Sunday 1 February 2015

Game 47: Spellcasting 101: Sorcerers Get All the Girls - Eaglebeak's Erotic Amazonian Adventures

Written by Aperama

Ernie Eaglebeak's Journal #4: Okay, so my problems aren't the ones that I'd expected. After infuriating myself around the Isle of Lost Soles, I managed to finally free all eighty of them. Silly guys, the lot of them – some of them were even in a human form.. I wonder why they didn't try to free themselves! Still, it seems like the Isle is pretty much a dead end. There's nothing much left to do here – honestly, I think I KABBULed all of the fun out of them, as they just ran off to attack their accountant. My trusty map came into play again as I pretty well picked a point at random and made my surfboard fly off there – it was strange, because the surfboard doesn't align with 'BOA', which is clearly half way down the map. Still, the next isle was easy enough to get to. I knew I was in for a little fun when I looked at the galleys out there – I know an Amazon design when I see one! Unfortunately, uh.. yeah, they're very.. willing to meet me. I'm not sure I can take much more of this.. oh great, another one. I'm just a piece of meat to these women!


Thanks, Ilmari! (I still say that 'bristly pad' is nigh-unsolvable...
 I've never heard of a doormat described as such)

Ever feel like you've wasted an hour of your life? I think of all of the things I could be doing other than traversing this stupid island. I was at least happy that I managed to find a different couple of screens (I seriously struggle to notice the 'down' arrow, and the long descriptions of the rooms only come up once) – but it goes without saying that this is the sort of thing that, were I not playing for the group, that would have turned me off of the game altogether. I can only imagine that this is true of a lot of people who played through these games. Given I don't have feeling that I need to finish something bought at retail for a considerable amount (even if it was purchased, I imagine it would have been quite cheap these days), it's not like there's a real impetus to keep going. Only two things have maintained my sanity. One, waiting about an hour and a half by repeatedly pushing 'z' or 'wait' gives a direct clue from a fairy (which I used incessantly). Two, all of the objects that correspond to a soul give the same message informing you that the KABBUL spell doesn't work by naming the object, but the person (so MATT, not 'bristly pad'.)


But that doesn't mean that I understand how 'Pierre' is a 'stuffed moose'...
Admin's explanation: Reading the will tells that the stuffed moose 
will inherit a small green round vegetable. So, the moose is a "PEA HEIR"

So, I left off last time around slightly over 40 of the 80 required and a small handful of the number that I had yet to solve. I did my best to actually make it through the puns as a puzzle as opposed to using the simple cheapness of repeatedly waiting for names to pop up. (It would have taken almost as much time to get through them unfairly as it did mostly fairly, to be completely truthful.) I managed to puzzle out some of the names in the outer screens already shown fairly – for instance, 'DAWN' was in the forested area in the description. LEIF was a pretty obvious jump from there, given I was just listing off every last 'forest-related' pun name I could think of. KNUTE was a fluke that popped up almost perfectly in time after looking at the first hint given by Ilmari in regards to the salamander I picked up (which makes me come up with all sorts of bad jokes about lizards being in pockets, naturally.) And then, after managing Pierre off of another fluke fairy namedrop (I simply ran the name in each screen until the moose jumped off of the wall). And then, I saw the 'down' arrow at the top left of the screen..


The room full of bad puns ending in 'e'.
I got half of the names before even looking at the descriptions

GABBY, the loudmouth. HARDY, the 'tough seeming e'. GOLDIE, the one 'made of a shiny yellow metal'. LUCY, the trampy letter. LACEY, the one with a 'fine white tatting'. ARCHIE, the one that 'forms a large curve across the room, like some improbable stone rainbow'. CONNIE was the one who was putting down bets on a gambling match on the phone. DUSTY I got again from a fairy later on (the description being 'covered with a thin layer of powdery substance' – I might have gotten this one fairly if it weren't for the terrible description used to intentionally make it difficult to follow this.) DAISY, similarly, the confused (or 'dazed') e.. I picked this up less from the description given than the desperate listing of names that seemed like they'd fit in with 'bad E puns'. There was also a 'conventiongoer E' – but when I tried to KABBUL that on its own, it came up with the 'guess this isn't a lost soul' prompt and led me to continue exploring the rooms..


