Wednesday, November 23, 2022

Die Odysee: A Journey of a Thousand Miles

A classic Greek mystery: the ruins of a palace, and blood on the throne.
        
Once again, the community has come together. Author Martin Auer supplied a scanned PDF of the full game manual; Busca and LanHawk supplied OCR'd versions of it so I could copy it into a translator. LanHawk also extracted the game's text into a file that I could cut and paste from rather than having to manually transcribe it from the game screens. In the meantime, any number of commenters--Vauban, Buck, El despertando, Busca, LanHawk--translated bits of the available material. Some combination of people alerted me to a missed character creation process on the first disk. It's so heartwarming when people offer assistance like this. Otherwise, I might have been forced to abandon this game whose own author feels is so "well, bad" that he's sorry "for the kid that maybe got this as his only birthday present."
    
It took me a while to get back to it, because to play it properly I have to have half a dozen windows open on three monitors, including the game, LanHawk's text dump, the manual, my notepad, and Google Translate. Now that my computer won't be moving for the long holiday weekend, I can hopefully make some progress.
   
The Strauss-accompanied introduction that I quoted last time leads to a main menu with options for the game's backstory, manual, acknowledgements, and character creator. The backstory has another long text exposition setting up the game. "The latest inconclusive battle was only three days old when the winding paths of fate led Odysseus to a tavern, accompanied by a few loyal comrades," it begins. The tavern keeper tells them of a dungeon beneath his establishment. He has never entered it, but rumors say that it contains a lost city and an oracle. "Now Odysseus and his comrades pricked up their ears. An oracle? Could this be the end of this terrible episode? All the oracles of Greece had refused to help them for more than eight years now!" The innkeeper says that he has a key in a box in his room. He's saying something about a curse and a king's daughter when the companions, ignoring him, head into the dungeon. "None of the heroes had any idea what whirlwind of events they would find themselves in from now on."
   
The "manual" option doesn't lead you to a "how-to-play-the-game" kind of manual, but rather a 2,000-word introduction to Greek history. "Homer is considered the author of The Iliad and The Odyssey," it begins. "He probably wrote them down around 750 BC." I won't bother to summarize most of the rest, as we have Wikipedia these days, but it takes an odd turn in that it mostly focuses on Greek history post-Homer, including the Greco-Persian Wars and the Peloponnesian War--all interesting stuff that would be explored wonderfully in Assassin's Creed: Odyssey (2018), but not the game that we have before us, unless Odysseus and his friends are going to travel through time or something.
     
It's just too bad that the modern world seems to have forgotten the Spartans and the events at Thermopylae.
           
The Atticans appear several times in the narrative. I'm reminded of our recent discussion of "Bad Attic Latin" in The Return of Werdna. It amuses me how almost every game has some thread that links it to previous games, whether intentional or not.
   
If you didn't know the author was a teenager, you would figure it out immediately from the "Acknowledgements" (this is not the literal translation of Grüße, but I think it fits the spirit). Here, one word at a time, Auer thanks about 500 people and entities. In addition to (I presume) family and friends, we get thanks to Claudia Schiffer, MTV, Pink Floyd, Monty Python, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, Amazon Women on the Moon, The Longest Day, Sid Meier, Dune, Animal Farm, Larry Bird, Billy Joel, and--here's one I wouldn't have seen coming--Vera Lynn. Did "We'll Meet Again" achieve some kind of 1990s popularity in Germany that I've never heard about?
   
Finally, we get into character creation. Odysseus is, of course, a fixed member of the party. But you can replace Amphion, Ino, and Pheres with characters of your own creation and name. The number of races and classes is mind-boggling. For races, you get human, Titan, Cyclopes, Centaur, Cercopes (impish monkey-men of the forest), Laestrygonian (man-eating giants), Erinyes (Fury), Harpy, Siren, Amazon, Nymph, däumling ("thumbling"), shepherd (?), sea eagle, butterfly, and nightingale. To the extent that any of these creatures exist in Greek mythology, I don't think Odysseus is supposed to meet them until after the Trojan War.
       
Women can be whatever they want to be!
    
