The Shopping Bizarre

Theme: Homonyms.

To change something into its homonym, all you need to do is type the word. To go to another aisle, just type the name of the aisle.

At some point, you'll run across a little girl. Examine her and read the ribbon she's wearing. It's an award for being the "worst brat." Change her to bratwurst and take the sausage along.

In the Dessert Aisle, moose to mousse and 22/7 (pi ... ish) to pie.

Go to Misc. Tacks to tax, sail to sale, and mussels to muscles. Get the tax and sale.

Go to I'll Write. Flour to flower, clause to claws, stationary to stationery, and quartz to quarts. Take a quart. Locks to lox and jamb to jam. Take the lox. Smell the flower and scent to cent. Take the cent. Open the door.

Go to Meets. Mince to mints, steak to stake. Get the mints and stake.

Go to the British Aisle. Putting to pudding, ants to aunts. Change the bratwurst back to worst brat and her aunts will get her out of your hair for good.

Go to Manicotti. Give the cereal murderer the mint, then attack him with the stake. Get an item you would like to buy, if you don't already have one (the mousse, pie, muscles, flower, claws, stationery, quart, lox, or jam will all work).

Go to Cellar. Cellar to seller. Put your item on the sale, then buy it. Your code is "Super Saver".

Play Jacks

Theme: Words with "jack" in them.

Go In to the house. Take the contraption, a Jack-of-all-Traits. Examine it. Wear the sleeves and it becomes a jacket. Go Out of the house and Out into the forest twice. "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire", eh? Type Jack Frost.

Now Near Pond, take off the jacket and turn the crank. The old man will be quite amused by the jack-in-the-box. Close the box and go in to On Frozen Pond.

Turn the switch and the jackhammer will make short work of the ice. Notice the mermaid. Pull the metal and cut the fishing line with the resulting jackknife. Close the knife and turn the faucet. After a relaxing dip in the Jacuzzi, pull the plug. Jackpot! Your code is "Jackster".

Buy the Farm

Theme: Using clichéd expressions to take actions that advance the story.

Teach old dog new trick. Take the stone and go to the Barn. Don't cry over spilt milk. Go up to the loft. Put nose to the grindstone, then take the hammer. Go down and into the Field. Make mountain out of molehill, then kill two birds with one stone and look for a needle in the haystack. Go to the Barnyard. Beat swords into ploughshares and then hit the broad side of the barn. Take the tail and sow's ear. Make a silk purse out of the sow's ear. Open the purse and take the pretty penny. Go to the Stable. Look the gift horse in the mouth, then lead the horse to water and make it drink. Examine the trough and sow my wild oats. Oh, too bad. Go to the Road. Put the cart before the horse, then get in the cart. Go to the Market. Get out of the cart. Upset the applecart, then pick a peck of pickled peppers. Now you can either pay the piper or buy the pig in a poke. Take the bag. Get in the cart and go back to the Road. Get out of the cart and go to the Stable. Pin the tail on the donkey. Go to the Barn and let the cat out of the bag. Your code is "Sodbuster".

Eat Your Words

Theme: Same as "Buy the Farm", but longer.

Noting the shadowy umbrage in the room, take umbrage with waitress. Take the hatchet. Examine the waitress. Pull the wool over her eyes. Eat humble pie when she serves it to you. Take the sign and examine it. Since it says "comeuppance", give the waitress her comeuppance. Knock the chip off her shoulder and get her dander up. When she serves you the meat, swallow my pride. Turn the tables on the waitress. When she serves you a fortune cookie and a salt shaker, shake the salt shaker to get a grain of salt. Open the cookie and read the advice. Take the advice with a grain of salt. When served some dark-feathered bird, eat crow, and since it's nitty-gritty, get down to the nitty-gritty. Take the napkin and wave the white flag. Do an inventory. Vent spleen on waitress, give waitress the evil eye and look at waitress with jaundiced eye. Look at the unevenly cooked rump roast she's served you, and turn the other cheek. Examine your tablecloth, and you'll find you've been given short shrift. Take it and give the waitress short shrift. Bury the hatchet, then go upstairs. Hit the ceiling, then call the waitress on the carpet. Take the rake, break off and take the olive branch, and take the desserts. Read the sign - it's the riot act. Read waitress the riot act, rake waitress over the coals, give waitress her just desserts, and at long last, offer waitress the olive branch. So much for her.

