Game 319: Lord of the Rings, Vol. II: The Two Towers (1992)

Vol. II lazily re-uses a lot of the artwork from Vol. I, including the title screen.

         

Lord of the Rings, Vol. II: The Two Towers

United States

Interplay (developer and publisher)

Released in 1992 for DOS, 1993 for FM Towns and PC-98

Date Started: 5 February 2019

I remember approaching Lord of the Rings, Vol. I with some trepidation, not much of a fan of the source material, not looking forward to a game that recapped a plot that everyone already knows. Role-playing a defined character with a predestined fate, I reasoned, removes any sense of player investment in the character. Meanwhile, if the game simply follows the plot of its source, there's no fun in exploration and no surprises; but if it allows all kinds of diversions, the player is jarred by the dissonance with the source.

          

The game starts with a recap of the story from the beginning.

        

I was thus surprised to find most of my worries unfounded. Vol. I plays like an alternate-universe execution of Fellowship of the Ring--one that begins at the same location as the books but is then free to go off in its own directions. The player can make any character in the Fellowship the ring-bearer. All kinds of non-canonical NPCs can join the Fellowship, including some created just for the game. Even Gollum can join. The open world is full of side quests that Tolkien never envisioned. And it's completely non-linear: a player can exit Moria, turn around, and walk all the way back to the Shire. He'll even encounter new situations and quests if he does so. And it turned out that none of these departures from the book bothered me at all--although we must remember that I wasn't much invested in the book in the first place.

The opening to Vol. II makes me wonder if the developers retained this admirable freedom. The backstory makes this game more of a sequel to the original material than to Vol. I. The first game ends with a non-canonical episode in which the Witch King kidnaps Frodo and Sam (or, I guess, whoever has the Ring) and the rest of the Fellowship has to rescue them from the fortress of Dol Guldur (and keep in mind, depending on the player, the "rest of the Fellowship" might include none of the canonical members). The game thus ends on a triumphant note, before the betrayal and death of Boromir, who might not even be with the party.

         

The intro screens elide some unpleasant events.

         

The backstory told in the opening screens of Vol. II omits the business with Dol Guldur and jumps ahead in time to a point past Boromir's death, the kidnapping of Merry and Pippin, and the division of the Fellowship. It begins with Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas (who wasn't even in my Vol. I party) on the plains of Rohan, following the trail of the orcs who kidnapped the hobbits.

            

The game begins.

          

I didn't expect the developers to emulate Crusaders of the Dark Savant and offer a different opening for every potential end state of Vol. I, but I was surprised that the game doesn't even import the save file or offer any concessions to the variances in the plot. As I began, I hoped that didn't mean that it wouldn't feature the same spirit of open exploration and side quests that we found in its predecessor.

The manual does suggest that Vol. II is more interested in adhering to canon. Among other things, it makes a distinction between canonical members of the Fellowship (Frodo, Sam, Pippin, Merry, Gandalf, Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli)--who can die but will otherwise never leave the party--and "temporary NPCs" who might join for a little while, but only until their personal missions are fulfilled. There were some of those temporary NPCs in the first game, too, but generally you could trust that anyone who joined your party would stick around to the bitter end.

There is thus no character creation process. Characters come with preset levels in certain attributes: dexterity, endurance, life points, strength, luck, and will power. They also come with a variety of active skills, combat skills, and lore. "Active" skills can be directly employed by the player and include such options as "Climb," "Detect Traps," "Hide," and "Boats." Combat skills are used automatically in combat, and lore--including orc, dwarf, wizard, and elven lore--are similarly passive. Skills and lore are binary; you either have them or you don't.

          

The main interface and its various commands are activated with the SPACE bar.

        

You may recall that Vol. I was reissued in 1993 on CD-ROM, with artwork created specifically for the game replaced with scenes from Ralph Bakshi's 1978 animated film. It also improved several aspects of the interface. (I started with the earlier version and finished with the later version.) Vol. II, developed in between the two releases of Vol. I, benefits from some of the interface improvements but not all of them. The party cannot move diagonally, for instance, but the main actions on the bottom of the screen--attack, view, get, inventory, skills, magic, talk, set leader, and game options--are easily called by keyboard commands. There's also an automap, which reveals itself in large squares. When you turn the interface off, the exploration window is completely uncluttered, which I like a lot.

           

The automap fills in by large squares.

        

The game begins with the three companions locked in battle with half a dozen orcs. Combat hasn't changed from the first game. You select "Attack" then specify the target from the list, with wounded and near-dead enemies annotated with special symbols. Enemies get their turns after the Fellowship members, and sometimes the Fellowship gets a free turn. I'll have more on combat later once it comes back to me.

        

In the midst of a melee.

