The Clathran Menace: The Adventures of M. J. Turner in the 29th Century Across the Rim of the Galaxy in Dual Space

This is not the sort of game that can be told in screenshots.

      

I'm going to abandon the day-by-day account of my space travels in favor of a more summarized entry, particularly because most of this session involved a lot of backtracking to places I'd already been. Suffice to say that in about 180 turns, I finished exploring the part of the galaxy that I could explore, visited every planet but two, logged all of their trade goods, bought all of the weapons and armor (both ship and personal) that they had to offer, made new allies, read about 75 pages' worth of text, followed several quest chains to their conclusion—and still got stuck at a crucial moment. More to come.

         

Let's otherwise organize this one topically.

    

The Story So far

       

M. J. Turner is a hotshot pilot for the Space Patrol, assigned in the first Star Saga to explore Beyond the Boundary and destroy a notorious space pirate named Silverbeard. In the process, he discovered that Silverbeard's planet was in fact the last Outpost of famed explorer Vanessa Chang, last seen hundreds of years ago, who discovered the threat posed by a species of lizard aliens called the Clathrans. Now the first Captain of the Space Navy, Turner's mission is to collect intelligence on The Clathran Menace.

     

The Clathrans are so dangerous that I agreed (along with fellow hypothetical players controlling other characters) to destroy all information about how to get back to Earth. Only a giant compass on Outpost still points the way.

   

In my first three entries, I met several species. The dominant ones are:

   

• Hadrakians, "a centaur-like combination of tiger and gorilla." They come from the planet Hadrak but have colonies throughout the galaxy. All Hadrakians are born male and earn citizenship through victory in the arenas present on each of their planets. Visitors have to go through the same ritual, winning an arena battle, before they're able to do anything on the planets except make limited, unfavorable trades in the "civilian markets." I made contact with The Battle, Inc., an organization that resists the Clathrans. They keep telling me I have to upgrade my ship's defenses before they'll give me any serious missions.

• Worzellians, a species fighting a constant civil war. They've agreed to join the anti-Clathran cause.

• The Brotherhood, a human sect—remnants of a lost colony—researching a phenomenon called Dual Space. They've set me on a path to learn more about the phenomenon and to gain abilities inherent to their order.

• Bluvians, a hairy, ugly species whose people are intelligent and capable but also somewhat naïve. They live on several colonies, all with simple names (Bloo, Cloo, Gloo). They were conquered by the Clathrans thousands of years ago. The Clathrans experimented on them, giving different orders on different colonies, to see what method would best prepare them as Clathran soldiers. All the efforts seem to have failed, and the Clathrans abandoned the planets, but the Bluvians still live by those instructions.

        

My galactic map, in progress.

      

From the Hadrakians, Turner has learned about the Clathran Survey Line, an armada of ships moving slowly across the galaxy, ostensibly "surveying" each planet, but in reality conquering them. The Clathrans have a particular hatred of humanity and seek to wipe us out. You might say they're a menace.

     

Trading     

    

I bought my first trading drone, with three cargo spaces, in the last session. I used it for a few things but remarked that I was annoyed by the constant messages that I hadn't tasked it during a particular turn. In the comments, Scott offered: "I seem to recall having mine ALWAYS on the move, with its trades plotted out 10 or more turns in advance." I had a few more planets to visit before I could do this reliably, but once I hit Turn 120 or so (I started this session at 97), I was emulating Scott. The drone never sat idle. I identified what items I wanted to buy next and worked out the routes to travel.

      

I finally find a synthetic genius.

       

There are 12 common trade items in the game, traded in the common markets of each planet, accessible by the drone:

        

• Crystals
• Culture
• Fiber 
• Food
• Medicine 
• Munitions
• Phase Steel
• Radioactives 
• Super Slips
• Synthetic Geniuses
• Tools
• Warp Cores

        

For other items, such as weapons available in special markets and ship upgrades, you have to go to the planet and trade multiple items. 

   

I like to think I'm spreading Super Slip 'n' Slides all over the galaxy.

     

Enough planets sell 2 or 3 of something for only 1 of something else that as long as you have at least 1 trade item, you can eventually acquire anything you want. It happened a few times that after a particularly expensive trade, I was down to only a couple of items, but with time I could always bounce back. For instance, assume I got to the point that I only had 1 unit of radioactives (which can be mined in unlimited amounts on Dahl). But I wanted to buy the Causality Shielding on Dahl, which requires 1 phase steel, 1 synthetic genius, and 1 tools.

• Fly to Dosia, trade 1 radioactives for 3 munitions
• Fly to Unaria, trade 3 munitions for 3 phase steel
• Fly to Sallion, trade 2 phase steel for 2 synthetic genius
• Return to Turner, offload 1 phase steel, 1 synthetic genius
• Fly to Rialla, trade 1 synthetic genius for 3 tools
• Return to Turner

   

Now I have what I need and 2 extra units of tools besides. Obviously, I'd ideally start planning this six turns before getting back to Dahl, but there were plenty of times I screwed it up and spent a turn or two doing nothing on a planet, waiting for my drone to arrive (I could have skipped a step here with a five-bay drone). 

   

What hung things up for a long time was that I didn't know where to find synthetic geniuses. They were on Sallion, a Hadrakian world fairly close to the beginning of the game, but one I overlooked just because there are a lot of planets to keep track of. I should have been labeling a copy of the map rather than writing planets and their coordinates in a separate notepad. Even at turn 274, I don't have a reliable source for culture, which is required in a couple of major recipes. I had to buy some units in a special encounter that required a unit of primordial soup, also difficult to obtain.

     

Buying a new piece of equipment at the Ship Improvements Market. I don't know why I'd want to crush quarks.

       

But slowly, through this process, I acquired things I needed at the shipyards and weapon markets of different worlds, including personal weapons like a phase sword and power armor; ship defenses like a quark crusher, a plasma beam, and an entropy loop; and special materials used to construct other devices, such as a vortex coil (2 food, 1 medicine, 1 super slip, 1 warp core on Dosia) and a flame jewel (2 medicine, 1 culture, 1 synthetic genius, 1 warp core on Rialla). Using the special actions, I was able to build an Advanced Healing Unit (1 primordial soup, 1 probability membrane, 1 fiber, 1 synthetic genius, 1 tools) and a Discontinuity Wave Generator (1 flame jewel, 1 vortex coil, 1 crystals, 1 munitions, 1 radioactives). I also bought a stargate key at Dosia and upgraded my ship to hold 15 cargo pods (the maximum), but for some reason I never got around to buying a higher-capacity drone.

