Game 580: Al-Qadim: The Genie's Curse (1994)

I'm going to go with the usual way of representing the game, but the opening screens separate the series title and game title, and the manual refers to it as Genie's Curse (without the definite article).

         

Al-Qadim: The Genie's Curse

United States 

Cyberlore Studios (developer), Strategic Simulations, Inc. (publisher) 

Released 1994 for DOS

Date Started: 23 June 2026

     

As we've previously covered, Strategic Simulations' license to publish D&D content was in its waning months in 1994. TSR was almost frantically trying to squeeze everything they could out of the license. Having exhausted its own development bandwidth with Eye of the Beholder III (1993) and the two Dark Sun titles (1993 and 1994), they happily took proposals from other developers who agreed to publish through SSI. Many of these proposals resulted in games for niche campaign settings, such as Spelljammer (1992), Warriors of the Eternal Sun (1992), and the forthcoming Ravenloft (1994). Into this milieu came a new developer, Cyberlore Studios. It was formed by Lester Humphreys, Herb Perez, and Ken Grey, the first two of whom had worked on The Dark Queen of Krynn (1992) for MicroMagic. They began working on Al-Qadim (whose tabletop manual had just been published) almost immediately. I haven't been able to find any information about where the project originated, but the speed at which they got set up and running suggests to me that SSI already knew they wanted the game and essentially funded the new studio.

     

The game title.

         

"Three distinct visions of Arabia have helped give shape" to the Al-Qadim campaign setting, according to its 1992 guide: (1) the historical Arabia, "home of great warriors, explorers, and traders, as well as great knowledge and civilization"; (2) the mythology and stories of these people, "the world of genies and ghuls"; and (3) the "Araby" of Hollywood, reflected in films from The Thief of Bagdad (1940) to Sinbad's Shazaam! (1991). Scheherazade may go back 1,300 years, but the image you have of her has more to do with Maria Montez than any Arabian author. TSR had a bit of luck releasing the Al-Qadim tabletop materials in the same year as Disney's Aladdin (1992).

      

The source manual.

                  

Al-Qadim ("the ancient") was a brief lark for TSR, never intended to exist for more than a few publications—probably a good thing given its phonetic similarity to "Al-Qaeda," which was about to become a big part of most Americans' vocabularies. Although the land of the setting, Zakhara, is nominally set in the Forgotten Realms (somewhere south of Faerûn), it could be plugged into any campaign setting where some Arabian flair was needed. My understanding is that it was the first campaign setting to offer character "kits," and that some of its monsters and rules live on in fifth-edition D&D. Those more experienced in tabletop D&D will certainly be able to contribute more.

        

In some ways, Zakharan society represents an idealized American model rather than anything historically Arabian. Zakhara is such a melting pot that even orcs, goblins, and other monster races are integrated with the rest of the civilization. There are no racial enmities (although, the book notes, elves do seem to prefer other elves). There is a strong hereditary caste system, with "social status" measured on a scale of 1 to 20 along with standard D&D attributes, but adventurous types are explicitly given a certain social mobility.

      

The manual's depiction of a meeting between a Dao djinni and an efreeti.

         

The "kit" system—a combination of class, alignment, proficiencies, magical abilities, and special skills—are a particularly interesting addition. They had been introduced in The Complete Fighter's Handbook (1989) and continued in the other class-based handbooks of the late 1980s and early 1990s. This was the first time they were baked into a campaign. They include such evocative titles as "corsair" (sea-based, dual-wielding fighters with some thief skills but no heavy armor), "sha'ir" (mages who specialize in summoning genies), "barbers" (rogues specializing in identification, language, and medicine), and "mystics" (chaotic nomad priests who can use edged weapons and who receive their spells through revelation rather than divine gift). There are new proficiencies for characters, including begging, grooming, camel-riding, and genie lore. Heavy armor exists, but given the heat of the setting, those who wear it suffer significant penalties. Hydration is carefully tracked. 

   

"Genies" are not specific creatures but rather a class of creatures, from elemental familiars to powerful efreet. (To forestall wasting time in the comments, these entries are going to follow the D&D convention of djinni and efreeti for the singular and djinn and efreet for the plural, regardless of what actual Arabic does.) They can be summoned and provide benefits to their summoners, which only at the highest levels include wishes. The game's backstory (as the title suggests) involves these beings. A mysterious force has been freeing genies from the magic that binds them to human servants, but a seer who serves one of the genies has predicted that this same mysterious force will yoke the genies for itself. I guess the titular "curse" is the ability for the genies to escape their former masters, although the genies themselves see it as a "blessing."