        

My party destroyed the orcs handily, after which Aragorn did some tracking and noted that the trail of the kidnappers leads north and that the hobbits needed to be rescued at once. So naturally I decided to make my way north via east-west sweeps of the area. (Hey, I was trying to spare Aragorn a broken metatarsal as long as possible.) The eastern border of the opening area is water--I guess the river Isen--and the western border is the uncrossable Misty Mountains. The southern border is open, and you have to be careful not to cross it because the game forces you to switch parties, with I-don't-know-what consequences for the initial trio.

           

Walking alongside the Misty Mountains.

           

As you walk, events and combats are triggered as you enter their appropriate areas. You often don't see anything in advance, which is one of the oddities (and, I think, weaknesses) of this interface. Some of the things I ran into on the first map include:

         

• Remains of an orc encampment with some rations and ale.

• A party of random orcs. Once I killed them, I found a sigil with the white hand of Saruman on their bodies.

          

Note that there are no actual orcs on the screen until after I get the message.

        

• Athelas, which Aragorn can use to heal wounds.

• A Rohirrim warrior named Dorlas, hiding in the bushes, claiming to be hunting orcs who burned his town of Estemnet. He told me that a wizard has been seen on the edge of Fangorn Forest and suggested we look into it. In follow-up questioning (you talk by typing keywords, probably one of the last games in which this is true), he told me that the King of Rohan is "all but dead" and that a "craven council" rules in Edoras. He spoke of Saruman as an enemy, so his betrayal is clearly already known. Dorlas popped up several times. It got kind of annoying.

         

This doesn't seem to be this Dorlas.

        

• A man named "Walcnoth" who just stood there and wouldn't say anything to me.

• Three uruks trying to capture a black steed. They attacked as we approached. There were two such encounters.

• The ruins of Estemnet. A warrior named Bregowine gave us a meal, which healed all our accumulated wounds. Most of the other citizens were angry and bitter about the failure of their king, Theoden, to protect them. The leader, a woman named Leofyn, said that the town wouldn't be helping anyone until "a weregild is paid to compensate us for our losses." Specifically, she wanted her husband's sword, a bag of gold, and the return of her son, who had taken off, vowing to avenge his father. The sword and gold had both been stolen by orcs, with a camp to the north.

         

This was the same portrait they used for Galadriel in the last game.

        

• A warrior named Heof. He offered to teach us the "Riding" skill (how is it possible that Aragorn doesn't already know it?) if we solved a sub-quest to destroy a shrine that the orcs placed in a sacred pool used by the mearas (cool horses). The shrine couldn't be harmed during the day, and at night it's guarded by "spirits of evil." I left this for later because I wasn't yet sure if the slight darkening of the sky that happens every few minutes is "night."

             

That seems pessimistic.

         

• A group of horsemen led by Eomer. He said that they had slaughtered a group of orcs, didn't know anything about hobbits, and not all was right in Edoras. Basically the same as the book.

        

Eomer says nothing about being banished.

        

• In a burned area north of Estemnet, I found the orc encampment. The game warned me that there were too many to fight, but I bungled my way into it anyway. I defeated the first party of attackers but died at the hands of the second.

            

If we all die, Satan gets the ring.

          

After my defeat and reload, I changed my exploration pattern, going all the way north along the River Isen to Fangorn Forest. A path led into the forest--which is anything but dark and brooding--and it wasn't long before we found Gandalf. Saying his name snapped him out of his reverie. He explained that Merry and Pippin were safe with Treebeard and that our priority should be to stop a trio of "messenger orcs" on their way to Saruman (perhaps the same party I already killed as above?), then see about helping Theoden.

            

Fangorn! What madness would make us hesitate to go in there?

         

At this point, the game decided it was time to switch the action, and it loaded up Frodo and Sam on the edge of the Dead Marshes. There doesn't seem to be any way to manually switch between the parties, so I guess the game will do it automatically when certain plot points occur. I wonder if there's any way to artificially unite (or even switch!) the parties. I guess I'd have to find a way across Isen first.

          

I don't care what's canon; I'm glad the films didn't make the hobbits look like goofy old men.

          

The game had us distribute the gifts from the elves (two cloaks, magic rope, lembas bread), after which Frodo recommended that we approach Mordor via the marshes to the southeast. 

           

The Dead Marshes, Frodo. Yes, yes, that is their name.

           

I think I'll wrap up here for the first entry, but a few miscellaneous notes before I go:

• The exposition with Leofyn was delivered via a written paragraph in the manual. Vol. I had these, too, but the re-release put all the text in-game. This has to be just a copy protection exercise because the game certainly hasn't been shy about long in-game paragraphs otherwise.

           

Flashbacks to Pool of Radiance!

         

• I'm not really sure how experience and leveling work. The manual assures that your statistics will increase with experience. I forgot how it worked in the first game.

• The screen trades between dark and light every minute or so. If that's a day/night cycle, it happens very fast. I don't think my DOSBox cycles are too high, though, because if I lower them it's sluggish to respond to commands. Are those periods of momentary dimness "night," or just cloudiness? (If the latter, I haven't experienced night at all, yet.)

