Swords and Serpents: Top Heavy

See the bottom of this entry.

       

Not for the first time, Swords and Serpents has made me aware that I enjoy filling in gridded maps about as much as I like playing RPGs. If the game featured no combat at all--and it might as well not--I might still enjoy it about as much, and I'd still probably produce 16 carefully annotated maps on the way to the bottom.

    

Since you've already read plenty of Odes to Mapping in my previous entries (I would look them up and link to them, but I suspect if I don't, Busca will do the work for me), let me talk about something that occurred to me this time: I like it more when a) the game offers predictable grids; and b) every square is used. When a game lets its tiles make any shape or go off in any direction, I may like it more from a game world perspective, but I like it less mechanically. I enjoy knowing exactly how many squares the game is going to ask me to map--in this case, 4,096--and thus what percentage of the game I've completed. Every time I fill in a square, it's like watching a progress bar move closer to the end. In something like Crusaders of the Dark Savant, you have no idea where you are in terms of total progress.

   

Level 4 of the dungeon.

      

Meanwhile, when a game starts not using some of its squares, it feels like it's breaking its own rules. I want to toss the map in the air and say, "@%$! it, why do I even bother?" Swords and Serpents, in breaking neither rule, has kept me slightly addicted to mapping alone.

    

It's funny because by 1990, Interplay had largely outgrown 16 x 16 maps. They started there with The Bard's Tale (1985), but even that game's own sequels started experimenting with different sizes and shapes. Dragon Wars (1990) was still tiled, but the maps had very little predictability. Lord of the Rings, Vol. I (1990) abandoned tiles completely for continuous movement. But it's like they decided for their first console game, they needed to reach deep back into their roots. I find it amusing that Serpents came out the same year that ex-Interplay developer Michael Cranford wrote Centauri Alliance. These feel like products from the same author, down to the teleporters, one-way doors, and other mechanical tricks that the 1980s were famous for.

      

And Level 5! I hate dungeon levels that wrap. It makes no sense.

     

In between these levels, you have to fight a lot of battles--way more than makes any sense--and there isn't much to say about them. Enemies are differentiated only by image and level. They have no special attacks or defenses. You can't even really enjoy the tactics presented by magic spells (or at least I can't) because you mostly need your spell points for healing and navigation, and there aren't many good offensive spells anyway. Some readers want me to make more of the monster animations, but this is another area in which I disagree with most players. I would rather see the name of the monster I'm fighting than its image, and even in games that offer both, a static portrait that never varies between monsters of the same type excites me about as much as text. Portraits in which monsters swing their arms back and forth or blink or wave a weapon excite me only a little more than static portraits. Come back to me when the monster animations actually build immersion and convey something about what the monster is doing, so the player can tactically respond.

       

Somewhere during this session was my first eight-enemy battle.

     

That's about it for the broad themes. From here, I'll just cover level by level until I hit 2,500 words.

   

I explored Levels 1-3 during the first session. Level 4 was called "Secret Square," I assume because it culminated in a 5 x 5 square in the center of the level, although smaller 2 x 2 squares were featured throughout. The way to the central square had to be opened by hitting the corners of the level in a precise order, as clued by a message: "The four locks must be opened in the Mark of the 'Z.'"

    

Once I was through the door that the right pattern opened, a message warned, "Never do anything right!" This was a clue to turn left through a secret door rather than to turn right and follow a corridor uselessly around until it dumped the party out, although of course I had to do that just to map it. The same message was repeated just outside the central room, as to open its door, the player has to walk the perimeter corridor clockwise rather than counterclockwise.

       

This message means you haven't done something right.

     

The level had a zoom tube back to Level 1, something that's thankfully always telegraphed with Burma-Shave-like signs in the squares before the teleporter. Here, they read:

   

You've come this far . . .

Are you sure . . .

. . . you want to enter . . . 

ZOOM TUBE!

         

The level had two spells, a "Strength" spell and a "Death Mist" spell, neither of which seemed to do much in combat.

    

Level 5 was titled "The Haven," I imagine because it offered the first temple and armory since Level 1. It was the first level that wrapped, a mechanic that I inevitably loathe in any first-person tiled game. (I don't like it that much more in top-down games, either.) This created an odd pattern by which what is clearly the "center" of the level is divided into the four corners if you map in a way that retains the positioning of the earlier levels. 

   

This was a relief.

      

This central area is walled-off and completely inaccessible except for the "Passwall" spell, which the level offers, along with "Flight" (lets you levitate over traps). It seemed rather early for "Passwall." Using it in the closed-off parts of the level produced 400 gold pieces and a Glow Cloak.

     

Nice of someone to do that for us.

      

I was a little disappointed that the armory didn't have any items for sale that I didn't already have, except for helmets. I'd found one, but my characters needed a few more. Once I got done buying those, I still had thousands of gold pieces and no place to spend them. If the armory on Level 10 doesn't have better stuff, the economy in this game is going to be utterly worthless except for a couple of swords on Level 1.

