Recent Comments

On Jul 25 MenhirMike commented on the ormus saga ii as far as i could: “This game seems to have a lot of effort and ideas packed into it, a disk mag with more than one disk is already remarkable, but 4 disks is remarkable even for 1993.I wonder if the troop mechanic took any inspiration from Rings of Medusa or Defender of the Crown, though arguably it's not that unique of an idea, just rare to see it in an RPG game.If you still had a C64 at the time, this seems…”
On Jul 25 Buck commented on the ormus saga ii as far as i could: “Same, but for the weather service. There used to be a buoy with a weather station until a few years ago, so people must have gone there from time to time.”
On Jul 25 shamhat commented on the ormus saga ii as far as i could: “You possess the power of the glowSho'nuff!Interesting that there's punishment for murder, but that the penalty is so lax. Is three days all that significant here?”
On Jul 25 shankao commented on the ormus saga ii as far as i could: “"Someday, I would like to visit (0,0) in real life."Working in an I.T. company that offers some geotracking services, I know NULL island quite well.”
On Jul 24 Narwhal, the Wargaming Scribe commented on game 554 castle of winds part one: “I played both Curious Expeditions and its "rival" game (developed concurrently and independently) Renowned Explorers, and I find the latter miles above the former in most if not all aspects (though CE has its charm). If you liked CE, you should definitely played RE.”
On Jul 24 Gnoman commented on game 555 castle of winds part two: “The problem with The Dark Tower series is that he very clearly lost track of where it was going and left it on the back burner for quite a few years.Then his near-death-experience made him decide "I really, really don't want to die with this not finished" and he started making it a priority. So the last few books feel forced and fit less well because they *were* forced into being…”
On Jul 24 AlphabeticalAnonymous commented on game 555 castle of winds part two: “Another similarity: permadeath is always enforced.”
On Jul 24 lostwolfe commented on ultima iv final ranking: “i finally beat this. [this year, in fact!]it's like a little ultima series hug, for the most part.i liked it A LOT.[until i didn't. lol.]ultima 4 is a really good game that takes steps in little directions toward greatness from ultima 3, but it is FAR too long.as a first time player, it took me something like the [advertised] 110 or so hours to beat it, and i had to have help in fits…”
On Jul 24 lostwolfe commented on fate gates of dawn summary and rating: “i'm still here and still reading, slowly but surely.i understand this game was 100% a slog, but it was very satisfying to see you cross the finish line - particularly with this game that had been a sort of background ambiance to the blog for such a long time.congratulations on beating it and thank you for documenting it. :)it was a pleasure to read your posts about it [even if it was…”
On Jul 24 Ross commented on game 555 castle of winds part two: “Arguing from fictional evidence is a problematic thing - it's one reason AI caught a lot of folks off-guard when the problem it presented for society wasn't "Starts building Terminators". I don't think banning Lord of the Flies is a proportionate response, though it's not unreasonable to wonder if maybe it's a work that should only be taught AFTER students have…”
On Jul 24 Anonymous commented on game 555 castle of winds part two: “> Lord of the Flies is rightfully known as a respected and classic literature work, no idea where you're coming from. Sherlock Holmes corpus is also rightfully as a respected work of fiction. Thing is, readers tjese days actually treat it as pure fiction, and not some sort of even remotely realistic blueprint on how things actually work. Yet in King's novels the whole society reliably…”
On Jul 24 Anonymous commented on game 554 castle of winds part one: “ I started playing Curious Expeditions since, and I came up upon another interesting side effect: a roguelike absolutely needs a well thought through way of randomization that allows for this contingency planning, or you will be screwed just because RNG doesn't want to drop an absolutely crucial item. Case to the point: Curious Expeditions have exactly one item (tent) that allows you to…”
On Jul 24 100FloorsOfFrights commented on the ormus saga ii xyz affair: “'Handses.'”
On Jul 24 thekelvingreen commented on game 555 castle of winds part two: “I think some of the graphic novels take place in pre-fall Gilead (if not pre-Roland) and while not written by King, he was involved in devising them, at least.”
On Jul 23 BESTIEunlmt commented on game 555 castle of winds part two: “I feel that rogue-likes are a good school for life...You have to try and try again.”
On Jul 23 gamer indreams commented on game 555 castle of winds part two: “I will always associate playing Civilization with the London Symphony Orchestra's version of Sailing (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtG33WzWr_U) because I had the cd on repeat while playing and, for some reason, everytime I built a trireme, that track came on”
On Jul 23 Quarex commented on camelot won with summary and rating: “Sorry if someone else has made this point on another Plato post coming down the pike in the future or something, but I had a big smile reading your summary of your experience playing at the same time as the creator, because your back-and-forth is extraordinarily similar to how a lot of the best BBS door games worked, so now despite that era being profoundly dead and gone itself (almost harder to…”
On Jul 23 Quarex commented on challenge of five realms summary and: “I see coming up is a Paragon Software overview post, but yeah I saw this seemingly self-penned bio alongside an interview and realized he really was a busy guy in the early 1990s, given he also had responsibilities at Game Designers' Workshop until they closed in the mid-1990s:"Marc Miller helped develop MegaTraveller, MegaTraveller II, and Twilight: 2000 (all from Paragon/Microprose)…”
On Jul 23 Fugu Tabetai commented on upcoming games castle of winds 1993: “The lack of ducks is what is really disappointing.”
On Jul 22 Deano commented on game 555 castle of winds part two: “Absolutely on the comic/graphic novel. There’s some great ideas in it though the ending is a little weak, but it’s well worth a read if you like King or the Netflix series”
On Jul 22 Phil B. commented on game 555 castle of winds part two: “I actually really enjoyed Danse Macabre. It felt like hanging out with a (rather manic) King on a blustery winter's night in a cozy house library somewhere in Maine while he just rambled for hours about sf/f/horror, with me just occasionally "mm hm"ing and "no, go on"ing.”
On Jul 22 Phil B. commented on game 555 castle of winds part two: “His first two short story collections are near immaculate, and even Nightmares and Dreamscapes ain't bad. I think about the one about finding shortcuts that aren't on the map (this is deliberately vague on purpose) all the time.”
On Jul 21 AlphabeticalAnonymous commented on game 555 castle of winds part two: “YOU are Rather Dashing, an orphan wearing short pants who returns from vacation to find his godparents' cottage BURNINATED! You swear revenge and embark on an incredible journey to vanquish Surtur the Burninator once and for all.”
On Jul 21 Quarex commented on my 10 most controversial opinions: “Just to ensure I get my once-every-few-months comment about computer game music out there, as a lifelong computer music addict your feelings on game music hurt my soul but it also does not dissuade me from enjoying your writeups!Also I do you one better in thinking Fallout 76 is currently the best Fallout game, in addition to preferring 4 to New Vegas. And I not only played every Fallout game on…”
On Jul 21 PIe commented on game 555 castle of winds part two: “The netflix series is quiet fun and a decent adaption, but the comic is wonderful and uses all the strength in graphic novel story telling that are unique to the medium.(it was me staring this thread, still missing to put my nic in) ”
On Jul 21 Christopher C. Theofilos commented on game 555 castle of winds part two: “To totally be 'that guy', the comics are so much better it's night and day. The finale had me crying. The show lost much of the plot thread and some of the batshit crazy visuals due to budget and not understanding the material”
On Jul 21 Christopher C. Theofilos commented on game 555 castle of winds part two: “The easiest way to see King's improvement as an author is to read "Danse Macabre" and the immediately follow it with "On Writing"”
On Jul 21 Ross commented on game 555 castle of winds part two: “I think Desperation was the first of his books that I actually read "properly" rather than absorbing through cultural osmosis first. There were bits of it that I liked though a lot of his books feel a bit padded to me. I recall liking Bag of Bones, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, and Dreamcatcher (enough to be angry about the movie version), but on balance I think I prefer his short…”
On Jul 21 Kalatron commented on game 555 castle of winds part two: “If you wanna support an author who's on the Epstein list, go ahead, knock yourself out I guess.”
On Jul 21 fireball commented on game 555 castle of winds part two: “Anon at it's best throwing out edgy statements without further explanation. Lord of the Flies is rightfully known as a respected and classic literature work, no idea where you're coming from. It's also from a BRITISH author, not that it would make any difference to the reputation of the work itself. ”
On Jul 21 Busca commented on game 555 castle of winds part two: “It's good they implemented the 'you can spend money deposited in your account everywhere' approach. Otherwise, with an encumbrance depending on both weight and size of objects, carrying around 1.6 million copper pieces might literally have become somewhat burdensome.No Trandle Oratory from Surtur, just a standard villain's defeat speech?When I finished high school, I spent the…”
On Jul 21 Anonymous commented on game 555 castle of winds part two: “ King's "Amazing late period" didn't transfer well to Mr. Mercedes and the trilogy. And, frankly, I'm tired of the whole "society degenerates in the face of global challenges" trope, even if American lit teaches you to expect it. Lord of the Flies is cancer and should be banned.”
