The Odyssey: One Step at a Time

My map of the dungeon so far. Click to enlarge.

        

This entry concerns the dungeon map at the top of the screen. It's large, but not enormous, right? In a typical RPG, say The Bard's Tale, a level like this might take 30 or 40 minutes. But in The Odyssey, which has a completely different design philosophy, this partial level took me about six hours.

   

Let's break it down:

   

I arrive via a ladder at Point 1 (northwest corner). Door 2 is a rare unlocked door. In the chamber beyond, I find a statue of a beautiful woman (3) and a ghost moping around it (4). I talk to the ghost. He introduces himself as Antiphos. He mourns for his lost love, Julia, the woman depicted in the statue. "Once I was a proud warrior, one of the strongest in the land. And she was queen of one of the Thebikan cities." Julia agreed to marry Antiphos after his battle against "the Derondae," but he died in the battle. His spirit cannot move on without knowing whether Julia truly loved him. He asks me to bring him some proof. By the end of this session, I have not found any. This is the least complicated encounter on the map.

     

All love is unrequited.

      

There's nothing but to move on to the east chamber. The wall at Point 5 is closed when I first arrive, but it opens when I step on the pressure plate at Point 6. The door at Point 7 is not here initially; the corridor is open, and a cannonball fires down it repeatedly, instantly killing any character caught in its path.

   

Meanwhile over in Room 8, we have a wraith and two goblins in the far corners. I can't see them when I round the corners where the wall used to be, but they can see me, and just a few of their arrows are enough to kill me. I try gulping a Potion of Invisibility, moving up to the goblins, and attacking in melee range, but that just puts me amidst three tough enemies when I become visible again. Since enemies with missile weapons never come to you, the only way that I get through this is to spend the last of my money on flasks of Greek fire and toss them into the room. Even then, I have to get lucky and not get hit by some of their arrows.

     

When in doubt, fill it with fire.

      

(To save time, "I have to get lucky" is a common theme this session. Even a successful strategy usually comes after a dozen failed attempts, and success is only achieved because the enemy misses me several times in a row. There are times—I'm not proud of this—in which I saved after every move if it was successful and reloaded when it was not.)

      

A pressure plate at Point 9 opens the wall at Point 10, releasing a ferocious lion. I'm convinced the lion is unbeatable in regular combat. He kills me in a single hit. The only way I can figure to defeat him is to lead him to Point 6, where he'll get hit by the cannonball coming down the corridor. This takes precise timing, and we end up looping around this area several times. 

      

Back in Chamber 11 is another goblin archer. To get into his melee range without dying to a hail of arrows, I have to swallow a Potion of Invisibility. Potions of Invisibility will be the key to a lot of these puzzles. Even then I have to get pretty lucky in the ensuing melee, but eventually he dies, dropping a quiver of arrows and a tomb key.

      

Saving after each time I hit and he misses.

       

The tomb key opens Door 12, after which I am immediately slain by a murderous sphinx at Point 13. On a reload, I talk to the sphinx from a distance. "The ignorance of mankind fills me with rage," he says. He then asks his famous riddle: "What walks on four legs in the morning, two legs in the afternoon, and three legs in the evening." I know the answer, but my character does not, and I don't get a text box this time. Since I can't get past the sphinx, I move on.

     

Answering your riddle doesn't show "knowledge" so much as "cleverness."

       

There's a patch of packed earth at Point 13 amidst marble flagstones. I have no proof that it means anything, but it makes me suspicious.

   

I turn my attention to the cannonballs coming down Corridor 7. I later found out they're being shot from a cannon at Point 14 (the path they take is highlighted), but I can't see that cannon yet. There's also another cannon a few squares to the north, and I can't remember what path its cannonballs took. I disabled it before I started taking detailed notes.

  

It turns out that there's a "fast movement" option if you move with the mouse and hover the cursor farther away from the character, near the edge of the screen. This is the key to just getting down the corridor and then to one of the adjacent squares in between cannonballs. Of course, then you have to deal with the two goblin archers in the corners and the lion. This lion isn't any easier than the last one. Oh, and Door 7 closes and locks once you get through the corridor, so there's no going back.

