The Clathran Menace: Strange New Worlds

 

Part of the region explored this session.

   

Irene told me flat-out the other day that she didn't see returning to The Clathran Menace in the near future, so I put Corin Stoneseeker in suspension and continued with just M. J. Turner. When we last checked in with him, he was on Unaria after a visit to Dosia, the planet's twin.

    

A lecture on the history of the two planets explained some things but left a lot of mysteries. Unarians and Dosians were part of one race about 70,000 years ago, but something caused them to divide and to be placed on two planets on opposite sides of the galaxy, connected by a stargate. The Unarians are all manically happy and excited and the Dosians are all terminally depressed. Each of them thinks the other inherited the race's "evil" characteristics, and thus they periodically attack each other, although since they have the same resources and same levels of technology, the war never goes anywhere. Meanwhile, the war has halted all other technological progress.

      

Putting a character in stasis.

         

I perform the standard set of actions on the planet. Does any player just do one or two things and then take off? I mean, I know it's a big galaxy and there are lots of places to visit, but it seems more sensible to thoroughly explore a few places than to get a quick sample of a lot of places.

   

• The market offers phase steel for crystals, munitions, or super slips. I buy 2 phase steels for 1 crystal.

• The drone market offers drones for 2 tools, 1 munitions, and 1 warp core.

• I can buy a stargate key for crystals, medicine, and a super slip.

• The history lecturer directs me to a scholar named Machum who studies the stargate. Despite his long study, he doesn't seem to actually know much about it—it seems to have no power source—but he does have ancient documents indicating that a mysterious race called the Masters visited his world eons ago. They describe how to build a weapon called a Discontinuity Wave Generator, and I copy down the formula. This is the second reference to the Masters; the Clathrans seem to serve them somehow.

   

My exploration of Unaria done, I take off, fly a few trisectors south, and land on a planet called Dardahl, where the carefree inhabitants look like mythological nymphs and satyrs, wear togas, and spend their days enjoying art and music. They force all visitors to wear togas, too. There may be more than a thematic connection to Greek mythology, as the gods they worship are named Jannus, Bacca, Mirre, Senna, Derva, Plator, and so forth. Their history says that they were once a violent space faring species, but the gods made their weapons inoperable and demanded that they live a simpler life. They blanketed the planet with an "aura" that made everyone peace out. The Dardahlians claim that the gods disappeared for thousands of years but now live among them again and can be visited in the temple.

    

I wonder how the Dardahlians feel about my "discovering" their planet.

      

Actions on the planet include:

   

• The market offers fiber for food, crystals, or culture. I traded food for fiber. My cargo hold is now full.

• A "Fountain of Life." A nymph gives me directions. It's a long walk, and on the way, I'm attacked by a harpy. My offense—consisting only of the "Telekinesis" skill—fails, but my defense succeeds. I have to turn back. Maybe I'll try again when I have better weapons.

• The temple. The "gods" turn out to be automatons who offer the most obvious platitudes ("focus on your goal in order to achieve it"). One of them, Derva, the Goddess of Knowledge, suggests that she might have more to offer if I return after receiving some unspecified training.

     

This seems sensible.

    

• A shaman gives me "mesmerizing dust," a weapon that will confuse and stun an enemy. I think about taking it back to the harpy, but my status display indicates that it's a defensive weapon rather than an offensive one. 

        

I definitely need more in the "attack" column.

      

Back I go to the skies. I have to travel back past Unaria to get around a hyperspace barrier. On the way, I have a dream encouraging me to seek out the Brotherhood on Margen. "If you follow the path to its end," the voice promises, "you will learn many secrets about Dual Space and the explorations of Vanessa Chang." This is the path that Irene started with Corin. I decide to abandon my previous exploration pattern and replicate what she did.

      

Moving across the galaxy.

     

Nearly every time you take a turn that simply involves sailing through space, the game gives you at least one paragraph to read. You have a dream, or hear from someone over the radio, or learn something on your ship. In the next turn, I hear from someone named Michael Rave on the S.P. Flounder. In a later one, I hear a broadcast from Corin Stoneseeker's cult on Atlantis. In still another, the computer alerts me that it's discovered there are drones for sale on Rothane, wherever that is.

