The Odyssey: Tales from the Crypt

Almost every time I enter a new room.

        

I had hoped to wrap it up in one more entry, but wow, this game is something else. It's one of the few RPGs I've ever played that really don't give you any normal battles. You've got to constantly dive into your bag of tricks to find the right combination of them to defeat each cluster of enemies and puzzles. Then, after you spend an hour figuring out how to clear a 5 x 5 room, you open a door, immediately get filled with arrows, and the entire process repeats.

   

When I started this session, I had reason to believe that I had over-stated the game's difficulty in my last entry. This is because I realized that I had missed a large introductory area. I was meant to be Level 5 when exploring the level described last time, and I was only Level 3. But even after I explored that introductory area and got up to Level 5, things really didn't get any easier. Leveling in this game really only matters for the extra 10 pounds of encumbrance that each level gets you. It might help a little in combat, but so few of the game's encounters come down to straight-up combat.

   

To back up a bit, during the game's introduction, the Seer says that the character's quest will take him through four major areas:

   

• "A dank noisome sewer, clanking with the action of ancient machinery . . . a madman hurling huge forces of thunder, cackling wildly."

• "A still older crypt, taken over by the forces of chaos."

• "A great tomb, built to house the bodies of the forgotten lovers who once lived and moved in the legends of men, Antiphos and Juliet."

• "A great cavern . . . now occupied by a presence who obeys no natural law. His name is Nok Hurthtu."

    

I thought I had been in the sewers last time, but I had prematurely gone a level lower, into the crypts. The problem, as commenter Dwayne pointed out, is that the door that goes directly from the town to the crypts was clearly meant to be unlocked from the other side, after the player has passed through the sewers. But it's unlocked from the town side at the beginning of the game. Meanwhile, I had a key in my inventory that I must have tried on the door before trying to open it. Since the door subsequently opened, I assumed the key had unlocked it and dropped the key. But that key actually went to the door to the sewers.

     

Oh, yeah, this is much more of a "sewer."

        

Before I narrate my adventures, it's worth taking a quick catalog of the "bag of tricks" I referred to above. There are two types: personal (character inventory) and navigational/environmental. Quickly:

    

Personal Assets:

 

• Melee weapons: So far, these have been daggers and a sword. They serve the same purpose that they serve in other RPGs, but sometimes the player has to expend some effort getting to a point in which he can effectively use a melee weapon against an enemy; for example, some enemies might initially be impossible to approach because of terrain or their own missile weapons.

• Missile weapons: These include throwing daggers, rocks, spears, a sling, and a bow and arrows. The bow and arrows weren't much use to me, as I burned out the two miner's helmets quickly and thus needed to carry a torch, which prevents the use of a two-handed weapon.

• Oil flasks: To throw at enemies and fill the room with fire. Oddly, the enemies have to be visible and activated for this to work.

• Potions of Invisibility: The real workhorse of the game. I use them to scout new areas, to get close to enemies that would otherwise kill me from afar, and to avoid unkillable enemies. Alas, any use of a weapon or Oil Flask dispels it. The potions also vary considerably in how long they last, from around 5 to 25 turns.

• Potion of Athletics:  Turns you into a speedster, able to run rings around enemies and dodge missile weapons in flight (basically, you get 5 turns for the enemy's one turn). Only lasts for a few rounds, though.

• Potion of Heroism. Increases attack power temporarily. 

• Wizard Eye Potion: Lets you explore the dungeon without walking there. You can view things but not pick them up or operate them. Expensive as hell. 

     

A Wizard Eye Potion shows me a secret part of the dungeon. I still don't know how to get in here.

        

• Wands: Supposedly stun enemies in combat. At first, I thought they didn't work (against me, either), but now I just think "stun" means something different in this game than in others. It's more a reduction in ability than complete paralysis. Either way, the wands don't solve as many problems as the other items on this list, so I've typically just been selling them for gold. 

• Scepter of Teleportation: Instantly teleports you back to town. Too expensive to use as a convenience, but helpful in a couple of tight situations.

• Scepter of Friendship. Turns enemies into allies. Sometimes it means they attack other enemies, sometimes not. You have to goad them a bit by attacking the other enemy in their presence or luring the other enemy to them. Dispelled by attacking the same enemy, but otherwise doesn't seem to ever wear off.

• Magic Monster Treat: Lures bestial monsters to wherever you throw it. 

        

You find a lot of these items in the dungeon, but all but the weapons can also be purchased from Mr. Jones. You just have to be careful because the game has limited money in it. You're also limited by encumbrance, of course.

     

Environmental/Navigational Assets: 

    

• The "run" command, which gives you three moves to every enemy's two movements. It's sometimes enough to dodge missiles in flight. I still find it hard to time.

• The "wait" command, which burns half a turn every time you use it. Can be useful in conjunction with "run," but again tough to time.

• The "scroll view" command, which allows you to scroll the window a bit and see things off-screen without moving the character.