       

Assembling a Discontinuity Wave Generator from its component parts.

      

I have to say, I rather enjoyed the trading aspect of the game: making notes about what was available where (which sometimes changes), fitting new planets into the existing network, and plotting the most efficient routes. So much of the game is deterministic, told in long narrative paragraphs. This is really the only mechanic over which the player has full control. 

         

No More Outpost

    

While in the midst of all this trading, I decided to speed it along by returning to Outpost and its unlimited supply of most of the trading goods. It was at a time where my ship was damaged, and I figured I could fix it for free there. Bad idea. Shortly after I landed, the Clathrans arrived and started bombarding the planet. My computer noted that since it was just a solid rock, it could easily be destroyed by orbital bombardment. I had two chances to flee the planet. After trying to wait out the attack on the first chance, I fled on the second one.

   

Outpost was destroyed. Theoretically, this means I can't return to the Nine Worlds, since I destroyed all my information about their coordinates and Outpost had the only pointer. Something tells me I'll figure out another way before the end of the game.

        

Battle

 

By Turn 120, my notepad was filled with items like "return to Psorus when I can win the arena battle" and "return to Ghorbon when I can win the space battle." (Most battles are fixed like this, and fairly well telegraphed, but occasionally you get a random space battle, usually with a Clathran scout.) For a while, it seemed no matter how many upgrades I purchased—both ship and personal—I couldn't win anything. The tide really only started to change towards the end of this session.

      

Getting closer, at least.

      

When you meet an enemy in battle, the outcome is completely deterministic based on what equipment you have. There are things about the process, but in general, my understanding is:

    

• Every piece of defensive and offensive gear (again, both personal and ship) has a base offensive or defensive value. For personal combat, this also includes abilities you've acquired, like "Paralyze" and "Telekinesis."

• These base values are modified by your personal health or ship health depending on the type of battle you're fighting. If you're at 50% personal health, your phase sword is only about 50% as effective as normal.

• Base values are also modified by other characteristics, such as the nature of the enemy and the environment. For personal abilities, base values are modified by the "Dual Space Interphase" of the area, basically a value that tells you how much of the magical realm is leaking into real space. More on that later.

• The game automatically selects the three items having the highest offensive and defensive values in the current time and place.

• The values of those three items added up have to cross a certain threshold (I think it's been 100 for all battles so far) for you to win.

• Overcoming the "Attack" threshold is necessary to progress the plot (i.e., to win the arena combat on Hadrakian worlds or actually get to land on Ghorbon). Overcoming the "Defense" threshold is necessary to avoid damage to your personal or ship's health.

        

Made the grade.

     

Please correct me if I'm wrong about any of the above. Anyway, it would have been more of an RPG if the game had introduced some randomness or player agency to this process, but I recognize that for plot reasons, the authors wanted the player to cross certain thresholds before key events.

    

Both kinds of damage can be difficult to repair. If you don't fix damage, you can get into a downward spiral in which all your attacks are ineffective. Only a few planets have hospitals or shipyards, and some of them charge for services. I found out by accident (while twiddling my thumbs waiting for my drone) that unused phases during a turn can promote healing, and once I got the Advanced Healing Unit, it started happening automatically. Late in this session, I had a random space encounter in which an alien told me that they sell Automated Repair Systems for ships on Hadrak. I don't know why I didn't find that when I visited, but it's on my list to return and check it out.

  

This is not good.

     

Anyway, thanks to these increases, I was slowly able to win the arena battles on the Hadrakian colonies, fight off the harpy on Dardahl, and destroy the attack ship orbiting Ghorbon (this took me about six revisits). By the end of this session, I didn't have any fixed battles left on my list to complete, saving the Clathran Survey Line, which I'm guessing is not defeatable in regular combat.

      

New Life and New Civilizations

      

Most of the planets I visited during this session were colonies of species I'd already encountered, particularly the Hadrakians, who have about half a dozen colonies on the map, including Hadrak, Holoth, Sallion, Psorus, Adafa, and Franclair. Every one of them required winning an arena combat to explore the planet and get any decent trades in the market, although I never won on Sallion and thus made unfavorable trades for synthetic geniuses throughout this session.

Since these Hadrakians are colonists, the planets they live on often have other native species, such as the bat people on Holoth. On Psorus, the planet was populated by dinosaurs, one of which (a winged one) attacked me as I tried to leave the planet, and I had to fight it in a "space" battle. On Adafa, the Hadrakians are occupying an orbiting dome built by a more advanced, unknown race. The same is true of their colony on Adafa; it's an artificial world with advanced technology built by an unknown species. While exploring the devices, I gain a skill called "Prescient Choice" but lose "Paralyze." On Franclair, the Hadrakians co-exist with a race of protoplasmic blobs who constantly play pranks on everyone else.

       

The Bluvians were also relatively interesting. The Clathrans had tried several tactics to turn the gormless race into soldiers. On Bloo, they were given military-style training by robots and rewarded for completion of those tasks. On Gloo, they were taught to respect authority and created a rigid hierarchy for themselves. Then I discovered Cloo, where the Clathrans apparently taught the Bluvians to embrace individualism, to the point where nobody does any work (fortunately, they have robots) and their governmental and economic systems are constantly changing. In all cases, the Clathrans determined that the experiment didn't work and abandoned the colony, a fact I discovered by breaking into the Clathrans' empty bases and reading their research reports. In Cloo, I managed to give an impassioned speech that convinced them to join the Clathran resistance, but I never got acknowledgement of that the way I did with the Hadrakians, Worzellians, and Riallans.

          

The Cloo Bluvians are so disorganized that they can't even agree who gets to greet alien visitors.