Class options are warrior, half-god, alchemist, seer, philosopher, mathematician, poet, cook, doctor, Olympian, herald, archer, mermaid, seaman, artist, Muse, singer, hunter, dancer, thief, merchant, tailor, and blacksmith. There are numerous sex/race/class restrictions, some of which make sense (e.g., no male Sirens, Muses, or Erinyes) and some that don't (e.g., no female alchemists, no Amazon philosophers, no Erinye doctors). The manual has no help on any of this, including the strengths and weaknesses of the various races and classes.
        
Selecting my god.
       
In addition to the primary class (beruf), you also pick from the same list for the character's "hobby." You then pick from the character's "faith": elements, colors, symbols, and gods. That choice leads to a particular sub-menu choice for "circle"; for instance, those with an elemental faith choose from water, fire, metal, diamond, wood, and blood. Finally, you have to answer the character's perspective on two yes/no questions from among several possibilities. These include:
      
  • Is the fate of man predetermined?
  • Is war a means of resolving conflict?
  • Can a mortal reach the world of the dead?
  • Can the forces of nature be harnessed? 
  • Is health the greatest source of happiness in life?
      
When you're all done, you get a character with various values for health, magic, morality, strength, intelligence, endurance, dexterity, charisma, skill, reaction, and what I assume is "cold sensitivity" (kälteempf,). Each character also gets certain skills, like spellcasting, group formation, calming the pulse, tracking, stealing, and playing the lyre.
        
A final character sheet.
     
It was a bit too much for me. I let randomness guide the way. I ended up with:
   
  • Tisiphone, a female Erinye mermaid/seer color-based faith (white circle) who believes in fate and war.
  • Tommaso, a male thumbling thief/half-god with a god-based faith (worshiping Pan) who believes mortals can reach the world of the dead but not harness the forces of nature.
  • Ligeia, a female Siren mathematician/dancer with a symbol-based religion (wave circle) who believes one cannot enter the world of the dead and that health is not the greatest source of happiness.
        
I can't tell if that's Grace Kelly or Cybil Shepherd, but either way, it's an appropriate image for a "siren."
       
Odysseus himself is a male half-god/warrior with an elemental faith (water circle)

After creation, you can change the character's photo, but there's only one option for each race, so the default makes the most sense. 
     
The graphic for the däumling is a riot. I guess it's going to be tough to equip him.
        
As recounted last time, the game begins in the tavern, really in the middle of the backstory, as the party has not yet descended to the dungeon, and if you talk to the tavern keeper, he tells you about the dungeon and the Oracle as if for the first time. The first step is thus to get the key from his box. I first talk to him a bit and repeat the dialogue from my first attempt. I now know that asking a character of himself (via his own name) will open up some options. In addition to what I got last time, I get:
 
Antoklos: "That is my name. I've been the landlord here for about 12 years. But if you ask me, I'd rather be in another city. The war ruins the whole business. Earlier . . . yes, earlier. Many years ago, this place was famous: Tymen, the market town; Tymen, the trading center. There came traders and merchants from east and west. There was a lot going on here in Tymen in the past, a hundred years ago or so. But I'm getting excited. Those rosy days are long gone, and the war drives away even the last customers."
       
"Das ist mein Name. Achten Sie darauf, es nicht durch übermäßigen Gebrauch zu erodieren."
       
War: "Troy is also quite rundown, but you will never conquer this city. I'll bet you wine and amphora! They only have to hole up in their town. The siege has been going on for so long now, and what did it bring? And in confidence: until you free Helena, she will look like my wife." [I didn't really understand that last bit.]
     
Wife: "My wife?  I traded six cows for her. They were six really good cows. Now I have sixteen cows. Not bad either for someone who has worked his way up from the bottom. But milk prices aren't what they used to be either. Now you have to count every liter to stay afloat. In the past, yes, you could buy a whole acre of land with one cow. Now it's just enough for a few strides. What else should I tell you about my wife?"
     
Troy: "Well, this city is a fortress, and an indomitable one at that. Of course the Trojans cannot win the war, but they can always avoid defeat. You've already bitten your teeth on the walls. They're just too tall and too thick. And your mission is only over when you take the city and free this woman. What was her name? Helena . . . yes. Priam makes a fuss about this woman if you ask me. There is only one way to finally end this war. You must find the oracle."
     
Priam: "He is by no means popular here in town. He reigns in Troy as if he were the great ruler. I think he's quite cocky, you know what I mean? But nothing seems to grow against him and his city. Maybe if you are lucky you can make it."
      
