The Red Crystal: Won! (with Summary and Rating)

 

I know my character is supposed to be gazing valiantly towards a horizon, but it looks to me like he's stuck in a hole and he's trying to figure out how to get out.

        

The Red Crystal

United States

Wild Card Software (developer); Quantum Quality Productions (publisher)

Released 1993 for DOS

Date Started: 11 April 2024

Date Ended: 1 May 2024

Total Hours: 17

Difficulty: Easy (2.0/5), once you know the tricks

Final Rating: (to come later)

Ranking at time of posting: (to come later)  

     

Summary:

A game of unintentional comedy in which the player has to solve meta puzzles that the developers almost certainly didn't intend. Crystal has you explore at least seven multi-level, axonometric dungeons to defeat the seven lieutenants of the evil Lexor. Each lieutenant holds one of the Secrets of Life. Assemble them all and you can take on Lexor and save the land of Blackmoore. Almost everything about the game is staggeringly broken, including the inventory, the economy, combat, side quests, magic, and exploration, although some of the ways in which they are broken create unique opportunities to get through what would otherwise be an unwinnable game. The bugs are regrettable because Crystal is highly original, showing no obvious debt to a single previous game, and with some features (albeit broken ones) not found in any contemporaries.

    

*****

     

I had found one Secret of Life at the end of my last entry, and as this session commenced, I sat down to find another one. Since the first one had taken me 13 hours, I figured I was in for an experience of at least 50 hours. Instead, I won the game in four more hours. As I found each Secret, I discovered new exploits that I could use to make the next dungeon even faster, until the final two dungeons took less than 10 minutes each.

   

My next stop was Kang's fortress, but I dutifully visited the nearby town of Trautner first to see what side quests might be available. I had already been here. Someone named Fabian was looking to become the Ultimate Thief, and a mage named Utan wanted me to rescue King Tuwoka. 

     

One of the last side quests I looked at.

     

As I entered the fortress, I found a scroll on the floor, penned by Kang, warning any who challenged him that he would spit on their graves. You often find scrolls like this. You also find scrolls from previous heroes who entered the castles trying to kill the lieutenants. 

        

A warning from the castle's owner.

      

I had experienced such trouble finding my way to the first boss that this time, I dutifully mapped each level and noted the up and down staircases. The castle ended up being 15 levels, which I think is the largest in the game. As I explored, I got sick of combat and started bribing anyone who would take a bribe--all humanoids, basically--reasoning that since the inventory and economy were broken, there was no point in hoarding money. I'll also remind you that something is broken in the combat system so that a couple of weapons (including the Deathaxe, which I wielded) kill every enemy in a single hit, thus obviating every other weapon in the game, some of which cost a lot more.

       

Mapping staircases up and down.

       

I rescued King Tuwoka from a cell, and he gave me a "Knight's Paper," which I assume I was meant to take back to Utan for a reward. I also rescued someone named Filch, who looks like Fabian. In three separate cells, three other NPCs--Quinno, Grundle, and Marcus--complained that the Cult of Iguru had kidnapped their daughters, and they offered to pay for her return, then promptly disappeared. I wondered how I was going to find them again if I rescued their daughters. It turns out that their dialogue comes from an NPC in the town of Agar, and they were probably supposed to say something else.

   

On the 15th level, I met Kang, killed him, got the second Secret ("Envy"--see below), and escaped. I brought the Knight's Paper back to Trautner, but no one was home in Utan's house. I also tried to buy the city but somehow, while I was in the menu that lets you offer gold to the deed owner, the game kicked me out of the city and clear across the world map to a distant corner. I decided I wasn't going to mess around with that mechanic anymore.

      

The second secret.

     

I decided to go for Marnor next, but again I stopped at the town of Agar first. Here, an NPC named Artagor gave me the real dialogue about his daughter having been abducted by the Cult of Iguru. Agar is another town that has an optional one-level dungeon in the middle of a hill. I entered and slaughtered the cult. Iguru turned out to be an ice worm.

 

You can see why he'd have a cult about him. He's so charismatic.