    

I stop at Holoth on the way to Margen and purchase another cargo bay for 1 phase steel and 1 radioactives. I spend the next few turns replicating what Irene did on Margen, joining the Brotherhood, learning the skills "Kothan" and "Darthan," getting an Interphase V-meter, and so forth. I then visit Bloo and get the "Paralyze" offensive ability. I'm 1 unit of munitions away from being able to buy a drone there. 

         

This seems like a good deal.

      

Continuing now counterclockwise around the galaxy, I find the planet Gloo, a large world 80% covered with water, occupied by . . . Bluvians. But these Bluvians are nothing like the dumb, pliant versions on Bloo. They're obsessed with rank, bureaucracy, and order, and they make me wear an insignia that informs everyone who sees me that I'm of the lowest rank. I have to obey anyone higher. They warn me that any common action like visiting the market or the museum might take months—and aliens are given priority! Perhaps explaining the difference, the Clathrans have a headquarters building in the city, though it seems to be deserted.

    

• At the commodities market, I trade 1 fiber for 1 warp core.

• I observe the absurdity of Bluvian society here, including multiple forms and transactions between individuals of various ranks just to order some boxes of paper clips. "It really makes for a horrible sort of bureaucracy where almost nothing gets done."

  

A key paragraph that explains how the insignia work.

     

• A lecture on chain of command turns out to be given by a robot that looks like a reptilian Clathran.

• I try to visit the factory where they make probability membranes, but I'm turned away. I thus spend 5 phases designing my own rank insignia. The game gives me a lot of options, so I have to go back through the paragraphs I've studied to figure out the right sort of badge. It appears that circles outrank squares outrank triangles, and no stripes outranks one stripe outranks two stripes. The factory guard has a circle with one stripe, so I design a circle with no stripe. It does the trick, but I find when I visit the factory that I still have to trade if I want a probability membrane, and I don't have enough goods.

      

Options for making my own rank.

     

• The insignia also gets me to a library, where an old man tells me about Bloo and a third planet where the Clathrans took some Bluvians. He doesn't think the Clathrans' experiments with the Bluvians will work out: "The Clathrans don't understand us."

• I break into the abandoned Clathran base and find a memo from a Clathran that admits their attempts to turn Bluvians into soldiers on both Bloo and Gloo have failed for mysterious reasons to do with the Bluvian "Thmorg" that Irene learned about last time.

       

I intend to go north from Gloo to a planet nearly surrounded by hyperspace walls, but it turns out I can't get around the barrier that way. So I head east and soon find myself back on Dosia. While I hate to backtrack, my notes say that Dosia will sell me munitions for food. I make that trade, then head back south to Bloo and buy a 3-bay cargo drone.

     

You can send the drone to any planet you've visited.

        

The drone really is a fantastic convenience. I can send it to any commodities market that I've previously visited, and trade up to 3 units of something for 3 units of something else. (Unfortunately, I can't send it to Outpost to pick up stuff.) I have no particular need for it now, but it will keep me later from having to crisscross the galaxy assembling items for a recipe. Unfortunately, the game insists on asking me every round whether I want to do something with my drone. Usually, I don't.

     

This comes up at the end of every turn now.

       

I head up north past Dosia, swing around a hyperspace barrier, and enter the orbit of the planet Ghorbon. Another ship immediately starts attacking me. Unfortunately, I have insufficient offensive or defensive gear, so I lose the battle and suffer 10 damage to my ship. I'll have to come back when I'm stronger if I want to visit here.

     

I didn't stand a chance.

      

The next undiscovered planet to my west is Zyroth. Here the welcome is equally hostile. Over the radio, they ask if "someone from Geefle" sent me. When I say no, they still insist that I leave and threaten me with warships. I have no choice but to continue on.

I'm blocked from moving further west by hyperspace barriers. I have to go back past Dosia to continue on. The next planet I discover is Dahl, where I have an outstanding quest to visit Brother Gries. It's a hostile planet with a poisonous atmosphere, but I manage to find a Brotherhood outpost and manipulate a candelabra to find a secret entrance (this is all handled in text). The planet offers unlimited radioactives, though I have to spend 3 phases mining them, and it costs me 5 units of health.

