Friday, August 15, 2025

The Dungeon (pedit5): Back on Top

 
The latest winner's board. I don't know what happened to #2.
     
I happened to note the other day that enough people had won The Dungeon (1975) to push me out of the Hall of Fame, so I took some time this week to restore my rightful place. It took about 4 hours and maybe 30-40 characters. As we learned in my previous coverage of the world's first CRPG, winning The Dungeon is more about luck than skill. 
   
I took the opportunity to make a video:


   
 
It's not a great video. If I'm ever going to be good at videos, I know I need to separate video and audio, narrating after I play rather than while I play. Nonetheless, it covers the salient points and checks a longstanding item off my "to do" list. 
    
Back to the regular program soon, but I got really frustrated with Ishar 2 after the last entry. 
 

Tuesday, August 12, 2025

Daemonsgate: Behind Enemy Lines

 
Your overconfidence is your weakness.
       
In our first session with Daemonsgate, we learned that an army of demons was besieging the city of Tormis. The only hope for the city was for a small team, led by captain-of-the-guard Gustavus, to get past the siege, make their way to the nearby city-state of Attiea, and get more information about the demons from an Elsopean refuge. We learned that the thieves' guild might have a secret way out of the city, and that a woman named Moll was associated with the guild. Moll told us to meet her in the Harvester of Sorrow after midnight.
      
Impatient, and anticipating some nighttime activity, we rest until the deadline. When we return to Moll, she tells us to "leave all our weapons," which she means quite literally. We have to drop them all on the floor. 
    
The game's inventory system is a little annoying, but it also has some positive features. You click on each body part to see what the character is carrying in that location. The options are head, backpack (barely visible; you have to click on the corner), quiver, arms, chest, belt, right hand, left hand, and legs. In all of those locations except the backpack, you can only carry one thing, so the panels that list a bunch of stuff are mostly wasted.
     
Dropping my bastard sword.
      
Anything you "Wear" goes into the appropriate slot, moving anything already there to the backpack. Anything that you "Get" automatically goes to the right hand. Then you can "Swap" one item for another in two different locations. But there's no command to simply "Move" an item from one location to another. For instance, if you have Thieves' Tools in your backpack and want to hold them in your left hand, you have to "Wear" a shield first, then "Swap" it with the tools. Meanwhile, to trade an item with another character, you have to choose "Give" and then right-click on the portrait in the center of the screen until that character appears, then click on it. It's very easy to get that center portrait confused with the character with the active inventory, whose name is in the upper-right. The whole system needed some Might and Magic style shortcuts, such as being able to highlight an item and then just hit the number of the character to transfer it, or simply the ability to drag items from one place to another. To make me use the mouse but then not enable such obvious mouse functionality is a bit maddening.
     
Even each bit of food has a description.
      
On the positive side, we have the item descriptions. Anything may be "Examined" for more information. The author took time to write paragraphs for the most mundane objects. I love it.
     
Once we have all the weapons out of our hands, belts, and backpacks, Moll agrees to lead us to the guild. We go around the tavern and north for a few buildings before entering one with a sign that says "Acquisition." Moll introduces us to Hanri the Knife.
     
Just a jack-knife has old Hanri, babe . . .
       
Hanri, who wears a suit, sunglasses, and a top hat, confirms that the thieves' guild has a secret exit from the city. but "the exit is locked and Travis Sewerbreath has the key." Travis has been arrested and is awaiting execution in the prison. Hanri says that if we can bust him out, he'll help us get out of the city. He further says that there's a passage from the sewers to the basement of the jail.
    
Hanri says that we can have access to "the guild and its resources," but that doesn't seem to mean anything. The game often shows areas full of chests, barrels, and sacks, but the only time you can ever pick something up is if there are smaller items shown on the same screen. Then, you can grab them one at a time from the "Objects" menu.
   
The thieves' guild has a stairway down to the sewers. Near the entrance is a locked door—presumably, it leads to the tunnel outside the city. A very long corridor (like, 60 seconds of straight walking) goes east to the prison, but when we get there, we find another locked door. If we're going to spring Travis, we'll need some lockpicks.
      
Well, hell.
       
