Playing Through Glowgrass
When you start Glowgrass, it will print some introductory
text, the beginning of its story. The part above the name of the game
and its credits sets the stage: you're visiting the ruins of a
vanished civilization known as the Ancients. Unfortunately, things go
wrong:
Courtyard
This appears to be some kind of courtyard in the centre of an Ancient
dwelling. The building itself swings around to the north and west,
terminating in a crumbling retaining wall due south. A smaller domed
construction opens to the northeast, through a wide metal door
(closed). To the east is a flat space that could bear further
exploring.
You hear a high-pitched decelerating whine -- a dropship turbine in trouble -- from the northeast, followed by a dull roaring crash. Just in time, you duck and cover your eyes. Blue-white light etches across the landscape, then the gravity blast wave hits. Every molecule in your private universe shudders.
A minute later, you get to your feet, pain gnawing your body.
Scratch
one dropship; nobody could have survived that crash. Scratch your
equipment. Now it's just you, your wits - and the Ancients. Hope
you're as good a xenohistorian as you claimed at the Institute.
Because unless you find some kind of way out of here, it could be
months before a recovery team locates you.
The first paragraph is a description of the room in which you start, in this case a courtyard. That description will have clues about what you can do and where you can go, but I'll leave that for now. More importantly, the second and third paragraphs let you know what's going on and what you've got to do. You've crash-landed, and have to find a way off the planet.
So let's get started. The first thing I do when I enter a new room
is see what items catch my eye. Let's take a look at the room
description again, using the LOOK command.
>L
Courtyard
This appears to be some kind of courtyard in the centre of an Ancient
dwelling. The building itself swings around to the north and
west, terminating in a crumbling retaining wall due south. A
smaller domed construction opens to the northeast, through a
wide metal door (closed). To the east is a flat space that
could bear further exploring.
You briefly catch a metallic glimmer from the top of the
wall.
There are a couple of things I want to point out. First of all, I
abbreviated LOOK as L. (You don't have to type it in
all-caps like I did; I only did that to make sure you could tell it
was "l" and not "1".) Second, I've put all of the items mentioned in
the room's description in bold. Most of them won't be important, but
occasionally you'll find something out by examining everything in a
room. Third, notice that last sentence about a metallic glimmer?
That's the author's way of indicating that there's something important
about the wall. Let's oblige him.
>examine
wall
The wall is at least three metres high, and appears impossible to
climb. There seems to be a metallic object lodged in the vegetation
just above the wall.
Aha. A clue. There's something metallic stuck up there, and it
might be important. Let's take a closer look.
>examine
glimmer
The object looks metallic, and out of place in the vegetation above
the wall. It could - you hardly dare to hope - could be a piece of
equipment from your pack, but you can't tell which one from this
distance.
I believe we've stumbled on our first puzzle: how do we get that
metallic object down from the wall. Maybe we can climb the wall, or
the vegetation.
>climb
wall
I don't know how to climb the southern wall.
>climb vegetation
The jungle vegetation isn't important.
Well, we probably won't be able to climb up and get that object. The phrase "I don't know how to..." is a standard TADS phrase, and means the author didn't code anything special for the wall. Sometimes you'll see "I don't think much is to be achieved by that" in other games -- it means the same thing. Phrases like "The [item] isn't important" and "Don't worry about the [item]" mean just that -- we don't have to worry about that item any more. That's the game's way of telling us that that item is just there for decoration. So we won't be able to get the item by pulling on the vegetation, or burning it, or anything.