The Search for Freedom: Repeated Injuries

Is this a warning or a hint?

       

Guest entry by commenter AlphabeticalAnonymous: 

 

Having already cleansed the streets and buildings of Smythetown of any evil presence (take that, heroes of Phlan), and with the city gates locked tight by evil magic, our party’s only course is to descend into the catacombs beneath the city where the evil wizard Macabath has holed up. What remains unexplained is why, having conquered this town, he would want to secret himself deep underground. Though I enjoyed the attention to detail in the opening text, the game world has so far mostly failed to capitalize on the initial setup. Then again, I’m only now entering the first of what promises to be 22 dungeon levels—perhaps there’s much more to come.

We descend and again find the catacombs to be as dark as a black steer’s tuchus on a moonless prairie night. Ruxpin readies a lantern and the screen barely lightens, almost imperceptibly. He can't hold two lanterns and a weapon, so he trades a lantern to Becket, who readies his as well. Trading items between characters is reasonably quick, with useful keyboard shortcuts. The game also offers a “Distribute” option, which the manual says will “unready all items, place them in a large pool in front of [the party], and organize them by item type.” I haven’t seen a need for that yet, but time will tell. At present, with two lanterns active (and maximum screen brightness, but then a 1990’s player could have done that too) we can just about see. However, all the screen brightness in the world won’t help us too much: we seem to be able to see only a single square ahead of us. 

We no longer have an active compass, but the automap continues to track our progress just fine. We could have Becket cast “Magic Compass” (which lasts three hours per level of the caster), but with the automap, we don’t see a need for it yet. Similarly, the mage spell “Locate” (which reveals our x/y coordinates in any town or dungeon) seems unnecessary with a fully working automap. Maybe we’ll reconsider these spells if spinners or redirectional teleporters show up. Also worth mentioning, because it seems unique among our spells so far, is the cleric’s “Safety,” which brings the party back to the nearest safe inn but at the cost to the caster of a permanent reduction of 20 magic points. My cleric only has 13 magic points, and even at higher levels it’s hard to imagine why I would choose "Safety" over a reload.
     

All first-level cleric spells. "Safety" sounds like a doozy.

      

Before long we stumble across some monsters and are offered the choice to try to sneak up on them, approach them, or flee. We choose to sneak but are told that the monsters see us. They turn out to be five rats and five bats, each with 2-4 HP and no armor. I wonder whether we were supposed to be grinding for experience and gold down here before mucking about fighting the sentries in their towers. When the battle is over, these fearsome foes have collectively managed to inflict a single point of damage on one character. No doubt about it, we were definitely supposed to be fighting this sort of enemy before the sentries. Nonetheless, I like that the game let us foolishly risk life and limb against the guards instead of railroading us immediately down into the catacombs. For our pains we earn 4 experience each and a total of 14 gold. 

Moving along, I am told that we spot an ambush—we can flee, or continue on and pretend that we don’t see them. Fleeing seems unwarranted given our recent victory, so we choose to "Act unsuspecting, then attack." The same as the last group, we find five bats and five rats. Our investments in armor prove their worth: the animals land several hits that all do zero damage. By coincidence or our own strategy, it is again Durkon, my other cleric, who loses our only hit point before we clear the enemies away for similar, rather paltry rewards. Leveling up (which requires us to gain 400 experience each) feels as far away as ever. 

         

First-level mage spells.

       

After further exploration and a few similar combats, in which we are ambushed by four goblins (who again pose little threat) we set off a “shower of spikes” that rains down upon the party. Some sort of hidden roll against dexterity or luck must follow: Ruxpin, Becket, and Kizke dodge; Tyrion is hit for 2 damage, and Durkon and Elphaba for 5. We move forward a square, and this time Ruxpin spots the trap. We can choose to disarm it or leave; the latter handily takes us back to the previous square (but leaves the trap square blank and unmarked on the automap). The clumsy Teddy accidentally sets off a ‘mantrap,’ which is undefined but I prefer to think was an ancient salt-sucking alien. Whatever its form, this trap knocks Ruxpin unconscious. He deserved it: disarming traps is the whole reason we have a thief in the party.