I head back to the surface and start exploring buildings, looking for a shop that sells thieves' tools. I find one rather quickly—a pawn between the thieves' guild and the Harvester of Sorrow. I pick up some thieves' tools, fletcher's tools, and armorer's tools, as well as a couple of first-aid kits. I wonder about some of the other items for sale (e.g., Air Amulet, Bloodstone Amulet, Diamond Dust, Black Cloth), but I can't examine them unless I buy them.
     
With the tools in hand, we return to the sewers beneath the prison and unlock the door. Right on the other side, we have our first battle with a couple of guards named Karl and Bill. Yes, the game tells you the personal names of your enemies; there's no pretending that they're just generic guards.
       
Well, now I feel bad.
       
Combat is . . . odd. I wouldn't call it "bad." Truly bad combat would take too long, and the battles here are pretty short. I think I'll save a detailed description for later, when I have more experience and options. For now, the grid that you see in these screenshots is just paving tiles, not a tactical grid; characters move continuously across it. The characters start in a formation some distance from their foes, and the weird thing is that the formation seems to assume that the foes are to the north, but every battle I've fought so far has them to the east.
    
Options for each character. Note that we're all facing the wrong way.
       
The overall system is "real time with pause," a little like Darklands. You can click "Start" and "Stop" as necessary to advance the action or pause to issue orders. Orders include attacking enemies, casting spells, and fleeing. When you attack and target an enemy, the character moves dutifully across the screen at the next "Start" and wallops that enemy until he's dead. In most of the battles this session, enemies had missile weapons, so the characters had to make that initial march under a hail of arrows. Once they got into melee range, they deal with the enemies very fast.  
     
After battle, you automatically collect gold and then get your choice of some of the enemy's gear. I loot about half a dozen halberds from the guards in the prison, which I later sell for a decent amount of money.
        
The loot screen.
     
The prison beyond has a number of locked doors, most with signs outside:
 
  • "Cell One: Psycho Matt."   
  • "Cell Two: Crazy Samm. Feed only raw meat at arm's length." 
  • "Cell Three: Travis Sewer Breath. Scheduled for execution."
  • "Cell Four: Slitter Emmott."
  • "Cell Five: Peeping Jacques the Rake." 
  • "Cell Six: Carter Sixfingers. Scheduled for execution." 
     
Lots of good potential user IDs for you anonymous commenters here.
       
  • "Cell Seven: Leetch Slimetoad. Feed only bread and water."
  • "Cell Eight: Nathaniel Blackthorn. Scheduled for execution."
  • "Cell Ten: Empty."
    
Despite all the names, most of the cells are empty. Fortunately, Travis is in his cell. He takes off on his own but says he'll be at the Harvester of Sorrows.
     
Before I head back to the tavern, I decide to cross the river and return to the university. It had a lot of locked doors, and I want to see what I find now that I can open them. Also, a few NPCs have told me that there are magicians at the university, and no one in my party has any spell skills.
   
I'm slightly disappointed on both grounds. The best I do on loot is a bunch of reagents in the "spell preparation" room. The manual briefly covers making potions, but I don't want to deal with that right now.
           
Don't mince words, now.
      
In terms of joining, I ask everyone. Most of the students and faculty give me lame excuses. Only one accepts, a guy named Arion Edmunson. Problems: 1) He has the kind of face you just want to pound with a shovel; 2) his only skills are "Magic Sense," "Herb Lore," and "Meditation"; 3) he's not very good at any of them. I mean, it's nice that he can mix potions, but I need someone with "Elemental Lore" or "Daemon Lore" to cast spells.
     
I explore some of the other buildings with my picks. One of the warehouses has enough salted pork to cover our meals for a couple of weeks. I loot a bunch of weapons and armor from the militia headquarters, which is particularly timely because when I get back to the Harvester of Sorrows, I find two thief NPCs—Grim and Grom—who don't have any armor. They join the party, bringing my total to eight. I think that's the maximum; at least, that's all the portraits that are shown on the combat screen.
      
Not the most heroic of moments.
     
Travis, lurking in the back room as promised, claims that Hanri the Knife set him up. "He sent me on a job and grassed me up to the militia." He'll give me the key to get out of town if I kill Hanri and bring back Hienze's Ring from his body.
      
"Gave me up to the coppers" ---> "Grasshoppered" ---> "Grassed"?
   