      

Given that there's no way to lose or break equipment in this game, and that every character starts with at least a dagger, why would anyone ever need to buy one, especially on Level 5?

        

I took the "Passwall" spell back up to the previous levels and explored the closed-off areas. Level 1's closed square had a two-way teleporter to Level 6. A 2 x 1 area of Level 2 had absolutely nothing. A single square on Level 3 offered a Mirror Shield. Level 4 had a one-way teleporter to Level 9, which forced me to reload when I couldn't find a legitimate way back.

     

Level 6. I like big rooms. It makes things go faster.

    

There were four stairways down, and given their positions, I thought they'd all lead to a different corner of Level 6. Instead, they all funneled to the same square in the southwest corner of Level 6. That was weird.

 

"Shocking Truth" was Level 6's title, named for a large 10 x 9 room in which almost every square had a shock trap, thus requiring the "Flight" spell. (If that weren't obvious, a message read: "To fly as a bird would leave low concerns behind.") The center of this area offered the "Thunder" spell, an offensive spell that damages two enemies at once, but in practice does so little damage in comparison to a physical attack that it's not worth the pause in combat to cast it. I'd rather just use the spell points for healing later. 

       

I think I've done this dance at weddings.

      

There was an odd area to the southwest that could be accessed via the teleporter from Level 3 or a secret door from the large room with the traps. If you come the first way, you encounter a message that says, "you've found Secret Level Alpha!" The second way tells you that "you've found Secret Level Beta." A 4 x 4 room within this area (accessible only with "Passwall") offered the "Major Heal" spell, a full-party healing spell, which was nice because I was sick by then of casting one "Heal" at a time.

       

At this point, I have almost every spell in the game.

     

The manual says that you need the "seven ruby treasures," and I was starting to get concerned because I hadn't found anything since the Ruby Glasses on Level 2. This secret area had both the Ruby Shield and the Ruby Ring. Elsewhere on the level was a brass key that wasn't used anywhere on Level 6 or 7.

     

Level 7 was a little predictable.

      

Level 7 was called "Death" for no reason that I can see. It wasn't particularly hard. It consisted of 16 square rooms ringed by corridors. The "Stun" spell showed up somewhere, plus the Ruby Helmet and Ruby Crown. A zoom tube went back to Level 5. The way down to Level 8 was another 2 x 2 room with stairs in every square, except this time they went to different squares on Level 8.

      

This makes it sound like Kirk had it all along.

      

Level 8, "Rebirth," made extensive use of one of my least-favorite navigational elements: invisible walls. They occurred in extremely odd, irregular patterns, sometimes completely enclosing one or more squares, although they could be breached with "Passwall." The level had a magic fountain and zoom tube to Level 5, both nearly completely surrounded by teleporters to other points on the same level. I wasted a little time assuming that the Ruby Glasses would help me see the walls, but either I was wrong or I didn't figure out how to use them.

     

Level 8. I probably missed some invisible walls because I didn't try approaching and leaving every square from every direction.

        

An encounter in a 3 x 3 room enclosed by invisible walls said: "There is a short pole in the sand here!" My first thought was, "What, is someone playing horseshoes?" I then remembered I had been carrying a horseshoe since Level 3. I used it and got 5,000 experience points, enough to jump the party two experience levels.

      

I am preternaturally good at horseshoes in real life.

        

There were two stairways down to Level 9, one in the southeast corner and one in the southwest. Both were behind locked brass doors, and I'm relieved I ignored the impulse to discard the key after opening the first door. I only hope I don't need that gold key again because I tossed it a while ago.

       

Does every sentence have to end in an exclamation point!?

        

Most levels have offered a hint to what I imagine is some Spectre Snare (from The Bard's Tale II) sequence at the end game. So far, I have:

    

• When the time comes . . . prepare for VICTORY!
• For VICTORY, you must pass through walls!
• After sensing VICTORY, walk straight . . . Walls must be no barrier! 
• When walls become barriers on the path to VICTORY, turn left!
• When you turn left to VICTORY, two steps forward and one step backward!
• When you step back on the path of VICTORY, walk straight until your spell fails!

          

Then die!

      

These are in the order I received them, and they seem to all fit in that order. I like to think that VICTORY is the name of the dragon.

        

Lots of miscellaneous notes:

     

• The party reached Level 10 during this session and got occasional inventory upgrades. The game does a good job showing you exact statistics for each item, which I appreciate. But individual combats as well as getting back to a temple are both easy enough that combat feels like a minor annoyance rather than a central part of the game.

      

Weapon statistics. "Efficiency" is the speed of attack.

       

• Occasionally a new enemy is introduced, but most of the foes you face on a new level are harder variants of the ones you faced on earlier levels. Some of them are differentiated by color, and I don't really know what that means.