• Sound effects are sparse except during combat, when there are about three: a thunk of connection, a whoosh of missing, and a scream of death.

• The manual devotes a lot of space to the History of Middle Earth and a glossary of characters and places, enough that I learned quite a bit despite having been exposed to this material before. The manual also philosophically questions whether Tolkien himself would have approved of a computer game based on his work.

          

I'm not going to have a lot of patience for this.

       

The events of the opening area ultimately assuaged my concern that Vol. II would be too linear and plot-driven. I look forward to seeing how it develops. I suspect I'm due for an encounter with Gollum soon. Can I be smarter than Frodo and just kill him?

Time so far: 2 hours

****

Non-sequitur: I had this dream the other night that the nation of Denmark hired me to create an official Danish tabletop RPG (this despite my lack of experience with tabletop RPGs). The scenario was to be that the melting ice sheets in Greenland were slowly uncovering an ancient civilization. I invited several of you to be a part of the team, and we had a very contentious meeting in Amsterdam (yes, I know that's a different country--I'm just telling you what my dream was) where some of you wanted to make it a pure exploration/archaeology RPG while others wanted to have, like, ice giants awakening in the melting glaciers.

Lately, I've been in the habit of writing down dreams that I think might lead to good song, story, or game ideas. I don't always hit a home run. The other night, I wrote (I have no memory of this):  "Bacon-wrapped chocolate coin. The coin has an image of a woman on it, and you have to convince her to submit before you can eat the bacon." That one doesn't seem so promising now. But the idea of an RPG set in an ancient civilization slowly uncovered in Greenland actually seems like a good one. Anyone has my permission to use the idea.

The Root of All Evil

           

"The CRPG Addict" is about to enter its tenth year. Clearly, it's here to stay. In some ways, it has become as much of an addiction for me as the games themselves.

Unfortunately, it is long past time to consider how I can better justify the amount of time I spend on the blog. I average 15-20 hours per week. If I had spent that time on real work instead, Irene (my patient wife) would have a lot more stamps in her passport.

As my longtime readers know, I have struggled with this for years. Reflecting a sense of humility that would make Lord British proud, I've never felt that my work contributes that much to the world--certainly, not enough that should require people to pay money. I also didn't want to create any barrier, psychological or otherwise, to readership and participation on the blog.

Irene, who is much more of a capitalist than I am, recently sat me down and pointed out a few things:

1. People get paid for ephemera all the time. Some woman has made like $6 billion simply selling a huge list of things that don't suck. There are sites that make money off of reprinting my own content without permission.

2. With the different mechanisms available these days for monetizing writing, I'm literally just throwing money away by refusing to do it.

3. She would really like to go to Greece someday.

Hence, over the next year, I am launching a three-pronged approach to earn some pocket money from the effort I put into "The CRPG Addict." These are the prongs:

A Patreon Account

Readers have been encouraging me to do it for years, so I finally did it. I got through the entire setup process before I realized that you can only use it to make recurring monthly donations. I thought it could be used for one-time donations. (Technically, you can use it that way and just cancel after one month, but that seems like a pain.) I thus don't expect very much from it, but I set a recommended donation level of $12 per year to support an estimated 120 entries. If I get a lot of feedback that says, "Hey, I'd support you with a quick bump, but I don't want to be charged monthly," I'll consider a different platform or just remove it altogether.

My YouTube Channel

Over the coming year, you're going to see more videos posted, and YouTube offers a fairly easy monetization process, which may occasionally require you to watch an ad before the video plays. I need 1,000 subscribers to the channel before they'll allow me to do that, and I'm only a little over half that, so in lieu of making a Patreon donation, I would ask you to subscribe to my channel. I've already passed the "watch time" threshold that they set. Eventually, I'll get around to adding video links to the two play lists.

Addictive Adventure: The Complete History of Computer Role-Playing Games

I'm not promising anything yet in terms of a release date--although shooting for my 10-year anniversary is an obvious goal--but I can say that I've at least started work on editing my material into book form, and that I will make it more of a priority than in the past. The first volume will cover 1975-1983. I may ask for help with aspects of it as we move forward.

I hope none of these mechanisms prove intrusive, nor lessen your enjoyment of the blog. If they do, use the comments section for this entry to discuss the issue or otherwise provide feedback on the plan. It is my intention that none of these efforts will affect the content, approach, and quality of the blog.

Sorcerer's Bane: Won! (with Summary and Rating)

". . . office," I think this was supposed to end.