On Jul 21 Phil B. commented on game 555 castle of winds part two: “I decided to read all of King's books in chronological order earlier this year, and the book that prompted me to do that was in fact "Revival," which I thought was genuinely brilliant but also extremely King; if you don't like extended sequences about someone's life, uh, read someone else.I'm up to "Desperation" and having trouble getting through it due to the,…”
On Jul 21 MrRoivas commented on game 555 castle of winds part two: “To offer a thought, the button to regenerate a level can be used to refresh the loot, potentially get some more “increase attribute” potions and other very high value items.”
On Jul 21 Charlie commented on game 555 castle of winds part two: “Chet, I'm impressed. I don't know how you can play a game like this, with all your methodical mapping and record-keeping, while also paying close enough attention to a novel that you don't lose track of the plot. You must have one of those newfangled multi-threading brains!”
On Jul 21 Ken Brubaker commented on game 555 castle of winds part two: “My wife and I are enjoying the Locke & Key Netfix series. Had no idea it had anything to do with the King family.”
On Jul 21 Anonymous commented on game 555 castle of winds part two: “His sons books and comics are also worth looking into. especially Locke & Key.”
On Jul 21 KenHR commented on game 555 castle of winds part two: “Interesting note on King. I was a huge fanboy in high school, but stopped cold when Insomnia proved to be unutterably stupid after half the book had a fantastic buildup (to be a teenager so invested in the lives of these geriatric characters...it struck me as something even at that age). I haven't read any of him since...maybe I should now that grad school is over and I have free time to…”
On Jul 21 Vince commented on game 555 castle of winds part two: “PS. I know that Chet noted that it is more accessible than the previous roguelikes, but I think that it is a more substantial reason than maybe the others. I must have been around 14/15 when I played it and I remember I was able to finish it (probably just part 1) and I know that I would have never had the discipline or persistence to finish Moria or Rogue, even if the barebone graphics and…”
On Jul 21 Wasiqwrite commented on game 554 castle of winds part one: “nice”
On Jul 21 BESTIEunlmt commented on game 555 castle of winds part two: “Chet, I've been listening to the 'Kingcast' since the beginning of the year, and I'm equally enthralled even though not a self-proclaimed King fan. They have an impressive list of high profile guests and really know what they're talking about, courtesy of the 'Fangoria' horror magazine. Unfortunately, I only became aware of the podcast because its co-host Scott Wampler…”
On Jul 21 Vince commented on game 555 castle of winds part two: “I think making roguelikes more accessible and less punishing, while keeping the same rewarding gameplay loop, is quite a clever intuition; maybe the fact that the game is fondly remembered has more to it than just timing and availability.After all, that would be one of the reasons of Diablo's smashing success a few years down the road.”
On Jul 21 Pedro Q. commented on game 555 castle of winds part two: “I'm not a Stephen King fan but I'm a fantasy fan, so I agreed a few years ago to dive into The Dark Tower series. It got me enthralled from the beginning... and started disappointing me as the story went on. So I guess I see where the criticism is about him not finding an end to his plot(s). The content itself slowly switched from fantasy/cyberpunk into "open horror" which…”
On Jul 21 Bruce Brenneise commented on game 555 castle of winds part two: “Loving the Stephen King addendum. For my money, Duma Key is one of his best latter works of supernatural horror. Even though at this point in his career he probably *could* write a grocery list I'd find engaging, and he's mostly writing detective thrillers these days, it's still the supernatural horror stories that stand out as gems I'll cherish. If you (mostly) liked the Dark…”
On Jul 21 mecha-neko commented on game 555 castle of winds part two: “I was looking forward to these posts. :) I'm a superficial sort when it comes to crpgs so this is what I would consider a nice friendly approachable casual crpg, at a time in gaming when there was little else that felt as inclusive in its design, though the way it exists within the Win 3 interface makes it also very much a kind of executive desktop toy. Epic's early stuff always felt to…”
On Jul 21 Buck commented on game 555 castle of winds part two: “"Meeting grandpa."In your underpants.(the character icon looks for fitting for a low fantasy game)”
On Jul 21 Quarex commented on challenge of five realms walking shadow: “Wow, Stellerex. Is that name plausible enough to have had multiple unrelated spontaneous generation or were the designers of the mostly-unforgivable AD&D fighting game "Iron & Blood" big Challenge of the Five Realms fans to use that same name? If I remembered any other character names from Iron & Blood besides Nym Pymplee I would be on the hunt for them here now, but that…”
On Jul 20 Kish commented on the ormus saga ii xyz affair: “So you need to remember, when asked "What have I got in my pocket?" the answer is "The Precious."”
On Jul 20 Bitmap commented on the ormus saga ii xyz affair: “It's doubtful whether this would work reliably, but it might be interesting to activate the VICE emulator's warp mode at the start of the keyboard macro (Alt+W) and deactivate it at the end. The timings in the macro for moving the cursor to the menu entry would now need to be adjusted for the much faster emulator speed. Audio should be disabled during warp mode. Ideally, this might reduce…”
On Jul 20 Busca commented on the ormus saga ii xyz affair: “PS - Another thought: It looks like Mike Doran built on the first game to create this sequel - I understand the world map is identical, with the same places (cities, villages, keeps, towers, dungeons) at the same coordinates (also some NPCs and even the magic word are used again). Treasures appear to be hidden in different places, though - no wonder, otherwise players of the first game would feel…”
On Jul 20 Busca commented on the ormus saga ii xyz affair: “Since the spell list has already been translated / summarized by commenter Peter here and the stats and places tables should mostly speak for themselves, I'll just add a couple other bits and pieces from the above which may be useful:- Player stats:-> Confusingly, Endurance ("En") determines how often you manage to hit in battle, i.e. seems more like dexterity or the like in…”
On Jul 20 Busca commented on the ormus saga ii xyz affair: “So is it more acceptable in Dungeon Master - style games if they suddenly expect you to pull a lever or push a button repeatedly, although up to then that was never necessary, because you (are supposed to) expect it (or just randomly try different stuff) in a more puzzle-focused game?I think I remember a few other games where repeated searching was sometimes required, though a couple of those…”
On Jul 19 RandomGamer commented on the ormus saga ii xyz affair: “ The game has a built-in cheat mode:1, Select the Yell/Pray option2, Select Yell and type: ORMUSCHEAT3, Enter the correct address (0-64556), then Return4, Enter a value between 0 and 255, then Return5, Repeat the previous two steps until you are happy6, To exit cheat mode, type X, then ReturnBe careful, if you enter an incorrect address, the game may freeze! - not sure if it works or if you may…”
On Jul 19 RandomGamer commented on the ormus saga ii xyz affair: “ Maybe all the author of the game had was some library that could interpret joystick position, and not the keyboard. If I extrapolate from working with keyboard in real time in DOS, then getting real time reaction to keyboard key presses was quite labour intensive.”
On Jul 19 CRPG Addict commented on the ormus saga ii xyz affair: “No, a captured palace ends the game no matter what. I'm going to have to start over again with S2, probably, so I'm holding it until I feel like doing it.”
On Jul 19 RandomGamer commented on the ormus saga ii xyz affair: “ The only other "trick" substitution I can think of is that the letters represent strings rather than numbers until final calculation, so Z becomes Z = (C + (4 x 6) x 3) + D = (30 + 72) + 11 = 113”
On Jul 19 CRPG Addict commented on the ormus saga ii xyz affair: “Thank you. That saved me a lot of OCR and translation.”
On Jul 19 CRPG Addict commented on the ormus saga ii xyz affair: “See my comment to Tristan below. If it's possible with this game, I can't figure it out. The game relies on the timing of an analog joystick.”
On Jul 19 CRPG Addict commented on the ormus saga ii xyz affair: “No, once you know things like names or treasure locations, you can employ them, even if that knowledge is from a walkthrough or previous game.”
On Jul 19 CRPG Addict commented on the ormus saga ii xyz affair: “I've found enough treasures with SEARCH that I don't believe LOOK ever involved, but I did try it (and a few other commands) at the 54/173 square. If the game expects me to search more than once, it can go screw itself.”
On Jul 19 CRPG Addict commented on the ormus saga ii xyz affair: “The problem with a keyboard macro is that the joystick lever "scrolls" the command list, so the timing has to be impeccable or you end up on an earlier or later command. Even if you get it right, other speed variances in the program will screw it up a lot of the time. The only way around it is to very carefully and slowly "tick" down the list of commands to the right one, but…”
On Jul 19 RandomGamer commented on the ormus saga ii xyz affair: “ Maybe, a stupid question, but have you tried looking at the treasure square, or searching it more than once?”