Head downstairs and into the kitchen. Note that the red curtain comes off in your hands. Once you've entered the kitchen, clean the "bad blood" with the cape. Note the grindstone; you have an axe to grind with the cook, so grind axe. When the goose and goat enter, cook his goose and get his goat. Examine the can. Make cook a laughing stock. Wave the cape. Jump from the frying pan into the fire and then leave the cook to his own devices. Get the hatchet and gore the ox. And at last, you've quelled the tempest in the Teapot. Your code phrase is "Satisfied Customer".

Act the Part

Theme: "Classic" slapstick comedy bits.

To go along with the "knock, knock" joke, just type who's there and Bob who? (you don't need to use a say command). Follow Bob into the kitchen. Take the gloves and wear them. Take the sponge and bottle. Blow into the bottle (it's like a whoopee cushion). Take the scalpel. Go back out into the Living Room. Bob will set up a joke, so provide the punch line: the backstroke. When he heads into the Kitchen, put the bottle under the cushion. He'll come back in, sit down, and the audience will go wild. Take the cord. Touch the cord to Bob. Notice that you're wearing a coat and that the coat contains a match. Light the match and put the match in the hole in Bob's shoe; he'll get a hotfoot. When there's a knock on the door, again, play along: who's there and gorilla who? Examine the lady for a painfully predictable gag. Now, do anything with the sponge, for example, throw sponge. The game will prompt you to clarify which sponge you mean, the blue sponge or Bob. Say Bob, and the audience will laugh at which sponge is which. Get the lampshade and wear it. Bob goes into the bathroom, and there's a third "Knock, knock" joke. Answer who's there and then Dwayne who? Lastly, remember how the bottle in front of you gave you ideas? The old joke "I'd rather have a (free) bottle in front of me than a pre-frontal lobotomy" is the solution, so give Bob a frontal lobotomy. That's a wrap! You get the code phrase "King of Comedy".

Manor of Speaking

Theme: The rooms have literal personalities.

Go to the Pharmacy and open the medicine cabinet. Examine it. Take the bottle and go back to the Interior Decorated. Put the bottle on the mantel. The room will ask you if you think the bottle makes the right statement there. Answer yes. When the room asks you what it can give you in return, say chair. Take the chair (you can't be carrying anything else) and move it to the Kremlin. Drop it there and proceed to the Doldrums. In here, you can't use any word more than once, so if you need to refer to the same noun or verb multiple times, you must find synonyms. Take the clock. Go back to the Pharmacy and take the box. Put the clock in the box. Wind the clock and close the box. Go to the Kremlin. The portrait of Karl Marx, assuming you've got a bomb because of the ticking, will dislodge itself from the wall, revealing a safe. Open the box and take the clock. Stand on the chair. Open safe with winding key. (I.e., the "key" that winds the clock, even though you can't remove it from the clock.) Inside the safe is a "revolution". Take the revolution. Now, what around this house really needs to go through a revolution? Go to the attic and revolve the attic. You get the code phrase "Honored Guest".

Shake a Tower

Theme: Spoonerisms -- phrases where the initial sounds of words are switched. As with The Shopping Bizarre, just type the phrase to take the action.

You start in a Clearing. Turn the lead house into a head louse. Gritty pearl to pretty girl, who will "shine on the door" - dine on the shore. Pan of keys to can of peas. Take the key and can of peas. The pretty girl dives into the river. Try to dive after her, and the game will tell you that you can't until you shake off your toes. Take off your shoes and you'll automatically dive into the water and retrieve the pretty girl, who's somehow returned to the gritty pearl state.

