Shadow Soldiers is a Z-machine interactive fiction game written with Inform 7 and is © 2007 by Arvind Pillai.
In this very incomplete demo, you play as someone who's forgotten everything. An old man directs you to go into the dim forest. There, you must learn to ASSAULT animals with weapons if you want to get anywhere or earn any points. Um, but why?
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.
Clearing
> x man. x falcon.
The man doesn't respond to questions, so you might as well go east as he suggests. There is never any explanation for what "TRISAN" means.
> e.
Forest
> x branch. take it.
> x apple. take it.
> x snake. (poisonous adder)
If you try twice to kill the snake, it bites you, then leaves. But you can also ignore it.
Or... you can ASSAULT it with a weapon. ASSAULT is its own verb in this game, and nothing hints that this is the case. So very unfair and classic guess-the-verb.
> assault snake with branch. (+5)
> e.
Deep Forest
> take rocks.
> x first wolf. x second.
> assault first with branch. g. (+10)
> assault second with rocks. (+5)
> e.
River bank
> x deer.
> x berries. take it. smell it.
You have some options.
First, you can ignore the deer.
Second, you can give the berries to the deer.
Third, you can kill the deer, but then a giant crocodile emerges from the river to feast on the deer carcass.
You have no options with the giant crocodile except to examine it then ignore it. If you try to assault it with the branch, it yanks it away and it's gone.
This walkthrough will opt to feed then kill the deer simply to see more of the game's content.
> give berries to deer.
> kill deer. x crocodile.
Try to cross the river. A small crocodile will briefly block you, but persistence aids you. Just keep going east.
> e. e. e.
> x small crocodile.
> e. e.
Opposite River-bank
This is the end of this demo. Oh well.
> quit.
This demo was released in 2007. I'm writing this walkthrough in 2025. I don't think this game will ever be finished.
I found no other losing endings.
There is no winning ending since this is a demo. If you can get to the opposite river bank, you've effectively won the demo.
The response to SCORE is:
You have so far scored N out of a possible 0, in T turns.
Points are awarded as follows:
No maximum score is declared, but the maximum score I achieved in this demo was 20 points.
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