On Jul 19 CRPG Addict commented on brief tower of druaga 1984: “I played it:https://crpgaddict.blogspot.com/2020/08/game-373-final-fantasy-legend-1989.html”
On Jul 19 Shawn Mulligan commented on brief tower of druaga 1984: “I think Final Fantasy Legend (1989) definitely qualifies as an RPG under all your requirements, but it also has "lives" - each character has 3 'hearts' initially; if your characters die in battle, reviving them uses up one of their hearts. If they run out of hearts, the character can no longer be revived and you have to replace the character at a guild. There is an extremely…”
On Jul 19 Quarex commented on game 341 shape shifter 1992: “It really is getting increasingly hard to remember how it used to be, where if you paid for something that almost certainly meant it was a slickly-produced commercial product released by a company with a real headquarters and employees and stuff. I remember for this very reason as a kid finding the idea of registering shareware absolutely HILARIOUS because obviously they would put their products…”
On Jul 19 Tristan Miller commented on the ormus saga ii xyz affair: “The joystick-only interface sounds really terrible. If I were playing this game, I'd look into setting up some keyboard macros. Assuming you're using VICE and have it configured to emulate the joystick with keymaps, you could install any of various free keyboard macro tools on your host OS and, for each of the game's commands, record the necessary sequence of joystick moves and bind…”
On Jul 19 Gnoman commented on the ormus saga ii xyz affair: “Depending on how the game treats it, this could be more of a "if you're stumped" thing than it is necessary. All of the riddles save one in that book have solvable answers.”
On Jul 19 Iffy Bonzoolie commented on the master game list: “Oddly enough, I don't always consider whether something is worth my time before doing it! I feel like this may be a trait shared with many regulars of this blog. Also, the author...”
On Jul 19 Anonymous commented on the ormus saga ii xyz affair: “If you got the solutions already this would be an interesting game to speedrun... If it works.... Are there any triggers for telling if you actually spoke to the NPC before calling out a NAME”
On Jul 19 Discobutcher commented on game 554 castle of winds part one: “For me, the main difference between "Roguelike" and "lite" is what you gain with one run. If you only aquire knowledge as a player it's the former, if you gain persistent bonuses which make further runs easier, it's the later.”
On Jul 19 WrongMath commented on the ormus saga ii xyz affair: “What about Y=60, Z=191 ?”
On Jul 19 Ancient Architect commented on brief ring of elanor 1987: “Indeed! Randomly reread the entire saga again recently. Honestly, that Elric's shadow is so large it's the entire first page of any search engine results at least. I can't imagine the programmer not having been influenced by him at least to some extent. Especially in the 80s, where you could still count the really iconic fantasy works on one hand - LotR, the Conan series, the Elric…”
On Jul 19 Anonymous commented on the ormus saga ii xyz affair: “If you struggle with crummy interfaces like this joystick-driven mess, take a look at AutoIT. It uses a very simple scripting language and you could map your keys to joystick motion and button presses. You could even have ChatGPT write the script for you if you don’t want to bother with it yourself.-jj”
On Jul 19 asdasd commented on worlds of legend mortar and pestle: “"Here, it causes the party to enter "flight" mode, so soon the characters are fleeing in panic through a succession of rooms, taking me far away from my objective, when all I wanted to do was pick up a bag of gold."This is an amusingly literal interpretation of what the 'escape' key should do. Perhaps by the same logic the, Ctrl should have been bound to cast…”
On Jul 19 Busca commented on the ormus saga ii xyz affair: “@VK: Yes, so far the coordinates on that page correspond to those given to you in-game by NPCs, not (necessarily) the ones where a treasure is actually located.My thought was that the game places each treasure randomly in a certain area around said coordinates. But maybe I'm giving the author too much credit and that bit of NPC dialogue was indeed put in at the end to cover up some error, as…”
On Jul 19 Busca commented on the ormus saga ii xyz affair: “Not to curb your enthusiasm for creating data tables, but maybe to avoid some extra work (though you recently wrote in a comment you are most of the way through the game already): the manual also contains further information. Besides the game's goal / winning & losing conditions, these are lists of:- commands with descriptions- spells with conditions & effects, level and MP…”
On Jul 18 arthurdawg commented on the ormus saga ii xyz affair: “I'd say the Hobbit would have been readily available to most at the library. It became hugely more popular and recognizable with the movies though! I once noted that I read the Hobbit in the early 1980s and that sci fi and fantasy at the time was much less popular than it is now... And was pummeled over it by a bunch of "young folk" who grew up after 2000 saying I was wrong... Nope.…”
On Jul 18 Busca commented on the ormus saga ii xyz affair: “@Twin Valley: That corresponds to part of the formula for getting to the second coordinate, i.e. 173. See the last line of the equations in AlphabeticalAnonymous's comment above.”
On Jul 18 Twin Valley commented on the ormus saga ii xyz affair: “This could be completely wrong but I had a look at some of the disc code and I can find a text entry for "173". There is another number in the text associated with it which is sort of connected to "54", however is this a co-ordinate for this treasure, another treasure, something else or just random text, I have no idea.ROT-13 "Bar Uhaqerq naq fvkgl gjb. Juvpu vf guerr…”
On Jul 18 poster formerly known as VK commented on the ormus saga ii xyz affair: “That page also lists 64N 217W as treasure coordinates - and we know from the entry that the treasure isn't quite there. So I'm not sure how much that page can be trusted.My first intuition would be to check the reverse coordinates - i.e. N173 W54. Mixing up Y and Z would be the easiest thing to do, I believe. ”
On Jul 18 Busca commented on the ormus saga ii xyz affair: “Other events in Beryland14.9.1227The legendary weaponsmith Wylder of Elborn Castle has died. He forged the most powerful sword ever created by human hands in Beryland: the fantastic DEATH SWORD.Until his death, he did not want to reveal the secret of his forging to anyone and so no one will ever find out. Anyone still in possession of one of these DEATH SWORDs will know what a priceless treasure…”
On Jul 18 Busca commented on the ormus saga ii xyz affair: “A secret awakensThe publication of the book left a researcher named Perkins in the village of Hull no peace. He and his friend Blackmoore gathered all the information they could about ancient writings, runes and books and often traveled together to Arbon Castle to gain insight into "Ulbore",It took many years, but slowly they were able to decipher the runic script. Perkins and…”
On Jul 18 Busca commented on the ormus saga ii xyz affair: “Didn't take that long, so here it goes - this way readers can see it, too. There might be some typos/translation hiccups, though:THE STORY OF "THE ORMUS SAGA II"Shadows from the pastAbout 120 years ago, long before the Dragon Wars and before the story of the first part, there was a man named Sullivarı - a pious cleric. He had many visions and could see things that were to happen…”
On Jul 18 Busca commented on the ormus saga ii xyz affair: “The story of Sullivan and the Brotherhood is given in the manual. I guess you wrote this entry before the links to it in the comments to the previous entry on the game were posted / you were able to consult it. I have converted the respective page scans from gif to text format, but it would still need some cleaning up and translation and might be a bit long for a comment, too. Let me know in case…”
On Jul 18 fireball commented on the ormus saga ii xyz affair: “Damn. Too bad these Ormus games prove to be somewhat obscure or potentially bugged in their solution. I had the first one from a German disk magazine but AFAIR I never played it more than a few hours or so. ”
On Jul 18 Buck commented on the ormus saga ii xyz affair: “Do you lose the game because it's the kings castle that is captured, or is it maybe because it's the only town you own in the beginning?Also: are you pushing back Sandor II, too?”
On Jul 18 Busca commented on the ormus saga ii xyz affair: “You're not the only one having the problem finding the Welling / algebra puzzle treasure. This 2020 forum poster mentioned the same (in German) and says he even searched a ten-square radius (no one answered his post). He mentions the same coordinates and that those were even confirmed in 64'er magazine. Indeed, they are part of a page with solutions to the game listed in said magazine…”
On Jul 18 AlphabeticalAnonymous commented on the ormus saga ii xyz affair: “Though there are a number of semi-objective, quantifiable metric for how well-known (or, how much of a 'cultural juggernaut') a given work or person is (e.g., see here), it's probably a challenge to reconstruct those metrics for a given work 32 years after the fact.Anecdotes prove nothing, but by 1993 I had read The Hobbit (and watched the delightful animated movie) any number of…”
On Jul 18 BESTIEunlmt commented on the ormus saga ii xyz affair: “The outdoor map qualifies as a piece of abstract art, I'd suggest. ”
On Jul 18 AlphabeticalAnonymous commented on the ormus saga ii xyz affair: “I also get Y,Z = (54, 173) ... although I'm embarrassed to say that I got it wrong the first time.D = (5 x 9) - 34 = 45 - 34 = 11C = 4 x 7 + 2 = 28 + 2 = 30Y = C + (4 x 6) = 30 + 24 = 54Z = (Y x 3) + D = (54 x 3) + 11 = 162 + 11 = 173With any luck, there will be a 'detect item' spell later in the game to help with all these.”