      

Most of the enemies I've fought so far.

     

• Testing with save states shows that there are some fixed combats in the game, but it's otherwise hard to tell them from random ones. Oddly, in most of these fixed combats the number of foes is fixed but the type of foe is randomized.

• Since "Passwall" is essential to entering certain mandatory areas, it's not possible to win the game without at least one mage. The manual warns you about this. I don't find it unforgivable, but I also don't like it.

• "Passwall" doesn't work everywhere. There are certain hard walls that it won't penetrate, presumably to keep you from circumventing puzzles and locks. 

      

I guess I'll have to go the long way around.

       

• Inventory space is becoming a big problem. Each character can only carry 6 items, but 4 of the slots are taken up by weapon, armor, shield, and helmet. Mandatory items like the Ruby things (some of which you cannot equip) and keys take up most of the other ones. You want at least one slot free for equipment that you find after combat, which is the source of most upgrades. I might soon get to a point where I have to sacrifice armor for inventory space.

      

Oryx has only one free inventory slot.

       

• Another way the game is like The Bard's Tale is that you're forced to pick up useless stuff after a lot of battles, which you then have to go and immediately drop.

       

Thanks. I already have a better one.

       

• The game only remembers the automap for the last two levels you visited, but fortunately it remembers the things you did on each level, so you don't have to (for instance) open locked doors twice.

 

As I get ready to go to Level 9 (again) and the second half of the game, it feels like too much has happened in the first half. I have 5 of 7 Ruby items all but one of the game's spells ("Viper"). "Passwall" means that navigational puzzles don't hit as hard as they otherwise would. Overall, it just feels like too much happened in the first half to sustain 8 more levels. Maybe I'm in for a surprise.

   

Time so far: 12 hours

     

*****

    

I was paralyzed. Pick your favorite caption:

   

• "I guess the long night has come."
• "This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end."
• "I guess it's time for Irene to take over this blog while I do the housework."
• "Am I losing control or am I winning?" 
• "I just hope Grant Ward and Skye end up together."

Betrayal at Krondor: A Pox Upon Ye

 

"Again," the text forgot to mention.

      

Our narrative picks up in Chapter 2. Prince Arutha has been warned about the growing Moredhel threat, and now Seigneur James, the apprentice mage Owyn, and the Moredhel turncoat Gorath are on the road to Romney, where they hope to intercept communications between the Moredhel general, Delekhan, and the Nighthawks assassins' guild. These messages may reveal which northern city the Moredhel intend to strike first. We join the narrative on the road heading east from Malac's Cross towards the crossroads at Lyton. Romney is three more cities to the east from there.

     

The party hits the open road.

      

As before, we do not stay resolutely to the road, but rather adopt a zig-zag pattern of movement that careens between the impassable mountains on both sides of the road, allowing us to find stray treasures, NPCs, and other encounters. While engaged in such off-roading, we come across a dead body carrying three rations and a shell. Next to him is a fairy chest. We haven't had one of these in a while. The puzzle is of a different sort than before. Instead of a verse riddle, it offers five words in a row: MAGIC, DEATH, TEMPLE, BLESS, and REST. We have to input a sixth word. from the following letters:

     

S A S S T

T L I L S

A R E O E

C H R I U

     

Looking through the letter combos, I see (CHEST) as a possibility, and it turns out to be the answer, but I don't know why. The only thing I see the words having in common is they frequently appear in fantasy games. Is there some other commonality I'm missing?

        

It was satisfying to open nonetheless.

       

In any event, the chest has 74 royals, a shovel, a lockpick, and 4 uses of Flame Root Oil, which protects against cold-based weapons.

   

Further along, we come across a couple of houses with black ribbons on the doors. James tells the party this is a sign of sickness, warning people to keep away, and yet someone has clearly ransacked one of the houses recently. We enter to conduct our own investigation and find a sack of 34 sovereigns beneath the floorboards. The family being dead, James sees no reason not to take it, though he promises to "give a charitable donation of equal size to Father Tully should we ever see Krondor again."

     

This turned out to be a bad idea.

    

Unfortunately, the moment we leave the house, we all exhibit signs of plague. After thinking about it for a second, I decide to head backwards to the Temple of Ruthia rather than press our luck going forward. Alas, I forgot about the Nighthawk ambush that we evaded last time, and so we walk right into it and get slaughtered. My reload is from before contracting the plague, and I have to make that awful roleplayer's choice about whether to stay honest and do the unfortunate thing a second time.

       

I still can't beat these guys.

      

I compromise: I reload from Malac's Cross and spend 409 of my 630 sovereigns on the Keshian Tapir (haggled down from 487). I head for the ambush and buff with the only thing I have that will help: Dalatail Milk. I intend to fight until I win, then go back and get plagued, then return to the temple. I give up on this plan after about 10 tries at the battle. The problem is that the enemies always go first and always pathologically set their sights on Owyn, so he can never cast spells. On my best try, I manage to kill three of them.