Tymen: "This area was once famous for its trade and wealth. There was prosperity and order. That was many years ago. Then came the curse of the gods that sowed destruction. Now this region has been ruled by Troy for several generations. A poor village that can just support an inn. But if you want to know something about the past of this place, you should read about it yourself in the collection of tales in my room." 
      
I'm prepared to do just that, but the collection of tales in his room is gone! Actually, as I look around the tavern, a lot of the stuff I picked up last time is gone, including shirts, hats, and food. I guess creating a new character doesn't reset the game. To do that, I suppose I'll have to extract the disk files from the archive again.
        
There's a lot missing, but the key I need is there.
    
But there is a metal key on his desk, which I had somehow missed last time. It opens a door south of the main tavern room. I grab a rose from a small alcove along the way, having read a spoiler from Mr. Auer. The door leads to a long corridor, which opens into a large room with two thrones and a gold chest. This must be the remains of the palace that Antoklos talked about.
    
The chest won't open, so I continue to the room south of it, a large storeroom full of equipment such as shields, gold, a dagger, and a pile of metal. The gold key opens the chest in the previous room, and gold pieces come spilling out. I collect about 500.
     
I don't know where I'm going to spend this gold, but I'm getting rich.
    
At this point, both Odysseus and Tommaso are exhausted. I check the manual for instructions on how to sleep, and it says to click on the clock. While this does cause time to pass, it doesn't seem to do anything for the characters. Doing so while standing on a bed doesn't help. Fortunately, being exhausted doesn't seem to stop me from moving, talking, or doing anything that I need to do for the rest of this session.
   
In another room off the throne room, I encounter my second NPC, sitting on a sofa. She introduces herself as Daphne. Like Antoklos, she has a ton of dialogue--almost 1,500 words of it. Copying it from LanHawk's text dump, I unfortunately can't help but notice some of the keyword prompts. One of them is schleier ("veil"), which Daphne never speaks. It thus appears that you have to try keywords based on the character's appearance as well as the dialogue. Another of her prompts is götter ("gods"), but I can't figure out how to type the umlaut on the Amiga keyboard. ALT-o gives me an Ø, but no other combination of ALT, SHIFT, and CTRL does anything special.
     
You don't find scenes like this in the usual high-fantasy game.
        
Daphne tells me that she has been here for decades because of a curse. She is the daughter of a king, Jason, who also had two sons, Pheres and Leiodes. Her brother Pheres was "insatiable," wanting literally everything. Jason tried to appease him by giving him half his lands and half the treasury, but it wasn't enough. Pheres killed Jason, then waged war on his brother when Leoides inherited the throne. After a siege, Leoides was forced to flee the castle through a secret passage. Pheres conquered it and imprisoned Daphne. At some point, at least according to Daphne, the gods cursed the family, and as part of the curse, Daphne has to exist forever in this room. The Oracle, which has lived in the castle for centuries, is also sealed away as part of the curse. Daphne quickly falls in love with Odysseus, who seems smitten with her as well.
      
Remember Penelope, Odysseus.
     
In her dialogue, Daphne makes reference several times to particularly loving flowers and not having seen one in decades. I have Odysseus give her the rose, which completely seals her affections. Then, in a series of text screens, she leads the party to a secret door and says that's the way to the Oracle. She begs Odysseus to come back to her, and he promises he will. I get a brief view of the party in a rough-hewn corridor, and then the game dumps me to the Amiga workbench. Mr. Auer also mentioned having a crash around this point.
   
Thus, my homework is:
   
  • Re-extract the game disks and start over, so I can properly fill up my inventory.
  • Go through the manual and figure out how exhaustion and resting work.
  • Figure out how to get past this point that the game is crashing.
   
I'll keep working at it and let you know what I come up with. 
         
A cut scene as Daphne escorts us to the basement.
      
"You'd better," I hear you say. "My life is not complete unless I know the CRPG Addict is working his way through reams of expository narrative written in German." Well, good news: SOTE is on the horizon, and I can use some help with the very long, scrolling backstory that begins the game. If you speak German fluently and wouldn't mind taking a look at this video to give me a summary (the part I'm having trouble with starts at 02:25), I would appreciate it. You'll probably need to watch it at half speed.
   
As for Die Odyssee, if I were that kid who got this as his only game for his birthday, I wouldn't be disappointed . . . yet. Overwhelmed and confused, maybe, but not disappointed. It's certainly one of the more original experiences of 1993.
 