• Lava, which kills most enemies as quickly as it kills you. Some enemies are so dumb they'll walk into it while trying to reach the character in a straight line.

     

Note the meat left behind by rats who tried to reach me on a direct path.

       

• Buttons, plates, and switches that open and close sections of wall, allowing the player to rearrange the environment to hide or expose enemies.

• Enemies with missile weapons, who can sometimes be tricked into shooting at each other, either by the player carefully timing his movements or the use of the Scepter of Friendship. 

• Cannons and other fixed missiles, which generally destroy even enemies that cannot be hit with normal weapons. Again, subject to effective player movement, leading enemies into the danger.

    

The great thing about this long list is that most rooms could be approached with multiple combinations of these assets. Take the opening section of the sewers. The Seer warns that the sewers are occupied by a "madman hurling huge forces," and sure enough, the moment the character steps away from the ladder, he gets blasted (and killed) with energy from an off-screen source.

     

In this particular case, the madman can apparently see invisibility, so the Potion of Invisibility does not help. The solution I used (which took a bit of trial, error, and reloading) involved tripping a series of switches to change the wall configuration in a way that hid me from the madman. I then sneaked around to his back side and engaged him in melee combat before he could use his spells. But I think I also could have reached him with a Potion of Athletics or maybe hit him with missile weapons between his shots.

   

The madman dropped a sling, a Scepter of Lordly Might (the only way in the game to level up), and three keys, all of which were consumed by doors in the remainder of the sewers. 

     

The madman's inventory.

          

One of the madman's keys led to ladders up and down. The "up" ladder brought me back to town through a door that had been locked from the other side. Once I had opened it, the only door I hadn't opened in town was the closet in Sarah's house. 

    

Moving downward, I encountered a room with a cannon in the corner, a switch on the wall, and a pressure plate in the center. A locked door led onward. An undead warrior was roaming around, but he's one of the few enemies that the character can just kill in regular combat. A skeleton (unliving) was weighing down the pressure plate. Removing the skeleton caused a wall to open the east, disgorging a fire crab, who hurls balls of fire and cannot be hit by the player at all. Meanwhile, the switch on the wall caused the cannon to start firing east at regular intervals. As you might imagine, the solution was to lure the fire crab into the path of cannon fire. Once killed, he dropped the key to the locked door.

         

The setup.

    

In the next room, I encountered a triton in a pool of water. I met several tritons this session. They seem to never run out of spears, and the spears can be sold, so it's one way to make money if you're able to keep dodging them. I killed him after a few spears, but there were more infinite weapons later. 

    

The rest of the sewers were uncharacteristically easy. A room of three banshees offered another Scepter of Lordly Might, and once I hit Level 5, the banshees were unable to touch me. Another room had specters and cannons, but I was able to kill the specters without even needing the cannons. A minotaur looked hard but was relatively simple and dropped a shield (which is no use as long as I need a torch). There was a pressure plate puzzle with no logic that I was able to discern; I just ran over them until the nearby door opened.

   

Eventually, a door opened to a hallway with a bunch of treasure—several potions, wands, extra weapons, and so forth. I was in the middle of picking them up when I realized I had actually wandered into my own item stash via a previously-locked door. Thus, the sewers were over.

    

Wow! Look at all this treas- . . . wait.

     

From this point, the game was completely linear. The crypt, much of which I had already explored, simply offered one challenging room after another. I had described the next one last time: four goblins arrayed on both sides of a room filled with water. If I showed my face at all, I got turned into a pincushion. Some experimentation with the Potion of Invisibility showed me that if I threw a spear onto the pressure plate on the far side of the water, it opened a path to the southern door. The door was locked, though, and I suspected one of the goblins had the key.

     

Activating the pressure plate without exposing myself to the goblins.

      

I suspect I could have beaten this room with a Potion of Athletics, running fast enough to avoid the arrows, which would have hit the goblins on the other side. Instead, I used two Potions of Invisibility to sneak up to the nearest goblins on each side and charmed them both with the Scepter of Friendship. Once I turned visible, the goblins killed each other, leaving me to kill the last one.

     

Highlights from the next rooms:

          

All of the narration below takes place in this area.

      

• A room with a line of six pressure plates alongside a lake of lava. I had to throw rocks onto the plates in a precise order to create a path across the lava. A scroll I found previously indicated that the sphinx knew the order, and inspecting the sphinx allowed me to hear him mumbling it. 

        

I don't think the sign was necessary.

      

• A very large room with a river running through it. In the far corner, an invisible "terrible unseen force" fired cannonballs at me (don't ask me how; there was no cannon). Rats swarmed the room and attacked when they could get near me. I was able to run and dodge my way to the unseen force and kill it, ending the cannonballs, but it turns out that rats never stop spawning in this room. Since I had to pass through here frequently (going back and forth to the surface to restock on torches), I was always having to fight rats. The good news is that they're a persistent source of food. There was a closet in this room, the entrance obscured by cobwebs, and I didn't discover it until the next session. 