            

A mermaid later explains it to me.

        

An arrogant efreeti named Mirza Gubishbuskin used to serve a sha'ir named Farid al-Mutan, a resident of Sorcerer's Isle. Mirza unexpectedly found himself freed from servitude in the middle of an invasion. He refused to help the island, and it was sacked by ogres, ettins, and other monsters. The seer has predicted that a son of the protector of Sorcerer's Isle, Al-Hazrad, will be the key to defeating the mysterious force and returning the genies to bondage, but it is not clear that all genies see that outcome as preferable.

    

The son, of course, is the player character. He starts the game not as an inexperienced youth but rather as a Level 2 corsair, having already seen plenty of adventure serving the Master Corsair Sinbar. He's even wooed Kara, a caliph's daughter, and plans to marry her.

     

The character's starting statistics. One more goblin, and he's Level 3.

       

Character creation is thus not much; the player gets to give the kid a name (Sunduq in my case) and choose a difficulty level. The character has attributes, but they're the same for every new game: 18(74) strength, 17 dexterity, 16 constitution, 14 intelligence, 15 wisdom, 14 charisma, 3900 experience points, 22 hit points.

     

The strength statistic seems justified.

        

Gameplay begins in Sinbar's palace, where he's complimenting Sunduq on his accomplishments, noting that only Sunduq's brother, Tarik, "has ever shown your skill and bravery." Sinbar regrettably dismisses Sunduq from his service: "You must put aside thoughts of adventuring and prepare for your wedding to the Caliph's beautiful daughter, Kara." All Sunduq has to do is negotiate a maze to a teleporter that will take him home to Zaratan on Sorcerer's Isle.

   

Sunduq gets a chance to talk with Sinbar a bit; the game features full-sentence dialogue options. (SSI introduced them in the previous year's Dark Sun: Shattered Lands.) In them, we learn that the seer referenced in the back story, Khatarina, is Sinbar's daughter. "She said she had a vision of you as a great hero," he tells Sunduq before leading him to the maze.

      

"Wait. I meant that the other way around."

       

Controls are simple; Al-Qadim is more of an action game than an RPG. Everything can be done with the mouse; right-clicking to move in the direction of the screen cursor, left-clicking to swing the character's weapon or initiate dialogue (I guess the game figures out which you want to do based on who you're next to). The numberpad and its ENTER key can be used instead. I'm not sure which I find easier yet.

    

The graphics are not a million miles removed from Dark Sun, if Dark Sun featured only one character and the icons were a bit larger.  

    

Entering Sinbar's maze.

     

The "maze" turns out to be less a maze and more an obstacle course intended to teach the controls. In order, the character faces:

     

• A force field that comes from behind and teleports you back to the beginning if you linger too long. 

• Rocks protruding into the hallway that the character must navigate around.

• Spikes protruding from the ground that he must navigate around.

• Spikes that go up and down, requiring him to time crossing them.

      

Sunduq gets hit in an unfortunate place.

        

• Fireballs shooting from a hole in the corridor.

• Pressure plates that activate jets of flame from the floor.

• Jets of flame in a row that activate in sequence.

• Spikes that shoot up from the floor in the character's path. There's no way to predict them, so you just have to react fast and not walk into them.

• Spikes blocking the corridor that have to be lowered by choosing the right pressure plate.

• Large jars blocking the path that must be smashed. 

       

I wasn't fast enough.

         

• Wandering balls of flame that must be avoided.

• Traps in the floor that must be avoided.

• Circular saw blades running back and forth along the corridor. They must be timed and avoided.  

      

The penitent man shall pass.

         

• A corridor where you can pick up a lot of gold, but if you do, you can't avoid the teleportation field and you lose the gold. 

• A pit that must be crossed by activating invisible tiles.

• A bunch of jars that must be flown over by finding a lever that temporarily turns you into a bird. 

     

I avoid a lot of smashing.

         

• Spikes coming out of the floor.

• Chasms opening unpredictably in the middle of the corridor.

• Rolling rocks. 

• Much faster saw blades, much closer together. I couldn't even begin to avoid them.

