Game 486: Antepenult (1989)

 

Then I guess I'm not going to send your shareware fee.

        

Antepenult

United States

Independently developed; published as shareware

Released 1989 for Amiga
Date Started: 18 February 2023

     

Ultima clones get a bad rap sometimes, but the problem is that they clone the wrong Ultima. Ultima and Ultima II were innovative for their years, but they were utterly outdone by their sequels--to the point that I wouldn't play either today except as historical curios. Unfortunately, legions of developers have effectively forced me to play those games by making generic iconographic games with one-line NPC dialogues and one-command combat systems.

  

Antepenult is an Ultima clone--in fact, it's what my glossary calls a "Ztats Clone"; that is, an Ultima clone so clone-y that it even includes the Z)tats command. But it's paradoxically refreshing in that it clones Ultima IV (and a little of V) rather than the more simplistic earlier titles. This includes keyword-based dialogue, a developing backstory learned from NPCs, and the ability to target enemies in combat. I found its opening hours much more engaging than the typical clone.

    

The game, designed by Paul Falstad, makes no effort to hide its roots. Its README file includes "apologies to Lord British." Of course, the very title pokes fun at its inspiration. ("Antepenultimate" means "third from best" or "third from last." I wonder what title Falstad thinks deserves the designation of "penultimate.") The tiles, NPC icons, and monster icons look mostly identical. The phases of two moons are shown above the exploration window. There's a line-of-sight-based fog of war. Not only does the keyboard interface include a Z)tats command, but it also includes B)oard (a ship or horse), P)eer (at a gem), and Q)uit and Save. It has the same three character attributes: strength, dexterity, and intelligence. The king who sets you off on the quest, Lord Hypnos, is an in-game avatar of Falstad himself, as HYPNOS was his handle on several online service providers. Hypnos's castle even includes a jester named Chuckles.

         

Of all the things to adapt . . .

     

There are losses that ultimately make Antepenult, as its name suggests, rank lower than Ultima IV. There's only one character and apparently no magic system. Inventory is stripped down, and even if it turns out that the game has dungeons, I don't think they'll use a first-person interface. There's no sound. But it also has some elements of originality that I enjoyed. These include:

   

• Graphics aren't necessarily just blocky tiles. The author uses diagonals and curves to more organically depict transitions in terrain. I want to say the only time that Ultima IV or V did this was with the barriers set up by the three Shadowlords that you have to dispel. My memory of these is so strong that when I encountered a curved white wall in Antepenult, I immediately assumed there was something evil about it.

• Antepenult has combat occur on the same screen as exploration, but it still offers the ability to target a chosen enemy and to fight more than one enemy at once.

• The author designed some clever dissolve/wipes when you transition between maps (e.g., from the overworld to a city). 

• Antepenult draws its character and place names from the ancient world, primarily cities and locations in Greece and Anatolia, plus some references to biblical mythology.

      

The game begins with no creation, and the documentation that comes with it doesn't give you any kind of backstory. You slowly learn that you're in the land of Havilah (from a land mentioned in Genesis). The unnamed character starts with 500 hit points, 400 gold, 999 food, 25 each of the three attributes, and no weapons, armor, keys, torches, or sextants. He starts outside what turns out to be Castle Chryse (several figures or places in ancient Greece).

      

My first conversation.

       

I enter Chryse and started poking around and talking to NPCs. NPC dialogue uses the same basic approach as Ultima IV. You get a visual description of each NPC as you initiate dialogue, and all of them respond to NAME, HEALTH, and JOB. Their responses to those prompts lead to further dialogue. One key difference is that Antepenult considers the entire word, not just the first four letters, so for instance DARKNESS produces a different answer than DARK. Where you are in the conversation also seems to matter. Sometimes, NPCs won't respond to the same keyword that they responded to a few lines ago. That makes things a bit more difficult. 

