The Search for Freedom: Transporting Us Beyond Seas

 

Only a CRPG adventurer would pay 1,000 gold pieces for a ride on this ship.

      

Guest entry by AlphabeticalAnonymous: 

 

Our party of six adventurers heads out in search of the Pitbeast, armed only with hand weapons such as knives, spears, grenades, what have you. In point of fact, all our non-clerics also have ranged weapons, but these longbows only do 1D6 damage, so we’ve utterly neglected them so far in favor of harder-hitting melee weapons. The old woman of Hythenforge told us that we could find the Pitbeast in the "bottom of The Pit in the Forest of Shadows," and the manual describes this Forest as lying east of the Plains of Bones in the south-west corner. One has to use one’s imagination: the Plains of Bones must be the few squares of cheery-looking grassland just past the trolls’ bridge. But the Pit is a clearly-identified doorway set in the island’s southeast corner. The forest is populated by groups of orcs and bloodhounds, who travel in large packs but aren’t difficult to dispatch. Entering the doorway, I am for some reason surprised to find that the Pit is a dungeon. I should have expected that; I don’t know why, but I somehow thought I would just find it nestled in a shallow hole in the forest, kind of like a large ant-lion. We enter. 

      

Diagonal edge tiles are just for show; the party can only step on full terrain squares.

    

The entrance to the Pit leads into a narrow corridor, just one square wide, that slowly spirals around the entire 20 x 20 map. We periodically fight groups of kapiche and crocodiles, orcs and trolls, evil mages and undead; none of these pose much of a challenge for us. Not only does the inwardly-spiraling design make it feel as though our progress is very slow (although I know we’re always exploring at a rate of one square per square), but it makes the combat maps rather repetitive. As noted before, during combats the game switches to a combat map that is a zoomed-in version of the surrounding terrain or features. A similar design is present in the Gold Box games, but here the approach doesn’t always feel like it rises to the challenge. The initial Pit combats are a case in point: every one of the combats starts with us in the center of a long narrow hallway, with enemies ahead and behind us. It’s not unrealistic, but it starts to feel old after a while.

    

Turning undead in the Pit's narrow hallway.

 

After two and a quarter circuits around the level, a special-encounter square tells us to "Find the Bloodstone." We've never heard of it before now, but presumably we’ll know more about it before this dungeon is cleared. Indeed, after another one and a quarter treks around the circumference of the level—this time, in darkness squares that eliminate all light sources but don’t prevent auto-mapping—we encounter numerous additional messages scattered around the level:

       

• Without the Bloodstone, you haven't a chance.
• There is but one way to break it.
• The Pitbeast's lair hides a very special item.
• You must use it to defeat the force.
• Few are the ones who have faced the Pitbeast and lived to tell of it.
• Call him by his true name to gain access to that which you desire.
• There is but one place it may be reforged.
• There is a pile of chewed up bones here.

          
Finally, in another special square (I think behind a secret door) a "mystical voice" tells us that "The Bloodstone will singe your flesh. Use these tongs to pick it up," and "a Tongs" is added to our inventory. Combats are sufficiently trivial on this level that I kept no detailed notes or screenshots of them.
      
We map the first level of the Pit, find the stairs down, and descend. Here we find some new enemy types. One repeated group includes one or two evil clerics, accompanied by numerous lost souls and dark spirits. The manual claims that the lost souls can paralyze (I’m not sure I ever saw them do that) and that dark spirits can drain life (but how would I distinguish that from more typical melee attacks?). The clerics have a few strong spells but employ them randomly, more often giving one of their compatriots a single extra point of armor rather than doing any damage to us. Regardless, the clerics aren’t tough and both types of undead are relatively easily turned by our own clerics, Becket and Durkon. We also encounter groups of spine shooters (big 2 x 2 enemies who can’t attack at range despite their name) and doppelgangers (who look like zombies but aren’t undead). Finally, we encounter some evil mages who have the capability to fireball my party! This popular spell does a fair amount of damage to a 3 x 3 area; luckily, the evil mages’ tactics aren’t any better than those of the evil clerics, so we’re only rarely singed.
           

Finally, we also encounter surprisingly-cute monsters called "hairy things." These look less hairy and more like small apples, or perhaps like infant California Raisins.
      

Luckily, she's weaker to water attacks than to flame.

      

In between the many combats with these foes, the first portion of this level that we explore is, like the one above it, surprisingly free of traps or magic-draining squares. We do continue to find a number of hints and messages on special-encounter squares, including:

      

• The Other Side, Aegea, The Mad Plain—all are one and the same. Pitbeasts are powerful creatures [the use of the plural form here is a bit worrying].
• Some say there is a shield which may help defeat the Pitbeast—it may be obtained by simply being polite.
• Take the left door, then the right, then the middle, to find the answer to the riddle.
• To enter the Pitbeast's lair, simply pay the fare.
• It is said that Sardain is big and deep—in fact, it spans two continents.

        

After our experiences in Hythenforge we’re not keen on the idea of more riddles, but sure enough we soon find a "magic mouth" on the wall which seems to block a doorway. 
      

". . . but no one really likes me. What am I?"

      

We try ZERO, the letter A, ONE, ALPHA, and even BIRTH. I thought the first and last of these guesses had a chance, but no dice: each time the mouth tells us we are wrong and pushes us back a square. As usual in this game, the mouth is alluded to via text but never shown; that may be just as well, since I always found the magic mouths in Amberstar and Ambermoon to be vaguely unnerving. Blocked for now, we explore the rest of the level. It enters a new phase when we pass through an antechamber and are told we are entering "the minefield."

      

My eventual map of Level 2; the minefield is in the southwest quadrant.

     

The minefield’s walls are shorter, more fragmented, and more maze-like than we’ve seen thus far—and 58% of its squares are taken up by traps. I find this number to be an intriguing ratio. Make every square a trap, and there’s no suspense; ditto if there are no traps. But I felt that having roughly half of the squares be traps (and unevenly clustered, at that) kept the tension high throughout. It reminds me of being told when I was hired at a prestigious university near Boston that roughly half of new hires reach tenure and are kept on: the department chair described this arrangement as being designed to produce "maximum uncertainty;" though I was never clear on why that was a desirable outcome (the department got some good work done, but was plenty dysfunctional in various ways).
     
Anyway, down in the Pit there was no need for us to feel tense: both my mages had long ago learned the "Trap Zap" spell, which clears traps in the three squares ahead of the party. For some reason, I fell out of the habit of using it—perhaps to save magic points, perhaps out of a forlorn hope that my Teddy thief, Ruxpin, will be able to successfully disarm them. Whatever the reason, Ruxpin paid the price for his failures by being poisoned by a trap: this causes him to take further damage if resting, makes him harder to heal, and means full death if hit points reach zero. There was no reason to continue onward, because by this point the party had enough experience points to level up—and allow my four magic-users to double their complement of spells. Nonetheless, we were deep enough in the Pit that I was loath to take the time to retrace our steps. Plus the next level was "only" around 700 experience points away, so it seemed more efficient to forge on and level up twice in a row. Unfortunately, in this case past performance is a perfect indicator of future results: shortly thereafter we hit a bomb trap, and Ruxpin is utterly killed.       

        

Never trust a Teddy to do a thief's job.