     

New races included:

   

• Rialla, a planet of telepathic sentient gas bags. I guess I met some Riallans in Star Saga: One, although I don't remember it. These Riallans, who call themselves "Middle" Riallans, were created by that other race. Riallians apparently thrive in places where the Dual Space interphase is wide; in fact, such conditions were necessary for the original race to survive. Since it's been widening lately, the Riallans are doing well. I was able to convince them to send a courier to "old" Rialla for help against the Clathrans; the other option was to convince them to build a fleet of spaceships, which seemed beyond their capabilities. I learned more about Dual Space on the planet (see below) and acquired the "Sensearound" ability. The planet is also the only source of flame jewels, so if I were Valentine Stewart, I would have completed my personal quest.

    

Another ally.

      

• Zyroth and Yinkle both have hostile aliens who won't let me land. (At Yinkle, they called me a "disgusting alien-who-might-be-food.") The game doesn't even give me an option to fight. I suspect there's nothing to do at those worlds. A Zyran later attacked me in space, looking for a meal.

• Once I got past the ship blocking access to Ghorbon, I found a primitive race of racoon-like creatures called Roquies. While not unintelligent, they proved to be too capricious. When I tried to teach them to spy on the Clathran base on their planet, they just wandered away. 

• On Keros, I find a short, hairy, humanoid species. They are intelligent but uninterested in anything but playing games. I join some children in one for a while. They work only a couple hours a day and don't seem interested in culture or scientific progress. I learned a dodging skill from them called "Jump'r'." But while exploring the subterranean geology of the planet, I found some kind of cube that calls me "Master" and says that it has been following its prime directive "to keep the Kerosian race at a minimal intelligence level." Any Kerosian born too intelligent is compelled (telepathically) to report to the cube for "genetic revision" but the transport tube to the cube has been broken for centuries, so the Kerosians have just been jumping into a volcano. I tried to order the cube to stop is prime directive, but it wants an access code I don't have. I asked what it would take to fix the transport tube, and it said a vortex coil. I know where to get one, but I haven't had a chance yet.

    

The Hadrakian Questline

    

The Battle, Inc. is the inter-colony resistance organization the Hadrakians organized against the Clathrans. The Hadrakians, having the most colonies in this area of space, are the natural choice to lead the effort. They're concerned about the conquest of their colony on Innermost (which I haven't been able to visit yet), and they expect Adafa to fall next.

   

Every time I visited, on every colony, they would tell me that my ship was inadequate for any missions. Finally, at some point, I crossed the necessary threshold and they invited me deeper into their confidences. In a regular RPG, I'd do a few small missions for them, forming an overall questline. But in this game, they gave me the big one right away: Cross the Clathran Survey Line and do some scouting. Identify the Clathran home world, map the locations of their bases, encourage occupied colonies to rebel, and learn the status of the occupied Hadrakian colonies.

       

This was not quite the boon that the name suggests.

      

In response to my objections to the danger of the mission, they gave me intelligence from their agents that allowed them to create a series of tactical maneuvers to avoid Clathran destroyers, the Anti-Clathran Evasive Maneuvers. More on the Clathran Survey Line soon.

    

The Brotherhood Questline

    

The mysterious Brotherhood, headquartered on Margen, had already helped me out by teaching me the skills "Kothan," "Darthan," and "Paralyze." As I closed the last session, they had asked me to find some operatives on Unaria, which I didn't get around to doing until late in this session. It's in a remote part of the galaxy.

    

Every time I returned to Dahl, I got more lines from the Dialogue, which I had to recite in full every time I returned. It got pretty old.

      

There are like eight of these responses at this point.

   

The agents on Unaria asked me to return their report to Dahl, after which I was sent to Dardahl. I had previously visited the temple of the gods there and was told by Derva, the Goddess of Knowledge, to return when I had more training. This turned out to be Brotherhood training, as this time I was introduced to Brother Almed, who was sort of controlling the goddess as a puppet. It turns out that the Dardahlian "gods" are just Brotherhood members speaking through statutes. I expressed some moral outrage about this, but Almed brushed it off: "Who is to say what a god is? We perform miracles and take care of them."

   

Almed taught me "Illusion" and asked me to find Brother Gretzen on Hadrak.  Gretzen had been collecting data on the Clathrans. I found her working in a garbage recycling facility, pulling intelligence from discarded reports. She gave me a report to take back to Almed.

     

When I did, he gave me more of the history of the Brotherhood. It dates back hundreds of years, to the time of Vanessa Chang. When she and her crew came up with the plan for the Boundary (to hide humanity from the Clathrans), the Brotherhood volunteered to remain in this part of the galaxy to keep watch. When I asked what happened to Chang, he said only the highest brothers know that information. I can find them on Mardahl.

   

The only problem: I don't know where Mardahl is. I assume it's on the other side of the Survey Line.

         

Random Noise  

       

The game doesn't really like you to spend an entire turn flying through space. It has a way of always finding a paragraph to give you even when all you've done is plot a series of moves across trisectors. In addition to their narrative purpose, these encounters also prevent imbalance in multi-player games.

     

I wonder if the authors programmed a specific order for these paragraphs to appear. Some of them clearly build on each other, but I otherwise don't know if there's any randomness to their selection. Most of them have to do with things heard over the subspace radio. Some examples:

   

• Multiple friendly contacts with engineers on Para-Para, who tell me about the strange things happening in the Nine Worlds.

• An argument with my computer about whether we're taking the shortest possible distance between points. The long paragraph goes into more detail about how the "trisector" system was created.

• A dream in which I'm contacted telepathically by the Riallans, who tell me flame jewels are available on their planet. I'd already been to the planet at this point.

• A Hadrakian vessel whose captain teaches me to play Thrakkah, the Hadrakian answer to chess. At the end of the match, she tells me I can find primordial soup on Dardahl.

• Through miscellaneous radio transmissions, hints about what trade goods I can find on various worlds. These are never accompanied by any information about the location of these worlds, though.

       

Some information in case I hadn't discovered Unaria.

     

• A power surge caused by a probe beam. No lasting damage.

• Transmissions that indicated that the Institute for Space Exploration had finished dismantling the beacons that made up the Boundary, dissolving the Space Patrol and incorporating it into the Space Navy.