        

Plague and poison are represented by percentages. If you can get them to 0, you're cured.

         

So I reload again, get myself plagued, and take my chances on the road ahead. It turns out that I don't have far to go: there's a Temple of Lims-Kragma a stone's throw from the plague houses. But before I find it, I come across the statue of a dragon. As we admire it, Owyn gasps and collapses to the ground. The statue speaks to Owyn in his mind: "I am no dragon though I wear a dragon's skin. I am the Oracle of Aal and I am the last of my race. I am ancient, older than dwarf or elf, older than dragons and older than the Valheru who were their masters." That's pretty damned old.

       

In a D&D game, we'd be on the alert for medusas.

       

The Oracle foretells that Owyn has a great destiny and will need to return to consult the Oracle again. For now, Owyn can ask him about GORATH and DELEKHAN. The Oracle says that Gorath is "not what he names himself to be," but he will be a strong ally to Owyn and perhaps even his own people. "A great destiny awaits him should he have the courage to renounce his pain." He has an even more cryptic but interesting prophecy of Delekhan: "Delekhan will never cross the boundary between the Kingdom and the Northlands, but through treachery he will strike a blow against both the Kingdom and his own Nations of the North." He is working on a "deceit" with six magicians. 

     

The Oracle plays a role in A Darkness at Sethanon. The Aal were the first race to inhabit the world of Midkemia.

       

Back on the road, we find the Temple of Lims-Kragma and soon discover that it will cost more to cure all three of us of plague than we have. Through experimentation, we find that each dose of Restoratives removes 5% of plague, and we have exactly enough for all three characters. I will not be entering any houses with black ribbons again.

    

I almost forget to talk to the head priestess at the temple. Lims-Kragma is the god of death, and James is curious what awaits him after death. The priestess says she can't tell him (or doesn't know), but "there is no joy or love in her realm, but neither is there sorrow or pain." She further relates that Nighthawks swear oaths to other gods to avoid death at the cost of their souls, something explored in Silverthorn. The temple wants 245 sovereigns to bless one of our swords--almost all we have left--so we move on without it. 

     

A random gravestone. That's sad.

      

There's another fairy chest at the next intersection, this one with a more traditional riddle: "It asks no questions, but demands many answers. Don't knock it until you are ready to see what waits on the other side." The answer is 7 letters long. I hope it's not easy because I cannot figure it out. 

   

Around this time, I noticed something interesting about the interface: despite its continuous-movement nature, time does not pass while the party is standing still. Nor does it pass if the party rotates in place. Only forward or backward movement causes the clock to advance. There are implications of this for the engine that I'm at the edge of understanding. One benefit of this approach is that when I switch screens to make notes, I don't have to worry about my characters getting exhausted in the meantime.

   

The road turns north towards Lyton, and a little way up the road, we're ambushed by four Nighthawks. We're able to defeat them. What makes the difference, more than simply one fewer foe, is that two of them are archers. While they're still dangerous, they don't rush forward and crowd Owyn, so Owyn is able to get some space and cast spells, which makes the whole thing go a lot easier. I do take a fair bit of damage, though, and Owyn is hit with a poisoned quarrel. After the battle, we even get a textual description of the poison: It is "slowly sapping his strength, draining him of everything but his will to survive."

     

And before them their rivals are deceased.

      

The poison prevents Owyn from regaining health or stamina. I try an herbal packet, and while it does reduce some of the poison, it's clear its effects will run out before the poison does. I turn around and head back to the Temple of Lims-Kragma, prepared to pay through the nose for the service, only to find that while they charge a Shkrelian cost for curing the plague, they apparently cure poison for free.

   

I'll pause here to say that in general, I enjoy the wound/poison/disease system of this game. I like that none of these conditions are trivial matters, easily healed with a spell or a night of rest. Recovering from a bad battle can take multiple days, a lot of money, or both. Avoiding wounds, or dealing with their consequences, becomes a part of the strategy of gameplay. It affects your choices of what roads and risks to take and informs your overall approach to a chapter. I'd almost call it a "survival mechanic." It adds to the challenge, the realism, and the sense of role-playing.

        

This is just a shot of us approaching the temple.

    

We find an empty chest, an abandoned inn, and some dead-end roads before arriving at a small house with a well in the back. We're zapped by magic as we try to approach the well. Owyn notices magical symbols on the house's front door, and its owner, an elderly man, surprises us as we study them. "I was out back tending some chores," he explains. He introduces himself as Flarr Wygn and says that his late brother, a mage, put protection spells on both the house and the well, which heals all injuries. He offers to let us drink for 25 sovereigns, which we accept. The ease of this healing doesn't negate what I said above, as 25 sovereigns is a hefty chunk of cash, and it turns out that he means each. I don't notice this until much later. I'm curious whether the well would have cured poison or plague, too. I'll remember that it's there in case I need it again.