   

In the temple, a Brother Ultermalen asks me a challenge phrase, to which I respond according to what I learned on Margen. He then gives me a long lecture on the Path of Intuition, which includes an exchange of lines called the Dialogue. He then says if I want to continue along the path, I have to do a mission for the Brotherhood: fly to Unaria and find Brotherhood operatives there.

    

Mastering the Dialogue.

         

The shipyard on the planet has four things that I want for my ship: boarding robots, an inertial stabilizer, causality shielding, and an entropy loop. I can buy the boarding robots with what I have, but the other items require goods that are not in my cargo hold. I start to work out how I might be able to get there with the planet's unlimited radioactives and my drone. 

   

For the inertial stabilizer, the shipyard wants 1 crystals and 1 fiber. I have the fiber. The only place I've seen that sells crystals is Holoth, but they want medicine, phase steel, and tools, none of which I have. Nut Margen sells medicine for phase steel, and Unaria sells phase steel for munitions, and Dosia sells munitions for—at last—radioactives.

         

Moving items from the ship to my drone.

      

While my drone is doing the trading, I visit Brother Gries and learn more about Dual Space. He says the gap to Dual Space is becoming wider lately, which is why more people have psychic powers than ever before. Soon, it will become too wide and everything that people desire will manifest in reality, creating chaos. "If we can't stop the Interphase," he says, "the Clathrans won't matter. We'll all go crazy."

    

I eventually get the inertial stabilizer, but I can't figure out a trading route that gives me the items necessary for the other two upgrades, so I move on.

   

A few more turns, and I'm on Rothane, a lush Hadrakian colony with a single dead, burned patch on the surface. Oddly, that's where the colony is. The planet enforces the same rules as Holoth, where to become a citizen, one has to first win a battle in the Arena. My "Paralyze" and "Telekinesis" skills together are enough to win the battle, though just barely. After that, the world opens up to me. I learn that the Hadrakians tried to live in the lush areas, but they're so full of wild animals, insects, and choking vegetation that they made life difficult. Moreover, if the colony tries to set up any pollution-causing factories or bring animals from other worlds, the animals and insects from the lush parts of the planet attack them. They blame the attacks on a local god named Deresha.

A narrow victory.

     

• I visit the local office of the Battle, where I'm once again reminded that my ship is inadequate to take on the Clathrans, and I can't get missions from the organization until it is.

• I repair my ship from the damage sustained on Ghorbon.

• I can buy a 5-bay cargo drone here, but I don't have the necessary items. 

• I spend a long day exploring the green and lush part of the planet. Almost immediately, I get lost, the trees closing in to block my path. There seems to be a single mind—Deresha—controlling all life on the planet. I'm able to commune with the mind, which shows me some terrible disaster tens of thousands of years ago which nearly wiped out life on the planet; the barren place where the Hadrakians have built their colony is a remnant of that time. Cold and hungry, I have options, to kill a rabbit for food, build a fire, and interfere when I see a panther about to kill a rabbit. I choose not to disturb nature in each of these choices. Deresha rewards me by showing me the way back and giving me an ability that will come into play in other nature encounters.

      

"Let nature do its thing" is the path the planet would have me take.

      

• At the shrine, the Goddess of the White Sails tells me that there are warp cores on Worzelle. She says to remember her name; it might later be important.

       

As before, continuing onward involves a fair amount of backtracking around hyperspace barriers.  It's three more turns before I get to the next planet, Hadrak—the Hadrakian homeworld. It's a very busy, densely populated planet, but is otherwise laid out like the Hadrakian colonies, starting with the Arena where I have to prove myself before I can do anything else. Unfortunately, the home world is more demanding than the other colonies, and the mining of radioactives on Dahl has left me weak. I lose the battle. I probably need to find a planet with a hospital and return when I'm at full health and perhaps have some more offensive equipment or abilities.

       

The battle left me in bad shape.