     

Getting killed by these obstacles results in a message that I die "with dishonor," which seems a bit harsh. In any event, I eventually make it through to a large treasure chest. Sinbar's voice congratulates me; I earn 450 experience points, which gets me to Level 3; and I get Oil of Water Elemental Invulnerability, Oil of Air Elemental Invulnerability, and 200 gold pieces. 

     

I have to look up who this "Loregiver" is.

          

A teleporter whisks me home to Sorcerer's Isle, on a sandy beach outside the city. My sister, Aliya, meets me and escorts me through the guarded gates to a giant cistern. My father, standing next to it, greets me warmly, and I learn that he sent me the sword I carry. Aliya says she has to practice her magic, but I should visit her in her house. Finally, I can play.  

     

I've been using it to smash jars.

          

The manual includes a helpful map of Zaratan and its various buildings. I explore the town and talk to NPCs, including various members of my family. In most interactions, I have a humble and respectful option, a proud and haughty option, and a mercenary option. I'm not sure how much those options matter. The few times that I saved and tried every option, I got different NPC responses but ended up in the same place. For instance, when the Qadi asks me to deliver a peace treaty, I can say:

    

• "Yes. I will do your bidding, wise Qadi."
• "I am a Corsair, not an errand boy!"
• "The Al-Hazrads will never make peace with the Wassabs!"

      

Dialogue options with my neighbor. The middle version of Sunduq really wants people to know that he's a Corsair.

        

The Qadi has a negative reaction to the second two, but I still end up with the treaty in my pocket, awaiting signatures. 

      

Everyone's talking about my forthcoming wedding. My brother, Tarik, is on the way home from his work as a merchant marine. My bride-to-be has written me a love note.

        

The game's depiction of Zaratan, the capital city of Sorcerer's Isle.

         

It's clear from my dialogue that my family's business is in the sea trade. We own a captive genie named Muliban and use him to protect the city but also to create fair weather for our trading vessels. We have an ongoing rivalry with the Wassab family, which thinks our use of the genie gives us an unfair advantage. The town Qadi (the magistrate) is concerned that our family feud will lead to violence in the streets, and he wants both families to sign a treaty to behave honorably. 

              

Thanks, Qadi! I swear by the nose of Bozo the Clown you haven't aged a day!

         

Other findings:

   

• In further conversation with my father, I learn that my sword is called the Sword of Honor. It will grow more powerful if I can find a "special shard of the Moonstone." He also tells me our neighbor Babazar's daughter is terribly ill. Tarik, my brother, isn't here yet but is on his way for the wedding.

• The inn is run by a confused man who mistakes me for my brother and thinks I'm marrying the Caliph's mother. 

• One of the inn's residents heard that there is a fabulous treasure on a nearby reef. He talks himself out of trying to claim it himself.

    

Don't let me discourage you.

         

• Another guest, Zultan, says he came to the city to study my family's genie. I tell him the genie is not an insect to be studied, and he gets all offended.

• The weapon master asks me to deal with some monsters west of town. He also agrees to spar with me, so I finally get a sense of the game's combat, which seems to consist of the opponents standing face to face and slashing at each other. The manual mentions sneaking, using missile weapons, dodging, and using spells, so I'll explore those eventually. 

          

This turned out not to be a great use of my health points.

         

• At the temple, I generously give 50 gold pieces and get 180 experience points. I try it again with 10 but get no further experience.

• I wander into a house that turns out to be the Wassabs' house. Their son, Mamoon, tries to attack me, but his father stops him. The father won't sign the treaty unless my father signs it first.

      

Given how long it took me to get through the obstacle course, that might be a fair hit.

        

• I can hit ENTER when next to some furniture and baskets, but I'm spared the ethical dilemma of looting them by the fact that none of them have anything of value.

      

Food is not a requirement in this game.

         

• My sister gives me a Sling of Seeking, "which can be increased by finding the correct Shards of the Moonstone." Aliya has been accepted by Zaratan's Sorcery Guild. Its founder, the efreeti's owner from the backstory, fled town after his genie disobeyed him. "He hides in that strange tower to the northwest of town."

• A poor resident asks me for 30 gold to help fix his house. I give it to him and get another 180 experience points.

      

This might be a good time to remind readers about Patreon.