*****
 
Addendum from 3 January 2023:
 
I put some more time into Die Odyssee in November. I did manage to get past the crash I experienced above and even managed to trigger a combat. Combat seems to resolve on a tactical grid, with squares representing the different characters and enemies.
 
The party is attacked by sodium, flerovium, and belarium.
      
The problem is that when combat starts, my characters are already nearly dead because of the problems described above. Busca did some research in the manual to help me out, but it came at the wrong time. A combination of dense translation, impenatrable mechanics (particularly the spell system), and the fact that the game crashes to the workbench with every errant mouse click has killed my enthusiasm for it despite some interesting elements. It's not a game to have on my active board while I'm trying to get some momentum back on my blog. I'm giving it a best-guess GIMLET of 37, which is pretty good. It has an interesting backstory, an unusual character creation system with a huge variety of options, verbose NPCs and encounters, and an intriguing tactical combat system. I'll hold open the possibility of returning to it over the summer break when I have more time.
       
Time so far: 6 hours

40 comments:

  1. In myth, the Trojan war came out of a dispute between Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite; with the former two on the Greek side and the latter responsible for the abduction of Helen. Then, the Odyssee happened because Odysseus neglected to make proper sacrifices to Poseidon (Neptun).

    So it would make more sense for Odysseus or his companions to worship Hera or Athena (which are not on the list) instead of Aphrodite and Neptun (who are). Athena is a war goddess anyway, so very fitting
    for the setting.

    Also, playing with half a dozen windows on three monitors, that has to be the most hardcore setup I've heard about for retro games!

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  2. Re SOTE: Happy to help with German, if needed. I was just wondering: According to what I see online (https://www.kultboy.com/index.php?site=t&id=15399&s=3), the game let's you choose between three languages - German, English and Hungarian. You should be able to change the language in the configuration/options menu - I assume it's the last line on the right hand side menu once the game proper starts ("Einstell." = "Einstellungen" / Settings). If so, it would be strange that the whole intro only exists in German, so maybe it's possible to change the language to English and play the intro again?

    If not, let us know and I'm sure the German-speaking commenter community will step up again.

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    1. PS: A gameplay video was uploaded three days ago (by someone following the blog and its "upcoming" list, I assume? Seems too much of a coincidence): https://youtu.be/NR-IlsUR-AM. It shows gameplay in English, but not the intro at all. At least in this cracked version it looks like you can directly jump to the configuration menu and select the language, i.a., before starting the game itself. You can watch the first minute or so to check (no risk of spoilers there, I'd say).

      Looking at the article screenshot I linked above again after this, it seems the "configuration" menu (with language setting) is different from the "options" menu, so apologies if I conflated the two above and caused any confusion. It's still not clear to me if the intro exists in English as well. Might have to fire it up myself to check.

      And now I see Kai Frerich already translated below anyway.

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    2. OK, so tested and confirmed:

      When the game boots (once the screen goes black after the autostart) you have to press Space to get to the configuration menu - not sure when exactly, I just hit it repeatedly once the screen turned black until you get the config menu. In that one you can switch the language to English and (s)ave your configuration. Next time you start the game (e.g. through soft reset of the emulator - (n)ew game in the config menu brings you directly to gameplay without the intro instead), the intro (and the gameplay) runs in English. Weirdly, for the intro to play, in the config menu the selection has to show "intro off".

      This is for the files with the German name ('Schatten des Boesen'). If you're using the version with the cracktro, it includes a screen where you can select to go to the game (1) or to the config menu (2). In the latter, the same as above applies and next time / after a soft reset and reboot, selecting '1' instead also starts the intro (and game in general) in English.

      @Morpheus: I'm not aware of any manual. The only instructions I found are in the article linked above which was the presentation of the game in the magazine that published it. That's where I read you have to press Space to get to the config menu.

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    3. Thanks. There are versions online named "D" and "E." I just assumed one was German and one was English, not that both were either/or depending on the configuration menu. I couldn't get the "E" one to show me the introduction after that odious crack intro.

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    4. Ah, okay, I was under the impression the game was sold in-stores rather than a diskmag game. As you said below, very impressive for such a title, even if that was true of most Hungarian games from around this time.

