch, you and the man can venture north from behind the oil pool to a t-intersection where there's a hight cleft. Before the dungeon crawler gets too close, tell the man to get on you, so he can reach and enter the cleft. After the man leaves you that way, do as he suggests: return to the gate and wait.
• some bones. They're by the rock salt.
• You can ask the man to take them, but I didn't find any use for them.
• a heap of salt granules. They're by the rock salt.
• If the man has the pot, you can ask the man to take the granules, but I didn't find any use for them. I think you're supposed to try to use the salt against the slug-like dungeon crawler, but I couldn't find a relevant command that worked. You don't need the salt.
• a lantern. The man acquires a lantern during the adventures between "Top of Steps" and "Hallway (South)".
• The lantern replaces the torch during the third act of game. It provides light in the hallway and crypt, and you can ignore it.
• several teeth. They're part of the pile of troll corpses in the crypt.
• Tell the man to take the teeth, then tell the man to rub the teeth. The blue glow of the teeth indicates that they are magical. When the man rubs them, a hidden door in the crypt opens, through which you both escape. I don't understand the logic in this at all. Maybe there's an in-joke I'm missing?

Score

This is the response to SCORE:

You have scored your-score out of a possible 100, in several turns.

Points are awarded as follows:

• 1 point for eating flamestone for the first time.
• 5 points for finding a hole under the twisty tree.
• 1 point for enlarging the hole by digging.
• 5 points for meeting the man.
• 3 points for asking the man to take the pot. If he takes it on his own, you don't earn the points.
• 20 points for the man cutting the roots.
• 10 points for the man fixing your wing.
• 20 points for helping the man getting into the cleft.
• 5 points for entering the crypt.
• 10 points for the man taking the teeth.
• 20 points for escaping the crypt.

Thank You to my Patreon supporters

This walkthrough was funded via Patreon with

• the support of Robin Johnson, Ville Lavonius, Andrew Schultz, Kenneth Hon, Carl Muckenhoupt, Mark Musante, Phil Tatro, Mitch, and Peter Berman;
• the generous support of Janice M Eisen, Matthew Foxley, Thomas Insel, and Marius Müller;
• the very generous support of Karl Ove Hufthammer, Lance Campbell, and DrkStarr;
• the extremely generous support of Emily Short, Allen Garvin, Jesse McGrew, Jacqueline Ashwell, Jennifer Rexrode, and Durafen;
• and the invisible support of several anonymous patrons.

Ko-Fi is a way to send me small one-time donations. Every little bit helps, and thank you!