There's quality world-building and storytelling in these paragraphs, but I have to admit that I've started to get annoyed when I'm just trying to get from one place to another, and the game wants me to stop and read another paragraph about a radio report.

    

Towards the end of this session, I stopped getting them, which strikes me as a bit ominous. If the game is out of random paragraphs, perhaps I'm running out of time.

     

Dual Space   

    

I learned more about Dual Space on Rialla from a scholar named Gloossh. It described it as "the theoretical dimension of all possible universes" or of "all conceivable changes to the real universe." Tapping into its energy causes changes in the real universe, such as teleportation, telekinesis, and the other abilities that I've been acquiring. There are places and times at which the barrier between real space and Dual Space is thinner (i.e., the "Interphase" widens); for some reason, it has been thinning all over the galaxy in recent years.

   

Since humans evolved in a time at which the Interphase was narrow, we don't have as much capacity to use it as other races. Too much access to Dual Space drives humans insane.

    

Unfortunately, that seems to be happening. As I traveled from world to world, I kept getting updates from the Nine Worlds, and things are looking pretty grim. News outlets are reporting increases in mental illness, hallucinations, suicide, violent crime, and riots. Researchers call it Sudden Adjustment Psychosis Syndrome (SAPS). Accidents, industrial disasters, and power outages are on the rise as people lose focus. A Harvard scientist tried to release the smallpox virus (but was stopped). A shuttle crashed on Monument, killing hundreds, while the pilot raved about dragons. Fringe political and social groups have been forming, leading to efforts to tamp them down. Harvard University (not the original, but the one on the planet Harvard) was destroyed by rioting students. Word of the Clathrans has somehow made it home, but people generally believe it's another delusion due to SAPS.

       

The Clathran Survey Line

    

I first ran into the Survey Line while circling the galaxy. I tried to draw it on my map, but of course it's just an estimate because I didn't visit every trisector. It cuts northwest to southeast (the way I've oriented the map), cutting off access to about a dozen worlds. I don't know if it moves. I don't think so, because when I went back a few dozen turns later, it was still in the same place. But it's possible that it starts moving later.

    

Obviously, the idea of ships forming a "line" across the galaxy is absurd, but when you're dealing with science fiction and hyperspace, I suppose anything is possible. You can imagine that each ship has advanced scanning abilities that cover a vast area and that their jump drives allow them to reach any anomalies in seconds. Of course, that should allow the anomalies to jump away in seconds, too. 

      

Stopped by the Survey Line.

    

Whatever the case, I had multiple options for dealing with them, none of which worked. On the first attempt, I tried turning off my ship's systems and drifting along like a rock. This got me a little farther, but then a ship with x-ray detection capabilities popped into view, and I had more options. I tried just speeding away, but a fleet of destroyers surrounded me.

      

First move options.

      

This not being the sort of game where you can just die and reload (I'm not sure you can die at all), a long passage subsequently related how I was taken to a base and tossed into a brig, but I managed to ambush a guard, knock him, out, take her gun, shoot up the control room, find my ship, and make a getaway, all my cargo and equipment intact. I was about a dozen trisectors to the east, though.

       

Second move options.

       

I hit the Line several times, always trying a different option, always failing, always managing to escape in the same way. You think they'd learn their lesson. Eventually, I had enough of a sense of the location of the Survey Line that I could avoid it.

After my first escape, the game related how I radioed my report back to the Institute for Space Exploration. I sent them information about the Survey Line, and they basically responded that I needed to find some way to cross it and recon the planets on the other side. 

          

Stealing a Clathran blaster from their base.

       

I continued upgrading my ship and equipment and acquiring abilities. I continued along the Hadrakian and Brotherhood questlines described above. After I learned "Illusion" from the Brotherhood, I used it to sneak into their (active) base on Ghorbon, where I stole a blaster from the armory and, more importantly, got the password to pass through the Survey Line: PENUMBRA.

   

At this point, having learned the Anti-Clathran Evasive Maneuvers from the Hadrakians, having obtained the password, having acquired new skills and equipment, I was sure I'd be able to cross the Survey Line. So I returned to where I encountered the first time, blasted right through, and . . . got caught again. The Anti-Clathran Evasive Maneuvers didn't even appear as an option. When I tried using the password, the captain of the Clathran ship got suspicious and grabbed me anyway. I escaped as before, but what the hell?

         

This got me nowhere.

     

So, clearly there's still more stuff to find. Fortunately, I have a couple of options other than just revisiting every planet to see what I missed. In particular, I took the time to label all of the planets on the map, and I realize now that I missed two of them on this side of the Survey Line. Maybe they'll have what I need. Maybe one will be Mardahl, and I'll be able to get to the end of the Brotherhood questline. Otherwise, I hope that returning that vortex coil to Keros somehow accomplishes something significant.

       

I realize this is a long entry. I was trying to finish the game the other night, so I pushed much further past the point at which I would normally have stopped to write an intermediate entry, and since I decided not to organize it chronologically, there was no obvious place to break it. If I can win it in a few more hours, it will be about as long as the first Star Saga.

    

Time so far: 19 hours

Sword Quest 2: Tale of the Talisman: Won! (with Summary and Rating)

 

       

Sword Quest 2: Tale of the Talisman

United States

NGS Software (developer and original publisher); GT Interactive (later publisher)

Version 1.1c released in 1993 for DOS

Date Started: 31 December 2024

Date Ended: 7 January 2025

Total Hours: 8

Difficulty: Easy-Moderate (2.5/5)

Final Rating: (to come later)

Ranking at time of posting: (to come later)   

       

Summary:

 

A decent DOS clone of Dragon Warrior (1986) for the NES, with ideas that go back to Ultima. The game features a single continent of 16 towns and about a dozen dungeons. In the quest to slay the Dragon King and retrieve his mystical talisman, the player must explore the land, talk to NPCs, search for treasures, assemble clues, and buy equipment upgrades. The iconographic view and keyboard interface work fine, although I had trouble discerning details in some of the icons. MIDI versions of classical music accompany town exploration and combat; sound effects are otherwise negligible or annoying. Combat is basic but challenging; as in Dragon Warrior, the land is partitioned into areas of widely varying difficulty.

