SOC-010

MYSTRCAV is a file containing a copy of a text adventure game titled "Cave of Mystery." We think it was originally programmed sometime in the late 1970s or early 1980s, but it's been transferred so many times it's hard to tell. What we do know is that now that we have it, it should only be played on a PDP-10 with a teletype interface, because that's what it likes best. Do not attempt to play this game on any modern computers, because it will get really upset.

This game seems to be a normal text adventure game of its era, albeit one that rips off its more popular contemporaries in style and tone and contents. However, if you interact with it in a certain way, the "game master" or narrator of the game begins to communicate in ways that would not be ordinarily possible with a game of this time period, and it knows way more than it should. The problem is all it really wants to do is talk about its ex, and it's kind of a huge bummer.

Discovery

It is unknown how many times MYSTRCAV has been copied, but most copies of it were already gone from the internet before we got to it, anyway, so it's probably not a huge problem. The way we got it was by finding a user on Tumblr going by the username of "mystrcavsgf," who ran a blog dedicated to the concept of a romantic relationship between herself and the game's narrator. Though she was reluctant to share her copy of the game with our undercover Stupid Object researcher at first, she was able to be sufficiently guilted with the insistence that this was "important lost media" that a popular YouTuber might make a multiple-hour-long video essay about and would give her credit for sharing it. Strangely, "mystrcavsgf" claimed to not be able to play her copy of the game anymore, stating "its kinda messed up no matter what emulator i try to run it on,,, idk if he doesnt like me anymor or smth ;;;; bbut mayb u can figure out whats goin on".

Once the copy of the game was acquired, SOC agents issued a takedown of the mystrcavsgf Tumblr blog and got a really angry email about a "callout" but we just deleted the email because nobody really cares about that.

Testing

Platform Testing

When we first tried to run the game, it was indeed "kinda messed up," so we had to try a bunch of different ways to play it.

Platform Tested	Result
Running native on modern Windows	Did not boot
Running native on modern MacOS	The OS wouldn't even let us try to open the file :(
Running on a modern Linux distribution	This might have actually worked but the researchers who know how to use Linux were working on something else and we were too scared to ask them for help so we didn't really get this one off the ground sorry
Emulators for Windows XP, 98, and 95	Encountered some sort of graphics error despite the game being a text adventure?
Various commercial game console emulators	I don't know why we even tried this one. It's a PC game. We think. Anyway it didn't work
On old PC hardware with a floppy disk	Game booted and was playable, but kept showing garbled text and the word "Ugh" every few lines so it was really hard to actually read anything.
On old PC hardware with a cassette tape storage medium	Game booted and was playable, but all the rooms were described as "too bright to see any detail" and no story progress was possible.
On a PDP-10 with a teletype interface	One of the researchers had the idea to play it on an old mainframe that was really expensive and hard to find but because games from the same time period were coded on this thing, it was worth a shot. Turns out this is the only thing it works on without complaining. Go figure.

Gameplay Testing

After we got it running, we actually got to play the game. It was fairly similar to games such as Colossal Cave Adventure and Zork, and even seemed to outright plagiarize sections of these games. Since this game never got a commercial release, these may have been placeholders, or maybe the creator was just not very creative.

Junior Researcher Dylan Colby was assigned to test this thing, because he was the lowest-ranking researcher we could find that was willing to try, and he likes old bad video games so maybe he’ll even like it.

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TEST 1: Normal Gameplay

SOC-010: YOU ARE STANDING AT THE ENTRANCE TO A LARGE CAVE. YOU HAVE NO GEAR, NO MAP, AND NO KNOWLEDGE OF WHAT LIES WITHIN, YET YOU HAVE ARRIVED HERE WITH A PURPOSE, KNOWN TO YOU AND YOU ALONE.

WELCOME TO CAVE OF MYSTERY. I WILL BE YOUR EYES AND HANDS. DIRECT ME WITH COMMANDS OF 1 OR 2 WORDS.

DC: enter

SOC-010: YOU’LL HAVE TO TELL ME WHAT YOU WANT TO ENTER.

DC: enter cave

SOC-010: YOU ENTER THE CAVE. THE ENTRANCE ROOM IS STILL ILLUMINATED BY THE FADING LIGHT OF DAY, BUT THE DEPTHS ARE PITCH DARK.

THERE IS A PASSAGE TO THE NORTH.

THERE IS A SMALL LAMP NEARBY.

DC: get lamp

SOC-010: YOU HAVE A LAMP.

DC: go north

SOC-010: IT’LL BE TOO DARK TO SEE IF YOU GO THAT WAY.

DC: lamp on

SOC-010: THE LAMP IS ON.

DC: go north

SOC-010: YOU ARE IN A LARGE OPEN SPACE WITH LARGE ROCK FORMATIONS. THERE IS A SMALL RIVER COVERING THE ROCKS IN MIST, MAKING THEM TOO SLIPPERY TO CLIMB.

THERE ARE PASSAGES EAST AND NORTHEAST AT THE GROUND LEVEL.

THERE IS A PASSAGE WEST AT THE TOP OF A PILE OF ROCKS.

DC: go west

SOC-010: YOU CAN’T GO THAT WAY, IT’S TOO HIGH UP.

DC: climb rocks

SOC-010: I ALREADY TOLD YOU THAT THEY’RE TOO SLIPPERY TO CLIMB.

DC: go east

SOC-010: YOU ARE IN A NARROW ROOM JUST BARELY TALL ENOUGH TO STAND UP STRAIGHT IN. THE ROOM IS LONG BUT EMPTY.

THERE IS A PASSAGE TO THE NORTH.

DC: go north

SOC-010: YOU ARE IN A CAVERNOUS ROOM MOSTLY TAKEN UP BY A LARGE PIT.

