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Key & Compass presents:
Fantastic Finale IV
by Derek Sutcliffe

Fantastic Finale IV is a Z-machine interactive fiction game written with Inform 7 and is © 2009 by Derek Sutcliffe. It was the sole entry to GameplayComp and declared the winner by David Fisher, its organizer.

In this short one-room game, you play as someone playing an RPG late at night. It's now the final boss battle against the Grue Lord. You're determined to finish this game no matter what, but can you win quickly enough and then get enough sleep so you can also pass your history exam in the morning?

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


Walkthrough

In frontof the TV

Ending 1: Win the battle but fail the exam

In front of the TV

The best time to read the booklet is right away.

> read booklet.

You now begin a battle vs the Grue Lord! Your team is Gram, Emly, and Adam. Each round of the battle will be a cycle of four turns:

The strategy is simple: Gram and Adam use their strongest attacks and Emly keeps everyone alive with her healing. I never even needed Emly's CPR spell to bring someone back from the dead.

Continue this cycle of attack-heal-icicle-wait until the Grue Lord is defeated.

*** You have completed a great game, but fail your exam in the morning because you stayed up so late ***


Ending 2: Lose the battle and fail the exam

It's easy to lose the game. Just wait every turn until all three of your characters are dead.

> restart

> z. (Repeat waiting until the end.)

*** You lost, and you spent so much time on that game that you get no sleep and fail your test in the morning ***


Ending 3: Freeze the game and pass the exam

The manual hints that Adam knows three more spells but it doesn't say what they are. However, if you've played lots of interactive fiction, particularly the Enchanter series by Infocom, you should be able to guess these from their descriptions.

For this ending, have Adam cast XYZZY. The game freezes.

> restart

> z. z. z.

What will the black mage do? > xyzzy.

*** You get fed up with the game and go to bed, passing the exam the next day, by the way ***


Ending 4: Hospitalized

Have Adam cast FROTZ. The strobe effect puts you in the hospital.

> restart

> z. z. z.

What will the black mage do? > frotz.

*** You miss the exam, by the way ***


Ending 5: Win the battle via diplomacy and pass the exam!

Have Adam cast NITFOL. Adam and the Grue Lord chat and come to a compromise.

> restart

> z. z. z.

What will the black mage do? > nitfol.

*** You barely pass the exam, by the way ***


Extras

About

This is the response to ABOUT:

This is my contribution to GameplayComp. Not sure if it's gonna be the only one or not, but hey, if one person enjoys it, or at least tolerates it long enough to laugh at some of the jokes, it's worth the time I put into it.

I know there are plenty of text adventures that are action- or combat-oriented, but I don't think there are any that focus on party combat. You know, like Japanese RPGs. So I tried one. I almost gave up, because I didn't really know how to do the whole multiple-character thing. But I kind of brute-force coded a way of making it work that I came up with on the fly. I would probably attack the problem from a different angle, were I to do it all over, now that I know what kind of holes I had to patch up doing it my way.

Regardless, enjoy. I would say "Don't expect a deep story," but maybe I should just say "Lower your expectations overall." This wasn't beta-tested, and it's basically one big, dumb parody.


Characters

All the characters are in the videogame that the player-character is playing.

Mentioned:


Inventory

There's only one inventory item.


Spells

Emly's spells:

Adam's spells:


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.