Magic Candle: Re-Lit

The party hits the road.

I've accomplished so little in The Magic Candle that I probably shouldn't even be posting, but I wanted to assure you that, having come down from the height of my business season, I am still playing.

When I returned to the game, I could remember so little that I thought it would be best if I started over. Also, I had The Book of Flame and Wax that I wanted to populate with notes from the characters in the Royal Castle and Port Azur. I'm actually glad that I restarted because I found a bunch more characters. I made about six loops through the Royal Castle and encountered different people each time. Some of them appear for only very short time frames.

Depending on the time of day, there might be 0, 1, 3, or 12 people in this room. Unlike Ultima V, they can't be found elsewhere when they're gone; they just disappear.

 
In restarting, I also did something kind of lame: I chose the easy mode. I had been following your conversation in my last posting, and it appears that the mode only affects the number of days you have to complete the main quest. Since it is my wont to explore and exhaustively document things--for both myself and my readers--I felt I was justified in giving myself the most time possible. Later, I encountered a woman in the castle who promised me an extra 60 days in an emergency:

I assume this is a one-time offer, or it would render the time limit useless.

After revisiting the two towns, I have a long "to do" list and a few mysteries. The major mystery involves a dungeon called Meardom, which is said to lie beneath the Royal Castle. I read about it in the Port Avur library. The previous king, Ongar, had a son named Aslan (current-king Rebnard's older brother) who wandered down there and was killed by gnolls. In response, Ongar had the dungeon sealed and made everyone swear an oath not to speak of it. Ongar's brother Banas apparently decided I needed to know about it because he gave me just enough to ask the right questions in Port Avur without betraying his oath. The problem is, I don't know what to do with any of this. I've asked every NPC I can find about MEARDOM and ASLAN and no one wants to tell me anything. Wandering around the lowest explorable level of the castle doesn't seem to produce a dungeon. Maybe I'll find something later.

The second mystery has to do with the queen, Rebnard's wife. I haven't been able to find her. I've heard from her servants that she's in a foul mood and unhealthy, but I don't see her anywhere.

The final mystery has to do with a servant in the castle named Beratt. He's rumored to be hiding a secret. There are whispers that some of the servants are spies. Unfortunately, he won't speak to me until I visit a halfling trainer and increase my charisma.

Awfully haughty for a servant.

My to do list has most of its items in Soldain, a dwarven town just south of where I am now, and Keof, an island town to which I need to take a ship's passage from Port Avur. The items involve asking different NPCs about different bits of game lore, including one monk who knows something about the vault holding the Zirvanad, the document I need to find that explains how to refresh the Magic Candle. I thought I'd go to the place I can walk first (Soldain), using the experience to learn a bit about overland travel. I have to burn a day hanging around Port Avur, though, because apparently you can't just buy armor like you can buy weapons; you have to wait a day or so for the armorsmith to make it.

I'm still in that stage of the game where I'm confused by many things and uncertain about the best logistical tactics, such as how much food, how many arrows, and how many mushrooms I should carry (especially since, other than Port Avur, I don't know where to buy them), the best way to allocate training funds, and how many bits of equipment I should buy. I got a blanket for everyone, but do I need more than one rope, shovel, or pick?

Does this mean I'll need multiple picks but just one shovel?

I did cast my first spell, giving an energy boost to Giauz after he'd been wandering around talking to people all night. Since I realized belatedly that every spell drains energy from the spellcaster, I'm probably better off just eating a Sermin mushroom, which seems to be cheap and accomplishes the same thing.

Why, Giauz gets an energy boost!

Just like the last time I started, I've had one battle against orcs on the road. I'm looking forward to exploring the combat a bit more, as it seems to have something of the tactical complexity of the Ultima series. Even this brief introductory combat took a long time, though, and I've heard rumors of 30+ minute combats in this game. Right now, my wizard has nothing to do; none of his spells are offensive. I have notes on where to buy other spellbooks.

Eflun just hangs back and watches. He's good for other stuff.

Sorry for the short posting, but I plan to invest some serious hours tomorrow, so we'll see what happens. In the meantime, if you see anything obvious I'm doing wrong at the introductory stages, please let me know.

Magic Candle: Burning at Both Ends

My new goal is to be referenced in a CRPG.

I made my first Magic Candle posting shortly before midnight on Sunday evening, and Monday morning at 06:00, I was still playing the game. Two days later, I'm still trying to get my sleep schedule back to normal. I suspect that with this game, this is going to happen a lot.