        

There's a planet nearby, so I check it out. It turns out to be a space station called Storage Station Nine. There was one of these in the first game, too—a hub where the player can store excess goods. The game notes I can also try to steal items from other storage compartments. The problem with both options is that the compartments are locked with a code: five dials each with digits 0 to 9. After I guess a combination and get it wrong, the game notes that I can open a compartment with my "Telekinesis" ability.  But it has stuff in it, and I don't want to be a burglar. I move on.

     

I think I'll wrap up there. Overall, it wasn't a bad session. It had some battles, some role-playing options, and some puzzles that require attention to the narrative. It still does not quite out-perform the best RPGs or the best adventure games in any of these areas, but it seems silly to compare Star Saga to any other game, really. It's its own category.

    

Time so far: 11 hours

     

Game 536: Sword Quest 2: Tale of the Talisman (1993)

         

Sword Quest 2: Tale of the Talisman

United States

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

Version 1.1c released in 1993 for DOS

Date Started: 5 December 2024

       

We've seen plenty of console RPGs influenced by computer RPGs—that directionality is sensible, since computer RPGs came first. We see less of the opposite. Nonetheless, Erik Badger's two Sword Quest games for DOS were clearly influenced by Dragon Warrior (1986, AKA Dragon Quest) for the NES. These influences include the iconographic interface, the tiled landscape and dungeons, the one-line NPCs, the spell list, the turn-based combat, and—most importantly—invisible borders partitioning the landscape by enemy difficulty. I didn't play Dragon Warrior until 56 games after Sword Quest 1, so I originally missed the connection. I thought it was an Ultima clone (which makes a little sense, as Dragon Warrior clearly borrowed from Ultima), but commenters set me straight, and in an email exchange, Badger confirmed it.

        

The game begins.

     

Badger was 16-17 when he wrote the two games after experiencing Dragon Warrior on his friend's NES. He published them first as shareware through his own label, NGS, which stood for "Next Generation Software." (My use of "NGS Software" is an example of RAS Syndrome, but one that comes from the game materials.) Later, it was published by GT Interactive. I think he did a respectable job, particularly given that he didn't have his own copy of Dragon Warrior to work with.

      

Sword Quest 2 is a nice upgrade from its predecessor. I complained that the first game wasted a lot of interface space by keeping the game title and NGS logo on the screen at all times; the sequel at least removes the latter and replaces it with the current inventory. The sequel is quite a bit larger and longer. It is no less grindy, but the grinding happens more quickly than in both Dragon Warrior and Sword Quest 1. Miscellaneous interface items have been fixed; in particular, an errant keystroke no longer passes in combat. Perhaps best of all, Badger added a world map accessible with the "P" key. Let's also note that in adapting a console game for a keyboard, Badger did not rely on the joystick or other controllers but instead sensibly mapped each command to a key.

        

One of the cooler features of the sequel.

        

In 1, the player, a jester from the court of King Ferd, had to take on the quest to destroy an evil warlock after all the knights failed. At the end, he was knighted as Sir Jester. As this game opens, he's been summoned from his home to the world of Golbe by the Wizards of Zrofdomel. Golbe has been invaded by evil creatures, led by the Dragon King. The world's armies have been magically sealed inside a castle. If he can kill the Dragon King and retrieve the talisman he wears, they'll send him back.

        

Summoning someone from another world is a "minute" power?

       

The character creation process has the player allocate a pool of 30 points among strength, dexterity, and skill (all start at 5) and give a character name. The game starts with the character at the northern tip of an island in the northwest corner of the world. He has 9 food, 24 hit points, and no weapons or armor.

      

I, boringly, went for an even allocation.

         

Sword Quest 1 offered a brutal opening chapter, with the first town nowhere in sight and hostile enemies like demons and dragons attacking the unarmed, unarmored character almost immediately. It took a good hour before I was stabilized. The sequel still pulls no punches when it comes to early enemy difficulty, but at least the character starts on top of a town. I didn't notice this, and I spent a while wandering the island, looking for refuge, as I got attacked and killed by the same sorts of foes.

  

Both of those caves go to the same dungeon.