          

Unfortunately, Artagor's daughter had already been killed, but I was able to scoop up her earrings. I left the dungeon and returned to Artagor, and the game crashed as he tried to give me a 1,000 gold piece reward. At that point, I decided I was finished with towns and side quests. They're all broken and the rewards aren't worth anything since you don't really need money after the first dungeon.

      

Curse the gods for whatever is happening over there on the right.

     

As I entered Marnor's castle, I reflected on what I had learned from the first two dungeons. In both cases, the boss was found on the last level, and in both cases, I got a message that I was "distressed" when I entered the level (as opposed to "confident" on all the others). I realized I didn't need to carefully map anything. I just needed to use my red crystal (which, as in previous entries, causes the last item in your inventory to disappear instead of the red crystal) or the "Crystal" spell to get a map of each level, look for the nearest down staircase, and keep pressing downward until I got the "distressed" message.

    

Now, this doesn't actually work because some of the levels have multiple sections, and the game wants you to go up and down multiple times looking for the set of stairs that lead to the right section, but here's where I discovered another trick. When you flee combat, the game throws you to a random part of the level. You also forget your map, but no problem, I have a screenshot. You just have to flee enough combats to get to the section of the level that has the down staircase, then take it.

     

I had to flee several battles before I wound up in this lower area.

    

Pretty soon, I had killed Marnor, learned about "Enthusiasm," and left his castle a smoking ruin.

    

I thought I had a foolproof way to get the rest of the Secrets quickly: the "Transport" spell. When you cast it, you're taken to a random dungeon level in a random dungeon. My berserker with an intelligence of 1 shouldn't be able to cast the spell at all, but that's another thing broken about the game. Moreover, there's nothing (e.g., magic points, stamina) that limits how many spells you can cast. I figured I'd just stand there casting "Transport" until I wound up on a dungeon level that gave me the "distressed" message, then go find the boss. This actually does work, but the game has no problem taking you to levels in castles you've already explored. Fighting the same bosses twice seemed like a bad idea in a game that already had plenty of problems, so I abandoned this tactic.

     

You eat scum for breakfast?

     

By now, I had realized that Level 7 is the maximum level. I wasn't gaining any more no matter how many combats I fought. I verified by looking at the YouTube videos of other winners, both of whom were Level 7 at the end of the game. I got to Level 5 in the first dungeon and Level 7 in the second. That's bad pacing. Still, knowing this freed me from worrying about combat at all.

 

Thus, in the next castle--Worm's--I figured out another trick that let me avoid almost all battles. At some point, I fled from an enemy and ended up in the black area outside the walls of the dungeon. To get back inside the walls, I had to approach one and cast the "Door" spell on it. No problem. I soon realized I could reverse this process: arrive on a level, go right to an exterior wall, cast the "Door" spell, and head out into the blackness, where no enemies ever roam. I could make my way around the periphery of each level to staircases, almost all of which are on an outer wall. 

      

I avoid battles by thinking outside the box.

     

By the last two dungeons, I realized even this trick was more effort than required, as I had not realized the utility of the "Invisibility" spell. Again, my barbarian shouldn't be able to cast it at all, let alone indefinitely, but he can. "Invisibility" just lets you run right over enemies. This is how I blazed through the final dungeons and got all seven Secrets.

       

"Invisibility" lets you explore a level without stopping for combat.

     

You're dying to know what those Secrets are. Here you go:

   

• Moderation (Tagar): Moderation in everything. To pig out on anything food, drink, or merryment. Material items usually lead to an unhealthy situation physically or mentally.

• Envy (Kang): When you allow yourself to get caught up in envy, this will usually lead to jealousy and eventually hate. Turn envy into aspiration. Become what you envy.

       

Every boss has a little threat before the battle.

       

• Enthusiasm (Marnor): A wise man once said Nothing can be done without enthusiasm. With enthusiasm comes love. And vice versa. Anyone can be great or on the path to greatness with enthusiasm.

• Pride (Worm): Don't let pride get in your way. With pride comes a fall. Be happy and fulfilled with who and what you are, but be careful when conveying this to others. Truth never has to be spoken.

      

Worm gets my vote for "most attractive" castle.

       

• Euphoria (Zurnar): Work leads to accomplishment. When you have achieved something through hard work, you are truly happy and probably made someone else happy. 

