Missed Classic: Sorcerer - Going Underground

Written by Joe Pranevich

Last week, we made our first real trip back into the Great Underground Empire with Sorcerer. After learning that the demon Jeearr had taken control of the guildmaster, it was up to me to teleport to his location and rescue him… because everyone else went on a picnic. Using a handy Infotator that we nicked from the guildmaster’s room (and included in the game packaging), we cracked the code to a trunk in the guild basement which contained an “aimfiz” scroll, a teleporter. Moments later, we were halfway around the world and near the entrance to the sprawling Great Underground Empire. In a few minutes of exploring, I managed to find an underground amusement park and a quick death at the bottom of a chasm. It’s time to explore.

I want to pause before we get started because, as some of you know, Seastalker is the next game in the series. Written by Stu Galley and Jim Lawrence, it is Infocom’s first juvenile adventure game. Mr. Lawrence was an accomplished master of juvenile fiction, having written more than fifty books before the 1980s, not to mention comics and radio plays. He loved to write adventure fiction and contributed books to Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, Tom Swift, James Bond, Buck Rogers, and other series… none of which I read as a kid. To help me get into the spirit of his work before starting into Seastalker, I am reading a few of those books, starting with 1957’s The Ghost of Skeleton Rock, a Hardy Boys adventure. I have put up a bonus post including my thoughts on that book and may do one or two more depending on timing and my ability to juggle the interactive and traditional varieties of fiction.

I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself. There’s a Great Underground Empire to explore, after all.

The Dagger of Amon Ra - Final Rating

By Deimar

Re-reading my previous posts about this game, it might seem like I loathe it. You could see me bitching about it from the introduction until the end of my second playthrough. But the truth is not so one-sided. I can say that I have actually enjoyed my trip even in spite of the multiple problems this game has. The game possesses some charm, although it kicks in later in the game, with the first two opening acts being too slow in my opinion. Even on my second playthrough I was delighted when discovering new things. Speaking of which, although my first and longer playthrough was on ScummVM, it is only fair to judge the DosBox version. Let’s begin.

Knowing what you are in for, I wouldn’t be so optimistic

Lure of the Temptress: Won!

by Alex

Well, I’ve done it. I’ve come to the ignominious end of an ignominious game. Upon getting Diermot smuggled into the castle, it didn’t take long to finish Lure of the Temptress, mainly because there just wasn’t much to do.

Missed Classic: Sorcerer - Just Getting Started

Written by Joe Pranevich

Last week, we started Sorcerer, the fifth canonical Zork game. After a particularly vivid nightmare sequence where I was killed by hellhounds, snakes, locusts, and lightning, I awoke to find the guildhall empty and the Guild Master, Belboz, missing. Thanks to some security nymphs, I cannot leave by the front door to rescue him. Time is passing very quickly and if I fall asleep, I am captured by a demon and subjected to a fate worse than death. They say that even the longest journey begins with a single step; I’m not even making it that far.

Today’s post will be a bit shorter than usual. Several “real life” events conspired to prevent me from writing as much as I had hoped. I have made it farther in the game than I document here and I want to make sure that I’m taking the time to properly discuss the puzzles that I found, rather than rush through them to cover more ground with this post. On the bright side, this is a game worth savoring.

The Dagger of Amon Ra - Won!

By Deimar

If you have kept up to date with this playthrough, I have played The Dagger of Amon Ra to completion but failed miserably to answer the coroner’s questions. As I played the version of the game sold by GoG which uses ScummVM, I thought it a good time to replay the game using DosBox to try and beat the game and see the differences between the two versions. In that regard, there are not that many.

The first and most obvious one is, as Laukku pointed out, that there is no option to have both sound and text during the game. You have to choose one of them. Given that the quality of the recordings is not that great, that is more of a feature than something you can really miss but it is an odd option to leave out of the game. In fact, this time I played with only text to shorten the experience and because I don’t really think you are missing that much without the voices. I didn’t notice any other major differences but for a myriad of bugs, but I am not even sure this affects only the DosBox version. But I will get to them while recounting the game.

My plan for this second playthrough was to try and discover what I had missed by being a bit more thoughtful and persistent and not simply accepting time jumps as they come. Also, I just went ahead and read Illmari’s clues and a walkthrough after considering being “done” with every time slot so I don’t have to replay the whole game if I miss something crucial. Let’s see.

Like I missed commenting on this awesome piece of music