On Jul 18 poster formerly known as VK commented on the ormus saga ii xyz affair: “If not for joystick controls and paper-thin character development, this seems like it could be a fun game.”
On Jul 18 MenhirMike commented on the ormus saga ii xyz affair: “Needing to go out and read a book in the real world feels like a bad move in the early 90s, not all of us had a good library or money to just buy the book. And as good as The Hobbit is, it wasn't exactly the cultural juggernaut that it would become after the LOTR movies released.I do appreciate putting the parentheses in math formulas. Yes, PEMDAS/BODMAS makes them unnecessary, but I find it…”
On Jul 18 Kalieum commented on game 554 castle of winds part one: “I absolutely disagree, you don't need permadeath to be able to learn and improve from your experience, and I'll again point to JauntTroopers: Mission Thunderbolt & Firestorm as examples.Arguably, the core learning from experience gameplay is more prevalent there; without having to start over for trying something that you couldn't reasonably estimate the outcome of, I feel more…”
On Jul 18 MenhirMike commented on game 554 castle of winds part one: “^_^”
On Jul 18 LL commented on game 554 castle of winds part one: “The castle looks so happy in that cover picture.”
On Jul 18 Delvin Anaris commented on game 553 ormus saga ii guild of death: “It seems to work for me (in the US) right now. In case Chet still cannot access it, I've rehosted the manual at https://topazgryphon.org/the_ormus_saga_2_anl.zip”
On Jul 18 Busca commented on game 553 ormus saga ii guild of death: “A quote from a 2014 forum post where someone suggested the Ormus Saga games as answer to the initial poster asking for RPG recommendations on the C64...:"It's three RPGs with character import, and basically an Ultima clone. That said, they were released in 1991, 1993 and 1994 respectively, and benefit from the more refined user friendliness standards of the time. You'll have a much…”
On Jul 18 Vauban commented on game 554 castle of winds part one: “This was my first RPG! I found it in the “Cica Collection of Shareware for Windows”, and played it for about ten minutes before deciding I did not like the genre. My limited command of English did not help, as well as these vanilla Windows controls which always break the immersion for me.My first real RPG experience came years later with Baldur's Gate, which is the equivalent of starting a…”
On Jul 18 Discobutcher commented on brief ring of elanor 1987: “Lol!”
On Jul 18 stepped pyramids commented on game 554 castle of winds part one: “@Kalieum: Taking risks and then dying horribly again and again is a big part of the roguelike value proposition. Can't learn without losing.@Anonymous: DCSS doesn't have a risk-free way of defeating anything (I don't really agree that's a requirement) but it does have a design requirement that there shouldn't be any truly inescapable deaths (you go down the stairs and get…”
On Jul 17 Adamantyr commented on game 554 castle of winds part one: “I remember downloading this one around 10 years ago, but I found I couldn't play it on my PC because it was a 16-bit executable. You can run those on 32-bit Windows but not 64-bit without some kind of emulation.”
On Jul 17 Tsuyoshi commented on game 554 castle of winds part one: “I think this was the second Roguelike I ever played. The first was Toejam and Earl.I happened to buy the second episode of the game and the House of Pain album around the same time, so for the hours I spent beating it, I was also listening to House of Pain on repeat. One always reminds me of the other.(So yeah, this game was definitely available in 1992, when House of Pain was released.)”
On Jul 17 Desmond commented on heros quest final rating: “I really felt like I was "playing." I don't mean "playing" as in "playing a CRPG." I mean "playing," like a kid playing with a toy.That's what kept me attracted to the game for a very long time. So few games create this feeling; in the years since this post, have you found other games that meet or exceed this game in that aspect?”
On Jul 17 matt w commented on game 554 castle of winds part one: “@Kalieum: I appreciate this discussion because I have for a long time been flabbergasted by what people call "roguelikes," culminating in a total freakout when trying to discover why Balatro is a "poker roguelike," and I eventually concluded nobody means the same thing by it. I would say "everyone agrees that Rogue, nethack, DCSS, etc. are roguelikes" but a lot of…”
On Jul 17 Art Navsegda commented on game 554 castle of winds part one: “The first release of shareware can be confidently dated to around June 23, 1992, based on the first mention of the new release in the Usenet group - https://groups.google.com/g/comp.sys.ibm.pc.games/c/ErHwc7Xw1-c/m/JuMcMfJWgQwJ”
On Jul 17 Anonymous commented on game 554 castle of winds part one: “> Without some significant cost for poorly-assessed risks, a big part of roguelike design just doesn't work. And permadeath is a very straightforward way to impose that cost. Well, there are a few side effects of this design philosophy:1. For this to work in a whatever-lever dungeon, the game designers need to have an almost risk-free way out of pretty much any situation. If your…”
On Jul 17 Jonothan commented on game 554 castle of winds part one: “I gave the earliest available version of COTW a brief try last week, and the help file's overview of the game actually mentions Larn, Rogue and Moria as inspirations, while stating that the Windows GUI could potentially make a much richer game. I presume the reason that was left out of the widely-released editions is that Saada either didn't want to peel back the curtain that far or was…”
On Jul 17 matt w commented on game 554 castle of winds part one: “I was just playing Legerdemain before I paged over here! Yes, it uses the towns as save points--specifically the inns (there are some towns or townlike places with no inns, and some where the inns aren't immediately accessible). Which makes death consequential but not catastrophic--it is a very long game. (Long enough that I've come up with an offramp for people who want a more manageable…”
On Jul 16 mecha-neko commented on game 554 castle of winds part one: “The main source of Epic MegaGames historical information is this site.https://museumofzzt.com/article/view/518/page/2/the-epic-mega-haul/In the September 1992 'Epic's News' internal newsletter, Castle is listed as already released and a 'big success'.”
On Jul 16 Kalieum commented on game 554 castle of winds part one: “Honestly that was one of the things I didn't really like about Crawl; until you know everything inside out you can't really tell if that portal is a reasonable thing for you to enter or if it's some super deadly thing that's generated at the earliest depth it can roll, and given they close so you can't leave them alone and come back later the optimal play becomes complete…”
On Jul 16 RandomGamer commented on game 553 ormus saga ii guild of death: “ Not just US - Canadian as well.”
On Jul 16 RandomGamer commented on game 554 castle of winds part one: “ This game is an impressive testament of how to use Microsoft visual development tools to the maximum, and right. Most devs didn't bother to use the interface to the fullest, but since this one was developed practically in-house, it is pretty much a ready demo version of what can be done with interface objects. I am curious whether MS allowed the game to be developed in more than spare time…”
On Jul 16 stepped pyramids commented on game 554 castle of winds part one: “@backgroundnoise: Exactly. If you have procedurally-generated dungeons, being able to reload makes reloading to brute-force your way through challenges an optimal strategy. A big part of a game of DCSS, for instance, is assessing whether you're strong enough to risk entering a particular dungeon branch, or whether you want to risk entering a vault, etc. Without some significant cost for…”
On Jul 16 poster formerly known as VK commented on game 554 castle of winds part one: “It's funny how this game seems to have invented the Diablo II structure - moving from one hub+dungeon area to another without having an actual overworld - years before Diablo I. Can't think of an earlier example of this formula (although I'm not exactly an expert in roguelikes).”
On Jul 16 Busca commented on game 554 castle of winds part one: “Hadn't checked those downloads myself (no Windows installed), but here on the Internet Archive is a version (1.1) whose files have timestamps from September (and July) 1992 in line with the dates on the site linked above.One of these 1992 files is "Changes.doc", listing modifications between v1.0 and v1.1 and the introductory text says (highlighting by me):"This file is a quick…”
On Jul 16 Mayhem commented on game 554 castle of winds part one: “Argh. So I played this plenty back in the day and spun up a vm to play through it again over the weekend when I saw it coming up. And in all that time I never thought to check the help system to see the weapon/armour stats. /sigh. Cranking up the difficulty in this one certainly makes those early levels a challenge, despite a lot of familiarity I still died regularly to new monsters. I might…”
On Jul 16 backgroundnoise commented on game 554 castle of winds part one: “Since I can't edit, correction: I mixed up former and latter”
On Jul 16 backgroundnoise commented on game 554 castle of winds part one: “The way I see it is that "learning the level/world layout"(other types of rpgs, plus more lenient roguelikes) is fundamentally different to "learning the mechanics without map knowledge as a safety net"(traditional roguelikes). In the case of the latter, if you know that, say, a +5 longsword is located on floor 5 or whatever, you'll try to beeline for the weapon in…”
On Jul 16 CRPG Addict commented on game 554 castle of winds part one: “Based on all those dates, I'm going to change the date to 1992. There are versions in the middle of that year being offered by Epic MegaGames (previous ones had just been circulated to Microsoft employees). And since those versions promise Part 2 without suggesting there's going to be any kind of delay, I guess I have to list Part 2 as a 1992 game, too.”