         

The situation in this room.

       

After a lot of dying, I decide that the Potion of Invisibility is once again the solution. It gets me past the archers and lion and into the southern corridor around Wall 16. With the right timing, I get the lion killed by one of the cannonballs, then rush up and kill the southwestern goblin while the northwestern one can't see me. To kill the northwestern one, I again have to resort to throwing bottles of Greek fire. All in all, surviving this room takes me about two hours and lots of false starts. When I'm done, I loot a couple of ancient coins, a miner's helmet (it has a flashlight that replaces torches) and a key to Door 7.

    

The southern corridor ends in lava, so I can't go that way. Across the lava, I can see a pressure plate at Point 18, with two more cannons to the north. The switch on the wall at Point 17 opens the grey walls its east (Points 16 but not 19). All that does is expose a wraith at Point 20 who sends a howling attack at me every single round. It's as hard to time and dodge, and just as deadly, as the cannonballs. I also die instantly if I get next to him; like the lions, I don't think he can be killed in regular combat. I should mention, too, that all the enemies have unique names. This wraith is a "screaming wraith" to differentiate it from the "fell wraith" I met earlier.

     

The screaming wraith releases an "ultrasonic scream."

         

I discover that if I throw my dagger at the pressure plate at Point 18, leaving me temporarily weaponless, it opens the wall at Point 19. If I then go through the wall, I get killed by fireballs thrown by a salamander in the lava pool at Point 21. Again, a Potion of Invisibility saves the day (you have to imagine me running back up to Mr. Jones's shop quite often). It gets me around to the pressure plate, where I can pick up my dagger. The cannon to the north of Point 18 is shooting south originally, but the switch south of the pressure plate turns it to shoot east, which takes out the wraith. Yay. Meanwhile, the salamander disappears at some point; I can only assume he was killed by one of the wraith's attacks or a stray cannonball. Either way, I'm not complaining.

      

Tossing my dagger across the lava.

        

There's a vampire at Point 22 who kills me instantly when he sees me coming, so I go the other way. I move past Point 20 and head down the corridor, only to be killed by the arrows of two orcs lurking at Point 23. That's a lot of steps to advance under sniper fire, so again Mr. Jones's exploding flasks save the day. The orcs were guarding a garlic bulb, and I think I know who's not going to like that.

   

In the meantime, I continue into the next room (Point 24), where some treasures are to be found amidst piles of rubble, but the rubble tires me out when I walk over it. I think maybe I find a quiver of arrows and a magic bone (induces friendship with animals) here. There's a scroll with someone ranting about the sphinx.

  

Point 25 has a Wizard Eye Potion, and a nearby sign encourages me to "save this potion for your next trial by lightning and fire." The problem is that it's surrounded by force fields, and the only way to it is through a square of lava. I have to go in, taking massive damage, grab the potion, rest and heal, and go back out, taking massive damage again.

     

Is there going to be more than one of those?

      

With the garlic bulb in my left hand, I return to the vampire at Point 22. Pleasingly cowed, he gives me two pieces of information: (1) there's a secret behind the altar; and (2) the answer to the sphinx's riddle is MAN. My character says: "I ought to kill you anyway. A foul bloodsucking creature like yourself lives only at the expense of others. But you have helped me, and I cannot ignore a debt. Goodbye, vampire." Before I leave, I grab a Scepter of Friendship from the ground next to him.

         

My character can be a bit of a dick.

        

Back to the sphinx (Point 13). He accepts my answer and calms down. I move down the corridor to a couple of unlocked doors and enter the area around Point 26, where I'm immediately attacked by invisible warp demons. They hit hard, but they also die quickly if I can hit them with my dagger. I target empty squares until they're all dead. Beyond them at Point 27 is at last a proper weapon, a "perfect sword." There's also a pair of leather boots at Point 28.