I've never heard of anyone called 'Gaylord' before, but maybe I'm just ignorant like that

And from the 'room full of e's' to.. 'British Aisles', the room full of bad puns related to British names. There was only the one difficult name here (as listed above, GAYLORD) – the rest of them in here were really pretty easy. BOBBY is, of course, a British policeman's uniform. LULU, a pair of loos. (Okay, already having that one listed in the clues didn't hurt.) The broken toilet seal? A LUCILLE, of course. BILLY? A billy club. A 'truck' was almost a little difficult to work out, but after a quick think, a LAURIE (a lorry) and I was out of the room almost immediately. Now feels like a good point to state that the game has a sincere issue with the in-game script not being scrollable, given that an extra five minutes is taken every time you use the 'look' command – the fact that I've been using the 'script' command to keep a log of everything that happens is quite helpful for this, repeatedly opening up the log in notepad while playing to re-read.. but not giving the opportunity in-game is just silly, particularly as it comes to this area with writing all themed towards being obtuse in favour of bad puns often creating three screens of text to read.


I was already pretty deep into my list of eighty by this point,
but reading this immediately made me think of a (christmas) CAROL.

The vacuum tube that was bizarrely without noise, of course, was HUM PHREY. A MIKE was hanging over the recording room, and a MELODY was playing throughout the room. I'm not entirely sure why, but 'NOEL' worked in here – I'm still not sure exactly what it was in relation to as I had no interactive object to deal with. (I looked back through my log, and even ticking off each item in the room, I was able to tick off each.) Sure enough though Fry, it gave a little speech with the very predictable joke - "It's a peasure to meet you. I'm much obiged for heping restore our ost sous. Someday I wi repay your kindness..." I'm more than perfectly willing to admit that I'd lost count by this point and was just hoping not to get stuck at 79 or something similar. ADLAI popped up by fairy-gram in the room I walked downstairs in from an advertisement on the wall – it might have been easier if I'd ever heard the name 'ADLAI' before, indeed. WOODROW, a row of trees, and I'd KABBUL-ed almost everything I could find. CLIFFORD and SANDFORD in the valley area left me with just the following: “A wooden structure spans a dried-up stream bed. A pronoun stands atop the structure.” (I needed the clue to finish up this degree of hell and find BRIDGITTE and my way out of this god-awful place..)


My reward? A key!


The next closest island seemed to be on the 'BOA' line of the map
 – but that seems like it'll have to come another time..


So we go to the next best pla--

So, going from the island of horrible puns to.. an island with a slightly different view on things. I wasted most of my play-time in the previous area in truth – landing on the dock of the 'Island of Horny Women' was nearly as far as I managed to get after the severe burnout in trying to learn names like ADLAI and GAYLORD. The opening dock has a few 'large galleys' which 'indicate the boats to be of Amazon design, featuring all-women crews'. How Ernie manages to see this much from the distance of the dock is beyond me – but anyhow, we go on happily enough. Unfortunately, a gust of wind happens to shoot up over our cloak, covering our face from the impending horde of Amazonian VGA beauty. It's soon drawn down by the Amazon leader, Ursula Unquenchablefire, though.. and all of the Amazons then exclaim the same thing - “A Man!”


Ursula, in case you were all wondering, is the one in the red..


And has called first dibs on us. (And given our next destination, methinks!)

There's nothing wrong with this, and all – there's more than enough Ernie to go around! The first woman goes down without a problem.. and the next is kicking down our door before I even get to look around the room. There's obviously a key to pick out of Ursula's uniform, but she's far stronger than us – even a quick ZEM on ourselves isn't enough to give the additional vigour that we'd clearly need to wear her out and pinch the key. Turns out she's just locking up the door that leads to the no longer present Attachment to the Great Appliance, anyhow.. and she leaves rather quickly after joining us, given we're literally thrown down to the bed (or the ground) by each and every woman around here! Opening the 'Hope Chest' in the room produces a pair of high heels, and the idea of what we've clearly got to do now is quite clear as another woman jumps out and has their way with us. Ernie's beginning to find this painful, Kenny! Climbing 'up' leads to a different room with an armoire (or as the game so eloquently calls it, a 'whaddyacallit') for Somewhat Important People...


I'm not sure whether this is a joke, or if Mr. Meretzky just got lazy here

Another item pops up inside the closet – a gown. So, it seems pretty clear to me here that we're playing the old 'cross dress our way out of trouble' card. The last game I can think of with a similar theme was dressing up in a loaded bikini and a wig in Leisure Suit Larry 2 to get past the KGB – so it's been a little while since we of the adventure gaming clan were forced to pretend we were the opposite sex for the sake of escape. (Technically QFG2 with Zayishah, sure, but not as a main character doing so.) We're allowed out of our room regardless (though trying to move around within the Somewhat Important People's room just leads us to getting jumped at by a happy chambermaid who starts to apologise – then sees our masculine shape and decides she's less than sorry. Back out into the parade grounds and all we get is a healthy amount of groping, though sitting in public does at least allow us not to be sexually assaulted. Head south from there? We end up in a shop where it appears we're paying...


In enthusiasm, I suppose?