• The next room was an enormous 22 x 18 space with four tombs in it. I found a key (and two gold coins) in the northwest tomb; the key opened the northeast tomb, where an invincible tomb guardian killed me in one hit. I had to use a Potion of Invisibility to get past him and find the key to the southeast tomb, then close the door behind me to keep the guardian trapped in the tomb. A key in the southeast tomb opened the way onward. I never found a key to the southwest tomb.

     

The only screenshot I took of this room was entering it. Note the description.

       

• The level's southeast room was presented as the shore of an underground sea. A ship was moored here, a gangplank extending to the shore, but there was a locked door at the end of the gangplank. Meanwhile, two tritons hovered in the waters around the gangplank and drilled spears into my chest the moment I entered the room. Killing them again involved the Potion of Invisibility/Scepter of Friendship combination, which I started to worry I was over-relying on.

• Meanwhile, the ship was occupied by none other than Xenophos, husband of Sarah, hero of the Karthian Wars. He was wandering the ship, but he wouldn't let me aboard, so I had to talk to him from several spaces away. He explained that he was such an awesome naval captain that Neptune himself became jealous of Xenophos's command of the seas. The sea god therefore sucked Xenophos's ship into the underworld. All of Xenophos's crew died trying to escape. When reminded of his wife, Xenophos thought of her fondly but said: "We are too old now. What use could we have for each other? After all these years." However, he gave me a key to the closet in Sarah's house and asked me to retrieve some magic armor he left there. When I went back to the house, I had no opportunity to tell Sarah that I'd met her husband, at least not with any keyword I could think of.

      

Xenophos was a bit paranoid.

        

• Xenophos's armor weighed 50 pounds—my exact carrying capacity. I'm sure that wasn't a coincidence. I had to drop everything and walk all the way back through the dungeon to Xenophos's ship, fighting rats with my hands, in the pitch black. Thankfully, I had made a map. When I got there, I couldn't talk to him to tell him that I had the armor because I couldn't see him; you can't talk to someone you cannot see. I thus had to drop the armor on the gangplank, walk back to the town, grab my other stuff (including torches), and walk back to Xenophos's ship again. Very annoying. Then Xenophos wouldn't recognize his armor on the ground, but I couldn't pick it up without dropping the torch. Eventually, I realized I had to begin conversation with Xenophos while holding the torch, then, while conversation was still active, drop the torch and pick up the armor. He took it at last and gave me the key to his ship. It had a bow, arrows, a Potion of Athletics, and the key to get out of this area.

     

Handing Xenophos his armor in the dark.

     

• The next room had a large area completely encircled by a force field, except for a single entrance square, but that square was lava. In fact, the center of the force field area had a maze of lava. There was no way I could survive walking on it. Fortunately, I knew how to solve this because earlier in the crypt, I'd found a Potion of Wizard Eye surrounded by the same sort of force field. It was next to a sign that said, "Save this potion for your next trial by lighting and fire." The Wizard Eye allowed me to follow the maze without stepping into it, all the way to a sign that read: "The key is 'Umbilical.'" I needed this password to get past a ghost guarding the exit to this room. Unfortunately, should you play this game for yourself, knowing that won't help you. This isn't an answer that you type in, and the character only speaks it if he's seen it.

     

The end of the maze. The Wizard Eye can go through walls but not force fields.

      

• Next room: A sign in the northeast corner that read: "I am one of the four brothers. Every room has a family like ours. Each brother has two half-brothers and one step-brother. Find my step-brother." I still don't understand what it was saying. The room did have four demons in it, all of whom nailed me with throwing daggers when I entered. They were only partly visible, blinking in and out of existence, and I soon realized that they couldn't be hit by any weapons. What I had to do was run through the room and get them to hit each other with their knives until three of them were dead. When that happened, the fourth stopped throwing daggers, maybe because he ran out. I had to do this several times because there were two locked doors leading out of the room, and two of the demons had keys. I had to ensure that the right demons were killed.

          

Tricking the demons into throwing their knives at each other.

       

Miscellaneous notes:

   

• Different torches have both different durations and different light levels. 

• I really like the detailed descriptions that you get when looking at an enemy or NPC. 

     

The game's description of a giant bat.

       

• I'm pretty sure the crypt is going to turn out to be 60 x 60 tiles. I don't think the sewers were bigger than 20 x 20.

• In the account above, I elided frequent trips back to the surface to restock on torches and food. The problem is that Mr. Jones only sells one torch and two pieces of meat per day, so you can't "stock up" unless you're willing to rest for a week or so, doing nothing but visit the store every day. 

      

In general, I'm enjoying the game a lot—albeit mostly for things that have nothing to do with its questionable RPG status. It is a little bit tiresome to enter each room and immediately get killed, then have to go through the same process of using a Potion of Invisibility to scout the room and work out a plan. But it sure is satisfying to solve each room and open the next door.  

     

Time so far: 15 hours
   

****

   

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08/05/2026