    

The party members look around at each other, sigh, and begin the long march back up to the surface. We emerge from the Pit just before midnight at the end of Day 29. We return to Hythenforge, pay 1,500 gold pieces to resurrect Ruxpin (incurring a permanent loss of one endurance point), and heal him. While in town, everyone levels up to Level 4. Ruxpin uses his two upgrade points as perks in "Disarm Trap," which takes him up to 70%. His other attributes (aside from the core statistics) all seem to increase by a more-or-less constant amount with each level; for example, his "Critical Hit" rate is up to 35%, and "Pick Locks" is up to 53%. The other party members all upgrade their base statistics instead: Becket takes +2 wisdom to provide a further boost to his magic points (these also increase automatically each level for magic-users); Kizke takes +2 strength; and the other three characters each take +1 strength and +1 dexterity. Strength allows heftier weapons and armor to be equipped, and also results in more melee damage, while dexterity boosts movement points, swiftness, armor points, and the difficulty of being hit in combat.  

        

Do any CRPGs feature anti-statistics, such as weakness, foolishness, and clumsiness? [Ed. Yes! We just saw examples in Realms of Arkania: Star Trail. I can't remember any others.]

     

The clerics donate at the temple, the mages buy new spellbooks, everyone rests for a full day in the inn, and—abracadabra—we have a lot of new spells at our disposal. On the mage side, these include the always-popular "Fireball", along with "Sense Special" (detects traps, dark squares, anti-magic squares, and so forth, ahead of the party) and "Vision" (provides a full map of the current town or dungeon level). The most interesting clerical spells seem to be "Cure Greater Wounds," "Remove Paralysis," "Group Heal," and perhaps "Identify Monster" (which provides a monster’s "under-the-hood" statistics). Thus better equipped, we tramp back down the minefield. With a more conservative application of "Sense Special" and "Trap Zap," a message soon announces: "Congratulations, you've made it across."
      
At this stage we are told to "choose wisely" and are presented with several nested, consecutive sets of three doors each. I recognize that this is where we need to apply the clue we received on the upper level. We choose left, right, and then middle to successfully reveal that: "To find the answer you seek, simply try a day of the week." That makes things pretty clear for the magic mouth’s riddle, although I’ll note here that in different countries the week is considered to start on different days (e.g., on Monday instead of Sunday). "You’re getting closer," the game tells us. Shortly thereafter, we meet "an [sic] small old man" blocking the path onward. He demands to know, "What has a bed, but never rests, has a mouth, but never eats?" I don’t recall any clues in the dungeon to this one, but fortunately it’s an easy one: I correctly guess RIVER on the first try. He vanishes in a puff of smoke, but leaves behind "a small iron coin with the head of a gnome pictured on one side."      

      

They're sized 2 x 2, so the one on top is directly adjacent to Durkon.

       

The gnome was guarding the route to the stairs down to the bottom floor, but I want to finish exploring the rest of Level 2. We yell MONDAY at the magic mouth, who graciously lets us pass. Past it: "On a 3 foot pedestal in the centre of this small chamber rests a fist-sized blood-red gemstone that looks not quite like a ruby. So this must be the Bloodstone you have heard so much about." Remembering the advice we received, Becket equips the Tongs to pick it up, but he is still "singed for 3 points of damage." Trying again, I have him select the tongs in his inventory and then press (U)se; this may be the first time this particular mechanic is used in the game. We obtain the Bloodstone (whatever it is), although "the tongs are rendered useless in the process." Having only a few squares left to explore on the far side of the minefield, we head back there, walk through a door—and find ourselves teleported all the way back to the beginning of Level 1 of The Pit! It’s a long walk through the spiral passageway to return to Level 2.
       
Back down on Level 2, I remember that my mages recently acquired the "Vision" spell. Kizke casts it, and I’m pleasantly surprised to see it provide me a full view of the level! In 1994, I would have had to transcribe it to graph paper, but today a screenshot does the trick. It shows me that all the remaining doors lead to more special squares; presumably, only the one true path leads through and down to Level 3. The spell also reveals some apparently-inaccessible rooms near the center of Level 2. At the time, I assume that perhaps a later teleporter or stairway will lead me to that area, and so leave it for now and descend to Level 3. As it turns out, I think the game was trying to hint to me that "Vision" isn’t perfect: it reveals everything about a level except for secret doors. This becomes important down on Level 3, where we immediately pass through a one-way door and are told "Onwards you now must go."
     

As I said.

       

We encounter the same enemies as on Level 2. We still hit a few traps, but even bomb traps are much less trouble now that we all have more hit points (and the clerics have the "Group Heal" spell). In one last pre-boss encounter, we meet another gnome who again blocks our way. The party automatically asks what he wants, and he incongruously replies, "Hmm, well a Porsche or a Rolls Royce would be nice" before we are told "Note: to give him an object, USE it." Even I can take a hint as obvious as that one: we give him the gnome-faced coin we acquired on Level 2, he leaves, and we continue. Not long after, we "hear heavy breathing" ahead, and then "a scratching sound" coming from behind a door.

     

It had better not be a dog. A dog once bit my father.

      

On the one hand, the game has done an admirable job of building up the anticipation about the Pitbeast. Warnings in town, piles of bones, and several encounter messages. I appreciate that, because it seems more realistic than encountering four dragons and nine screaming samurai with no warning beforehand. On the other hand, there’s not much of a way to make use of the information. In particular, we have no real buffing spells along the lines of Dungeons & Dragons' "Bless" and "Prayer" that we could use to prepare for a combat. Likely-sounding candidates such as "Armor Enhance," "Invisibility," and "Strength of the Bear" can all only be cast once the party has already entered combat. And so:

       

You draw your weapons, sensing that this is it. The Pitbeast. Your weak souls are not prepared for the horror which breaks through the door the next moment. The gargantuan mongoloid beast rears it's [sic] ugly head to the ceiling and stands at it's [sic] full height of ten feet. This will be a tough battle. [Ed. Great. I can't wait for the comment section on this one.]

       
And then we enter into combat with the most adorable ten-foot mongoloid I’ve ever seen.
   

Looking at this picture makes me feel a bit guilty all over again.

       

The Pitbeast is strong, at least: it has 500 HP, 6 armor points, does 6d6 damage, seems to resist all spells, and is somewhat tough to hit. Nonetheless, the battle is six-on-one and having two clerics gives us more than adequate healing capacity. Like the Riddler back in Hythenforge, we whittle it down until Tyrion strikes the killing blow and everyone earns 416 experience points—more than enough to let everyone level up again. The game then questionably claims that this "was the toughest fight you've ever fought" before encouraging us that "Perhaps you do have a chance of succeeding in your quest after all." But before we can feel too cocky: "A skeletal face materializes in front of you. Kamazol!" [Ed. Every time I see this name, I read it as "Kalamazoo."] He curses us (verbally, not magically) before helpfully pointing out that "You will never find all three parts of Soulseeker! Without it, you haven't a ghost of a chance" (Soulseeker is rumoured to be the only weapon that can defeat Kamazol). 

   

[Ed. Sorry, Chet here. I can't read that last sentence without recalling a night I spent in Santiago, Chile. I was out on the town with a few locals. We somehow managed to find a bar with a female jazz singer singing in English. At some point, she sang, "I Don't Stand a Ghost of a Chance with You," which I told my companions was one of my favorite songs. They asked me to translate it, and the best I could do was no tengo un fantasma de una oportunidad contigo. Apparently that's not an idiom that they have in Spanish, so they were very confused, and I spent the next three or four numbers trying to explain it. It led to a long and interesting discussion about idioms and how they don't translate well. Fun times.]

    

Does he have a goatee, or a Fu Manchu mustache?

     

All that’s left is to explore the final, northeast, quadrant of the level. There, behind some secret doors we find "a huge leather scabbard" that is "enclosed by what appears to be a magic force field. Try as you might, you cannot penetrate the force field." This must be part of Soulseeker, but none of my spells have any effect and so I mentally mark it for later, head up and out, and emerge into the fresh air and starlight on Day 34. Still 966 days to go before the world ends. We return to Hythenforge, level up, and pay the old woman’s naval friend to ferry us across "the relatively calm river" (can a river separate one continent from another?). He warns us that it will be a one-way trip, but we have nowhere else to explore on Raksta. We thus disembark on Shylyllia Isle, the game’s third and final continent, and set forth to check out our surroundings.