    

Speaking of 25 sovereigns, a little way up the road, a group of armed men demand that much as a "road tax." They claim to represent Lord Lyton. The game annoyingly doesn't give me the option to fight the brutes, just to pay or leave. I guess perhaps there are too many of them to make fighting a realistic option. I leave and instead sneak into Lyton through the back yards of town. 

    

Arriving at Lyton through a cornfield.

      

In the town, we find:

   

• A house where the occupant is snoring so loud we initially mistake it for a monster.

• An empty barn.

• A house where we hear some noise, but it takes some coaxing to get the residents to come to the door. They assume we're tax collectors and won't accept our pleas to the contrary.

• An abandoned house whose residents left a whetstone with 5 uses, and another one where they left 15 sovereigns.

• A house where the resident is polite but doesn't want to talk with us.

• An inn where we have a drink and spend the night (after I say "yes," I don't know why I wasted money on it, since we're all healed). An NPC tells us that in Romney, the Guild of the Romney and the Riverpullers Guild "are as good as at war." Their conflict is being fueled by a "troublemaker down in Sliden," who's been sending mercenaries, including a local named Max Feeber, to cause trouble while dressed in guild clothing.

     

We find Lord Lyton in his manor a bit to the east of town, and it turns out he's not quite the villain that we assumed. His town has fallen on legitimately hard times since the death of Earl Presser of Romney, and he needs to raise funds. Now he's been ordered to send 12 fully equipped knights to Malac's Cross. He says he can stop the toll patrols if we can deliver 6 suits of standard king's armor to him. This is a tough quest, and not primarily because of finding the armor; we left four sets on the Nighthawks down the road. I can, at best, carry three sets at once without giving up some of my items, and he won't take one at a time. 

     

I've been avoiding screenshots of lots of text, but here's one just to remind you that they exist.

       

Knowing where we can get four sets, we set off to find the other two. I decide to go west of Lyton, looping around the city to avoid the patrols. We come to a house at which we're immediately ambushed by four Quegian pirates. We make short work of them and find they have exactly two suits among them. I take a save at this point, as I don't know if what I'm about to do is going to work. We drop a lot of stuff on the ground outside the house, which the game represents as a sack. We load ourselves up on armor and head back to the dead Nighthawks to get the rest. 

       

Packing my inventory with armor.

     

We return to Lyton, who "rewards" us with a virtue key and a note that offers the passwords to three chests in the area: RIVER, SWORD, and ICE. None of them are long enough for the chest I abandoned earlier. 

    

With the toll-takers gone, I head back to where I dropped my stuff, only to get attacked by three Nighthawks along the way. We deal with them, return to the sacks, and find one of them empty and the other one missing some stuff. Damn it. I needed some of that stuff. Stashing our things in an abandoned house in town doesn't work (it doesn't offer enough room), nor does stashing it in a regular chest (things disappear). Eventually, I go all the way back to the fairy chest that I opened with CHEST and store stuff there, which works, although it doesn't accept much. I only just clear enough space for four suits of armor, so James and Owyn have to give up their own. We return the armor to Lyton, go all the way back to the CHEST chest to get our things, then get new armor from the slain pirates. The whole enterprise took us about 90 minutes real time and a week of game time and leaves me thoroughly annoyed.

    

I decide that rather than continuing direct to Romney to the east, I'll go west as far as Sethanon. I'm hoping to find a shop there to sell my excess stuff. On the way, we find a house and barn. The house is vacant; the barn has a chest with four seals for the glazer's guild. This clearly has something to do with the upcoming quest, so we take them. 

     

I like games that let you stumble onto quest items before you get the quests.

        

Our next stop is at the Six Toe Tavern, where we meet a woman named Nia whose late father ran a goods store across the road. She's closed the store, which has a valuable sword for sale, because of a ghost on the premises. She says that she'll give us the sword if we can get rid of the ghost. There's also a gambler in the tavern, and on a whim I put 50 gold on a dice game and win. 

    

That sounds too easy.

     

Across the street, the game just tells me that the shop is closed. I have no way to interact with it. I lurk around all night looking for a ghost but don't encounter anything. I do note a nearby cemetery, where one of the graves has an inscription indicating that it belongs to Nia's father, Jared Lycrow. Although digging it up seems like a bad idea--the sort of thing that would cause a haunting--there's nothing else we can do with it. When we open the casket, Owyn notes that one of the corpse's hands is missing. During the conversation, the game notes that Gorath once said that the Moredhel use graves as secret caches. I don't remember this, but I guess it's what gives us license to dig up graves throughout the game. I try the others in the cemetery; one has a couple of doses of Naptha (you can apply it to blades); the others just have bodies.