      

We retreat back the way we came, hoping to return to the town inn to rest. By backtracking, we learn something useful, when we find ourselves attacked by monsters on a previously-clear square. This at least clarifies that grinding should be a possibility by roaming around through the catacombs. The sentry guards had stayed cleared once defeated, so I wasn’t sure whether this was a ‘closed’ game in terms of total experience available. However, our newfound knowledge comes at some risk: we are confronted by a 16-HP ogre attended by two 5-HP troglodyte minions. The ogre hits hard but only gets one chance before we slay it; the others go down quickly as well. We once again don't earn much experience, but we do find that they were carrying a chest. Ruxpin isn’t awake to pick its lock, but I think smashing the lock has never yet failed to work. It contains 30 gold, a torch, and cloth armor.

      

Anyone can try to "Smash" or "Pick" the lock, but only a magic-user can cast the "Open" spell. I don't know why anyone would "Leave" it.

     

I started to prepare a detailed description of a combat interaction, but I feel (I hope) that it’s still too early for that. Simple melee brawls were more than sufficient throughout the first level of the catacombs; neither offensive nor defensive magic have been necessary for any of these foes, and it wasn't effective against the sentries, so I hope that opportunities for more complex interactions will eventually crop up. Otherwise, suffice to say that the combat graphics are sparse but adequate. Every character and enemy has a different appearance depending on which way it's facing. Occasionally, it's tough to determine whether an enemy is facing north or south; with the earlier sentries, I had to keep reminding myself that they were all right-handed, because otherwise I kept misinterpreting the art. Every character also seems to have a one-frame animation when they attack: the rat rears on its little hind legs, Tyrion swings his axe, Elphaba clutches her phial of Galadrial (or whatever it is). The combat terrain (always brick walls) seems to always represent the shape of the few tiles around the party when combat began. 

       
We find a number of messages as we explore the catacombs:

      

• An evil wizard can only truly be slain with a magic spell.
• If you map carefully, the locations of secret doors will become more obvious.
• Fight magic with magic.
• Kill him quickly.
• Use items to invoke their magic powers.
• When fierce warriors die, they go straight to hell.
• When Macabath is destroyed, his curse on the city will be lifted.
• Stairs are often well concealed.
• Blankets of Darkness and traps usually conceal something important.

      

As you see, most of these messages feel like hints to the party. And as usual, that raises the question of why these messages are there in the first place. So far, Macabath hasn’t done anything so dramatic as to use the walls of his dungeon to write his most secret weaknesses, but why would Macabath carve hints about how he could be “truly slain” into the walls of his home? Or does the carving predate him? Or did someone just whisper it to us from the shadows? Come to think of it, at least in the first level of the catacombs, we find zero evidence that they ever served any burial or related function. The only one we know buried down here is Macabath—buried alive, a la Werdna.

      

I thought this was fun: secret doors are represented by walls that can be walked through in combat.

      

We continue to fight lots of bats and rats, ogres and troglodytes, gremlins and goblins. The enemies always occur in the same combinations, though sometimes in smaller numbers than our initial encounters. The individual rewards of any one combat remain small, but their number means we slowly make progress in building up gold and (to a lesser extent) experience points. 
      
A few hours in, we thrash another group and find another chest as a reward. Durkon smashes it open, only to set off a "BOMB trap." This is bad news, as it does 10-18 damage to all party members. The bomb kills Ruxpin stone dead (he had been knocked out again), and leaves only two characters with a single HP each. Probably we shouldn't have left our primary trap-detector unconscious. Upon reading in the manual that resurrection of a dead character at the Temple costs 2000 gold (we have 231)—and permanently reduces endurance—I’m forced to reload. Intriguingly, such a serious trap isn’t there on the reload, likely because it had been spawned from a random combat encounter. Nonetheless, we haven’t learned our lesson yet: after defeating a band of gremlins and goblins, Durkon smashes open their chest to find a "Psychic Drain" trap. This causes him to lose 200 XP! Luckily, the game has some small amount of mercy and merely resets him back to his starting value of 300 XP. I already reloaded once, so I roll with this one. We find several other types of traps as well: we fall into a pit of spikes, choke on poison gas, and more. I eventually learn that the “Open” spell, which automatically disables any traps on a chest or door, is an adventurer’s best friend. [Ed. Funny how AA's experience parallels what I'm currently seeing in Yendorian Tales.]
       