      

The beginning town is called Zrofdomel, and like all towns (so far), it has an armory, a mage shop, an inn, and a tavern. The armory in each town sells two or three items from a ladder of goods, a feature that passed from Ultima to this game through Dragon Warrior. Zrofdomel sold only staves and scythes as weapons; later towns sold short swords, maces with chains (i.e., morningstars), and long swords. The armor ladder so far has been leather, chain, half-plate, and full plate (only the first two sold in Zrofdomel), and the shield ladder has been leather, small shield, large shield. When you purchase an item, it automatically replaces the older item in your equipped inventory.

         

Buying weapons in the town of Smoffed.

      

Mage shops sell items that basically replicate spells, including torches, fire jars (for use in combat), and curing potions. Inns are the only place to completely restore hit points (camping outdoors restores some), and pubs sell food. Food is a somewhat unwelcome addition to the sequel. You can carry a maximum of 99 meals, and they disappear at a rate of one every 16 moves, though thankfully not in towns. Still, the mechanic limits how much time you can spend out on exploration.

       

I'm not sure it was worth the cost.

       

Towns are safe places, but out in the wilderness, you get attacked every 20 or so steps by dragons, fire dragons, griffins, slimes, slimy blobs, demons, evil spirits, giant spiders, evil knights, vampire flocks, and (living) fireballs. These creatures are more or less interchangeable, their level (from 1 to ???) counting more towards their difficulty than their type.

            

Taking on a Level 13 fire dragon when I'm Level 25.

      

Combat occurs in rounds, with options to flee, fight, use an item, or cast a spell; at the beginning, only the first two are available. As with both Dragon Warrior and Sword Quest 1, the best practice is to grind against foes until you can afford the best items in the local town. This process is made much easier in this game by the fact that you can just hold down the "F" key, which passes time outside of combat and fights inside combat. You save every few victories and reload if you die (saving and reloading can take place anywhere). Leveling is swift. Your first victory gets you to Level 2, and after that, you need about as many victories as your current level to reach the next one. Enemies start fleeing from you when your level variance gets high enough.

       

Hard not to feel powerful when this happens.

     

There are both fixed and wandering NPCs in the towns. Some of them have fixed dialogue while others draw from a library of options each time you talk to them. In either case, some of them are helpful and some of them are not. The same NPCs will amusingly cycle through both positive and negative options:

• "Welcome to [town name]; enjoy your stay."
• "I would say 'nice weather' except that it isn't."
• "Did you know you look a lot like a court jester?"
• "I can see that you are an honorable person."
• "I haven't seen you around here before."
• "Why aren't you doing something more constructive, huh?"
• "Bug off!

       

Must . . . not . . . laugh.

       

• "Let me get this straight: Tuesday is after Monday?"
• "Dippidi-do-dah, dippidi-day. My-oh-my what a horrible day."
• "Gosh, you're ugly!"
• "Shove off, buster!" 
• "The land is suffering under the evil; save it!"
• "Kill the Dragon Lord or evil will win!"
• "You won't succeed, so why bother?"

      

I did! I learned this from Ripley's Believe It or Not when I was a kid. The reason is gold is measured using the troy system, which has 12 ounces to the pound, whereas feathers would use standard weight units (or avoirdupois weights) at 16 ounces to a pound. Troy ounces weigh more than avoirdupois ounces, but not enough more to make up the variance.

       

More useful comments include:

   

• "I've heard that a circle of columns can be strange indeed."

• "Some believe that the stronghold of evil is on a south-easterly island." 

• "If you have the talisman, a castle will appear somewhere."

• "If you enter the castle with the Mystic Talisman, you will restore Golbe from the evil minions of the Dragon King."

       

Nice to know exactly what I'm supposed to do.

      

• "Before the castle disappeared, Blaslub was 22 quargs east and 4 north of it."

• "'Tis said that magic wings work only about twenty quargs of time." [A quarg in the game's lingo is a move.]

• "It would be a good idea to write down the name of all the towns in the world of Golbe."

• "With a magical compass, you can find any village in the world that you know the name of."

• "Find the magic book in the cave system to the south [of Zrofdomel] and you can do magic."