Since I last posted, I read the manual in detail, finished exploring the Royal Castle, fought and won a single battle, and explored the nearby town of Port Avur (both the manual and most of the NPC dialogues seemed to be directing me there next). I've done enough to realize that note-taking for this game is going to be quite an enterprise. Not since Ultima IV and V have I encountered a game so packed with history and lore. If The Magic Candle doesn't have as inspiring a quest as those other games, it seems to have more back story. I began organizing a little encyclopedia of characters, places, and other lore items in the game, and I was up to 11 pages before I even got out of the manual.

See my in-progress Magic Candle encyclopedia. (Yeah, you come up with a better name.)

The manual goes into a lot more detail about the history of the Magic Candle and the demon Dreax, including the major characters in the war that led to his imprisonment millennia ago. In its recollection of dwarf and elf kings, great wizards, magical artifacts, and a horde of dark forces from the east, it's impossible not to think of Lord of the Rings. Certainly, the archetypes of elves, dwarves, men, and wizards remains unaltered from Tolkien.

Belazar introduces me to a bunch of items of lore at once.

The complexities of this game don't end with the narrative; it is also very logistically complicated. A lot of games, of course, provide small logistical challenges to keep things interesting. As far back as the first Ultima, you had to keep a stockpile of food. Ultima V introduced NPCs who kept schedules, so you'd have to explore a city multiple times to make sure you spoke to everyone. In Faery Tale Adventure, the PC gets tired and periodically needs to sleep. I can't remember if any game to date has featured wear and tear on weapons and armor, but it would become a staple of the Elder Scrolls series. Pool of Radiance was the first D&D-based CRPG to make your magic-users memorize spells before being able to cast them. Larn had a timer continually counting down the amount of time you had to win the game. Demon's Winter had you specify your party formation. And Wasteland allowed you to split your party and have different groups doing different things at the same time.

The spell system is fairly complicated. Most CRPGs have spell points (i.e.,"mana") or a memorization system. This game has both.

What makes The Magic Candle special is that it includes all of these logistical considerations, and a few more besides. I haven't mastered it all yet (particularly spellcasting, which seems to involve acquiring various spell books, then "learning" a certain number of each spell over the course of hours of studying, then "recalling" the spell to memory, and then, finally, casting it). The party-splitting option is probably the most difficult thing to master because it's an integral part of the game, not a one-time deal needed to solve a puzzle, as in Wasteland. Not all characters tire at the same rate, so it's silly to have them all sleeping at the same time.

Bedding down for the night.

At one point in Port Avur, I had my characters split into three parties: one resting in the inn (some characters sleeping, one memorizing spells), one taking archery lessons, and one wandering around speaking to NPCs. Generally, I suppose the trick is to assemble everyone again before moving to the next town, but it isn't necessary. You could leave one character working a day job as a metal smith, earning gold, while the rest of the party pursues the main quest.

As the rest of the party sleeps, Min sneaks into the local jail and chats up some orcs.

The "jobs" system is another oddity to the game. Characters can work as gemcrafters, carpenters, tailors, and metalsmiths and earn a consistent wage. If you have someone skilled in a trade, he can make some money while the rest of the party explores the town. Unfortunately, the party I chose only has one character with a trade--my halfling, Min--and he also has the highest charisma, which means I really need him to explore.

Many characters won't speak to you if your charisma isn't high enough.

 
(As we often see in CRPGs, it's a little ludicrous that I have to work for money in the first place. My party is on a quest to save the kingdom, after all, and you'd think the treasuries would be open to us. Nonetheless, the manual makes it clear on Page 21: "His Grace, Lord Banas, emphasizes that the companions will be required to fund their own endeavors.")

I'm going to save further logistics discussions for future postings and concentrate for the rest of this one on the character interaction and plot-development system because I can already tell that they're fantastic--on par or better than the Ultimas.

At the beginning of the game, you have a very broad quest--stop Dreax from escaping the Magic Candle--and few clues how to succeed at it, or even where to go next. The manual suggests that the quest is going to involve completing a ritual described in the "fragments of the Zirvanad," apparently a text written by the mage, Zirva, who originally imprisoned Dreax. The text mentions the need for three artifacts--a white amulet, a green ring, and a blue ring--to enter the hall in which the Magic Candle is kept, and then a series of chants to restore it. These are mostly fragmentary.

The key passage from the game manual, courtesy of Canageek.