We spend several game-days exploring the top floor of the catacombs. Encamping in those dark halls is a perfectly adequate way for characters to rest and recuperate, so long as one character stays awake to keep watch and warn of any approaching enemies. Honestly, with these enemies even setting no watch at all would still be fine: this would merely mean that the monsters get a free ambush, which is to say a first, free round of actions before our party can respond. At one point we find the descending stairs and decide to poke our heads down to see what we can find. Foolish! A one-way door leads out of the stairwell, then we find ourselves in a series of "magical darkness" squares in which our lanterns cast no light. This would be more of a problem if the automap didn’t continue to faithfully record our location, the nearby walls, and other useful notations. More worrying is the notation it shows on the stairs we just descended: they’re now on the wrong side of a one-way door, leaving us no way to reascend.
   

The first level of the first dungeon.

       

The enemies on the second level are the same as on the first. But at least a few things are more interesting. For one, we find the “corpse of rotting warrior,” who turns out to be still holding a silver two-handed sword. According to the manual, this is the second-best weapon in the game (after only Soulseeker itself), and we’ve found it after just a few hours of play. It takes two hands to wield and requires 16 strength, but it does 3D6+2 damage—far more than the 2D4 hammers most of the party is wielding. We also find a lot more traps, including another bomb trap that knocks out the entire party. We probably need to start casting “Trap Zap” as soon as we detect the presence of any traps. We reload, explore further, and eventually find the stairs back up—the stairway back up was accessible only a few squares away from where we originally supposed ourselves to be trapped on the second level. The party happily clambers back up and finishes exploring Catacombs Level 1. Only 21 dungeon levels left to explore.
        

Time played: 11 hours. 3 party deaths. 2 reloads.

     

[Ed. And with that, I have entries scheduled through the end of my vacation. Thanks again, AA, for making this possible!] 

Yendorian Tales: The Night We Brought a Horse into the Bar

"Found guilty?!" There wasn't even a trial!

         

The island of Yendor is in danger from a nebulous source. Its mines, vital to its magic-based economy for their Nuore ore, are overrun with monsters. At a recent presentation, the chief wizard, Zamora, was struck down by a shadowy figure who stole Zamora's orb. The party has agreed to help, and is following clues offered by Zamora's journal to consult with the members of the Society of Wizards. The first one, a hermit named Flagell, demanded that we slay a nearby wyvern before he would help us.

   

The wyvern was on a hill above the hermit's cave. It took me two tries to defeat him. He was capable of a freezing attack across a long distance that took my party members out of the action semi-permanently; to undo it, I had to take them to a healer. Unless I've missed a spell (which is possible—see below), I don't think there's any other way to undo it.

     

The wyvern is briefly "held."

      

He also had a powerful physical attack for characters who got into melee range. On my second attempt, I defeated him partly by lobbing flasks of flaming oil at him (again, more below on that tool) and partly by using the wizard's "Hold Monster" long enough for my melee characters to cross the distance and get into range. He still managed to freeze Alcala, who didn't get any experience from the battle. 

           

Why can't we just put her out in the sun?

       

We returned to Flagell, who said he transcribed a portion of the journal onto a scroll. We got "Flagell's Scroll" in our inventory, but I wasn't able to do anything with it (like read it). He told us to seek The Diplomat next. As we left him, we heard Zamora's voice say: "The first of last is third, and the third of first is last." That sounds like a classic word puzzle, suggesting that some ultimate keyword is going to be:

   

_ _ L _ _ R

 

Of course, we don't know how many letters are between "third" and "last," but my crossword-trained mind already started looking for possibilities: COLOR, SOLAR, BELABOR, CELLULAR, SPLATTER. I guess we need a few more letters.

     

Settle down, Costello.

       

I had no idea where to find The Diplomat, but there were at least nine cites that I hadn't explored, so I figured it was time to leave the starting area. I decided to try to gain one more level before I did, as I didn't know how long I'd be gone or how much of a pain it would be to get back. I spent a couple of hours circling one of the mines, fighting enemies and mining ore to pay for the inevitable training. I was also very low on Nuore and figured I'd have to buy some at some point.