           

Sorcerer's Bane

United States

Wood Software Development (developer and publisher)

Released in 1992 for DOS

Date Started: 27 January 2019

Date Ended: 4 February 2019

Total Hours: 8

Difficulty: Medium-Hard (3.5/5)

Final Rating: 37

Ranking at Time of Posting: 252/321 (79%)

Summary:

Sorcerer's Bane is a shareware roguelike. The player controls a fighter, magic-user, or bard who must descend 30 levels of a former magicians' academy called Mogadore, find four pieces of a slain sorcerer's staff, and use it to defeat an evil wizard named Lodi. There are some sacrifices in typical roguelike mechanics: encounters pop up randomly; you cannot see monsters on the screen; dungeon levels are very basic; there are no complex interactions among inventory items; and there's no food system. However, these losses are balanced by some interesting encounters, an intuitive interface, an excellent "help" system, innovative ideas in item effects and encounter options, and a more interesting backstory than the typical roguelike. Length and difficulty are both set at optimum levels.
      

*****

The game wrapped up in a satisfying manner. It perhaps lasted a smidgen too long, but the problem was less "real" length than a certain amount of angst after I crossed Level 20 without finding the dragons or the evil necromancer Lodi. I then started to wonder how long the developer was going to stretch things. Fifty levels? A hundred? It turned out that the answer was 30, and if I'd known that at the outset, I probably wouldn't have minded.

         

I found all the dragons' lairs (D) on Level 29.

        

After level 10, you've left the town so far behind that you probably won't go back. It turns out that the game never develops a method for fast travel to the town. Instead, you have to rely on the rare wandering cleric and wandering trader, or--more likely--your growing inventory of wands, rings, and potions.

By Level 20, I had found pretty much every item in the game. Rings never run out of magic, so you only need to find one of each. Wands do deplete, so it makes sense to carry as many useful ones as you can. By Level 20, I had also found enough books, potions, and wishes that my attributes were all at the maximum of 21.

           

My late-game inventory has just about every type of ring and wand.

           

Enemies get a lot harder as you descend. You meet advanced undead like wraiths, specters, and vampires, different types of elementals, advanced were-creatures, spellcasters, demons, giants, and of course (ultimately) dragons. Most of these creatures have special attacks that can paralyze, poison, disease, damage your inventory, and so forth. Fighting them becomes a game of swapping inventory the moment combat starts. For instance, you want to put on a Ring of Clear Mind the moment you meet a vampire or he'll charm you and then kill you, but you switch that to a Ring of Disease Resistance if you run into a troll. A fire elemental requires an immediate donning of a Firecloak. 

A weirdly large number of enemies--including demons and most undead--die immediately if you have a Ring of Disenchantment equipped when you meet them. It's cool but it seems too easy.

            

That was a freebie.

        

All the swapping gets a little tiresome, and I admit I adopted a policy of fleeing from most encounters with certain enemies (especially disease- and lycanthropy-causing enemies) and saved fighting for the tough brutes with no special abilities, such as giants and ogres. There are a small number of enemies--particularly ghouls, harpies, and thieves--whom it makes no sense to fight at all because they teleport away if you get close to killing them.

           

Harpies not only teleport away before they die; they take your items with them!

         

It took me a while, after my disastrous encounter with a Deck of Many Things, to restore my inventory. In particular, it took a long time to find a magic weapon, and some creatures are only damaged by magic weapons. I finally gave up and used a wish to get one, choosing the "Haphestus-Made Sword" (I think the developer meant "Hephaestus"), which I think is the most powerful weapon in the game except for the "Bazerker Sword," which comes with the usual curse on that item--that is, you automatically attack everyone, including friendly NPCs.

Later, I used another wish on grizzly bear and dream wolf companions, which was pretty cool, but they didn't last long, and they can only damage creatures that don't require a magical weapon.

               

My grizzly bear and dream wolf help me against a cockatrice.

           

There are some unfortunate bugs in the game. At least, I think they're bugs. Basically, some magic items simply stop working even though you still have them equipped. Usually, un-equipping them and re-equipping them solves the problem, but not always. Regeneration was particularly troublesome. I could never get a handle on how to make it work consistently. Whether I was wearing a Ring of Regeneration, wielding my magic flute, and singing the healing song--or only some of these things, or none--sometimes I'd regenerate 10 hit points per round, sometimes one, sometimes none. Sometimes I'd only regenerate outside of combat, and sometimes only in combat. 

I used these problems as an excuse to not strictly accede to permadeath. I backed up the game every couple of dungeon levels and restored when I died. I ultimately restored five or six times, but I think except for the last two (when I faced Lodi), I could have prevented the deaths with a little more care.

The dragons--white, red, gold, and phase--were all on Level 29. Each encounter was preceded by a text screen:

          

Gotta get what I came for.

        

I tried talking to the first dragon I encountered, the gold dragon. He congratulated me for my bravery and gave me his piece of the staff after taking all of my gold (which had utterly lost any other utility by then anyway).

            

An alternate way to solve this part of the quest.

         

The other dragons weren't as nice, and I had to fight them with the appropriate magic items to protect against their special attacks. I mostly killed them with Wands of Magic Missile and Fireball, which do about 10 times the damage of my weapon. Red was supposed to be "easiest" (as a unicorn had previously told me), but he was immune to any magic, so in that sense, he was harder. I had to use a wish to restore my hit points after he nearly killed me, finally killing him after a few dozen rounds.