The king directed me to speak with Belazar, an old, dying counselor. This first involved getting access to Belazar's chambers. The game has a unique system by which you can't simply barge into private homes; rather, you must (K)nock on the door and state the name of the person you're looking for. Some NPCs are only accessible this way, and based on various conversations, I have a host of NPCs to call on when I visit various towns.

Visiting the king's uncle in his chambers at night.

I spoke to Belazar in his bed, and he gave me several clues about the nature of the game, including the religious system and modes of magical travel (I'll have to save both for later). He also told me to ask Father Orbonn, a monk in Port Avur, about the Zirvanad. Since Banas, the king's uncle, also wanted me to visit Port Avur (something about a dungeon beneath the castle that he's not allowed to talk about), I made that my next stop.

In Port Avur, I learned about the game's focus on libraries. I guess there are several dotted about the game world, and you can use them to ask about key pieces of lore, with the monks serving as reference librarians.

A monk gives me intelligence on the Royal Castle's dungeon. The king's uncle wants me to know something about it but can't tell me. Castle denizens report they're hearing screams coming from it at night. The plot thickens..

 
Father Orbonn told me that the Zirvanad was placed in a stone vault after Zirva's death. I have to both find the vault (there's a rumor it may be in Lymeric) and a star-shaped key needed to open it. Elsewhere, Belazar's grandson advised me to visit the old man again after I have a chance to look at the Zirvanad.

Oh, there were so many more conversations between the Royal Castle and Port Avur that I don't really know where to begin. I started my little encyclopedia after I visited the two towns, so my tentative plan at this point is to restart the game (I lost a couple of precious days screwing around) and revisit the NPCs now that I have a better system for note-taking and task management. One key insight I gained is that although NPCs keep schedules like in Ultima V, they don't walk from one place to another at appointed times. In Ultima V, every NPC could always be found somewhere, if only sleeping in a bed. In The Magic Candle, when an NPC isn't at his usual location, he generally ceases to exist.

A lot of readers have remarked about the size and length of the game, and given the size of the game map--plus the sheer number of towns and locations mentioned in the manual--I suspect I'll be playing it for a long time.

The game world. So far, I've only explored a tiny area of the northwest. The game manual describes all the major areas of the map and really makes me want to visit them.

A few other discoveries:

• Skills increase both with usage and through paid training.

• When exploring, you often enter "rooms" in which the interface changes a bit. Your party members move individually instead of as a unit, and you exit with a command instead of by walking out the door. Shops work this way, and each party member must approach the counter separately (or trade items later).

Outfitting my party in the weapon shop.

• Monsters seem like standard D&D fare, with orcs, ogres, trolls, and such. There are a few original ones, such as wolvinga (corrupted elves) and various types of demons.

• Combat (about which I will have a much longer posting later) seems to draw from SSI games like Demon's Winter for its inspiration, as you maneuver individual icons around the battlefield, and attributes affect your movement speed and number of attacks.

With bow and blade, the party lays waste to a group of orcs.

• Fatigue is something that I'll have to manage carefully. A couple of times, my characters got so tired that they were unable to move. Fortunately, I had some mushrooms that restored their energy fast. I assume if you don't have any mushrooms, you have to split them off from the party and leave them sitting there until you can buy a mushroom and return. (You can't simply hole up and camp anywhere in town.)

• Cubes, pyramids, and spheres (sold by traveling merchants) somehow allow teleportation at magic gates. I'm still collecting notes on this.

 

The Bay of Meric is pretty far away on the map, so I suspect magical traveling is going to become necessary to avoid wasting too many game days.

 

• There was a gambling game with dice in Port Avur. I recorded my wins and losses over about 25 throws and I've concluded that the odds of winning are almost exactly 50/50. I can't expect to make much at gambling.

The rest of the party is exhausted while Min cheerfully gambles.

I suspect my approach to this game will mirror what I did for other long games like Ultima V and Might & Magic: Each post will recap what I discovered about the plot and then cover some particular aspect of gameplay, such as attributes, party management, exploration, combat, and magic. This game has a steep learning curve, but it looks like it's going to be worth it.

Game 75: The Magic Candle (1989)

Giauz, I conceded to your request.