    

When the entire party had the letter "T" next to their names again, I returned to Saccate and sold my equipment and ore. The resulting gold total—more than 25,000—seemed like a king's ransom, but in fact it was barely enough to get my characters to Level 6. 

      

When does this madness stop?

          

While in Saccate and feeling flush, I made the fateful decision to buy a horse. It only cost 200 gold pieces, and I figured it might speed our journey across the land. Ha. Let's see if you can find the problem caused by this pattern of facts:

   

• Nothing visual changes when the party is riding a horse (I say "a horse," but of course it only makes sense if we're riding horses, but the game continually refers to it as a single beast). The party icon is the same.

• It is illegal to ride a horse into a building in town. You have to tie the horse to the hitching post when you first enter town. It took me a while to figure out how to do this; you have to (U)se a rope on the post.

• If you do ride a horse into a building, you're not notified of your crime until you leave town, at which point you're arrested and hauled off to the jail in Mantov, where you must pay a fine or serve a sentence.

        

You must have a helluva strong back.

      

You can see the problem. If you forget to hitch the horse—which of course I did every single time—and then save while you're in town, there's no way to avoid the subsequent arrest and transportation to Mantov. I thus spent the next few hours continually having to walk back to the starting towns from Mantov, which involves crossing a bridge where the party is almost always attacked by trolls.

   

The horse has other problems, too. It's always throwing shoes, requiring the party to visit a blacksmith to replace them. (I confess I don't really know the consequences if we don't do this.) And it's equally easy to forget to (P)ick up the horse from the hitching post when you leave town. As for the benefits . . . I think health and mana restore a bit faster. It doesn't seem to speed up actual travel, though; enemy parties chase me down at the same rate as they did before. All in all, the horse doesn't seem worth it, but I stubbornly kept retrieving it during this session.

    

All the trips to Mantov were good for something. I found a buried chest near the city that had 250 units of Nuore, saving me from having to spend money on it and allowing me to explore my growing spell options.

      

The best chest so far.

       

Until this point in the game, I had mostly just cast the cleric's "Heal" (sometimes "Improved Heal") and the wizard's "Magic Missle" (sic, but an extremely common one). I had tried "Fireball" a few times, which damages a 3 x 3 radius and is duplicated by throwing flasks of flaming oil. As I mentioned, during the wyvern battle I had some success with "Hold Monster." But my spell list had been growing and growing, and I hadn't experimented with anything else to conserve Nuore.

   

Even worse, my spell list had been growing a lot more than I thought. What I had taken for the entire list of spells was in fact only the first page. You have to click the down arrow to see the rest. Instead of 14 spells I'd barely explored, my spellcasters have close to 30. (An exact count is hard because some spells are only available outside of combat, some only in combat, and some in both.) Since the small text file that serves as a "manual" has nothing to say about spells, I decided to try them all against a pack of bridge trolls.

     

The first page of cleric spells. For a while, I thought it was the only page.

      

But before I get into spells, let's talk about combat in general. As I discussed previously, it's very similar to Ultima V in that each character can really only do one thing per round (no "movement points" in this game), and many actions call up a targeting cursor. The actions include:

   

• Moving one space, including diagonals. If the character moves off the edge of the screen, he flees. If the entire party flees, the enemy party disappears from the game map with no penalty. I've used this a lot (no loss of honor in this game!), either because the enemy party was too large or difficult or because I just didn't want to fight right now.

      

This is what we call a "hell, no" situation.

         

• Attacking with either a melee weapon or missile weapon. Characters above a certain dexterity get two attacks. Characters cannot dual-wield like in Ultima V, though, and there are no spiked shields or spiked helms to allow extra attacks. Some melee weapons allow attacking across two spaces.

• Cast a spell. None of the spells, even targeted ones, have range limitations. This means that clerics can heal, "Cure Poison," and so forth from anywhere on the battlefield. I often leave a cleric lingering behind for that reason.

• Use an item. So far, the only useful items to use in combat are potions and flaming oil flasks, which function like the wizard's "Fireball" but for no Nuore cost. I love them. The distance that the character can throw them is based on his strength, which I don't think I've seen before. The flasks themselves come from Ultima, of course, but there they were a single-enemy device that kept burning after the initial toss.

