Sunday, January 8, 2023

Game 478: The Mystic Well (1990)

 
        
The Mystic Well
United States
Jing Gameware (developer); published as shareware
Released 1990 for Atari ST
Original version c. 1990 titled Mystic Mirror
Re-released as Daymare for DOS in 1992
Date Started: 3 January 2023
      
The universe has a way of getting the last laugh. In December, I blasted my "upcoming" list, partly because Walls of Illusion was next and I couldn't stomach the thought of yet another Dungeon Master clone. I repopulated it with fresh games, and the first one turns out to be . . . another Dungeon Master clone. And on the surface, it's worse than Walls of Illusion. Nonetheless, I'm going to stride forward. Every game I kick down the road just increases the percentage of bad games in the future pool. In any event, this one isn't so bad.
        
A few seconds of gameplay and combat.
         
Inspired by Dungeon Master, Well takes place in a 10-level tiled citadel. Your goal is to find and kill a powerful wizard who has channeled his life force into a golden skull. The original version of the game was titled Mystic Mirror and featured two players on joysticks. Well switches to a single-player mouse interface. The DOS port, called Daymare, keeps the maps of Well but changes the interface a bit and removes the different character classes; more on those differences later.
    
Character creation has you roll strength, agility, reason, and vigor on scales of 3-18 and then select from among four class choices: wizard, rogue, priest, and warrior. I almost never play a priest or cleric, so I went with that choice this time. The game does some interesting things with classes. Each of them has a strength. Warriors earn the most hit points per level (10); Rogues gain experience points from finding treasures; priests have a prayer ability for healing, protection, and a small automap; mages can use spell books multiple times (they are single-use for other characters).
         
The class is called "warrior" on the creation screen, but "fighter" on the game screen.
     
The game begins in a 4 x 5 area, where you can get used to its controls and conventions. The inventory pane is to the left of the view window and shows all equipped and carried items. To the right are meters for health, stamina, food, and water along with the character attributes and current resistances to (from top to bottom) physical damage, fire damage, electrical damage, and poison. The bottom of the screen has an action panel for movement, combat, eating, saving, and casting spells. Unfortunately, this panel is the only way to control the game's actions; nothing at all is mapped to the keyboard. I should make keyboard commands for at least movement a requirement for playing a game in the first place.
       
Starting out.
      
You can also click in the view window to pick up and use items--for instance, filling an empty vial at the well in the starting area. (I don't know if this well is the well.) The starting area has a pair of "city loafers" that increase agility by 1, nearly unlimited "stringberries" to restore health, a vial of water, an empty vial, a throwing rock, and two blank scrolls. When you're done exploring this small area, you move forward into a teleporter and start the first level. An oak club and a "Softens" (?) spell await you on the other side.
    
The Internet tells me there are 10 levels. If so, I hope they're not all as big as the first one--an enormous 78 x 18. Even accounting for its "worm tunnel" approach, that's a lot of squares, and it took a couple of hours to map them all. The first level didn't have any Dungeon Master-style puzzles, but it did have many of its other mechanics. Doors open with buttons and take up a full space (you cannot, alas, crush enemies in them). There were a few pressure plates, illusory walls, teleporters, and pits closed by nearby (tiny) buttons. Some walls had messages, others just decorations. 
           
The huge first level, mapped with the wrong orientation.
        
Of course, there were also enemies. They move and attack in real time. They respawn, but not fast. The game doesn't tell you their names, but they looked like giant worms or slugs, spiders, wild dogs, and some kind of carnivorous plant. To attack, you just mash the attack button. This rapidly depletes the stamina bar, but it returns just as rapidly. I found combat extremely variable: the same enemy that died in one hit last time might take eight or ten the next time. Nonetheless, none of them were terribly hard, which is really saying something given that for almost the entirety of this session, I had the weapon in the wrong hand.
         
What I assume is a giant spider attacks and hits.
       
I found a few rocks and shurikens on the level, but I'm sure I'll get sick of picking up missile items, and enemies haven't been so hard that I've needed them.
 
Hit points regenerate between combats, and although it happens more slowly than stamina, it's fast enough that you can find a corner to park yourself between combats. Enemies don't seem to bother you unless you're very close. I've yet to determine if something like the "combat waltz" is possible. Some enemies seem to react too quickly.
      
If I was going to use missile weapons, it would be against these plant enemies, which don't seem to be capable of movement.
     