Hanri saves me from any ethical qualms by attacking the moment I see him. ("You know too much about our organisation.") He only attacks with two henchmen, though. My party of eight makes short work of him. We loot the ring, return it to Travis, and get the key. I decline to add Travis to the party.
          
The chaos of battle.
     
I'm not in any rush to escape the city, though. We're pretty flush after we sell our excess weapons and armor. I spent a few days at the tavern teaching, practicing, and reading. We go to the marketplace and get a few equipment upgrades as well as an Adamantine Sword for Gustavus. I don't know if I'll be able to come back here once I leave.
        
I guess I'll use a dry-erase marker.
        
Eventually, we're ready. We unlock the door in the thieves' guild basement with the key, head northwest a long way, and finally emerge into the wilderness from a grate in a small building. Before I go too far, the game asks, "Do you want to leave town?," so I guess I'm still on the town map.
        
I assume it means the hole beneath the grate.
      
We transition to a much smaller-scale map, the party represented by a shield. There's another shield to our northeast, and when I approach, we automatically enter combat with 10 "war-lords." We last no time at all. 
      
The frame is cute, but I'd rather see more of the landscape.
      
On a reload, we're more cautious. Aside from the fact that we cannot cross water, the game does appear to be open world. We can go anywhere. The question then becomes: is there any point? Does the game reward open exploration? 
    
Just for fun, I travel east a bit to Eloran and find a town with the predictable shops and inns. Navigating without a map (as I had with Tormis) is a bit of a pain. People are nervous about the demonic hordes but don't have any quests or insights for me. I decide to see if I can make it all the way to Elsopea. I cross the river east of Tormis and march to the border peaks, but I get slaughtered by some men-at-arms when I try to rest for the night.
     
The party tries to head directly for the endgame.
     
Deciding that maybe I'll play with open exploration later, I reload from the sewer exit and start heading northwest to Attiea (which is how everyone in the game spells it, but on the map it's "Atteia").
     
At first, I try to make it there directly. The party gets fatigued quickly while traveling overland, and once they're tired, they start moving at half-speed. Worse, at that point, they're useless in combat. You want to stop and rest them more often than they technically need. The problem that I encounter is that I get attacked every single time I try to camp outside. It doesn't matter where. It doesn't matter whether I set a guard. It doesn't matter whether I was just attacked the last time I tried to rest. Every time. By enemies I don't have a hope of defeating.
       
Like these guys.
       
The alternative is to city-hop. I concentrate on just making it to Greybrook along the coast west of Tormis and south of Attiea. We're "desperately tired" when we arrive, and it takes me forever to find an inn, but it otherwise works. The next leg is north-northwest to Morgan, and we're not even tired when we arrive there. Again, it takes a while to find the one inn—I wouldn't have minded if these side cities were just menu towns.
    
Arriving at Greybrook. I wonder if it gets worse than "desperately tired."
      
From Morgan, it's virtually no time at all to Attiea. Here, there's an inn right near the town entrance called the Quaffing Pig. And the first person I talk to is an apprentice to the very Elsopean that I'm looking for. 
        
I heard that Theodore McAlestere jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge.
      
The Elsopean's name is apparently Alathon, and he's gone to see the patriarch of the city, Hellast. Hellast has come up a few times, so I go and check my knowledge bank. Apparently, he came out of nowhere to overthrow the city during the war between Tormis and Attiea, which Attiea was losing badly. Hellast has been xenophobic and isolationist—some people call him a "tyrant"—but his rule has brought unprecedented wealth and power to the city. Those who follow him call other people "skum."
        
I'm leaning towards "tyrant."
       
Theodore, the apprentice, hasn't seen Alathon in so long that he assumes Hellast is holding him captive. In searching for him, Theodore has gotten mixed up with a revolutionary group called the Warriors of Light. Led by someone named Francisco Antonio, their goal is to oust Hellast. He says I should go to a tavern called the Laughing Heretic and say the word "Incontinence" to the owner. 
     
This is a nice feature.
      
The Quaffing Pig Inn is outside the city walls. The gate into the walled city is guarded by two bands of pirate captains, and there doesn't seem to be any way to avoid them if I want to get in. They kill some of my party members the first two times I try, but it seems the number of pirate captains in the battle is randomized, and after a reload, I'm able to defeat the smaller numbers. 
  