The backstory had made it seem like there would be some puzzle associated with assembling the staff. Instead, it simply assembled itself once I had four pieces. It then spoke to me telepathically, introducing itself as "Gilcrest."

The staff filled in the rest of the backstory. Apparently, when Sabee and Lodi created the Staffs of Power, they made them so powerful that the staffs "started polarizing the very forces of good and evil." Gilcrest became aspected to good, while his counterpart Moshannon took on an aspect of evil, ultimately corrupting Lodi, its wielder. (Gilcrest and Moshannon are both place names; who knows what they mean to the developer. Come to think of it, so is Lodi.) Gilcrest said that I'd find Lodi on the next level, and that he (Gilcrest) would take care of neutralizing Moshannon.

        

The Staff of Power is chatty.

          

Level 30 was a bit different than the others. Instead of a large open space with a few rooms, it consisted entirely of interlocking rooms. 

             

A very different look than the first 29 levels.

          

Still, it wasn't long before I met Lodi. In a bit of exposition, we both drew our staves, but the staves decided to take their fight elsewhere and disappeared. Lodi, enraged at the loss of his staff, rejected my peace overtures and attacked.

         

 

Might as well preserve all these text screens for posterity.

          

Like the red dragon, he was immune to magic. He had his own magical attacks and managed to hit me with a melee weapon almost every round. I didn't last long against him on my first attempt.

On my second, I used a wish to conjure a grizzly bear companion (leaving me with one more) and equipped a Ring of Disenchantment and a Ring of Regeneration. These things helped. He was unable to hit me with spells, and the grizzly distracted him and took his attacks some of the rounds. The "monster info" dialogue told me that he had 120 hit points, so I kept track of how much damage I was doing round after round. When he got me down to about 20 hit points, I used a wish to restore my hit points and kept fighting. But he still killed me when he had about 30 hit points remaining.

           

With my grizzly bear to take some of the heat, I did better against Lodi.

         

After reloading, I spent about 15 minutes fighting random creatures on the lower levels and opening chests until I ran into a djinn who granted me a third wish. This time, with two wishes in reserve, I was able to defeat Lodi. 

           

I guess Lodi was a load-bearing boss.

        

The endgame text revealed that I was the titular "Sorcerer's Bane." Lodi's death caused the dungeon to collapse, but the goddess Kiera appeared to teleport me to the surface. The god Allyn appeared to congratulate me and gave me a weak answer when I asked why he didn't just deal with Lodi himself: "As game master, I must expend most of my energy on maintaining the balance of good and evil in the realms."

        

I don't know if I want to live in a world where God is named "Allyn."

        

After a final plea to register the game and tell others about it (oddly truncated), I was returned to the DOS prompt.

I spent some time with the other character classes, and it's worth noting that the three classes face very different games. The choice is far more consequential here than in the typical roguelike, where a wizard can essentially become a fighter with the right equipment and attributes. Here, the "hidden" statistics--to hit, to damage, to avoid damage, alertness, and magic resistance among them--are far more dependent on class and level than attributes. A fighter with 18 strength and dexterity hits far more often in combat, and does far more damage, than a bard with the same attributes.

I won with a bard, who only ever gets three bard songs, and you almost always want to leave it on the one that heals. The spells afforded to magic users add a completely different dimension to the game. You seem to get a fixed number of slots per dungeon level, and they reset upon transitioning levels. Unfortunately, there's no in-game documentation on the spells. I only got to see a couple of levels' worth. If anyone wants to try this game as a magic-user, I'd be interested in what some of the upper-level spells do and how your experience differs from mine as a bard.

In a GIMLET, I would give it:

          

• 3 points for the game world. It's not an epic backstory, but it's better than the typical roguelike offers (at least, to this point).

• 4 points for character creation and development. I really like how the choice of class matters. For 2/3 of the game, character development is steady and rewarding, both in the improvement of statistics and the leveling of the character.

• 3 points for NPC interaction. That's also a relatively high score for a roguelike. Some monsters are effectively "NPCs" and give you hints if you talk with them, and there are more explicit NPCs roaming the dungeon as healers, traders, and gamblers. The gambler with the Deck of Many Things is a particularly fun addition.

         

A creature gives me a hint.

        

• 5 points for encounters and foes. The monsters are fantasy boilerplate, but the developer did a superb job programming in the various special abilities and resistances and then offering them to the player in the "monster info" screen. Other encounters, as documented, are fun and unusual for a roguelike.

       

The game's assessment of the red dragon.

        

• 4 points for magic and combat. That's a compromise between what I imagine I'd give it as magic user (5) and what I experienced as a bard (3). You don't have quite the same number of tactics as the typical roguelike, and success mostly comes down to equipping the right stuff to counter the enemy's special attacks.

          

I trade blows with a vampire, with my Ring of Clear Mind protecting me from his attempts to charm.

        

• 5 points for equipment. Great variety, easy to assess. 