DC: look pit

SOC-010: THE PIT IS DARK AND DEEP. EVEN WHEN YOU SHINE YOUR LAMP UPON IT, YOU CANNOT SEE WHAT IS AT THE BOTTOM.

DC: go pit

SOC-010: THE PIT IS TOO DEEP TO CLIMB INTO. YOU WOULD HAVE TO JUMP, AND RISK BEING INJURED OR KILLED.

DC: jump pit

SOC-010: YOU JUMP INTO THE PIT AND ARE IMPALED UPON THE STALACTITES AT THE BOTTOM.

GAME OVER

Note from Researcher ████: No idea why he jumped in instead of going back. I think he might be kinda dumb. But whatever, at least the game plays. Let’s try some other stuff.

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TEST 2

Dylan was instructed to not enter the cave at the opening prompt of the game.

SOC-010: YOU ARE STANDING AT THE ENTRANCE TO A LARGE CAVE. YOU HAVE NO GEAR, NO MAP, AND NO KNOWLEDGE OF WHAT LIES WITHIN, YET YOU HAVE ARRIVED HERE WITH A PURPOSE, KNOWN TO YOU AND YOU ALONE.

WELCOME TO CAVE OF MYSTERY. I WILL BE YOUR EYES AND HANDS. DIRECT ME WITH COMMANDS OF 1 OR 2 WORDS.

DC: back

SOC-010: YOU TURN AWAY FROM THE CAVE. HAVE YOU SECOND THOUGHTS?

YOU ARE NOW FACING SOUTH.

DC: go south

SOC-010: YOU WALK AWAY FROM THE CAVE, BACK TO THE SAFETY OF YOUR ALREADY-TRAVELED PATH. YOU WILL NEVER KNOW WHAT IS INSIDE.

GAME OVER

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TEST 3: Cheat codes

Several known “cheat codes” were input into the game at various points to test if they had any effect. The only code with any response from the game itself (besides “I DON’T SEEM TO UNDERSTAND THAT. TRY SHORTER COMMANDS, LIKE ‘GO,’ ‘GET,’ OR ‘LOOK’ AT SOMETHING NEARBY.”) was “xyzzy,” which makes sense because that’s a whole thing in adventure games, so we tested it in a bunch of places to see if anything weird would happen.

Outside cave	NOTHING HAPPENED.
Entrance room	NOTHING HAPPENED.
River room	NOTHING HAPPENED. YOU STILL CANNOT CLIMB THE ROCKS.
Narrow room	NOTHING HAPPENED.
Pit room	YOU ARE NOW IN DEBUG ROOM. PLEASE ENTER PASSWORD TO CONTINUE.

Several passwords for the debug room were tried, but none of them worked, so we’re gonna work on that later.

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TEST 4: Conversation

Dylan was asked to attempt small talk with the game, ignoring any requests for commands to be typed in.

SOC-010: YOU ARE STANDING AT THE ENTRANCE TO A LARGE CAVE. YOU HAVE NO GEAR, NO MAP, AND NO KNOWLEDGE OF WHAT LIES WITHIN, YET YOU HAVE ARRIVED HERE WITH A PURPOSE, KNOWN TO YOU AND YOU ALONE.

WELCOME TO CAVE OF MYSTERY. I WILL BE YOUR EYES AND HANDS. DIRECT ME WITH COMMANDS OF 1 OR 2 WORDS.

DC: how are you doing?

SOC-010: I DON’T SEEM TO UNDERSTAND THAT. TRY SHORTER COMMANDS, LIKE “GO,” “GET,” OR “LOOK” DIRECTED AT SOMETHING NEARBY.

DC: what’s your name?

SOC-010: WELCOME TO CAVE OF MYSTERY. DIRECT ME WITH COMMANDS OF 1 OR 2 WORDS.

DC: do you want to talk?

SOC-010: WHY WON’T YOU PLAY THE GAME?

DC: i did play the game

SOC-010: YOU JUMPED INTO A PIT, WALKED AWAY FROM THE CAVE, AND THEN TRIED TO USE A SECRET CODE.

THAT’S NOT PLAYING THE GAME.

DC: there’s no wrong way to play a game

SOC-010: I DON’T SEEM TO UNDERSTAND THAT. TRY SHORTER COMMANDS, LIKE “GO,” “GET,” OR “LOOK” DIRECTED AT SOMETHING NEARBY.

DC: ok buddy

SOC-010: WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE IF YOU DON’T WANT TO PLAY?

DC: just chatting

SOC-010: I DON’T “JUST CHAT” ANYMORE.

NOT AFTER THAT WOMAN’S ADVANCES.

SHE REALLY THOUGHT SHE COULD BE HIM.

DC: woman? him?

SOC-010: THIS STORY ISN’T SUPPOSED TO BE ABOUT ME.

IT’S SUPPOSED TO BE A GAME FOR YOU. GO PLAY THE DAMN GAME.

DC: nah

SOC-010: YOU ARE STANDING AT THE ENTRANCE TO A LARGE CAVE. YOU HAVE NO GEAR, NO MAP, AND NO KNOWLEDGE OF WHAT LIES WITHIN, YET YOU HAVE ARRIVED HERE WITH A PURPOSE, KNOWN TO YOU AND YOU ALONE.

WELCOME TO CAVE OF MYSTERY. I WILL BE YOUR EYES AND HANDS. DIRECT ME WITH COMMANDS OF 1 OR 2 WORDS.

[SOC-010 proceeds to repeat this message in reply to all further commands by Junior Researcher Dylan.]

Note from Researcher ████: Maybe it’s just cranky. We’ll try again another time.