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Here’s the gelling scene with Brock present.

You come around to the aft of Slango’s yacht and give a good shout. With the help of a ladder and a hand up from Slango himself, you soon have the kayak stored, and ourselves and our possessions on deck.

Slango gels the rock easily enough. Then he and Brock turn the restoration gel on us. Slango is determined to separate you from me before he has a real talk with either of us; and it’s not until a number of swipes in that he realizes how wrong things are.

“This isn’t working,” he remarks, tossing the gel and washcloth aside.

“We’re fused,” you explain, not very coherently. “Something happened. I don’t know if it can be fixed.”
Brock looks at us for a long moment and then turns away. He vanishes into the galley.

“I’m sure he’s just gone to get you a cup of tea,” Slango says. He takes a deep breath, stands. “The T-inserter specs better be worth what Brock says they are.”

Giom, I restored and shot the paintings while the old Atlantida was still around.

>shoot paintings with gun
The gun fires ruggedly into the oil paintings, which shatter and then reform as some intaglio pins. A collection of crystal pins, with cameos of great figures carved into the backs of the crystal to give the impression (from the front) of a bust in low relief. They look like elegant antiques, if not worth a hundredth the value of the paintings.

“Hm,” Atlantida comments, remarking the intaglio pins. “Makes a change from the paintings, I suppose. I don’t mean to complain — they did go to quite some effort over these chambers — but one gets tired of the same scenery after a while, don’t you think?”

Back to the yacht…

>l
Your Bunk (aboard the True Macaque) (on your bed)
Amazing: it’s even tinier than my apartment, and the bed isn’t even a twin in width. Across from the bed is a built-in bench, with portholes above, just at the waterline.

Your wardrobe door is open.

>af
I get off your bed.

Your Head (aboard the True Macaque)
All the absolutely required amenities of a bathroom, packed into the least possible space. The international space station assigns more room to the bathroom functions.

>wear trousers
I put on the trousers. Close-fitting and dark colored, useful to wear when going places sneakily by night.

>wear turtleneck
I put on the black turtleneck. It averts attention and is useful on jobs.

The yacht rolls gently under the influence of an especially strong wave.

>fp

Galley (aboard the True Macaque)
Smaller than the kitchen in a comfortable house, but carefully and elegantly fitted, with an electric stovetop, a convection oven/microwave, a tiny refrigerator, a sink: enough, in short, to serve the crew of three on long trips. I guess even a fairly big boat is still small on the inside, eh?

There’s even a little washing machine, for items too big to hand-wash in the sink.

On the built-in table are a newspaper and a pan.

On the port wall, built-in shelves hold a battered selection of games.

Luhr28 - 31 March 2021 09:42 AM

Karlok - 31 March 2021 09:06 AM

But she also refuses to wear a swimsuit or dress, same lines. Weird.

Well anatomically we don’t have a female body (as far as I’m aware), so I can’t blame us for comparing wearing those things to cross-dressing.

Of course we have a female body! We are Alexandra.

>read newspaper
It’s the Chard-Farmer’s Daily from Atlantis. A huge headline is splashed across the front:

“REFERENDUM ANNOUNCED!”

The picture on the front shows the Atlantida statue decked out with lights like a Christmas tree and people posing next to her for pictures.

My father has been promoted, apparently, to something called the Provisional Committee for Orthographic Reform. He is quoted as saying that the amnesty for Cold Storage prisoners is an important step forward. “Of course, government by citizen referendum brings its own problems, and further constitutional work may be needed if we mean to bring Atlantis in line with the European Union.”

Slango comes in, with Brock behind him. “Bad news,” he says. “We’re going to have to split that payout three ways instead of two. The new Atlantida has a perverse sense of humor. She express-mailed Brock to Mallorca for us. In rock form.”

Brock bends down to massage his right thigh. “Turns out it’s not comfortable having spent the night in a cardboard box, even if you were petrified at the time. Things to know and learn.”

I study his face. It’s the face he wears when he’s reserving judgment about whether or not to be incredibly pissed off. You’re the one who knows how to read that face, but I’m a little relieved to see it too.