On Jul 16 Jason Dyer commented on game 554 castle of winds part one: “ADOM I have always been chipper about a reset but not so much other roguelikes. I think the reason why is that ADOM lends itself to alternate routes and there are aspects of the game that genuinely encourage you to be faster without ever setting a hard time limit. So I get the feeling "oh I could do the game up to that point better" or "maybe I can try putting quest X first before…”
On Jul 16 CRPG Addict commented on game 554 castle of winds part one: “Kalieum, I appreciate the detail of your analysis, and I mostly agree with you. I like consequences to death in most RPGs, but not to the extent of permadeath. I think those BBS games offered a nice balance: When you died, you were kicked out of the game and couldn't play again until tomorrow.Overall, though, a "roguelite" is distinguished from a "roguelike" by easier,…”
On Jul 16 Ross commented on game 554 castle of winds part one: “I sometimes get the feeling that there are two philosophies about permadeath which are at odds with each other. One is "Dying should hurt. The player should be punished for not being adequately prepared. They should suffer the pain of losing the things they liked about this character, their accomplishments, their cool swag." I do not like this.On the other hand, there's a philosophy…”
On Jul 16 Busca commented on game 554 castle of winds part one: “Not being overly familiar with details and names of Norse mythology beyond the most popular ones, I still thought 'Lifthransir' rang a bell. Turns out I was thinking of the (console) game Odin Sphere: Leifthrasir, an enhanced HD remake of Odin Sphere. I assume in spite of the slight spelling differences both refer to 'Lífþrasir/Lifthrasir'. Maybe we'll learn more when you get…”
On Jul 16 CRPG Addict commented on game 554 castle of winds part one: “If it wasn't clear from my entry, Lifthransir's Bane was the NEW (and final) name.”
On Jul 16 CRPG Addict commented on game 553 ormus saga ii guild of death: “Despite my normal preference, I would happily take a keyboard shortcut for "Search" alone if there was an easy way to program it. I'm most of the way through the game at this point, though, so it's probably not worth the trouble.”
On Jul 16 CRPG Addict commented on game 553 ormus saga ii guild of death: “Good thinking. I'll give it a shot. I was trying to find a pattern within each series; I wasn't thinking of the third row being somehow a product of the two previous series.”
On Jul 16 Busca commented on game 522 local area dungeon 1993: “"From information on his web site, this version of Local Area Dungeon is actually the second one released. I couldn't find any evidence of an earlier one."Based on your first screenshot, you played v1.1 of April 1993. Besides that one, this page also shows a v1.0 of January 1993 (both downloadable there).”
On Jul 16 Busca commented on game 553 ormus saga ii guild of death: “Thank you both for the answers & explanations. I understand it would not be a solution for Chet since he strives to experience and evaluate the "original" gameplay (without loading times etc., but at least regarding the interface). And probably not worth it for many games on this blog, but there might be some where improving the interface in this way may make it interesting for more…”
On Jul 16 Busca commented on game 553 ormus saga ii guild of death: “Ah, I see. Not sure why that's so. Wonder if it can be avoided/circumvented without too much fuss through anonymization software, VPN or the like. Anyway, @Chet: if you don't have it yet, I can send you the manual zipped via email, if you want.”
On Jul 16 Kalieum commented on game 554 castle of winds part one: “Oof, sorry for the lack of formatting in the second half of the first comment. I already don't want to read it upon glancing at it and I typed the damn thing.”
On Jul 16 Kalieum commented on game 554 castle of winds part one: “Procedural generation works well with these things because it requires you to learn the game's systems and how to apply them to various situations rather than just learning a set of moves that works to get you through, but its absence wouldn't change the feel, it'd just make the game lose replayability.Permadeath... while I respect a game's rules and don't savescum, I'm…”
On Jul 16 Kalieum commented on game 554 castle of winds part one: “Ah, is that right? It read to me more like a sequel than a part 2. Fair enough then, I suppose I'll have to wait on the blog getting to the rest of it.(I seem to have typed a massive amount of text again to the point this needs to be split over multiple comments, sorry.)I don't disagree that permadeath goes well with roguelikes, but, along with procedural generation I consider them…”
On Jul 16 Anonymous commented on game 553 ormus saga ii guild of death: “www.c64games.de is blocking traffic from U.S. origin points.”
On Jul 16 Quillen commented on game 554 castle of winds part one: “Interesting that they went with skiing difficulty icons in the menu but didn't go with a double black diamond for "experts only" https://snowslang.com/ski-trail-ratings/”
On Jul 16 CRPG Addict commented on game 553 ormus saga ii guild of death: “No, time only passes when you move. ”
On Jul 16 CRPG Addict commented on game 553 ormus saga ii guild of death: “I think I literally just Googled "rage quit GIF".”
On Jul 16 BESTIEunlmt commented on game 554 castle of winds part one: “Yeah, the box art is taking the cake, with the golden origami pterodactyls guarding the ziggurat of molten magma. ”
On Jul 16 动物 commented on game 554 castle of winds part one: “Legerdemain (by Nathan Jerpe) is a free and pretty good roguelike that has a lot of story, and uses the towns as 'respawn' points, if I remember right. It doesn't have you move a new character through story segment checkpoints, though. Mangui is a modern commercial roguelike where you take characters (who are functionally different classes) through their own stories.”
On Jul 16 Avantharis commented on upcoming games castle of winds 1993: “Ishar II is a fascinating game, it tries a lot of things, improve many such as the art and story, however.... there is a lot more of "lunar logic" puzzles, a guide might be needed. Still, it is worth looking, the art is amazing, they do perform very cleaver tricks, such as give you the illusion of climbing a mountain and the general ambience is quite unique.If you ever cover to the…”
On Jul 16 Haplo commented on game 553 ormus saga ii guild of death: “There's a recent interview (1h) with the designer of Rings of Medusa by a fan on YouTube (in German): https://youtu.be/B2gfZO8mD8U?si=QQd6DNXrRPRinmgR”
On Jul 16 Busca commented on game 554 castle of winds part one: “Maybe this page can help regarding details of CotW's development (version) timeline - see e.g. the version history with dates and downloads at the bottom.”
On Jul 16 Busca commented on game 553 ormus saga ii guild of death: “@RG: Checked it again right now and it loads fine for me, including downloading the manual. To be clear, I'm talking about the C64 games site. [My link above goes directly to Peter's comment on the first game containing it, not, as I erroneously indicated, to my own later comment talking about that in turn as well as the Ormus map and potential contact info on author Mike Doran.]”
On Jul 16 Ken Brubaker commented on game 553 ormus saga ii guild of death: “I guess nobody decoded my ROT13 entry two comments up?”
On Jul 16 Lord Hienmitey commented on legend summary and rating: “After delivering the fourth crystal, the party discovers that King Necrix himself is responsible for the evil taking hold in the land. ("Necrix" always sounded like a suspicious name.) LOL”
On Jul 16 Anonymous commented on game 554 castle of winds part one: “Returnal is one game where roguelike is combined with a story.-Miikka”
On Jul 16 Buck commented on game 554 castle of winds part one: “I can imagine a roguelike where story events act as savepoints in the game, but the story events are so far apart that death is still relevant.”
On Jul 16 Buck commented on game 554 castle of winds part one: “I think the way roguelikes are played, replaying the game with new characters over and over again until you learn the mechanics well enough to survive until the end, is a bit at odds with an elaborate story. I noticed this when replaying Alpha Centauri recently. It's cool to have a story in a strategy game, but after one or two playthroughs, it just becomes bothersome text that you click…”
On Jul 16 Narwhal, the Wargaming Scribe commented on game 554 castle of winds part one: “Hey! That was my introduction to rogue-like (sans ironman in this case) indeed, though of course I had no idea this subgenre had a name.I had also fond memory of this game, but was unable to remember its name, so thanks a lot for that!”
On Jul 16 Paul commented on game 553 ormus saga ii guild of death: “People in Ultima 5-7 not only had lunch breaks, they actually came to the local inn/pub, sat down at a table, were served food, ate it, and went back to work. Take that, Baldur's Gate 3!”
On Jul 16 Anonymous commented on revisiting game of dungeons 1975: “Just a few comments related to various previous comments. 1) I guarantee that dnd5 does not generate fake winners, so those “related” names had to be the names picked by some real person who then won by getting the orb. 2) the most telling evidence that Lawrence was more-than-inspired (ahem) by dnd was ‘his’ game’s use of the term “help lesson” and “arrow keys” which made perfect sense on PLATO…”
On Jul 16 stepped pyramids commented on game 554 castle of winds part one: “I think most people talking about Castle of the Winds are including both parts in the analysis, since this was essentially just the demo. Part 2 is substantially larger and generally more interesting.Permadeath (or at least significant reload limitations) is an important element of roguelikes because of how it combines with procedural generation to require you to develop a contingency-based…”
On Jul 16 shamhat commented on game 554 castle of winds part one: “Maybe "Lifthransir's Bane" was a little too on-the-nose in a Tolkien sense ("Durin's Bane"). Not that "Fall of Surtur" is any less blatant, of course.”