• 2 points for the economy. It's useful at the outset, but gold becomes superfluous very fast. It would have been nice if the wandering trader had sold magic items.

• 2 points for a main quest with no choices or branches.

• 4 points for graphics, sound, and interface. The graphics are sparse, as is typical for a roguelike, and the only sound (aside from error beeps) is a relentless blooping riff on Beethoven that you'll want to turn off immediately. The interface is superb, brilliantly anticipating all of the ways that a player might want to interact with the controls. Most commercial developers could learn something from this kid.

• 5 points for gameplay, doing well in replayability (with the different classes), length, and difficulty. 

             

That gives us a final score of 37, a decent figure for a shareware title. Even though it lacks many roguelike elements, I enjoyed it more than the typical roguelike. 

In the first entry, I said I thought I had found the right Chuck Wood, and that he would have been 18 when the game was published. After some additional research, I believe I'm wrong and that the correct Mr. Wood was closer to 28. From what I can tell, he remained in the software business (at least part-time) but doesn't seem to have worked on any other games. I sent an e-mail to some possible candidates but haven't received any responses yet. Chuck, if you find your way here, I owe you $19.95.

Lords of Time: Won! (with Summary and Rating)

Narrator: "It was not continued."

            

Lords of Time

United States

Hollyware (developer and publisher)
Released 1992 for the Amiga

Date Started: 3 January 2019

Date Ended: 2 February 2019

Total Hours: 25

Difficulty: Moderate (3/5)

Final Rating: 37

Ranking at Time of Posting: 248/321 (77%)

Summary:

Lords of Time is a fantasy RPG with a science fiction framing story. A character called "Major Thom" tries to find a way back to Earth after an aerospace accident deposits him in a fantasy kingdom called The Realm. The game uses an update of the Faery Tale Adventure engine with an axonometric interface, action-oriented combat, experience-based leveling, and a day/night cycle that force the player to manage hunger and fatigue. Adventure game-style inventory puzzles carry the player across multiple episodes as he uncovers the lore of The Realm. The game has some fun moments, but a horrible combat system and threadbare story ultimately hurt this one.

*****

Lords of Time is a 12-hour game that manages to double its duration by making it unclear what you need to do next. Its open game world is a bit of an illusion because to actually solve the plot, the player has to visit places in a specific order. This results in a lot of backtracking, and because of the relentless spawning of enemies, backtracking in this game--actually, even just "tracking"--is an exercise in frustration. In previous entries, we saw how much random exploration I had to do to advance between points that would have taken but minutes with a walkthrough.

          

Crossing the ocean as a wyvern.

           

The same dynamic was at play in the final episodes. I could have won in two hours with some foreknowledge; instead, it took me about five. In the previous entries, I had received the jeweled key to the island keep from the dwarf king and the "Mage Nullification Spell" from the Druid Temple. I saw no reason not to go right for the island keep. I used the "Wyvern Morphing" spell to cross a strait at the north end of the map and fly to the only island where the "island keep" could possibly be located.

There were two sets of mountains on the island. One had a bunch of windows but no entry point.

             

It looked pretty cool, though.

          

The second had a large door that opened with the jeweled key. It led to an underground area full of water. Unfortunately, the only paths forward were blocked by locked gates, and no keys I had (nor my lockpicking ability) would open them.

             

"Sewer-like tang" is an unpleasant phrase.

         

Sighing, I returned to the mainland and messed around a bit while figuring out my next move. Around this time, I tried a commenter's suggestion to cast "Portal Activation Spell" on one of the little shrines I'd encountered. It worked. The spell moves the character among four shrines: one on the north coast, one on the south coast, one on the west coast, and one outside Castleguard. These shrines made it a lot faster to move around the map. Between them and "Wyvern Morphing," I bypassed a lot of the frustration with random combats.

             

Activating the portal at one of the shrines.

          

Consulting my notes, I realized that the only lead I hadn't pursued involved using dragonsbane to deal with the previously-encountered dragon. My notes said that I discovered its cave on Wyvern Mountain, but after crawling all over the mountain for about an hour to no avail, I realized I must have made a mistake. Sure enough, I found the cave a few klicks to the west, at the base of the dwarven mountain.

As I entered, I donned the Druid Cloak, thinking it might protect against the dragon's breath. I then opened my satchel and grabbed a handful of dragonsbane. The game asked what I wanted to apply it to. I said my sword. It said that the goop just slid off. I tried again and specified my homing daggers. Again, the attempt was fruitless. No other weapon worked either. It turns out that the dragonsbane--for no sensible reason--only works with regular daggers, and I had sold or dropped all of mine. Meanwhile, the cloak did protect me, but the dragon proved immune to every other weapon or spell.

             

What if I wanted his head?

            

I made my way back to Castleguard, bought a few regular daggers, and returned. This time, the dragonsbane knocked the dragon out (though it notably didn't kill him), allowing me to scoot past him into his cavern. In his treasure chamber, I looted a bone, some gems, some gold, and a "slimy key."