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  3. A might thunderclap ran up to the coast. Eve grabbed her husband's arm tighter and watched in horror as the angry sea ripped down parts of the coastal rocks. At first, they thought it was an earthquake, but in these parts the ground had not stirred for 300 years. So they had to get that thought out of their head and look for a refuge. The green cave close by seemed appropriate, whose entry loomed dark before them.

    Then a strong wind arose, and tore the 2 people apart. Eve called for help, but the angry storm suppressed her weak voice. Troy turned his head and saw a giant blueish whirlwind carry his girlfried away. He started to run into the wind, but no sight of Eve anymore. Then something picked him up and he was flying, flying...

    Slowly, Troy woke up, but his brain was unable to comprehend the images registered by his eyes. Then suddenly, everything became clear. He was in a cave. He was lying on cold, sharp-edged stones that pressed into his back. His gaze locked onto an good-natured old man, who cleared his thoat as if to get even more attention, and said "Welcome, Troy Perkins!" Troy, not knowing why, was not surprised; he thought it almost inevitable that this unknown character knew his name. He wanted to say something, but the old man carried on.
    "Please excuse the precarious journey, it was as comfortable as possible."
    "It didn't matter." Troy mumbled those words. "Would you please tell me where I am, and who you are?"
    "You are on Corlon's land and my name is Leron Lan l'Ore, simple Rome, the great wizard of the northern half!"
    "Thanks!" said Troy with a slight grin, and thought to be all the wiser. He tried to get up, without success.
    "Say, how did I get here?" he asked.
    "That isn't a particularly short story."
    "Please help me, I need to get up! Thanks! And now I finally want to know..." He thought and looked around. "Where is Eve?"
    "Stop, son. By too much haste the deed dies." said Rome.
    "Where is my girl-fried?" Troy asked, more insistently this time.
    "It might sound unbelievable what I will now tell you, but please listen carefully!"
    "You expect me to listen? And Eve? I don't even know where she is, and what happened to her. And you want to be heard?"
    The wizard lifted his hands and incribed a large circle into the air.
    "If you want to get her back, you must not act rashly..." he whispered. "Eve is captured. The main wizard of the Southern Half, Harcon, took my ring of power that contained almost all of my powers a couple of days ago. I knew he would abuse it. From another parallel dimension he tried to pull over two living beings. Perhaps he wanted to sacrifice them during the feast for the great goddess Mogna. After I took one of them with me, he cannot throw the other to his beasts. Even he cannot ignore the rule of the double sacrifice."
    "And the other is Eve."
    "So she is", Rome replied and lowered his hands.
    "If I get your ring back, can you..."
    "Yes, I will return you to your dimension."
    After Troy decided to get the ring, Rome taught him some simple spells and let him go.
    "Don't forget to blow the whistle that I gave you once you completed your mission", he said finally and waved his left hand.

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    1. I wonder how you got "green cave" from "dunkle Hölle[sic]" or "dunkle Höhle" :) The German text is full of spelling mistakes and grammatical errors, I wonder how old the developer of this game was when he wrote it. It sounds like something a teenager would come up with

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    2. The developers of 'SOTE' are Hungarian. No idea if they translated it themselves or had someone else do it, but to have three language versions for such a magazine-published game in 1993 seems rather impressive to me, even though I agree the German text has quite some room to improve.

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    3. Sorry I put you through all that trouble, Kai. Apparently, there was an English option.

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  4. Troy Perkins had the same feeling he had when he arrived here. He was a little numb, but he knew what he was doing and what his mission was. He arrived at a foreboding dark forest. The mighty trees mumbled their repulsive secrets horribly.
    "This can only be the great soul-obscuring forest" thought Troy. "Don't be afraid. I must go in there" he said loudly, and stepped onto the path leading into the forest.

    After marching for several hours, the forest gave way to a strange hilly landscape bathed in moonlight. The strange bushes near the path weren't particularly confidence-inspiring, nor was the castle behind the hills, that seemed to be closed to tea parties.
    "It is... very cold" he mumbled, and he felt the icy wind creeping into his tattered clothes, and along his spine. As he did not dare to pause (because of the cold) for a little rest, he soon arrived at the castle.
    He looked for an appropriate spot to enter the wall.