On Jul 16 Kalieum commented on game 554 castle of winds part one: “Huh, Castle of the Winds is a game I'd heard of a lot over the years. This is the first time I've actually seen it, and it seems as though it's a lot shorter and simpler than its reputation would have had me believe. While it's certainly not the game's fault, it feels like the first time I've been disappointed by a game on this blog.Not having permadeath being (one of)…”
On Jul 16 Gares commented on game 554 castle of winds part one: “This brings back so many memories. I can remember spending hours playing that game on my dad’s work computer in the early 90s, much to his annoyance.”
On Jul 15 Dan commented on game 553 ormus saga ii guild of death: “I was thinking the exact same thing!”
On Jul 15 PO commented on brief ring of elanor 1987: “"The annoying thing is that you have to type the full name of the weapon that you're using, no abbreviations."Makes a mouse interface not look so bad after all, eh?”
On Jul 15 PO commented on brief ring of elanor 1987: “I've never seen the word "durst" before, at least not used that way. Tolkien would probably (and did IIRC) have written "What hight thou?".”
On Jul 15 RandomGamer commented on game 553 ormus saga ii guild of death: “ It seems to be a good idea, as all pairs allow for a "middle" letter.”
On Jul 15 RandomGamer commented on game 553 ormus saga ii guild of death: “ @Busca, the manual site seems to be down.”
On Jul 15 Melfina commented on game 552 magus 1993: “ I think it's also the style of game. BG2 and Diablo 2 aren't mouse-only, but I primarily used the mouse in them, not the keyboard. (Not perfect examples, but they're what I think of when I think of mouse-control games)A game being only mouse-driven is only a turn-off to me if the interface is cumbersome, which I gather a lot of these older mouse-driven games are. And I started gaming…”
On Jul 15 Jason Dyer commented on game 553 ormus saga ii guild of death: “It's possible to use vjoy (a virtual joystick software) in combination with autohotkey and have keypresses get turned into specific sequences of joystick movement, but this would be an absolute nightmare headache to get right. (It also would be very "inauthentic", unlike the trackball suggestion.)”
On Jul 15 gamer indreams commented on game 553 ormus saga ii guild of death: “i understood noble gases were odorless so it should be fine?”
On Jul 15 Twin Valley commented on game 553 ormus saga ii guild of death: “Please note the following is simplified in many parts and slightly wrong due to complexities but correct enough to give you an idea.If the game was written in BASIC (which I don't think it is judging by screenshots but haven't actually properly checked) then in theory mapping joystick controls (ie up/down/left/right and fire) should not be too hard (you would need a keyboard buffer read…”
On Jul 15 Busca commented on game 553 ormus saga ii guild of death: “As someone who has no idea of programming: would it be possible and how much work would it be to change / rewrite the joystick controls to be mapped to keyboard inputs instead? I assume it depends on the programming language used (and maybe the size / complexity of the respective program = game itself)?”
On Jul 15 Ancient Architect commented on game 553 ormus saga ii guild of death: “MenhirMike: Pillars of Eternity had an interesting take on this. You found coins of various types, but once you picked them up, they were all added to an overarching currency total. A nice note.Korath: well, you got me there.”
On Jul 15 Abacos commented on game 553 ormus saga ii guild of death: “I have vague but nice memories of your series about the Ormus Saga 1, but somehow I have never given it a try. How come? Ah, yes: the GTFO joystick! ”
On Jul 15 JT commented on game 553 ormus saga ii guild of death: “Column. Not Row :)”
On Jul 15 JT commented on game 553 ormus saga ii guild of death: “Row 1: D is halfway between B and FRow 2: Would be B as its halfway between A and C.etc/shrug. Just an idea.”
On Jul 14 Andy_Panthro commented on game 553 ormus saga ii guild of death: “Interesting to see an Ultima clone that borrows a lot from the U4/U5 era by this point in the 90s!This was a reminder that I'm watching through the series of Ultima retrospectives by Majuular on youtube, well worth looking up!”
On Jul 14 AlphabeticalAnonymous commented on game 553 ormus saga ii guild of death: “I wondered the same thing.”
On Jul 14 Ken Brubaker commented on game 553 ormus saga ii guild of death: “A complete guess for the answer for URUK:gur yrggre qrr vf unysjnl orgjrra gur yrggref orr naq rss. Znlor gel gur fnzr guvat jvgu gur erfg bs gur pbzobf - oseu”
On Jul 14 Korath commented on game 553 ormus saga ii guild of death: “Shops in Ultima V had lunch breaks, and it didn't feel overdone at all.”
On Jul 14 killias2 commented on game 553 ormus saga ii guild of death: “To be fair, many pre-modern societies tended to use gold and silver. The nice thing about official coinage is you could straightforwardly pay taxes and there would be some consistency in weight and quality, but you'd generally be depending on weight and distribution of metal regardless. ”
On Jul 14 killias2 commented on game 553 ormus saga ii guild of death: “Something tells me the line about how the coordinates may not be exact was a way for the author to cover up some mistakes on their end, haha. ”
On Jul 14 Buck commented on game 553 ormus saga ii guild of death: “The mechanism where you have to conquer towns in order to enter them (and towns potentially being reconquered) reminds me of Rings of Medusa (1989) and it's follow-up Return of Medusa (1991). The former is a trade/strategy hybrid, the latter also adds some RPG elements in the form of EOB-style dungeons (but without notable character development).”
On Jul 14 MenhirMike commented on game 553 ormus saga ii guild of death: “Somewhat related, but one thing about RPGs is that you can have a huge world with many continents and nations that are literally at war with each other, and yet they all have agreed on a universal currency. (There are a few games where different places have different currencies, but those are far and few between, because quite frankly, it's a chore/busywork most of the time, because…”
On Jul 14 Ancient Architect commented on game 553 ormus saga ii guild of death: “"Finding 6 nuggets and then having to sell them is more work than just finding 60 gold pieces in the first place, but there's still something I like about it."This reminds me of an interview with the designers of Diablo II: apparently, in an earlier version, monsters dropped all kinds of body parts, which could then be converted into the usual health/mana/etc. potions. "At some…”
On Jul 14 El despertando commented on game 553 ormus saga ii guild of death: “I know it's probably only a small consolation, but given the irritation surrounding the menu navigation (which, I wholeheartedly agree, is an atrocity to use with a joystick), using a mouse/Trackball might make it a TINY bit more bearable. As I posted in another comment, Trackballs definitely were a thing in the C64 era (even though they were far from being commonplace), so it would still…”
On Jul 14 Vince commented on upcoming games castle of winds 1993: “I have had Daemonsgate in my GOG library for years and I wanted to play before/along with Chet, but the comments here are a bit of a downer.The box claims a team of 30 people working for three years; from that and the VHS tape, it sounds like the classic example of overambitious game that became a money sinkhole and at some point it had to be shipped in whatever condition.”
On Jul 14 Vince commented on upcoming games castle of winds 1993: “I have also fond memories of CotW, which for sure was my first roguelike(lite?) many years before I knew what those words meant.It is one of those games that people with a PC at the time would have come across quite easily due to being shareware, so it is probably better remembered than many commercial releases of the time.”
On Jul 14 Vince commented on upcoming games castle of winds 1993: “Warm tear and Dwilgelindildong. Same. You can call French games a lot of things but not "boring" or "uninteresting". ”
On Jul 14 Busca commented on game 553 ormus saga ii guild of death: “Unfortunately, I'm not sure scrolling horizontally through choices (spaced further apart) with the joystick, instead of vertically, is much of an improvement, as is their order, but we'll see... ."The FIRE BUTTON brings up an icon bar menu system at the bottom of the screen in which all actions can be performed. (Attack, Enter, Board Ship, Open Door, Unlock Door, Search, Talk, Attack…”
On Jul 13 Anonymous commented on game 553 ormus saga ii guild of death: “Excuse me, where is that rage quit gif from? is it real? Was it a show or something?”
On Jul 13 Kalieum commented on game 553 ormus saga ii guild of death: “Games with time limits is a topic I always find interesting. I guess it was never very common - or at least I can't think of many examples - but it's something that's completely vanished in modern games.This makes sense; there's so many more games available these days that modern gaming is much more about expecting to finish a game after putting in your ~8-20 hours and moving onto…”
On Jul 13 Atantuo commented on briefs dungeons and dragons 1979 and: “And of course, brutally difficult "kaizo" romhacks of Super Mario World (1990) and romhack-like Mario fan games (as well as all kinds of non-brutal ones) are being made all the time by and for a large and active community of enthusiasts.”
On Jul 13 CRPG Addict commented on brief tower of druaga 1984: “Thanks for letting me know it wasn't on the index pages. I fixed that.”