    

Time played: 32 hours. 6 party deaths. 2 reloads. 3 crashes.
   

****

   

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Next entry in this series 

    06/28/2026

A Note on Commenting

Twice in the last month, I've woken up in the morning to find that someone during the night has made a severe violation of my commenting rules, and because I was asleep, it was up for hours. There have been about a dozen times in which someone has made a serious rules violation during the day, and I've caught it quickly. There have been a couple of dozen times in which a spam comment has made it past Blogger and had to be deleted.

  

I  suppose I should be grateful that for 16 years, I've only had to turn on comment moderation a few times. But because spam and rules violations have become so prevalent more recently, I don't have any choice but to turn on comment moderation permanently. That means that I will have to click a link to approve any comment before it appears. As you can imagine, during certain times of day, this delay will be considerable.

     

Blogger alas offers none of the following tools, all of which would solve or partially solve the situation:

   

• The ability to turn on moderation only during certain times of day.
• The ability to designate multiple people as comment moderators without giving them administrative access to the entire blog.
• The ability to turn on moderation only for non-registered users.
• The ability to specify my own keywords for accepting or rejecting a comment.
• The ability to hold comments with links. 

    

I know there are other commenting options, but I'm reluctant to explore them given the 16 years of comment history that we have using Blogger's native tools. Nonetheless, I will continue to explore possibilities.

   

In the meantime, I beg you not to make the comment delay an issue. Please continue to offer your thoughts about these games as your normally would, and rest assured I will post them as soon as I can.

  

Multi-User Dungeon: Multi-User Perspectives

My only PVP kill.

          

On Saturday, 20 June 2026, about a dozen CRPG Addict readers and I signed into the Multi-User Dungeon on British-Legends.com for a few hours, hoping to replicate the early MUD experience, when players raced around the world, interacted with each other, and frequently killed each other. We were joined by a small number of likely-baffled veteran users who were nonetheless good sports. They gave us hints, allowed us to FOLLOW them on tours around the land, and came to our rescue when we were lost in the dark, stuck in cupboards, in need of particular equipment, or threatened by difficult foes.

   

We probably did not recreate a 1980s player's experience. We were much more polite, for one thing. Nobody attacked me unless I begged them (thanks to Kalieum for killing me!), and I didn't attack anyone without clearing it with them first (thanks to Coriarcin for allowing me to kill him or her!). I didn't hear any PVP stories from any of the participants.

         

Players shout and talk to each other.

         

After the session, I spent another five or six hours with the game on subsequent days, trying to complete my map. It was a futile enterprise. Every unmapped square led to dozens more; every puzzle I solved created two new ones. It's interesting how the incentives for puzzle-solving differ between MUD and its inspiration, Zork. In Zork, you have to get every one of a list of treasures to win. MUD doesn't care whether you ever find its most expensive treasures or visit its farthest reaches. You could spend an entire career logging on and circling the area nearest the starting square for the same set of treasures, dumping them in the swamp, logging off, and waiting for the next reset. And as I discovered, when you're alone on the server in the middle of the night, you get to determine the next reset. Also, as Kalieum pointed out to me, since you can string together commands with periods between them, you could write a script that accomplished this exploration and ensured that you got n points in a single command line. In the game's original days, the primary motivation for unlocking the most difficult and hard-to-reach places is that other players may not get there first, or ever, but that's not as much of a concern with fewer players.

     

From my limited experience, it appears that after each reset, veteran players can be expected to clear out a couple of locations very quickly. First, the woodsman's axe almost always disappears immediately. It's a good weapon; it has several utility uses; and it's close to the entrance. Second, veteran players race to the mausoleum for the firestone (lets you see in the dark without a torch) and other treasures almost immediately. The door puzzles are quite difficult to solve, but once you have the solutions, they never change. There's no incentive not to rush to the location, type in all the answers, and loot each of the chambers as quickly as possible.

        

If you don't get the axe right away, you can always steal it.

        

Since exploration depends heavily on having a light source, characters who miss the firestone will almost always head to the forest to find a stick, then go to the cottage to light it in the fireplace. Mischievous players may run around picking up all the sticks to deny this resource to their fellow players.

   

Both during MUD Day and in my other experiences online when there were multiple players, I found some oddities. There's an onyx lion found in the forest that, when you take it into the cemetery maze and DROP it, points you in the direction of a particular tomb where several treasures are to be found. The treasures are worth a reasonable number of points, and yet I often found the lion in its original location hours into a new session. The winged horse also has a lot of uses (and can be swamped for a few dozen points), but I still often found it in its starting square.

       

Because I thought I had already mapped the game reasonably well, I was startled to find even new players running around with objects that I never found. Even including the six hours I played after Saturday's session, I still haven't found the saber, the epee, or any one of the several cats that I frequently saw in other players' inventories.

      

The users playing at one point, minus the invisible wizards.

        

I asked the other players to email me their impressions and experiences. The overwhelming theme of the comments was how odd it was to share an adventure game space with other players, constantly finding the monsters already killed, doors already opened, treasures already looted, and puzzles already solved. Players arriving from the CRPG Addict did not generally have my experience of visiting the site when the rest of the world was in slumber, finding the rooms and puzzles in their original states. This makes it hard (as it would have been in the game's heyday) to ever learn what the original states are. How would you know to race for that axe if you've never found an axe in that location? In this regard, though, we have to give MUD the benefit of the doubt for being an early game, and one of the earliest multi-player adventure/RPGs that wasn't hosted exclusively on a closed system. The authors built it on what they knew, which was Zork. If they'd had exposure to the PLATO multiplayer games, perhaps they would have used a different design philosophy.

     

(MUD may actually be the first multi-player RPG not housed on a closed system. For my final entry, I have to untangle the timeline between it, PLATO's Drygulch, and Island of Kesmai. All of these games started on closed systems and were opened to the wider world at around the same time.)

        

Commenters also said that they had expected more classic CRPG enemies to fight. They thought they'd go wandering in the woods and meet orcs or slimes, kill them, and level up. Instead, the game's monsters are mostly fixed and unique: an ogre in a cave, a giant spider in the ruins, a zombie in the aptly-named "zombie room," a bunch of rats at the bottom of the cellar stairs, and so forth. While these enemies do supply experience, at lower levels, combat is barely worth the risk (most players won't have weapons for a while, if ever), and at higher levels, it's barely worth the time. But when combat is too risky and more experienced players have swamped all the treasure, the novice player is left somewhat bewildered about what to do.

        

I haven't yet figured out what this is about.

      

Some commenters wrote to me, during the game and afterwards, asking for help with some of the puzzles. I was mostly saved from any ethical conundrum by not knowing the answers. It astonishes me that nearly 50 years into the game's history, there is no comprehensive spoiler site online. Indeed, there are hardly any hints beyond the answers to the easiest puzzles, spoiled on the British Legends FAQ and via the HINTS command in-game. (If someone does find such a source, please do not link it in the comments.) I'm proud to say that I solved all of the mausoleum riddles, but if I Google "Multi-User Dungeon" and any of the answers, I get nothing, not even in the Internet Archive. That's a sign either that MUD has curated a community of players with shared values or that nobody cares. I like to think it's the former. It's almost too bad because I'd really like to be able to discuss the mausoleum puzzles with you. They're a lot of fun. Some of them require impressive knowledge of literature, history, and art as well as basic cryptographic skills. 1980s players, without the Internet, would have had to hit the books in the library. (Current MUD administrator Viktor Toth confirmed with me that the mausoleum puzzles have been updated a few times over the years, but they would have been similar in the original.) 