    

Guards (who all have the same dialogue and respond "just a guard" when asked their names) direct me to Lord Hypnos's throne room, which requires going through a garden and up a ladder. You'd think the throne room would be more accessible. Hypnos is surrounded by guards, his throne at the west end of a hall. To get to him, you have to cross a bridge that goes through lava or fire.

      

In dialogue, he relates that he used to share power with his brother, Lord Sylvan, who ruled the west country from his Castle Pergamum. But something destroyed the castle and plunged that part of the land into darkness. The nearby forest is overrun with monsters; the town of Megara has become a den of thieves; and the town of Argolis is in ruins.

     

"We"? I don't rule anything.

     

Hypnos charges me with finding out what happened to Pergamum and with discovering the source of the darkness. He says I should start by going to Laodicea to the north and west. He encourages me to get a horse and use the road, even though it's longer, as the forest is unsafe.

     

Chryse has a stable, a healer, and a few other features:

    

• There's a zoo on the second floor with a number of monsters in walled cages. A guard identifies them as dragons, zorns, serpents, gazers, reapers, sea beasts, liches, and hydras. A druid named Pekah suggests there might be a way into the cages, but he doesn't know what it is.

      

I hope the zookeepers are the highest paid positions in the kingdom.

       

• There's a dock, ship, and lake somehow contained on the upper floor of the castle. Boarding the ship lets me sail to the far corner of the lake, where I find a daemon. He identifies himself as Diogmos. "In the Gehennen Bathos shall I surely kill thee!" he shrieks. "Follow the river Acheron!" He then does 56 points of damage to me and disappears. 

       

This is quite a feat of engineering.

     

• The same thing happens in the northwest corner of the castle, which has a demon named Sphage in a room marked by the Greek letters chi, theta, omega, and . . . I don't know if it's supposed to be nu or pi. I have no idea how this would be pronounced. In any event, the demon tells me he'll kill me in the Gehennan Bathos, "west of the great lake," swats me, and disappears.

     

Why not just kill me now?

       

• A third room has a demon on the other side of what looks like a lump of ice. I can't get to him.

• A sailor named Tmoles tells me I should ask a prisoner named Nabal about a sextant, which you need for the L)ocate command. 

• A handful of NPCs hanging around a "MESS HALL" do not respond to T)alk. These are the only NPCs in the game so far of which this is true. 

• A cook named Cookie tends a huge fire in the kitchen. I force myself to walk through the fire to search the far corner, as Ultima IV probably would have hidden something there. This game did not.

      

Damn. Someone already found that rune.

      

It costs only 30 gold to buy a horse on the first floor. I head out looking for weapons and armor, as I didn't find either in the castle. I find both in the nearby town of Larissa. I buy a mace for 200 gold and then realize I don't have enough for any armor; the armor shop only sells cloth for 200 and leather for 600.

   

The game occasionally throws in a "thee" or "thy" but isn't as serious about it as Ultima.

     

A fighter named Capys suggests that I "try the meeting room" if I'm on a quest. I can't find such a place, but there are a couple of locked doors, and I haven't found any keys yet. A paladin named Polydeuces asks if I fight for Havilah. A fighter named Pyrasos says they sell axes in Megara. There's a pub, and I find that if I tip the bartender enough, I can feed him keywords, but he doesn't respond to anything I can think to ask.

   

I leave town and start following the road to Laodicea, but I'm ready for combat, so I ignore the king's advice to stay out of the forest. Before long, I'm attacked by a couple of spiders. When you attack an enemy, you can target anyone on screen (with missile weapons if they're more than a square away). Each enemy icon might have multiple enemies beneath it. Unfortunately, there isn't much in the way of tactics, partly because there isn't any magic. When enemies die, they leave a chest behind that you can G)et. There's a chance of a trap, and if there is, there's a chance of evading it.

       

One spider has left a chest. I target the second group.

      

In this first session, I faced giant spiders, insects, sea horses, ghosts, and bats. All of them drop chests except for the aquatic creatures. All give experience when you kill them, and before long, I was up to Level 3. Leveling increases your attributes by around 5 points each (my strength and dexterity are now at 35, but for some reason my intelligence is at 37) and your maximum hit points by 100.

