Octopus's Garden is a Z-machine work of interactive fiction written with Inform 7 and is © 2009 by Michael D. Hilborn. It was a participant in the Interactive Fiction Writing Month event of February 2009.
In this small game, you play as a woman's pet octopus, and your aquarium sits on an ornate table in her apartment's bedroom. You once loved the view of the city from the nearby window, but you're bored with it now. Convince your owner to move. You need a change of scenery.
This solution is by David Welbourn, and is based on Release 1 of the work.
SPOILERS AHEAD. Reading a walkthrough prematurely can sometimes diminish one's enjoyment of a work of interactive fiction. Please make an honest effort to play the work before reading this walkthrough.
Bedroom (in the aquarium)
> x me. x head. x eyes. x tentacles. x beak. x sac.
Note: You can SQUIRT INK AT something.
> x aquarium.
> x pebbles —or— x coarl.
> x pirate —or— x chest.
> x unit. x UV light.
> x window. x latch. (It turns.)
> x city. (note ledge and clothesline)
> x bed. (The owner's boyfriend has another woman.)
> x table.
> x dresser. (TV and two closed drawers)
> x TV.
You should now explore, but when the game warns you you're being a bit breathless, you must return to your aquarium to restore your oxygen supply.
You also need to be reasonably quiet. Too much noise summons your owner, and if your owner finds you outside of your tank, she'll be upset. If she catches you outside of your tank twice, she puts the lid back onto the tank and you lose the game.
You should now also have a glimmer of an idea what you need to do. Now that you know that your owner's boyfriend is cheating on her, you need to find some proof and leave it somewhere for your owner to find it.
> out. d.
Bedroom (on the floor)
> x door. x crack.
> look under bed. x toy. squeeze toy.
> open bottom drawer. x sweaters.
You need to be in the bottom drawer in order to reach the top drawer.
> enter bottom.
Bedroom (in the bottom drawer)
> open top drawer.
> x cap. x shirts. x socks. wear cap.
> touch TV. (can't reach it from here.)
> enter top.
Bedroom (in the top drawer)
> touch TV.
> up. (can't: the TV fills the space)
> d. d. get on table.
Bedroom (on the ornate table)
Note: You can't or won't bring anything into the tank.
> drop toy. drop cap.
> enter tank.
Bedroom (in the aquarium)
You refill your blood with oxygen.
> out. d. se.
Bathroom (on the floor)
While you can enter the toilet, tub, or climb the pipe to enter the sink, you don't need to do any of that unless you want to play with the faucets. This walkthrough will forgo the pleasures of faucet-turning.
> x curtain. x sink. x pipe.
> x toilet. x plunger. take it.
> x tub. look in tub. x duck. take duck. squeeze it.
> nw. get on table.
Bedroom (on the ornate table)
Getting the syntax right for opening the latch is tricky.
> turn latch. (no: latch out of reach)
> open latch with plunger. (This works!)
> drop plunger. drop duck.
> enter tank. out.
> open window. enter window.
Ledge
> pull clothesline. (It doesn't want to move.)
> squirt ink at pulley. (Your ink is oily.)
> pull line. (The undergarments are closer, but the rope seizes up.)
> n.
Dangling
> take undergarments.
> s. s.
Bedroom (on the ornate table)
> drop undergarments.
> close window.
> take plunger. push latch with plunger.
> drop plunger.
> x undergarments. (You've seem them on the floor before.)
> enter tank. out. d.
Bedroom (on the floor)
When you turn on the TV to summon your owner, you only have three turns to get back into your tank. The trick to getting back there in time is to close the bottom drawer while you're in the top drawer, so when you leave the top drawer, you go directly to the floor, not the bottom drawer.
Assuming you have no inventory and left both drawers open:
> enter bottom. enter top.
> close bottom. turn on TV.
> jump. climb table. enter tank.
Your owner sees the other woman's undergarments, then argues with her boyfriend. One month later, you and your owner have moved to a new place, and the garden view is glorious.
*** You have had a change of scenery ***
Mentioned:
To read the credits, type ABOUT and select the first menu-item:
Introduction to Octopus's Garden
"Octopus's Garden" is an Interactive Fiction game written by Michael D. Hilborn. Many thanks to Graham Nelson, Emily Short, and the crew of Inform 7 who made this particular cephlapod adventure possible.
"Octopus's Garden" by Michael D. Hilborn is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Note that you will not bring anything into the aquarium with you. Drop everything first before returning to the tank.
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