The store has a few items, and the game chooses now to mention that there's an item weight limit. The 'lead-plated sword' within (another atomic dragon to slay?) I can't pick up, but after a touch of re-jigging my inventory, I'm able to at least end up with most of the shop's items. Dropping my SU registration form and Gretchen's scribbled note in exchange for lipstick, a pomegranate and 'the current issue of "Amazon Monthly." The lead article is about a group of seamstresses from Fort Blackwand coming to the island to study the Amazons' collection of intriguing local etchings.' (Obviously, Fort Blackwand is where we're going to end up at the end of the game!) I've got to point out that the normal 'sexy music' on emulated Roland MT-32 is beginning to go weird by about the third time it plays, making a grating set of noises that makes me very glad for the 'MUSIC OFF' function. Still, after quite a bit of bumping around, I couldn't work out how to hide my masculinity fully, even wearing my gown, high heels and lipstick. I feel like I'm supposed to be doing something with the cowl of Ernie's cloak, but I'm a touch lost as to how to use both at once – attempting to leave in the cloak but not the gown leads to 'Look at that body! A man! Don't let him get away!' and the vice versa leads to 'Look at that hair! A man!'.. Oh well. Perhaps it's just time we give up and let fate set in..

Plus side? Ernie doesn't have to go through all of these smokes the Amazons are stealing off of him! Perhaps Sir Lancelot was right about all of the peril after all, though..

I'd list inventory here, but I am sensing it's going to become very redundant if the weight limits are truly of concern and I have to start jettisoning things to pick up lead-plated swords. Spells are all the same since last post, and all of the new items that I have access to are a key given to me by the Isle of Lost Souls, a pomegranate, a magazine, a gown, some lipstick, high heels and a lead plated sword.

Session Time: 1 hour 30 min
Total Time: 5 hours 30 min

Note Regarding Spoilers and Companion Assist Points: There’s a set of rules regarding spoilers and companion assist points. Please read it here before making any comments that could be considered a spoiler in any way. The short of it is that no points will be given for hints or spoilers given in advance of me requiring one. Please...try not to spoil any part of the game for me...unless I really obviously need the help...or I specifically request assistance. In this instance, I've not made any requests for assistance. Thanks!

9 comments:

  1. "I've never heard of anyone called 'Gaylord' before"

    It's probably not very common anymore, but I've heard it in some bad comedies. Most famous is probably "Meet the parents" -series with a character called Gaylord Focker (sigh).

    Also, I am pretty sure the armoire is meant as a joke, because you can use the word and the game recognises it (and even thanks you for mentioning it).

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    1. You're right, it's uncommon now - yet not unheard of. The most famous real life bearer is probably the well known baseball pitcher Gaylord Perry ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaylord_Perry ) but there are several other intermediately known ones ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaylord_(given_name) ).

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    2. My lady-friend and I just had a discussion of this due to your post. Did you know the head of Boeing aerospace was named Gaylord?

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    3. oh, that's why this came up! :P

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  2. See? It told you the good stuff will come after that stupid Island. Glad you're enjoying. Too much of a good thing is a bad thing, eh? Muahaha!

    As for how to have a more feminine shape to Ernie's body... well... Uh... Do I have to spell it out? I thought it's obvious enough. Amazonians have a muscular physique like men except for... y'know... a couple of gigantic spoilers that I can't spell out to avoid getting CAPs deducted?

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  3. "Noel" is french for "Christmas". I suspect that's your explanation.

    OG.

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    1. The 'Carol' disappeared after I KABBULed it though. When I had to solve the multiple soul one item WILL, it literally had each individual line listed in the interactive items list on the side bar out of my inventory. In each and every other case, I was able to at least identify the original object - NOEL didn't explain itself before or after.

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  4. This is actually pretty simple. When you've KABBULLed Carol, she leaves behind a cheery note. If you read the note, you note that it just lists all the alphabets - except L.

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    1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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Note Regarding Spoilers and Companion Assist Points: There's a set of rules regarding spoilers and companion assist points. Please read it here before making any comments that could be considered a spoiler in any way. The short of it is that no points will be given for hints or spoilers given in advance of the reviewer requiring one. Please...try not to spoil any part of the game...unless they really obviously need the help...or they specifically request assistance.

If this is a game introduction post: This is your opportunity for readers to bet 10 CAPs (only if they already have them) that the reviewer won't be able to solve a puzzle without putting in an official Request for Assistance: remember to use ROT13 for betting. If you get it right, you will be rewarded with 50 CAPs in return.
It's also your chance to predict what the final rating will be for the game. Voters can predict whatever score they want, regardless of whether someone else has already chosen it. All score votes and puzzle bets must be placed before the next gameplay post appears. The winner will be awarded 10 CAPs.