Speaking of graphics, you almost certainly have an opinion by now. Yes, they're primitive. The monsters seem to use a lot of ovals, and the colors--to the extent I can distinguish them--are a bit garish. As usual, poor graphics don't bother me so much; until we get to an era in which graphics are truly immersive, the nice textures of something like Eye of the Beholder excite me only a little more than the stark wireframes of Wizardry. But aside from the quality of graphics, the author did some odd things with them. Damage taken by the character is signaled with x symbols in the corners of the view screen, but they all appear every time, so you can't tell what direction damage is coming from. Confirmation that you've executed an attack is made with a kind of arrow in the center of the window. You get no graphical feedback on things like hitting enemies. When you throw objects, they just immediately appear in their destination squares, with no animation showing the objects in the air. Some of the colors are a bit wonky, too, though that might just be for me. When I found a compass, I didn't realize what it was for hours because I couldn't see the blue needle against the black background. I mapped the entire first level with north as west.
       
No, the dog doesn't have a stick in his mouth. That's my "attack" symbol.
      
The floors of the dungeon are strewn with treasure, which makes it tough on your seven inventory slots. I can only hope that there's some kind of chest or sack later, because I spent most of this session leaving useful-sounding items on the floor. I stopped carrying food and water because the meters deplete very slowly and I needed the slots for other things. Or, at least, I think I needed them for other things. The game comes with virtually no instructions, and most of the items are unexplained.
     
Well follows a long tradition of Dungeon Master clones in telling you nothing about the relative value of weapons--worse here because you can't even see damage done to enemies (this is one thing that the DOS port fixes, apparently). I found about half a dozen oak wood clubs, a couple iron daggers, a couple wooden staffs, and a bronze sword. I assume the sword is best, particularly because a nearby wall message tells you as much, but I otherwise don't know how they compare. I'm also not sure why there were so many of them given that you only have one character and weapons don't seem to break.
          
An iron dagger awaits in a small room.
     
For armor, I found only a few pairs of city loafers, leather pants, and a pine shield. There are slots for a helmet and body armor that remain empty on my character. With armor, at least, you can see the effects on physical resistance and attributes. It was for this reason that I noticed I had the weapon in the wrong hand, since the shield only works when placed in the left hand on the paper doll (the doll's right hand, assuming it's facing you). To be honest, I'm not entirely sure that I'm right about this even now. One point of confusion is that the lower-right button does a bunch of different things. It throws any throwing weapon you have in the right hand. It casts a spell if you have that in the right hand. If you have a melee weapon in the right hand, it seems to duplicate the attack function. And if you have nothing, it cast's the priest's special spell. I don't know what it does for the other characters.
   
There are a lot of coins on the level--gold galleons, silver trunions, and copper bismarks. I'm only aware of "galleons" being used as currency in the Harry Potter franchise; is there any precedent that would explain both appearances? I doubt J.K. Rowling played The Mystic Well. A "trunion" is, I believe, part of a cannon, and given its spelling, I like to think that "bismark" references Leon rather than Otto von. Anyway, you also find various gems and jewels. Each coin takes up individual inventory space, so for a while I wondered what the point to them was. Then a sign clued me that I should "TOSS TREASURE IN WELL FOR MUCH XP." I don't know if it worked or not. You can't see your current experience point total, and my level never went up when I was tossing things in the well.
     
The titular well offers both water and a place to dispose of valuables.
      
I found several iron rings that seem to do nothing and a "Shield Ring" that increases my physical resistance by 2. I found nothing yet for an amulet slot. There are also a few items whose use is completely mysterious, including blank spell scrolls and a "mana cube."
    
Spells are one-use items (for all but the wizard), and here again the uses are a bit mysterious. I found several whose uses seemed to be obvious ("Burning Hands," "Mystic Zap") and some that seemed to do nothing ("Hide It", "Magnetic Eye," "Mnemonic Warp," "Soften"). Spells have little runic symbols around their names, as if the author was trying to mimic Dungeon Master's spell system. I guess maybe they can help you determine what types of damage they do (or protect from). 
      
Then again, the rune next to "Mnemonic Warp" doesn't seem to match any of my symbols.
     
My priest's special ability was handier than I expected. It takes about half the character's stamina (which restores in about 6 seconds) but heals a small amount of damage, increases all resistances by 3, and shows a small area map. The area map doesn't distinguish between places you've been and those you haven't, but it does show buttons, objects, enemies, and illusory walls. Unfortunately, it disappears the moment you move.
        