        

The Magic Candle

United States
Mindcraft Software (developer and publisher)

Released in 1989 for Apple II, Commodore 64, and DOS; 1991 for PC-98; 1992 for NES
Date Started: 2 September 2012

 

Ho boy. Rarely have I gone into a game with as many expectations as I am with The Magic Candle. I've been hearing about it in various comments for over two years. The notions you've given me going into the game are that:

• It's painfully nonlinear.
• It's somehow related to Rings of Zilfin.
• It features the ability to split the party and travel independently.
• I need to take a lot of notes.
• Movement is very slow.
• A lot of people start it and never finish it.
• A lot of people love it. There is one prediction it will be my 1989 "Game of the Year."
• Innategamer will still read my blog if I don't like it. That'll be one.
• Canageek managed to get seven blog postings out of just finding the manual in his basement.

PetrusOctavianus gave me a long list of tips for the game, which I re-typed so I'd increase my chances of internalizing them.

The game's backstory is told succinctly in the otherwise ponderous tome that is the game manual (Canageek's scan is 61 screen shots): Messengers from King Rebnard [Sigh; Who did the developers know named "Bernard"?] of Deruvia have posted a mysterious message on signposts around the kingdom, calling for a party of brave volunteers to come to the royal castle and receive a quest to address the "dire peril" in which the land finds itself. Lukas, a ranger, is one of several heroes to answer the call. The game lets you rename him, as I did above. Setup is otherwise fairly easy, with only one other selection: the difficulty level. We were just talking about difficulty a few weeks ago, and this game becomes the first to offer an explicit setting at the beginning: "easy," "fair," and "tough." I went the middle path.

Your majesty, I'm going to recommend some animal fat, processed into tallow.

You begin the game in front of King Rebnard, who explains that the recent increase in "forces of the darkest nature" roaming the lands are the minions of Dreax the Demon, who has been imprisoned for centuries in a magic candle. The 44 (or, more accurately, "four and forty") guardians who "kept the magic flame burning" have disappeared, and the candle is melting. A band of heroes is needed to...somehow...stop Dreax from escaping.

Right away, you get the choice to refuse the quest! But if you do, the game just starts over with the same character name and you have to read all the intro text again. Still, I like it. Most games just assume that your PC will naturally go on the main quest; you never really get much of a choice. I thought about calling the game "finished!" right there and ending the posting, but I feel like I've already messed with Magic Candle fans enough this week.

Giauz fails to impress the king at the first meeting.

The first quest the king gives to Lukas--or Giauz--is to select five traveling companions from the other heroes who have assembled in the Knight's Room. The character selection process is fairly original. You can "call" each of the 12 heroes to your table and "interview" them. After you inspect their statistics...

No way am I selecting this character. I kill NPCs with this name.

 ...you hear a little bit from them about their skills. The process even gives you the ability to do a little data analysis by sorting by the various attributes and skills.

"What would you say are your three biggest weaknesses?"

I went with Petrus's choices for characters: Sakar the dwarf fighter, Nehor the elf ranger, Rexor the human knight, and Eflun the "wizard mage" (oddly, wizards are a race in this game). For the last, Petrus suggested either another mage or one of the halfling characters. I decided to go with a halfling, partly because the manual has Lukas/Giauz wondering why they even bothered to show up. "Cute little fellows, and fine company, but what could they do to defeat the forces of darkness? Beat zorlims and trolls at dice?" Giauz needs to get over those racial prejudices. I chose Min, a halfling tailor who has the highest charisma and provides the second Wheel of Time coincidence so far (the first: the people of the kingdom are called the "Children of Light").

Once selected, the other party members' icons join yours, and you move together as an odd blob around the map. Right away, the wisdom of using the game's ability to divide party members was clear: it's hard to navigate to the right people for conversation when you have five other people surrounding you.
 

Giauz leaves his companions behind so he can talk to this guy in private.

The dialogue system is promising, even if the interface is a little cumbersome. You begin by (G)reeting each character and then (A)sking for either RUMORS, ADVICE, or specific topics. As in Ultima IV and V, some characters may feed you keywords that work on other characters. Occasionally, they're quite explicit about it and surround the keywords with quotes:

Following up with any of these had him suggest that I ask Ferdo, a merchant, about them. (He's the icon to the left, by the plant.) He tells me that his wandering colleagues sell them on the roads.

Some characters have no name and nothing to tell you but stock lines.

Giauz tries to make time with some chambermaids.

Already, I have about 16 lines of notes about things that the characters just around the throne room have told me. The king's uncle, Banas, wants me to see him in his quarters later (characters keep schedules in this game, just like Ultima V). I need to talk to someone named Trikerviz about pearls. An old man named Belazar is dying, and the king wants me to see him soon. Trolls are guarding all of the bridges. Someone named Mikermira, formerly a great sorceress, can alter the effects of black magic. I liked this kind of NPC interaction and note-taking in the Ultima games, and I like it here, although I wish the NPCs didn't kill conversation after every line and force me to choose "(A)sk" again to try the next topic.