The walled part of the city is huge, but most of the buildings have closed doors that don't respond to my attempts to pick them, which makes me suspect that they aren't even designed to be opened. There are a couple of buildings patrolled by guards, and again it's a crapshoot whether I face one or ten guards when battle begins.
   
I thus leave you here, exploring this enormous city for which I do not have a map, trying to find either the Laughing Heretic or Hellast's palace, getting killed in most battles by large packs of guards. I'm getting the impression I was supposed to spend more time grinding for better equipment somewhere.
    
Time so far: 8 hours 
 

Saturday, August 9, 2025

Ishar 2: Average Human Band

 
Other fantasy world bands: Swords N' Roses, Leatherica, Bronzey Dan, Towncrierhead. I suppose Iron Maiden is all set.
          
I start this session with a return to the inns in the unnamed town on the northwest tip of Irvan's Island. Having lost my first party, I need to grab some more NPCs. As we'll see, the game seems to assume you're going to be doing this a lot. The first Ishar also had NPCs leaving and joining right up to the final act, and it occurs to me that there's nothing special about Zubaran, even. Despite the backstory, with Zubaran being contacted in the cinematic, I don't think he's necessary to win the game. In any event, I love the thought of Zubaran returning to the tavern a day after he left with four companions, announcing that he's looking for four new ones. 
       
After looking over their statistics and thinking about potential conflicts, I take Eliandr the scholar (human), Khalin the magician (elf), Yornh the priest (human), and Karorn the knight-errant (human). As I brought each new character into the party, everyone else voted to accept him, so I felt that was promising. Nonetheless, when I finished, the party morale was 31. When I had Zubaran by himself, it was 100; with the "evil" party, it was 23. I guess Yornh is the one dragging us down. If I try to expel any of the other members, he's the only one who ever votes yes. If I try to expel him, he's the only one who gets more than one yes vote. Regardless, even at 31, no one is bailing in the middle of the night or murdering other party members, so I guess I'm okay for a while.
      
It's nice to begin harmoniously.
       
No one comes with any stuff. Since I intend this party to live, I take them all to the shops and buy them leather armor (there are separate suits of armor for men and women, it turns out), helmets, and short swords. I don't have quite enough money to add wooden shields. It turns out that Eliandr can't use a short sword, so I have to leave her bare-fisted. 
      
I guess the cleavage window should have given it away.
    
Eliandr and Yornh come with "Healing" and "Physic Protection," which address Zubaran's health problem. 
   
Over the next few days, the reality of party life sinks in. This is the sort of game in which the party needs regular food and rest. You can carry food with you, but you cannot rest anywhere but inns, which costs quite a bit of money. You thus have to produce during the day, lest you drain your money without making it back. One night at an inn does not entirely restore lost hit points and magic points, so every once in a while, you have to spend a couple of nights in a row.
      
No, you're supposed to be counting crows.
           
The troglodytes living in the swamp don't seem to drop gold, and they're the only enemies on the island that seem to respawn, so we make it a priority to get out of here. That means defeating the two-bladed troglodyte king, which we do in a long battle in which I have to keep healing Zubaran. Enemies seem to focus on him relentlessly. The creature drops 10,000 gold pieces and a necklace that we cannot equip.
            
Not so tough now, are you?
        
On the far east side of the island, as the tavern rumor indicated, we find a wandering mage. "My rates are 10,000 [gold pieces]," he says. For what? He won't join the party, so it's not that. I leave him for now.
         
Maybe he's just a hyper-confident beggar.
     
Lacking any idea what to do, I waste a little time re-exploring areas, fighting some respawns, and trying in vain to kill those two stone elementals guarding the skull. Eventually, I return to Lord Gordbnoeuf and try giving him the necklace. "Fanfares of triumph!" he exclaims. "Colombine's jewel!" As a reward, he allows us to use the boat in the southwest corner of the island.
        
The happiest day of a boat owner's life is when he gives it away.
      
Boarding the boat allows us to select another island from the map. At this point, we only have one choice: Zach's Island to the southeast. 
   
We arrive to some nice graphics of a harbor and a large city beyond. The game funnels us into a small selection of passages, though, which make the city feel more like a dungeon than a city. There are doors every couple of steps. I guess all doors that lead to places you can actually enter (inns and stores) have signs over them, but naturally I can't rely on that. So traveling the city for me is a long process of constantly turning to try every door.  
           