     

Overall, not being able to discuss puzzle solutions tamps down a bit on my interest in solving them in the first place. Again, by the game's own rules, solving puzzles isn't necessary to succeed in the game. There's no endgame waiting on the far side of the ocean, no "game over" screen when you open that final door.  

      

Killed by a girl.

       

Some other comments from MUD Day and my follow-up experiences:

     

• I must have died a dozen times from accidentally bringing my torch into the swamp (it ignites marsh gases and creates an explosion). It was just like riding my horse into the shops in Yendorian Tales. It's why I always tried to get the firestone and almost never got it.

• It turns out that almost every (non-hostile) animal in the game can be picked up and carried with you, including the winged horse, a couple of cats, a seagull, an ox, a rabbit, and a goat. I would give a lot to know what you're supposed to do with the goat. ShaddamIVth somehow managed to get killed by it. Kalieum: "Killing the cat didn't seem to do anything and I felt bad."

        

I get a goat.

       

• Several puzzles require multiple players to cooperate in solving them. There are a few doors or grates, for instance, which can only be opened with two people pulling at once. There's apparently a maze in the swamp, leading to one of the most valuable treasures, with the directions randomized every time the game resets. Since anything dropped in the swamp vanishes, you can't leave objects like breadcrumbs. You have to get a bunch of players to act as "breadcrumbs," occupying valid squares in the sequence to the goal. Only one player can obtain the treasure, so this has to be negotiated ahead of time. 

• In an email account, ShaddamIVth described the anguish of turning a lever in the mine, which leads to the mine being flooded, and then seeing the numerous screams of drowning characters. (He rushed to undo the action.) I'm sure there are other players who take joy in this.

• I created my map by trying every possible direction from every square before Sleazyd clued me that typing X tells you all the available exits and where they go. 

     

This would have been nice 12 hours ago.

        

• Everyone seemed to appreciate the game's literary quality and humor. 

      

That was a fair hit.

         

• A couple of times, we heard the "thunderous roar of a finger of death" in the distance. I still don't know what that's about. 

• There are sometimes a lot of zombies running around. I think that the wizards can trigger extra enemies. 

• When there are wizards in the game trying to help you, it makes it hard to determine which items are in the environment naturally and which are a product of their intervention. Sometimes, they like to whisper hints to you, too, which are indistinguishable from the game's own descriptive text. 

• One of the wizards was online during MUD Day and assisted several players, including me. I asked him for some background information. While telling me a bit about the game, he used his powers to whisk us around the land and show me some different locations. One of them had a large diamond, clearly worth a lot of points. I think he wanted to see if I'd (unethically) snatch it. I didn't, but mostly because I sensed it was a test. 

      

Morpheus tests me.

       

• Since British-Legends went online, 123 people have "made wiz." 

          

At this point, I want to transition to some of the experiences submitted by other players.

    

SleazyD

       

The game is very obviously the first MUD because much of what a "modern" (post-'95) player expects is missing. This is especially noticeable in combat where it's super-simple with no strategy and no parties/groups. You type "kill" with a weapon and you wait for it to resolve--no spells, no special attacks, no choosing targets, etc. There's just single combat with "kill" and "flee".

Despite the only combat I saw between players being people testing it out, I still felt I was competing with them more than some other non-PvP MUDs because of how the puzzles reset. During the peak time every item was taken, every door unlocked, every puzzle solved. Some other MUDs have timed item respawn and puzzle resets which mitigate this (but again those are from a decade plus later).

Exploration was fun. The Land definitely had that goofy humor everyone had back then. But there was definitely a lot of typing "x" at every location to figure out where to go next. The drawn map you posted on the blog was surprisingly helpful in maintaining my bearings.

For these reasons, I think I actually had more fun when most of the people got off the game after 4 EDT. Then it was just like I was playing Zork with occasional combat. Items were plentiful, I could find some monsters to kill, the puzzles weren't all solved, etc.

Overall, I had fun and I'm glad I played it. I might even play again, but if I do I will definitely be treating it as a text adventure where I run into people, and not a multi-user RPG. (If anything, it makes me want to code my own up!)

    

ShaddamIVth 

           

My impression of the world in which I found myself was positive from the get-go. The developers had utilized the text only interface to its fullest, and the description of the world felt lively. Venturing forth was fraught with much anxiety. I felt intimidated at first, the world seemed very large and very mysterious, but this feeling would diminish with time. After an hour or so of exploration I felt more comfortable in my new surroundings. I was by no means as well versed as a true native, but the world had formed an overall impression and I navigated much by feel and less by map. As you have ascertained already, a map would be a brave undertaking.

      

Others of course also roamed. And very friendly some were, with many offers of assistance from seasoned veterans for the newcomers. I had undertaken to experience the world as the novice I was however, and politely declined their offers after wrangling the correct commands from the parser. Initially some advice was touted and shouted to all who would hear but this soon quietened down, as many of the new explorers found their feet and used them.

     

Like most games with a text parser, you occasionally fight it.

       

My overall impression was more of a world of adventure than one of role-playing. And yet the interaction with many of my fellows again leaned my opinion towards a role-playing experience. Certainly, the social element was most definitely in the realm of the RPG, but many of the actions and expectations from the world were decidedly of an adventuring flavor. If asked if I thought it an Adventure game or an RPG, my answer would be decidedly vague. I would not hesitate to point out that it most certainly fulfills enough of the requirements for an RPG to be considered as one. But as to how the world FELT it was decidedly in the flavor of an adventure instead. The many items scattered about that had very specific intended uses reinforced this feeling excessively. The feeling of wandering like a lost sheep with an even more limited useful vocabulary did not help shake the adventuring flavor.

       

And herein lies the biggest problem for a novice. There is undoubtedly a system and expectation for combat, but to reach any meaningful stage whereby a traveler is prepared and equipped to undertake warfare on any scale, several hoops have to be jumped through. To acquire a weapon, and sufficient skill to be considered more than a novice would require the traveler to know the answers to many brain teasers strewn about. And finding these answers is no mean feat for a novice, with the presence of other more experienced travelers making this an even more arduous task. When setting out, many of the items required for the solution of many of these conundrums are very quickly assailed by those more experienced and knowledgeable in the ways of the world. I say this with no malice or ill feeling towards the others inhabiting the world, [but] conditions must have been brutal for new-comers in the years yonder. The assistance offered by the wizard Morpheus would undoubtedly have removed much of the sting of my initial faltering deaths, but as I have previously mentioned I  wanted to approach the system anew. I am a man of limited time, unfortunately ,and thus shortly afore the stroke of midnight my patience dwindled into despair, I declared DROP ALL, returned to the physical world, awoke the cat, and retired to my bedchamber.

        

I do confess these words paint a picture of confusion and frustration, and while this is not untrue there were many positive experiences to report. I absolutely marveled at the depth of the experience with the limited technology. The prose was of high quality, and the way the world could be affected by others with the technology of old astounded me. A moment that shines bright in my memory was finding a valve in the mine. I was surprised to discover I could simply turn it with no additional warfare being waged upon the parser. Following the code of adventurers (take all not nailed down, converse with whatsoever has a mouth or ears, press all that can be pressed) I proceeded to turn the valve. I moved on, but moments later anguished cries arose. "We are drowning," they pleaded, and, realizing myself to be the culprit, I quickly retraced my steps to undo my actions. The few conundrums that I did manage to solve swelled my breast with pride. Brutal the world may be, hard the path of progress, but oh so sweeter than the taste of success. It is an art oft overlooked in modern offerings. The fact that hard labor and deep thought bring their own rewards. But the level on which this was implemented is perhaps better left to the times of its origins, when entertainment was scarce, evenings long and rewarding experiences hard to come by. Had I no other distractions I would have certainly invested more time in such a pastime, meandering a weekend away bashing my head against the "cliffs to the east." Alas for us and our overcrowded schedules.

