Mars, 2049 AD is a Z-machine interactive fiction game written with Inform 6 (with PunyInform) and is © 2024 by Fredrik Ramsberg. This game was an entry in PunyComp 2024 where it took 5th place. It was also a participant at the Short Games Showcase 2024.
In this slice-of-life game, you play as Mike, a 20-something movie actor hired to play Billy in Mr Martin's latest thriller set on Mars. But if you want to keep your job, you first need to get rid of the girl and the booze you foolishly brought onto the set last night, and then you need to act out your scenes to best of your abilities.
This solution is by David Welbourn, and is based on Release 6 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.
Crew Quarters
You have a limited number of turns to get rid of the girl and the bottles before Mr Martin walks in. If he sees the girl or the bottles, you're fired.
> look. stand. x girl.
> wake girl. talk to girl.
>> 1 (re name: It's Tina.)
>> 1 (re last night)
>> 1 (re sleeping)
>> 1 (re drinking)
>> 1 (re goodbye)
> x system. open system.
> give grenadine to Tina.
> give tequila to Tina.
> Tina, west.
> close system.
> x chair. x beds. x blanket.
> e.
Prop Room
Mr Martin greets you then goes west.
> x shelves.
Mr Martin returns.
> x Martin.
Mr Martin rings a bell to summon the other actors.
> z. z.
> x Linda. x Ivan. x Keith.
Mr Martin outlines the scenes to be shot today.
> talk to Martin
>> 1 (re yesterday)
>> 1 (re series)
>> 1 (re today)
>> 1 (re first scene)
>> 1 (re script)
>> 1 (re second scene)
>> 1 (re third scene)
> talk to Keith
>> 1 (re motivation)
> talk to Linda
>> 1 (re how are you)
> talk to Ivan
>> 1 (re acting background)
> e.
Laboratory
> x equipment.
> z. (Repeat waiting until Mr Martin yells ACTION!)
> x Nadia. talk to Nadia.
>> 1 ("Need help?")
>> 1 ("Today's work")
>> 1 ("Drill cores")
>> 1 ("Who helped you drill?")
>> 1 ("I'm on your side")
>> 2 ("We're a team")
>> 2 ("We'll work this out")
> x spectrometer. (The scene ends.)
> talk to Martin
>> 1 (re today)
>> 1 (re meeting with Steve)
>> 1 (re giving Steve information)
>> 1 (re Nadia meeting the Russians)
>> [ENTER] (end conversation)
> w.
Prop Room
Between scenes, you want to wait here until Mr Martin explains what's next.
> x bell.
> z. (Repeat waiting until Martin outlines the second scene.)
> n.
Office
> x desk.
> z. (Repeat waiting until Martin yells ACTION!)
> x Steve. talk to Steve.
>> 1 ("The weather")
>> 1 ("I talked to Nadia")
>> 1 ("Nadia is great")
>> 2 ("Nadia talked to the Russians")
>> 1 ("Nadia worked with Sergey")
The scene ends.
> s.
Prop Room
> z. (Repeat waiting until Martin outlines the third scene.)
> n. n.
Russian Station
> x desks. x beds.
> z. (Repeat waiting until Martin yells ACTION!)
> x Sergey. talk to Sergey.
>> 2 ("Greetings")
>> 3 ("Amazing space station")
>> 2 ("Did you meet Nadia?")
> s. s. (The scene ends behind you.)
Prop Room
If necessary, wait until Mr Martin arrives. He immediately sums up how the day went, in his opinion.
*** You have won ***
To read the in-game credits, type HELP, then select "About this game", "Game credits", and "License" from the menu-options.
I developed this game in the fall of 2024, for PunyComp 2024. I was inspired by Ryan Veeder's game Craverly Heights, and I was interested in making a game mainly driven by dialog.
Johan Berntsson, Stefan Vogt, Marco Innocenti and Agust Antonsson Lindgren provided invaluable playtesting and advice.
This game uses the PunyInform library, which Johan Berntsson and I have developed. This library, correctly used, lets authors write games using modern tools and have them run smoothly on 8-bit computers, as well as modern computers. The library can be found at https://github.com/johanberntsson/PunyInform.
PunyInform uses the marvellous Inform 6 programming language, and derives a lot of code and design from the accompanying Inform 6 standard library, both created by Graham Nelson.
I used the wonderful zabbrev utility by Henrik Asman to find the best abbreviations: https://github.com/heasm66/zabbrev
This game can be distributed freely in unaltered form, as long as no profit is involved. The game file can be used to build disk images or binaries that include a Z-code interpreter. The homepage of the game, where the sourcecode can also be found, is https://fredrikr.itch.io/mars2049ad
I do not accept payment for this game. Regardless how you feel about the game, I would really appreciate if you could rate the game on IFDB: https://ifdb.org
There is no external score in this game, but the source code shows there's an internal score. Mr Martin's final assessment of your performance acts as a ranking:
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.
Ko-Fi is a way to send me small one-time donations. Every little bit helps, and thank you!