        

I have no way forward at this point, so I try the Scepter of Tomb Teleportation. It takes me to a new area. I land in an 8 x 8 room full of cobwebs (Point 30) and am immediately killed by an invisible stalker. I reload and try again, swinging my weapon at empty squares, but another stalker kills me; there are apparently multiple stalkers in here. On a third try, I use a Potion of Invisibility and make it out of the area into a single-square corridor. I wait for the invisibility to wear off and then try taking them on one at a time. It works. I ultimately kill four stalkers: "unperceived," "invisible," "unseen," and "horrible," all distinguished from the "shadowy" stalker I faced the last time. Each drops a new Potion of Invisibility.

     

I move down into an old chapel. "Fires mysteriously burn behind the altars—perhaps the gods still live here. Murals and frescoes adorn the walls and ceiling, portraying the struggles of men and gods for freedom." Mindful of what the vampire said about the altar, I inspect all the tiles behind it and discover that there's something odd about one of them. I have to walk through the fire, taking significant damage, to access the tile, which opens a secret door to the east. This leads to a room with another key and a shield. Unfortunately, I don't have the encumbrance for it. I've been gaining 10 pounds of carrying space every time I level up, and I might need to wait for the next level.

      

I'm curious who the gods are struggling for freedom from.

       

The key opens the southern door in the chapel. The moment I step through it, I'm slaughtered by an arrow. On a reload, a Potion of Invisibility shows me that it's a large room with a fountain in the center and a door on the south wall. There's a pressure plate in front of the door and six boulders lined up on either side of the pressure plate. Four goblins (master, overlord, hero, and king) lurk against the eastern and western walls, two on each side. A single arrow from any of them kills me instantly at full health. The water prevents me from reaching them or the pressure plate and door. I think that maybe I can throw my dagger onto the plate (it's the only thing so far the character can throw), but the moment I throw it, I become visible and get killed with an arrow.

      

The level I can't get through. Yet.

        

Aside from figuring out this room, there's one way to go: east along a corridor between the arrival room and the chapel. It turns north and dead-ends at a pressure plate (Point 35) which opens a wall to the west. I find myself in a familiar place, near where I found the boots. This level, which I had originally pegged at about 30 x 30 (same as the surface map) is instead currently 60 squares on the vertical axis—and the door I cannot yet get through shows that it extends even farther in that direction.

       

Whew. It's six hours later, and I am exhausted. Here are some other things I didn't cover along the way:

   

• I'm barely keeping up with food. Mr. Jones's inventory restocks only once per day, and I have to visit almost every day to buy the two portions of meat that he has.

• I leveled up twice in the first session, both times by finding Scepters of Lordly Might. I did not find any scepters this time, and did not otherwise level up. I suspect there is no traditional experience and leveling in this game. 

• Encumbrance is an issue, so I've designated a corridor to store the stuff I'm not using at any given time.

     

My growing collection.

      

• Equipped items can be damaged or destroyed if the character is hit hard enough.

• There are five locked doors that I can't find the keys to open yet: At Point 29 on the map, on the level above (in my "extra equipment" corridor), two on the same building to the northwest of the palace, one inside Sarah's house. Plus the jail, I guess, but I don't really need to get in there. I have one "city key" that doesn't go to anything, as far as I can tell.

• The "Read Me" file promises that each key opens only one door, so there's no reason to keep them in your inventory unless you think you might want to lock it again. I've thus been dropping them near the doors that they open. I hope the file didn't lie about that. 

      

When I was writing to David Larkin, I asked about his influences. He has some experience with tabletop gaming, which makes sense, as The Odyssey feels a bit like a Dungeons & Dragons module, each room with its own backstory and special encounters. I also wonder if he played the Stuart Smith games, which like this one tend to eschew generic "monsters" and to blur the line between monsters and NPCs, but he said he had no exposure to them. He also didn't mention Dungeon Master despite the pressure plates and mechanical puzzles. He said his primary influences were Ultima and Wizardry.

           

The Odyssey is satisfying when I finally pass one of its challenges, but it's also pretty exhausting. And it's quite poorly named; I don't think I've traveled more than 100 tiles since the game began.

   

Time played: 9 hours 

     

****

   

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    07/10/2026