       

You have my gratitude for organizing the expedition. I am a lover of history, and gaming history in particular. That is of course what attracted me to your writings initially. To have been part of such an extraordinary endeavor was an honor and a privilege, to glimpse into the past, recreated so faithfully a rare treat. I give my thanks to you and all the others who participated, and will gladly do so again should the occasion arise.

    

Kalieum

    

Pre-MUD Day

I gave the game a go to try and get familiar with it in advance of MUD day. I want to know what I'm doing so I'm not losing time muddling around aimlessly, and I also want the upper hand should any of the other people there be the "kill other players on sight" type. I know that's part of the MUD experience, but if we're only doing this for a few hours as a one-time thing, I'd rather be able to spend that time delving into the game's mysteries.

      
On starting, I'm in the tearoom, which I understand to be the game's one truly safe space that you can't return to after leaving. Initial exploration leaves me confused. With time I'm getting better at finding my way around, though some of it is still "if I muddle around in this direction enough I'll get close enough to somewhere I recognize?"

     
So the goal of the game is to score a large amount of points, which are achieved by killing enemies, killing other players (or forcing them to flee), and "swamping" items—going to the swamp and dropping them. Different items have different values, some positive, some negative, some zero. I'm not yet sure about the significance of negative value items other than "really don't swamp this," but zero-value items appear to typically be tools, or sometimes valuable items that haven't yet been made valuable. 

      

Killing me from Kalieum's perspective. And, apparently, the cat's.

            
My initial session ends with me being attacked by a "blind, deaf, dumb, and lame beggar." How he even detects me to attack is one question, and a better one is how he manages to kill me in a fight, but regardless, I am slain which marks the end of that character.
     
I try again. I find a few treasures and swamp them, but it feels like I've run out of places I can go to with the tools I have available. There are some enemies blocking some places, but I can't seem to beat them. At the end, I find a stick, which becomes a "brand" [when I light it on fire]. This promptly explodes swamp gas when I go there to swamp items, killing me, but as it wasn't a stamina-point related death I'm able to re-enter without having lost any progress beyond dropping all my items. I end with around a hundred points scored; the second rank comes at 400 points and my goal for MUD day—the third rank—at 800.
     
I keep at it a couple more times and start to flesh out my mental map of the game world. There's the swamp to the south, with a forest to the southwest with a few interesting locations in it. To the west is a cliff that I could jump off if I had a parachute of some sort. East-ish is a cave you need a light to enter, with a few chambers I can't do much in yet; one contains an ogre that I'm sure I can't beat yet while the others are probably item-based puzzles. For a while I thought this was everything before I stumbled through the forest to the north, revealing a winding mine with tin deposits and an entrance to a dwarven kingdom, a mausoleum containing several puzzles, and a beach.

     

I also encounter a problem: while I can initiate fights with my lit brand as a fairly effective weapon—killing rats and a zombie with no problem—if they attack me first, the RETALIATE command that's supposed to let me specify a weapon to retaliate with just tells me "you must retaliate with a weapon," and I'm stuck fighting bare-handed, which I nearly always can't win. This leads to the situation where if I get the drop on a rat I destroy it handily (for 40 points), while if it attacks me first—which it can do the same instant it moves to my location—I have to flee, which as it turns out costs me 100 points. A couple of counters like this —trying to figure out what I'm doing wrong with the retaliate command, and getting jumped when I go back to recover my items (you drop everything when you flee), a nanny goat that attacked me when I tried to milk it, and I've lost all the points I've accrued from my multiple sessions so far.

    
Finding the mine helps with earning points, but I still hit the issue where once I've got everything I know how to get safely and can't go elsewhere without risking losing it all—at least until I understand why RET W BRAND doesn't work—I seem to run out of options. Apparently the game automatically resets when most of the treasure in the world is gone, but it would be arrogant of me to assume I'm even close to that point. Still, I've got a few places of interest that I'll leave well enough alone until MUD day itself, I've got enough scoped out I can hit my 800-point target assuming the game passively resets every so often, as it seems to. Summing them up for my own benefit as much as anything else:

    

• Dwarven kingdom past the mine.
• Several narrow passages in the mine.
• Locked door in basement behind bookcase (didn't respond to regular keys).
• Hole in wall in rat basement.
• Cave beyond gate.
• Mausoleum.
• Hole in the ground in foothills near gate between lands.
• Empty lobster pot on jetty.
• Spider web.
• Nanny goat.
• Badger sett.
• Bandstand.
• Shrine.
• Golden bolt on railway track. 

      

It’s at this point that MUD Day is postponed for a month, so I guess I’ll just keep playing and see what I can achieve by then. I find something pretty quickly—a grate that I need a second player with me to open. And then I get a magic egg glued to my hand that prevents me from doing any inventory interaction, and I am trapped in my little part of the land. I quit out, then reconnect maybe 30 minutes later with something in mind to check, and discover the world has already reset—maybe this happens the instant there are no players? In which case I expect you could "make wiz" (get 102400 points and "win") just by swamping the junk in and around the house plus the ore in the mine over and over and over. It’s roughly 400 points for doing this, so that’s only 256 times. The game allows you to queue commands, so I’d wager you could figure out one long string of [something like] . . .

   

IN. W. GET COAT. E. U. U. N. GET PARASOL. UNFURL PARASOL. S. D. D. OUT. etc. etc. 

     

. . . and just paste that into the terminal to autopilot these ~400 points. Not the spirit of it though, and I do actually want to figure out the secrets the game is teasing.

      
At some point while messing around with the mausoleum puzzles, the text "you start to think it's harder than you think" appeared on my screen. Initially I thought it was something that appeared automatically when you spent long enough in the location, but with later messages I realized it was most likely a wiz sending them. I didn’t expect to encounter anyone else online at all outside of the scheduled MUD Day. Alas, this happened right as I was running out of time that day, so I didn’t get to see this interaction through further (or make any progress with the mausoleum).

    
I logged on during the originally scheduled time for MUD day just in case, and happened upon another actual player. I was apprehensive (are they just going to kill me on sight?), but they turned out to be very friendly and helpful. It was genuinely a pleasant experience. I’ve played a couple more times since then, encountered other players though none who spoke to me. I also run into what I guess could be considered a silly trap of sorts; the sorcerer’s room was locked and the keys that normally unlock it weren’t on the way, so I wound up stuck in there with no way out. Judging from the other items present that aren’t usually in there, I don’t think I was the first person to fall victim to this.

         

Some of Kalieum's notes to himself.

MUD Day Itself 

     

I’m on early, trying to get back to superhero(ine) before the appointed hour, Chester and some Legend are already on. I’m not really sure what the etiquette is; on the one hand I could run around grabbing everything ASAP and ensure I get to resume my now slow explorations (I have a lot of questions, but not much in the way of coalescing answers), or I could not do that so the even newer players get to experience a bit more, but then what am I going to achieve during the session? Well, so long as I get the longsword and a firestone I’m probably good to explore the dwarven realm, which I haven’t yet, so I can leave everything else. 

      

MUD Day begins properly. There’s a lot more activity than usual, and a bunch of items I’ve not seen before. I want to get the longsword, but both the umbrella and parasol are taken. I ask the parasol player if I can borrow it, but they don’t respond and soon WHERE tells me "wouldn’t you like to know," so I assume it’s swamped. The random legend seems to be holding the umbrella.