    

We finally arrive at the road to Sethanon. As we turn north, we are attacked by a shade. We kill it without too much trouble, but two steps later, we're attacked by four shades, who absolutely tear us apart. Reloading, we try various other approaches, but it's no use. Something clearly doesn't want us to go to Sethanon.

   

One was hard; four are impossible.

      

Sighing, we head back east. A short distance from Lord Lyton's estate, we deal with a remarkably easy trap and then find, in a copse of trees, three fairy chests:

   

• "An untiring servant it is, carrying loads across the muddy earth. But one thing that cannot be forced, is a return to the place of its birth."

• "With sharp edged wit and pointed poise, it can settle disputes without a noise."

• "Power enough to smash ships and crush roofs. Yet it still must fear the sun."

          

"You guys think maybe we should just walk between them?"

      

For the answers, see above. I think I would have gotten them without Lyton's hints--particularly the last one. I remember all too well the power of ice to destroy roofs. The chests had various useful items that I had nowhere near enough space to carry.

   

Moving on, we meet a man named Abuk who said he was summoned to Lyton to help pick a "Webber lock." James counters that a Webber lock cannot be picked. The two of them argue for a while; finally, Abuk agrees to train James in lockpicking for 70 sovereigns. When James protests, Abuk raises the fee to 80. Suspecting I'll regret spending this much, I nonetheless say "yes."

   

Nice beard. I think it was on the top of another NPC's head.

      

Just outside Sliden, there's a-goddamned-nother trio of fairy chests:

   

• "He got it in the woods and brought it home in his hand because he couldn't find it. The more he looked for it the more he felt it. When he finally found it he threw it away." Irene happened to be outside my office when I read this one, and she suggested TICK, which I thought was a good answer, but it had 5 letters. This got us thinking about other things that you might pick up accidentally in the woods, and I thought about BURR (too short) and SPLINTER (too long) before getting it with (THORN).

• "Death to our Enemies! no Living adversary shall Escape the new King of these Isles. He will lead us to glory And provide new lands for our people!" The odd capitalization leads us right to the answer.

• "Today he is here to trip you up and he will torture you tomorrow. Yet he is also there to ease the pain when you are lost in grief and sorrow." I get this one (ALCOHOL) partly by logic and partly by studying the possible letters.

      

The first chest has a receipt indicating that Isunatus of Cavall Keep received 20,200 sovereigns in rubies and gold from an unknown payee. There are a couple dozen sovereigns in the chest and another 30 or 40 in another. Again, I have to leave a lot of stuff behind.

   

As we approach the city, we're attacked by three rogues who, in a scripted event that we can't avoid, throw disease-ridden dung at us. After we win the easy combat, we're all plagued again. We duck into Silden long enough to buy restoratives and herbal packets at the shop, then head back outside and camp for a couple of days while the medicines do their work. 

       

I keep wanting to write the city's name as "Slidell," which ironically also has a less-than-reputable history with fish people and slavery.

      

Silden is a menu city. In it, we find:

    

• Hakha's Cajunlo, a magic shop. We're able to sell an extra scroll, some rubies, and a few other items for several hundred sovereigns, but the things the shop sells cost a lot more, including 10 magic scrolls and lots of buffing potions and weapon treatments.

         

This will take me a while to save for.

     

• A ship called the Mist Devil (Silden is on the River Rom just before it empties into the sea). The captain offers to take us to the Isle of Eortis for 30 sovereigns. I'm curious, but I don't have any reason to visit.

• A house with a brass-plated lock that James declines to try to pick.

• The Anchorhead Tavern. A dwarf offers a gambling game with cards. A man named Joftaz suggests the rogues who gave us plague were acting at the behest of someone called "The Crawler." A depressed knight has been banned from tourneys because he was caught drinking a potion first; he gives us the remainder of it. The barmaid sells spoiled rations. Owyn tries his luck at barding and makes 14 sovereigns.

        

I wonder if the moose on the wall is supposed to be a homage.

    

Alas, there was no armory to sell the weapons I've been saving for just that purpose.

 

Some miscellaneous note:

    

• Every temple I've visited has had a pit of fire in the center. In every one, when I click on it, the game says: "The fire was cold. Unnerved by the unnatural flame, [Locklear/James] decided to explore elsewhere." Is there ever any purpose to these flames?

      

You think he'd be used to it by now.

     

• The game also offers a generic NPC who recurs at several taverns. He's rude and tells us to go find a "jongleur" because he doesn't have time to entertain us.

• The gambling "games" are all described in text. The game just gives the player the option to bet certain amounts of money. I have no idea whether the result is based on probability or whether it's scripted.

      

Where does the rest go? To taxes?

      

• If it's possible for the characters to get drunk, it's after far more pints than it would take a normal person (and more than I'm willing to buy).

 

I end this session still quite over-encumbered, camped outside Silden, looking up the road to Romney. Krondor is so packed with encounters that I can get more than 3000 words out of  walking a little way up the coast. But now there's only one town between us and our destination. Perhaps we'll solve this guild business and learn more about The Crawler.