   

I reach Laodicea. It has a food shop, an inn, a pub, a weapon shop, and an armor shop, but multiple NPCs alert me that you can't fully explore the city without renting a ship. This costs only 10 gold pieces. (The ships you rent lack cannons, so you can't turn them on the townsfolk.) I sail around the city's outer moat and access a few hidden places, including a room marked with Greek letters full of mage and cleric NPCs.

         

Technically, "ships."

     

Through a variety of conversations, I learn that the evil that destroyed Pergamum is a daemon. It can be defeated with a gold dagger. This little group of NPCs is part of a secret cabal called "Ikhthys" that seeks to end the daemon's evil. There's a second group somewhere else; I should ask someone named Saul about that. A cleric named Athanasius argues with me about whether the world is flat or round. I suppose I don't really know in this setting.

       

Just as long as we agree that it's not a torus.

     

Elsewhere, there's a jail with locked cells. On an island, a thief named Pheres attacks me when I talk with him. I kill him, but this is apparently the wrong thing to do, as it incurs the wrath of the guards, and I'm forced to reload.

    

After some grinding, I'm able to buy some cloth armor, but my real concern now is food. I have less than half of the original amount, and it depletes at a rate of 1 per 4 moves. Food sells at a rate of 1 food for 1 gold piece. I get about 15 gold from the average combat, and it takes me close to 60 moves to find the average combat; enemies are not very plentiful. I'm going to have to find some place with more lucrative pickings.

   

I'm debating whether I'm going to try to map the overworld. I always hate having to do that in top-down games, and it will be particularly hard here because the non-blockiness of the graphics makes it tough to tell where the coastal tiles end. Still, it's probably better than being paranoid that I'll miss something.

      

Some miscellaneous notes:

    

• Sometimes, there are multiple characters of the same name. There are actually two jesters named Chuckles in the Castle Chryse foyer, and in the city of Laodicea, I found a bard named Dymas entertaining three children, all named Cythera.

• The interface doesn't make use of H, J, K, M, N, or V. Instead of just having the game say the equivalent of "Huh?" when you press them, Falstad programmed dummy commands: H)arvest, J)udge, K)ibitz, M)aterialize, N)ag, and V)erbenate, all of which produce silly messages.

      

Because some of you like silly messages.

     

• If you stand still without doing anything, the moons continue to change phases, but enemies don't move and your food does not deplete.

• The game warns you not to try to find secret doors by bashing into walls. I assume this is because bashing into walls freezes the interface for about 10 seconds. I don't know if there are any other secret doors or mechanisms to find them.

• Hit points regenerate over time, one every eight turns.

• The game is exposing my ignorance of various alphabets. Either the game is mixing Greek and Cyrillic or there are ways of writing Greek letters that I didn't know about.

       

How do you interpret this?

       

• The game lets you ride your horse inside the castle and towns, but you can't go through doors with it. You can't X)it it inside, so it's best to leave it outside.

• There are a lot of treasure chests in some of the towns. I don't know whether these are just for show or whether there's a way to reach them. If so, it must involve secret doors somehow. 

       

This may be an Ultima clone, but I'm no avatar.

          

I made contact with Paul Falstad after I'd written most of this entry. He clarified the release year as 1989. He put "not" before "© 1989" on the title screen not because it wasn't 1989 but because he didn't feel comfortable "copyrighting" it after taking so much from Ultima, thematically and graphically. He released it by uploading it to GEnie and perhaps PeopleLink. An update followed in the early 1990s that fixed some bugs.

    

It's fortunate that I reached him, because apparently the unregistered version of the game is more difficult than the registered version. He still had the generator that took the serial number shown on the title screen and turned it into an unlock code that I could enter in the game. 

   

Thanks to commenter mpx for first alerting me to this game (in 2016!) and commenter Busca for helping me find some information about it.

       

Time so far: 2 hours