   

Enemies right around Zrofdomel are capped at Level 1, so I spent some time grinding there until I was about Level 12 and had the best starting equipment from the shop, plus a couple of torches. This took maybe 20 minutes. I then went to the only place I could: a network of caves south of the city.

   

The game's dungeons have so far all had multiple entrances and exits, and the first dungeon is the only way to reach the mainland. Dungeons are all multi-screen mazes that require torches or the "Light" spell to see. From the moment that you activate either one, the window of brightness collapses bit by bit as you move.

       

I find a spell book just as my torch runs out.

      

Chests and piles of jewels are seeded throughout dungeons every time you enter or exit. There are also fountains at fixed locations; these have a random chance of increasing or decreasing an attribute or experience. Monster attacks occur randomly, with each dungeon having its own (invisible) monster level maximum. 

      

A fountain lowers my dexterity.

        

As promised by an NPC, the first dungeon had a spellbook. It had "Heal," "Injure," "Shield," "Light," "Lightning," and "Unlock" (every town has a few locked doors, usually in inns). I later got "Fly," presumably from leveling up. This spell lets you move over the landscape with no restrictions, but for a relatively hefty cost.

         

50 spell points to cross a channel.

    

I emerged from the first dungeon on the mainland, where my movement was a bit constricted by mountains and waterways. I eventually found my way to the town of Catchniv and a nearby dungeon network. I spent some time grinding there until I had the best the city had to offer, then took a third dungeon to a large island in the southwest corner of the map.

    

I think I was in this new area prematurely; I got there at Level 29 and the enemy maximum seemed to be around 50. Nonetheless, I found a town called Velmedel and kept grinding until I matched those levels and had enough money for a long sword and full plate armor. One thing I like about the game is that lower-level enemies continue to show up in places that have high max levels, so you can always grind if you're willing to reload. On the other hand, Level 1 and 2 enemies can occasionally show unexpected competence, whacking away a few dozen hit points before they die.

      

Chests offer about as much gold as a single battle.

       

Even after getting up to the level of the enemies, exploring the rest of this area was possible only through my willingness to save and reload frequently. I found a couple more dungeons and a "temple" that looked like a dungeon but had no enemies inside. Despite a modest size, its half dozen exits disgorged me all over the game world. I also found a circle of stones that teleported me to a small island in the center-north of the world and back again.

    

Miscellaneous notes:

     

• There are MIDI tunes that play in towns and combat. I don't know whether Badger composed them or just used classical numbers I'm not familiar with. I'll try to find out before the final entry.

• I've been playing with the sound off, however, less because of the music and more because of the torturous 10-second, eight-note "effect" that accompanies every spellcasting. Other sound effects just sound like static to me; it's possible that I've misconfigured something.

• The graphics don't work well with my colorblindness. I can't see some of the graphical detail because the colors appear too similar, so a lot of the icons just look like blobs.

• If you die, you're resurrected near Zrofdomel, minus a lot of food, gold, experience, and equipment. It's better just to reload.

     

Resurrected, minus five levels, 30 food, my weapon, and my shield.

     

• Prices escalate as you move across the map. A night at an inn went from 6 gold pieces in Zrofdomel to 103 in Velmedel.

    

I'd advise dropping your prices. Even the Empress of Kesh would balk at what you're asking.

    

• Fleeing from combat works reliably until enemies get around Level 25, at which point it starts to fail most of the time. I think success depends on the absolute level of the enemy and not the relative difference compared to the player.

• There's a "Look" command, but so far I haven't found any use for it.

    

It says this every time I use the command.

     

I started noting locations on a screenshot of the in-game map. The map has its own legend with villages, temples, caves annotated with the first letters of those words, but I can barely see the letters against the backdrop. Still, even those letters will help me if there's some village that I can't find. Based on some sampling, I estimate the game world to be about 250 x 250.

       

My explorations so far.

      

I'd say that I've explored about one-third of the game world but that I'm about halfway through the game. It's good in a light, pass-the-time sort of way, a somewhat nice contrast to the thick plots of both Betrayal at Krondor and Star Saga: Two.

    

Time so far: 4 hours