    

*****  

    

Tale of the Talisman wrapped up at 8 hours, a couple hours longer than its predecessor. The reasonably short time investment leaves me feeling positive about the game. We've seen others with the same mechanics that stretch on for dozens of hours despite not having the content to justify it, but author Erik Badger avoids that mistake here.

       

I spent most of the time since the first entry circling the continent with occasional jumps (using the "Fly" spell) to the islands, finding towns and following up on leads. As I did, I started to get clues that invoked the L)ook command—specifically, places to search for treasure. NPCs would say to search the southernmost square in a particular desert, or the islands in a river delta, or 7 steps south of the stone circles. One clue said that there was a treasure 1 step south of every entrance to the temple (temple entrances lead to a small, safe dungeon with exits all over the world).

     

A key clue about hidden treasures.

     

Some of these treasures turned out to be caches of gold or magic items. A couple of them were magical amulets that healed me and disappeared. A couple were bits of information. Two of them raised my skill and dexterity to the maximum of 25. I assume there was a similar treasure that would have raised my strength, but I never found it.

      

Maximizing my skill.

       

The most difficult clue promised a pair of magical gauntlets. I spent almost an hour searching a dungeon for them before I re-read the clue and realized that it only said they were near the dungeon entrance, not in the dungeon.

       

Well, no one can get here without going through a dungeon. I'd say they're pretty safe.

       

Regular equipment never advanced. I had been stupid during the first entry by insisting on grinding in one of the game's most difficult areas until I could afford a long sword, full plate, and a large shield. No town ever offered anything better. But that just meant I could invest in magic items. In addition to torches, there are fire jars and magic darts—both offensive items that roughly replicate the "Injure" and "Lightning" spells. Magic wings replicate the "Fly" spell. They're so useful that their existence serves as a money sink throughout the game. Ditto the cure potions. It was until late in the game that I realized I wasn't saving these for some enemy that has a poison attack; rather, they fully restore hit points.

 

I felt there was one significant red herring. NPCs early in the game had suggested that I would need to know the names of all the towns in the world, and a lot of other NPCs seemed to exist just to tell me some of those names. ("Schmazniv and Borfleld are the worst dumps in the world. I never go there.") Eventually, I got a hint to find a magic compass behind the inn in Azdorvill. I nearly didn't find it because at first I didn't realize that "behind" literally meant behind the inn's graphic rather than just in the row of visible spaces behind it.

      

Note that I'm actually "behind" the building.

       

Anyway, this magic compass will tell you the direction to any city you type in, so if you missed a city during your explorations but an NPC told you about it, you can still find it. I had this idea that their first letters would assemble a code phrase that I'd have to use in the endgame or something. None of that ever happened. There really isn't any need to explore every city except to get the hints about the magic items, which aren't strictly necessary.

       

This was great, but you mostly don't need to worry about specific cities.

       

The author could also have done more with dungeons. Except as navigational passages through mountain ranges or under rivers (which cease to be necessary once you have "Fly"), there isn't much point to them. Except for the spellbook at the beginning of the game, no essential item is found in dungeons. Their treasure chests and jewel piles aren't lucrative enough for them to be worth existing for treasure. I ended up never even entering several of them on the eastern side of the map.

    

Because I over-grinded last time, I didn't have to do any grinding this time. Combat still remained oddly difficult, though. Even at Level 80, I might meet a Level 38 dragon that not only blocks my attempts to escape but also manages to kill me in four rounds. I think Level 80 is the maximum, but I could be wrong. Enemies go up to 100. If you're wondering here about my "Easy-Moderate" rating, it's because saving and reloading are so fast that individual enemy difficulty doesn't matter much in the long run.

       

A Level 42 spirit kills a Level 66 hero.

         

Spells weren't quite the help that they should have been, since I saved most of my points for "Heal" and "Fly." "Acid" does hundreds of points of damage and is a good way to end combat nearly instantly. "Freeze" paralyzes enemies for a couple of rounds. They both take a lot of spell points; even at Level 80, I could perhaps cast 3 or 4 of them.

    

The Dragon King waits in a cave on an eastern island, reachable only by "Fly" or one of the temple exits. In the towns, I got some dialogue that suggested that the Dragon King was the same being as the warlock that I faced in the first Sword Quest. However, nothing ever came of this revelation. When I met the Dragon King, he didn't gasp and say "YOUUUUUUU!" or anything.

    

Can't be the same guy. I'm just a jester.

     

The Dragon King attacks in a large room full of treasure. It's a tough fight, but a lot depends on luck. He's immune to "Freeze" but not to any of the other offensive spells or magic items. He can cast the same spells the player can, including "Heal," and his physical attack can damage over 200 points; I only had 325 maximum when I took him on.

        

Too bad I can only cast a couple of these.

      

But a lot depends on luck, including whether he chooses to use a particular spell and its damage. I had him hit me for 0 damage or cast "Acid" for 6 damage as many times as those same actions damaged me for 200 or 300 points. So I just had to reload a couple of times and get lucky. He had maybe 600 hit points. I killed him with two castings of "Acid" and then by using my magic darts.

        

There wasn't enough space in the inventory window to show both the compass and the talisman, so the compass had to break.

      

The subtitular talisman was on his body when he died. NPCs had informed me that when I had the talisman in hand, the kingdom's castle would reappear, and they had told me exactly where to find it. I walked to the location, entered, and immediately got the endgame screen. Golbe regained its capital; its army destroyed the rest of the Dragon King's minions; and the magicians of Zrofdomel kept their word and returned me to Ferd.

 

I don't think I took a dungeon combat screen last time, so here's one.

       

In a GIMLET, I give the game:

    

• 3 points for the game world. The story and main quest are a bit derivative, but the physical world is somewhat interesting.

      

My final map of the world. The dungeon entrance annotation is incomplete.

      

• 3 points for character creation and development. There isn't much to either, but development is at least rapid. Your grinding is definitely rewarded.

• 3 points for NPCs. They exist; they tell you clues about the game world; and they give you hints and side quests. One thing I forgot to mention is that key pieces of information are seeded among multiple NPCs, reducing the chance that you'll miss something important. Three NPCs told me about the location of the magic compass, for instance. Ultima could have learned a lesson from that mechanic.