     
At one point, I use the bow [which teleports the user to the location of the baton] and find myself in a caved-in section of the root tunnel, with several valuables there. Later I decide to get them so they can be swamped for the treasure total, and in that time someone else picked up the bow and went sailing around, leaving me completely trapped underground. Fortunately, they have a boating incident and I am able to escape when their stuff washes ashore.

    
“In the distance, you hear the thunderous roar of a finger of death!” rattled off three times in quick succession. Then a wizard told everyone to quit and restart; I’m going to listen to them. Post reset, we’re told to: “Complete Dwarves, woe, ship, isles, druids, goblins and main for the next reset.” I know what about half of those are. While playing, I realize I can push for Enchantress rank with a bit of effort. I’m curious if anything is tacitly different at the spellcaster-y ranks. I try to feed the apple to the winged stallion, only to be told the context is "feed CREATURE with FOOD."  I correct my input, only to be told the same. I guess it’s the wrong food, but I’d appreciate clearer feedback on that.

     

Chet here. *I* found the goblins. This is the highest rank I've achieved so far.

        
I do wonder how many of the items I regularly swamp without a second thought are actually puzzle items for something. I know an item having a positive value doesn’t preclude some other use. The multiplayer aspect means I can’t leave things alone to experiment with [lest] someone else get them. I find someone’s stash of items in the cupboard in the house. Could just take everything; No idea if they are still online.
    

Post-Session    

    

It was a fun experience, even though it was mostly the same as the solo experience plus passing other players from time to time. Sometimes this clued me into parts of the game I hadn’t picked up on and things to try (e.g., seeing players with goats, horses in their inventory), as well as the existence of several items I’d never seen before (sabre, pin, bouquet, epee, worthless jade statue of an ox, horse, shiny keys, bow, libram were all new to me). Some of it I wonder may have been wizard intervention. At one point when I was stranded on the beach by the waterfall due to the rain, a cutlass seemed to suddenly appear. Given the pirate-y association, I wondered if this allowed me to sail in the rain without randomly dying, and that the wizard had spawned it for me as such. I was still carrying the umbrella though, so if I tried it and drowned and my stuff washed up on that same beach I’d have no way to get the boat back, so I waited it out anyway.

     
I tried to balance out not being greedy with getting treasures anyway, aiming for the things a little farther afield. Having specific requirements for a reset from the wizard felt weird. Of “Dwarves, woe, ship, isles, druids, goblins and main,” I know where the Dwarven realm is but have never actually explored it yet. "Woe" I think is one single treasure. "Ship" I know; "Isles" and "Druids" I thought would both refer to the NW island—either way I’m not sure I want to go back there even though I now know the syntax of the hinted command. I’ve never even seen a hint of the existence of goblins, and "main" is probably everything mainland/surface. With most players being new, I think that it's pretty unlikely that we’d ever meet those reset conditions.

      
I’m curious what was going on past the wolf room. I successfully removed the wolf (for the first time), the text hinted whatever was behind the (locked) door was very hot, so I left to get some keys and the stupid egg, and come back to both Chester and the wizard just hanging out there, who both immediately left. Felt like I’d stumbled onto a clandestine meeting. [Ed. It was, kind of. A wizard was giving me some information, and he brought us to a place with (then) no other players, so he could tell me in privacy.] I then promptly jumped into the pit of burning and destroyed a bunch of useful items. Pretty sure the sea is completely inaccessible until a reset unless the wizard intervenes.

                

Kalieum's attempts at a hand-drawn map.

       

I had a good experience in the end; trying to help someone lost in the dark led to me finally managing to recruit someone to help me with the portcullis above the idol. We found some treasure in there and chatted for a bit, and it was just a pleasant experience. I was struggling to come up with more things to do (I don’t want to explore the dwarf realm without a decent weapon), so decided to call it there. Around this time someone shouted “woohooooo, prey” and someone else shouted “NO”, so I’m a bit concerned for the players still playing, but presumably they can send their own viewpoints in if anything happened from that. [Ed. Nobody did, and I'm curious what this was all about. I was off by then.]
     
I figure I’ll try imitating [Chet's] rating system, but as there’s no way I’ll rate things similarly enough for this to be directly comparable to a GIMLET rating, I’ve used a thesaurus to twist the acronym into something new: Kalieum’s (appropriated) Test of Innovation in the Game, Engagement, Revelry and Sunniness, or TIGERS. Let’s see how grrrrrreat the game holds up. [Ed. Kalieum ran through the entire GIMLET at this point and came up with a score of 22.] I’m tempted to add a point simply due to the fact that there’s a decent amount of the game I’m still oblivious to, not to mention whatever the wizard experience is. So that makes 23 points. It’s meeeediocrrrre! Well, that’s a pretty good score for its time, actually. 

    

Thanks to everyone who offered their recollections. We'll wrap this up next time! 

    

****

   

Previous entry in this series

   

Next entry in this series

  06/23/2026 

Yendorian Tales: Book I: Won! (with Summary and Rating)

The endgame sees Zamora restored and the sequel set up.

         

Yendorian Tales: Book I

United States 

SmithWare (developer and publisher) 

Released 1994 for DOS

Date Started: 6 May 2026

Date Ended: 19 June 2026

Total Hours: 37

Difficulty:  Moderate (3.0/5)

Final Rating: (to come later)

Ranking at time of posting: (to come later)  

      

Summary:

    

Yendorian Tales is a superior shareware game by a talented family of programmers. On the continent of Yendor, where society is divided into spellcasters and the miners who supply the spellcasters with their ore, a party of six sets out to determine why monsters have started invading the mines. Soon, the chief wizard, Zamora, is struck down by a mysterious figure, his magical orb stolen, and the party's mission grows.

   

The game combines elements from several successful commercial releases, predominantly Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny (1988), which is replicated in the NPC dialogue and the tactical combat, and Ultima VI: The False Prophet (1990), which is replicated in its axonometric exploration. The game has solid mechanics, although the sheer volume of combat gets to be too much, and the economy, initially promising, ends up hilariously broken. The story ends up being a bit unoriginal, but the game, unlike almost all its predecessors and contemporaries, has rewarding side quests.

   

****

   

I thought it was time to wrap this up. AlphabeticalAnonymous's Search for Freedom entries, plus my own Multi-User Dungeon break, afforded me some breathing room, so even though I could have stretched it into two or three additional entries, I pressed forward to the end.

     

Paltivar, the game's villain, stands by the stolen orb.

       

The main quest, kicked off by the theft of Zamora's orb, had me meeting all the scattered members of the Society of Wizards. I guess I was supposed to visit them in turn, each supplying the clue to the next. But my habit of feeding the JOURNAL keyword to everyone I met meant that I met some of them before I was supposed to. Each had a task for me to accomplish; each gave me an item when I finished, then supplied the title (but not the name) of the next wizard; each was accompanied by Zamora's voice whispering a clue as to some name or keyword.

       

Member	Location	Task	Item	Hint
Flagell  The Hermit	Cave	Kill a wyvern nesting nearby.	Flagell's Scroll	The first of last is third, and the third of first is last.
Paundor The Diplomat	Port Hope	Buy a Grapnel Arrow, use it to retrieve the Great Red Gem from a cave.	Red Powder	Half of "W" is sixth.
Bysette  The ?????	Moloch	Retrieve a ring that he lost on Blackmane.	Magic Branch	It is in the middle backwards.
Prezlin The Merchant	Duomin/New Devon	Find out what happened to Winze.	Magic Liquid	One from each end is A.
Griffin The Scholar	Athaneum	Retrieve the Hourglass of Stopped Time from the desert.	Sands of Time	He and Prezlin begin the same.
Winze The ????	Devon	Retrieve lava from the underworld.	Amulet of Lava	Eight letters make up his name.
Quai The Explorer	Cave in Desert	Kill the Cynotaur to free Quai.	Horn of Encasement	N/A

           

I had finished through Prezlin's quest at the end of the last session, though I hadn't returned to find him in New Devon. I visited the city first thing at the beginning of this session and got Prezlin's item and hint. He sent me on to the Scholar, who I already knew was Griffin from dialogue ages ago in the Athaneum.