There are a few graphical mysteries. In addition to the wall plates that I think are just decorative, there are occasionally floor symbols and patterns that don't seem to do anything. I have learned that dark slots at the bottoms of walls are supposed to resemble the drainage grates of Dungeon Master (or is it Eye of the Beholder?), and they do occasionally deliver valuables if you click on them.
      
What is this supposed to be? A fairy ring?
      
At the end of my level explorations, I was Level 6. Leveling up increases your maximum health, and I think it has some effect on combat, as enemies died more quickly towards the end of the session. I explored all of the level except a locked door in the northwest. I found an iron key but it doesn't seem to open it. Honestly, I'm not sure about keys. I found several other doors that seemed to be locked at first but later I got them open. I'm not sure whether this is because I had the iron key or whether it's because the game just didn't register my mouse clicks on the doors' buttons the first time; controls are a bit sluggish and the game sometimes misses your inputs.
   
The southern part of the level seems to draw some inspiration from Chaos Strikes Back. There are five staircases up, and the messages next to them suggest that at least four of the destinations are meant for different classes, although the language is obtuse enough that I'm not sure [please assume a sic for all transcriptions of messages in this game]:
   
  • THE GUARDIANS ON STRIKE.
  • TEMPLE OF PUGHI. PUTRIFY THYSELF.
  • KNEEL TO THE GOD OF PUTRIFICATION.
  • ROGUE CITY. JOIN THE PARTY.
  • WIZARDGUILD. DOIT WITH MUSIC.
      
In the middle of the rectangular corridor that contains these stairways is a secret room, with wall messages even more mysterious:
    
  • EYE OF BEHOLDER. FLOATING GHOSTS.
  • JUST A LIST FOR PLEASANT DREAMS.
  • ANCIENT DRAGONS. VAMPIRE WIZARDS.
               
Participants in a Klan rally?
       
There are also two staircases down, but both of them are relatively close to pits, and I suspect they're just ways to get back from falling. I'll investigate anyway.
     
I love how the pit has a down arrow, as if you couldn't figure out what direction it went.
       
I'm having a few technical issues. Every once in a while, the program tries to access the disk and gets stuck, essentially freezing the game. (The Steem emulator shows a couple of "bomb" symbols when this happens, which I assume is a bad sign.) So far, I've been able to reload the last save state (which I'm using liberally), and everything is fine for a while after that. I get bizarre error message ("FILE SAVE ERROROGRESS") every time I try to use the in-game save feature. I know there's supposed to be some basic sound, but I can't get a peep out of it.
       
The game crashes as I study the area map.
    
So far, The Mystic Well would be a failure as a commercial title, but it doesn't work badly as a shareware offering. I think it would have been worth the $10 fee. My primary concern is that it's going to last forever right when I need a little momentum. For now, it's an easy enough romp, and I'm never completely dissatisfied when I'm making maps.
    
Time so far: 3 hours

 

53 comments:

  1. The bombs are not something of the emulator, that's just what it looked like when an Atari ST program crashed. I think it's typical for a memory leak bug, but I could be misremembering.

    I wonder if those 10$ would have bought you a manual.

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    1. This is correct, the program is bombing. From what I can tell someone tried to create a disk so that the game would start on boot. However, they went about it the wrong way from what I can tell. Or at least it doesn't work in this case. I have sent Chet details on how to fix it and/or where to get a different version.

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    2. Thanks for your help, Lance. I solved both the saving issue and the bombing issue thanks to it. Still can't get a peep of sound, though.

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    3. Hah. Just solved that, too. I had to have the box titled "Write to primary buffer" checked.

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  2. Maybe the X'es colors indicates the direction of combat. You probably can't distinguish them but in the Screenshot wthe the "spider" the color is grey while in the one with the plant monster they are green.

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    1. I suspect the colour of the X's are keyed to the elements.

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    2. Are the resistances shown to the right in different colors?

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    3. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    4. Where it says AP? They're all red.

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    5. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    6. Okay. So if the X's are distinguished by color, you have to learn which color goes with which resistance separately from that list, I guess.

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    7. Blogger seems to like eating my comments... from the readme files of different iterations of this game: "A gold "X" is a magical attack. Physical armor only offers half protection against this. A grey "X" is physical damage. A red "X" is fire damage. A Blue "X" is electrical damage. a green "X" is chemical or death magic damage."