             

Looting the dragon's lair.

           

The slimy key--of course--turned out to open those grates in the caverns below the island keep, but it really doesn't make any sense that the dragon would have had it.

The game has another surprise up its sleeve when it comes to the slimy key: it only works three times, after which it crumbles away. There are more than three grates in the island keep caverns. If you use it on the "wrong" doors--which of course there's no way to tell--you enter a walking dead state and you have to reload from outside and try again.

              

I hope that was the last time I needed it!

            

Ultimately, I found my way through. The caverns led up to a dungeon full of cells and a torture chamber. New enemies appeared, including slimes and floating eyes. Skeleton keys unlocked the prison cells (fortunately, I'd bought a bunch in some previous session), and from the prisoners I learned that the wizard Kruel was occupying the tower above, and that I could reach him from the "mirror room" via the fourth mirror from the north.

           

Freeing a prisoner in Kruel's dungeon.

           

I couldn't find anything to do in the torture room, even though there were some interesting graphics of some prisoners in stocks and one on a torture rack. As we'll see, I should have tried harder.

The level above the dungeon had several cabinets and beds along with wandering enemies. There wasn't much to do here, but I appreciated the ability to sleep.

In the level above that, I found the mirror room. Following the prisoner's instructions, I looked at the fourth mirror from the north end of the room, and was sucked through (a one-way trip) into Kruel's lair.

          

A flying eyeball and a slime killed me while I took this screenshot.

           

It was a small area. I was immediately accosted by demons as I entered. Kruel was standing in a little throne room casting spells at me, including "Sleep" and "Paralysis," but I had plenty of healing and spell point potions to counter them. Confidently, I ran up to Kruel and cast the "Mage Annulment Spell."

The game told me that the spell uses concepts I didn't understand. I messed around a bit more, trying different spells, poison, and so forth, but I couldn't find anything that would defeat Kruel.

              

How come I don't have that spell?

           

I don't know why I made this assumption, but what I assumed was that my character hadn't taken "Advanced Spellcasting" at the guild in Castleguard. I mean, I know I had taken it--I had a screenshot and everything--but I assumed that something must have caused me to reload after taking it, and that I had forgotten to take it again. Sighing, I reloaded from outside the keep, flew back to the mainland, returned to Castleguard, and took the course again. I still couldn't cast the spell.

Now I was lost again. I ended up revisiting several places, including Bessak's Keep and the king's castle, just to see if anything changed. Down in Murkvale, I realized I'd never rented the raft or gotten the two raft propulsion spells that makes it move. This all turned out to be a waste of time, and I'm still not sure what purpose the raft serves since you can just wade through the water between the islands.

            

Well, this was pointless.

           

After a long time, I decided I must have missed something in the lower parts of the island keep, so I returned to try again. This time, I realized that the figure on the torture wheel must in fact be Bessak, and that the five sticks in the ground south of him, which I had regarded as some kind of fence or barrier, were actually levers that I needed to manipulate to stop the wheel.

Each of five levers had three positions, and it took me a while to find the right combination. I think you're supposed to watch their effect on the wheel--some of them slow the wheel down, some speed it up--and discern the combination accordingly. The change in speed is hard to perceive. I just made a list of the 3^5 = 243 possibilities and worked my way through them, getting the correct combination when the list was half done.

Bessak crawled off the wheel, thanked me for my help, and said that he'd help me get home. He told me he'd meet me in Kruel's throne room after he got a "certain spell from the Druids," taking off before I could tell him I already had the spell.

               

"Wait! I already . . . bollocks."

          

Back I went to the throne room. This time, Bessak appeared in the northwest corner and started casting spells at Kruel. The two locked in their magic duel while I accomplished nothing fighting endlessly-spawning demons and gulping potions. Finally, I ran up to Bessak and the game offered me the ability to give him something. I gave him the "Mage Annulment" spell.

After that, I ran over to Kruel and began attacking him. I don't know whether my attacks brought an end to the battle or whether I just had to wait a certain amount of time, but eventually Kruel admitted defeat.

               

The lack of a comma suggests a big change in my quest reward.

            

Bessak opened a portal and I ran through.

             

". . . and maybe not let those demons follow you."

          

As I entered, Bessak commented that he "forgot to ask what world [I was] from." 

              

Did he just choose a "default" world?

            

I thus awoke on a rocky landscape with two suns. Paralyzed, I watched in horror as an army of dwarves riding wolves bore down upon me. And then the game ended on a cliffhanger. A screen offered my final statistics and score.

               

Maybe I arrived after the events of 2010?

Who is hoarding dwarves?

            

This entry is pretty long already, but let's do a quick GIMLET anyway:

           

• 3 points for the game world. The backstory is original but also pretty silly, the main quest (simply to return home) is uninspiring, and the world is distressingly static--to the point that doors close and re-lock if you leave the screen and return. NPCs give the same hints no matter where you are in the game. It would have been a lot better if it had been structured as a series of quests from the king that in some way helped The Realm while simultaneously helping you find a way home.