On Jul 13 Andrew commented on upcoming games castle of winds 1993: “Haha, I retract my statement. As I recall (it's been a nearly three decades!) there are no story beats outside of the mandatory milestones. Nothing to go out of your way for. If I'm wrong or have forgotten then I'll be very happy to read about it. Actually I've been quite impressed with the amount of interest CotW has in this comment section, for what I recall as a pretty minimal…”
On Jul 13 MenhirMike commented on game 553 ormus saga ii guild of death: “I just hope his diet isn’t full of beans, wouldn’t want him to be too gassy.”
On Jul 13 CRPG Addict commented on ultima vii part two serpent isle: “It was a solid C for me. The outpost-building mechanic was completely wasted. It seriously needed a survival mode. I felt no particular joy in spaceflight or space combat. The backstory lacked both breadth and depth, and the main plot resolution was dumb and creepy. Building the ship wasn't bad.”
On Jul 13 Name/url commented on game 553 ormus saga ii guild of death: “Looks like some improvements where made for the last game in the series. https://www.mobygames.com/game/178388/the-ormus-saga-iii-the-final-chapter/screenshots/c64/1107481/”
On Jul 13 Gnoman commented on game 553 ormus saga ii guild of death: “The interface seems pretty bad, and unforgivably so because as described you still appear to need the keyboard. If we take a look at that list of commands and do a little sorting, we could group them like this.LOOKSEARCHTALKEXIT SHIPOPEN DOORUNLOCK DOORENTERCLIMBATTACKBOARD SHIP CAST SPELLINVENTORYEQUIPMENTVIEW PLAYERREADY ITEMLIGHT TORCHTIME DATEWEAR RINGVIEW MAPSAVE GAMESEND TROOPSATTACK…”
On Jul 13 BESTIEunlmt commented on game 553 ormus saga ii guild of death: “"...it's like the universe wants to punish me somehow."Welcome to the Club!”
On Jul 13 Busca commented on game 553 ormus saga ii guild of death: “PS: Just to be sure since you did not mention it - did you check out the manual (linked in the comments to the first game, see my comment here when discussing this sequel in the 'Upcoming' post)? I'm asking because it e.g. mentions that if the king's palace is conquered, you lose immediately or that at the start all cities except the starting one are occupied by enemy forces and…”
On Jul 13 matt w commented on game 553 ormus saga ii guild of death: “Also an Ekim and a Nomis, which is kind of confusing given the in-game reference to Mike and Simon. I wonder if they also knew someone named No Guy-Rab.”
On Jul 13 Pie commented on game 553 ormus saga ii guild of death: “Does time move when you move or is it real time, that could be really stressing with all the time scrolling through menus. ”
On Jul 13 Busca commented on game 553 ormus saga ii guild of death: “So besides a Mike and his school buddies, author Mike Doran included a Lord 'Narod' - and an Uruk. Not too original, but hey, it's his game. Some traditions are popular.Quite a few of the first names are typical for Germany in the 70s-90s, I'd say, so maybe there are more school buddies and friends referenced. Meanwhile, 'Derrick' is a German crime series which ran on TV…”
On Jul 13 TheMightyTomTom commented on game 553 ormus saga ii guild of death: “Hopefully you’ll get some clue in this one that will let you finish the first game.”
On Jul 13 Quarex commented on 10 reasons im still blogging about: “You would think my podcast (All Year I Dream About Gaming Conventions) would have nothing to do with CRPGAddict, but absolutely some part of why I immediately agreed to start it when the idea was proposed to me was because I had been reading this blog since 2014 and knew even seemingly niche subjects can have enduring and relevant appeal if the person discussing them is truly into the…”
On Jul 13 AlphabeticalAnonymous commented on game 553 ormus saga ii guild of death: “King Argon: truly, a noble name. The interface sounds like it's a pain but maybe the rest of the game will partially make up for it; fingers crossed!”
On Jul 13 Busca commented on brief ring of elanor 1987: “If someone feels like diving deeper into this (and a lot of other C64 games), apparently the C64 issues of UpTime Magazine are included in the 'Loadstar Compleat' compilation.Talking about UpTime Magazine, there is a short history of the publication here.”
On Jul 13 Busca commented on game 552 magus 1993: “Cxong's GitHub site, linked in the entry above, has compiled stats for classes, enemies, levelling and items. The latter includes the defensive values for armour and base damage for weapons. It can be found scrolling down on the main page. There is also an Excel file.Phil Salvador, who covered Magus for The Obscuritory in 2018, says he stopped looking for a character limit after creating a…”
On Jul 13 fireball commented on upcoming games castle of winds 1993: “Seconded, winevdm works like a charm for me. ”
On Jul 12 Martin commented on upcoming games castle of winds 1993: “The C64 remained in production from 1982 all the way up until Commodore went bankrupt in April 1994 (at which point it was actually costing them more to produce the 1541 than to produce the C64).”
On Jul 12 mecha-neko commented on upcoming games castle of winds 1993: “A +2 and a dos pc? Great taste in computers, Carlos! :)”
On Jul 12 RandomGamer commented on upcoming games castle of winds 1993: “ I would say that Ishar 2 is behind the times in terms of plot delivery, and is quite shallow. The graphics are nice and inoffensive, and the game is generally rather easy to play. It's not really AAA in 1993 sense of the world; the graphics allow to paper over a lot of things. I remember hearing good things about Excelsior, but I don't remember where.”
On Jul 12 CRPG Addict commented on upcoming games castle of winds 1993: “Ah. Well, I investigated it and came to the same conclusion that you did. Since only one site listed it as an RPG, under my rules I allowed myself to reject it.”
On Jul 12 CRPG Addict commented on upcoming games castle of winds 1993: “If you're talking about the UI of COTW, regardless if how it was "meant" be played, it supports keyboard backups for almost all commands, allowing the player the option to use the mouse or not. This is all I ask for.”
On Jul 12 Morpheus Kitami commented on upcoming games castle of winds 1993: “Arguably the best RPG ever released on the C64, Newcomer, is still yet to come, and even still there are going to be a splattering of 8-bit games until the the end of the decade. There's even a Speccy version of Heroes of Might and Magic, for some reason. (could be even more games in general, but I think the '00s were a dry decade for homebrewed 8-bit games)”
On Jul 12 Morpheus Kitami commented on upcoming games castle of winds 1993: “Castle of the Winds, is, to echo other people, a classic, possibly one of the best games of the year. Less in the sense that it might not be from 1993, since apparently it might have been released earlier. Presumably you've already started it, so you probably already have a Win 3.1 emulatorDaemonsgate, pretty sure this one is infamous for being buggy as hell, be prepared to release an entry…”
On Jul 12 Morpheus Kitami commented on game 552 magus 1993: “I imagine most people who don't get your problem with mouse-only interfaces usually don't play games where said interfaces are that much of a problem. You ever so rarely get to see those kind of games of truly bad calibre unless you play ones from the early '90s and late '80s, most of which the average player wouldn't be playing. Or in some cases they just write it off as a…”
On Jul 12 Anonymous commented on upcoming games castle of winds 1993: “Castle of the Winds does run on Windows 10 with winevdm.https://github.com/otya128/winevdmI find this less of a hassle than running Windows 3.1 in DOSBOX or PCem. This program is also very helpful to play games from the late 90s to early 00s where it was quite common for the games to have 16-bit installers even when the game itself was 32-bit.”
On Jul 12 Wonko commented on upcoming games castle of winds 1993: “To be fair, windows 3.11 runs on top of DOS”
On Jul 12 Risingson Carlos commented on upcoming games castle of winds 1993: “I am realising I was more of a mid/high class kid in that matter, because in 1992 I already had a 386 with an Epson printer, in 1993 a sound blaster pro, and in 1994 a cd rom unit. That jump from a Spectrum +2 was really something.”
On Jul 12 Anonymous commented on upcoming games castle of winds 1993: “I saw it some time ago on the master list and mede a mental note to comment on the next post like this”
On Jul 12 Busca commented on upcoming games castle of winds 1993: “Regarding Excelsior:- There are three versions. The one being sold on the developers' website is 3.0, Windows, and supposedly "works on pretty much any PC running Windows XP or later", though given how old that statement may be and depending on your Windows version, it might make sense to ask them beforehand.In case you want to play (closer to) the "original" version or…”
On Jul 11 Jessica commented on serpent isle scorchd not killed: “From memory, ROT13 style: Zbfu ybirf svfu. You may need to learn this from Ohpvn'f tbffvc. Tvir Zbfu n svfu, naq fur'yy pnyy lbh sevraq. If this still isn't enough, gnyx gb Whyvn naq Rearfgb nobhg gur engzra; this should unlock the topics with Mosh.”
On Jul 11 stepped pyramids commented on upcoming games castle of winds 1993: “COTW is one of the games I've been looking forward to the most, with Exile being the next one. I'm guessing Chet won't be thrilled with the UI (which is definitely meant to be used with a mouse), but it did a lot of fun stuff that you usually only see in really crunchy roguelikes, like slotted belts. It's fairly exploitable and the difficulty curve is wonky -- it's definitely…”
On Jul 11 arthurdawg commented on upcoming games castle of winds 1993: “Computers were still very expensive and without the necessity of the internet, you played our 8 bit computer for a long time if your parents didn't need a business computer!”
