"Mingsheng"
A Chinese adventure, By Deane Saunders (copyright) 2004 


Mingsheng (ming2 sheng4 in pinyin, pronounced meeng-shung) means "scenic spot", "famous site" or "place of interest". It is one of these sites where the game is set - a very important location in Chinese culture, especially those who follow Daoist or Confucian philosophies - Mount Tai and Konglin in Shandong, China. It is not set in any particular time-period, as the scenery has been the same in this area for many hundreds of years.

 It is loosely based on the (untrue) myth that Taiji (Tai Chi) was created by one person, by observation from nature. The actual history and lineage of Taiji is well documented, but who says we cannot take a little poetic license?

The ideal way to run the game is to set the font of your interpreter (if you can) to one of the Chinese fonts such as Simsun - this way the Chinese character 'flavour text' (located in the room description headers and some object descriptions) will appear in the game. Otherwise you'll just get the regular text. It's not vital though, as the game can be played well enough without it. There may be problems displaying the characters if your chosen interpreter does not support Unicode text, in this case you can use the Mandarin Pinyin option to get the phonetic romanized spellings. Do not attempt to use a "Hanzi" or "Kanji" font - these are not genuine Asian fonts - they simply replace the Roman alphabet with Chinese or Japanese phonetic characters, making regular text unreadable. True Asian fonts can display both.

If this sparks some interest in Taiji or Daoism, there are many resources on the internet to find out about them. Particularly, for Daoist philosophy, one should track down a translation of the "Dao De Jing",  by Laozi (often spelt as Tao Te Ching, by Lao Tzu).

 
 
I would like to extend my thanks to those who helped me develop this game through their diligent and extensive testing (listed below) and to the posters on rec.arts.int-fiction who helped with numerous problems.

Marshall T. Vandegrift
Greg Boettcher 
Jessica Knoch
Hans Fugal
Michael Martin
Harry Ray
Javri AKA Katzy



All graphics and text contained in this document copyright Deane Saunders, 2004. 


INTERACTIVE FICTION FREEWARE GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
1. This license grants you the right to use and distribute “Mingsheng” under the conditions outlined below. You cannot use or distribute the game if you do not agree with these conditions.

2. The game, including any and all associated files as well as all of the output produced by the game, and all derivative works, is copyright © 2004 by Deane Saunders.

3. Queries about the license should be addressed to the copyright holder, whose address at the time of writing is deane@rexx.co.uk. If contact cannot be established, you may be able to locate the copyright holder via the rec.arts.int-fiction Internet newsgroup.

4. You are allowed to use the game and make copies for your personal use without restrictions. You may also copy and distribute the game in any medium, as long as (a) you make no charge for doing so, and (b) the game, all associated files and this license are included and remain unmodified.

5. You are not allowed to make a charge for distributing the game (either for profit or merely to recover your media and distribution costs) whether as a stand-alone product, or as part of a compilation or anthology, without written permission.

6. NO WARRANTY. The game is licensed and provided "as is" without warranty of any kind, express or implied, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose or a warranty of non-infringement.



Solution follows, so don’t look if you don’t want to know!
 








Solution


take bag
southeast
down
search debris
up
up
south
poke snake with stick
take pebble
north
north
throw pebble
south
# press a key a few times to pass through the combat.
east
take moss from left lion
take moss from right horse
take vine from left ram
put red moss on left qilin
#the actual colour of the moss is unimportant.
put green moss on right qilin
east
take leaves
east
south
put leaves on tray
cut leaves
put leaves in pot
north
north
unlock gate with key
open gate
northwest
east
take box
tie vine to box
west
southeast
south
west
west
west
south
drop box
north
southeast
down
take box
open box
examine painting

# not actually coded in as vital, but it gives you the key to the 
# combat puzzle

examine blade
up
up
east
east
east
south

# key to combat: his stance - your stance
# earth – wood
# metal – fire
# water – earth
# wood - metal
# fire - water
# e.g.

fire
water
metal
north
west
west
west
cut thorns
drop sword
west

You can now read the ENDNOTES for some comments on the game and a few hints about hidden features.