• 2 points for character creation and development. There's no creation; everyone plays the inane "Major Thom." The development system has you acquire more hit points and spell points with experience and training, but combats never really seem to get any easier, and development is thus largely unrewarding. 

• 4 points for NPC interaction. There are scattered NPCs--far less than you would expect in a world of this size--who impart information about The Realm and help you with the quest. As noted before, they're quite static, and there's no opportunity for role-playing in your dialogues with them.

           

The game's few NPCs are useful but one-way.

         

• 3 points for encounters and foes. The small list of monsters is unimaginative, and the monsters themselves mostly indistinguishable except by graphic. The respawn rate really kills the fun of exploration. Puzzles are mostly of the inventory type, although there a couple of exceptions, such as opening the way to the Druid Temple.

• 3 points for magic and combat, mostly for the magic. The combat system was awful--a bunch of sword-waving, rendered ineffectual if you're slightly offset from your foe. Magic is more useful for exploration than combat, but I thought some of the spells were original.

• 4 points for equipment. There are a few weapon and armor upgrades and spells, and I like that some items can be used on others in creative ways (e.g., applying poison potions to weapons) and that "examining" items gives you a basic description. There are a lot of red herrings--I ended the game with wyvern eggs, bones, fossils, jewels, incense, and other items that I guess you were just meant to sell for gold.

           

It's a rare game in the era that allows for interactions between items.

          

• 6 points for economy. It remains strong to the end. After you've bought everything, bribed everyone, and taken all the courses, you can still stock up on healing and magic potions, which never stop being useful.

• 3 points for a main quest with multiple stages, but no role-playing, decisions, alternate outcomes, or side-quests.

• 5 points for graphics, sound, and interface. The graphics are pretty good, particularly when depicting indoor areas. I didn't care for the constant vibraphone-like music, and the sound effects were sparse, but there were some nice background effects like chirping birds in the forest. The joystick control was sufferable given the many keyboard options.

              

To me, the indoor graphics are the best-looking part of the game.

             

• 4 points for gameplay. It's geographically nonlinear but very linear in plot. It's not very long, but still longer than it needs to be. The overall difficulty is moderate. It's not replayable at all.

               

That gives us a final score of 37, so I guess I liked it just enough to recommend it--a little. The developer did fix some of the problems with the Faery Tale Adventure approach. Notably, the world isn't quite as large or empty (though it's still large and empty), and it has a better inventory system.

                

The box art would seem to be depicting the end of the game.

               

Owing to its obscurity today--it escaped MobyGames and Wikipedia, which is unusual for a post-1990 title--I'm guessing it didn't sell very well. (The failure to develop the promised sequel is another clue.)  The best review (87%) came from the September 1992 Amiga Action, which called it a "little gem" and offered a review that repeatedly suggests a greater depth of gameplay than actually exists in the game, particularly in the image captions. It got 78% from Amiga Mania, 53% from Amiga Power, and 45% from Amiga Joker.

Hollyware Entertainment had been formed in 1991 by David Boyles, a former MicroIllusions employee, after the bankruptcy of MicroIllusions. In his history of the failure of MicroIllusions, Jimmy Maher suggests that Hollyware's raison d'etre was to sue Activision for things that happened during the MicroIllusions era. Certainly, the new developer wasn't very prolific. Besides Lords of Time, they seem to have published only two action games--Hoi (1992) and Jonny Quest: Curse of the Mayan Warriors (1993)--and the puzzle game Gear Works (1992). Oddly, the company still exists, or at least re-exists, as Hollyware Transmedia, which is apparently working on virtual reality software. I'm not entirely sure how the rights to Faery Tale Adventure made its way to The Dreamer's Guild in time for Halls of the Dead: Faery Tale Adventure II (1997), but we'll sort that out when the time comes.

Developer Steve Postma is the biggest mystery here. He has sole credit for programming, design, graphics, music, and sound effects--the only other names are associated with just the manual and game box. He has no other video games to his credit. I can't find him now. Where did he come from? Where did he go? Maybe he'll Google himself one day, see this review, and pop by to answer the most important question of all: why is the game called Lords of Time?

[Edit: several weeks after this entry, a commenter alerted me to an obscure 1994 Amiga title by Steve Postma called Riamel: Black Prophecy. There's a video of the game's beginning here. It seems to use a modified version of the Faery Tale Adventure/Lords of Time engine, with first-person indoor exploration and axonometric outdoor exploration. Given the way it begins, it might in fact be a sequel to Lords of Time. As of this edit, no one seemed to have the full version of the game (even the YouTube link is just a demo), but we'll take a closer look in 1994.]

 

[Further edit: As this site, contributed by Igor, reveals, Riamel was never released but it was finished, and the game has been posted online.]