         

• Another guy tells me I borrowed 5 gold from him before going off to be a corsair. I return it and get 90 more experience points. 

• A guy tells me that he's going to "turn into a tiger, say the magic words, and turn back again!" Then he turns into a tiger and stays that way.

      

I knew there was a problem with your plan.

        

• There's a potion shop where healing potions go for 50 gold each. I've spent so much money by now that I don't want to spend any more here. 

• At Babazar's house, he says that his daughter is sick and needs herbs that grow "wild in the oasis." Monsters there have driven everyone back. Again, I have some role-playing options. I say I'll do it. He says to ignore the red and blue berries and get the purple berries. He also gives me a Sunfire Shard. From the manual, shards are like wands, with limited uses. I don't think this type of shard is the same thing as the Shards of the Moonstone. 

      

I hate to break it to you, Babazar, but your daughter has a 67% chance of dying.

       

• At my aunt's house, she's standing on a chair, avoiding an infestation of frogs caused by a spell gone wrong. She gives me a wedding present of 10 gems and 100 gold pieces.

• At the Sorcerers' Guild, I learn how to walk through secret walls. A sorceress asks me to smash a bunch of urns so she can practice magicking them back together. 

          

You can't see me because I'm in the middle of this wall.

        

I head outside to check out the monsters and to try to find the berries, noting with some trepidation that my health never recovered after the fight with the weapon master. I thought it might regenerate slowly on its own. Not only does it not do that, but there is also no way to restore health by sleeping, whether at home or in camp. It looks like I'll need to pay for those potions at some point.

 

As I head west, I am attacked by what the manual calls werehyenas, miniature air elementals, and at least one giant boar. "Miniature" elementals and some other creatures (e.g., desert cyclops, acid blob, giant Zakharan rat) were created specifically for this game and have full-page Monster Manual-like descriptions in case the player "would like to incorporate them into your own campaign."

      

I'm not sure that the world needed these.

         

There are also plants that shoot missiles at me, but it doesn't seem that I can kill or even engage them. Similarly, there are trees with beehives that disgorge swarms of bees if I get too close. 

       

Some bastard plant nails me for no reason.

      

What follows could be characterized as a "Bacchanalia of Reloading." It takes me a long time to get used to the combat system, and even then I'm not sure that I really have it. Attacking in melee range with the sword usually involves an unavoidable hit point loss unless I dance around a lot, and my fingers haven't gotten that agile yet. (I can't decide at this point whether I have an easier time with the keypad or mouse.) The sling can theoretically shoot enemies from afar, but it has a bit of a wind-up period in which they can close the distance, especially if I face multiple foes. The Sunfire Shard will kill a lot of enemies at once, but only once, and it has to be carefully aimed.

     

This seems like a lot to handle.

            

Obstacles help, and sometimes enemies will just mysteriously stop in their tracks, giving me a chance to nail a few of them with the sling until they come to their senses. If I can get the timing exactly right on melee attacks, I can sometimes keep them at bay. (This seems to work better on the horizontal than the vertical.) Even though the character can move diagonally, he cannot face diagonally, so I have to make sure I'm attacking along straight lines.

     

I keep having this very annoying problem where I need to turn around to face an enemy, but the game insists on making the character walk backwards. It can be fatal when it happens, and I can't find anything in the manual or my experimentation with the controls that makes a solid difference between the two types of movement. The game just seems to pick randomly.

           

What, exactly, do I have to do to face east?

         

It turns out that there's a particularly wussy way to survive: Mince along, firing sling bullets every few steps. When the bullet goes off at an angle, that means it's detected something. Keep firing and hope to destroy the enemy off-screen. 

      

The whole experience reminds me (not pleasantly) of a console action RPG or action game like Deadly Towers or The Legend of Zelda. What makes Al-Qadim technically an action RPG and not an action game is the use of character attributes and levels to determine success in combat, but the attributes are pre-determined. It appears that the only thing the player has any agency over, when it comes to the character, is how many of these side-quests to do, which I guess might contribute an extra level or two here or there.

          

The bards singing of my quest doesn't sound bad . . .

             

(I honestly wonder if the attributes are even "real." Since every character starts with the same attributes, are they even part of any of the game's formulas? Could I hex-edit them to improve my success? Or are they just for show?)

