Sandor II: Already Stuck

 

An unknown encounter looms in a dungeon.

       

Well, that was unfortunate. I'd avoided having to take a break since the beginning of the year. I really hoped this year would be the first one that I never broke stride. Alas, something always happens.

   

I'm blogging about Sandor II because I promised I'd be back today, but I can't seem to get anywhere with it. I gather that it's going to offer the same type of experience as the later Magic Tower I: Dark Stone Ritual (1992), where a somewhat open world contrasts with very linear movement within that world. The player can find multiple dungeons at the outset of the game, but he needs a key from Dungeon 1 to open Dungeon 2, and so on. I spent most of this entry trying to figure out how to get started.

       

An NPC raises more questions than he answers.

      

Only a few steps after the game began, I had a random encounter in the wilderness. An old man appeared, identified himself as Florian, and asked for a "small donation." When I said yes, the game took me to my inventory screen: Florian wanted an item rather than gold or food. Fortunately, I had an extra axe that I had bought for McCann but wasn't strong enough to equip. In response, Florian said: "I'll give you a hint. To get into Roce Fortress, you need a password. If you want to find out, first go to the ruins near Wolfsstein. Go to the middle well. Wait there until midnight. Tell whoever shows up my name. I hope you still remember it. We'll see each other again. Hahahaha."

   

I hadn't found anything specifically called the Roce Fortress or Wolfsstein, but then again, the game doesn't tell you dungeon names. Eventually, I returned to the dungeon completely surrounded by mountains that has a top-down interface rather than a first-person interface. An early message says: "The jug goes to the well until it breaks." Later on, there are three patches of water, which I figure are Florian's three wells. There's an obvious "middle" one, even.

          

What am I meant to do here?

      

The problem is waiting until midnight. There is no indication of time on the dungeon screen, or on any screen that I can access from the dungeon screen. Neither is there a way to tell time on the outdoor screen. The only screen that mentions time at all is the town screen. So I don't know how to wait until midnight. I tried just sitting there for a while, then sitting there for a while with the emulator on "fast forward," but nothing happened. If the "jug" message is supposed to be telling me something, I can't figure it out.

    

On the rest of the map:

   

• I kept returning to the Cartography School to give Sirus a few points in the skill. It took about 20 points before I could finally map a dungeon.

• I thought to make money from trade goods, but in the starting area, towns only sell tobacco and buy tea. 

• A dungeon south of a lake has a locked door only a few steps from the entrance.

• I related last time that when I tried to leave the first town, a guy appeared and asked for help with someone chasing him, but I was unable to win the battle. I encountered the guy outside of a town and, because I had more characters and better equipment, agreed to help him. The game then went directly to him thanking me and giving me a 500-gold-piece reward. 

This guy asked for help, and then didn't really need it.

• I still don't know what to do at the location that wants me to input a sequence of buttons.

• Or the one that wants me to make a mosaic out of various tiles. 

• A dungeon at the bottom of the map has a trap every few steps. 

          

Taking trap damage.

         

As I explored the map, I fought a random combat every once in a while. It would be hard to "grind" in this game since combats are comparatively rare. None of them have been hard. I noticed that the combats didn't get more difficult or more numerous as I added more characters, either.

       

Four characters take on three enemies in battle.

     

The monetary rewards from combat would have been just enough to keep up with my food usage. Fortunately, you sometimes find equipment in addition to gold. This equipment sometimes sells for quite a bit of money. Also, I found that food prices are extremely volatile. You might visit the pub and find that they're selling 15 provisions for 45 gold pieces, exit, return, and get an offer of 45 provisions for 15 gold pieces.

   

I spent quite a while logging every piece of equipment that I'd found on enemies and that I found for sale in towns or traders' wagons. The game gives you an associated weapon and armor class for each item, but it's such a nuisance to equip, assess, unequip, and trade that I've been assuming (I'm sure incorrectly) that the most expensive items are the better ones. My characters don't have the strength to wield most stuff anyway. 

          

Some of the game's equipment.

       

The game likes to put nonsense words in some of its equipment; for instance, I've found Gorf Sandalen, Toco-Platte (Eisen), Kotalan Stab, and Uta Schild. German speakers, tell me if I'm missing anything, but I don't think the words Gorf, Toco, Kotalan, and Uta actually translate to anything. My understanding of German is that they're not possessive, either; that would be Gorfs Sandalen, Utas Schild, and so forth. There's nothing wrong here, of course—Toco and Uta are maybe the game's equivalent of "Mithril" or "Daedric"—but it does add some complexity to figuring things out.

 

Adding to the mystery, there are three gold-krone (gold crowns) I can buy called "Ubu," "Kobu," and "Jacoco," and a gold chain called "Trinak." I have no idea what to make of these. 

     

Lacking any other ideas, I decided to just force my way through the trap-filled dungeon, but then, having pushed past the first three traps, I got destroyed by the first truly difficult enemy party the game has thrown at me. 

    

I didn't even come close.

      

I reloaded, limped back to town, and found that I had earned enough experience points to get my first level-up. Leveling up comes with fairly significant attribute boosts; some of my characters doubled their previous values. I decided to grab two more characters while I was at it, looking in particular for someone with a high trap-disarming ability. I didn't find such a person, but I did add a fifth character (Iain) with strong spellcasting skills.

       

Leveling up. That big boost in kraft means I can equip more items.

        

While looking for more party members, I remembered the option to listen to fellow patrons in taverns. It appears that you only get one "tavern tale" per town. Across all four towns I've discovered:

   

• A hint that the king is looking for some adventurers to "rescue him from a difficult situation." We learned what that situation was last time.

• Amidst a bunch of background chatter, some mentions of the king's daughters being missing. Again, we learned about that directly from the king.

       

A "tavern tale."

        

• A drunk claiming that "I put a few stones in there and whoosh, the gate opened." This might be a clue to getting past a locked dungeon door. I haven't found any stones, though.

• A woman going on about creatures that are "supposed to be so devilishly beautiful that you can't help but look at them," but that women are immune to the enchantment.

       

So either I've overlooked something or the solution to move forward is to keep grinding until I can take on the enemies in that southernmost dungeon. Either way, I definitely need a different game to get some momentum going again. The two on my active list are absolute killers.

     

Time so far: 6 hours