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    8. The magic symbols probably still translate to the older ones from the 2-player precursor 'The Mystic Mirror'. It's readme has:
      " SPELL SYMBOLS FOR WIZARDS ONLY
      1 keypad 1 earth symbol
      2 keypad 2 fire symbol
      3 keypad 3 air symbol
      4 keypad 4 water symbol
      5 keypad 5 mass symbol
      6 keypad 6 dimension symbol
      7 keypad 7 recursion symbol
      8 keypad 8 conversion symbol "
      Casting by symbol was discarded for The Mystic Well, but returned in the DOS port Daymare. I suspect some odd items might make more sense/actually work in Mirror.

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    9. epicurius7, sorry for the delay in posting your comments. Blogger sent most of them to the spam folder for some reason.

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  3. "Every game I kick down the road just increases the percentage of bad games in the future pool."

    I never looked at it this way, but you're both philosophically and mathematically right, which is a little disheartening.

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    1. As every child knows, every carrot you eat leaves more sprouts on the plate!

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    2. But brings you closer to dessert

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  4. "I should make keyboard commands for at least movement a requirement for playing a game in the first place."

    I mean, you do as you like, but that would be a highly arbitrary condition solely based on your personal preferences and convenience, which sort of goes against the mission statement of the entire blog. Just saying...

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    1. I guess I need to start using sarcasm tags.

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    2. It is sometimes a little hard to discern, to be completely honest ;)

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    3. A huge percentage of people don't understand sarcasm, they just can't get it. However, sarcasm is one of the best things about this blog!

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  5. I played this as a teenager when it first came out. I never had a copy of Dungeon Master (but eventually got Bloodwych), so I had little to judge it to and found it fascinating. I never could figure out if Mnemonic Zap actually did anything though. There was a (much shorter) sequel for DOS: Daymare 2.

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  6. there is a good playthrough on youtube
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-_vFiGvTso

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    1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    2. Awesome. Jim Todd has replied in the comments for the video. Mnemonic Warp: recast the last spell used. This makes sense for the DOS port that has spell runes, but not the Atari version.

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    3. One mystery solved. Now I need to know what a "holy mana cube" does.

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    4. From the comments of Jim's Todd's wife on the video, it seems he was colourblind so stuck to certain colours only. Makes sense.

      The video has some quite useful information about the game in it too.

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  7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bomb_(icon)
    bomb error explained

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    1. Could be an incompatible ST BIOS (TOS 1.02 is likely the most widely compatible), or perhaps the disk image setup is confusing the game.

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    2. It's funny that there's no consistency to it. It just happens at random times, never twice in response to the same thing.

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  8. Some of the colors are a bit wonky, too, though that might just be for me. When I found a compass, I didn't realize what it was for hours because I couldn't see the blue needle against the black background. I mapped the entire first level with north as west.

    This made me wonder (and I'm not sure whether colorblindness is the issue here): does inverting the screen colors ever help with this kind of situation? On Mac there's an easy key command for it, not sure if there is in Wndows.

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    1. Windows has such a feature, but it doesn't apply automatically to every application. Emulators are among those excluded. I'm not sure if there's a more complex way to do it, but I feel like inverting the colors would create a lot of new problems (and confusion) to solve one that doesn't matter very much.

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    2. To be clear, I don't mean playing with permanently inverted colors -- that'd be weird. I just mean briefly inverting the colors if you encounter an object or area that makes you wonder whether you might be overlooking a graphical cue due to colorblindness.

      The idea would be to (potentially and temporarily) shift it out of the range in which your colorblindness applies, and into a different color range in which you're able to differentiate between the colors the game is using. I guess a proof-of-concept would be to see if any of the usual colorblindness testing images are suddenly legible to you when inverted.

      On Mac the key command (Control-Option-Command-8) applies to everything onscreen equally, so that if I'm (for example) watching a video that uses a "creepy" inverted color effect, I can just hit a key command to see what it really is, and then switch back. Too bad if Windows doesn't offer a global equivalent!

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    3. If Windows' color filters really don't apply to the contents of some windows, then one workaround would be to take a screenshot of the emulator, then look at the screenshot in the file explorer or an image viewer. I think Windows should apply the color filter in that case. The default keyboard shortcut to toggle the chosen color filter on/off is Windows+Ctrl+C.

      For example, blue on black, inverted, should become yellow on white.

      https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/use-color-filters-in-windows-43893e44-b8b3-2e27-1a29-b0c15ef0e5ce

      (Obviously, feel free to ignore this if it's not that important.)

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  9. I'm probably the only one who's gonna say this, but this game looks pretty good for a game made by someone with presumably no practice as an artist. No unnecessary noise so characteristic of amateur games of this era; No overuse of garish colors; Enemies feel like they're the product of a style rather than someone brute-forcing their way to what they should be.