      

That missing piece annoys me.

       

New Devon also had a side quest in which the governor wanted me to deliver a peace treaty to the king of the giants and return it with his signature. The king was happy with the terms ("Little people will stay out of the mountains; giants will stop attacking town") and signed it. I had to flee from a lot of giants on the way in, but otherwise it wasn't a tough quest. I got enough experience from it to reach Level 10.

    

The last city I had to explore was Anatolay. (I never ended up exploring the two mines that lay just outside of town.) The most important things I found here were:

   

• An enhancer who would take +2 or +3 items and enhance them to +3 or +4. This bridged the gap between the enhancer in the Athaneum and the enhancer in Port Hope. I got all my weapons and armor enhanced, then went to Port Hope and got everything up to +5. This all cost far less than it should have.

• The Amulet of Anatolay, which the governor of Port Hope wanted. When I returned it to him, I had enough experience for Level 11.

          

We're just calling them that in-universe, huh?

        

It occurs to me that most of the leveling in this game comes from finishing the side quests and not from fighting regular foes. This is good because I fled from pretty much every regular combat this session. For combats that I knew or suspected that I had to fight, I adopted a fairly simple strategy:

       

• Have my wizard cast "Earthquake" every round.
• Have my clerics cast "Critical Damage" every round.
• Have my two fighters and thief restore the spellcasters with purple potions, heal anyone who is low on health with white potions, or toss silver potions (poison) and gold potions (acid) at enemies.

         

You're goddamned right I do.

       

The economy is so broken by the end of the game that you could buy all the purple (full mana restore) and white (full health restore) potions that you could possibly need in a lifetime of adventuring, not to mention processed Nuore. Even if the economy wasn't broken, you find so many of these things that you hardly have to buy them.

      

Griffin was a pain to find because if you (L)ook at NPCs, the game tells you one person is Griffin, but you have to (T)alk to them to find out that the game is wrong. The real Griffin wanted me to find the Hourglass of Stopped Time in the desert in the northeast part of the continent. This is accessible from a mine near Giant Town (past the paleoscinus). The desert is a small region ringed by mountains with multiple caves. Dragons fly overhead constantly, which is annoying.

      

The game identifies Vincent as Griffin.

         

The hourglass is between two frozen dragons in the middle of the desert. When I grabbed it, they came to life and (instead of thanking me) attacked. I killed them, although I don't think I had to.

         

One wonders why I didn't freeze the moment I entered the hourglass's presence.

         

Back at the Athaneum, Griffin smashed the hourglass and gave me the sand. I got the final clue, but by then I had figured out that the clues spelled out PALTIVAR—an NPC I had already met in Devon. He had sent me on a quest to find his apprentice, Joseph, who in turn wanted me to find some sweet wine. Spoiler: Paltivar turns out to be the "big bad" of the game. 

       

Few games logistically explain how the evil castle is so full of monsters. This one, admittedly, doesn't explain how a single alcoholic was able to corral a bunch of ghosts and demons.

            

Griffin said I should speak to Winze next, but I already knew that he was dead, so I figured I could skip this quest and go right to Paltivar. I visited town after town, asking for SWEET WINE or BOTTLE in the taverns. After five or six tries, I got a hit in Stachus. Grabbing a single bottle somehow led to my having 65,535 bottles in my inventory. To add insult to injury, the game won't let us drink them.

   

I returned the bottle to Joseph, who spilled a little dirt on Paltivar: "A few years ago, I helped him round up several types of monsters for his castle. He didn't tell me where it was, but I know it wasn't on the mainland." When I returned to Paltivar's shop in Devon, he was gone, so I started searching the various caves in the desert. I eventually found the last member of the Society of Wizards, Quai, imprisoned in a cave by the Cynotaur. 

     

I think his name means "dog-bull."

          

I killed the Cynotaur in a long battle and got his horn. Quai then told me that I "did not have all of the items that [I] need." He admonished me to make sure I had spoken to all members of the Society of Wizards.

     

Just what you want to hear when you're 30 minutes away from civilization.

           

I despaired at circling all of the cities asking for SOCIETY again, but I consulted my notes and realized I hadn't actually gotten a clue from Winze or his grieving wife. I returned to Devon and spoke to Winze's wife, Joan. This time, she asked me for flowers for his grave; fortunately, I had bought a bouquet ages ago from a random NPC somewhere. When I gave it to her, Winze's ghost appeared. He had a quest: "Travel into the Underworld and bring back a small quantity of lava." He opened a portal in the north part of the cemetery to take me there.

      

I love that there's no discussion about how we're going to carry lava. I mean, we could cool it with any variety of spells, but then it wouldn't be "lava" anymore.

          

"The Underworld" turned out to be a large cave system with a lot of demons, devils, and lava beasts. Lava beasts suck because they have a ranged attack that can easily kill the last character to flee, when all of the enemies are focusing on him exclusively. 

   

There were pools and lakes of lava but no way to retrieve a sample. I had to loop the area a couple of times before I realized that one of the figures wasn't attacking me. I figured he must be an NPC and talked to him. He said he was Demonacus, "master of this realm," and that he planned to lead his demons in conquest of the world. (According to Usenet posts, in an early version of the game, Demonacus failed to appear. SW Games had to send around a patch.)

      

That's what you went with? "Demonacus?" How long did that take to come up with?

         

Demonacus attacked with a bunch of demons, lava beasts, and princes of evil, but here's where my standard combat policy paid off, and I whittled them down. Demonacus had an Amulet of Lava on him, which was good enough. It was the last item I needed for Quai, who (after I made the long trek back to him) assembled all of my quest items into the Horn of Encasement, which he promised would nullify the protections of the magic orb.

           

Demonacus and his allies.

         

It took me about half of the final session to find Paltivar's castle on the southeastern island. I had to explore multiple cave systems, fleeing from dozens of enemy battles, to even get to the island. Then, once there, I had to explore multiple caves (there are eight separate entrances on the island) to find my way to the castle—which had no entrance, so I had to explore more to arrive in the castle from the basement. Along the way, I found the second-to-last map piece. I never did find the piece covering the desert in A5.

     

A password check gets me into Paltivar's castle.

      

The castle had five levels, all very annoying for the sheer number of enemies I had to flee from. The first level was full of secret doors, so I had to test basically every wall space. There's a spell called "Reveal" that shows them, but it disappears every time you're attacked, which is always. Also annoying is the way the "Miner's Light" spell constantly wears off, and you have to wait and suffer the animation as the area around the party grows dim, then watch another one when you re-cast the spell and it gets light again.

    

I don't remember anything special about Level 2. Level 3 had a bunch of teleporters, most of which just went to other places on the same level, so I had to find the right one to get to Level 4—all the while fleeing from ghosts that continually respawn. 

     

A maze of teleporters.

       

Paltivar was standing in a large, open room, next to the orb on the fifth level. Nearby teleporters went to Devon and into the meeting hall at the Athaneum, and I thought it was nice to get an explanation of how the evil wizard had gotten around so deftly. 

        

I exit a teleporter in the Anathaneum—exactly where Paltivar exited when he struck down Zamora.