• Anger (Drake): Everyone succumbs to frustration and anger almost daily. To learn to control this can be a lifetime pursuit. The wise men have said See the other point of view. 

• Excellence (Gronk): The pursuit of excellence simply for the sake of excellence itself. Do this and everything else will automatically fall into place. 

      

The last Secret. I'm not sure I need it.

     

I teach an ethics class at my university. One of the first assignments that I give the students is to come up with their own personal list of core values, and later I ask them to analyze different scenarios with that list. Believe it or not, I introduce the Ultima IV list during this section as well as Ben Franklin's and Stephen Covey's. I suggest to them that their list ought to be a combination of Ultima-style virtues like compassion and honesty and Covey-style personal improvement goals like . . . well, enthusiasm and excellence. Every so often, a student turns in a list of virtues that are all the latter. This semester, for instance, one of my students gave his list as reliability, confidence, determination, excellence, and flexibility. I had to point out that Pol Pot was determined as hell, and there were probably a lot of reliable guards at Auschwitz. Those were fine, I said, but without virtues like compassion or justice within the list, there's nothing stopping you from becoming a confident, flexible serial killer.

   

I mention all of this because it's how I feel about these so-called Secrets of Life. Some of them are decent pieces of advice for personal success, but Lexor could have followed all of these in his conquest of Blackmoore. I don't know, maybe that's the point.

       

The endgame begins!

    

Aside from that, there are a lot of oddities in the list. "Euphoria" is a side-effect, not something that you do or don't do. I don't like how the list mixes things to strive for and things to avoid. (It's like the author tried to cram together Aristotle's virtues and the Seven Deadly Sins.) Everyone feels anger sometimes, but I don't know about "daily," and certainly not everyone "succumbs" to it daily. With enthusiasm comes love? Things just "automatically" fall into place when you strive for excellence? It honestly feels like a lot of those words could come out of the mouth of the "Big Brother" talking head in Apple's "1984" commercial, and they wouldn't sound out of place.

    

Moving on: When you have the last Secret, a megalith appears in the middle of the desert in the south-central part of the map. I entered. The final dungeon is about seven levels, and there are no enemies in it. Instead, each level has a different piece of equipment--boots, gauntlets, a helm, a breastplate, something called Arion's Sword (if there was an Arion in the backstory, I missed it), and an old scroll. The game says you put on the items automatically, but it doesn't change any of the character's statistics.

      

About to pick up the breastplate.

    

Finally, I reached the bottom level and an altar. "On the altar is an inscription that implores you to use the ancient scroll." I did. Lexor spoke: "Finally you have arrived . . . only to meet defeat by my hands. Try to make this challenging."

      

Once you have all the pieces, the icon changes.

       

The final battle that commenced was silly. Lexor and I stood on some kind of dais surrounded by candles and just traded blows, our health bars at the top of the screen slowly depleting. The battle theoretically supports each of the nine attack types that you can use in regular combats--three high, three medium, three low--but all you have to do is hold down any of the nine attack keys, and Lexor's health will diminish faster than yours.

     

The odd final battle.

           

When I inevitably killed Lexor, he had a brief speech: "You have bested me today, but there is always tomorrow. Until then . . . " Cut to the scene at the top of this entry, and then roll credits.

 

This is what you get when you lose.

     

There are three major elements in the game that I never explored:

   

• An optional dungeon. There's a Temple of the Undead in the northeast that takes you to a single room, but there's a scroll in the room that says only Xopotaous can explore the dungeon. Xopotaous is an NPC in one of the towns who has something to do with the quest to find a magic axe.

         

I wonder what happens in here.

     

• Using a red crystal to contact towns. You can somehow use a red crystal to contact cities under your control and, I don't know, send a messenger to collect any taxes owed or something. Why? In case you run out of money for bribes in the middle of a dungeon?

• Two-player play. I didn't even try to set it up, but according to contemporary accounts, it's underwhelming. The two players exist in their own individual realities. All it really allows you to do is alternate fighting battles. You can't even message each other.

     

God, would I love to be able to interview the developer on this one (he did not return my messages). What in the world did they think they were doing? What is the purpose of buying the towns and setting the tax rates and whatnot? Why are there so many side quests when leveling is capped at Level 7 and there's so much money available from regular combats? How did all of these bugs get past play testing? What was going on with the random NPCs in dungeons who just come up and spout nonsense? How were the production values so good--including Earl Norem for the cover and George "The Fat Man" Sanger for the music--and yet the programming so flawed?