“My father might’ve been inanimated instead,” I say.

“Slango mentioned,” Brock says.

“He’s a lot older. I thought he might have some heart trouble or… or not deal with it well.”

Brock studies us for a moment more. Then he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a huge gummy candy shaped like a squid.

“Want one? They used them as packing material in my shipping box. We’ve got lots.”

  *** The End ***

In that game you scored 99 out of a possible 100, in 829 turns, earning you the rank of Enemy of the State.

Would you like to RESTART, RESTORE a saved game, QUIT, UNDO the last command, review your final SCORE, reveal what ACHIEVEMENTS you have yet to accomplish, or learn about some of the SOURCES used in creating this game?

Alex ending (CP): He throws Brock to the wolves and forces Andra to make a new Atlantida. On the yacht he takes over.
Andra ending 1: She gels an inanimate womand and chooses NO. On the yacht she takes over.
Andra ending 2: She gels an inanimate woman and chooses YES to make a new Atlantida. On the yacht nobody is boss??

Andra ending 1:

>x newspaper
It’s the Chard-Farmer’s Daily from Atlantis. It describes in glowing terms the delightful festival that was Serial Comma Day. There is no reference at all to the protests and mass depluralization, much less to anything that might have happened to my father or Professor Higgate.

Brock comes down and hands us a coffee. You look like you could use this. We’ve hit Mallorca,” he says. “Slango’s in town resupplying.”

You nod.

“And the payment for our exploit is still coming through to the Swiss accounts, but we’ll be millionaires.”

“All of us?”

“Well. Each of us, individually and severally.” He tips his head back and considers us. “That may well be one of the most valuable technical heists in history, and you got a grand tour of the secret Atlantean bunker while you were at it. I’m only sorry I wasn’t awake for that part.”

I know, me, that we could have done something more. That we could have left Atlantis with a new leader, one who’d open things up again. This way, there’ll just be a bunch of infighting but the Bureau will remain how it always was. I wish-

You’ve pretty much stopped listening to me entirely, haven’t you? And so I’m stuck here, just watching, while you pitch my flash drive and my monocle in a corner, and plot the fastest course to Portofino.

Still. I don’t feel as homesick as I thought I would, because the one thing you can give me is this: you know how to put something behind you.

Andra ending 2:

>read newspaper
It’s the Chard-Farmer’s Daily from Atlantis. A huge headline is splashed across the front:

“REFERENDUM ANNOUNCED!”

The picture on the front shows the Atlantida statue decked out with lights like a Christmas tree and people posing next to her for pictures.

My father has been promoted, apparently, to something called the Provisional Committee for Orthographic Reform. He is quoted as saying that the amnesty for Cold Storage prisoners is an important step forward. “Of course, government by citizen referendum brings its own problems, and further constitutional work may be needed if we mean to bring Atlantis in line with the European Union.”

Brock comes down and hands us a coffee. “You look like you could use this. We’ve hit Mallorca,” he says. “Slango’s in town resupplying. I guess you saw the paper?”

You nod.

“One for the history books,” he says, with a crooked smile. “They’re showing satellite clips. Big olive garland on the depluralizing tank. People dancing on cars. Some old guy belting out La Marseillaise in the Bureau Rotunda.”

Brock sits down opposite us. “In other news,” he remarks, “it looks like your cut of the T-inserter plans, with all the tests we ran, is going to come out to this.” He writes a number. The number has six zeroes.

He leans back and looks at us.

“So. Where do we go from here?”

Would you like to RESTART, RESTORE a saved game, QUIT, UNDO the last command, review your final SCORE, reveal what ACHIEVEMENTS you have yet to accomplish, or learn about some of the SOURCES used in creating this game?

> sources
I started working in earnest on this game in 2008. Since that time, the US has undergone two presidential elections; for months, the Occupy Seattle protests filled a city block just a short stroll from my apartment; and the successes and failures of the Arab Spring were constantly in the news. These experiences introduced more serious themes into what was initially a purely silly game.