       

I buffed with healing, attribute potions, "Party Invisibility," and "Shield of Mist" before approaching him. He attacked with a bunch of archmages and princes of evil. Again, my usual strategy won the day with only a few potions required. For some reason, it was important for me for Paltivar to die to a melee attack, so after all his allies were dead, I spent some time maneuvering my lead fighter into the right position.

        

A "Critical Damage" spell reduces Paltivar's forces. My guys have "Party Invisibility" on, so you only see their weapons.

        

A message popped up when he would have died: The Society of Wizards intervened to prevent me from striking a killing blow. The message said to use the Horn of Encasement to retrieve the orb, then bring it to the healers at the Athaneum. 

     

Victory is stolen from me.

      

I had enough experience for Level 12, but I just went directly to the Athaneum, where the endgame sequence began the moment I walked into the healers' chambers. The orb helped restore Zamora. Once he was on his feet, he reunited the Society of Wizards to deal with Paltivar. Apparently, they had some kind of deal that none of them would ever allow another to be destroyed (tell that to Winze!). It turned out that Paltivar had turned evil a long time ago, and it was the Society that banished him to the island castle. Since that didn't work, they came up with a new punishment: "We decree that you shall exist for eternity in a single instant in time." With that, Paltivar slowly dissolved away.

         

Paltivar suffers a potentially-horrifying fate.

       

Question: Is he conscious for this? Because that seems pretty unfair no matter what he's done. No mortal crime deserves eternal punishment. (This is an issue I have with a lot of religious doctrine, by the way.) Anyway, a few days later, Zamora told us that Paltivar used the orb to make the fog around Yendor so thick that no ships could come and go (never mind that the fog was there even when Zamora had the orb). Zamora has recently discovered that the wizards back in the homeland of Thaine are using Nuore for "evil purposes," so he's not so sure that lifting the fog was a good thing. End of game.

     

The fog bank at the edge of the world wasn't just the developers being lazy.

       

It sounds to me like the Society of Wizards knew exactly what was going on. But instead of telling me to "seek out this bastard named Paltivar that we banished to an island for being evil," they had to feed it to me one letter at a time.

      

Some of the items I never got around to using.

        

I rushed the ending a bit, I admit. Since I didn't explore some of the mines, I didn't find keys to almost half the cities. I didn't find the final map piece (though that might be bugged and impossible). I found but never tested a Scroll of Portals, a Scroll of Revealing (I assume it casts "Reveal"), a Ring of Protection, a Poison Trident, an Ice Medallion, and a Crystal of Power. For reasons I've mentioned, whatever they do, I didn't really need their help. I ended the game with over 300,000 gold pieces plus 52 jewels, 20 ancient scrolls, thousands of units of ore, and hundreds of excess weapon and armor items that I could have sold for a lot more. It's hilarious that four postings ago, I thought the economy was good.

     

Here's my GIMLET:

   

Category	Assets	Liabilities	Score
1. Game World	Reasonably detailed backstory of Yendor. Clear (though evolving) main quest.	Main quest is a bit unoriginal and doesn't make a lot of sense given revelations at the end. Game world doesn't really respond to the player's actions.	4
2. Character Creation and Development	Four classes, presented slightly differently from most RPGs (i.e., transition from miners to fighters, magic students to wizards and clerics). Regular leveling with palpable increase in power via boosting attributes (which in turn determine what you can wear/wield) and acquiring spells.	Fairly simple system overall. Rogues wasted as usual. No role-playing by class, race, alignment, sex, etc.	4
3. NPCs	Many NPCs scattered throughout the towns. You learn backstory and lore from NPCs. Keyword-based dialogue system like Ultima.	NPCs don't have a lot to say. Keywords, but no dialogue options or role-playing.	4
4. Encounters and Foes	A couple of dozen monsters, mostly standard D&D derivatives, but with the types of special abilities, strengths, and weaknesses that I look for.  Encounters and weapon/armor drops are somewhat randomized, though sensible for the location.	Monsters are derivative. Few non-combat encounters, and only a few light puzzles.	4
5. Magic and Combat	Tactical combat grid works fairly well, recalling the best of Ultima V. System allows for melee attacks, ranged attacks, spells, use of special items, use of throwing items. Terrain is important.  Nice variety of spells.	Combats are far too frequent. Combats take too long. By the end of the game, battles are far too easy.  Generosity of money/equipment unbalances the spell system.	4
6. Equipment	Multiple types of weapons, armor, and shields restricted by attributes. Clear statistics to help determine which item is best.  Lots of usable items, including special artifacts, to find and wield. Ability to pay to enhance items.	Restricted to only weapons, armor, shields. No boots, cloaks, helms, rings, belts, necklaces, etc. No artifact weapons/armor. Items way too plentiful and generous.	4
7. Economy	Solid complexity. Lots of ways to make money (mining, battle, item sales, gambling, selling found artifacts, side-quests). Lots of ways to spend money. For the first third, the economy is pretty tight. Have to make some tough decisions about what to prioritize.	Economy gets far too generous by the halfway point. The party finds too much and the things that it spends money on do not cost enough. It should have taken tens of thousands of gold pieces to enchant weapons up to +5.	4
8. Quests	Clear main quest with multiple stages. About half a dozen meaningful side quests with solid rewards.  Many side-areas to explore with artifact rewards.	No decisions, alternate outcomes, or role-playing.	4
9. Graphics, Sound, and Interface	Graphics reasonably good for a shareware game, particularly in the cut scene graphics. Mixed keyboard/mouse controls are easy to master and let each player use what he's comfortable with.	Keyboard buffering issues cause problems throughout the game. Sound is underwhelming; just a few effects.	4
10. Gameplay	Reasonable nonlinearity. World can be explored in any order and some of the quest steps can be done out of order, as we've seen.	Not much replayability. Drags on too long (though only a bit). Gets far too easy by the end.	3
Other/Total			39

    

The total is high enough to at least near my "recommended" threshold, which is about 40 in 1994. Yendorian Tales is by no means a perfect game, but it's a commercial-quality game that transcends its shareware origins and has a lot of innovations and surprises (albeit mostly at the beginning).

   

I was sorry that I couldn't reach any of the Smiths during my coverage of this game, as I would have loved to include their comments and recollections. My childhood memories of the times I spent with my father all involve sitting on bar stools, so I find it heart-warming that Rodney Smith managed to enlist his two sons in such a creative and educational project. I hope they look back on the experience with fondness.

       

Exploration and combat in Yendorian Tales: Book I - Chapter II.

            

I also hope it sold well, but it's hard to find any contemporary reviews. There are Usenet references to it rating well on CompuServe. One heartening sign is that the Smiths kept going; Chapter I was followed by the awkwardly-named Yendorian Tales: Book I - Chapter II (1996) and Yendorian Tales: The Tyrants of Thaine (1997). Moreover, the trio followed the example of their primary inspiration (Ultima) by refusing to re-use the engine they created for the first game. Instead, they created a fusion of Ultima Underworld and Might and Magic III/IV. Both games feature far more complex inventory and character systems, including a set of 13 skills.

        

A shot from the never-released Fourth Book of Yendor.

       

SW Games announced the development of The Fourth Book of Yendor on their web site in 1999. It would apparently revolve around missing members of the Society of Wizards. The announcement promised a "fully animated smooth-scrolling world," "non-linear quests," and a "huge fantasy world to explore." A handful of screenshots suggest they took inspiration from Might and Magic VI: The Mandate of Heaven (1998). Alas, it appears the game was never finished, and SW Games went offline sometime between 2007 and 2013.

       

****

   

Previous entry in this series

   

****

   

For further reading:

 

My coverage of the games that I think most influenced Yendorian Tales: Book I: 

 

• Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny (1988)
• Ultima VI: The False Prophet (1990)  

06/21/2026