   

Here's a phenomenon for which I think there ought to be a term, but for which I'm not going to coin one until I get some confirmation that other people think the same way. It's complex, but it goes something like this: You're playing a game in which healing is rare or expensive. You're motivated to save after every success. You're also motivated to reload not only when you die, but when you've taken a significant-but-unnecessary loss of hit points. What's "significant?" Roughly half your hit point total before taking the damage. If the character is fresh, you might accept a 50% loss as the cost of doing business with a particularly hard foe. After that, it's 25% (or 50% of the remainder). Then 12.5% Then 6.25%—okay, you're not actually calculating to two decimal places, but you get the idea.

      

What?! What did I do that was dishonorable? I got eaten by a pack of jackals!

          

Knowing that this is going to happen means that, paradoxically, there's no point in bringing the character to maximum health. Eventually, you're going to get to the point where you're reloading with practically every hit anyway. Might as well live on the edge and use it as an excuse to master the combat system. So that's what I did—which is why the health bar in the screenshots hardly budges. Only I never really "mastered" it. I just reloaded a lot.

        

I found the oasis with the berry plants. The game solved my colorblindness issue by not even letting me pick the red and blue berries. When I went to pick the purple ones, a mermaid appeared and welcomed me to the Oasis  of the Pahari. She asked if I was a man of honor, and I said yes. She said I could heal myself as often as I liked in the oasis if I did her a favor: Take a message to the Qadi of Zaratan that the mermaid's master, Farid (from the backstory, now living in exile in a tower) wants to speak about the monsters infesting the oasis. She went on to say that my family's genie, Muliban, "has rid the oasis of monsters many times, but somehow they return." She further asked that I not tell anyone else of her existence, lest "greedy men" try to capture her for their own profit.

       

How about you let me heal first, then take your message?

      

Having a free place to heal sounds like the solution to a lot of problems, so I prepare to head back to town even though I haven't killed all the monsters yet. At this point, I run into a problem where the game freezes every time I try to walk off the screen and back to town. So I guess I'll wrap up while I try to solve that problem.

   

So far, I like the setting and plot. The NPCs are fun and remind me pleasantly of those in the Quest for Glory games, while the early experience exploring the city feels a bit like Conan the Cimmerian (1991), but both impressions might have more to do with the themes of the setting than any actual influence. I am not a fan of the controls, so far, and I suspect the RPG elements are going to turn out to be somewhat illusory.

   

Time so far: 3 hours (this included a lot of reloading in the oasis); I probably only made an hour of real progress).

   

****

   

Next entry in this series 

        

For further reading:

   

• My index of games played by lineage has all other Dungeons & Dragons titles.
• The Internet Archive has the Al-Qadim: Arabian Adventures source book. 

07/08/2026  

Game 546: Warriors of Legend (1993)

Fortunately, the Hyborian Age is too early for them to have been knights.

       

Warriors of Legend

United States

Synergistic Software (developer); Virgin Games (publisher)

Released 1993 for DOS

Date Started: 27 March 2025 

     

We reach the end of an era with Warriors of Legend. It isn't the last Synergistic game, nor the last game designed by Robert Clardy, but it is the last RPG using the "World Builder" engine, which debuted in 1988 with War in Middle Earth and featured in Spirit of Excalibur (1990), Vengeance of Excalibur (1991), and Conan: The Cimmerian (1991). I haven't always liked it, but it's offered something different than the typical Wizardry, Ultima, or Dungeon Master clone. 

    

It takes place in a kingdom called Lemuria, which enjoyed peace for centuries, until it was visited by sorcerers from across the desert in Lortai, "a fabled realm of sorcery and mystery." The visitors were at first welcomed for their exotic nature, strange tales, and "feats of magic," but it soon became clear that they were up to something insidious. Leaders of Lemuria disappeared mysteriously or changed their personalities overnight, "killing and pillaging in their own kingdoms." Before long, the Black Circle, Lortai's "coven of sorcerers," had completely seized power. King Osric the Great learned that the Circle planned to break an ancient artifact called the Chaos Key, opening a gateway between Lemuria and the Realm of Chaos.

    

The kingdom was later known as Madagascar.

    

Osric put out a call for heroes, but only four showed up. They were immediately ambushed by agents of Moc Madure, the Dragon Lord, and taken to Madure's fortress. They were about to be executed when one of them, Brand, broke his bonds, and freed the others. They escaped and returned to Osric's capital at Illandria. Here, the game begins.