     

By playing this game?

      

Alas, we can only speculate on the developers' intentions. We can, however, judge the outcomes:

    

• 3 points for the game world. The framing story is fine; there are allusions to deeper lore within the cities and among the NPC dialogues; and things do change in the landscape as the game progresses.

       

A small but decent-looking game world.

       

• 2 points for character creation and development. Development consists only of extra maximum hit points as you go through only 7 levels, front-weighted towards the early game. It should theoretically be replayable with different classes, but because of bugs and errors, the intended strengths and weaknesses of the classes don't really stand out. 

• 2 points for NPC interaction. The way things are supposed to work, this could be a 5- or 6-point game. But wandering NPCs never have anything to say that isn't just annoying, and talking to NPCs in town breaks the game. I like that the occasional dungeon NPC gives you some flavor.

• 2 points for encounters and foes. The monsters are mostly boring and the same in every dungeon. It's silly that they all have to get right in your face before they can damage you, but since combat is so broken otherwise, I guess I shouldn't complain about that. I'm not sure the "bribe" ability is worth a point.

        

Whatever helps you sleep at night.

      

• 2 points for magic and combat. It gets pretty much both of those points for some interesting magic options. I can't remember any other CRPG that let me create doors in the middle of walls, for instance. There are spells I never bothered to try, but without any mana pool or other limit to spellcasting, spells overall are a bit too easy. The combat system is one of the worst we've ever seen. The 9 attack positions add nothing.

      

God, I hate fighting wolves.

       

• 2 points for equipment. The game offers weapons, armor, potions, scrolls, red crystals, and quest items. All of them are bugged to some degree, and you can get a weapon that kills anything in one blow during the opening hours of the game. Potions would have some utility if you could actually use them.

• 1 point for the economy. There are some interesting ideas here involving the ability to purchase towns and set tax rates, but there's no reason to amass gold except for bribes, and you get plenty of gold for that during regular exploration.

• 2 points for a main quest. If side-quests actually worked, the game would deserve some credit for them.

• 3 points for graphics, sound, and interface. They're all fine with nothing special.

• 2 points for gameplay. It gets a little credit for nonlinearity, but not much because all the dungeons are functionally the same. It isn't all that difficult, but it is annoying.

    

That gives us a final score of 21. I took off points for bugs in the relevant categories and don't therefore feel the need to take off extra points at the end.

       

The excellent cover art is credited to prolific artist Earl Norem.

     

As we discussed a few entries ago, the reviews for this one were relatively merciless. Computer Gaming World rated it #22 on the worst games of all time list. The best review comes from PC Gamer in its first issue (already advertising itself on its cover, in its debut, as "the world's finest PC games magazine"), which gave it 75%. The reviewer, who clearly didn't play very long, particularly prized how quick it is to get into the game: "Your goals are clear, the interface is simple, and you'll be ready to play in no time." Oh, and my favorite phrase: "It refuses to take itself too seriously." Because in the 1990s, we saw an epidemic of games that Took Themselves Too Seriously.

     

MobyGames has the German Play Time giving it 30% (July 1994) and PC Player give it 21% (July 1994). If anyone wants to scan those reviews for choice quotes, I'd appreciate it. I'm particularly interested if anyone else reported the inventory issues. I saw the YouTube players afflicted with them, but I wonder if we're not all playing the same corrupted copy. It seems weird that no one would have noticed the bugs before it shipped. Maybe it's some Y2K issue.

      

Of the three designers, I haven't been able to find much about Steve Cohen.

      

Red Crystal's failure doesn't seem to have hurt anyone in the long run. Creator Charles Griffith continued to work in the game industry through the late 1990s before moving to other industries (this was his last credited game as principal designer, though). Co-designer (and QQP founder) Bruce Williams Zaccagnino achieved his dream of opening a model train museum in New Jersey called Northlandz; it is still in business, although it has changed owners and expanded to include miniatures of all types. QQP spent another few years publishing wargames and casino games, never again venturing into RPG territory.