         

At least I can spell "dismal."

     

• 2 points for encounters and foes. There are only about 10 enemies. Some are harder than others, but they don't act much like their respective types, and the idea of a "level 1 dragon" is relatively absurd. I give it a point for the ability to grind, however.

• 3 points for magic and combat. Basic, but it gets some credit for a few interesting spells and usable magic items.

      

The full spell list.

      

• 3 points for equipment. The game has a very basic hierarchical scale for weapons (6 items), armor (5 items), and shields (3 items). Again, the usable items are worth a point.

• 4 points for the economy. It has no complexity, but I always appreciate a game in which money doesn't lose its value. 

• 3 points for a main quest with a couple of side areas and optional character-building quests.

• 2 points for graphics, sound, and interface. I can't give it much for graphics because I couldn't really see them. I passed by cities numerous times because they didn't stand out from the landscape. Monster graphics aren't the worst I've seen but are still a bit amateurish (Badger advertised looking for a graphic artist in the game materials). Sound is best turned off lest you want to listen to 30 seconds of tones every time you cast a spell. (Players who like music will unfortunately miss a small selection of public domain works in MIDI format.) The only points I give here are for the easy keyboard commands and the thorough automap.

    

There's a town to my east.

     

• 4 points for gameplay. It's generally nonlinear and paced appropriately for its content, though a little on the easy side.

    

That gives us a final score of 30, nine points higher than I gave Sword Quest. It's a decent score for a shareware game. If I had Erik Badger's ear in 1993, I would have said "good start." I would have suggested several ways he could go to increase the complexity and immersion for the sequel.

   

The documentation lists several additional NGS titles in the works, including Realm Quest 1, which promises a party of 4 characters and the ability to fight up to 9 monsters at once; Mega Quest 1, another party game in a "huge fractal generated world"; and Dungeon Quest 1, a 3D dungeon crawler. Alas, Badger soon found that college left little time for programming, and he never finished those games.

       

GT Interactive ended up republishing his works (with some bug fixes and updates) and sold them in department stores, including Wal-Mart, which Badger says provided him with some nice income, but not enough to cover tuition. He went into telecommunications software programming. "If you have ever used a cell-connected device in the U.S., India, Korea, much of Europe, or most of South America," he says, "my code has most likely been involved in managing that connection."

    

In lieu of a shareware fee, Badger suggested a donation to Habitat for Humanity, so I'm happy to designate them "Charity of the Month." Please consider donating if you don't already subscribe to me via Patreon, in which case 20% of your donation will go to them anyway.

Betrayal at Krondor: Promises to Keep

My explorations this session. See the final paragraph for an explanation of the map.

      

As this session opens, Gorath and Owyn are on the other side of the mountains from where the game began. We are on the edge of the great wood known as Elvandar, where the Eledhel—the good elves—live. We've come all this way looking for Tomas, who might know something about the Book of Macros, which might in some way help Pug find his abducted daughter, Gamina. What the abduction has to do with the game's primary threat—the invasion of the Kingdom of the Isles by the Moredhel (bad elves)—is not currently clear. It's a long way to come on such a nebulous hint. There's also the possibility that Gorath, a renegade Moredhel, will be killed the moment he encounters one of his Eledhel relatives.

    

I apparently saved last time right in front of a shop called Split Tree Goods. They sell Grey Tower Plate, which the kobold in the mines wanted, so I buy a set to take back to him. It costs a ridiculous amount of money, and in real life no one would spend that much to satisfy a side quest for a kobold, but this is a CRPG.

  

I think this is the only CRPG in which I've done a side quest for a kobold.

    

We bring the suit of armor back to the pit where we met the kobold. He sends back down to his people for a magical chalice, which he offers to us. It gives us 5 points to our maximum health and stamina, so I guess it was worth the cost and time. Two days later, we find ourselves back in the same spot we started.

    

Elvandar turns out to be a very large, open area. Rather than exhaust myself trying to explore it all, I decide to stick to the road but use the spyglass to identify things off to the sides. I find that it often shows me dots where I can't actually find any items or encounters, even when I'm standing right on top of them. Hopefully it doesn't have as many false negatives as false positives.

      

One problem I have in this area: the inability to tell the road from the rest of the ground.

      

Shortly after the shop, the road forks, and I take the right branch. We fight our first battle against three wyverns. They hit hard, and from a distance, but are as susceptible as anything else to "The Fetters of Rime." (A general rule of thumb in this game is that if there are three enemies or less, there's no way to lose the battle unless you deliberately handicap yourself by not casting that spell.) On the other side of an easy trap, we find a rope going up into the trees. It leads to a treehouse with a hammock and a chest. The chest has arrows, Flame Root Oil, and a wyvern's egg. I'm already carrying one of those, and I still don't know what they do.

    

Hacking a frozen wyvern while a dead one lies behind us.

      

The spyglass alerts us to a cluster of things in the woods to the east. Getting there becomes easier when I realize that the trees have no substance. They're not like the hills or mountains on other parts of the map; you can just walk right through them. We beat two more wyverns before finding a group of stumps with money and consumables. My inventory is so bloated at this point that I have to make some tough choices.

     

Continuing to follow the road network, I find:

    

• Three Moredhel warriors and a witch hag. Fortunately, they don't target Owyn, and thanks to trying to get rid of items at the tree stumps, I'm fully buffed. Post-combat, it's really hard to find their bodies in the thicket.

• More stumps with things like clerical oilcloths, coins, and poisons.

     

My money woes are over!

     

• Several more traps, more complicated than the first.

• Two Moredhel warriors and two witch hags. We surprise them, but one of the witch hags still manages to nail Gorath pretty solidly with a spell. 

• A really difficult battle in which two wyverns and a figure I couldn't identify attacked us on the same screen as a trap. The trap pieces force the enemy right up against us, which means Owyn can't cast any spells. I find it hard to discern the positions of everything on the screen, and not for the first time I wish that the game had featured a straight top-down battle grid, or at least one that was a little more rotated on the vertical axis.