On Jul 11 arthurdawg commented on upcoming games castle of winds 1993: “Ditto on Web 1.O for sure... Much less capable but so much fun on the early web!”
On Jul 11 Mikrakov commented on upcoming games castle of winds 1993: “I'm looking forwards to your coverage of Ishar 2. It was one I remembered fondly as a kid, so when you hit 1993 in your list I replayed it in a bid to help you out and comment once you got to it. That was 4 years ago!! Hopefully I can still remember enough to contribute.”
On Jul 11 Bruce Brenneise commented on upcoming games castle of winds 1993: “Twinion is very much its own game, just using the same engine and (back in the day) online service as Yserbius. ”
On Jul 11 Busca commented on upcoming games castle of winds 1993: “Funny coincidence: In a thread below, after King's Quest was mentioned in the initial comment, Radiant remarked "Well, at least Ishar doesn't have a POIsonous owl!". He was alluding to Cedric the Owl in KQ V, the PC's companion who is much maligned or at least made fun of (see e.g. the Adventurers Guild's coverage of the game) due to the mix of being useless and its…”
On Jul 11 MenhirMike commented on upcoming games castle of winds 1993: “> it can't be completed without some hex editing to get past a door very near the end of the game, the door is impossible to get through without editing your way past it.That reminds me of Dungeons of Avalon II, which supposedly had the same issue (to get into the Tower of Roa), though that turned out to not be a bug but just unnecessarily cruel game design: Lbh arrq gb svaq gur obarf bs n…”
On Jul 11 Busca commented on upcoming games castle of winds 1993: “Given you want to avoid spoilers, I'm not sure to what extent you check out reviews and forums in your pre-game research. So in case any of it is helpful, a couple things I've seen re Daemonsgate:- DosBox cycles suggested: ~5000- It's sold on Steam and GOG, but at least at the former it comes without the manual and the two maps included in the original. Not sure if they are included…”
On Jul 11 CRPG Addict commented on upcoming games castle of winds 1993: “Forgot about Twinion. I wasn't sure whether to regard it as its own game or an expansion of Yserbius. I put it aside to research and let it slip my mind.”
On Jul 11 CRPG Addict commented on upcoming games castle of winds 1993: “Well, you've intrigued me enough to give it a shot, and probably a BRIEF.”
On Jul 11 CRPG Addict commented on upcoming games castle of winds 1993: “Thanks, those are useful tips.”
On Jul 11 CRPG Addict commented on ultima v final rating: “14 years later, I'm not sure what setting I used, but it's possible I cheated the game out of a point in this category.”
On Jul 11 CRPG Addict commented on upcoming games castle of winds 1993: “Yes, COTW is on Windows 3.1. I don't know why I said "DOS." I was already playing it when I wrote this entry.”
On Jul 11 CRPG Addict commented on upcoming games castle of winds 1993: “I moved it to the "rejected" list last week. Where did you even see it?”
On Jul 11 CRPG Addict commented on upcoming games castle of winds 1993: “I just finished the first part, and I noted the story as one of its strengths. It certainly offers more than Moria did.”
On Jul 11 Andrew commented on upcoming games castle of winds 1993: “For Castle of the Winds I'd just say don't waste any time trying to find the story, there isn't any outside of the (genuinely helpful) help files, and the very occasional wall of text.”
On Jul 11 Rowan Lipkovits commented on upcoming games castle of winds 1993: “I see I have been negligent in failing to document the "Usurper" BBS door game on Mobygames, which was released in 1993. I suspect it would qualify, and should yield a better play experience than Legend of the Red Dragon did: https://www.breakintochat.com/wiki/Usurper”
On Jul 11 Jules commented on upcoming games castle of winds 1993: “Castle of the Winds yaaaa!!! I actually have a Windows 3.1 DOSBox image I use to just play this every few years. Classic.”
On Jul 11 poster formerly known as VK commented on upcoming games castle of winds 1993: “Daemonsgate is very unfinished. There are sidequests you can't complete because the quest locations haven't been implemented. And I think only one of the three magic systems described in the manual works.Bwt, Chet, don't even bother with exploring the starting city - it's huge and there's literally nothing in it apart from the locations noted on the map in the manual.”
On Jul 11 Josefka commented on upcoming games castle of winds 1993: “Welp, I've sent the comment before writing a proper name instead of "Anonymous", my bad.”
On Jul 11 Anonymous commented on upcoming games castle of winds 1993: “"Yes, as you can detect, we're not alternating between "new" games and "old" games for a while. It's time to get 1993 done."Thank god. Looking forward to Ishar II.”
On Jul 11 ksmb commented on upcoming games castle of winds 1993: “This is further along but kunskaps slottet is not a proper rpg,, its a Swedish school edutainment with no ducks”
On Jul 11 Desmond commented on ultima v final rating: “600 cycles, sorry. 1600 is just the setting I use to compromise between accuracy and speed, but 600 is where the sound effects actually sound like instruments and footsteps.”
On Jul 11 Jeffwik commented on upcoming games castle of winds 1993: “I too have positive memories of Castle of the Winds, in particular a belt item that seemed incredibly overpowered because it let you carry SO MANY HEALING POTIONS. I don't think it carried me all the way to the end of the game though.”
On Jul 11 Clarco commented on upcoming games castle of winds 1993: “Nice - I remember playing both "Castle of the Winds" and Excelsior, being a long-time ultima fan (and ultima dragon).But I remember Castle of the Winds on Windows 3.11 actually, is that possible? I distinctly remember thinking "hmmm, looks and feels a bit like Sim City". Also I think I only played the Shareware version which was back then not complete.”
On Jul 11 JMobius commented on upcoming games castle of winds 1993: “Castle of the Winds was quite literally the first 'real' game I ever played. My dad had downloaded the shareware version from a BBS on a lark. I remember the first floor having a spot you need to move diagonally to get through, and it took me around a week of goofing around confused before a flash of insight inspired me to use the number pad rather than the arrow keys.It proved formative,…”
On Jul 11 DecafSlurper commented on upcoming games castle of winds 1993: “As the author of the aforementioned wiki article, I just wanted to chime in and affirm Busca's assessment: Magische Steine is a bare-bones RPG by any definition. That said, I found it to be a respectable effort for a 15-year-old, and I genuinely enjoyed the process of documenting it.Without giving too much away, I’ll just say that if you decide to give it a try, be prepared for a puzzle-like…”
On Jul 11 Buck commented on upcoming games castle of winds 1993: “Twinion, like Yserbius, is clearly intended to be at least playable offline and solo. It's not well balanced and certainly far from the best experience you can have with the game, but as he already mentioned, he's not going entirely for the good/best experiences.Like Yserbius, it has tiered goals with increasing difficulty/grindiness, so he can set himself the goal of just finishing the…”
On Jul 11 Bunyip commented on upcoming games castle of winds 1993: “I came across Excelsior in the 90s and loved it, having never played anything like it, haha. At that stage the only Ultima I'd played was 8. It will be interesting to see how well it holds up compared to every other clone. (I suspect it's still pretty good!)”
On Jul 11 Jonas Costa commented on upcoming games castle of winds 1993: “Estou particularmente ansioso por Castle.of Winds e Excelsior. Dois jogos que conheci e terminei recentemente ”
On Jul 11 Andy_Panthro commented on upcoming games castle of winds 1993: “Five years of blog time between Ishar I (1992) and Ishar 2 (1993) really shows how many games you've covered! An amazing achievement, and I look forward to reading about these.Castle of the Winds was one of those games that was big in the shareware era, there's a whole bunch of games like that which will spark that nostalgia for me.”
On Jul 11 Andy_Panthro commented on upcoming games castle of winds 1993: “I love that I can visit the archive link mecha-neko posted, and it will run dosbox within the browser, emulating both DOS and Win3.1 and the game :DIsn't the future magic?”
On Jul 11 Radiant commented on upcoming games castle of winds 1993: “Well, at least Ishar doesn't have a POIsonous owl!”
On Jul 11 asimpkins commented on upcoming games castle of winds 1993: “The first (and only?) rule of this blog is covering games in a way that Chet finds interesting, and I'll be there for whatever that is. But I'm excited to see things get moving. I've also been getting a little restless with the many minor iterations of games that have already been covered, and I'm looking forward to seeing some more evolution of the genre.”

2 comments:

  1. Hello Chet, I´m looking forward to your thoughts on Spellcraft and Magic Candle 3. I hope that professorship isn´t keeping you up too late each night.
    Happy playing.

    ReplyDelete
  2. A Christmas Dungeon Adventure would be funny at this time of year to see :)

    ReplyDelete

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