    

Terrain and formation play a reasonably large role in combat. The game does a very good job mirroring the surrounding world terrain on the battle map. Characters can use it to funnel enemies and create defensible space, although rarely can the player plan for a specific terrain when an enemy approaches.

       

We're running out of room.

       

The chests dropped by slain enemies create their own terrain challenges sometimes, alternately screwing up the player's attempt to maintain a defensive line or providing cover from too many enemies at once. You cannot open chests and get rid of them until battle is over. I've had a few situations in which chests completely blocked off the battlefield, requiring me to finish enemies with ranged attacks.

     

As with many RPGs, most of the tactics found in Yendorian Tales come down to spells. This is what I can report so far:

   

Wizard spells:

    

• "Miner's Light": There are two ranks of this spell. I haven't cast it because I have plenty of torches and don't want to waste the Nuore. 

• "Magic Missile": Shoots a weak missile, doing about 1D4 damage. The slingshot the character starts with is equally powerful. Not worth the Nuore expenditure.

• "Thin Skin": Reduces enemy absorption. I suppose it would be a good option at the beginning of a battle with a large number of enemies.

• "Finger of Flame": Another single-target missile spell that does around 2D4 damage. Might have been useful earlier in the game. 

• "Flying Rocks": A missile spell that bounces around the different enemies, doing around 1D6 or 2D4 hit points each. Not bad. 

• "Deep Sleep": Puts every enemy on the map to sleep for a round. Worked on 3/4 bridge trolls. I don't know whether it wears off fast or whether it just wore off because I attacked them.

     

They look so adorable when they're sleeping.

      

• "Distract Monsters": Enemies who succumb to it lose their turn. It worked on about 2/3 of the trolls. 

• "Icy Stare": No staring involved. Just shoots an ice ball. I don't know how much damage it does since it just killed the only enemy I tried it on.

      

Cleric spells:  

    

• "Open Chest": A non-combat spell that safely opens a chest. I hate to spend Nuore on it, but my thief is so inept at disarming them. 

• "Heal": Heals about 2D4 points to a single ally. 

     

The game follows the Ultima convention of classifying wounds as "minor," "severe," "critical," and "near death."

      

• "Sleep": Casts on every enemy and puts them to sleep, but only works on weak targets. "Deep Sleep" is better.

• "Thick Skin": Increases everyone's absorption by a few points. 

• "Minor Wounds": Causes a few points of damage (1D4 maybe?) to literally every enemy on the screen. Wow. I wish I knew about this one earlier; it would have made battles with insects go a lot faster. 

• "Undead Assault": Haven't tried it yet, but there's a more powerful version called "Vanquish Undead."

• "Cure Poison": Does what it says. Since poison causes the player to take damage every round in combat, it's vital to cure it quickly. 

• "Hold Monster": Holds monsters for a couple of rounds. Fails a lot. Not worth it except for single powerful enemies.

• "Bolt of Fire": Shoots a bolt of fire at a single enemy, doing around 2D4 hit points' damage. Doesn't seem worth it. 

• "Poison": Explodes in a 3 x 3 radius and poisons everyone. It causes some immediate damage (maybe 2D6) and then a little bit of damage every round. I like it. 

     

Either "Poison" or "Fireball" goes off amidst some goblins and hobgoblins. They look the same to me.

         

• "Deep Sleep": Same as the wizard spell.

• "Read Scroll": This seems to let the caster use special magical scrolls that you can find. I found one called the Scroll of Holy Rain, but I don't know whether it's a single-use item and I didn't want to waste it here.

• "Improved Health": Heals about 4D4 hit points. A necessary upgrade from "Heal."

• "Arms of Giants": Increases strength on a single ally, either by exactly 6 or I got lucky on a 1D6. Not really worth it in my opinion. 

          

My foes. I was so busy recording spell effects that I didn't think to take many screenshots.

         

Now, I got most of the above from a single large troll battle. When I was done, I was down to 251 Nuore from 320. I still had plenty of spell points. The real problem with spells in this game is Nuore conservation, at least until I'm richer or find a plentiful source. I went in order from lowest to highest, so I didn't get to experience some of the awesome-sounding spells like "Linked Lightning," "Ice Storm," and "Erase Monster" yet. 