While I'm not prepared to go so far as to call the game an "Ultima clone," as one reader did recently, the graphics and interface are reasonably similar. You navigate an iconographic display and interact with people, objects, and party members through a fairly easy-to-remember series of keys ("I" for "inspect"; "E" for "eat"), which are helpfully listed on the main screen. While the graphics are passable (the game only supports CGA and EGA in DOS), the sound is positively assaultive, especially a mysteriously unnecessary, piercing shriek that accompanies the launch of the .exe file and had me tearing my headphones off in pain. Every step produces a loud "BEE-BUM," and you are penalized when accidentally walking into something. I suspect I'm going to play most of the game with the sound off.

At length, I returned to the king with my chosen party and was awarded a bunch of supplies.

The names of the mushrooms are the first Rings of Zilfin reference that I've seen. The games are by the same creator, although I don't think they're set in the same world.

A short posting today, mostly to assure you that I'm getting started. My next steps are to read the behemoth manual that Canageek scanned, explore the castle and its environs, and see if I can engage in my first combat. Positive impressions so far!

Bloodwych: More than I Wanted to Chew (Final Rating)

Note that the ad tells a slightly different back story than the game manual.

Bloodwych
United Kingdom

Image Works (Mirrorsoft)
Released 1989 for Amiga, Atari ST, and DOS; 1990 for Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, and ZX Spectrum
Date Started: 29 July 2012

Date Abandoned; 31 August 2012
Total Hours: 21
Difficulty: Moderate-Hard (3.5/5)
Final Rating: 27
Ranking at Time of Posting: 42/66 (64%)

Raking at Game #455: 241/455 (53%)

All right, I'm going to spare us all and pull the plug. I'm prompted partly by an e-mail from a Bloodwych fan who estimates that I'm only about 20% through the game, mostly because "the Chaos Tower takes almost as long as all the other towers combined." I'm already into this game for 20 hours, and I honestly can't see putting another 80 into it. That would make my game time exceed even Rogue. You can't say I didn't give it a fair shake. The fan also told me that the rest of the five towers offer simply "more of the same," with some slightly more difficult puzzles. I've had enough of this unvarying gameplay.

Nothing significantly new happened since last time, so let's get to the GIMLET.

1. Game World. Bloodwych opens with the breathtakingly original plot of an evil sorcerer having taken over the land and summoning legions of demonic minions. The "world" in this case is the city/castle of Treidhadwyl, which is essentially a featureless dungeon. There is virtually no reference to the plot during the course of the game, making me wonder if the developers invented the back story after the game was developed. (Except for a final screen that I saw at the end of a YouTube video, it doesn't even appear that the word "Bloodwych" appears in-game.) The story is, in fact, such a carbon copy of Dungeon Master--right down to the champions being possessed or guided by the spirits of the exiled mages--that it nearly crosses the line from homage to plagiarism. I gave Dungeon Master a 6 in this category, but it had the whole order/chaos thing going on plus several in-game references to the plot. Score: 3.

Look at this screenshot from the ending. Shouldn't it be "THE Bloodwych ARE restored?" It's almost as if the game didn't know what "Bloodwych" was until the manual was written.

2. Character Creation and Development.  Like Dungeon Master (and I'm sorry to keep saying that, but it will happen again), you don't "create" your characters so much as simply select them. You don't even get the "reincarnation" option here, meaning you're stuck with the names and classes they start with. Leveling up is entirely within the class and seems to occur at odd intervals; it was maddeningly slow for the first half of my gameplay and more rapid after that; there is no progress meter or experience to indicate where you are in the leveling process. Leveling bestows attribute increases and an occasional new spell (the frequency of this is dependent on the class), but few choices on the part of the player. With different character choices, you'd have different levels of difficulty and perhaps some different tactics, but essentially the same game. Score: 3.

If I did have to play again, I'd play with Mr. Flay Sepulcrast. I understand he doesn't need to eat.