   

Time so far: 20 hours

 

Enchantasy: The Quest for the Eternal Grimoire: Won! (with Summary and Rating)

  

This is perhaps the most backhanded reward I've ever received.

       

Enchantasy: The Quest for the Eternal Grimoire

United States

EGA Computing (developer); Orion Innovations (original publisher); Point of View Software (later publisher); also published as shareware.
Versions released between 1993 (maybe 1992) and 1996 for DOS

Date Started: 8 July 2024

Date Ended: 3 October 2024

Total Hours: 47

Difficulty: Moderate (3.0/5)

Final Rating: (to come later)

Ranking at time of posting: (to come later)   

         

An enjoyable independent game inspired by Ultima V, Enchantasy takes you on a tiled, iconographic quest to recover the Eternal Grimoire to confront a nebulous evil. The plot and quest are interesting, and the game adopts some of the best elements of Ultima when it comes to NPC dialogue and combat. Most RPG mechanics stall around the half-way mark, however, leaving the balance of the game as a series of adventure-style item puzzles and fetch quests.

    

*****

        

What a stupid place for me to have ended my last entry. I could have wrapped it up in another four paragraphs. All I had left was the final battle.

   

When I last wrote, the party had the Eternal Grimoire in hand and was heading to Xanoc's castle to defeat him, rescue the prince, and end the threat once and for all. The endgame began when we arrived on the Isle of the Dead and marched to Xanoc's castle, ringed by mountains.

     

Ideally, you'd want the castle on top of a mountain, I'd think.

     

The front door was magically locked, but a spell took care of that. As we entered the foyer, Xanoc's voice taunted us: "Soon you will be dead and the Grimoire will be mine!" It did feel a bit irresponsible to bring it right to him. Flames erupted as we explored the various rooms, requiring the Scroll of Flames to calm them, although we learned to avoid them in the first place by walking the perimeters of the rooms.

   

We fought battles with various groups of guards and twisted creatures as we explored. The dungeon was generous with "MP Manna" (full MP recharge) potions, so I was generous with "Thunderclap," which did 27 damage with the Grimoire in hand. 

      

Finds like this meant that we didn't have to hold back.

     

The corners of the castle had locked doors with ladders on the other side, suggesting additional floors, but none of these rooms were accessible, and I suspect they were just there for show.

       

We'll never learn where those ladders go.

     

We explored the east and west wings first and found the prison in one of them. The Prince--I never did find out his name--was behind one of the doors. He offered that Xanoc planned to kill us, take the Grimoire, and rule Savallia. He encouraged us to use the tome to defeat the evil wizard. "He lies through the door north of the castle entrance," he finished, before running off to return to the Royal Castle. I was surprised by this. Something someone had said--I can't find the comment right now--made me assume that when I found the Prince, he would join the party.

    

What is your name?!

      

The north door led to a series of small rooms with barrels. Again, these were generous with potions. Duke Hawthorne met us in one of the rooms, wasted a party of "death guards" on us, then attacked us himself. A few spells and arrows later, he was dead.

       

It's the "hahahaha" that really sells it.

        

Xanoc continued to taunt us as we moved forward, and he kept casting fire fields in our path. He finally attacked us with a bunch of "X guards" and elite archers. It was a tough battle because in addition to mass-damage spells, Xanoc was capable of healing himself. He also had a couple of actions per round and was immune to most spells. It took us a couple of reloads before we got lucky with fewer mass-damage spells from his fingertips, allowing us to kill him before he killed us. I should mention that the Mystic Bow was extremely valuable in these final battles, but I never employed the Mystic Sword because it would have taken too many rounds to even get in melee range.

       

Xanoc and his army.

Xanoc is immune to poison.

      

The game had an additional surprise after we defeated him: We hadn't actually defeated him. He popped up in the next room, taunted us, and attacked again with the same group of companions as before. The battle was as difficult as before for the same reasons. Again, we prevailed, but just barely.

     

Fixing ourselves after the second battle.

     

Rudimon gated in as we neared the final door to Xanoc's throne room. He healed our party (which duplicated what I had already done) and had a little speech:

        

I am very proud of you, my young apprentice! I am proud of you all!! You have vanquished the evil from Savallia and gained control once again of the Eternal Grimoire. Your task is now completed. I always knew you would succeed! We'll meet later at the Royal Castle. 

             

How come I don't have the "Teleport In and Out of Places" spell?

       

But when we continued forward into the throne room, there was Xanoc, alive again through unknown means. He delivered a Trandle Oratory:

        

Well . . . it seems my plans have failed . . . temporarily, that is. He who is the possessor of the power of the Eternal Grimoire shall rule the world! And, rest assured, one day the Grimoire will be mine! This is not over yet . . . It has only just begun. HAHAHAHAHA!