    He found a narrow breach. Ever so closely, he managed to push through the sharp-edged rocks, and his searching feet soon found their footing on the inside.
    You could almost chew the darkness, considering the stinking air, a single breath of which meant certain suicide. Although the air later cleared a little, because of the darkness you could not see anything of the walls. Troy turned on his lighter. Amazed he discovered that it was full of gas, although it recently was almost empty.
    "Must be these terribly stinking gases..." he muttered, and thought to hear the wizard's words: "Bring back my power, and I will give you back your freedom. Eve is waiting for you... Hurry, don't hesitate!" Troy thought about these words, and he thought to taste the flavour of a carefree life, as suddenly something moved in the darkness next to him...

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    1. So you'll be playing two games in parallel where one takes place at the gates of Troy and the other has you playing a character called Troy... . Hmm, an idea for a potential subtitle to a future 'SOTE' entry (ROT-13'd): "Gebl Fgbel".

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  5. Re Vera Lynn: Maybe Martin Auer will show up again to clarify himself. Since he mentions Pink Floyd, the connection might be that they referenced her. From Wikipedia:

    "On their 1979 album The Wall, Pink Floyd released a song titled "Vera", referencing Vera Lynn and the song "We'll Meet Again" with the lyrics "Does anybody here remember Vera Lynn? / Remember how she said that / We would meet again / Some sunny day?".[104] "We'll Meet Again" was also used as an intro to the live performances of The Wall in 1980 and 1981 (as can be heard on Is There Anybody Out There? The Wall Live 1980–81). The 1982 film Pink Floyd – The Wall opens with "The Little Boy that Santa Claus Forgot" performed by Lynn.[105]".

    The same website (German version) also tells me three of her songs made it into the German charts in the 1950s and she even recorded several songs in German.

    Or it comes from the author watching 'Dr. Strangelove', the ending sequence of which features 'We'll meet again'.

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    1. AlphabeticalAnonymousNovember 24, 2022 at 1:44 PM

      Agreed -- I also immediately thought of the Pink Floyd/The Wall link to Vera Lynn.

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    2. I read or watched a biopic on Vera Lynn, I think a few months ago. I had only vaguely heard her name before, although I'm familiar with her hit songs. This one said that she became practically revered in England, and other Western European countries. Apparently a much bigger deal than I previously knew.

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    3. There is a certain segment of English society that worships the Second World War, and Vera Lynn has become something of a talisman for those people.

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  6. "A final character sheet" screenshot: I find it funny that they had to abbreviate several terms and they didn't think of just making the oversized font smaller :)

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    1. The author probably didn't have the font in a smaller size, and scaling a font like that down algorithmically without proper antialiasing would look really awful.

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    2. And making the bok bigger was not an option ?

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    3. It's a DOS game, the box is probably "the entire screen"

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  7. It's endearing to see how the developer worked around not being able to create his own graphics.

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  8. Regarding the restrictions that don't make sense. No Erinye doctors actually does, since Erinyes are those who decide which tasks of vengeance to go on, and being a doctor doesn't have anything to do with vengeance. In a Greek setting, it has considerably the opposite! No Amazon philosophers could be chalked up to Amazons being simplistic raiders without any proper philosophical class as the Greek would know them. Akin to there being no Spartan or Persian philosophers. As to alchemists, no idea, but I guess the idea is that Greeks wouldn't let a woman know whatever their version of alchemy is.

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    1. I agree that there's a cetain logic, but once you allow Erinyes and Amazons and man-eating giants to be friends with Odysseus and hang out with him in a tavern, you've already abandoned their traditional roles. Women of the age likely wouldn't have belted on swords and gone adventuring into deep dungeons anyway. Having crossed that threshold, it seems silly to say that they can't be alchemists or whatever.

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    2. I agree the alchemist restriction is weird, considering Greek myth has numerous female mystics and spellcasters (in addition to a whole tribe of women who do belt on swords...)

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    3. I stand corrected, and here I thought the weird thing about it was that there were alchemists at all during Odysseus's time...

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    4. But can you make a titan mermaid? And is this the first (and last) game to offer mathematician as a class?

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    5. There's a "calculator" class in Final Fantasy tactics, they're basically math mages.

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  9. I can't get over that screenshot starring a man in a shirt. It's as anachronistic as a Medieval knight in spacesuit but I guess the majority of players would not notice it. As always there is a suitable xkcd comic for the occasion: https://xkcd.com/771/

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    1. I noticed the anachronistic shirt, too. You are not alone! :)

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    2. "It thus appears that you have to try keywords based on the character'searnce as well as the dialogue."