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    1. Someone's feeling pretty generous today ;)

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    2. The simplicity of the graphics unintentionally work in its favour. I found the game pretty creepy as a kid, especially on the later levels that have darker walls and more lurid monsters. There's no sound except for a 'thok' for some interactions and damage. Coupled with the obtuse controls and minimal text, it felt more mysterious and threatening than similar games with higher production values.

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    3. I agree with that. It looks charming in a way. Very amateurish but it has a style, the colors are clean, it doesn't hurt your eyes when looking at it, and there's decent enough visual clarity.

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    4. The game looks like a prototype while-waiting-for-an-artist-to-show-up. For this reason, I don't expect all floors to be that big.

      I am surprised by the number of people who seem to have played this game in their youth (including on the youtube channel linked above).

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  10. City loafers, leather pants and no top - sounds like your character thought he was going to a club.

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  11. That dungeon map looks like an elongated QR code.

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  12. I agree completely. When I saw the map I thought it immediately reminded me of something, but I didn't remember what: it was the QR codes!

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    1. Only a matter of time until some kid complains the QR codes he found in an old newspaper under "Daily Crossword" don't work

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    2. AlphabeticalAnonymousJanuary 9, 2023 at 9:50 AM

      It's been done, but apparently more challenging than one might naively think at first blush:
      https://www.fastcompany.com/1665589/a-crossword-puzzle-that-doubles-as-a-qr-code

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  13. More text, this time from the earlier Mystic Mirror two player version:

    "The fighters special ability is pummeling. He can do this when his right hand is empty and he holds down the joystick button and pushes the joystick forward. This will use up his remaining energy in one all out attack. A fighter gets 10 health points per level."

    In the Mystic Well, the diamond icon likely activates pummeling.

    "THE ROGUE: The rogue is the speed of the world. Her most important attribute is her agility. She can use most items and wear most armor. Her best source of experience is the treasure she gets. Her special power is a jump/dodge forward. This allows her to get past monsters when trapped and avoid glyphs and pits easily or just plain move faster. She also does the best in hand to hand combat. A rogue gets 6 health points per level."

    The rogue can definitely jump pits in TMW.

    "THE PRIEST: The priest is the blessed of the world. Their most important attribute is their vigor. They have the special power of prayer. Whenever a priest prays he gets a divine map of his surroundings, a little bit of healing, and a blessing that protects against attacks and absorbs the damage from the first successful hit. They can only use blunt weapons. They gain experience from slaying monsters and treasure. A priest gets 8 health points per level."

    "THE WIZARD: The wizard is the brains of the world. Their most important attribute is their reason. Their special power is spellcasting. They gain experience from casting spells and getting treasure. Casting spells is quite dehydrating especially for low level wizards. As a wizard improves though, he learns not to drain his own body of its fluids. To cast a spell he selects the symbols using the number keys. He then holds the joystick button down and presses the joystick forward. A spell will not be cast if there is no water, insufficient energy, or the spell is to hard for the wizard. A wizard gets 4 health points per level."

    Changed to spellbooks in TMW, then back to manual runes in Daymare (DOS).

    I'm not sure why the documentation -changed- instead of improving for each release of the game. I had no idea about pummel from reading the Atari docs.

    Also, the runes do have a meaning all the way back in Mystic Mirror:

    " 1 keypad 1 earth symbol
    2 keypad 2 fire symbol
    3 keypad 3 air symbol
    4 keypad 4 water symbol
    5 keypad 5 mass symbol
    6 keypad 6 dimension symbol
    7 keypad 7 recursion symbol
    8 keypad 8 conversion symbol"

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    1. I forgot to say thank you for digging this up. Thank you!

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  14. About the list of "bad" games, you could delegate a bunch of them to, well, other bloggers. Including yours truely, now that I am proficient with emulators. They would either BRIEF it, or hand it back if it is a worthwhile RPG :).

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    1. It's something to think about, but it would change the nature of my project quite a bit.

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  15. Using "galleon" to mean a gold coin probably derives from the aureus of Gallienus by first mistaking the prominent name of the emperor as a name of the currency and then conflating it with the word for a type of ship.

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  16. Are you trying to use a sword as a priest? The manual text quoted above seems to indicate that priests can only use blunt weapons. Or was the reference to a sword in the post just to say that you thought the sword was the best weapon you'd found?

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    1. The priest has no problem using a sword. That manual text must have been from the earlier, two-player version.

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    2. Oh, you're right, the comment said that. I didn't know there'd be that sort of difference. Interesting.

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