       

They can head to New Verdigris once they're done here.

    

It's not a bad backstory, though somewhat derivative, and I'm not sure why the capture and escape part were necessary since, functionally, the heroes end up where they started. The proper names (if not their full bios) are mostly drawn from Robert Howard's Conan stories, suggesting that Warriors is meant to exist in the same sort of Hyborian-age setting as Conan. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if Warriors had started as a sequel to Conan before Synergistic or Virgin lost the license.

 

The game begins with a character creation, or at least character editing, process. The default characters are named Brand, Ataris, Keena, and Astrovir, but the player can re-name them. Each has values from 0-20 in strength, wisdom, intelligence, agility, and stealth. Immediately, there are some issues. The manual says that the game offers five character classes: fighter, wizard, thief, archer, and cleric. Each of these classes has a prime attribute that determines the maximum level the character can achieve. Fighters are governed by strength, thieves by stealth, archers by agility, wizards by intelligence, and clerics by wisdom.

     

The four characters.

    

So far, so good. But the character sheet doesn't otherwise identify a specific class for each character. Instead, the words "Combat," "Clerical," "Sorcery," "Archery," and "Thieving" appear on the right-hand side of the sheet. These are similar but not identical to the supposed five classes. How am I supposed to tell what class each character is? None of the words are highlighted or marked. Clicking on them does nothing. I guess the character is whatever class has the highest attribute? The manual notes that none of the characters is a cleric, but clerical abilities "can be utilized by any of them with high wisdom." But Astrovir has equally high values in intelligence and wisdom. Is he a wizard or cleric? And none of the characters is highest in agility; does that mean I have no archer? What if I adjust the default values, which the game lets you do? Am I changing the character's class? The manual is obtuse about these things, so I just shrugged and went with the default party, figuring I'll at least explore a bit. 

  

The character creation screen.

     

Gameplay begins on an overworld map seen from a side view. The party can choose to go to the city of Illandria, some ruins, the palace, Mt. Gunderbad, and a pyramid. Clicking any of these icons transitions the interface to the classic "studio" perspective used by the World Builder engine, in which the characters seem to be on a stage with no fourth wall. The first time the player visits the map screen, the game automatically selects the city of Illandria and takes the party there, so I guess that's a bit of a hint.

    

The outdoor map.

    

In "studio" view, the exploration window occupies the top two-thirds of the screen. The bottom third has the party members' names, inventories, and character sheets. The selected party member automatically acts as the lead when you move, and the rest follow. You can move with arrow keys or the numberpad, but most interaction is done with the mouse, with only a few keyboard backups.

  

Before I turn it off, I should note that there's some semi-tonal "Arabian"-sounding music, more thematic than melodic, over both the main title and the exploration window. It's credited to Christopher Barker, who also did Conan and the two Excalibur games. It's appropriate to the setting. Sound effects are otherwise relatively sparse, mostly limited to clangs and screams during combat.

      

Entering the city through the southern gate.

    

As we begin to explore the city, we bump into NPCs, and they begin talking to us. Some of them offer some light dialogue options. A few examples:

   

• An NPC groans about how he has to carry a sack around all the time and can't stop or put it down. "It's like there's some strange force governing my every action." Funny, but it's a little too early in the genre to pretend that NPCs are self-aware. He suggests I talk to Ulg, the crippled sage, and gives me directions to his home.

• An old man says, "Greetings, kindred spirit." This annoys the party for some reason.

     

Why are all the responses so rude?

      

• A woman carrying buckets compliments our appearance and suggests we visit her in the Orc's Nest some night.

• A woman asks for "alms for the poor." We give her a gold piece, and she recommends we visit Sahhar the Seer near King Osric's Palace. 

• An old man named Crazy Eddy plays a variety of word games with us. First, he asks us a question with all the words in reverse order. We have to respond the same way. Then he puts all his words in alphabetical order, then anagrams them. At the end, he says that if we ever defeat a dragon, we should be careful to search the area before leaving.

    

He spoke to us backwards, so our answer has to be backwards.

   

• A crotchety old woman says that the passage to Moc Madure's lair is through the great mountain to the north.

      

I don't know if any of the dialogue options are different with different characters selected as the leader. They don't seem to vary.