      Maybe you should try asking Antokles about his fancy futuristic "Shirt" / "Hemd"? ;-)

      And Daphne, besides her artificially added 'veil', about her dress - apparently also added, to keep the game marketable to the general public, I assume. Or maybe someone had already modified the source.

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    3. Sorry, edit: "character's appearance" the quote was intended to say.

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  10. Regarding "Götter", have you tried typing "Goetter"?

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  11. You probably already tried this, but supposedly "alt-k" followed by a/o/u gives ä/ö/ü; alt-s gives ß.It may also be possible to change the keyboard layout if the emulator lets you run "Prefs".

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  12. It's so heartwarming when people offer assistance like this. Otherwise, I might have been forced to abandon this game whose own author feels is so "well, bad" that he's sorry "for the kid that maybe got this as his only birthday present."

    "And on a related note, have I mentioned that Brutus is an honorable man?"

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  13. "Until you free Helena, she will look like my wife" is probably better translated to "When you someday free Helena ...". "Bis" can mean both "until" and "when someday".

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    1. Or just "Before you free Helena ..."

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  14. I don't think the Amiga can handle Ascii-codes; Regarding umlauts you may have to switch to a German keyboard layout. If you do: the ö is where : and ; are located on an American keyboard; ä is right next to ö (where " and ' are on an American layout); and ü is right above those two , next to the p (where { and [ would be on an American setup). Hope that helps.

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  15. Regarding your recent addendum: Quite understandable. In the meantime, I'll post what I wrote you here in case anyone wants to try the game.

    Checked the manual and tested a bit with the default party. My findings:

    - Exhaustion (Erschöpfung)
    -> is caused by running around, especially when carying a lot of heavy inventory - how fast (and how much weight you can carry) depends on your Force (Stärke) attribute.
    -> depletes Health (Gesundheit) = top meter of the three under each character's name on the left; if it sinks to/below zero, the character is shown as "exhausted" (erschöpft"). Not sure how often / when these values update. Suddenly everyone was exhausted.

    - Health (Gesundheit)
    -> can be recovered through magic (spell: 'HeilAura' + 'Gesundheit').

    - Mana
    -> can be recovered through meditation (ability -> only yourself) or through magic, given by others ('Mana').

    - Tiredness (Müdigkeit) (in the group values confusingly given as 'Lazyness' (Faulheit)), only visible for each character when going into its 'character window' as a grey-whitish meter partly obstructed by the word "Müdigkeit" itself, not as a number as far as I can see.
    -> increases when using abilities; if too tired, you can't use an ability anymore.
    -> can be reduced through sleeping / time passing (holding left mouse click on the clock) - a couple hours reduce it significantly (theoretically also through magic (Schlaf), but didn't seem to work for me).

    So it seems when your characters get exhausted / lose their health, you need to build it up again through magic. To recover the mana lost, you need to meditate (or receive mana through magic from someone else). If you meditate 2-3 times, you become (too) tired and need to rest a couple hours.
    That would also indicate it's recommendable to have at least one character with high (max) mana and a lot of points in the ability 'meditate', to serve as 'healer', at least at the start. E.g. Pheres in the default party,

    Haven't tested more in detail, e.g. if and how it's possible to direct the effect of a spell only to a specific team member or what the number of "Zauber" (below character portrait on the right) means - numbers of different spells that person can perform?

    A warning: (right-)clicking once too much can drop and thus apparently permanently lose an inventory item.

    In inventory, left-click is to use an item (putting it on in case of wearables, automatically exchanged against the currently worn). Food and drink items can usually be used several times before they're depleted (maybe shown in their statistics window).

    Right-click shows the item's statistics, a further click opens two options: a left-click then allows you to move the item to another team member while another right-click drops the item. So an unintentional double right-click when moving inventory around, e.g. because you think the first one wasn't registered, can lead to loss of the same (and maybe to a potential walking dead situation?).

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  16. The party is attacked by sodium, flerovium, and belarium.

    Nice. Watch out for the oganesson!

    It blows my mind that there's a wiki for periodic table fanfiction, basically -- fan-created imaginary elements. It's Rule 34a, I guess, or an isotope of Rule 34.

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