Tygus Horx: HABA

I'm not sure "mazenary" is a word.

      

It's been a busy couple of weeks in Chez Addict, with a business trip followed immediately by the first week of the fall semester. I had entries pre-scheduled for one week but not two, so there was an unavoidable gap. Then, we welcomed two new kittens to the house, both completely black. One came with a collar, which is the only way I can tell them apart, but it seems mean to leave it on. When Irene didn't have any ideas for distinguishing  them, I suggested we give them the same name and not even bother. She assumed I was joking, but I'm not sure more than 50% of the cats I've owned have ever learned their names, and I'm not sure even they knew it was their "name" rather than just a sound I made when I had food.

   

Anyway, you'll be pleased that we considered a lot of names out of RPG-dom, although Irene wasn't aware that's where they came from. I nearly had her on "Vaermina" and "Namira," but she thought "Namira" was the name of one of the wolves on Game of Thrones, or at least that other people would think that. "Minax" had some traction for a while. But when she seriously seemed to be considering "Tygus" and "Horx," I switched themes, and now it's either going to be "Treme" and "Marigny" or "Bolden" and "Ellington."

         

The long-awaited Level 2 of the Tygus Horx maze.

      

Tygus Horx was on my mind because I had found a version that didn't replicate the bug, which made me honor-bound to play it. I converted the BRIEF to a proper number and made a couple of edits, then got busy grinding. Much like The Bard's Tale, the game on which it is based, Horx doesn't offer a lot of blogging fodder for the hours spent. It's taken me another five just to assemble this meager entry.

 

I probably wasted more time grinding than was strictly necessary. I should have done more of it in the dungeon, where the rewards would have been higher. But by letting you flee from most combats and allowing you to save anywhere, Horx encourages a get-in-and-get-out approach to dungeon exploration. Although the experience rewards are less, it ultimately saves time just to grind next to the temple, where you can sleepwalk your way through the combat options and occasionally pay for healing.

      

Leveling up.

       

Everyone gets +1 to an attribute plus some additional max hit points when leveling, but like The Bard's Tale, the most tangible method of increasing party strength is to acquire more spells and spell points. Horx makes this a tad more difficult than its source. Where The Bard's Tale reliably gives you a new spell level every two character levels, Horx spaces it out a bit more. I lost count of the exact ratio, but my spellcasters are Level 14 and still haven't acquired Level 6 spells. Consequently, neither has changed classes. Horx's approach removes some of the imbalance in the earlier game, where a steady increase in monster difficulty meant that spellcasters could rocket through the later classes. It doesn't remove this issue entirely, though, and I'm sure I'll find that my second and third spell classes go more quickly than the first.

   

The Maze turned out to have three levels, all of them properly mazelike. As I stepped off the stairway to Level 2, a message appeared: "The Maze shows its true face. Leave it or die." I didn't leave it. "It burns you down," another message hinted. There were quite a few empty rooms before I made it to the northwest corner, where an old man asked me to "say what the three messages are about." I'd actually received more than three messages, but three of them definitely pointed to the answer of FIRE (Level 1's "It is hot" and "It is red and yellow" and the Level 2 message just recounted). As riddles go, that was pretty easy. The way opened to Level 3.

 

Level 3.

     

Level 3 had three messages:

     

• "The maze gasps at you and will never let you free again." I think maybe it meant "grasps"?
• "Do not believe in illusions!"
• "Seek the Temple of Urlando!"

          

Despite this, it let me free again.

    

I was exploring this whole time with several spells active. MATO ("Magic Torch") is the best of three conjurer light spells; MACO ("Magic Compass") is the best of three conjurer compass spells; and MASH ("Magic Shield") is the best of three magician shielding spells. There really aren't any other buffing spells, including no "Levitate," which caused problems on the third level.

    

The final square was at the end of a long hallway with several traps that sapped my hit points and spell points. When I reached the final chamber, someone called The Great Mazenary attacked me with 13 phantoms, 10 shadows, and 8 krimmels. ("Krimmel" is a common German last name, and I assume the author knew someone who had it.) I set in with physical attacks, my conjurer's EVPO ("Evil Power"), and my magician's POTO ("Power Touch"), both mass-damage spells. The traps had left me low on points, but I had just enough to complete the battle.

      

The first mandatory combat of the game.

    

"You beat me, but your way is long and the Evil One soon sieges the whole universum!" the Mazenary said as he died. He left a small key. I had three characters die from the traps on the way back, and I had to pay to have them resurrected.

       

I beat him. He is destroyed.

    

The small key opens the way to Ulandar's Temple on the west side of the city. I assume that will turn out to be another small dungeon.

 

I couldn't get much else done this week, but I didn't want you to think I'd disappeared entirely. More on Dungeon Master II soon.

   

Time so far: 8 hours