A pretty harbor from one direction . . .
 
. . . and another.
     
There are as many shops as there are inns, selling potions, food, weapons, armor and, for some reason, various animals: a performing baboon, a mouse, a carnivorous plant (looking like Audrey II), a thieving magpie, and a talking parrot. I make enough money in street battles to afford some wooden shields and a fighting stick for Eliandr, but that's about it.
     
The streets of Zach's Island.
      
We meet enemies somewhat rarely, mostly at intersections and dead-ends. I wish the game named its monsters. They include little jawa-looking things in white cloaks, hooded warriors with scimitars, and what I guess are city guards. Sometimes the guards are hostile and sometimes not. We're able to kill the first two enemies in long battles but not the guards. 
         
The jawas.
     
The city has at least 10 inns, each with a handful of NPCs willing to join the party. Among them, we get even more classes, including spy, beggar, paladin, druid, and dark knight. Among them are, nonsensically, every NPC from the first game, including Morgula the witch (that's another one!).
      
You guys have really come up in the world since the last game.
       
We hear the following tavern tales:
   
  • Someone saying his new house is pleasant except for the piercing cries at the neighbor's house every morning at 03:00. This ties in with our prison experience later. 
  • Someone planning to meet someone else at the Blue Velvet "for evening session." For some reason, the person has to wear a suit and a necklace, as "the duty officer doesn't have a sense of humor." 
  • Someone planning some kind of heist. He's telling an accomplice named "Pogo" to "go in through the back of the shop . . . fill your sack, and bring it back to me." 
  • The mayor's daughter has disappeared, the fifth such disappearance since the new commander-in-chief has been in charge. 
        
This is the fifth or sixth context in which "Dwigdinl" is used.
    
  • A man crying over a departed lover named Zeldy. Her last message said that she felt threatened, so she was going away, "and I'm taking that pig of a commander's key with me."
  • A guy claiming to be writing a book called Ishar II: Messengers of Doom
  • Someone planning an expedition. He claims he'll need ropes, ointments, torches, furs, hoods, white mushrooms, potions, and a saw. I've seen some of these items in the game. 
  • There's a statue worth seeing in the Elemental Temple of the Air. 
  • A guy who wants us to meet him in Four Towers Alley between 02:00 and 04:00. I don't know what alley that is. 
   
A couple of these rumors seem to relate to the quest of the city. We find the oily commander-in-chief's office, and he asks us to bring Zeldy back to him. "I have a surprise for her."
      
The automap of the city.
       
We also find the Elemental Temple of the Air, where the priest tells us about the idol. "Bow before [it]," he exhorts. "His breath revives the spirit and transcends the body." I don't know what that means, but there's no command to "kneel before" anything.
    
Other findings in the city:
    
  • A bank, where we're given the option to deposit money.
  • A library, where someone is talking about the "complete works of the Silmarils." It teases an Ishar III but doesn't give the subtitle. I also find here a map of Akeer's Island. It appears on my game map, but I don't know if that means I can travel there by boat.
  • A street where I couldn't get past a couple of groups of city guards.
  • A big dude guarding the way to an area. Couldn't get past him, either.
         
This guy kept me at bay for a while.
       
Unless I missed something, my only options seemed to be grinding for higher levels and better items. This is harder than it might seem. First, only a few areas have enemies that respawn. Second, these enemies are all relatively difficult. A single battle with a couple of scimitar-wielding dudes might take most of my physical strength and magic power. Third, enemies don't reliably drop that much money even when defeated. Some of them don't drop any. Remember, I need to make enough each day to cover a meal and a night at the tavern. But that's what grinding is all about—slow and painful at first, easier and more rewarding as it goes along.
     
This guy in the alley respawns frequently.
      
Eventually, I find a zone near the entrance where some scimitar guys reliably respawn in one area and some jawas (which rarely drop money, alas) respawn near another. I get an audiobook going and set to it, every so often testing myself against the big dude I couldn't defeat earlier. I cross a major hurdle when Khalin gets the "Lightning Bolt" spell, which affects all enemies in front of the party, and both Khalin and Eliandr get the "Paralyze" spell. During the same time, I upgrade from short swords to long swords, then to magic swords for two characters, plus chain mail for everyone who can wear it. When I finish, my characters are all Level 10 or 11.
      