We also start wandering into buildings, eager for a place that might sell supplies. We started the game with 1000 gold pieces but no weapons or armor. Key buildings aren't marked, so we have to try all of them. We find:

    

• A temple with a priestess who performs "mana restoration." We don't need it yet.

• A residence with a woman who's plainly terrified of us.

     

I guess that's a sensible reaction to four warriors bursting through your door.

    

• An inn where we can sleep for 10 gold.

• A residence where a man praises us for going after Moc Madure. He tells us that Moc is "more lizard than man" and recommends that we don't try to reason with him.

• A merchant! He sells steel helms for 20 gold, steel mail for 50 gold, steel shields for 30 gold, and leather versions of those things for 10, 30, and 20. I do some experimenting, and it doesn't seem that the non-warrior characters have any trouble equipping an all-steel kit, so I just buy that for all of them. The interface for buying and selling is a little cumbersome.

    

Keena's kit when we're done. There are spaces for a helm, shield, weapon, armor, boots, necklace, four rings, and whatever the thing in the lower right is.

    

In the next house that I wander into, some guy starts attacking me with a sword. The game switches to its combat interface, which I don't have time to figure out before he kills Keena, and wow do the party members howl when they die.

    

The party members apparently don't know how to fight with their fists.

     

The manual doesn't have a lot to offer on combat, just that you should be able to left-click for a single attack and right-click for continuous attacks. Since no clicking works, I decide that the game won't let us attack without weapons, which turns out to be true. I abandon my previous exploration pattern and start hunting for some place that will sell us weapons.

   

Around this time, I start experiencing another problem: the game won't save. The way it's supposed to work is that you click the "Save" icon, then click one of three save slots, then type a name, then hit ENTER. This works maybe once or twice with every new game, but inevitably I click in the box and it won't let me type anything but spaces, ENTER doesn't work, and there's no way to escape or get out of the box. I'm forced to quit the emulator and reload, losing whatever progress I made in the meantime. It happens so often that I can barely make any progress in the game. I try several DOSBox configurations and several versions of the game with no effect. (No one online seems to have mentioned the problem, but there is very little about the game online at all.) Finally, I re-install a DOSBox version that allows save states, and the rest of this session is dependent on those. I know from experience that they will eventually fail, so I don't know how far I'll be able to get. Suggestions are welcome.

     

There is no way off this screen.

     

I find a general goods store (Timur's Fine Junk), where I buy a lockpick set, some boots, and a couple of empty potion bottles. The merchant also sells knives, but that's not a solution to my weapon problem, as the game regards them as throwing weapons. 

     

The store interface.

     

I'm unable to find a weapons shop, but after a while, I realize that from the southern gate where you enter the city, you can run around the perimeter of the city's walls to three other entrances. 

    

An alternate way into the city.

    

It still takes me a while. The city is chaotic and hard to navigate, and I find myself wishing the game had come with a city map, like Conan did. I pop into places long enough to confirm they're not stores and then leave, ignoring NPCs and fleeing combats. I do find a pawn shop selling Thor's Hammer, but it costs more gold than I have for even one of them. The merchant in Tughril's Armory is maddeningly labeled "weaponer" but only has armor to sell. I ignore numerous shops of other types: potions, scrolls, amulets, inns, pubs. This city is big. I like that, but it shouldn't be this hard to find starting weapons.

      

It's not always easy to tell where you can walk.

    

Finally, I wander into a place called Momo's Weapons. His inventory is a bit unbalanced: he has maces for 30 gold, +3 swords for 725 gold, +4 swords for 850 gold, and +4 bows for 250 gold. No matter—at least he has the maces. I buy four of them, taking us down to 200 gold pieces, and finally settle in for exploring the rest of the city, starting with a return to the south entrance and that first battle.

     

Three very expensive items and a common one.

      

Combat works as advertised: you left-click for one attack and right-click for continuous attacks. Spells will come later, when I find scrolls and ingredients. It takes me a couple of "reloads" (restoring save states) to defeat this guy. On his body, I find a healing potion, a magic potion, and a four-leaf clover.

   

Indoor areas often reward you for clicking on pieces of furniture, tapestries, or other objects. Here, I get 9 carrots (I guess these are also spell reagents) by clicking on a tapestry and 5 bones for clicking on a bookcase. 

   

There are things hidden in the plants to the left.