        

I generally like the combat system, but I wish the authors had come up with a few refinements to speed it up, including having each character auto-target the last enemy or the closest enemy, smaller overall maps (sometimes it takes forever to even get in combat), and the ability to set an "active" character like in Ultima V and VI. Battles do get a bit boring. 

 

The map of the game world suggests three basic sections: The northwest, cut off from the rest of the world by the bridges connecting the island that Helsingor is on; the southwest, including Mantov; and the northeast. Since Mantov was the next logical spot, I skipped the journey by getting myself deliberately sent there. I made the usual rounds, also feeding JOURNAL and DIPLOMAT to every NPC, just in case.

    

• Mantov has an inn, a tavern, a map shop, a mine shop, an armor shop, and fighter training. There is no weapon shop, healer, or alchemy shop.

• The jail takes up a decent part of the eastern quarter. The head jailer is named Floyd, whose wife, Kiri, hangs out in the tavern.

     

And there's one permanent resident.

      

• An armorer named Ian demanded that I buy a round for everyone in the tavern. When I did, the other NPCs all commented on it.

• Most of the NPCs in town are relatively generic miners (Calvin, Zane, Stuart, etc.). I couldn't identify any keywords that elicited anything valuable from them. 

• The armor shop has full plate and silver shields. I'm still wary about spending too much money, particularly since:

• An NPC named Hayes will increase our strength by 4 for 14,000 gold. Abraham will increase stamina by 3 for 12,000. 

     

We definitely have different definitions of "mere."

     

• Gabriel (a woman despite the spelling) sells flowers. I bought one. 

• The map shop offered six new sections of the game world for less than 1,000 gold pieces total. I bought all of them.

      

This sounds like a place where we could get rich or die trying.

         

• I was glad to find a fighter training center. That must mean that the other classes have multiple options for training, and we don't have to wander all the way back to the northwest quadrant. 

• In the fighter training center, a woman named Nola (my favorite name!) said that charisma determines bonus points during training. That's weird. You'd think it would be intelligence. I wish I'd put more points into charisma. 

          

One wonders how "points" appear to the denizens of the game.

      

Miscellaneous notes:

   

• Reasonably good water effects near the hermit's cave. Well . . . maybe not for 1994. I keep thinking of this as an earlier game.

       

Maybe I'm just easy to please.

         

• As I noted in the first entry, weapon and armor items have minimum attribute requirements. Oddly, the requirements for armor are centered on dexterity rather than strength. I had been prioritizing strength for my fighters and dexterity for my thief; thus, my thief is the only character able to (counterintuitively) wear field plate.

      

Are you sure you're a thief?

       

• The little character icons used in battle actually change to reflect current equipment, including a slight glow for magic items. That's a cute touch.

• Taverns serve ale, but it doesn't seem to have any benefit. It does have a small chance of making you drunk, which is yet another crime that you can get tossed into jail for. There's an inebriate named Joseph permanently in the jail because of this law. One wonders how taverns even stay in business.

         

The jailer lays out the incarceration schedule.

      

• I can't remember if I mentioned it before, but you can't actually "fight" in the towns (except Thieves' Guild, where there are no laws). If you try to attack an NPC, he simply says, "Don't waste your time on me!" Then you get arrested when you try to leave town. 

• The Ultima series has me primed to look for hidden NPCs in remote places. Tales mostly eschews that trope, though. There aren't really even any remote places. If it's not an "active" part of town, it's probably blocked off by trees that the player can't get around. The hidden area of the Athaneum basement is an exception, but the only one I've found so far.

        

Shrubbery blocks access to this remote area.

       

As I wrapped up this session, I realized I was really looking forward to the next one. I'm enjoying Yendorian Tales a lot more than I expected when I started it, enough so that I'm not particularly eager to rush to the next game. It offers solid tactical combat, satisfying character development, both a main quest and side quests (if not the most compelling examples of either), and good RPG mechanics all around. It's not only a superior shareware title, but it rivals many commercial titles of the era.

   

Time so far: 13 hours