      

Xanoc and Hawthorne have the same sense of humor, it seems.

   

The game fortunately did not make us retrace our steps back to the Royal Castle; it took us there automatically. There was a fun ending sequence--I'm always a sucker for these--that featured every NPC icon in the game. Even RICH9000 showed up. The four characters stood before Rudimon, the Prince, and his girlfriend, Jennifer, with every NPC icon in the game watching the proceedings. Rudimon gave my Level 65 character "the full title of Mage" and appointed me to the Mage Council. I don't know what my friends got. Hopefully, they were at least able to keep their magic weapons.

    

"The Prince and Jennifer were wed and became the King and Queen of Savallia," the game informed me. "All of the hideous creatures suddenly disappeared from the land." The Eternal Grimoire was given over to the Mage Council. 

      

Geologists are particularly happy with the endgame.

     

The final screen is author Erick Abel's dedication to his daughter, Jennifer, who died in 1988 at age 14. As we discussed in a previous entry, Erick ("Ricky") Abel himself died in 2022 at age 70 (making him about 39 when he wrote Enchantasy). His obituary mentions a son, Kyle, who died in infancy. He had two other children. Despite a clear intent to make a sequel to Enchantasy, it sounds like this was his only game. 

    

Sadness tinges the game's final celebration.

      

Enchantasy was a well-structured, well-programmed, competent game. I appreciate its intricate plot, its lack of goofiness, its side quests, and many of its mechanics. There were problems with other mechanics, and with pacing and length, but overall I admire what Abel accomplished and would have encouraged him to make the sequel. Abel is one of the few developers who was capable of adapting the best elements of the tiled, iconographic approach. Ultima V remains the highest-rated game on my blog, and I don't think enough has been done with its interface--not by Origin, which never liked to use the same engine twice, nor by the industry's many cloners, who for simplicity's sake seemed to prefer the earlier Ultimas.

    

Here's the GIMLET:

    

• 5 points for the game world. It's a little derivative, but it makes up for that with a greater amount of depth and breadth than we typically get. NPCs and books impart a sense of history and lore, and there are some minor ways in which the game world evolves with the player's actions.

• 2 points for character creation and development. That's almost all for development, since there's no creation. Leveling, training, and acquiring new spells are rewarding up to a point, but about mid-game, the game stops giving you any rewards for both higher experience levels and higher skill levels.

      

My statistics at the end of the game.

     

• 4 points for NPC interaction. I always like keyword-based dialogues and visible, persistent NPCs who speak in paragraphs and have personalities. I wouldn't have minded more role-playing opportunities or some karma system to give more weight to the interactions.

• 3 points for encounters and foes. Enemies are just icons, really, except that some have bows and magic. Most of the credit here goes to puzzles and non-combat encounters, which were occasionally fun.

• 4 points for magic and combat. A gridded, tactical interface is usually what I want from this kind of game. Enchantasy replicates Ultima V fairly well in that regard. I could have used more spells (although I did enjoy the various exploration spells), and the whole thing got more pointless as the game went on.

      

From the battle with Duke Hawthorne.

      

• 3 points for equipment. There are a few weapon and armor slots, and one thing I like is that the game offers clear "weapon strength" and "armor strength" statistics. On the other hand, the acquisition of gear was a little too linear and predictable.

• 3 points for the economy, which was tight and rewarding for the first third of the game and meant nothing after that.

• 4 points for quests, including a main quest and several side quests (e.g., the Mystic Bow and Mystic Sword) that earned experience or gear. There were no role-playing opportunities or choices during these quests, alas.

• 3 points for graphics, sound, and inputs. Aside from the beautiful title screen, I found the graphics functional enough but nothing special. I felt the same way about sound. I found the keyboard interface easy to master, particularly with the comments offered on-screen.

• 4 points for gameplay. It earns credit for its nonlinear approach and its medium challenge. I would not call it "replayable" since there are no alternate choices to make, and I would have preferred it to come in at closer to 25 hours.

    

On the last point, I was never exactly bored with the game, but it doesn't keep a good balance of plot and mechanics through the end. It starts out with an enjoyable quest, combat, economy, character development, and so forth, but the last 15 hours are all just about the quest. Still, it's hard to do well, and I'm not going to come down too hard on an independent developer for not getting it right when many AAA games of the modern age make the same mistake.

     

Although I didn't engineer it that way, I like that the final total comes to 35, the rough threshold at which I consider a game "recommended." It has its flaws, but it deserves to be better remembered than it is. Except for my own victory and RandomGamer's, I can't find much evidence that anyone else has seen it through to the end.

 

The Internet Archive's hopefully-temporary outage has put the kibosh on a lot of the other stuff I'd normally do at this point, such as search one more time for any magazine mentions or take a final look at Erick Abel's old AOL page about the game. Perhaps I'll post an addendum later. For now, pleasant journeys, Mr. Abel. Your magnum opus lives on.