> Ironically enough, I think my trouble was an artifact of the AGL implementation - despite the chest being described when I enter the room, the necessary option for dealing with it didn't show up until I did a "look" move to confirm its presence. (Similar things happen to the jewel and metal detector.) This led me to dismiss that command as being on the wrong track.

Not that it helps you now, but I'll fix these tonight. As for the metal detector, you're right -- for some reason I didn't anticipate people thinking they'd have to try that in every single room. I added an annotation saying not to bother.

Thanks for being a trooper and plowing through this game before I figured out all the usability snags. It's much, much easier to design a usable game from the outset than to make a usable game out of an unusable one.