A Potion Labeled 'Time' is a Z-machine interactive fiction game written with ZIL and is © 2020 by Finn Fabish. It was a participant in the unrated Infocom Tribute Jam.
In this short game, you wake up in an ugly room with no memory how you got there. You have a potion labeled 'time' and a watch. The room itself has an ugly door, an ugly key, and an ugly mailbox. Escape this series of meaningless puzzle rooms until you reach the end, then quit.
This solution is by David Welbourn, and is based on Release 1 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.
There's also an abyss on the west and east sides of the wheel room, but only darkness and death by grue await you there.
By the way, I noticed that "x the" is a great cheat for listing everything in a room in this game. Does this only work because the game was written in ZIL?
Ugly Room (time zone 2)
> x me. i. x potion.
> x watch. (Currently at 2.)
> x door. x key. (has odd ASCII art of two leftward arrows)
> x mailbox. open it. take leaflet. read it.
> take key. unlock door with key. (no: lock is jammed)
> drink potion.
Ugly Room (time zone 1)
> x watch. (Currently at 1.)
> unlock door with key. (success)
> open door. n. (+1)
Bomb Room (time zone 3)
The ugly door closes. A human-shaped blur steals your ugly key.
The room description mentions a crack in the northern wall, but the crack and wall are not implemented for you to examine.
> x watch. (at 3)
> n. (no. You're too big for it.)
> drink potion.
Bomb Room (time zone 2)
There's now a bomb with a fuse in the room.
> x watch. (at 2)
> take bomb. x it. x fuse.
> drink potion.
Bomb Room (time zone 1)
There's now a matchbox here.
> x watch. (at 1)
> take matchbox. x it. open it.
> take match. x it.
> light fuse. drop bomb. z. z. (The crack becomes a hole.)
> n. (+2)
Wheel Room (time zone 2)
You lose the match and matchbox.
> x watch. (at 2)
> x wheel. (has symbol in its base)
> s. (no: hole covered with burning red web)
> turn wheel. (no: won't budge)
> drink potion.
Wheel Room (time zone 1)
> x watch. (at 1)
> turn wheel. (It turns easily.)
> drink potion.
Wheel Room (time zone 2)
The openings line up now.
> n. (+3)
Conveyor Belt Room (time zone 3)
> x belt. (has five positions numbered from 0 to 4)
You can't refer to the gray box, only the fold mechanism.
> x fold. x popping.
> n. (no: belt in the way)
> x panel.
> x start. (jammed)
> x pop button. (jammed)
> x clear. (jammed)
> x east. (jammed)
> x west. (jammed)
> x screen. (shows nothing)
> drink potion.
Conveyor Belt Room (time zone 1)
The fold mechanism box is missing; but two sushi and a bin have appeared.
> x big sushi. (at position 0)
> x normal sushi. (at position 2)
> x bin. (has swirling blackness inside it)
> x start. (nothing special)
> take big. (no: stuck)
> take normal. (no: stuck)
The panel controls work here. Pushing the west button appends a "W" to the screen. Pushing the east button appends a "E" to the screen. Pushing the pop button appends a "P" to the screen. Pushing the clear button erases the screen.
Pushing the start button executes what's on the screen as a program. For every "W", the belt moves west one position. For every "E", the belt moves east one position. For every "P", the popping mechanism attemps to pop whatever's in position 4 into the "time IN" bin, where it disappears. When your program is done, the screen is cleared.
If a sushi would fall off the left or right ends of the belt, that's an error and the rest of your recorded instructions are skipped.
> push east. g. push pop button. ("EEP" on screen)
> push east. g. push pop button. ("EEPEEP" on screen)
> push start. (Both sushi are popped into the bin.)
> drink potion.
Conveyor Belt Room (time zone 2)
> look in bin. take big.
> x big. take key. x key.
> eat big. (can't: too tough)
> drink potion.
Conveyor Belt Room (time zone 3)
Since the gray box isn't really there, unlock the fold mechanism instead.
> x belt. (to verify the fold mechanism is there)
> unlock fold with key. (The belt folds up into a cube!)
> x cube. (has ASCII art symbol)
> n. (+10. A thief kills you and steals your stuff.)
*** THE END ***
Are you sure you want to quit? (y/n) > n
Corridor (time zone 3)
Nothing here.
> i. (oh, the thief didn't steal anything?)
> x watch. (at 3)
> drink potion.
Corridor (time zone 1)
Still nothing.
> x watch. (at 1)
> drink potion. (no effect)
Guess there's no hidden extra content after all. Oh well.
> quit.
A deluxe walkthrough of this game isn't quite complete without acknowledging the ASCII art in this game. I am no expert on deciphering the meaning of minimalistic ASCII art, so I must, perforce, present them without commentary.
Note that you can also make the game unwinnable by failing to pick up the ugly key or the bomb before drinking the time potion in the rooms where you find those items.
There is no response to SCORE, but there a Score in the status line, and points do get awarded.
Points are awarded as follows:
That adds up to 16 points total.
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