3. NPC Interaction. One improvement over Dungeon Master is that the game has NPCs, but they're not very good. You can theoretically ask any NPC, including monsters, about characters, objects, and lore, or trade with him or her. In practice, I never got them to tell me anything useful, and more than likely they'd start attacking me in the middle of the conversation, putting me at a tactical disadvantage. Except for the 16 potential starting characters, none of them even have names. I do have to give the game some credit for different disposition options (bragging, praising, insulting) and the ability to bribe and threaten NPCs, but in the end it doesn't amount to much. The interface was there for a decent NPC system, but the content wasn't. Score: 3.

...say the unidentifiable monsters just before attempting to slaughter me.

4. Encounters and Foes. Frustrating. The game doesn't bother to tell you the names of the monsters you fight, and I found the various humanoid monsters indistinguishable on visual inspection (my color-blindness might play a role here). Some of them cast spells, including an annoying "arc bolt" that goes around corners, but there's really no way to anticipate this until they start casting. There are no real "encounters" in the game, although I've taken to using this category to award points for puzzles, which is a kind-of encounter. Although these are basic, they do break the monotony a bit. Areas don't respawn, so there are no opportunities for grinding. Score: 3.

5. Magic and Combat. Combat is of the most basic sort. You wield weapons, enter "attack" mode, and start swinging. Your rear characters can't do much unless they have missile weapons, but if you're adept with the mouse, you can quickly swap positions to give lead characters a rest. There's a "defense" mode that you can theoretically use if you want to swap inventories or prepare spells, but I found that I usually died fairly quickly if I was trying to defend. Ultimately, the only viable combat technique is to use the terrain tactically to dance around your opponents and strike them at their flanks and rear. I found it tedious.

The magic system offers 32 spells grouped into four "schools." It's best to specialize in one or two schools because you can only get the higher-level spells after you've mastered some of the lower-level ones. I liked that you could adjust the power that you put into the spells, but overall I found them underwhelming. The buffing spells, even on high power, lasted only a couple of minutes, and you can only have one spell active at a time. Defensive spells take too long to prepare to be viable in the middle of combat. It never seemed to me that the offensive spells were doing much damage, even on max power. I never saw an enemy die from a spell, although I grant that I usually used them at the beginning of combat to soften them up. Finally, I didn't like that you were required to have two spells for the Moon Tower; since the game is linear and monsters don't respawn, failure to have the spells when you get to the right locations means that you have to start over. Score: 3.

Trying to cast a spell in the middle of combat often results in something unpleasant.

6. Equipment. As you progress, you find better weapons, armor, shields, gloves, rings, wands, potions, arrows, and food. It happens often enough that you feel suitably rewarded on a regular basis, and with the exception of some melee weapons, you can generally tell what items are best. It doesn't appear that there's any randomization to the items. The paucity of arrows throughout the game is a major problem, though, rendering the rear two characters useless most of the time. Score: 3.

7. Economy. Like the NPC category, I give the game credit for having an economy. It just isn't well implemented. You find gold on some NPC corpses, and I like that you can sell equipment (sometimes!) and use the "alchemy" spell to convert unneeded equipment to gold. I just never found much to buy with the gold. The weapons and armor shops never had better stuff than I had found, and while the potion shop was useful, I only ever found one and it was buried in an inconvenient part of the main tower. Even with the requirement to buy spells from the fairy on leveling up, I quit the game with nearly the maximum of gold in my backpacks (99 per character). Score: 3.

8. Quests. The game has a main quest; it's just boring and derivative. It progresses in five stages, as you collect the various gems from the various towers, and I guess there's a slight feeling of progress on the way, but not much. No side quests, no choices on the main quest. Score: 2.

9. Graphics, Sound, and Interface. Universally horrible. Again, my color-blindness may be playing a role, but I found the graphics confusing, ugly, and pixelated. I would have preferred the wire frames of Wizardry. There was nothing special about the sound effects, and since they're inseparable from the obnoxiously repeating music track, I left the sound off. I discussed my problems with the interface in an earlier posting. I find the buttons too small and inconveniently located, and the game requires too many clicks to perform simple actions. The keyboard is only good for some movement and saving the game. Some simple improvements, such as keeping the spellbook open to the last spell you used, or allowing the number keys to select characters, would have been welcome, but alas. Score: 1.

10. Gameplay. The gameplay is extremely linear and it lasts far, far too long. The need to find a bunch of keys--many of them virtually hidden in back corners--to progress makes it too easy to become a "walking dead" if you accidentally overlook or abandon a key. I couldn't imagine a single reason to replay the game after winning it once. Score: 1.

The game is at least consistent in its badeness. I ranked 7/10 categories at exactly 3, with a total of 25. However, we have to talk for a second about the multiplayer aspect of the game, which is remarkably innovative and, frankly, belonged in a better game.