Your path is blocked by the rocks. Examine the rocks, and you'll see they're just hungry. Feed the peas to the rocks. Fed rocks - red fox and the scenery changes. The next sight you'll see is that of a queer old dean and a shoving leopard, so say dear old queen and loving shepherd. As the shepherd departs, he'll scrawl a message in the sand. As he "leads between the Rhine," say read between the lines. You'll be advised to follow your shepherd, so do just that.

Now you're in the Old Factory. Here you see the shepherd trying to pull a habit out of a rat, so pull a rabbit out of a hat. Take the hat and wear it. The head louse jumps onto the hat. Your "oldfactory" senses lead you to a pile of burning foam underneath an icicle, and a book of riddles. Take the book and riddle while foam burns. The icicle, by now well-boiled, drops to the ground. Take the icicle and change it from a well-boiled icicle to a well-oiled bicycle. Take the bicycle and go to the Stock Room. Turn the Jean Client into a clean giant. He'll climb up the large pile of jeans. The long description of the room holds the key to the correct Spoonerism here: Back of the Jean Stock must be reversed into jack and the beanstalk (or just beanstalk). Drop everything except the hat, which you must be wearing. You'll hear a mare's squeal, which should be turned into a square meal (which you may remember hearing the pretty girl lament about). Blushing crow to crushing blow. Go up.

On Cloud 673, the Clean Giant will pour melted butter on the beanstalk, making escape impossible for the moment. Notice how the clouds are sagging underneath the giant? Take off the hat and give it to the giant. Now change the head louse (which is still in the hat) back into the lead house, and the giant sinks slowly in the west. To get back down the beanstalk, there's a shed of beets which you must rename bed sheets. Tie the sheets and go down. The Giant will attempt to sew you to a sheet, so show me to a seat. He'll attack you with the needle. Pick up the crushing blow, and deliver the crushing blow to the giant. Change the sold elf to old self. He was trying to make a tall smock, so make small talk with old self. He'll tell you that you need transportation to get to the Clearing. Take the gritty pearl, the shiny key, and the square meal. Then get on the bike and go to the Clearing. Turn the gritty pearl back into the pretty girl. Give the square meal to the pretty girl. Turn her back into the gritty pearl, take the pearl, and unlock the door with the shiny key. For all your hard work, you're given the code spoonerism "Kinkering Cong."

Meet the Mayor

Theme: More clichés.

Look around. You can't simply take the town crier's horn, but since possession is nine-tenths of the law, take possession of the horn. Around the Town House are laurel bushes, so beat around the bush. You'll find a ticket "redeemable" for a blessing. Leave it outside. Take a branch from the laurel bushes. Go inside and notice the six-pack of politicians, made older, Budweiser by the ravages of time. Read the document -- a number of false pretences. Like the horn, you can't just take the beer: you have to take the beer under false pretences. Upstairs in the bathroom, take the lame duck. The duck turns into the mayor, who'll be glad to hear you toot my own horn. There's a jar, so say ajar. Suddenly, there's a closet door ajar. In a puddle on the floor, there's a fine-tooth comb. Take it and search closet with fine-tooth comb. Of course, there's a skeleton in the closet. Take it and give the skeleton the deep six. Take the linen and the disguise that falls out of it. To get the mayor to come with you, throw the baby out with the bathwater. Go down and out. Put the blessing in disguise and air the dirty linen. Go back inside and give the blessing to the mayor. Give the decree to the mayor. He'll sign it, and when he does, you get that warm glow of satisfaction, knowing that you've restored the natural order of things in Punster. So rest on my laurels and be prepared to have honors heaped upon you, the hero of the day!

 

Extras

For further entertainment, you may be interested in:
Lists of bugs in Nord and Bert: Nathan Simpson, Graeme Cree, XyzzyNews
Posts about this game at The Digital Antiquarian and SPAG
Source code

Last updated: 4/28/2021