    

Solving the puzzle after the battle.

     

An elf named Calin appears shortly after this battle and thanks us for killing the wyverns. Gorath assures him that he means no harm, and Calin asks us to tell his mother and Tomas that he is well. Calin appears in the books; he is the son of Queen Aglaranna and her late elven husband, before she married the human Tomas. He says that the Moredhel have been raiding their borders, and he is going to oppose them at . . . I missed the name of the place. He hints at something with Gorath—that they've met before or Gorath has been there before or something. He tells us the Moredhel have been controlling the wyverns, though not easily, and he gives Owyn a spell scroll that will allow Owyn to do the same: "Thy Master's Will."

         

What evil did we bring?

     

Calin also directs us to Elvandar. He offers several paths, one of which goes underground through a Valheru ruin, to which he gives Gorath the key. He warns us about the Sleeping Glades, where those who enter fall asleep for days and usually die of hunger.

    

We run into a river north of here and have to turn back around to the road and take it almost all the way back down to where this session began. On the way back, we trip a battle with four Moredhel that we missed on the way up. I take the opportunity to return to Split Tree Goods and buy some rations, which are getting low (each of the characters have about six) for the first time in the game. This turns out to be a bit ironic.

   

I thought this was a nice shot of the river and a bridge.

  

Calin suggested basically two paths to get to Elvandar. The "northern bridge," which would take us through a lot of battles with wyverns, and the "western bridge," which would take us through the Sleeping Glades and the Valheru ruins. I decide on the second path, largely because it sounds more interesting. I figure the river must cut through the entire map—otherwise, it would be an option to take neither bridge and just go around it—so I decide to follow the southern border of the map until I hit the river, then work my way up to the bridge. This seems like a nice balance between exploration and moving to the next plot point.

     

Except the exploration gets me almost nothing—there isn't a single battle or encounter all the way across the bottom border of Elvandar, except a moment in which the companions hear a high-pitched whine to the north and wonder what it might be. Eventually, we reach the river on the far western side of the map.

       

I should have taken the road.

      

I begin following it to the north, although I know it must cut east at some point. Again, the spyglass shows me things that I can't actually find in the dense growth. Where the river finally does turn, we face a battle with a Moredhel spellcaster and four rusalki, who I thought we were done with ages ago. They kill us on the first try, with the rusalki pelting Gorath with spells until he goes down. We make sure we're healthier and buffed for the second attempt. The spellcaster has a magic item called Eliaem's Heart, which summons rusalki to aid you in battle. 

     

Two wyverns attack as we approach the western bridge, and I notice for the first time that "Thy Master's Will" isn't among my combat options despite appearing in my spell list. The cause of this doesn't become clear until some time later, after I've shifted some inventory: Owyn has to have a wyvern's egg in his pack to cast the spell. So that's what they're for. Why did I start finding them like four chapters ago?

    

From what I can tell, a useless spell.

       

The spell makes one wyvern flee but for some reason does a ton of damage to Gorath and consumes the egg. Why would anyone carry around a bunch of eggs for such a pathetic outcome?

   

Anyway, that happens later. For now, dissatisfied with the lack of encounters, I decide to explore the river further before crossing the western bridge. Not far from the bridge, we meet a rusalki in the woods, but she wants to talk to us. "I can see that your hearts are true and as such I will do you no harm," she says. She asks us to help her by finding the Moredhel spellcaster who has been "perverting the wills of my kin with a strange device." This turns out to be Eliaem's Heart, and of course we already have it. 

       

Your sisters didn't seem to mind that our hearts were true.

       

As a reward, she comically gives us 126 rations in 9 packets of 14 each, plus a shell that she insists might come in handy later. (I might be wrong about this; she might have given us more like 200 rations, but some went into our inventory.) This is the moment that Georges warned me about a few weeks ago, and I prepared beforehand by dumping some excess stuff in a sack before talking to the rusalki. We can only take a little of the food.

       

Uh . . . thanks?

      

As we reach the northern bridge, Gorath makes a strong case for not crossing it, but I do anyway, intending to immediately turn south and make our way to the other bridge on this side of the river. Another wyvern battle follows—here's where I figure out the spell—but otherwise, we make it back without incident. 

     

Wuss.

       

Unless Sleeping Glade is going to consume several dozen rations, I'm not really afraid of it, but I also figure there's no reason to blunder into it. Calin told us to hug the mountains to avoid it, so we continue past the bridge to the western border of the map, then work our way north. We feel the effects of the glade at one point but otherwise manage to pass by it without falling asleep.

      

Stay awake! I don't think Glinda exists in this universe.

   

The mountain range ends at a cave entrance, where we're again attacked by two wyverns on the oddest combat map that the game has given me so far. After that, we're in the ancient ruins.

         

I guess I understand why this happened, but the game has never presented this angle before, nor started my characters in the upper part of the screen.

      

The ruins consist of a moderate-sized single level with a fairly linear path along a winding corridor. Dead-ends and rooms jut off this central passage. In order, we encounter:

        

• A dead body on the ground. It has a nice suit of armor and some spoiled rations.

• Two shades guarding a hallway. They are not immune to "Fetters of Rime."

• Gorath suddenly makes a connection with where we are and what we heard about the resting place of the Guarda Revanche. I'm glad he figures it out because I'm not sure I would have. This prompts me to load an earlier save and re-read the Abbot's Journal, where I learn what to do below.

     

A timely hint.

     

• A grave to Latham McCann, who "lived the mines" and "never wanted to leave." We leave it alone.

• Two more shades, who we catch by surprise.

      

Shades waiting in the corridor.

    

• A trapped chest. Although Owyn detects the trap, it blows up in our faces, killing us both, and we have to reload. A couple more attempts produce the same outcome. I hate to leave it, but I have no other choice. I haven't found anything that buffs disarming traps. I'm not even sure what skill governs it.

• A room with a locked door that opens with a Noble's Passkey. It has our first fairy chest of the session, raising the question of what the Moredhel have been doing in this ruin. "Don't grow too attached to this thing. Without it, you will never even know it is gone. But be careful, friend; it is much easier to lose on Kingdom soil." I want it to be MEMORY or MIND or HEAD, but I get it by playing around with the dials (LIFE). This has a few consumables and the "Mad God's Rage" spell.

