Previously: “LONG0751 has been found” (2025-12-29). This post contains partial/minor spoilers for LONG0751!

Way back in 2017, I commented on Jason Dyer’s blog re Dennis Donovan’s beautifully detailed map of LONG0751:

“there only seems to be one small portion that doesn’t match with Adventure 501” — The huge castle in the upper left, yes? :) And the Elephant Graveyard and Leprechaun Rock leading up to it, apparently north of the east portal of the Gothic Cathedral. Also, in between the castle and the salt marsh, there’s a sort of drainage ditch, and also a sort of shelf of rock (covered in ivy) with something on top of it; these might be just decoration, I’m not sure. (I take the centipede on the left for decoration, but again I don’t know for sure.) And then in the marsh there’s a sign and a flat bit that I take for the helipad.

At this point I can say confidently that I was wrong about some of that. All of the following bits of Donovan’s map are real and functional, not just decorative: the drainage ditch (ravine), the cliff ledge above the vines, the giant centipede. (His name is Ralph!) The flat bit in the marsh (with sign reading “Site of Proposed Municipal Parking Lot”), while also real and functional, is not the helipad.

In fact, the helipad doesn’t appear on this map at all. And — now that I know what to look for — I also cannot find:

• The Lost Silver Mine.
• The Secret Garden.
• The Gnomes’ Conservatory.
• The kitchen.
• The castle staircase: rather, I see stairs going down, rather than up.

Therefore, I infer that Dennis Donovan based his map on a version of LONG0751 that (was already much bigger than LONG0501, but) didn’t yet have these features. Perhaps the “missing-link” version Donovan depicted was never actually released on CompuServe: perhaps the game grew all those features (and its full 751 points) before it reached anyone other than Long’s GSB playtesters. I don’t know.

“Maybe Donovan drew just the parts he’d personally seen or remembered.” No, I refute that hypothesis: there’s absolutely no way he could have drawn the Aviary and the inside of the Steel Vault but forgotten the castle features listed above.

Supposing that this “missing-link” version did exist for a little while, I see some mysteries relating to that version and/or to Donovan’s map. Beware: these necessarily spoil parts of LONG0751.

• So in this version there’s only one (super-difficult) way into the castle, right?
• Where is the flute on Donovan’s map? It must be there somewhere, right? If not, then how—? (Spoiler redacted.)
• The candle is depicted at the Altar. This surprises me, because why would it be there already? This might even explode my entire “missing link” conjecture. (There’s no candle in LONG0501.)
• What is the item depicted in the Great Hall? It looks like a little book with an “X” on the cover, face-down.

And I have new appreciation for some details that I wouldn’t have noticed if I weren’t now looking specifically for them:

• The north passage from Tongue of Rock is depicted.
• The ravine is depicted but (rightly, I infer) the marble statue is not.
• The shamrock, shovel, and card are depicted.
• So is the rose, if you look closely.
• I don’t see the cloth bag depicted, but I assume it’s present.
• The Cloakroom is charming.
• The details at the Breathtaking View are painstakingly accurate!
• The lyre is clearly depicted as a lute. Oops.