Blasting everyone on the street with, despite the graphic, "Lightning Bolt."
      
"Paralyze" turns out to be the key to defeating the big guy.  Beyond him is the Blue Velvet Club, which is advertising a band called "The Gates." It took me a second, but I chuckled when I got it.
               
When I walk into the Blue Velvet Club, I'm immediately attacked and arrested by a trio of orcish guards. 
         
Notice how the guy stutters.
      
We wake up in a cell with a locked door. Fortunately, Khalin has just gotten the "Unlock" spell, and it opens the door nicely. I don't know whether there's another way out.
       
Fantasy tyrants: You want to magic-proof your jails.
       
A hunchback attacks on our way out of the prison, but we make short work of him. We come out to a courtyard with another door, but it's closed and locked and "Unlock" doesn't work on it. While I'm standing in front of it, it suddenly opens, and there's a mage standing beyond. He kills a couple of my characters with a few powerful blasts. On a reload, I hit him with "Paralyze," which stops him long enough for the melee characters to kill him.
       
I don't even know who you are.
     
It turns out that this door only opens between 01:00 and 03:00, so it's a good thing I happened to be standing there. Beyond the door is a corridor leading to a room with a special encounter. A bunch of priests are sacrificing a girl to "Shandar, High Priest of Chaos." I suspect it's Zeldy. The annoying thing is, I can't seem to do anything about it. The screen is entirely non-interactive, so I can't stop the sacrifice—or, at least, I can't find a way to stop the sacrifice. Maybe I need to buy the baboon and loose him in the room?
      
Seeing a girl being sacrificed to a pagan god and having absolutely no options . . . just what I want from a role-playing game.
           
So after accomplishing nothing here, I go back out and have to wait 22 hours for the door to open again.
       
I spy with my little eye something beginning with "D."
         
There's no obvious way out of the prison, so I resort to testing walls and find an illusory one. Great. I didn't know that was a thing in Ishar. Now I have to test the entire city again. Anyway, it leads me out to a battle with three groups of soldiers. I've had no chance to rest since I was originally arrested, and my physical points and magic points are very low. I manage to defeat them all, though, and head to the nearest tavern for a good night's sleep.
     
Knowing that I can now defeat the groups of guards, I go and attack the ones guarding the bank. When they're all dead, I enter and loot a 100,000 gold-piece fortune. It seems like an evil role-playing choice, but I figure a town loses its right to my good will when it tosses me in prison for no reason. Just ask the guards in Markarth, if you can find any alive. 
        
This will teach them . . . something.
         
Miscellaneous notes:
    
  • If there's any way to sell items, I can't figure it out.
  • I'm reluctant to spend my money on the best helm and shield that I've found because they're called the Helm of Chaos and Shield of Chaos. Am I reading too much into the name? 
       
The most expensive shop in the game so far.
       
  • Enemies have thresholds which they won't cross. If you stand outside the threshold, you can shoot spells (and, I assume, arrows) at them with impunity. I've stayed away from missile weapons because they're expensive and they slow down combat (you need to target each arrow). 
  • Wandering NPCs seem completely useless. They all just beg for change and then give you nothing in return. 
      
You have a healthy-looking pouch already.
      
  • The game has a cute graphic when you cross certain canals in the city. If you turn and look to the sides while on a bridge, you can see the canals, bridges, and boats stretching off into the distance. 
            
Ah, Venice.
     
At the end of this session I don't really know what I've accomplished here except leveling. Hell, I don't even know what I'm supposed to be accomplishing. All that "Jon the Alchemist" told me was that there was some danger coming, and I needed to flee the fortress. I expected some goal to make itself obvious, but all I've seen are a series of unrelated encounters that add up to nothing. I don't know how to solve the remaining encounters on Zach's Island. 
      
Moving on . . . prematurely.
      
So I'll take hints if you know of anything I've missed. In the meantime, even with my 100,000 gold, I can't afford all the cool equipment on Zach's Island, so I expect I'll be returning to this location frequently. For now, I'm going to move on to see what we find on Akeer's Island. 
      
Time so far: 6 hours