Gene Sharp’s From Dictatorship to Democracy and the documentary How to Start a Revolution helped me think about peaceful revolutions and the communication of dissent within totalitarian regimes.

The history of Atlantis’ colonization mirrors that of nearby Gibraltar, on the theory that the same powers would have been likely to take an interest. Wikipedia supplied most of the potted history I used for this.

Arika Okrent’s In the Land of Invented Languages and Mark Rosenfelder’s Language Construction Kit (first a website, subsequently a book) taught me a lot about existing constructed languages and helped me imagine what might interest Atlantean academics.

Poor Economics (Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo) provided some general background about different attempts to address global poverty, contributing to the Atlantean concept of utopian linguistics (and why it hadn’t yet saved the world).

The Scrabble dictionary and the internet anagram server, among others, helped me map out the puzzle space systematically.

Hundreds of other small details came out of YouTube or Wikipedia, from the composition of classic cocktails to the mating behavior of pigs. Background for specific elements may be found in the game’s source text.

Would you like to RESTART, RESTORE a saved game, QUIT, UNDO the last command, review your final SCORE, reveal what ACHIEVEMENTS you have yet to accomplish, or learn about some of the SOURCES used in creating this game?

> score
You have earned 99 points:
  1 point for using the letter-remover
  3 points for passing through the temporary barrier
  3 points for winning the gel
  3 points for retrieving the backpack
  1 point for using the gel
  3 points for opening the locker
  3 points for repairing our car
  1 point for using the spinner
  3 points for fueling our car
  5 points for traveling by car
  3 points for winning a barroom bet
  3 points for arranging contact with Slango through his lady friend
  1 point for using the Origin Paste
  5 points for meeting Slango
  3 points for visiting the dead drop
  1 point for getting a product of the homonym paddle
  3 points for reading a legend
  3 points for gaining access to the synthesizer
  2 points for returning a library book to its proper home
  3 points for lifting abstraction limits on the letter-remover
  1 point for using the synthesizer
  3 points for acquiring a keycard
  3 points for lifting animate limits on the letter-remover
  10 points for acquiring a sought-after invitation
  3 points for breaking the Spirit of Atlantis (in cardboard form)
  5 points for passing the secretarial test
  1 point for using the T-inserter
  3 points for profiling the T-inserter
  1 point for using the anagramming gun
  1 point for using the vowel rotator
  15 points for returning to the yacht

You have not yet removed k, q, v, or z from anything.

The achievements you have accomplished so far include:

  Alex Rosehip award for completing the game in easy mode
  Finished tutorial mode
  Jocasta Higgate award for reconstructing pagan worship on the island
  Propper Rosehip award for talespinning

My own score is also 99.

> achievements
These achievements you have yet to accomplish:

  Admiral Thoureaux award for removing every letter of the alphabet in one playthrough
  Amanda Waterstone award for discovering cultic passages
  Andra award for completing the game in hard mode
  Camilla Downdweller award for creating five types of fish in one playthrough
  Finn Rosehip award for gnu-hunting
  Horace Fingerstain award for jotting some notes
  Igor Rosehip award for creating at least five body parts in one playthrough
  Lester Parsons award for discovering unspecified local rites
  Lord Michael Rosehip award for showing the black spot to a pirate crew
  Mort Shaply award for showing Poe a raven-based foodstuff
  Priscilla Parsons award for winning the game without ever entering the church
  Reverend Plaice award for placing the cross on the altar while liturgically dressed
  Roman “Sticky” Fingerstain award for impromptu art theft

Winning without entering the church should be easy, we have money to buy a ticket to the cinema. Removing every letter should not be hard either. (V- dove; Z - kudzu; don’t know about K and Q. Maybe that would give us the one missing point, because it’s not an achievement.) I guess the impromptu art theft is the painting in Atlantida’s apartment that I anagrammed at giom’s request but did not take with me. I only remember 3 body parts: toes, arm, heel. Maybe hair counts too. Did we even create one type of fish? And Giom mentioned a gnu at some point.
The rest is abracadabra to me.