      

So I guess it goes without saying that this is the sort of game where if you get attacked while burglarizing a private home, you retaliate with deadly force, and you loot anything that you can loot. Conan was like that, anyway. I don't know enough yet to determine whether it's possible to play this game virtuously.

     

A lot of doors have to be picked.

     

I finish this session by exploring the rest of the district accessible from the southern gate. In addition to what I've already described:

   

• An old man on the street says that he once had a sword made by Momo, and he gives us directions to Momo's Weapons. Goddamn it.

     

Where were you an hour ago?

     

• Keena picks the lock of a residence where we find a healing potion and a suit of leather armor.

• A guardroom where a guard, while relating a story about a thief they recently caught with a bunch of keys, instills in us the importance of finding keys to unlock some doors.

• A residence where a guy named Zamander claims to know our father. "We fought together in the Baythan Wars." He says this to all of us, so I guess we're siblings. He tells us that the sections of town have names, though he only tells us three: the Thieves' Quarter on the west, the Residential Section in the middle, and the Merchants' Quarter to the east. "Unless you're a good fighter, the easiest way to get from one to the other is to leave the city [and] go around." I'm not sure what being a good fighter has to do with it. He also tells us what to expect out in the world: The Black Witch is in the ruins by the lake; Khalimad is in the White Palace; and Moc Madure lives in the volcano.

      

Zamander reminds us about the main quest.

    

• In a residence, a man named Yuga tells us that there's a band of barbarians in town fighting the Black Circle. "They'd make pudding out of the likes of you."

• In a residence, a woman named Abaton offers harp lessons and offers to sell us a harp for 100 gold, although I can't find any mechanism to take her up on it. (The dialogue only says, "Maybe I'll pay.") We find 8 serpent eye potions (reagents) on her bookshelf, plus one of those Thor Hammers. It does 30 damage against the 6 done by the mace, so I guess that's better.

     

She also appears to be dancing.

   

• In a vacant house, we have another fight with a swordsman. He leaves a serpent's eye potion and a rat tail.

• And another battle in the next residence. He leaves a +1 mace, a knife, and some berries, and his house has some more reagents. 

      

Post-combat looting.

    

• Haroun's Lotions and Potions offers healing, mana, cure poison, and resurrection potions.

• In a residence, what appears to be a nude woman lying on a bed complains that she asked "Meethed" to procure 10 men for her and they're supposed to be clean, "and NOT dressed like clowns." 

• A man named Yarra complains about his lack of fortune lately. He has a potted plant that yields a Mana Ring.

    

To be fair, I did rob him.

     

The dialogue options in these encounters are a little unsatisfying, allowing neither any role-playing nor the ability to have the character speak in a consistent voice. For instance, there's a guard who warns us not to speak to the guy in shackles (actually, a pillory) nearby. "He's a thief." The responses are:

   

• "Really, that guy's a thief?" This elicits an amusing story about how the guards caught him poking around the king's harem "with a big, stupid grin on his face." The concubines were "all passed out, mumbling 'no more . . . no more . . .'"

• "He looks like my old alchemy teacher." The guard warns us: "This guy could charm you into thinkin' he was your long lost brother."

    

Not the most interesting dialogue options.

    

Nothing terribly important happens in either case, and nothing stops us from re-engaging the dialogue and selecting the other option. So few games are offering full-sentence dialogues during this era that it's disappointing when one does and then trivializes it.

   

Other than saving, my biggest problem is identifying equipment. Sometimes, when you first pick up an item, it tells you what it is and gives you a little description. I can't figure out for the life of me how to get that same screen to come up once you already have an item in your inventory. Maybe you can't. Maybe if you miss it the first time, you're screwed.

 

Combat is unsatisfying, and if the creators were going to make it this unsatisfying, the least they could have done is give an "everybody attack" button so you don't have to click on the characters individually and then try to get them to click on a moving target who is often hidden behind another character. It also would have been nice to pause.

     

Brand started with only 20 strength.

     

Finally, I don't have a great sense of how character development works. The manual talks about experience and levels, but neither is made explicit on the character sheet. It does seem like strength has increased for a few characters, so perhaps attributes go up directly from exercising the appropriate skills.

     

In short, it's the typical Synergistic combination of interesting ideas with somewhat janky execution. The setting is intriguing, and I enjoy exploring the city, but we'll see if I can even restore the session next time.

   

Time so far: 2 hours