Bloodwych is not the first game to feature cooperative multiplayer mode. The first I can recall is Zyll from 1984, followed by Swords of Glass in 1986. I find it odd and amusing that the only cooperative multiplayer CRPGs so far are comparatively obscure and not very good otherwise. Although I didn't have anyone to play with, I have to applaud the innovation that went into this addition to the game, and I'll award 2 bonus points for a true final score of 27. This still puts it in the lower tier of games (35% at the time of this posting).

Nonetheless, the game has a small but devoted cult following, and in preparing for this posting, I was astonished to find message boards full of players eager to try again with different characters or such. I find it a little baffling, but to each his own. There are several projects in the works to port the game to a new engine, and to make additional game levels using the original engine.

In Dungeons and Desktops, Matt Barton seems to agree with me, noting that: "[C]ritics mustered little praise for the game. Although the story and multiplayer options were admirable, the graphics were dull compared to Dungeon Master's, and the soundtrack was lamentable." But some contemporary reviews, especially in Europe, seemed to rank it quite high. I wonder if the version issue doesn't make a huge difference here. The game was big on the Amiga, and I can actually see where the game might be fun while played with a joystick next to a friend or sibling. Enough people liked it to support an expansion pack in 1990 (only for the Amiga and Atari ST, so I will not be partaking).

I can't find any full-length plays online. It looks like a YouTube user named jamesthebe [careful; some NSFW content there] got started with one, but gave up after 14 videos. Another user named ToricoUK, however, posted only the ending (only 36 seconds).

I assume that's Zendick.

Now, if you're frustrated that I ended this game too soon, take heart: the developers followed up with Hexx: Heresy of the Wizard, published by Psygnosis in 1994, which Wikipedia says was "basically the same game with updated graphics, a slightly modified cast of champions, and a greatly expanded magic system." We also have The Four Crystals of Trazere (1992) from the same developers, and ostensibly set in the same universe.

In 1993, Anthony Taglione gave an interview to an obscure U.K. gaming magazine called SynTax, in which he was frank about Bloodwych's origins in Dungeon Master. Recalling his time at a university in the late 1980s:

It just so happened that Dungeon Master appeared around this time on the ST and what a product that was! Three weeks later we'd played it to death, even taking just a party of short people. My own record is twelve hours with just two characters. I was talking with Mirrorsoft at the time and suggested that I could do a DM conversion for them on the C64. They ummed and arred a lot and Pete carried on drawing screens until they finally said 'Yes!' and I said 'No!  We've got a better design and it'll be two-player-simultaneous'. They said 'Ok but we want ST and Amiga as well'.

Throughout the rest of the article, he really does come off as a talented programmer, and I look forward to trying his later offerings.

For now, though, it's time to move on. I've decided to kick The Magic Candle down the list a bit and tackle it in December. Next up is Star Saga: Two!

Bloodwych: Inexplicably Still Eating

This was supposed to have been my clue to remove a blue gem from the Serpent Tower.

Continuing to play Bloodwych is a bit like eating something abominable--circus  peanuts, say, or those awful wasabi snack mixes they have at some bars--for no other reason than a bowl of it is sitting in front of you. In a meta-cognitive way, I'm fascinated by my refusal to give up on it. Two days ago, I thought it was just the drugs. Now, I don't know. I only know that some part of my brain wants to continue playing it. I think it's the same part that continues to click on links on Reddit when it's 3:00 A.M. and the rest of my brain is screaming, "WHY did you click another link?! It's time to GO TO BED! Seriously, just get up right now--NOW--and GO TO BED! AAAARGH! You just clicked on ANOTHER one! Are you trying to kill us?!" Only in the case of Bloodwych, my brain is screaming about The Magic Candle.

This was almost your last Bloodwych screen shot before The Magic Candle welcome screen.

Since my last posting, I've encountered about 12 moments in which I thought I simply couldn't progress any further--delighting the more rational half of my brain--only to discover a solution just as I was about to quit. I was about to give up on finding the gem needed for the Moon Tower when I finally discovered it back in the Serpent Tower. On Level 2 of the Moon Tower, I discovered the only way I hadn't gone was through a locked door for which I didn't have the key. I was about to give up when I remembered that Helm said "magelock" was needed in the Moon Tower. Sure enough, it worked on the door that no key would unlock (usually, doors that respond to "magelock" also respond to generic keys). Another impassable door was opened by a key that was practically invisible on the floor next to a pillar. I had the perfect excuse there, but no, I just had to go and search one last time.