• Second chest: "What is it of yours that you see every day, but our Leader sees only rarely?" (EQUALS) is the answer. I get the spirit of it almost immediately, but it takes me a while to get the specific word. This chest is full of arrows, an elven crossbow, and the "Mirrorwall" spell.

• A room with a door that opens to the Key of Lineages that Calin gave us (we also bought one in the shop). This room has a single fairy chest: "Where once there were three, now are only two. Ancient kin ours, whom we sent to their doom." You could get this one from the lore if you've read the books—a third race of elves called the GLAMREDHEL. But it's also explicitly in the Abbot's Journal.

       

I forgot how the Moredhel "sent them to their doom," though.

     

The chest has restoratives, clerical oilcloth, Killian's Root oil, and the handle and guard of a sword. It is labeled "exotic sword." But when I use the shell on it, the game tells me there's a "searing flash of heat" and the Guarda Revanche forms out of the two pieces. It has a base damage of 90 plus the user's strength and a base accuracy of 45 plus the user's skill (for a thrust, which is all I've done in ages). Gorath's existing Sword of Lims-Kragma has a base damage of 49 and a base accuracy of 10. So the Guarda Revanche is quite a bit better. And for some reason, the Guarda Revanche has a racial modifier for an elf.

      

I wish I knew what I was avenging.

     

Yet despite the greater statistics, it's not terribly more effective against the shades we encounter between this room and the exit. Perhaps swords just aren't as effective against shades in general.

    

On the other side of the dungeon, we emerge to find the end of the chapter. I thought we'd have to poke around to find Elvandar. Within moments, we are before Queen Aglaranna and Tomas. Owyn tries to explain our quest, but Aglaranna first makes Gorath swear an oath of "return" to the Eledhel and obedience to her and Tomas. The whole event is weird, starting from when Aglaranna asks Gorath whether he is willing to swear the oath:

      

Rage flashed in his eyes. Trembling with emotion, Gorath advanced on the Queen, his hand darting to the hilt of his sword.

"No, Gorath!" Owyn gasped, knowing his voice was too small to stay his friend's wrath. "You can't!"

    

"I was Gorath of Clan Ardanien," he spat, his voice thick with an ageless contempt. Color drained from his face as he gripped ever more tightly to the sword at his side. "I am Gorath and I formally return to the Eledhel and swear fealty to Aglaranna, Queen of Elves and to Tomas, Prince Consort and Warleader." Falling to one knee, he knelt low before Aglaranna's feet. "I am yours to command, lady."

        

Everyone's acting weird in this sequence.

     

I'm not entirely sure what to make of the exchange. Gorath has been presented as a proud Moredhel who might disagree with Delekhan but doesn't have any desire to divorce himself from his people. Why would he swear this oath? Does he just recognize that it's the only way to complete the quest? Why is he so committed to the quest in the first place? He's already finished what he originally set out to do.

     

Afterwards, Tomas relates that . . . I'm a bit confused, actually. He seems to say that there is no Book of Macros, but rather it's a code phrase that indicates Pug needs Tomas's help. Tomas has something that Pug gave him that will allow him to teleport to wherever Pug is. That thing is . . . a book. So there really is a Book of Macros? Either way, Tomas can't fulfill the request. He has been struck recently with a poisoned Moredhel blade, and he's barely able to participate in our conversation through the haze of all the painkillers he's on. Gorath—again, what the hell?—suggests that he send him and Owyn instead. Tomas agrees, and within moments, the pair are warped away.

         

"I mean, Owyn is neither the strongest nor the fastest. I'm pretty good at both of those things."

       

The game transitions to Northwarden for Chapter VII: "The Long Ride." Arutha's forces have won the battle and are celebrating their victory, though Arutha knows it is only momentary. Word arrives that the leader of the Moredhel army (not Delekhan, but one of his lieutenants) has been captured. Arutha has him tortured (by a comically stereotypical black-hooded bare-chested torturer) in a scene that is both uncomfortable and seems out of character. 

       

Not my conception of Arutha. In several ways.

         

Under torture, the Moredhel screams that his people "know the secret of Sethanon!" Arutha's like, "What?" The Moredhel says that they know Arutha captured Murmandamus (the Moredhel leader from A Darkness at Sethanon) and imprisoned him. "Deluded fool!" Arutha replies. "We killed Murmandamus at Sethanon and burned his bones for potash! There's nothing there for Delekhan to find!"

   

He demands how the Moredhel will get past Highcastle, and the Moredhel reveals that the Six (Delekhan's mages) have a rift machine that can open a portal to the Dimwood, which will allow the Moredhel to strike an undefended Sethanon while all of Arutha's troops are up the road in Highcastle. Arutha realizes he's been betrayed by the Tsurani, as the rift machine could only come from them. Why isn't this the betrayal? Of course, it's not really at Krondor.

       

Maybe the real betrayal is Arutha betraying his own values.

      

Arutha gives orders for James and Locklear to ride for Dimwood and to destroy the rift machine. Arutha has to ride for Highcastle to divert his troops to Sethanon. I still don't know if Arutha is lying. If not, why not just let the Moredhel sack Sethanon? The place is abandoned anyway.

   

The chapter begins with James, Locklear, and Patrus on the road with all their stuff from Chapter V.

    

I'll pick up with them next time, but I'm struck at this point by how little of Elvandar I explored and how quickly, and permanently, that adventure ended. It's a good thing I heeded the rusalki's call and decided not to just push my way through the wyverns, or I never would have found the Guarda Revanche. For the first time since I started playing the game, I let myself look up a map of the area online, on a site called Mike's RPG Center. It shows dozens of encounters that I didn't experience, mostly in the northwest quadrant of the map. It appears that most of what I missed was wyvern battles, though, so I guess I'm okay with my route. I used Mike's map to annotate my travels this session.

    

This chapter exemplifies most of the game's strengths: a somewhat open world, packed with encounters, some violent, some not, some simple, some complex, almost all optional. But now I'm ready for a more linear path to the game's conclusion. 

      

Time so far: 61 hours