The bronze key here is so invisible (just above my cursor) that I couldn't remember why I took this screenshot and I nearly deleted it.

 
As I progress, I'm naturally encountering tougher monsters, and they're getting wise to the bob-and-weave trick. They like to wait until I'm at the end of a narrow corridor to pounce on me, or to outflank me in multiple groups. It annoys me that I can't tell what any of them are called. They are getting graphically more interesting.

And terrifying.

Also as I progress, the game is starting to make things interesting with more complicated puzzles. "Interesting," mind you, in the same way that Wichita is more interesting on Friday night than Thursday. But you take what you can get. Many of these puzzles involve spinners, and while I normally see them as a trite and tiresome dungeon-crawling clichés, I have to admit that Bloodwych does them right. In most games, spinners occur at spots where it's immediately apparent that you've stepped on them by the screen going all wonky. You just have to consult your compass to navigate them. Bloodwych, on the other hand, strategically places them at spots in which the surrounding area looks same from both directions, and then compounds the difficulty by having the compass only last a few turns after you cast it. Clever bastards.

A lot of the puzzles involve buttons and pressure plates that lower walls and pillars. Here's a complex example from the Moon Tower, Level 3, combining pressure plates, pits, a spinner, and anti-magic zones.

The pit at point (1) is unavoidable. You have to have the "levitate" spell when you reach this point to get over it. If you don't have it, you're rather screwed, because monsters don't respawn, so there's no opportunity to grind and level up to acquire it. Helm alluded to this in a comment a few days ago. It seems a little unfair on the part of the game.

Crossing point (1) puts you on pressure plate (2) even if you're levitating, which closes the southern door. At this point, you need to exit the room via the northern door.  Unfortunately, squares (9) are all anti-magic squares, which kill the levitation spell.

"Levitate" fails just when I most need it.

To get through, you need to step on pressure plate (4), which lowers pillar (8), allowing you to get around to pressure plate (7), which lowers the pillar south of (6) (I forgot to number it). Pillar (6) itself is lowered by pressure plate (5). Complicating things is the spinner at (3), which keeps making you go in the wrong direction. Once all of the pillars are lowered, you can edge around to the pressure plate between (6) and (9), which at last closes the pit at (10). I'm not saying it's going to compete with Myst for puzzle difficulty, but it was the most complex thing so far and thus a welcome surprise.

This was the game's hint on this puzzle.

A few other things I think I've neglected to cover so far:

• I had my archer/assassin in a melee position for a while, and I noted that he makes backstabs when the enemy's back is turned. He's not as useless as I thought.

• You can easily tell the worth of a bit of armor by its effect on your armor class, but weapons are more difficult to evaluate. I assumed a mithril axe was better than a regular axe, of course, but then I found a "troll axe" and wasn't sure whether to dump my mithral axe or not. Tracking and averaging hit point damages seems like a little too much investment. I've also found a couple of wands and rings for which I'm  not sure what they do. In these things, it shares another similarity with Dungeon Master.

Equipping a new weapon. Note the armor class ranking below my inventory.

• The number of points required to cast a spell decreases with each casting. Late yesterday, I finally got the "alchemy" spell and was able to convert unneeded equipment into piles of gold--no more rude shopkeepers. It started off requiring 15 spell points but after about 20 castings, it was down to 8.

• As I said above, monsters don't respawn. Or, if they do, it takes a long, long time. Dungeon Master had a few areas with constant respawns where you could grind.

• The game is inconsistent about whether foes can open doors. The best I can figure, they can open wooden doors but not metal doors and grates. This gives me some breathing room if I want to prepare some spells to fire off when the door opens. It's not a big exploit because they can step in the doorway quite easily and block you from closing it.

The party steels itself for the monsters beyond.

 

• There are no "extra" areas. Virtually every room and corridor must be traversed to get to your objectives, which means that the game is almost completely linear.

Another gem recovered. Now to find the resurrection chamber.

Plot-wise, my word-count-to-playing-hours ratio is quite low. In about six hours of game time since the last posting, I ascended the Moon Tower and found the Moon Crystal. There were other illusory walls and button/pressure plate puzzles on the way. Not much else to say about it except that unless the last three towers are exceptionally easy, I'm about 40% done. I'm not going to spend all of the long weekend on this, though, so one way or another I'll wrap up this game by Saturday.